by Jadyn Chase
I screamed to the world. I didn’t care if the neighbors heard. I didn’t care if God heard me in my hour of death. I opened my throat and gave a vent to all my grief and terror. I squandered my pathetic life with this wolfish loser. Now he was going to kill me.
His hand tightened in my hair. I was done for. He started to haul me up onto the landing again, and I went into a frenzy. I fought with everything I had and screamed myself hoarse to stop him.
He growled under his breath and wrenched my head back, but at that moment, he lost his footing. The liquor must have finally caught up with him. He misjudged the angle over the railing. His feet skidded on the surface and his weight vaulted over me.
He almost propelled me the rest of the way over. I struggled with might and main to hold on. Somehow, my fingers caught the slightest purchase on the railing as Diego’s massive body careened over my head.
He yelled in surprise and scratched my neck trying to hold onto me. His arms windmilled in all directions for any way to arrest his fall. He caught a single lock of my hair. The force of his weight falling whipped my head back.
The next minute, my hair tore free from my scalp and he fell. I couldn’t stop screaming. I clamped my eyes shut and held on with everything I had.
All mixed up in the chaos, I became aware that nothing was happening. Diego wasn’t coming after me anymore. I squeaked my eyes open. I dangled from the railing by numb fingers. I cried out at every ragged breath, but I was alone.
No, I wasn’t. There he was, down below my feet rotating in mid-air. He lay flat on his back on the concrete. He had his eyes closed.
It took me at least five minutes to wrap my head around the fact that he wasn’t going to get up and start threatening to kill me again. If anyone heard me screaming, no one came out to check on the reason. I don’t see how they could miss it with apartments all around, but whatever.
I couldn’t feel my arms. I couldn’t move them to pull myself up. It took all my strength and will just to hold on. Just then, Diego gave a heavy sigh on the ground below me. He took a deep breath and groaned letting it out. He sounded like he was asleep, but he shifted in his sleep like he was about to wake up.
That gave me the impetus to get the hell out of there. I couldn’t wait around for him to open his eyes. That would be my worst nightmare come true.
I still couldn’t figure out how to get off this railing. The only thing I could think of was to swing my leg up and hopefully hook the iron bars in front of my nose. I kicked to one side and didn’t even come close.
I tried a few more times, but I only succeeded in loosening my hold on the cold metal. I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t let myself fall. If I did, I would fall right on top of Diego.
I whimpered in agony. My whole body hurt. Nothing worked right and now my shoulders started to weaken, too. I sobbed under my breath. Every move hurt worse than I could bear.
I hung there in despair until Diego sighed again. He moved his head from one side to the other. A blast of terror ripped through me. Without thinking, I flung my leg up and slotted my foot through the railing. I caught the bar and held.
I howled in misery dragging myself up, but I did it in the end. I clawed my way onto the landing and slumped over the rail. I collapsed in a puddle of tears on the cruel concrete.
Diego coughed and I rocketed to my feet. I peered over the side. Through my tears, I saw him tense once, but his eyes didn’t open.
I didn’t think. I couldn’t go back inside that apartment, not if my life depended on it. I had nowhere else in the world to go, but I couldn’t stay here.
2
Francisco
I plugged the speaker cable into my laptop and hit Play. Jumpy dance music started rocking across the yard. I snapped my fingers along with the beat and strutted to the fridge set up outside the warehouse.
My brothers and sisters in Los Diablos bopped around the yard. They smiled at me from all sides. Julia sat on José’s lap on the couches lined up around the fence. Tina leaned her long body against Martín where they made out by the warehouse entrance.
The big roll-up door stood open to the breeze with all our Harleys lined up in gleaming rows inside. The weather was too nice to stay indoors. Floodlights brightened the yard and created a halo of happiness over the club. All the guys and most of the women wore their colors. This was the one place where we didn’t have to hide who and what we were.
A few couples migrated into the center of the yard to dance. I looked around for a willing victim. We didn’t have many free women to choose from, but that never stopped me.
I hustled up to Tina and grabbed her arm. I dragged her away from Martín. “Come on, baby. Come dance with me.”
Martín tried to hold onto her wrist. “Hey, Ese! What do you think you’re doing?”
I didn’t give up. I hauled her off him toward the dance floor. “Sorry, man. You can’t stop the music.”
Tina laughed. She shot Martín a wicked grin and followed me. She started sashaying her hips the way she always did. She danced toward me with that mischievous glint in her eye.
“Hey!” Martín barked. “That’s my woman, Ese!”
I swiveled Tina away from him and called over my shoulder. “She was my sister long before she ever laid eyes on you, Ese, and we all know you can’t dance. Go get yourself a burger and let the experts show you how it’s done.”
Tina laughed again. A few more people who overheard the conversation joined in the joke and came out to join us. Martín threw up his hands and spun away. He marched off to the barbeque wafting its savory smoke over the party.
Tina gyrated toward me and laid one arm on my shoulder. “Thanks. I needed rescuing.”
“Of course you did.” I put both hands on her hips and matched my rhythm to hers. I was having a good time now.
Christina approached me from the side. She pushed her chest in my face and rippled her sinewy body up and down my front. That was what I was talking about. I took one hand away from Tina and passed it around Christina’s waist to pull her against me.
Tina took the hint and eased back to give us room. I danced with Christina for a while. More people crowded the area. You couldn’t call it a dance floor since it was nothing but an asphalt pad in front of the warehouse, but we would take what we could get.
The song ended and everybody clapped. The music shifted into the next raucous beat, but before I could start dancing again, Christina put her mouth near my ear. “Would you get me a drink, sweetheart?”
“Sure, baby.” I dug my fingertips into her back to draw her toward me and kissed her on the forehead. “Anything for you.”
I walked away to the fridge. Over my shoulder, I spotted her heading back to Logan. She got herself a good one there. I couldn’t be happier for both of them.
I got a margarita mixer out of the fridge and took it to her. I popped it into her hand and left her alone with Logan. I saw the two of them getting close behind the buffet tables, so they wouldn’t want me around making a nuisance of myself.
I decided to give Martín some love by the barbeque. I couldn’t let him sulk too long about me taking Tina away from him. She still hadn’t returned to him from the dance floor, so I made a beeline for him.
On the way there, Carlos sidelined me. He materialized out of nowhere and flung an arm around my shoulder. “Órale, vato, what are you doing later tonight?”
I laughed in his face. “Sleeping, I hope.”
“You know what I mean,” he countered. “Why don’t you come with us on that patrol job?”
I whipped around to stare at him. “What for? You and Kane and José must have that under control. What do you want me along for? I would only get in your way.”
“You would never be in the way. You know we need you.”
I halted in my tracks and confronted him. “Does this have anything to do with…..?” I didn’t finish.
“Naw, Ese,” he murmured. “Logan knows you and Christina are ancient history. He doesn’
t hold it against you.”
“He would have nothing to hold against me. I treated Christina like a queen. Everybody knows that. If you doubt it, just ask her.”
“I don’t have to ask her,” he replied. “We all know you’re a prince with the ladies.”
“Then what’s the problem?” I asked. “What do you want to assign me a shit detail like that for?”
He glanced right and left at nothing. Then he eased his mustached face an inch closer. “It’s not a shit detail, Ese. We need you. I’m serious. We…..Don’t tell anybody I told you this, vato. We might run into trouble. We need another enforcer. We’d all feel a whole lot better if we had you with us. That’s all I’m saying.”
I stared at him with wide eyes. “Are you serious, man?”
“Dead serious. When I told The Boss who I planned to take, he said that’s not enough. He suggested I ask you, but hey.” He held up both hands. “If you would rather sleep, I won’t try to stop you. We all know you need your beauty rest for the ladies.”
He swiveled away, but I lunged after him and caught his arm. “Hold up, man. I don’t need sleep that bad. If you really want me, I’m all yours.”
“Thanks.” He slapped me on the shoulder. “Don’t drink too much tonight, all right? We need you sharp.”
“You got it, man.” I clasped his hand and we parted.
Four hours later, I was in the middle of a joke with Martín when Carlos moved into my line of sight across the yard. He didn’t do anything but stand where I could see him, but the look in his eye told me all I needed to know.
I didn’t stop talking. I finished the joke and even waited until Martín told me a story about how he and Logan ran over a pig in the middle of the barrio.
I tilted back my beer bottle. I’d nursed that one bottle of beer the whole night in anticipation of exactly this moment. “I’m going for a refill,” I told Martín. “Talk to you later.”
He went off to find Tina and I dropped my bottle in the recycling bin, but I didn’t go get another one. I entered the warehouse at the same time as Carlos, Kane, and José. We converged on our bikes and mounted up.
The crowd outside looked up in surprise when we fired up our rides. Logan just so happened to be opening the locked gate. Carlos must have told him to.
The four of us motored out of the yard, and Logan locked it behind us. The night closed in and the miles zipped by under my wheels. The sultry summer air hit me in the face and whipped my hair back. I loved nothing more than riding with my brothers on a mission for the club.
Every sense prickled when we neared our boundary. From the overpass, I peered down into the buffer zone between our barrio and the Chinese Longtails’ neighborhood. No Longtails patrolled that area, but a few headlights crossed the hill a few miles away. No doubt they were keeping us in their sights the same way we were keeping them in ours.
Carlos braked next to me and pointed down the onramp toward the freeway. That must be where he expected trouble. My hand flew to my chest where I kept my sidearm holstered under my vest.
We remained on alert driving to the derelict movie theater at the far northern corner of our territory. If anyone was going to attack us, it would be here. We filed into the parking lot, but no one appeared.
We waited ten minutes. Nothing. Carlos circled his forefinger around his head. We convoyed back toward the warehouse, but by the time we hit Guerrera Street, I knew we were all clear. If our enemies didn’t show themselves by now, they wouldn’t magically appear in the center of our neighborhood.
When we got to the intersection, I switched on my turn signal. I waved to Carlos, and he and the others returned the signal when I turned off toward home. We didn’t get into a fight to the death against the Longtails, but just thinking about it set my nerves on edge.
I started to relax when I spotted my house in the distance. There was nothing better in the world than sinking into my own bed at night.
I took one hand off the handlebars. That was how relaxed I was thinking about it when, out of nowhere, I turned the last corner and nearly had a heart attack. A girl with long blonde hair was knelt in the middle of the street.
My headlight lit up her bashed and blood-streaked face. I barely had time to hit the brakes to avoid hitting her when she lunged to her feet and staggered away.
She didn’t really stagger. She lurched. She fumbled two steps and crashed onto her knees. She tried to rise again, but she couldn’t manage more than a half-hearted crawl.
She kept glancing over her shoulder toward my headlight. Tears streamed down her cheeks through the blood and gore. Jesus, she looked awful! I hadn’t seen a woman that ruined in…. well, we just didn’t get that shit around our club. No one laid a finger on a woman in Los Diablos. I would rip his eyelids off if anyone tried.
I sat rooted to my bike gawking after her. She stared in all directions, but she was obviously too petrified to see a thing. She couldn’t even decide which direction to go.
I took a minute to wake up from my shock. My house called to me from a few hundred yards away, but I couldn’t ignore this.
I set the bike on its kickstand, swung my leg over the seat, and strode toward her. She screamed and made another pitiful effort to get to her feet. Her knees buckled. She caught herself on her hands, stumbled once, and jolted a few more steps away.
Now that I got near her, I noticed the blood streaming down her neck from somewhere in her scalp. Her hands and knees were dripping blood everywhere. Her breathing grunted in broken sobs. My heart contracted just looking at the girl.
I pushed myself to catch up with her. I put out one hand, but I didn’t dare touch her. I couldn’t see one spot on her that was intact enough to touch. “Are you okay? Can I help?”
She gaped up at me with the eyes of an animal caught in a trap. She flinched when I moved my hand toward her again, and when she tried to get away, she pitched over on her side.
She scrabbled onto her back and made a pathetic effort to crab-walk backward. She collided with the curb. For a second, she couldn’t think what to do. She just stared up at me with those haunting green eyes.
“Easy, girl,” I murmured. “I ain’t gonna hurt you.”
Her eyes darted this way and that in search of any threat. She groped behind her. That was when I spotted a tattoo on her arm in the shape of a skull. A serpent slithered through its eye sockets. Its pointed, spiked head came out of the skull’s mouth and spread two wings on either side of the cheeks. Spikes lined the creature’s long neck and tail.
A banner across the skull’s forehead announced to the world: Muerta—Death.
I frowned down at this lump of destroyed humanity at my feet. Muerta? What was she doing all the way over here? La Muerta, our rival motorcycle club, defended their territory on our northern side. They never let their members, and certainly not their women, go running all over town in the dead of night.
The girl’s frightened gaze skipped over me. She locked onto my eyes for half a second before she glanced down. A burning sensation stabbed me in the guts. She was looking at my arm.
She must have seen the tat at my elbow. She couldn’t miss it, nor could she misunderstand the dragon symbol with the words, Los Diablos written in fancy italics around it. She knew. We were enemies—the worst kind of enemies.
Something else about her didn’t make sense. She was white as the driven snow. La Muerta was a Mexican gang like Los Diablos. They didn’t go for any girl with white-blonde hair and green eyes like hers. They wouldn’t look sideways at her, much less mark her as one of their own.
I should have walked away. Every instinct told me to turn around, get on my bike, and drive home. I should forget all about her. I should leave her to her own devices.
Then again, La Muerta would come after her in no time. If they found out she ventured into our territory, they would want to get her back. I should take her into custody. That would be the smart thing to do. When La Muerta asked for her, we could hand her over.
&n
bsp; I lowered myself into a squat and considered what to do about her. I would only traumatize her more by grabbing her and bundling her into my closet. I could never treat a woman like that. Christ, I wanted to throttle whoever did this.
It couldn’t have been one of La Muerta. They maintained a code of honor the same way we did. They didn’t go around bloodying their women. Only animals did that.
La Muerta might be our rivals and our enemies. We might even have gotten into a few wars with them over trafficking rights and whatnot, but at least they weren’t so villainous as to lose our respect.
None of that helped me figure out what to do with this poor soul. She kept gasping in fright every time I looked sideways at her. At least she didn’t try to get away anymore. Maybe she was just too exhausted from running. She must have run all the way here from her own territory. She must have been so blind scared she didn’t know where she was going. She just kept running and running from whatever or whoever did this to her.
“Hey, chica.” If she belonged to La Muerta, she must have spoken at least some Spanish, even if she was white. I decided to try it. “No one’s going to hurt you, chica. You need help. Take it easy. You’re safe. See that house over there? That’s my house. Do you want to come inside? You can stay there for a little while until you figure out where to go. No one is going to touch you. I swear it. What do you say?”
I didn’t wait for her to reply. I sauntered back to my bike and shut off the motor. I left it sitting in the middle of the street. No one in their right mind would touch my ride, and everyone in this neighborhood knew me.
I walked around the girl in a wide arc. She followed my every move with a suspicious glare. I got to my front door and unlocked it. I threw it open and left it standing like that.
When I returned to her, I crouched down one more time. “See? You can just go inside. I won’t go anywhere near you. You can sleep on the couch. Shit, you can sleep in my bed if you want. Just clean yourself up as best you can first, okay. That’s all I ask.”
