by Jessie Cooke
“Your mothers bring angels into this hateful world and ruin them, and it’s my job to return them back where they belong. It’s my job to restore their peace. The world doesn’t understand that and never will, but someday when I stand at the altar, my efforts to save this world will be celebrated by those who matter.” The sick bastard thought he was some kind of saint. He stood there for a long time with a look of reverence in his eyes like he was imagining it. Ciara could see that the thought was getting him aroused.
He snapped back suddenly and said, “Drink the water, Ciara, this isn’t how you want to go. I’m sorry that I couldn’t release you the way I did the other girls, but that brother of yours needs to be taught a lesson. He needs to understand that he’s not the one who gets to decide who lives and dies…I am. I think he’ll understand that once he’s had to pick up the pieces of his little boy all over the house. What do you think?”
With an audible cry, she closed her lips around the straw. Her lips hurt, her cheeks throbbed, and her gums ached. When she sucked it felt like someone was slamming a knife into the top of her head over and over again. But once the cool liquid filled her mouth and began to take up the dry empty spaces, she couldn’t think about anything else other than how good that felt. She sucked on that straw with a vengeance and he almost had to stick a finger in her cheek to release the suction. When he pulled it back away from her he was smiling and her stomach lurched. He must have heard it gurgle because he took a step back. “That’s a good girl, Ciara. I’m going to make some lunch now. How does fresh sushi sound? Maybe a little boiled squid…”
She could hear the fading of his voice as he kept talking even after the door was closed. He’d be back soon with her squid…Her stomach went into another wild spasm and she began to dry heave. Each time her body jerked it felt like her shoulders were being pulled out of their sockets. She vowed then that if she ever got out of there alive, she was going to kill this motherfucker…very slowly.
Ciara did her best to be good the next few times Psycho Joe came into the room. She didn’t know if it was the same day, or a different one, most of the time. Time had lost all meaning and substance to her. She drank the water and ate whatever disgusting piece of crap he put into her mouth. When he wasn’t there she made herself concentrate on nothing but Noah. He was the only thing she had to hang onto in this world and if she wanted to stay alive long enough to kill Psycho Joe, she had to find a lifeline.
There was not a time that Ciara could remember in her life when Noah didn’t take care of her. She didn’t remember their first stint in foster care. Noah told her that she was three and he was almost twelve when they gave them back to “her”. She was clean and sober and working as a waitress then. Ciara had very vague memories of their mother until she was about six years old. She could remember coming home from school and catching her in bed with a man. Her mother pushed him out the door and told Ciara that she’d lost her job and the man was going to “help” her pay the bills. She made her promise not to tell Noah because he’d just be mad and mess it up and then they wouldn’t have a place to live or any food.
For several weeks Ciara lived with the knowledge that their mother wasn’t going to work when they went to school. Sometimes when she passed the building manager in the hallway he’d wink at her like they had a secret. Even at six years old it made her sick, but still she didn’t tell. She didn’t want Noah to be mad. It was a few months after that when she came home to find her mother passed out on the couch with a needle in her arm. Ciara panicked, thinking about how Noah would react. She cleaned her up as much as she could and took the needle out of her arm before he got home so he would think that she had just had a rough day at work and was taking a nap.
Finding her shooting up, or high, began to happen more routinely and the creepy building manager even started making passes at Ciara, as young as she was. She knew it wasn’t right and one day when her mother was too high to notice, the pervert tried to kiss her. She kicked him in the shin and ran. That was the day that she finally told her brother what was going on. He was about fourteen at that time and Ciara remembered him going absolutely ballistic on their mother. He unleashed fourteen years of anger and disgust in a rant that lasted for hours. The next morning when Ciara woke up their mother was gone and she and Noah both had a feeling that she wasn’t coming back. Ciara felt guilty for not keeping things to herself and Noah felt guilty for unleashing all of that hate on their mom. But their biggest fear was that the authorities were going to put them in foster care and separate them.
Ciara thought that was the point where Noah developed his detective skills. Somehow he tracked down a police officer who had been at the house the first time they were taken from their mother. Ciara didn’t know all of the details of how it came about, but the officer ended up taking them in and getting legal guardianship of them. His name was Randy and he was divorced. He didn’t have any children of his own, but he was good to them. Living in a house that wasn’t falling down around them and where there was food in the cabinets and refrigerator was a new and welcome experience. Once Ciara got over the culture shock of it all, she began to let herself believe that life was finally going to be good for them.
She had just turned nine years old and Noah was almost eighteen when once again their worlds came crashing down around them. They came home from school one day to find Randy dead in the kitchen; he’d had a heart attack. Noah called the ambulance, who called the police, who showed up with a social worker. It was the second time in her life that she saw her brother lose it. They wouldn’t let him keep her because he wasn’t eighteen yet and he had no way to support them. Ciara spent another three years in hell and by the time she was twelve and Noah was twenty-one, she had decided it was his fault for letting them take her there.
Noah was granted emancipation his senior year in high school. He managed to graduate and go on to community college and attend the police academy. When he was twenty-one he got a job with the Phoenix PD and came to get her. By then she was an angry adolescent who had been exposed to way too much of the grown-up world, and handling her was a full-time job for him. By the time she was fourteen she had run away three times. She did her first stint in juvenile hall for theft at fifteen. She was using marijuana and popping pills all along, but at sixteen she hooked up with a guy who promised to take her to the moon. She let him put a needle in her arm and from that point on heroin was all she lived for. It took away all of the pain and insecurities that she had been struggling with her entire life and, most of all, it made her not give a shit about the disappointed look on her brother’s face every time he saw her.
Eventually Ciara ran away for good and started turning tricks so that she could get her fix every day. The first time she was arrested for solicitation Noah came to pick her up, and she told him to fuck off. She told him everything that was wrong with her life was his fault for making their mother leave. She told him that she hated him. That was twelve years ago and yet there still hadn’t been a single time in between that she needed him and he didn’t find a way to show up. He saw her at her absolute worst and his eyes never held anything when he looked at her other than love. Ciara realized then and there that the only thing she wanted any longer was to live long enough to see that look in his eyes one more time and to be able to tell him that for once in her life, she had fought for him.
21
Collin had just ridden up to the club and turned off his bike when his phone rang. It had been three days since he told his parents he was joining up with the Skulls, and today was the day. He’d spent his days helping Noah, Finn, Bubba, and Gaston look for Ciara. Jace had told Noah he was welcome to use the guys as long as he needed them. Unfortunately, they still had no clue where she might be.
He pulled the phone off his belt and saw that it was his sister. Grimacing because he still hadn’t talked to her, and he knew it was likely that one of his family members had, he slid to answer it and stepped off the bike as he said, “Hello, sis.”
>
“Don’t you hello, sis me!” Well, at least he knew she knew.
“What’s up, Ava? I’m actually kind of busy.”
“What’s up? You told the rest of the family three days ago that you’re quitting your job and becoming part of a motorcycle gang…”
“Club, Ava. They’re not a gang.”
“Whatever, Collin Kelly! Have you lost your mind? And why am I the last to know? Even Noah knows!”
“Who told you?”
“Keira! My own family didn’t even tell me.”
“Did she tell you that they kicked me out of the house? That not one of them defended me when Dad basically disowned me?”
She hesitated and then said, “No, Collin, there’s no way Dad meant that if he said it. He’s just upset.”
“He meant it, Ava, and the reason I’ve put off telling you is because I didn’t want to risk losing you too.”
“Jesus, Collin, just because I don’t agree with your decision doesn’t mean I’d ever walk away from you. You know how much family means to me…to all of us. Daddy will cool down, and maybe you’ll rethink this…”
“No, Ava. I’ve thought about this a lot. I never wanted to be a firefighter for the rest of my life; I just didn’t know what I did want to do. Jace is going to teach me how to work on bikes, and maybe someday I can learn to customize them. I want to do something with my life that makes me happy…”
“Why can’t you learn motorcycles and all of that without joining a gang?”
“Club,” he corrected again. “Don’t judge them, Ava. You talk a lot about family, and to you that means blood…but these guys are like a big family. They take care of each other, they’re loyal to each other, and just because one is different, they don’t walk away.”
“You know I don’t like to judge, Collin. I’m just worried about you. What about your future?”
“Dad asked the same thing. This is going to be my future, and I don’t see the problem with that. The house in suburbia and 2.5 kids…that’s their dream, Ava, not mine.”
“You’re sure, Collin? I mean…if you quit your job and want to go back later, being associated with a ga––, I’m sorry, a motorcycle club, that will keep you from being rehired.”
“I’m sure, Ava. The night that Brian took you, before we found out, Sean and I were fighting that house fire on the south side. I was working the engine and he was inside, as usual.” Collin’s job usually kept him out of the fire. He was the mechanically inclined one. He was the one that made sure the engine was working, the hoses and other equipment were available and in good condition, and everyone got where they needed to be with what they needed to do their job. Sean was the one that breathed fire, and lived for it. Collin’s fear was that someday he would die for it too…and he’d have to be the one to tell their parents that one of their sons was dead.
“The radio went silent for a while, Ava, and all I could think was that Sean was going to die, and I’d be the one that had to see him…burned to a crisp. Once I started thinking about that, and then about being the one that had to tell Mom and Dad, that was when I really realized I was only doing this job for everyone else…not myself. It doesn’t make me happy, Ava. I want to be happy.”
Ava’s said, “I get that…but an MC?”
“Ask your boyfriend who has been out driving around for eight or twelve hours a day this week looking for Ciara. That ‘gang’ you think I’m crazy for wanting to be a part of—they’re not bad people, Ava. Finn explained it to me one day when I first met him. He said that they’re all just lost souls, looking for a place where they fit in. They fit together and once they consider you a part of their family, they’ll do anything for you. Jace won’t take any money from Noah for helping him look for his sister…because he considers him family. I just need you to keep an open mind, sis. I need you to trust that I’m not an idiot and I know what I’m doing.”
Ava said, “I never knew you felt like that, Collin…lost.”
“I love our family, you know that. But I’ve always been so different from our brothers and Dad. I’ve always kind of felt like the piece of the puzzle that didn’t fit. But at the club, Ava…I fit.”
Ava was quiet again for a long time. Collin could see Finn standing at the entrance to the club. They were waiting for him. Finally she said, “I hope it works out for you. I want you to be happy, but safe. I do appreciate what they’re doing for Noah. You’ll tell them that for me?”
Collin nodded. “Yeah. I will. Are you and I okay?”
“Of course we are. We’ll always be okay. I love you, Collin.”
“I love you too, sis. I have to go. If you see Noah, tell him I’ll be out later tonight, looking some more.”
“Be careful. I hope he finds her, but I wouldn’t want anything happening to you out there.” Collin hung up feeling better than he had in days. At least there was one member of the family that wasn’t going to turn their back on him.
“Hey,” Finn said as he reached the club. “You ready for this?”
“Damn straight,” Collin said. Finn led him inside and Collin saw the two other guys that Jace was making prospects that day. They had both been hanging around at the shop and they seemed like cool guys to Collin. The other twenty or so members seemed to all be there, as well as Jace and Beck. Collin hadn’t had much contact with Beck, but he’d heard stories. It was hard to reconcile the pretty woman holding the baby in her arms with the things he’d heard about how badass she was. She stood on one side of Jace, and Streak, his SA, stood on the other. Collin didn’t know Streak well yet either. He seemed to be all business, but Collin had heard whispers about his old lady being his stepsister and he was curious. He supposed everyone had a past.
“Okay,” Jace said, standing at the head of the room. “It looks like everyone is here. First I want to introduce you guys to our newest prospects. This is Bruiser,” he said of the first guy, a short, muscular blond with a background in Tae Kwon Do. It was how he got the road name he was using. “Next we have Ashkii.” Ashkii was a Navajo who lived on the Navajo Nation and was friends with a guy named AJ that did a lot of construction work around the club. “And lastly, Collin. As usual, I’ve checked their backgrounds and they’ve all been hanging around for a while. I think they’ll all make great Skulls…but,” Jace said, looking at the three men, “you’ll have to prove it first. I don’t have any set amount of time for my prospects. You’ll get a patch if and when my executive board and I decide you deserve it. I hope you all read the bylaws you were given because this club is serious about our rules. A club is only as good as its members…and I also want you to know that prospecting in the proper context is crucial to the sustainability of a club.
“Now for those of you who haven’t spent a lot of time around clubs before you met us, I’ll tell you that the number one thing people attracted to an MC are seeking out is acceptance. So in other words, we accept all kinds of people, and we don’t judge based on background. We have people who have come from law enforcement, ex-drug addicts, ex-convicts…we coexist and we have each other’s backs, no matter what. You’re not all going to like each other, or agree with everything the other does…but you will be loyal to one another above all else and at all times, no exceptions. If there’s a problem, my door is always open, but my say is final. You have the right to leave at any time…but even if you choose to do so, you’ll be expected to remain loyal to any secrets you might have learned while you were here. Any questions so far?” Collin and the others said no, so Jace went on.
“You’ll be expected to put forth a lot of effort as a prospect. When you don’t have something to do, find something. There is always something to do around here if you look hard enough. You’ll be expected to attend meetings, but you won’t be allowed to attend church or vote on anything until you get patched in. When I call you, show up on time. Be ready to go. Bike gassed up, in good shape and ready to ride. You’re each other’s backup on the road as well, and having someone broken down on the side
of the road because they didn’t take care of their bike puts everyone else at risk. Above all, prospecting is a learning process and you’ll be expected to ask questions…but not question. Does that make sense?”
Someone must have looked confused because Jace said, “Ask me or any of the guys questions about how things work…but do not question the decisions that have been made by your executive board, or voted on by your brothers. When you put on this kutte and go out into the community, you’re representing this club…not just Phoenix, but all of the Skulls, and your behavior reflects back on all of us. If you get yourself into trouble while you’re wearing your prospecting kutte, I might assume that you’ll do the same once you get a patch…and I might decide not to give that patch to you; remember that. Finally, as important as loyalty is, there’s one other thing that is just as important and that’s respect. You’ll be expected to respect each other, your brothers, and the authority of those of us that wear an executive patch above all. That’s all I got, any questions?”
The three men shook their heads and Beck took the kutte that Jace was still holding in his hand. She walked over and handed it to Ashkii. The tall, quiet, dark-skinned man was beaming. His smile was so bright that it was almost blinding and Collin couldn’t help but smile as he watched the other man slip on the kutte and trace his fingers lovingly over his name stitched on the front of it. Beck handed Bruiser his and he looked almost as happy as he slid his on. Collin got his last and he felt a sense of pride when he slipped it on.
When she finished handing out the leather kuttes she said, “I hope y’all were paying close attention to what my old man said. There’s one thing I want to add. A club like ours gets dozens of requests from people who want to become prospects. My old man, your president, could fill this club up with those dozens every month. But, instead he carefully evaluates each request and his decision about who he does pick does not come lightly. So y’all need to understand that if he picked you, it was because he can see your potential…but you’ll have to be the ones to live up to that potential…and not disappoint my old man. I don’t take my old man’s being disappointed lightly.”
