by Rye Hart
“Tell me you love me,” I whispered.
He pressed his forehead to mine and swallowed thickly, whispering the words “I love you”, through tears. We stayed like that for a long moment before I cupped his cheeks.
“Hey, don’t be mad at me for dragging this out. I just wanted to hear you say you love me again,” I whispered.
He frowned and pulled away. “What?”
“I’m fine, I’m not going to die,” I wheezed, pulling up my shirt to reveal the bullet proof vest.
His eyes widened and he stared at me. “How did you-”
“I stole it from Fang before I ever came out here. I figured I would be needing it one day.” I whispered.
He stared at me in disbelief. “Are you even hit?”
“Oh, I’m hit. It’s going to cause some wicked bruising, but I can live with that,” I said with a little grin.
He yanked me closer and held me tight, rocking with me. “I can’t believe you. I just can’t believe you! You’re an idiot!” he said through his laughter.
I chuckled and wrapped my arms around him, shaking my head. “I’m not an idiot. I’m just in love,” I murmured.
I couldn’t help but feel the most hopeful that I had in days. I held onto Ryder, professing my love to him again and again. This was where I belonged; this is where I felt safe. Ryder helped me stand and I leaned heavily on him. We wandered around the half built house, stepping over Fang’s body as we finally met up with everyone. Chloe ran over to me and threw her arms around me, tears in her eyes.
“We thought you and Ryder were gone,” she said, unable to make herself say ‘dead’.
I wrapped one arm around her and shook my head, smiling. “We’re alive and kicking. It’s going to take a lot more than that to get rid of us.”
She laughed and stepped back so that Damien could approach us. He smiled and wrapped an arm around each of us before leaning back. “I’m so damn happy you two are alright.”
I nodded and sighed. “Thank you. Even though this is my entire fault.”
“No, don’t start with that. You more than proved your worth, Brittney.”
I looked up at him with wide eyes. “You mean I can stay?”
He smiled simply and nodded. “Welcome home.”
Chapter Fifteen
Three years. I can hardly believe it’s been three years that I’ve called this place home. I felt so good and I felt so alive here. Everything came together when Damien and his gang finally accepted me. I’d spent so much of my life being bitter and hopeless that I never thought I’d find anything meaningful. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I had friends here and I had love.
I moved in with Ryder that very day, not that I had much to move. I never went back to the trailer I shared with Fang. I didn’t want anything to do with him and I didn’t want any reminders of that life. I wanted to start fresh here in Nashville with Ryder and the rest.
There were no casualties on our side that day. I still thought back to it occasionally and thanked my lucky stars that no one had died because of me. I’m not sure I would have been able to live with myself. I was thankful every day that I didn’t even have to think about that.
A few months after I started my life with Ryder, my mother wandered into the picture again. At first I wasn’t sure it would be a good idea, but Ryder somehow convinced me to give her a chance. We sent her to rehab and she managed to clean herself up. This was the first time she had a real support system and it made me happier than anything else to see her clean. She lives with us now and works at a nearby daycare.
Ryder and I are happy together. Everyone keeps asking us when we’re going to get married, but we just don’t see a reason to. We’re in love and that’s enough for us. Maybe one day we’ll tie the knot, but right now we’re just happy doing our thing.
I turned to look at him, smiling as the light danced over his sleeping face. It reminded me of the first night we spent together. He’d always been a heavy sleeper and he looked so angelic when he was asleep. I leaned in and pressed a kiss to his nose, causing him to wrinkle it. His eyes fluttered open and he looked at me, a smile slowly coming to his face.
“Well good morning,” he purred.
“Good morning,” I whispered back.
“What were you looking at?”
“Just you.”
“Oh?”
“I was just thinking about how lucky I am to have you.”
He smiled and caught my lips. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
I knew I’d found my haven in him. My Ryder.
The End
Second Chances
Chapter One
Biker gangs. What comes to your mind when you hear ‘biker gangs’? I bet I can guess: Wild sex, drugs, guns, and violence, right? Well, maybe that’s how most people see it, but it’s a little different when you grow up around them.
My name is Kisha Monroe and I am a child of one of America’s largest biker gangs. Most people assume that biker gangs are out for trouble. Movie scenes of kidnappings and dangerous drug transactions flash before their eyes.
Now, don’t get me wrong, a lot of them are filled with sick, demented bastards ready to screw, shot and pound on anything moving, but some of us consist of a descent group of human beings, made to be tough by our environment.
My father was an amazing man. His name was Brian and he raised my brother and me to be strong leaders because he knew that one day we would take over the gang. Damien is my older brother, and since he was the oldest he took over leadership of the gang, but that didn’t mean I was sidelined and left to do nothing.
Ever since I was a little girl I’d been fascinated with the weapons my dad kept around the house. I started going to the shooting range when I was ten and had my first knife collection by the time I was thirteen. My dad never stopped me either. He thought my interest in the weapons was a useful skill to have and so he let me go about my business with little to no interruption.
Just because we were trying to do good for our community, didn’t mean we had no business being violent. Weapons and fighting were a necessity. Whoever said ‘violence is never the answer’ has obviously never dealt with a guy whose been beating his wife and kids every day for the past ten years, or a rival gang trying to take over their territory.
The world isn’t sunshine and butterflies and the sooner people figure that out, the better off they’re going to be. The thing people often ask us is “why didn’t you call the cops?” Well because sometimes the cops can’t do anything.
We have a silent agreement with the police in Nashville. We keep things quiet, don’t draw too much attention to ourselves, and we can take out the trash without any interference from them. We help the cops by dealing with the shit they don’t have time to deal with. It’s a pretty good system. They turn a blind eye to our activities and we clean up the town.
And of course shit hits the fan. I’ve had to learn to take a few major punches over the years. The worst being a blow that hit me before I even turned eighteen. My father was killed by a rival gang soon after my seventeenth birthday. My brother was twenty-one at the time and took over the gang seamlessly. He didn’t think twice about it because he didn’t have a choice. Gangs are a lot like the military. There’s a strict order to things and without someone in charge, everything tends to fall apart. So Damien became the leader.
What about me? Well, I was put in charge of all the training and weapons. I didn’t mind. Leading the gang never had any appeal to me. I was a fairly quiet person and I liked keeping to myself. Many of the men in the gang were terrified of my silence, and I was told a few times that I was intimidating. My steel eyes and jet black hair gave me an intense look and my petite stature was deceiving. I was quick on my feet and good with heavy artillery. I had been one of the snipers when Damien’s girlfriend (now wife) was kidnapped.
My intensity and silence led to a rather lonely life. People stayed clear of me and I didn’t really interact with too many folks outside the gang. D
id I mention everyone in the gang seemed to be scared of me? There was only one man who seemed brave enough to interact with me. Ryan.
Ryan had been my best friend when we were kids. He was tall, blonde, and beautiful. His full lips and emerald eyes made me weak in the knees, though I would never admit it out loud. I always saw my attraction to Ryan as a weakness. He made me stumble on my words and drop my knives. I could have taken anyone in this damn gang, but Ryan got to me.
We stopped being friends around the time my dad died. It hurt that someone I was so close to would abandon me at such a critical point of my life; I felt betrayed. He started flirting with the other girls in the gang and didn’t say a word to me after my dad’s death. He would toss me the occasional sideways glance but it always seemed to be more wary than a look that acknowledged someone. I hated that look. I hated that he looked at me like I was a snake in the grass. It fucking pissed me off.
Despite the fact that everyone around me seemed to think I was a stone cold bitch who never wanted to be around anyone, I had the same desires as any other woman. I wanted a family and children, and I wanted to be in love. Even though I fought those emotions on occasion, I knew that at the end of the day, I wanted what every other woman in the world wanted.
When Damien met Chloe and they had their first baby, those desires became even stronger. I wanted what they had and watching them achieving their dreams was making my biological clock tick. Even though I was only twenty-one, I felt like my time was running out and I didn’t like that feeling.
Instead of confronting it head on and trying to talk to Ryan about everything that had been going on, I kept to myself, kept to my guns, and buried myself in work. I decided that I was just going to forget him and I was going to forget about those stupid wants and needs that were nagging at the back of my brain. I was just going to become the best damn fighter this gang had ever seen.
Chapter Two
The truck rumbled loudly and I guessed it probably needed an oil change. I had a bike like every other member of the gang, but when I traveled with other people and with my guns, it was easier to take a truck. I could take multiple weapons without risking safety, and also Chloe was with me today.
When she first joined the gang I was rather cold to her. I was jealous of her beautiful blonde hair and smooth skin. My own arms and legs were marred with scaring; it was just something that happened when you grew up in a biker gang. When I was younger I would scuffle with the boys and wrestle with them, wanting to prove that I was just as strong as they were. It continued on into my teenage years and between the fighting training and roughhousing, I was left with scars that marked my pale skin.
When I looked at Chloe even now, that jealousy had a tendency to crop up occasionally, but I managed to push it down far enough that we were able to become good friends. I liked spending time with Chloe. She was a good woman and a good mom. Plus, she made my brother happy and that’s always a great way to get on my good side.
As we came to a stop in the parking lot of the shooting range, I glanced over at her and hummed. “Is Damien watching Mariana?”
Chloe nodded and pulled out a light weigh .32 caliber handgun, glancing down the sight. “Yeah. He’s been running around all week with his friends so I told him it was my turn to get out of the house,” she said with a grin.
I chuckled and pulled out a high powered rifle from the bed of the truck and glanced over at her. “You sure you want to start with the .32?”
Chloe had always been rather scared of the guns and I’d only recently been able to convince her to go to the range. She understood nothing about caliber or power and I knew it was going to get her in trouble.
She looked down at the gun, as if she didn’t understand why she might want to reconsider her choice. I watched her and knew exactly what was going through her mind. She was thinking that the gun looked small and harmless compared to the .22 rifle I’d tried to give her.
She smiled at me and shook her head like I knew she would. “Thanks! I think I’ll stick with this!” she sang, going over to one of the booths. We put our ear protection on and she looked over at me as I started to set up the stand for my gun. I was working on accuracy today.
“Hey, Kisha?”
I glanced over at her and took my ear plugs out. “What’s up?”
“Have you been okay lately?”
Oh Christ. She wanted to talk about feelings. I picked up my gun and started fiddling with it in order to busy myself. “Yeah. Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know…I just thought I’d check on you. You’ve been more reclusive lately and when you come to visit you always look sad when you hold Mari.”
She was right about that. I’d been doing my best to mask that sadness, but apparently it wasn’t enough. I closed my eyes a little and sighed. Holding Mariana made me realize just how badly I wanted the things Chloe and Damien had. I wanted a family and I wanted unconditional love. Was that too much to ask? But those feelings seemed so trivial and so far out of reach.
“I’ve just had a lot on my mind lately. I guess I look sad when I’m thinking,” I murmured, setting the gun back on the stand.
Chloe set her gun down and walked around to my booth, throwing her arms around me and squeezing me rather hard. I was a little surprised by the sudden show of affection but I wrapped my arms around her in return and sighed.
“I’m okay, Chloe. Really, just thinking a lot,” I assured, patting her back.
“As long as you’re sure,” she said softly.
I nodded and she went back over to her booth, picking the gun up. I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. I liked Chloe, but I still had very little patience.
“Safety is on,” I murmured.
“Oh! Right! Thank you!” She clicked the safety off and held the gun back up, aiming for one of the targets.
She fired the gun and yelped when it jerked her hand, the kickback surprising her. She missed her target completely and I poked my head around the side of the booth. “Are you sure you don’t want to use the .22?”
“But the .22 is bigger.”
“Bigger gun but it has less kick,” I said.
She looked confused and I sighed. “Just wait here, okay?” I said, going back to the truck. I got the right gun and took the .32 from her. “Try this.”
She frowned but leaned over onto the little wooden stand, steadying her weapon and taking a deep breath. I could tell that she was preparing herself for whatever kick she thought the gun would have. She fired and actually hit the target. It wasn’t a good shot, but at least it was a hit. She pulled back and looked at the gun for a moment, her eyes wide.
“I did it,” she whispered. Suddenly she grinned brightly and pointed at the target “Look! I did it!”
I couldn’t help but crack a smile. “Very good, Chloe. Now try and get closer to the center.”
She did as I told her and I watched with a certain amount of pride. Chloe’s training had fallen to me and I took great pride in knowing that she was improving. I watched her carefully, helping her improve her shots one by one, but even as I helped her, I couldn’t get her words out of my head. Maybe I was depressed.
Chapter Three
We stayed at the shooting range until the sun started to set. When the darkness made it impossible to see, we started packing up our things so we could head back. Chloe closed the bed of the truck and looked over at me.
“We’ve been gone about five hours?” she asked.
“Yeah. Just about.”
She sighed and shook her head. “I wonder how much sugar Damien’s given Mari.”
I smiled a little and laughed. I knew my brother had one hell of a sweet tooth and it seemed he was trying to instill that same vice into his child.
“If he’s loaded her full of sugar, you should let him deal with it and come to my place for a glass of wine,” I suggested.
She grinned and nudged me a little. “That sounds fabulous,” she hummed. “I might just take you up on that offe
r.”
As much as I liked to pretend I was a loner, there was something comforting about having another person around, and it was even more comforting when that person seemed to genuinely want to spend time with you. Chloe was my friend and she was a good friend. I could only hope that our friendship wouldn’t go the same way mine and Ryan’s had.
We got into the truck and I started down the dirt road that would eventually take us to back to the little gated community we lived in. I hesitated to call it a compound because that just sounded cultish and this was far from a cult. We were family. I always held to that and I would happily challenge anyone who said otherwise.
The radio was playing some old country song I’d heard in my childhood. I managed to hum along with the tune but I couldn’t remember the words. As we drove along, the car gave a sudden, violent shudder and I cursed under my breath. I brought it to a stop and slid out to look at the wheel. Apparently we’d hit glass or a nail and the tire had given out on us.
I groaned and kicked the deflated rubber, walking back over to the cab to get my cell phone. We were only a few miles from the house, and as I started back towards the door I saw lights coming down the road. A lot of them. A strange sense of foreboding began to bubble in my stomach and I frowned, and reached for my phone. As my fingers brushed the phone the first of the gun shots rang out.
I cursed and hopped in the car, slamming on the gas even though one of my wheels was out of commission. That didn’t matter now. My heart was slamming in my chest and adrenaline was pumping through my veins. I didn’t know who these guys were but I was going to take them out. I wasn’t going to let anything happen to Chloe.
“WHAT’S GOING ON?!” Chloe screamed, ducking down as one of the bullets hit the back window of the truck and shattered the glass.
“I don’t know!” I snapped, grabbing her and forcing her down so that she was out of the way.
Another shot rang out, ricocheting off the truck. Chloe screamed again and sobbed but I just held her down, my heart and my mind racing. The sound of gun shots were echoing around us, unrelenting and terrifying. I knew she was scared and I really couldn’t blame her. I held her down and sped up as fast as I could. I was listening closely for the sound of the engines, my eyes narrowed and focused on what was in front of me. I bit down on the inside of my cheek when I realized the sound was bikes. The sound of individual motors revving wasn’t a sound I would mistake for anything; I’d grown up around it and I knew exactly what it sounded like.
