THARNISHED HEARTS

by Allen, J. C

  “OK, no problem. Give me ten minutes and I’ll have you two out of here.”

  “Thanks.”

  “No, thank you, this has made my day.”

  I waited until she had left the room before I burst out laughing. I sat next to Eve, who grabbed my cheeks, pinched them, and then also laughed.

  “Prophet who sees all, huh?” she said. “Can I have that superpower for real?”

  “Hey, when you have an opening, you have to commit to it a hundred percent!” I said with another bellow of laughter. “Don’t complain about it. Take it and let’s run with it!”

  Eve and I just bellowed in our laughter, the guffawing growing so loud that I couldn’t even hear the machines reading Eve’s vitals—which were so healthy anyways that Eve didn’t belong here. I could think of it as a civic service, getting her out of here. It was making room for someone more sick!

  Our nurse did not fail us, giving us permission to leave shortly after. I am quite sure that at some point, I would have a very angry chief medical officer calling me, asking me why I had bribed his nurses twice to get myself and my loved one out, but that was a call for another day. Compared to the mission of the day—the mission of my life—that was like eating pizza.

  I held Eve’s hand the whole time we made our way outside, heading toward my bike. She seemed a little tense when we got outside, perhaps a little bit fearful of returning to the world—even if it was safer with me outside than her alone inside.

  “Derek?”

  Her voice sounded seriously concerned. I couldn’t maintain the goofy facade I’d had in the hospital.

  “Yeah? What’s up?”

  “What did you mean by, ‘we’re in the end game now?’”

  “Well,” I said, but then I paused.

  I had to make sure I balanced answering this fully without scaring Eve to death. I had to—

  No, you don’t. She’s a big girl. She’s killed two people, saved your ass multiple times, and survived enslavement with the Black Falcons. If anyone deserves the truth, it’s her.

  “I’ll just give it to you straight,” I said as I mounted my bike. “We know where the Falcons bases are, and by process of elimination, we can figure out where Falcon is. There is no mission more critical and of higher priority to the Savage Saviors than eliminating the Black Falcons, so we are going to throw everything we can at eliminating them and their bases. Either we succeed and they are wiped out, or we exhaust every resource we have in trying to eliminate them.”

  “So…”

  I knew what she was going to ask next.

  “Does that include lives?”

  That didn’t make answering it any easier, though.

  “If that’s what it takes,” I said as I started the engine. “Yes.”

  2

  Eve

  We got to the shop a short while later. My chest was incredibly sore, and it was very obvious just where I had been stabbed. It wasn’t like I could say “I don’t even realize that I was stabbed” because everything about this situation said “yes, I knew I got stabbed. It’s obvious!”

  But with Derek, even though we were leaving the hospital, even though Derek had basically bribed the nurse to commit malpractice, there was no place I felt safer than with him. I knew that the nurse really would not have let me go if my wound required more than the stitches that it now had—she would have told him to stay with me if so. I trusted that being a little sore with Derek was a much better outcome than being pain-free but at risk of being hunted by the Black Falcons.

  Well, anymore than I was, anyways.

  In any case, when we got to the shop, the first thing I saw was Matty run up to me with a big grin on his face and his arms held wide.

  “Can I give ya a hug, girlie?” he asked.

  “Just be gentle,” I said, knowing full well that Matty’s “gentle” was on a different level compared to most people’s gentle.

  And sure enough, while Matty was certainly a lighter touch than before, his hug still made me grimace in pain as the sensation of my body being squeezed with my stitches fresh and, well, my stab puncture wound also being fresh remained. I tried to murmur a “that’s good, that’s good” but I think it just came out as air.

  “Yer a tougher cookie than any of us,” Matty said as he thankfully pulled back, placing a hand on the shoulder furthest from the injury. “Most of the boys here would be screamin’ like little brats if they got nicked, let alone stabbed.”

  “You know I did pass out, right?”

  “Fightin’ the Black Falcons in the process!” Matty roared with laughter. He seemed much prouder of me than I was of myself, which I supposed was a lesson I should have taken for myself. Nevertheless, I appreciated him all the same. “I’m sure Derek is takin’ ya to the back to rest, right?”

  “That’s the plan,” he said behind me. “I didn’t want her resting in the hospital. Too fearful of the Black Falcons coming for her while we were out on the mission.”

  “Probably a smart move,” Matty said, his two front teeth biting on his lip in a grimace. “There ain’t many safe places these days, not with Falcon makin’ such crude moves these days. But this shop and with either of us are one of ‘em. Anyway, Eve, I’ll let ya go. But good to see ya kickin’ and healthy!”

  “Thanks, Matty.”

  Derek took my hand once more and led me to a room I hadn’t seen before, a small, probably bedroom-sized room with one small bed—no bigger than a twin size, maybe a small queen—a bathroom, and a small couch large enough for two people sitting upright.

  “We built this place so people would have a place to crash after runs if they were too tired to go home,” he said. “Or, you know, if they’ve had too much to drink.”

  “How often have you used it?”

  “Since you came around? Not too often! Before that?”

  Derek’s guilty expression and bowed head said it all.

  “Let’s just say that I may have built this room for myself originally.”

  I started to laugh, but the laughter went a bit far and my chest started to hurt. I caught myself, placing my hand on my chest, which drew a frown from Derek.

  “Hurts that bad, huh?”

  “Yeah, shouldn’t be laughing,” I said, but that only brought us that much closer to laughing.

  “Well, in that case, I’m going to let you be, because we all know how hilarious I can be!”

  “Totally,” I said with a playful eye roll.

  Derek leaned in and kissed me on the forehead, but then I grabbed him and kissed him on the lips. I can’t lie, a small part of me found the idea of having sex with him on this cot, in his shop, so very arousing…

  Just not when it seemed most of the club was also in the building as well. The last thing I needed was to get the president in hot water because I couldn’t contain myself after leaving the hospital. Plus, the vision of Matty storming in, making some comments, and leaving me embarrassed was a bit much.

  “Tempting,” Derek said, revealing to me that he was thinking very much the same.

  “Not now,” I said, leaving the door open for future encounters on this bed.

  “Agreed,” he said. “OK. You got your phone. Text or call me if you need anything, and I mean anything, at all. You’re safe here. I’ve…”

  He sighed. I almost sighed too. There was only one thing these days that could pull Derek Knight away from me, and it wasn’t a need to make money or run errands.

  “I’ve got stuff to take care of. But I’ll check in on you sporadically, OK?”

  “OK babe, love you.”

  He said he loved me back, gave a quick peck on the lips, and then left. I looked around the room and decided to try the couch and bathroom. While they weren’t filthy, college-aged boys bathrooms and couch, they certainly weren’t up to the standards of Derek’s own apartment. Although some of that has to do with the cleaning I’ve done there myself.

  There was dust in quite a few places and a few crumbs of various ty
pes of food, but it wasn’t so filthy as to be stained or messy. The bedsheets, too, smelled… well, they didn’t smell like anything, which was good enough in my book. I had fears of lying down and smelling oil or gasoline or body odor of a big, sweaty biker within, but those fears proved to be unfounded.

  Just like many of your fears to date.

  But the fear of dying, as it turned out, had nearly come to pass. I could not believe how fortunate I was to still be alive. What Derek had told me made it sound like if he had come just a second later, the Black Falcon would have pulled the trigger, leaving him with my dead body to take care of. If the other Black Falcon had stabbed just a little bit closer, maybe an inch closer, my heart would have been punctured, certainly killing me.

  There were so many close brushes with death here that I began to feel that death and I were flirting with each other as much as Derek and I did. I liked to walk up to death, contemplate accepting it into my life, only to back away at the last second. But like the boy who gets flirted with too much before aggressively making a move that goes too far, death would eventually have something to say about that. If I wasn’t careful, death could grab my arm, take me with it, and then there was no coming back from that.

  I have to have my protection. My gun and my knife. I have to protect those I love. But I can’t… I can’t be seeking out violence so readily.

  “Tell me she’s alive!”

  I heard the distant, familiar voice, but now it sounded like a high wail coming from outside the doors. I braced myself and turned my back to the entrance, pretending to be asleep, knowing that I was about to get bombarded with questions, statements, and other guilt trips that I just had to play along with.

  Seconds later, I heard the rush of footsteps headed my way. The fact that I had not even heard the response to the request told me that whoever had answered her had done so with a normal voice, making the shriek even more impressively loud.

  The door burst open, as if someone was trying to break in, and seconds later, Tara curled up in the bed next to me, showering me with kisses.

  “Eve, Eve, oh my God, I’m so sorry, Eve,” she said over and over again, sounding like a broken record. “I don’t know… I don’t know why I let you… I don’t know why I didn’t believe you… this is my fault, Eve, my fault. Eve, Eve, oh my God, I’m so sorry, Eve. So sorry. So—”

  “Tara, it’s OK,” I said, but that did little to interrupt her persistence in saying the same words over and over again. So, rather than fight her and try and get her to stop, I just let her continue, figuring she would run out of words eventually.

  Eventually…

  Eventually?

  “Tara!” I said, stopping her dead in her tracks after what seemed like a full two minutes of her constantly insisting she was at fault and that she was sorry. “It’s OK. Really. I’m alive.”

  “But, but, girl, you—”

  Seeing that I had to control the conversation in order to keep her somewhat quiet, I turned around to her, smiled, and gave her a hug. I kept my chest back as much as I could, though I couldn’t avoid all of the pain.

  “I’m alive. You didn’t order those men to stalk me and try to kill me. I’m just glad they didn’t come after you as well.”

  “Oh, funny thing, I did have one asshole who thought that I worked the morning shift. Can you believe that? Fucker tried to hail me down and insisted I give him some morning glory. I warned him the only morning glory he was getting was some salty words and some pepper spray to the face. I mean, can you believe the gall of some people? I mean, damn! I don’t think he was Black Falcon, now that I think about it, but this dude, I swear!”

  That’s the Tara I love and know, I thought as I laughed at her story. I didn’t think she was trying to minimize the impact of mine. I just think she, as usual, got her own horse and rode it until it died, and then beat it as much as she could.

  “But, my God, Eve! You’re… alive! How?!?”

  “If I knew the real answer, I’m not sure it would make any more sense,” I said with a cheeky grin. “But best I can tell, Derek has some impeccable timing.”

  “Mmm, mmm, you’re tellin’ me,” she said. “Sometimes, not gonna lie, that guy gets on my nerves, being a little too protective of you. I think he thinks girls can’t fight at times, to which I tell him, no sir, I’ve shot more guns in my youth than you did since your balls dropped! But it’s OK, he loves you.”

  I knew that of all the personalities I knew, Derek and Tara were most likely to butt heads. Derek had a personality he tried to keep stoic but was prone to outbursts, while Tara loved to pick and prod at people whom she sensed were too uptight or too rigid. Matty, bless his soul, even though he complained about Tara, actually had the patience of a Buddhist monk, making Tara’s words more or less futile.

  But I was nevertheless glad to see that she could recognize the good that Derek had done here.

  “But damn, can I see the scar? I can’t help myself!”

  “Of course,” I said, pulling down on my shirt to reveal the series of stitches running down like a snake across the left side of my chest, just maybe an inch or so away from my heart.

  “Holy shit!” Tara exclaimed. “And you survived that?!? I’d be curled up in a hospital bed, tellin’ the whole damn city to come and pamper me! I can’t believe you’re… why aren’t you in a hospital?!?”

  “Derek doesn’t feel I’m safe there.”

  I expected an eye roll, some comment about paranoia, or something to that effect.

  Instead, I got a chilled facial expression from Tara.

  “That bad, huh,” she said, more of a mumble to herself. “Good thing we’re gonna start taking the fight to the Falcons, then. If we ain’t safe in hospitals, then we ain’t safe anywhere.”

  “But here,” I added. “And Derek’s and Matty’s places.”

  “True, true,” Tara said, but she seemed more spooked by the idea that such public places were not safe anymore.

  “And we are going after them soon!” I said. “Trust me, Tara.”

  “I know,” she said, almost sounding like a growl. “Soon as the boys roll out, I wanna join them. Give a little stick up the asses of the Black Falcons so they know what it feels like!”

  “I think I’m just good with them being gone,” I said, knowing that Tara’s thirst for battle was a bit… bloodthirsty.

  Just then, though, we both heard loud footsteps and turned toward the door. Tara sat up on the edge of the bed, waiting eagerly to perhaps give Derek lip or to thank him for helping me.

  Instead, she got the one person she most liked.

  “Hey, whore.”

  “Oh, hi, fag!”

  I rolled my eyes, never quite understanding how these two got along but admiring it all the same.

  “What brings you to our humble abode?” Tara said with a hint of drama in her voice.

  “Hah, as if ya own the place.”

  “Great talk, OK, girl time is needed here.”

  “I ain’t here to talk.”

  I looked at Matty with some confusion as he locked the door behind him and laid out on the couch, kicking his feet up and resting them on the far arm of the couch.

  “Then what are you here for?”

  “To watch ya two,” he said as he began to close his eyes.

  “Hold up!” Tara yelled. “To watch us? What are we, puppies out of the womb? And you mama dog?”

  “Somethin’ like that,” Matty said, his eyes still closed.

  “You—”

  “Shhh, Tara.”

  On the other side of the wall, I could hear Derek beginning to give a speech. Curious, I pressed my ear against the wall so I could better hear. Tara joined in as well.

  “… have the Falcons final locations all set, and we will roll out shortly to the first one!”

  Some applause came, but for some reason, Derek’s voice carried much more clearly through than the applause did.

  “I can never thank you all enough for what yo
u did helping to rescue my girlfriend. I know many of you may think that it is dangerous and overkill to send so many resources to rescue one person. But you do it anyways. That you do that… my father would be proud.”

  More applause came, this one much louder.

  It occurred to me listening to Derek speak how much more confident and assertive of a speaker he was compared to when I first met him. It wasn’t that he couldn’t be those things, but rather, life just had made his mood and soul a bit darker in comparison to the rest, which in turn made his speeches a little dryer, a little more dull, and a little bit more boring. That was true also in conversation with me.

  Now, though, he was a changed man. He was the man I saw glimpses of on our first few dates—they were no longer glimpses, but regular viewings.

  “For the last few years, we haven’t been able to do anything about all of the people who have died. While we obviously know the most prominent ones—my parents, my brother, my wife—there are many others whom some of you knew on a more intimate basis than the Knights. Grizzly. Greg. Steve. Richard. Buzz. Keg. I could go on and on, but the point is, we all know someone who has fallen to the Black Falcons. And I don’t mean ‘know like I know what the weather is today.’ I mean know like you loved them.”

  Murmurs broke through. I was fortunate to say that I was perhaps the only person who didn’t know someone intimately who had fallen to the Black Falcons, but I sure knew several girls who had gotten killed—hell, at that moment, the memory of being in that cramped room with Tara and hearing someone being dragged to an almost certain death flashed through my mind.

  “Well, when you roll out to your respective location, remember that fallen Savior. Hold his name and his actions close to your heart. Don’t tell anyone who it is if you don’t want to. This is for you. And then, when you need courage, when you need a moment to rise, when you feel like you can’t go any further… remember their name. And then do what you know you are capable of. And now, in the name of my father and brother… let’s roll!”

  The loudest cheers and applause yet broke out, and even I felt myself inspired to go. I looked at Matty…