Riding For Her

by Adair Rymer

  “I'm good,” I had to think about broken bike parts and rancid trash just to clear my head enough to finish my sentence.“Just a long ride. Little rusty, I guess.”

  She turned back and disappeared inside.

  “I hear that, man.” Miles nodded and headed in as well. He was completely oblivious, an d I was thankful for that.

  I grunted, grabbing and squeezing my raging hard on through my pants. I'd given myself an extra minute to get it under control. I adjusted my cock so it was a little more manageable and went inside the clubhouse. I forgot how much hugging there was when meeting new clubs. I'm glad I took the extra minute outside to relax, the last thing I wanted was some sword fighting action.

  All the members shuffled into the meeting room, which left the main room empty except for a few mamas that waited around for us to be finished, and a few sketchy looking hangarounds that were eying our van and whispering. Never a good sign, but something I'd have to deal with later, if it was anything but innocent curiosity.

  A dark haired Latin girl dragged her arm across my shoulder and eye fucked me as I walked by. She was pretty for club property. Exotic, young, and with a smile that screamed “I like it rough.” I liked exotic, but she didn't hold a candle to Maya...

  Goddammit! That was the shit I needed to stop. Right. the. fuck. now. I didn't do hang ups or comparisons. Pussy was pussy. That was it. I just needed some easy pussy to set my head straight. I'm sure the Wild Boys wouldn't mind sharing their stock in the name of hospitality and all that. I had to put this Maya shit behind me.

  “Hey,” I grabbed Tex, stopping him from going into their meeting room. He ripped his arm away, but stayed to hear me out. “This shit. This animosity we have. It needs to stop, at least until we get this Legion run done. We both want the same thing: me gone.”

  “Agreed.” His anger at me begrudgingly subsided, but only a little.

  This whole thing was temporary. If I could tie him directly to the murder of my brothers, the ones that supported the deal with the Russians, there would be a reckoning. I'd nail him to the fucking wall. For now, that had to wait. We both needed to focus on the task at hand.

  I leaned in closer so as to minimize any eavesdropping. “How well do you know these guys? I'm picking up some weird vibes.”

  “Well enough. Loopy vouched for them. We should be alright here.”

  I raised an eyebrow at him in skepticism and cocked my head to the shady hangarounds. Tex followed my gesture and spotted them.

  “Yeah, alright. We'll post a watch with just our guys till we leave tomorrow,” Tex added reluctantly.

  I nodded. The additional eyes on our van was the right call. For a change.

  “One more thing.” I stopped him again from heading in. “Maya, that Hangers girl, you gotta cage her. She's a wreck waiting to happen. There's no way she'll make it on a bike another day without falling off or killing the rider. Let her ride in the van with Skids. She doesn't know what we're hauling. Besides, everything is locked up. She couldn't get in if she wanted to.”

  Tex rolled it around in his head, then dismissively agreed.

  It was all a lie, she was probably the best passenger I'd ever had but the lie was for the best. This girl was a thunderstorm of distraction for me. I didn't have a lot of faith in what the C.E. was doing right now so that was even more reason to stay focused. I was probably headed back to jail or more likely an unmarked grave off a highway somewhere. This muleing business was very risky. With this amount of drugs on us, we weren't flying under the radar for long.

  For as much as I wanted to tear Maya's pussy apart and devour every inch of her, I had to put some distance between us. She wasn't tainted like I was. She wasn't a part of our world. I knew that one taste of her would never be enough. Once I dipped into that well, that pure pussy, I wouldn't be able to stop.

  When this run goes up in flames, like I know it will, if I'm tapping that ass on the regular then she's more likely to get dragged into the fire. Maya seemed like a decent chick who didn't need that grief. I didn't want to see this life take its toll on her like it did all the girls inside the clubhouse.

  The meeting was quick, mostly logistics and sleeping arrangements. There was a lingering uneasiness coming off of the Wild Boys but we were all at their bar before long and then it didn't seem to matter as much.

  Pyramids of liquor shots were being carted around by completely nude mamas. The bar was snowy with lines of coke as they challenged C.E. members to blow races. I had to wonder if we just stumbled into a celebration.

  After the first leg of the trip down and with a lot more to go, no one was in the mood to get annihilated. It seemed like no one told the Wild Boys that because within the hour the place was near bursting with drugs and girls. It went way beyond good house manners. Tex seemed wary of the craziness of it too, but he went along with it, albeit at a much slower pace.

  Skids had taken first watch, no doubt to talk to Maya about whatever the hell they had going on. I was glad she was out there with him. I looked around at the ass grabbing and the girls that were passed around like party favors. Nothing good was going to happen to her in here.

  Miles was right at home, he didn't have to worry about the burden of command so he was already a mess. I, on the other hand, nursed a beer and watched the mayhem, turning down attempt after attempt by their members and girls at stepping up my party game. As much as I wanted to get my dick sucked, the whole thing put me off a bit.

  That's when I spotted the hangarounds in the back. It was the same group of guys that were scoping out the van earlier. They were chilling on the far end of the bar with no drinks of any kind. They just watched. No one bothered them or even really acknowledged them. If this was an out of control high school dance then they were the chaperones. It felt very out of place.

  I didn't know what was up, but something didn't feel right. I headed back out to my bike to grab my gun just in case. When I stepped out I found two chaperones outside closing the main gate.

  “What's up, brother? You alright?” One of them, no cut or colors, dressed in a hoodie asked me while clicking the lock in place.

  Brother. That word was awfully forward for a non-member to be throwing around. I could see the bump of the gun in his waistband. That was another odd thing for a non-member to have.

  “Just grabbing something out of the bike. What's up with the gate, you expecting trouble?” I asked lightly, playing down my suspicions. I shook the closest one's hand.

  “Nah, just a thing we do at the end of the night,” the other man spoke up. He was bald with a handlebar mustache. “Keeps our guys safe. Cops are dicks around here.”

  “Yeah, it's cool. We're just looking out for everyone.” Hoodie smiled disarmingly and shook my hand.

  I noticed the letters TLWB were tattooed under his knuckles, each finger getting its own letter in the acronym. The Lost Wild Boys. Only members were allowed to get club ink...

  These guys were members masquerading as hangarounds. They were sober, armed and locking up the only way out of the compound. Right then I knew it was on. Whatever it was, some shit was about to go down and, with the C.E. in the shape they were in, it would be a fucking massacre.

  Hoodie saw me notice the letters and squeezed my hand, preventing me from letting go as he reached for his gun. I didn't bother going for my knife on the opposite side of my free hand, I'd never reach it in time. I twisted, ducked low and pushed forward, simultaneously jerking my hand behind me and throwing my shoulder into his ribcage. I rammed him into his friend, which pushed us all into the gate.

  Hoodie let go immediately as we all hit the ground in a heap. Being on top, I was the first one up. Hoodie pulled at his gun, but I kicked it into him before he got it out of his pants. He screamed as the impact set the thing off. The bullet tore through his thigh and must've hit a major artery because blood started pouring out of the bottom of his pant leg and over his shoe like someone left the tap open.

  He'd be unconscious in s
econds and dead in minutes.

  The bald man squirmed to get his dying friend off him, he already had his gun out, but his arm was pinned against the fence. I palmed the side of Hoodie's face and pushed him out of the way, pulling my knife with my other hand.

  “Woah! Woah! Take it easy!” The friend tossed his gun when he realized he wouldn't be able to get a bead on me before I gutted him.

  “You know what I'm going to ask you. Don't fuck this up.” I slid the edge of the blade under his nose. One quick slice and that hunk of flesh and cartilage would be a vivid memory.

  “Yeah, ok. Ok! The drugs in the van! We were going to steal them and replace the drugs with bags of sugar! Relax that thing, huh?”

  “How'd you know?” I let my anger seep through each syllable. I angled the blade up and slowly pulled it back. The edge, broke the skin beneath his nostrils and began parting it from the muscle tissue.

  I was so damn pissed because that would've been a death sentence for us when we made the drop with the Iron Legion.

  If I hadn't gotten to them first, these fucks would have killed me and the rest of us, either here and now, or indirectly by way of the Legion at the drop site once they found out all we had was fucking sugar.

  “Loopy! It was Loopy! For fuck's sake stop! He told us when, where and what it was! Stop!” The man screamed. I almost didn't hear him over the thrumming rage in my ears. I was surprised at my restraint. In prison, I'd be finishing the conversation with the knife embedded in this asshole,s eye.

  “Gate combination.” I demanded. What little patience I had was fading fast. I'd have to get the damn thing open to get our bikes out if we had any hope of surviving tonight.

  “It was just changed! Only Saul knew it.” He looked down at his dying partner, now completely unconscious.

  “Then why the fuck am I keeping you alive?” I growled, locking eyes with the man, pushing in to within a inches of his face.

  You can usually see it in a person when they've resolved to end your life. It's something in their face, an intensity of either of rage, expediency, a perverted excitement or just self preservation. My eyes burned holes through him as I tried to figure out which one it was for him.

  He whimpered at the intensity he saw in my face, my resolve. He knew he was dead.

  Fuck! My face soured. I had to turn away. I didn't want to be that guy anymore!

  I pulled the knife away, leaving the man's face intact.

  I wanted out, not further back in. Hoodie killed himself when he went for his gun. That wasn't on me. I didn't want to rack up a body count tonight, I didn't want any of this. I wanted to get fucking laid!

  “Thank you, broth—” I turned the knife over and smashed the side of his head with the pommel, knocking him out before he could finish the sentence.

  “You're no brother of mine.” I spat on him, then stuffed both of their guns into the back of my pants, checking to make sure the safety was on first. I wasn't going to repeat Hoodie's mistake.

  I grabbed my pistol from my bike and jogged around the corner. The van was fine, the Wild Boys were probably waiting for the gate to be closed first. Skids and Maya sat inside and had the doors open. I could've run and warned them, but they were both sober and would know when shit went sideways. The rest of the C.E. inside were fucked.

  I wasn't ten steps back around the corner to the main door when the man at the gate started coming to. You could never tell how long someone was going to be out ,but I was desperately hoping it would be a little longer in this case.

  I could either leave him and rush into the clubhouse like a cowboy before he wakes up enough to call his friends for back up. Or I could do the right thing and walk back there and slit his throat. It would give me a few more minutes to plan our escape.

  I hesitated for a moment before I knowingly made the wrong decision. “Yee haw,” I muttered to myself sarcastically and swung open the clubhouse door like Clint Eastwood in a spaghetti western. No killing for me tonight, I'd decided, just a whole lot of maiming. For now, I was all smoke and no fire.

  Let's see how long that lasts, I thought as I stepped into bedlam. I fired a round into the ceiling drawing a sea of dull, startled faces turned to me.

  “Coffin Eaters! Mount up!” My words reverberated loudly through the din of confused and soon-to-be very frightened people.

  One of our sober “chaperones” pulled his gun and began to stand from a chair in front of me. I kicked the heel of my boot into his face with such force that it sent him reeling over the small table that he was sitting at. Then I drew down on the other fake hangarounds on the far side of the room.

  “Loopy set us up! They're trying to hijack the coke!” I yelled to Tex, tossing him and our sergeant-at-arms the two pistols I'd taken off the Wild Boys.

  A bullet whizzed by my head, catching one of the girls in the throat. I drew down on the shooter and screamed for him to stop. He did. For an eternity, Tex the sergeant, and I had a tenuous bead on all the chaperones. It was a standoff with no easy way out without killing a whole lot of people.

  Because of the music, the shouting and the drugs, although everyone heard the gun fire no one knew for sure if it was actually a gunshot. It wasn't until the girl dropped that the place froze. She twisted on the ground, writhing, gurgling up as much blood as air.

  It was horrible. I wanted to help her, but the second I put my gun away, we'd be out gunned by the Wild Boys. The wide-eyed girl gasped and pleaded, slowly dying on a loud, empty dance floor. Dozens of people stupidly looked on, too paralyzed with fear to move.

  When the girl stopped writhing, it all became deadly real.

  Another Wild Boy came out from the bathroom armed. We'd lost the balance. The second he fired, it was like someone pressed the play button. Everyone lost their fucking mind. The place exploded in screaming, running and of course gunfire.

  I threw myself toward Miles, toppling him like an upended bowling pin, then rolled over and put a round in the leg and arm of the guy who shot at me. Miles vomited everywhere when he hit the ground, he was obliterated on all sorts of shit. I grabbed him and started dragging him out the side door. He'd have to go in the van there was no way he could ride.

  “Everyone scatter! Side door! Go! Go!” Tex screamed, licking off gunshots almost indiscriminately.

  The gunfire in that room came so fast that it sounded like a child was stomping on a roll of bubble wrap. What followed was the hideous combination of pops, screaming, and the sound of meat slapping against the wooden floor. It would be a twisted medley that would be lodged in the back of my skull for a long while.

  Miles and I crashed into the parking lot outside just before the rest of our guys. The music was still so loud inside that it masked the gunfire. The parking lot was starkly serene in comparison. I dragged Miles to the van, overhearing some of Skids and Maya's conversation.

  “...my fault. During the year I spent as a prospect, your mom and I got very close. After your sister was born we...” Skids spoke softly but I could still hear him through the van's open windows.

  Skids was always tight lipped about his past so I could never get a solid read on him about his family. I wish I could've given them more time to talk, but it was about to get loud and deadly out here.

  “Skids, help me get Miles in the cab! Shit's gone sideways,” I interrupted.

  “What's going on?” The old man came out and helped me carry Miles to the passenger side door, where Maya was sitting.

  “Loopy set us up, he was a former Wild Boy. Must've given them the heads up about the coke. Take Miles and Maya and go!” I opened Maya's door. She hurriedly jumped out, clutching her purse, and gave us some room.

  “Coke? What's happening?” She didn't look like she had any idea about what was coming. I couldn't even imagine what that kind of innocence felt like.

  One of a pair of our guys, half holding, half dragging another two wounded, pushed open the side door and called out for us to wait.

  “The inevitable...
” I grabbed Maya's shoulders, captured her complete attention and warned her. “Keep your head down and trust no one but Skids.”

  Her eyes started to widen as the gravity of the situation began to weigh down. She was in real danger here. The first step away from her was the most difficult for me. She so obviously needed protection, but I reminded myself that Skids had her, he'd keep her safe. It was my brothers who needed me.

  “That motherfucking ra— Fuck! Maya, get down behind the wheel well!” The bullets that punched through the side of the van were so close to Skids, that if his words were tangible, they'd have been bleeding.

  The Wild Boys had kicked open the side door and started stumbling out into the street. Skids wasn't hiding, but everyone that flooded out of that door was so fucked up that it was luck they came that close to hitting him in the first place.

  I was about to have our guys open the back doors and load the wounded in with the coke, but a few of the sober Wild Boys in disguise came around the side of the building and had clear line of sight on the back of the van. Out in the open like that, we'd be dead before we had it unlocked. I tucked away my pistol, stacked our wounded into the cab like fucking cordwood.

  That left no room for Maya.

  Skids climbed into the driver's seat and looked at me hard once he realized how full the cab was. There was no way he was leaving her here like this. He was a second away from getting out of the van and trying something stupid, like going toe to toe with a damn biker army.

  We couldn't survive a gunfight now as all our members were a mess. It would be a slaughter. If Skids had his bike here, he'd have taken her out on that, but he drove the van. With more Wild Boys coming out by the second and the gate still closed, we didn't have time to switch my bike for his van. He'd need to leave and I'd have to be the one to get her out. It was the only way any of us was surviving tonight. Save the girl to save the club. So much for distance between me and Maya.

  “No!” I yelled to Skids after shutting the passenger side door. “Use the van to punch through that gate. I'll get her out, I promise.” I didn't yet know exactly how I was going to pull that off but that was on me. I'd do it somehow as long as he got that fucking gate open.