by Evelyn Glass
“Hmm.”
“What do you mean, hmm?” Grizzly asks.
“Wait a sec,” I say. “Did I just recount my two years of torture to satisfy this bastard?” I speak to Grizzly, but I wave a hand at Clint.
“This bastard has a few suspicions concerning your time with the Skulls, if that is what you are so eloquently trying to say.”
“Don’t talk to me about eloquence,” I say. “I read two books a week in that fuckin’ hellhole. It was the only thing they let us do. I just don’t pretty up my talk to try and pretend I’m smarter than I am, pretentious fuck.”
Clint brings his hand to his chest in mock offence, rolling his eyes. Then he lays his hand on the table, leaning over. The more he leans, the more I think about how easy it would be to jump forward and grab his throat and tear it out, tongue and all, and then throw it into the trash where it belongs. But I want his job, and a VP has to stay calm under pressure. A VP has to be a business man, a man who knows how to navigate bloodshed and conversation in equal measure.
“Listen,” Clint says. “Everyone must have their theories about how you, a simple courier—” I swallow dozens of retorts when he refers to me like this. “—was able to survive two years in one of the most infamously deranged and depraved and sadistic clubs in America. The Flaming Skulls are known throughout the country as barbarians who live to torture and abuse. So you will forgive me—and some of your fellow club members, though I will not name them—for entertaining the possibility that you might’ve turned traitor while you were over there.” Before I can respond, he lifts his hands in defense. “Now, now, nobody would blame you for colluding with your captors if your survival was at stake, but your survival is no longer at stake, so if you were forced into any unsavory alliance, now would be the time to disclose it.”
The three of us are quiet as we let Clint’s accusation hang in the air. Then, slowly, I rise to my feet.
“You think I was at a fuckin’ holiday camp?” I say, shrugging off my jacket. “You think I was over there doing a dance and playing checkers and having the time of my life?” I begin unbuttoning my shirt.
“There is no reason to get naked,” Clint says, a laugh in his voice, a laugh I’d love to silence with a bullet.
“Wait,” Grizzly says, watching.
When my shirt is unbuttoned, I let it drop to the floor with my jacket. “If I was at a holiday camp, these were my only souvenirs.”
I lift my arms, displaying the layered scars, old and new, which cover my torso. My tattoos, which spread from my back all over my arms, are obscured here and there with white scar tissue. Some of the scars are small, hard to see, but if you look close enough you can see the marks of my time in the Skulls’ cell. The worst of them are on my back: a nasty gouge from a meat cleaver buried into my shoulder blade which took five months to heal; a series of whip marks which look like somebody tried to scrawl out part of my tattoo with a knife; and a bullet-hole just to the right of my spine, which would’ve paralyzed me had it hit its mark.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Grizzly mutters, as I spin around, displaying all my scars. “Alright, kid. Alright. Goddamn.”
I pull on my shirt, shrug on my jacket, and return to my seat.
Then I stare at Clint, waiting for him to admit that maybe, just maybe, I’m a true Road Rager.
But he just strokes his chin, and then mutters: “I am not saying that this is the case, but is it not possible that these are willfully inflicted wounds, in order to trick us?”
I’ve contained my rage for long enough. When he says this, it explodes from me. Vision a blur, movements automated, somehow I’m around the desk with Clint’s neck in my hand. Face close to his face, growling, staring into his beady eyes and seeing the abject fear there. “I was fuckin’ left there to rot. Left to rot like a dog, left to be starved and beaten and fuckin’ toyed with and you wanna tell me it was all make-believe for you?” I growl the last word, and squeeze his throat even tighter.
Then Grizzly has his hand on my shoulder. “Let him go,” he says.
There’s something about Grizzly’s voice, a note of control, that makes men do as he says. I’m the same, usually, but right now my rage is too powerful. I want nothing more than to crush this man’s throat to bone-blood dust.
Then Grizzly says, “Think of Bri. You were always friends, growing up. Think how upset she’d be to learn you’d shot yourself in the foot the day you get back.”
That gets through to me. Brat, snatched away from me when after two years I have a chance to be with her again.
I let go of Clint’s throat. “Sorry, buddy,” I say, with a light chuckle that Clint doesn’t reciprocate. I turn to Grizzly. “It’s been a long ride. I’m tired. You got a spare room in that fancy new dormitory wing?”
Grizzly nods.
I leave, but not before Clint, his voice hoarse, calls to my back: “Better lock the door, Slick.”
I clench my fist, but I think of Brat, of my desire to be VP, and bow my head and leave the office. Sometimes, fighting is the answer. But sometimes, even for men like me, thinking is the right choice.
It’s time I did a little more of that, I reckon.
Chapter Four
Bri
After a week of Slick being back, I’ve rarely seen him. I’ve passed him in the club and I’ve serviced his bike, but we’ve never gotten as close as when he first returned, when we almost kissed. I don’t know if it has something to do with Charlotte, or if he is just busy with club stuff, but either way it annoys me. Perhaps unfairly—it’s not like I throw myself at him or anything—but it still annoys me. We were close, once, closer than I’ve ever been with anybody. Now it’s like something’s changed in him, like his time in Seattle has left an indelible mark on who he is as a person. I am beginning to think that the Slick who left and the Slick who returned might not be exactly the same man.
“What are you doing in there?” Heather says, banging on the bathroom door. “This babysitter needs to piss!”
Perhaps sitting on the toilet isn’t the best place to reflect on all this, though. I finish up, wash my hands, and then join Charlotte in the living room. She’s obsessed with her picture book, and keeps telling me about pandas. Cute as hell, don’t get me wrong, but I’m also long overdue for a night out. The last time I went out was around four months ago, for Christmas. Now it’s springtime and I think it’s time I flowered, but just a little. When Heather returns—navigating the discarded toys and books on the floor—she sits on the couch and makes a cooing noise at Charlotte.
“So, are you excited about tonight?” she asks.
“I’m just going to the bar with some of the club people,” I say. “It’s no big deal.”
“Maybe you’ll meet a man,” Heather says. “A non-club man. Maybe a banker, or a baker; I’m not particular, to be honest, but I would love to see you with a man who doesn’t earn his living in oil and blood.”
I sigh, and just let her continue.
“I never approved of your mother getting involved with Grizzly, and I don’t approve of you getting involved with those leather-wearing bandits.”
“They’re not as bad as you think, Heather . . . especially Dad.”
Heather blushes, and turns away. She made the mistake of telling me one night when she was drunk that she thinks Dad is handsome, for a leather-wearing bandit, that is. “Why don’t you do some online dating,” Heather continues, plowing ahead. Outside, the street is silent, inside, the apartments around us are silent, Charlotte is unusually silent as she watches Heather, captivated, so Heather’s tirade, for the moment, is the only noise in existence. What a tortuous existence. “Do some online dating and find a nice, kind, normal man. Find a man who knows how to behave in a civilized way. You are not a Jane; you don’t need a Tarzan. The days when a man had to sweat and swear and spit and fight to be a man are long, long gone, kiddo. When you’re an old bitch like me, you’ll understand what really matters, and you’ll wish you listened.”
She rolls her eyes. “For now,” she says. “Anyway, shouldn’t you be going? Your den of bandits will be expecting you, won’t they?”
“Ha-ha, you’re hilarious, Heather.”
She tosses her dyed red hair, some of the roots flashing grey at the top of her head. “Don’t tell me things I already know,” she mutters.
After kissing Charlotte goodbye, I leave the apartment and take a cab to the bar. It’s called the Standing Irishman, with a picture of a leprechaun so drunk he can’t stand. His little cartoon ass is propped between two kegs of beer. Inside, it’s about as standard and dive-bar-like as they come, with a long sticky bar, a jukebox blaring old rock tunes, a pool table that’s seen better days, and groups of bikers and truckers and short-skirt-wearing girls falling over and dancing and laughing and drinking. I’m dressed conservatively, with a knee-length skirt and a shirt showing no cleavage, but even so as I approach the pool table where the Rage guys and girls are, I get a few looks. Mostly from Zack, Bryan, and Pascal. Zack is black-haired and black-bearded, a huge bear of a man who looks like a younger version of Dad, which is an immediate no-no. Bryan has a cool-looking scar down the side of his face, all the way to his lip, and wears his leather like a soldier wears his jacket. He has the same way of standing as a soldier, too; he received the scar in Afghanistan, before joining the club. Pascal is a new member, recently patched, a tanned, tall, blonde-haired man with murky blue eyes and a five o’clock shadow.
I ignore them for the first part of the night, instead talking with the girls in the corner, but then Zack swaggers over and says, in his deep bear’s voice, “What do you think, Bri? Reckon you can take me?” He hefts the pool cue.
I’m a little tipsy, it’s true, but that’s what tonight is all about, isn’t it? I stand up and snatch the pool cue from him. Pascal and Bryan stand off to one side, watching. I feel their eyes on me, especially when I lean over to break . . . their eyes lingering on my ass, my legs. I would be lying if I said I didn’t like the attention, that a little harmless flirting is a whole lot of fun when you’ve been cloistered up for months, but there’s no way I’m taking any of these men home. None of them are good enough for Charlotte, that’s for sure. But a tumble in the dark . . . I let my mind turn to the possibility. It’s not like Slick has shown any interest, anyway.
I beat Zack—I think the bearded giant let me win—and then I play Pascal. He is the most handsome of the three, without a doubt. He looks like the sort of man you expect to see in a well-tailored suit, walking up and down Wall Street. He has a calm, self-assured smile as he sets up the balls. Then somebody puts the newest Beyoncé on the jukebox and all at once the place is alive with eagerly dancing women and reluctantly dancing bikers. Pascal comes around the side of the table, that self-assured smile on his lips, and says, “You look beautiful this evening, Brianna.”
“Thank you, Pascal,” I say, realizing that he’s standing very close to me, his leather almost touching my dress. I take a step back. Before Slick returned, Pascal and I were going to have sex, I’m sure of it. There was some tension there, some attraction. But Slick . . . I need to stop comparing every man I meet with Slick, I decide. Nobody is ever going to measure up, so what’s the point? He’s shown zero interest; he gets zero consideration. Anyway, it’s not like I’m going to marry this man. I take a step forward, just a little one, so that my dress and his jacket touch. “I’m proud of you,” I tell him. “For getting patched, I mean.”
In the background, the music blares; somebody giggles. A man laughs.
“Thank you,” Pascal says. “I was thinking, Brianna, you should let me take you to dinner.”
“Dinner? Is that what you want? Dinner?” I smile wickedly as I speak, feeling flirty and fun, thinking that maybe I’ll get that tumble in the dark tonight. “I thought you were braver than that, Pascal.”
“Braver? A man would have to be brave to take you on, Brianna. You’re one hell of a lady.”
Is it bad if I am entertaining the idea of having a one night stand with this man? Is it bad that I want a piece of temporary pleasure? As long as he knows . . .
“If we’re going to do this,” I say, feeling tipsy and dangerous and uncaged, “you need to know that I don’t want anything more. And I don’t want it to become a big thing.”
Pascal grins. “You read my mind,” he says.
Then he leans down, coming close to me. But something happens when his lips are almost on mine, when I can taste his breath; I change my mind. Suddenly, all of it seems wrong. Just as quickly as it seemed flirty and fun, it becomes something I have absolutely no interest in doing. I step away.
“I’m sorry,” I mutter.
He follows me across the table. “What?” he says, confused.
“I don’t want—I’m sorry.”
“I thought we—what the fuck?”
“I know, I’m . . .”
But he isn’t saying what the fuck to me; he’s saying it because the music has screeched into silence.
Even from across the room at the entrance, his voice is loud. And even through the crowd of uncertain dancers, I can see him: glimpses of him, arms at his sides, staring through the people at me and Pascal. From where he’s standing, it must look like Pascal and I have just kissed, or were just about to kiss. “What the fuck is this?” Slick calls, striding into the room, dropping the jukebox plug. He has a look in his eyes like a wild animal, unable to control himself, hands shaking.
He’s halfway to me when Zack and Bryan step into his path. The other guys back away from him, but Zack and Bryan must be able to guess why he’s here, why he’s angry.
“You don’t own her,” Zack growls.
I move away from the pool table, going to the dance floor and joining the crowd that gathers around the three men—four, now, because Pascal joins Zack and Bryan, the three of them boxing Slick in. They’re going to kill him. If fighting starts, these three men will beat him to a pulp. It doesn’t matter how tough you are; when three hardened fighters come at you, you’re not going to fare well.
“Wait!” I cry. “Don’t fight! Please don’t fight! Slick, it’s not what you think!”
I shouldn’t have to defend myself, but even so I feel the need to. For some reason the idea of Slick thinking that I’m with Pascal makes me want to scream at Slick that I’m not and I’ve never been: that he’s still my Sky and I remember that night we shared and I remember wanting him for every day of my life since I was a teenager. And Pascal, before Slick came in, following me down the table . . . I don’t think he would’ve tried anything, not with all these bikers here, but the fact that he didn’t back off right away . . . I shiver, and watch, and wish all of them would just forget they were bikers and fighters and walk away.
Slick, not facing me, says, “I never said I fucking owned her. I just want to know what three fucks like you think you’re doing with Boss’s daughter. How do you reckon he’d take the news that a new-patched fuck like you,” turning to Pascal, “was making moves on his daughter, eh?”
“Don’t play games with us, you traitor fuck,” Zack says. “You don’t have any more pull with Grizzly than we do. We’ve all heard the fuckin’ news. Slick Barkley, courier turned traitor, working his ass off for the Skulls for two years—”
“Say one more word,” Slick interrupts. “Say one more goddamn word.”
Zack laughs. “What’re you goin’ to do, fight all of us?”
Slick takes a step back, lifts his hands in a boxer’s stance, and then nods his head. “Come on then, you shitheads.”
I try and scream at them to stop, but my voice is lost in the hoots and hollers of the crowd. Zack dives for Slick, laughing as he does it as though Slick is nothing to worry about, but then his laughter dies as Slick bobs to the left so fast his movements are difficult to track. He bobs, dodges, and then strikes with a solid right hook which sends Zack sprawling in pain and shock. Then Pascal and Bryan are on Slick,
beating him madly, but their fists hit his forearms as he cradles his head. Even over the screaming, I’m sure I hear Slick cursing, grunting. Then he spins, using Bryan’s outstretched arm as a handle of some kind, and somehow ends up behind them. It’s like an MMA move, fast and efficient. He grabs a bottle from the bar and smashes it over the back of Pascal’s head, turning the blonde hair crimson, and then swipes out Bryan’s legs with one brutal kick. When he turns, Zack is on him again, swinging a pool cue in wide arcs which smash the glasses and bottles on the bar. Slick ducks, takes a slap across the cheek, and then catches the cue mid-swing, wrenches it from Zack’s grip, and smashes him over the head. The cue snaps. Zack collapses to his knees, and then onto his face.
All of this happens in a matter of seconds, leaving me to look at the moaning, horizontal bikers in disbelief. Slick, bleeding from a cut on his face, walks over to me and offers his hand. “Come with me, Brat,” he says.
“What the hell?” It’s Clint’s voice, from the entrance.
