Sive

by Daniela Jackson

  Grant waves his hand at Sonia, his second-in-command and they leave the garden.

  “All of you, at the office in fifteen minutes,” Boulder says.

  “Ma, look after Sive,” I say.

  “Sure, sweetie,” Ma says. “Go.”

  “I’m going with you,” Ziggy rasps.

  “You are too old,” Boulder snaps.

  “Don’t fuck with me, Boulder,” Ziggy says and Dash helps him stand up and lean against his frame.

  “Alright,” Boulder says, sounding exhausted, and we disperse in every direction.

  Within twenty minutes, we have gathered around the table in ‘Jilly Jet’.

  Ziggy settles himself into the president’s chair and veins pop out in Boulder’s temples. Zane drops his head to hide his grin as Gunner digs his hands into the cupboard and takes out a cut. He hands it to Ziggy.

  “Who said that I would stay for longer?” Ziggy says like he doesn’t care but he grabs the cut like a hungry cat would grab a fat mouse.

  “It’s been the second time within four months,” Boulder says and spreads a piece of paper. It was wrapped around the stone that broke the window in Blaze’s house. “Next time they will kill one of us.”

  “We need numbers to fight back,” Blaze says. “Otherwise we will have to pack our clothes and move out.”

  “We are at war,” Gunner says.

  Boulder props his folded elbow on the table. “Axel, you deal with that job for Samael. Zane, Gunner, you’ll deliver our warning to the Cobras.”

  “We will clash,” I say, “It’s more than certain we’ll clash if we deliver the warning.”

  “At certain point of time,” Boulder says. “I’ll contact Mac. His boys and he may support us.”

  Mac is my uncle, but he doesn’t visit us very often for one simple reason—he is not an outlaw. His club consist of a bunch of old men finding enjoyment in eating nice food, drinking beer and riding their bikes for pleasure.

  “Mac is a pussy,” Ziggy comments and smacks his lips. “He can’t even hold a gun properly.”

  “But he’s family,” Boulder says. “We’ll have numbers and it may buy us more time for negotiating a sensible deal with Samael.”

  The boys murmur their approval.

  “If it’s really bad,” Boulder says.

  “Peru?” Blaze asks and the boys guffaw.

  “I thought about moving out to Europe,” Boulder says with humour. “I actually thought about the Scottish Highlands.”

  “Aye.” Blaze nods. “Our roots.”

  “We’ll talk about it when the time comes,” Boulder says.

  Zane opens the narrow door secured with a push button lock and leans forward into our small armoury room. He takes out three guns and hands one to me. It has a silencer on the barrel.

  I put the gun under the waistband of my jeans and bow my head at Boulder, then ask Dash to give me a ride home. We leave the bar and jump on his bike.

  “Like I’m with a girlfriend,” Dash says.

  “Shut up. You are too young to think about girlfriends.”

  “Do you think, Axel?”

  “You should focus on your education.”

  “You’re right. Girls like educated men. Maybe one day I will meet someone like Sive and marry her.”

  I slap him on the arm. “Focus on the education.”

  Sive’s face flashes through my head and iciness runs through my veins.

  Sive

  Amanda takes me to Axel’s house. She orders me to sit in the couch and makes us two cups of tea.

  As I sip my tea, she sits next to me and holds my hand in hers.

  “You can ask me questions if you want,” she says.

  “A-xel?”

  “Yes, he is who you think he is.”

  My heart stops beating and my insides feel heavy like they have turned into solid iron. Axel is an outlaw. All of them are outlaws. It means that I have to pack my clothes and leave this town as soon as possible. I have to forget about this whole experience like it is only a bad dream.

  I slam the cup on the coffee table, spilling my tea, and rush upstairs, sensing Amanda right behind me. Our feet are thumping against the stairs and the atmosphere thickens around me like a storm cloud is enveloping me and sucking the air out of my lungs.

  I enter the bedroom and grab my bag, but Amanda tears it away from my hand and tosses it on the bed. Her eyes burn with fury and I step back at the shimmery darkness of her gaze. She’s turned into one of them. She’s tough like them, dangerous like them.

  “You think that I’ll allow you to ruin this?” she hisses. “He is happy. For the first time since that ungrateful little bitch left him. He was sixteen, ya know. He was in love, had plans.”

  “I-I—“

  “You what, huh? You make a man love you and you want to leave him at the first signs of problems?” She steps forward, her hands on her hips, and her frame threatens mine. “Angie was weak and stupid. But you? I know who you are. I checked your bag, sweetheart. And guess what I found? The tools used for stealing cars. How many cars did you steal, you little girl?”

  “Ffour.”

  “You are better than my boys.”

  “I-I ddon’t wantt.”

  “I don’t care. You make him behave like a human again. He’s madly in love with you. I thought I would never see him loving a woman like this and I won’t let you ruin that. Over my dead body.”

  The front door bangs, startling me. My heart jumps up to my throat and a wave of nausea washes over my stomach.

  “Sive,” Axel shouts from downstairs.

  Amanda grabs my arm, causing pain to paralyse me and drags me behind her like I’m a ragdoll. She is a strong woman. We tumble downstairs and stand in front of Axel.

  “Ma, what is going on?” Axel looks at Amanda with dark eyes, then he glances at me and his face stiffens. “Don’t tell me that you want to leave me, baby?”

  Amanda releases my arm and backs up, then sits down on the stairs.

  “I have to go somewhere,” Axel says as his voice has a slight tremor. “Only for a few days. Ma will look after you, Sive.” He steps forward, extending his arm towards me.

  I step back and hug myself. For God’s sake, he’s a criminal. I have to leave him and this place as soon as possible.

  “Sive.” Axel’s jaw muscles twitch. “I will be back in a few days. We’ll talk then, okay. Everything will be fine, I promise.”

  “Nno.” I bend slightly forward with my fists clenching.

  “Sive, baby, everything will be fine. Just don’t freak out.”

  He really is a hypocrite. I despise criminals. They hurt innocent people and they should be in prison. My God, he might be a drug dealer or a killer. The hair on my neck rises. An unnerving thought wavers on the brink of my consciousness. He sometimes looks like a killer.

  “Ma will talk to you,” Axel says and a vein pops up in his temple. “You can ask her whatever you want. Draw your fairies and don’t think too much.”

  “Nno,” I yell as my fingers spread and I raise my hands like a cat would raise its paws to attack.

  Emotions flood me like a dam has crumbled into pieces and I’m drowning below the cascades of water. I feel scared and betrayed. Unsure whether all of that is even real. My mind is a battlefield. I want to wake up from this nightmare; I want to rewind my life to the point where I was unaware of Axel’s dark side.

  Axel’s head droops as he laces his fingers on the back of his neck then his brooding eyes shift to mine. “Promise me that you’ll be here when I return. Promise me, Sive.”

  “Nno.”

  “What if he didn’t return,” Amanda says from behind me. “Did you think about it, little girl?”

  My heart turns into a burning wound like somebody has branded it many times and the tissues have gotten infected. Axel will be in danger. Why is he even doing this? Why does he want to live this dangerous life?

  I want him to be safe but I’m repulsed by who he is.


  “Promise me,” Axel rumbles.

  Every atom of my body jumps at the tone of his voice. I feel as though a knife is stabbing my brain. My mind fills with a fog. There is a war inside me. I love the man who saved me on the road, but I despise his dark side.

  “Promise me,” Axel says quietly.

  “Nno.”

  I can’t promise that to him. There is no future for us. Not like this, not with the gunshots during the barbeque, not with him leaving to do only God-knows-what.

  Axel chuckles and shakes his head. “Ma, I have to go.”

  “Come back in one piece,” Amanda says in a rough voice.

  “I always come back in one piece,” Axel says, winks at me and turns back.

  He walks towards the door, taking my heart with him. Everything turns numb inside me and I become a spectator of my love turning into ashes. It’s over. A sense of loss wafts through me. My body becomes an empty shell. There is no me, only a cold void.

  Axel pushes the door open and freezes. Everything freezes—the time, people, and surroundings. It is as though a mechanism of cogwheels scrunches inside me, stops working then restarts but at a faster pace and works more smoothly. A realisation explodes inside me. I will be dead without him. He is my life. An invisible force smacks me on the back, shoving me forward. I gulp and shoot towards Axel. I have to stop him, tell him that I’ll wait for him. I have to kiss him.

  My hands claw at his cut as he is about to step out of the house.

  “Pro-mi-sse,” I cry out.

  Axel turns to me and cups my face in both his hands.

  “Pro-mi-sse.”

  “Calm down, baby, message received.”

  His face lights up like never before and his lips press against mine. I throw my arms around his neck and hang myself on him.

  Axel grasps my waist, lifting me off the ground, and my thighs wrap around his hips. My mouth opens wider as his tongue punishes me.

  I feel a hard shape digging in my inner thigh. I know what that is—a gun. But it doesn’t matter. I only want Axel to come back to me.

  I kiss him frantically like it is our last kiss. But I know it isn’t. It can’t be. I will wait for him and he’ll be back in a few days.

  “I-I wwill waitt.”

  “Don’t think too much, okay? Think of how much I love you.”

  “I-I lovve yyou.”

  “I know; I love you more.” His arms crush my form and he sinks his fingers into my hair, gathering half of it.

  My lips search for his again and it’s like we can’t stop kissing. Because it will hurt like hell when we stop.

  “I have to go,” Axel says and plants me on the ground.

  “Pro-mi-sse. Lovve yyou.”

  He kisses my forehead and walks off. I hear the roar of his bike and turn back. Amanda is standing in the doorway.

  “Why so much drama?” She rolls her eyes. “He loves you, you love him. It’s that simple.”

  “Itt’s nott.”

  “Ya know, you are a tough little bitch. An outlaw like him. He must have sensed you with his sixth sense.”

  My eyebrows raise a notch at her.

  “Yes, you.” Amanda smirks. “Every like loves his like. It’s, ya know, funny when I look at you together. You are a pretty little outlaw. My son just hasn’t realised that yet.”

  I don’t know whether I should feel proud of myself or offended by her comment.

  Chapter 21

  Axel

  An hour passes like a second, and I can’t recall my way. Sive is waiting for me in my house. That’s all that matters to me. Maybe one day she will even accept my dark side. I want to tell her everything. Not now, but one day.

  Now I have a job to do. It must be precise and without any complications, because my little mermaid is waiting for me.

  I begin to hunt my prey from checking in a filthy hotel situated in the worst area of the city. Fernando Espina, my target is a roach who forgot not to mess up with the big fish. I stretch out on the bed and look through the photos and brief information Kolya enclosed for me.

  The bedding smells of damp and the cracks in the ceiling resemble a cobweb. A sad flowery curtain waves as the air drifts inside through the narrow window. A thought courses through my head. I don’t want to kill more people. Maybe I would even want to live like Mac, to share everything with Sive, to have a simple lazy life. Do I need so much money? Do I need the thrill of living on the edge? And most importantly, do I have any choice?

  The photos float to the floor with a rustle and I roll on my side, closing my eyes. Then I drop off to sleep.

  For two days, I circle around my prey like a wild cat would hunt a gazelle, learning his habits, and getting closer and closer to him.

  He’s an absolute scum, but has a wife, a son, and a devastated house. I know that his family will only benefit if I off him. His wife has large bruises on her back. His son is scared of him.

  Yet I can’t shake off this uneasy thought that I’m no better than him. It’s all because of Sive. She made me question my life.

  On the third day, I steal a car, approach Fernando as he walks out through the back door of a bar and put a bullet in the back of his skull. He lets out a sigh then collapses on the ground and foam tinted with red escapes his mouth. A stream of dark blood forms a pond around his head. I feel nothing as I haul the body towards the car and throw it into the trunk. The dick is heavy. It pisses me off. Looking over my shoulder to check whether nobody has noticed the murder, I settle myself into the driver’s seat. The car shoots forward.

  I dispose of the body where nobody can find it for a very long time—in a rubbish dump. I’m not a person, just a cold instinct. I will be a person when I return to Sive.

  So far, everything has gone smoothly. I rub my hands against my jeans as my eyes roam over the rubbish heaps. It’s done. Finito. I’m really good at getting rid of human trash.

  But there are complications. Two young gangsters looking twenty at most are interested in my bike parked at the back of the hotel.

  It’s late in the evening. The sun has just drowned below the red horizon and putrid smells hang in the air.

  Through the window ajar, the sound of a couple fucking drifts to my ears as I stand with my feet apart and stare at the two wannabe thugs who threaten me with the knives in their hands.

  “Get lost,” I say. “And nobody will get hurt.”

  One of them steps closer to me. His brown eyes slide over me like there is no soul inside him as he lunges the knife at me. I dodge his thrust and slam my fists into his back, knocking him down but the other attacker runs his knife across the side of my chest. The blade penetrates through my clothes and leaves a deep cut. I fling myself to the side and the boys circle around me like two hyenas would circle around a dead elephant.

  “I’m warning you for the last time,” I say. “Get lost.”

  The gangster with cold blue eyes chuckles. “Dat old cunt be talkin' ta us.”

  They hop around me like two monkeys. I fix my eyes on the brown-eyed guy and leap towards him, gripping his wrist and twisting his arm up. The sound of his bone breaking tears at the air as his knife clinks against the asphalt. He squalls like a chick. I sweep his body and throw him at the other gangster. He dodges his mate who rolls on the ground and curls up into a ball.

  A burning sensation spreads across my back as I dodge the blue-eyed gangster. Fuck, I’m getting old. And slow. I turn around and swerve, avoiding his thrusts but he manages to leave a cut on my right cheek.

  I’m a bit dizzy because my wounds are bleeding heavily. A thin fog obscures my eyes. The brown-eyed gangster is moaning like an old woman, and I try to find an imperfection in my opponent’s movements. He is good. But I’m better.

  I expose myself, let him cut my thigh, then punch him in the side of his chest, knocking the air out of his lungs. He huffs and I deliver a thrust into his abdomen. He falls to his knees as I sweep my leg and kick him in the face. That will do.

  One of them has
an open fracture and the prospect of surgical repositioning. The other will need a maxillofacial surgeon. His face is changed forever.

  I don’t care. They started the fight not me.

  I shuffle to my bike and settle myself on it, starting the engine. Then I go to my Sive.

  The whole journey is like a black hole in my mind.

  My first conscious thought is that Sive is leaning over me and trying to lift me. Her fingers dig in my arms. I realise that I’m on all fours in my own kitchen. The red smudges of my blood stretch across the floor and Sive growls with fury at me. Her face resembles that of a corpse. I blink as the light irritates my eyes.

  “Call Ma, baby. She will know what to do.” I twist my body, sit and lean against the cupboard with my legs splayed. “No hospital, Sive. I mean it. No. Fucking. Hospital.”

  Sive sits on her heels between my bent knees and sinks her fingers into my hair, then gathers it and pulls down. It hurts like hell as she turns my head. Her eyes flick over my cheek.

  “I’m fine, baby, don’t worry.” There is more and more of a grey fog in my head.

  Sive removes my cut, tossing it behind her, and pulls my t-shirt over my head. Her hands wander on my body as she turns me and examines the wounds on my back. “I-I cann sttitch upp a woundd.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “Nno.” The coldness of her voice pierces me like an icicle.

  She scrambles to her feet and explores the cupboards, then returns with the surgical needles, absorbable suturing material and a bottle of vodka. I always keep some surgical needles and threads in case I need stitching. Zane and Ma look after my wounds like professionals.

  “A-mman-da,” Sive says.

  “Ma’s shown you everything? That’s brilliant, baby.”

  Sive nods and pours some vodka onto a piece of gauze. She disinfects the cut on the side of my chest as I hiss in pain and tear the bottle from her hand, taking a decent sip. A real fire goes down my gullet as I watch her preparing the needle for stitching up. The strap of her nightdress lowers, exposing her right breast, but she’s not aware of that. And I’m not going to enlighten her. I’ve never seen anything more arousing in my life than my woman dealing with my wounds, covered in my blood, and focused on her task.