by Naomi West
“Clint, come here.” I lead him out of view of the clubhouse and give him all of my guns, except one which I get him to strap to my back, between my shoulder blades: a small quick-draw pistol.
“This is crazy,” Clint says. “You can’t give yourself up.”
“I’m not letting him kill her,” I tell him. “It’s not even a choice.”
“Ten seconds!”
“Be reasonable!” Ralphie snaps. “Silence!”
But there’s no way in hell they’re going to persuade me to let him kill her. I just can’t. It’s like asking me to bend my elbow the wrong way; it’s simply impossible. So I walk into the road with my hands raised above my head, and then across the parking lot, and finally, to the edge of the building. I walk around to the side, out of view of the front, and then call out, “I’m over here, motherfucker!”
He walks to the edge of the roof with Fiona at his side. Two more men appear, Nine Circles holding rifles. My mind does calculations without me having to consciously worry about it: speed, distance, trajectory, all clocking along as I stare at the bastard with his hand on my girl’s arm.
“So here we are.” Reaper is surprisingly plain-looking, just a regular face like a regular man. If I saw him on the street I wouldn’t think twice if it wasn’t for how big he is. “Come round the other side, though. I want you in the bar with the rest of the dogs.”
“Reaper, if you ever tell me what to do again, I’ll bury you in pig shit.”
“Are you crazy?” He cackles. Then he narrows his eyes. “Wait—”
I fire two shots, cleaving the heads of the men next to him, and then fire a shot right at Reaper. He jumps to the side; the bullet catches him in the shoulder, almost in the same spot where he caught me. He staggers back and Fiona takes a shaky step forward. I spread my arms, staring up at her.
“Jump!” I roar, when she hesitates. “Jump, Fiona! Jump!”
18
Fiona
There’s a moment when I’m not sure I’ll have the energy, mental or physical, to make the leap. I try not to look at the dead men lying either side of me, or think about the reflex-like speed with which Kaeden took them out. It was terrifying to see, brutal … Then Reaper begins to walk up behind me and more men spill out onto the roof.
I leap as they fire a shot that sails right over my head but would’ve hit me had I hesitated a second longer. Kaeden catches me easily. He looks quickly toward the scattered trees, where his men duck away at the gunfire coming from the clubhouse. He hesitates for a second but then he throws me over his shoulder and springs away. I hold onto him as best as I can, pressing my face against his shoulder as he leaps from the parking lot down a small ridge, into the dust, and then sprints right across the dusty earth toward the old abandoned railway station.
When we’re finally away from them, he plants me on my feet.
“Follow me,” he says gruffly. “Don’t argue.”
I’m still struggling to find my bearings, to convince myself that this is real and not some crazy dream. And yet it feels hyper-real, too, as though it is still happening: a combination that makes me question everything and know everything. I’m too tired, too scared, too unsure. I need to focus.
“Is Jocelyn alive?” I ask as he drags me across the railroad and over a fence on the opposite side.
“She’s alive. She’s safe. It was never about her.”
I let out a sigh of relief.
“Hold this.” He hands me the pistol as he sneaks up to a car sitting at the side of the road, an old piece of junk with the hood hanging off. He smashes the window with his elbow and climbs into the driver’s seat. Then he takes some cash from the pocket of his jeans and leans out of the car to place it underneath a nearby rock. “Come on!” he growls, turning to me. “We need to get out of here, now.”
I force myself to climb into the car and then we drive for what feels like an hour, first of all making a circuit of the nearby streets and then—when he’s sure we’re not being followed—heading out of Austin to the surrounding dusty forests. He takes us deep into it as the late-day sun burns red-orange in the sky. It seems grimly absurd that not even a single day has passed since he rescued me from Reaper, and yet he has struck again.
Eventually he stops at a cabin nestled between two trees. He brings the car to a stop and just sits there for a second, staring into the forest, and then he turns to me. “Get out. I have to go back.”
“What?” I say in disbelief. “What the hell are you talking about? Go back? You’ll die!”
“I left my brothers for you!” he snaps. “Twice now! Twice I’ve left my goddamn brothers for you, woman! Get the fuck out of the car!”
I fold my arms, really struggling now not to lose it. “No!” I hiss. “Are you completely fucking insane? They have more than forty men in the clubhouse, Kaeden, probably more. It’s packed! Wall to wall, it’s completely packed! If you go back there like this, all amped up and trying to prove something, you’ll die. Do you get that? You’ll die.”
“I’m already dead!” he shouts, slamming his hand down on the steering wheel so hard the old piece of junk comes loose. He leans back, staring at it incredulously, and then climbs from the car and makes for the cabin.
I climb from the car and follow him around to the other side, where another car waits, covered in leaves and dirt and twigs. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I yell. “You’re right here, Kaeden. You’re right here with me! You’re not dead! Don’t throw your life away like an idiot!”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m an idiot.” He growls out a sigh. “I’m the biggest goddamn idiot who ever lived.”
“Say it!” I snap, running right up to him. I grab his face in my hands and stare with burning fire into his eyes. “Go on! Say what you want to say! You’re an idiot for ever taking me into that store closet, right? You’re an idiot for ever indulging yourself with a pink-haired useless waitress, huh? Is that it?” Tears creep unwanted and unstoppable into my voice.
“I never said that.” He huffs and shoves my hands away, pacing over to the old car and running his hand along the hood, brushing the twigs and dirt away. He reaches underneath the car and roots around for half a minute or so, grimacing when I come running over to him.
“You can’t keep shutting me out!” I snap, standing over him. “You can’t keep ignoring me and pretending there’s nothing here. Listen. I know it’s crazy. Don’t you think I know that? Don’t you think I find it just as crazy as you do? That doesn’t mean you get to be cold one minute, hot the next. You have to decide, Kaeden! If you ride out there, you’ll die!”
“Which is it?” he suddenly growls, leaping to his feet. He wheels on me, all the giant bulk of him shadowing over me. “Are you telling me to stay here? Or are you trying to get me to sing you a fucking love poem? Because right now I’ve got no damn clue what it is exactly you want. I don’t know, all right? You keep telling me one thing and then another and, goddamn, woman, God fucking damn. I don’t know what you want.”
“I never wanted this!” I scream, my arm trembling as though willing me to slap him. I repress the impulse only with an effort. “I wanted some—I don’t know—some exciting sex and a nice date and maybe to have our, our relationship or whatever you want to call it grow into something else. I wanted excitement, sure, but not this, this … this is madness, Kaeden! Don’t you see that? The only way I can deal with this is if you are there for me, if you actually care, but every time I need you to care, you just go cold and distant and make me think you wish I was dead.”
I stumble back, panting, and walk all the way back to the stolen car we came here in. I hop onto the hood and sit with my head hanging low, telling myself that under no circumstances will I cry. Tears are for weak people, and I’m done being weak. Kaeden walks over to near the car, but stops short a few yards away. I sense him looking at me: like a warm spot on the top of my head. But I don’t look at him.
“I was raised in an orphanage down in El Paso,” he says quietl
y. “I never knew my parents, the folks there never knew them, nobody ever knew them. Later on, I hired a private detective—a few of them—and they never knew them either. They said the only thing my parents left me was my first name, written on a scrap of paper and tucked into my shirt. I guess it wouldn’t’ve been a shirt, but whatever it is babies wear …” He shrugs. “It wasn’t a good time in that place, Fiona. I’m not about to tell you some sob story, but some bad things happened to me there, and yeah, maybe it made me cold. But I’m getting sick and fucking tired of you telling me how to feel all the goddamn time. I can’t act a certain way just because you tell me to.”
I finally look up at him. His hands are shaking. I guess that he’s never talked about this to anybody before. “I was raised by foster parents,” I tell him. “My parents died when I was little—I don’t remember them either—and they could never find a family for me so the foster parents said they’d keep me, and they did. But they moved to New York as soon as they got the chance. I don’t think they ever loved me.” I pause, sliding off the hood. “We all have pasts,” I go on softly, walking over to him. “I won’t pretend that having foster parents is as bad as whatever happened to you, but …” I sigh heavily, reach out to touch his shoulder. “It doesn’t change where we are right now, does it?”
“No,” he allows. He turns to the cabin. “We need to get you in there, safe, and then we can think about the next move. You’re right about going after them now. It’s not a good idea. Come on.”
He leads me into the cabin, through a living room with a fireplace and old oak furniture, and then through a creaky wooden door to a musty old bed. He points at the drawer in the corner. “There ought to be clean sheets’n shit in there. Pajamas, too. I’ll be back with some food in a little while.”
I catch his hand before he leaves. “Wait, Kaeden. What does this mean?”
“What does what mean?” He moves his thumb over my knuckles.
“Me and you, what does it mean?”
His face goes hard. He lets go of my hand. “Jesus Christ, I don’t know how to answer that question.”
Suddenly I see Reaper, leaning over me in the basement and then grabbing me in the clubhouse and shoving his gun against my head. I feel his hand on my arm and the panic which has marked these past crazy hours runs through me like a sprinter. I take a step back, knowing that I shouldn’t let my anger fuel me, knowing it and yet powerless to stop it.
“Fine!” I snap, marching over to the bed. “If you don’t want to commit to me, then I don’t want to commit to you! Go away then! I don’t care anymore!”
He shuts the door quietly, before I can apologize. I curl into a ball on the dusty, damp bed and press the heels of my hands against my tight-shut eyelids, trying to see nothing but black.
19
Kaeden
A few days go by and the world ends, not with a bang or a whimper like all the movies say, but with a bastard named Reaper moving all the fellas to a big warehouse on the outskirts of the city, guarded day and night. I keep Fiona locked in the cabin because I don’t trust her to stay there on her own. Maybe that’s the wrong move, but dammit, I’m not about to let her get mixed up in all this more than she already has. I ride around town, going from Red Death business to Red Death business, discovering every time that the shopkeeper near shits his pants when he lays eyes on me. It turns out that the place is under new management, they tell me; they had no choice, blah, blah, blah. Bleating like sheep, flocking like them too.
I ride back on the fourth night, having made no progress just like the last few nights. It takes me a long time to ride back because I have to do a whole circuit around town just to make sure nobody’s following me. Maybe I ought not to’ve gone and gotten my bike, or maybe I shouldn’t be wearing my leather, but folks need to know that the Red Death might be down but they’re not out. I laugh grimly as I pull the bike around the side of the cabin. Or maybe I’m just pretending I’ve got some control of this situation when, really, it’s all spinning away.
I unlock and open the door to find Fiona sitting on the edge of her bed, typing away on her laptop. Since I brought her laptop on the first night, that’s all she’s done: type and eat. Whenever I try and talk to her, she gives me this surly routine, all pouty and shit, like she can’t believe I’m not singing her songs and buying her roses. Today it pisses me off even more than usual, maybe since a man needs to exert some influence over his own life if he’s any sort of man at all.
I take off my jacket and toss it into the corner, and then go and sit in the armchair in front of the dead fire. I sit like that for a long time, not bothering to go into the pantry and get myself some food. I haven’t eaten since this morning, but I’m not hungry. Tap, tap, tap, she types, ignoring me, and the more she ignores me, the more I know I need her, need something anyway. I can’t go on with this bullshit.
“Put the laptop away,” I tell her.
She looks up, over the edge of the screen. She looks hot as hell even without makeup, the pink pajamas tight on her legs, the pink vest showing her perky breasts clearly. Her hair is tied up, highlighting her cute-as-hell face. My cock twinges, and then rushes with blood: rock-hard, almost instantly, those legs, those fucking legs.
“What?”
“Put away the laptop now.”
I stand up and go into the bedroom, struggling to keep myself calm. There she is: control. There she is: the sexiest damn woman in the world. There she is, and she’s finally going to stop this pouty horseshit. She looks up at me again. “Are you serious?” Her eyes go wide when she looks at my crotch, at my hard cock in my jeans.
“I am.” I walk into the room, up to the bed. Standing over her, I say, “I won’t tell you again.”
She bites her lip, clearly getting horny even if she wants to pretend she isn’t. She closes the laptop and puts it on the bedside table. As soon as she’s done that, I reach down and grab her by the shoulders. “Ah!” she screams. I flip her over so that she’s on all fours, and then grab her ass cheeks with my hands, one in each hand, grabbing them so hard it makes her shiver and breathe out pained, moaning sounds.
“No!” she snaps, but then lets out a long moan when I bring my finger to her pussy. I can feel it through the fabric of the pajamas. She’s not wearing underwear, goddamn. I press my fingers down on her clit and rub it savagely, rub it way too goddamn hard, rub it so that she has no choice but to twist and contort like a fucking ballerina. The way she’s twisting, I reckon I’ve never seen a sexier sight. “Kaeden! Ah, ah … Kaeden!”
“I’m going to fuck you so goddamn hard,” I tell her, and then yank down the pants. I pull them down to her knees, and then drag them past her knees and all the way off. She gasps and leans forward, sticking her ass out at the same time. That round, round ass, that bouncy ass, that tight ass. I can’t think anymore. All I see is that ass, that pussy, that pussy, tight, tighter than anything. Fuck. “Stick it out!” I growl, gripping onto her ass cheeks and leaving red marks on her skin. “Now!”
“I am!” she moans, her whole body shaking as she leans her shoulders down to the sheets and sticks her ass into the air. “I am! I am!”
I unbuckle my belt and pull down my jeans, my cock flipping up. I grab it with one hand and with the other, slide my middle finger right into her pussy. It’s hot, wet, tight. It’s so wet and hot, all I can think about is—nothing. Just the way her ass cheeks shift when I fuck her pussy with my finger, slamming my knuckles into her ass over and over. She gasps loudly, that tight ass twitching this way and then that tight ass doing a goddamn dance for me.
“I’m going to explode in that fucking cunt,” I growl, sliding another finger inside of her. She screams, her tight pussy opening up for me. “Is that what you want, eh?”
“Yes!” she cries. “Yes! Oh, fuck, fuck!”
I go deep on her, right up to my knuckles, and then move my fingers around inside of her fire-hot pussy. But then I can’t take it anymore, not this foreplay stuff. She looks too
goddamn sexy bent over like that, twitching each time I move my fingers as though she’s a bike and I’m twisting the throttle. She gasps when I withdraw my fingers and looks over her shoulder, her hair falling down across her face. She blows it out of her eyes and stares at my cock, looking halfway scared and halfway hungry.
“You’ll take it hard.” It’s not a question.
She nods in a small movement, and then reaches back and grabs onto my forearm. She grips it hard, digging her fingernails in. With my other hand I grab my hard cock and guide it toward her cunt, which is glistening now in the lowlight, she’s so wet. I press the head against her, pushing slowly, opening her up for me. Her pussy immediately tightens around me, so fucking hot and warm it’s a miracle I don’t come right here. Once my cock is inside of her, I push the rest of the way, grabbing onto her hips and pulling her toward me.
“Oh!” she screams. “Oh fuck! Fuck! You’re so fucking big! Ah! Ah!”
I fuck her as hard as I’ve ever fucked in my entire life. I don’t think. I just stare down at her round ass pressed against my pubes when I go deep, and then spear at the end of my cock when I slide out. I slide all the way out, until just my tip is in her pussy, and then slam into her even harder. I sweat all over her but she doesn’t care. She grabs my forearm until it bleeds, and then keeps grabbing it. I don’t give a damn. She could cut that arm off and I wouldn’t care right now, as long as I got to pound that tight, round ass.
“Fuck!” I roar. “Come on this fucking dick, Fiona! Now! Fucking come!”
“I am!” she squeals, her upper half falling forward onto the sheets. She grabs at them, twisting them in bunches, her cries muffled when she bites down. I pound into her even harder, my cock feeling like it really is on fire now. It’s like I don’t even have a prick anymore: just a boiling sensation where it used to be, flooding my brain, flooding everything. I begin to claw at her ass cheeks as though I’m drowning and these are the only buoys I can get my hands on.
