by Kara Hart
It all sunk in on me fast. I was alone now. The barricades of the compound shut and I slowly saw the love of my life disappear, once again, from me. Avery was such a wild spirit – he had to go where he was called to. But, as a woman, I still worried for him.
I was safe here, though. There were armed guards silently waiting for any outside activity. Their eyes were on the scope of their guns, watching every rattlesnake or scorpion that moved by the compound. And all was desolate outside. The cold desert air at night simply wisped around my body. It was a lonely touch compared to Avery’s strong hands and mechanic scent.
I closed my eyes and hoped for the best. Of course, that’s when I felt the familiar feeling of greasy fingers wrap around my mouth. I tried to scream, but no sound came out. “Shh.” The voice whispered.
Bobby…
The sound of bullets whizzing by echoed all around us and, very quickly, the guards were lying against the desert floor, blood leaking from their bodies. A whole crew popped up around us, wearing camouflage and desert-colors. Some even tied pieces of cactus around their body armor, to give an added veil of invisibility.
“Hello, my pretty little flower.” he said, practically drooling.
He let go of my mouth. “No.” I whispered. “How? You … they sent you to prison!” I cried.
“That’s the thing. You can’t lock up ol’ Bobby Farole.” he laughed. “Boys! Take her out of my sight. We’re goin’ south!”
“Where are you taking me!” I screamed. “AVERY!”
“No use in screamin’, darlin’. No one can hear you. All of the guards are dead. Soon, Avery and Bruce will be buried alongside of ‘em. Oh, I can’t wait for that!” He cracked his knuckles and lit up a cigar. The flame against his face cast an evil shadow across the whole compound.
“You bastard! You’ll never win. You know why?” I spit in his face, kicking at his large body.
“And why is that?” he laughed. “Looks to me like I always win.”
“Darkness never wins. It only makes itself known. Then the light consumes it. You better be ready, because when Courage finds you, it’ll pulverize your very being. You prick.”
He slapped my face and I instantly fell to the floor. I wiped a drop of blood from my lip and looked at him angrily. “You’ll pay for that.” I said. I wasn’t going to take shit from a grease ball like him.
“Maybe I will. Then again, maybe I won’t. I was born into this world to die, darlin’. So your display of anger don’t mean shit to me. I’m going to have my showdown with Avery and I’m gonna win. And when I do, I’m going to make you mine. All. Mine.”
“You disgust me!” I backed into a corner, holding my head in my hands. I felt like I was going crazy. My whole life was quickly swallowed up by Bobby Farole. I went from pop star to victim in a blink of an eye.
“I disgust you? Good. The world disgusts me. You disgust me. Your celebrity life, the pretty people, all of the fake charms of the world disgusts me! You live your lives like pain doesn’t exist. You forget the people suffering in the world. You disregard people like me. And you force the rejects of the world to a life of crime and punishment. It’s a never ending cycle of hurt and pain, and guess who gets the blame? People like me. Well, now I wield the gun. Now you all gotta listen to me.” He licked his lips, “I’m going to make an alter for you. And when we’re standing there together, arm in arm, I’m gonna force Avery to watch as you whisper the words ‘I do.” He laughed and picked me up by my hair.
“NO!” I screamed.
“It’s time, bitch. Let’s go.” Suddenly all was black. A bag was thrown over my head and I was quickly thrown on the back of a motorcycle, lost to Bobby’s army of goons. I prayed for Avery, but there was only the sound of the cold desert air.
All was lost to the arid landscape.
Avery
“Where is he?” I screamed, fists bloody and face red, ready to burst.
“Settle down, give the man some air for a second.” Bruce warned. We had been wailin’ on him for nearly an hour now and he looked about ready to pass out on us.
“I’ll fuckin’ kill him. I swear it. I’ll kill him and his whole family.” I said, purely out of anger.
“I don’t know nothin’!” the man said, spitting chunks of teeth and blood onto the pavement.
Bruce pulled me aside and whispered, “Come on, man. You’re getting too personal with this shit. I get it, trust me. But you ain’t gonna’ find any answers by killin’ the guy.”
I nodded. “I know, I know. I’m sorry, Bruce. I’m just worked up now. I need to find him. If I don’t, he’ll get us. He’ll take us all down.
“Listen to me.” He said, pointing his finger in my face. “Ain’t no one gonna take down Courage. Our oath is sacred, hear me?”
“Alright. I’ll give him 10 minutes.” I reluctantly said.
Bruce laughed and shook his head as if I were crazy. Well maybe I was crazy, but I was justified for being that way.
I walked back into the room and took a deep breath. “Look, brother,” I began, “this ain’t about you. It’s about Luke and Bobby only. I don’t want to hurt you any more than I already have, okay? You know that, don’t you? But I’m under strict orders to slam this fist here into your cheek there. That is, until you’re ready to tell me where Luke is.” No one could say I didn’t give him fair warning.
He spit in my face and said angrily, “I don’t need to give you shit. Pussy.” Now that was the word that did the trick. It sent my blood boiling, causing me to explode into a fit of rage.
“You son of a bitch! Look at me!” I grabbed his head and forced him to look into my eyes. “Do you see my face? Do you see what he did to me? He kidnapped my girl, tried to destroy my life; all for what? Pride? We’re going to find him with or without you. If you wanna live then start talking!”
Unfortunately for him, he kept his little mouth shut. “What should I do?” I jokingly asked Bruce. It was a little routine we played, as if we were two dumb cops who had never done this before. Too bad we were pretty damn experienced at this sort of thing.
“Well, I don’t know. Maybe we ought to let him go.” he smiled. That made the guy’s face light up a bit.
“Nah, we can’t just let him go. Not without a little souvenir.” I said.
“Souvenir? Like what?”
“Well, I’ve grown so fond of the guy. I think I’d like to keep something of his. For memory’s sake.” I winked.
“Maybe you should take one of his pretty teeth. They’re nice and shiny.” he said, grabbing a pair of pliers. The guy nearly fell back onto the pavement. He was that terrified. Still, he hadn’t given us Luke’s whereabouts yet. Funny thing was, we would have let him go if he did. That’s really all it took to please us.
“Look, guys. C’mon.” He said, squirming in his seat.
I grabbed the next best thing to my fist: my hammer. “No. I want something better than an old tooth. How ‘bout one of his bones?” I asked.
“Well,” Bruce began, “a bone would be hard to extract from the tissue, but we could try our best.”
“Oh, I like the sound of that!” I cried out. I swung the hammer back, ready to hit him with all the force I had. It was justified. It was for Hope.
“WAIT!” he screamed, tears rolling down his cheeks. He looked pathetic. “Alright, I’m fucking sorry, okay? I’ll tell you everything!”
I dropped the hammer. “Everything?”
“Yes! Just don’t extract my bones. You gotta promise me that, man. I just drive for Bobby. I didn’t plan any of this shit.”
“We’ll see about that.” I said. “Go on. Tell us what you know.”
“Bobby never went to prison.” he said.
Bruce let out a loud howling cackle. “Okay, so the guy wants to make some shit up. Grab the hammer and finish this guy off. I’m getting real bored of this messin’ around!”
“No, no! I’m telling you the truth!” he cried, trembling against the rope around his body.
“Quit
playin’ your games. We ain’t interested in them.” I said, kneeling down in front of him.
“Look, man. I got kids. Two of them.” he said.
“I’m listening. Go on, brother.” I said, showing a tinge of mercy.
“Man, this shit is all corrupt. Police down here are owned by Bobby’s men now. You didn’t know that? The old Police Chief had a stroke not too long ago. Bobby got lucky, you know? A new regime meant new business deals, and this new Chief wasn’t someone to turn down a cold hard million. So Bobby organized it so that they’d make a lot of money together. That’s why he was let out in the first place. All they had to do was get the Chief’s signature and support and, boom, he was a free man.”
I looked down at the concrete. Well, I’ll be damned. I knew Bobby’s crew pulled a lot of weight around these parts. But I didn’t know they had the chief under their thumb now. That wasn’t such a good thing in my book. It meant more hoops to jump through. Then again, if Bobby were to, say, disappear or vanish, maybe we could get him on our side. I looked at Bruce and he simply nodded, as if he were thinking the same thing as me.
“So what happened last week?” I asked him. “They just take him in and let him out the back door?”
I placed a warm towel soaked in water on his face to soak up the blood and alleviate some of his pain. He started talking more now. “It ain’t that easy. Keep in mind, I only know what I hear, but my guess is that they moved that cocaine, transferred the money to the Police Department, and let him out after some questioning. Shit, for all I know, they could have planted that shit on someone else. Some fella’ in the streets in the ghetto. They do that shit all the time.”
He was right, of course. The police were about as corrupt as we were. Maybe more so. The difference was, we admitted we were criminals. The cops hid face and lied to the public about their dealings. It was a wicked world we lived in, and those are just a fraction of the games that were played. I assumed it went all the way up -- right up to the President of the United States. The bikers were just the scapegoats. It was easy to blame a scarred up mess of a man like me. And it was even easier to throw blame at a young man in the ghetto, forced to sell the drugs to feed his family. The whole thing smelled of corruption.
“Yeah, I was wonderin’ where they got all their new uniforms from. Seemed like something wasn’t right.” Bruce said to himself.
“Where are they? Where are Luke and Bobby hiding?” I asked him.
“You really don’t know?” He asked me. “Honestly?”
“I wouldn’t be wasting my god damn time if I did.” I muttered, leaning back on the dusty wall.
“They’re in the place most dear to your heart.” he laughed, spitting more chunks of blood and teeth out onto the ground.
“Enough with the riddles, Shakespeare. Give us the coordinates or we bury you alive. Your kids can find you for all I care.” Bruce said, lighting up another cigarette.
The man laughed and shook his head. “They told me you’d kill me. But they forced me to do this job. They said it was ‘either us killin’ you now, or them killing you later.’ And now here I am, tied to a fucking chair in the middle of the desert. They’re in your old home, Avery. They’ve been there for days now. They knew you’d ambush this drug deal and take me hostage. But most importantly, they knew you’d leave Hope back at the hideout. They’re going to ambush your whole crew. And when they do, they’re going to take Hope and execute her, right in the house of your childhood memories.”
“Bruce.” I whispered. “He knows who we are. He knows my name.” I was spinning with rage and confusion. Hope. I let you down again. “FUCK!” I screamed, slamming the hammer against the concrete wall. Shards of the material flew around me.
“Avery, we need to get the fuck out of here! LET’S GO!” he screamed, running out the door.
“Hey, what about me? You gotta let me go!” the man cried out.
“Here’s a knife. Cut yourself free.” I said, catching up to Bruce. The sun was setting in the horizon. The open road stretched before us. This was it. Judgment day.
Luke. Bobby. I know you’re out there. And when I find you, I’m going to tear you to pieces. I’m going to burn your crew to the ground. No one will remember your name. The Darkhorse MC will be swallowed up by Courage.
It’s go time. Time to suit up.
Hope
I woke up to his disgusting laughter and plumes of cigar smoke and dust. “Tonight’s the night!” he yelled as I woke up, feeling groggy. I looked around the room and immediately noticed where I was. “Look familiar?”
“Avery’s childhood home.” I whispered. The pictures were strewn around the front of the room. Bobby’s men stood guard in the front, watching carefully for Avery or any other intruders.
“You know what today is right?” He bent down over me, wearing a nice suit and tie. I felt sick to my stomach. I couldn’t even look at him. Even if Avery did come, he’d be outnumbered. How would he win in a firefight against 10 of his men? I shuttered to think about how this would end for us.
“I don’t have a clue.” I muttered, ready to lose everything. I knew what he wanted me to say, but I refused to give him the satisfaction.
“Why, today is the day we celebrate our wonderful marriage!” he exclaimed. “Now put on a smile for our guests. You’ll need to look as pretty as you can, my little flower.” he grinned, teeth as yellow as the setting sun.
“Go to hell.” I said. “I’ll never marry you. You’ll have to kill me. I’m Avery’s girl. Always.” I said, defiant of his expectations.
He grabbed my smooth cheek and squeezed. “Then I guess I’ll just have to kill Avery and make you be my wife. I’ll force you to do whatever I want. You hear me, bitch?”
“Avery will kill you first!” I suddenly screamed, not thinking about what I was saying. “He’ll … He’ll … He’ll find you and slice you open!”
A third voice echoed in the room, “Somehow I highly doubt that.” It said. I turned to look at who it was.
“Luke!” I cried.
“It’s me.” he said. “Hello, Hope. Doing well?” He smiled, cleaning Avery’s blade. It was the one he used to slash his face.
“You bastard! You … TRAITOR!” Tears of rage were streaming down my eyes. I wanted him to apologize. I wanted him to realize what he had done. I wanted him dead.
“I’m the traitor?” he asked. “Oh, Hope. Silly little Hope. You really don’t know anything, do you? You were just a pawn all along. He used you to get to Bobby. He was never going to help you get your career back. He just wanted you to fuel his.”
“LIAR!” I screamed back with clenched fists. “He loves me! And I love him. I don’t care about my career or my stupid house. What we have is more special than anything in the world. You’ll never know what we have. You’ll never have something as real as our love!” The past was the past. Avery already acknowledged his wrongs and I forgave him. That’s what love was about. Forgiveness and sacrifice. And so far, Avery had sacrificed everything for me.
“We’ll see, I suppose. I ain’t too optimistic, I guess. You see, he betrayed me too, Hope. He promised me the world. He said we were brothers. HE MADE AN OATH!” He threw the knife next to my hand and it stuck into the wooden floor. I jumped back, surprised. “And what did I get in return? Nothing but betrayal.”
He was twisting the truth. Of course he blamed Avery for everything, but it wasn’t his fault. It was his own damn fault. He harbored too much pride for any man. “So you become friends with Bobby Farole, the most distrusted man in this town. The most brutal killer in possibly all of America. You don’t make sense, Luke. You never have. Your pride has gotten the best of you. I beg you to realize that before it’s too late.”
“It’s already too late. Don’t you see? I’ve burned all my bridges. Yep. I reckon this is the end for me. But if it ain’t, me and Bobby will usher in a new era for our brothers. The Darkhorse MC will rise up and take the world by storm. Me and Bobby were at odds before, bu
t now we have an understanding. And an understanding is all two men really need.” Bobby was sitting down in the corner, smoking and smiling like a creep.
“He’s right, Hope. Come. Join us. Be my bride.” he said.
“NEVER!” I screamed.
“It’s settled then. Grab her and hold her down, Luke. I want to have 10 minutes with my beautiful bride, but I’m afraid she’s a bit too squirmy for me right now.” he laughed.
“No … Please … don’t…” I cried. The tears fell to the dusty floor. I prayed for Avery. Where are you, my love? Please, show yourself.
Luke grabbed my hands and forced them behind my back. Bobby walked up slowly and unzipped his pants. “NO!” I screamed.
He grabbed my legs and smiled. “Don’t worry, honey. You’ll look back on tonight someday and realize just how magical it really was.” I kicked at him but it was no use. He was too strong for me.
He ran his hands up my thighs, but just as he was about to have his way with me, a voice echoed in the distance.
“Bobby Farole! It’s Angelo. Let me in.”
Angelo? Bobby scrambled to his feet as I breathed a sigh of relief. He at least spared me some time.
“Angelo? Where the hell you been?” Bobby called out. “Seems to me that you’re a traitor to both parties. How can I trust you?”
“I’m not a traitor! I’m only loyal to you, boss. I come with information about Avery. He just intercepted a package of ours and is headed back to town. We need to ambush him. We need to strike before they do!” he shouted.
“Alright. Let him in.” Bobby said, pulling up his pants.
“Bobby, I’m not too sure about this. He’s been away for too long. I’m not sure I trust him.” Luke said, eying me. “If this is part of your plan, Hope, you’re dead. Hear me?”
I was too confused and scared to say or do anything. I barely even nodded my head. Bobby ignored Luke’s suggestions, brushing it off by saying, “You’re paranoid. Ain’t no one gonna bring me down.”
Angelo walked through the gate with a pistol in his hand. “You have Hope? Good. I’m glad I made it before the party’s really started.” he said.
