by Flite, Nora
“Oh, I'm sorry, did you think you were setting the terms?” I asked. I knew the second I got up they were planning on shooting me. I had to remove that temptation. “You're going to pop your magazines, thumb out all your rounds onto the floor, then you're going to toss your pistols to the other side of the stairwell.”
They hesitated.
I dug the gun deeper and said, “Let's go gentlemen, your boss is a busy man. He doesn't have all day.”
When their bullets and guns bounced across the wooden floorboards, I got up, then dropped back down and reached into the back of Lucky's pants. The bikers regarded me cautiously.
“What are you—” the Serbian began to ask.
I pulled out Lucky's wallet and fished out the cash he had on him. “What? I did win that game.” Lucky, that fucking liar, had only had three hundred on him. He probably didn't think he could lose, so what did it matter?
Whatever, three hundred was better than nothing.
Being that I was the only one in the building with a loaded gun, no one attempted to threaten or stop me on the way out. I was just about to push open the front doors when I heard the sergeant-at-arms threaten the girl in the big coat.
“The fuck are you standing around for? Get back in line.” The Serbian slapped her to the ground, then jerked the girl up to her knees and started dragging her back to the other girls that were still lined up.
When adrenaline kicks in, tunnel vision takes over. After the game, I'd been so focused on getting out of the situation that I’d forgotten all about my original prize.
My hand lingered on the gaudy, gold-painted door handle. None of those girls belonged here, but the redhead even less so. A really stupid idea flashed across my mind, one that I had too much trouble shaking.
I should take her with me.
I wasn't thinking straight earlier. Once I found out about what this place was, this uncontrollable urge came over me. I needed to punish the guy in charge, so I'd done what I always did and just rushed into the thick, regardless of the consequences. I never, for one second, gave a thought to what I'd do after I won her.
You're no hero, just leave, dammit!
I told myself to push the door open and walk away, like I'd done countless times before. Being in an MC for as long as I had, I'd seen awful things. I'd come to terms with the fact that some situations, like human trafficking rings, were beyond my ability to fix.
It was fucked up, and our club was openly against it, but there was nothing I could do. I wasn't equipped to deal with the sins of the world. To stay sane, sometimes all you could do was put it all behind you and drown your conscience in drugs and distractions.
So why couldn't I push the goddamn door open?
I thought about Tash. Who was to say this girl was any different? Ultimately, it didn't matter. I could defer blame all I wanted, but deep down, I knew the truth.
My pride got me into this.
Now, it was my responsibility to get this girl out.
“One last thing,” I shouted. The other bikers had taken the opportunity to begin picking up their bullets off the floor. They'd have them loaded back into their magazines soon. The odds of me getting out without unwelcome ventilation was fading.
“Silly me,” I said. “In all the excitement, I seem to have taken something that doesn't belong to me.” I removed Lucky's gun from my waistband and walked up to the stone faced sergeant. “Would you mind giving this to your pres?”
He looked at me skeptically, then reached to accept it. I flipped the gun around in my hand to get a better grip, then brought it down on his face like it was a hammer. Blood and cartilage burst from his shattered nose as he staggered into the wall, the pain eventually forcing him to his knees.
“That girl belongs to me. I didn't say that you could touch her.” I slid the magazine out, pocketed it and tossed the gun to the Serbian's feet. Neither of the remaining bikers knew how to proceed, so they just stood there motionless and watched, their expressions fixed with awe and concern.
“C'mon, darlin', let's head out.” I helped the girl to her feet. “I don't think your friends like me all that much.”
“Let me go...” she said weakly, struggling in my grip. The corner of her mouth and chin were smeared with blood from where she'd been struck. She must have been delirious from the drugs.
“Take it easy, I'm trying to help you,” I whispered.
The Serbian grabbed Lucky's gun and stumbled away. Once he had the weapon ready, it wouldn't matter what I said next. Nothing would keep him from trying to kill us.
My redheaded prize was still yanking at me to escape. I didn't have the time to make her understand I was her only option. Throwing her over my shoulder, I dashed towards the exit. This time, the door opened real easy for me.
Guess I'd made the right choice after all.
I thought about Tash and my weak spot for junkies. It was only then that I smiled at how insane this all was.
“No, please... Need to stay...” she protested as I loaded her onto my bike. She was further down the rabbit hole than I thought.
“Don't worry, I'm sure you'll find a new dealer somewhere else.” I started the bike as the Serbian smashed through the front doors. Luckily for us, I always backed my bike into spots when I arrived at places, just in case something like this happened. It made driving off so much quicker.
He licked off a pair of gunshots, but his aim must've still been foggy from the pistol whip; they both went harmlessly wide.
“Hold on tight!” I yelled behind me as the bike's squealing tires blasted us out of the parking lot.
The road ahead was about to get a little bumpy.
Chapter Three
Flora
My world was a grotesque painting that had been scrubbed with Vaseline. Every color swam between too bright or depressingly dull, faces contorting while voices warbled as if I was at the bottom of the sea.
I didn't know how much time had passed since I'd come head to head with Fiddle. More than just hours, possibly more than a few days. I had a hazy memory of being shoved into a car trunk, of hands pulling me and pushing me and never leaving me alone.
Someone had spoken to me briefly, early on. I couldn't recall his face, just his cruel smile as he plunged a needle deep into my arm. “Relax, sweetie,” he'd cooed at me. “You'll grow to love the taste of this. All the girls do.”
The hot burn of the new drug woke me up, slamming into my veins and keeping me perched on a cloud. I felt fantastic, and distantly, I knew I should hate that. Thinking was a chore, though, and my hope of focusing became a mere whisper on the wind the longer my torture continued.
Time was nothing but clear; slippery. Hungry eyes watched me, fingers probing even as I fought at them. I'd been trussed up, I remembered that, the ache in my shoulders a dull reminder. Soon, I was so lost in the heroin that they stopped bothering to tie me down. By then, I'd joined the others—women who huddled with me in the dark, our bones rattling as we shook inside the back ends of trucks, driving to who knew where.
It wasn't until I'd come down from my high, enough to start recognizing words again, that I finally heard something that cleared the jelly from my brain.
“Yeah,” the fat man was laughing. “Soon as we get these bitches inspected by Lucky, we'll ship them off. It's crazy how many they want, our last batch arrived there about two weeks back.”
Last batch...
Inside my coat, a piece of clothing I'd been amazed I'd gotten to keep, a flicker of warmth began to grow. Chunks of who I was and why I was here fitted together again. Fiddle, the drugged drink, my missing sister...
Was I being sent to where Claudine was? Was that it?
A hand shoved me forward. I stumbled, bouncing into a half-naked girl with dead eyes. “Keep fucking moving,” the fat man growled. “We got shit to do tonight.”
I didn't care how pissed he was. I didn't care how I was shivering from my first taste of withdrawal; the needles had stopped coming since last nigh
t. I didn't care that I was being lined up inside a filthy, strange looking building with every eye creeping over me.
The only thing that mattered was waiting for me at the end of this wretched path.
Claudine. I'm coming for you!
I was dizzy, and I could hardly move my swollen tongue, but dear god... for the first time since she'd vanished...
I was happy.
And then it all changed. Without me doing a damn thing, my situation slipped away from me. It happened so fast, I couldn't have seen it coming.
A man I didn't know—had never even seen before—had decided to play hero.
Horrified through my shrinking haze, I watched as the stranger attacked the man he'd been playing cards with. They'd been calling him Lucky, and I thought the name was familiar.
The gun shot that came soon after vibrated through my skull. In the explosion of action and angry men, I tried to fade away—to just vanish until it was over. If I could have bled into the wallpaper, I would have.
What do I do? Thinking was still such a challenge. Withdrawal or not, the heroin and the fuzzy car-rides had done a number on me. When had I even eaten last? I was too weak to run. My reactions were delayed.
When the Serbian man slapped me to the floor, I hardly felt the pain. Fuck, would the ringing in my ears ever end? Up or down lost all meaning; I was sure I was about to vomit, if only from the taste of my own blood.
Hands came for me, urgent... but not cruel. “C'mon, darlin', let's head out.”
Blinking, I gaped up at the stranger once more. What was he doing, and why was he doing it? My life had fragmented enough with new enemies, I didn't have the energy to accept someone trying to do me a favor.
Again, he pulled at me, his voice just a rumble in my melting brain. He wants to take me... away? Summoning what energy I had, I wrenched backwards, willed my legs to listen. In my chest, my shout was a wildfire, but it came out as a mere spark. “Let me go,” I mumbled, head falling to my chest. God, I can hardly move. How do I make him understand?
Those palms were solid, cradling my shoulders. Distantly, I was sure he meant to be soothing, but he didn't get it. I didn't need to be calmed down. If anything, I needed access to all the anger in my gut so that I could stop being such a timid butterfly.
Let me go, I thought, trying to will him with my pathetic stare.
As he squinted down at me, I focused on the deep, dark centers of his pupils... the bright flecks of green in that swam in the hazel... and I thought, odd as it was, that he had the most gorgeous eyes I'd ever seen.
My moment of sick tranquility ended in a bustle of movement. Easily he lifted me, throwing me over his shoulder and giving me vertigo. No, I thought desperately. No, don't take me away from here!
Didn't he see I didn't want to go?
Wasn't it clear this was the only way I would ever get answers?
Jostled so that my chin thumped his spine, I sensed the sudden crispness of the air outside. There was a buzzing, wasp-like noise following at our heels. I had no time to adjust to anything; in a new motion, I was yanked around, my legs dangling off of something hard.
He spoke again, demanding I hang on. He said more, but the cotton in my head swallowed it all. I battled between gagging and passing out, praying that my limbs would keep me in place as we began to move.
The energy between my thighs was familiar. Metallic, raw, it tickled my memory. A motorcycle. Clasping violently to the torso of my unlikely rescuer, I grounded myself in my realization. We're on a motorcycle. Where are we going?
Flooded with the floating sensation of speed, I hugged the bike with my knees. It was comforting—it reminded me so much of her. Clean air helped to wash the drug-funk from my head, my skin and muscles behaving again, though sluggishly.
I hadn't understood how messed up I was until the last of my recent dose seeped out of me. Under my palms, the smooth texture of the man's leather jacket was exquisite. When we hit a hard turn, throwing me against him, I caught a hint of his scent.
Pine, I thought idly. And something... something more wild.
“You awake back there?”
His voice startled me, cutting through my private thoughts. He'd slowed the bike's speed, our voices now audible over the crackling of the engine. Licking my dry bottom lip, I said, “You need to take me back.”
When he laughed, I felt it through his spine. “That's a funny way of saying 'thanks for saving my ass.'”
“Turn around,” I said, sitting up to try and get my bearings. “I mean it! I need to go back!” Where were we, what part of the country was I even in? I didn't know—I needed to know so many things. “Take me back to there, do it!”
We hit a rough patch in the road. Immediately I lost my balance, all signs that I was recovering from my weakened state vanishing. Red tickled at the edges of my vision, my head swimming.
An arm curled around, digging into my hip and stabilizing me. “Careful!” he snapped. “Sugar, there's no way we're going back to the brothel. You're in no state for any more action, and even if you were...” Trailing off, he led his bike down a slope, kicking up gravel.
Brothel, I thought in cold amazement. Yes, of course. That made a lot of sense. What better place to corral lost girls than a den of sex and money.
Everything was throbbing; I couldn't focus beyond the yellow headlights. When they flickered over a squat building, revealing coffee colored paint and a quaint red roof, I thought I must have fainted. Was this a new dream?
Rough palms yanked me from the bike, ending that theory.
“Put me down,” I groaned, shoving feebly at the stranger. I didn't know who he was, and I'd become far less trusting as of late.
Amazingly he released me, stepping away to shoot a patient look over my face. Whatever he saw, it made him frown. Catching my curious stare, he smiled and said, “You look right fucked up. That shit still burning through your system?”
Swallowing nervously at his observation, I pulled my coat tightly around me. “Take me back. I need to go back there.”
Sighing, he straightened up, turning away from me. His silence was heavy. Weirdly, I would have preferred if he'd shouted or snapped or something. Being ignored was... well, it hit too close to home.
In a few hops, he climbed the front steps. Knocking on the wood, he didn't wait long for an answer. A new man appeared, cracking the door open with a friendly grin that vanished when he spotted his visitor. “Shit, Ronin? Is that you?”
Ronin? Blinking, I reconsidered the long haired biker. Is that his name?
Saluting in a sharp jerk, two fingers to his forehead, Ronin chuckled. “Long time no see, Roach.”
“Not long enough,” the gaunt, shiny-faced man mumbled. “And it's Lewis, not Roach. You know that.”
“Sorry, my memory isn't so good at times.” Ronin's eyes twinkled.
Squeezing the edge of the door, Lewis started to say more—but then he spotted me. His skin faded into milky white. “I didn't think you liked them that fucked up.”
Ronin shifted, giving me a side-eye. “Club business. We need a room for the night.”
Lewis was already scowling, fidgeting in the doorway. If he was also unhappy with the biker, maybe he'd be willing to help me where Ronin wasn't.
My plan was to walk forward, open my mouth, and calmly explain that I did not need a room. What I needed was a ride back to the brothel, before my one chance at finding Claudine slipped away.
One shaking leg held me up; that was all I had in me. Gasping, I reached out, balancing myself on the motorcycle seconds before stumbling into the dirt. My ears were echoing, but through them, I heard Lewis mumble, “Fucking hell, Ronin.”
Gingerly, Ronin slid an arm around my middle. I couldn't fight him off, I didn't even try. Moving my eyes too fast made me dizzy, so I watched the ground while he led me onto the porch.
“She's pretty when she gets all wobbly,” he said, then his flippancy turned flat as a rancid pond. “Like I said. We need a fucki
ng room. Care to oblige?”
Huffing, Lewis moved to the side, waving us into the building. “I'm legitimate now, I can't be getting mixed up in your bullshit anymore, Ronin.”
“Come on, Roach, you know you always loved my bullshit.” He held me to his ribs, my cheek pressing on his warmth. It was comforting, as much as I hated to admit it. “Show me where to put her. I think she's—”
“Flora,” I cut him off, my voice thick. “My name is Flora.”
Hesitating, Ronin adjusted his hold on me. “Show me where to put Flora. I'd rather she not break her jaw if she passes out. Nice place, you know? Hate to get blood on anything.”
“Upstairs,” Lewis sighed. “What's wrong with her? She a junkie?”
My spine tightened at that word.
“She's got some juice in her, but it'll pass. Speaking of, privacy would be best while she sweats it out.”
Lewis sounded less than impressed. “There's no one else here, couples don't usually book in until the weekend.”
Chuckling, Ronin guided me up the creaking wooden stairs. “I've never stayed at a Bed and Breakfast before, I wouldn't know.” It didn't take him long to get me to our room, the dark hallway easing the tension in my eyes. Gripping the knob, he half-carried me over the threshold.
The room was quaint, a fluffy white bed and a small, oval-shaped pinkish rug that could use some updating. It reminded me of something from a Martha Stewart's catalog. Considering the violent events of the evening, ending up in such a gentle place felt... wrong.
“Sit on the bed,” he said firmly.
Pulling away from him, I slumped onto the edge of the mattress. Lifting my eyes, I forced every bit of strength I had left into my words. “I don't care if I can barely stand. You need to take me back.”
“That again,” he groaned, scratching at the back of his head. “You're serious, aren't you?” Shaking his head in a slow swing, Ronin leaned on the doorway. “I have the worst luck with damsels. Trust me, I was doing you a favor.”
His tone was amused, but I thought—I thought there was something hollow in his eyes. I didn't have the energy to examine it, not now. “Please, you don't understand. Those men... they're the only ones who know where my sister is.”
