Forbidden Beauty

by Abriella Blake

  Though I'm no angel.

  It took a moment for the full events of last night to swim to the surface of my memory, but when they emerged, I smiled: the redhead. Her hopeful eyes, her funny little pout, her tits like two perky melons. Gisele Owens. I'd had redheads before, but none so brazen as all this. Won't you come for a drink with me, Carter? ...I came here to warn you, Carter... The image of her coasting along the shoreline on that Street Bob was almost too much...oh, she made me laugh, that girl.

  Rising off the couch with a crick in my neck, I waited for a second for the hangover I assumed was forthcoming. Took another second to remember that I hadn't had anything to drink the night before. That, somehow, made it all the more difficult to believe—I'd really passed a whole night, just shooting the shit with that girl? Well, shooting the shit, among other things.

  “You up in there, princess?” the little man called. “'Cause I have a message for you. Someone called from the Knights. Wolverine.”

  “What is it, bud?” Sitting up, I reached for a handy pack of cigarettes. Scotty's shitty brand: Marlboro Lights.

  “They're camped far North, almost to Georgia. They heard about your troubles, though. If you give the go ahead, they'll head South.”

  “Hell, I don't even know who we're supposed to be fighting yet. Can you just tell 'em to hold steady?”

  “I don't know why you don't get a fucking phone and tell 'em yourself.”

  Scotty had more to complain about, but I wasn't listening. My memory was still drunk on the redhead—the softness of her fingers, the clarity of her gaze. We'd sat on this couch almost all night. Her flinty, daring eyes were just like Claudette Colbert's.

  “Seems pretty clear cut to me, anyways,” Scotty said, appearing finally by the screen door. He looked like he'd slept well. That was good. I felt terrible about the wreckage in his bar, even though I wasn't sure how we could have planned for these new unsavory fucking characters. “You want to get the fuck out of town,” my host continued. “There's no reason for you to stick around Miami, unless the Knights want to pick a fight with these new freaks and the Coffin Cheaters. For no good reason at all, mind you.”

  For no good reason at all, huh? That little sweet butt had driven through the dead of night, against the wishes of her MC, all to warn me about a raid. I remembered her taste, from the other night. I remembered her spazzy, stubborn way of making conversation. I remembered how she'd kissed me.

  Farther back still, I remembered her frightened little face. The dancing bears on her childhood nightgown. I remembered the sound of bullets raining by in the dark night.

  I was a kid that night, too—couldn't have been more than twenty, twenty two. I'd joined up with the Styx only weeks before, fresh out of my “contract” with the Hernandez brothers' garage. Our then-president had told all us new recruits, “this is for your initiation, you little sons of bitches. I want you to run in there and put a cap in every Coffin Cheater you can find. I've got beef with these animals.” The other boys had done what they'd been told—the club promised us a brotherhood, after all, and most of us would have killed then for a family—but I'd hung back. I didn't want to kill anybody—least, I didn't want to kill anybody that hadn't done anything to me directly.

  I'd planned to hang back, but when the bullets started, we all ran for cover. Most of the boys retreated, in fact. The Cheaters were better prepared than we'd expected them to be. A few men went down. I might have made for my bike and the open road if it wasn't for the strangest sound—that of two crying kids. Girls. Naturally, that kind of thing wasn't too common in an MC clubhouse. I followed the sounds to a little room with a bunkbed in it, where I saw two pretty red-heads with their hair in braids, screaming and running wild while the windows around them caved to enemy fire.

  I didn't think. I pushed them down. They were screaming, 'Papa, Papa,' but I didn't let them up. No kid was getting shot on my watch. And even then, I could tell which one she was: the little sparkplug. The one that wouldn't stop hollering for her family, no matter what.

  “It was fate,” is some pansy-ass buzzword shit, but this coincidence couldn't be brushed aside easy. I'd had plenty of women. I'd driven through plenty of towns. But what were the odds that the little peanut I'd saved in the night, the little girl who'd taught me to never raise my gun in anger to another man—what were the odds that she'd come streaking down the highway one day, looking fly as all hell? Not so high. Gisele Owens was old lady material. I wasn't about to leave that in the dust.

  “I'm not skipping town just yet, Scotty.” I said, rising. “You see, there's this girl...”

  Chapter Thirteen

  * * *

  Gisele

  My twin and I crept out into the late morning, our heads bent low so as not to attract attention. We needn't have bothered. It was kind of amazing: in all the hubbub, no one seemed to have noticed that the other Owens girl had come home. She'd rode in on a jalopy of a Fat Boy, parked the bike in the garage, and come knocking on my door all without speaking to any other club members. Just another cruel reminder of how insignificant the men of this club found the women to be. They were all so single-minded, they couldn't even recognize one of their own.

  When we reached the hangar-sized cement lodge where all the bikes were usually stored, I hesitated for a moment on the threshold. I can't explain it now—it was some kind of premonitory chill I experienced, some deep conviction running through my body. Gazing into the gloom of the garage, I knew we weren't alone.

  “Someone's been in here.”

  “No shit, Sherlock. Every single Coffin Cheater tore through not an hour ago.” Tati gazed at me. “You feeling okay, hon? Do we need to lie down before we head out?”

  “We can't wait,” I murmured. “Never mind. Just grab your bike and let's go, okay? For some reason, this place is giving me the creeps.”

  My Street Bob had been rudely shoved to the furthermost part of the garage, requiring me to walk some paces into the dark room. It usually didn't make any difference; I didn't know quite why I was being such a chickenshit. But I took two steps into the gloom, wary of my slight wine buzz—then I heard a rustling behind me. As fast as I turned, my assailant was faster. He was dressed in black leather from head to toe, but for a lurid clown's mask covering his face.

  I couldn't hear what he said, but the freak spoke words as he pinned me down hard against the concrete. My temple started to throb again, in the same place where I'd been hit before. Behind me, Tati was screaming. I was dizzy, my vision fractured around the face above me. Whoever he was, his hands were thick. They closed around my throat, while my legs flailed below me.

  “Get the fuck OFF OF HER!” my sister screamed above me. I was kicking and kicking, struggling to lift my arms, but the masked man was too fast for me. He was too strong. I felt weak below him, I felt all the energy draining away from my muscles.

  Then the masked man leaned in close.

  “Didn't know they made them this pretty in the Coffin Cheaters,” he screeched into my ear, his voice so loud and shrill that it seemed to reverberate in my skull. I tried to scream, but the full weight of his hands was pressing into my windpipe. Near the sides of my face, my vision was beginning to swim and ebb. The world, in my peripherals, was growing dark.

  Then came the loudest, closest sound I'd ever heard. We both seized up for a moment, the attacker and me.

  For a full few seconds, I thought I was dead. I watched a trickle of dark blood arrive under the masked man's hands, and spread across my chest. I waited for an intuitive throb of pain, for the world to grow completely dark. I was too scared to think properly, to weak to attempt movement.

  But in another few seconds, I felt the grip slacken around my neck. I traced the blood to a damp patch in the center of my attacker's chest. Above me, I heard him wheezing for breath. I heard the sounds of a person choking, slowly, on their own bile.

  And as soon as I'd processed this sudden, horrible turn of events, I found my sister's face above me,
slowly replacing the masked man's. Tati was dragging my attacker's limp body to the ground, her face fixed with shock. Once she'd removed all of his weight and dropped him into a heap beside me, we sat silent for a moment, breathing ragged, echoing breaths. I tried not to listen to the last jerky gasps of the masked man, but I understood that he was dying. And from the sound of it, there was nothing we could do.

  “Are you okay?” Tati whispered finally, her voice hoarse. Her question reminded me of my own body, and at once I felt the feeling resume in my petrified limbs. My neck was sore, my chest ached, by temple throbbed—but it seemed like I could wiggle my fingers, my toes. I slowly pulled myself into a sitting position. I could see everything around me. In vivid color, even.

  “I'm okay. Are you okay?”

  Tati nodded, though she was shaking like a leaf and pouring sweat. My gaze turned reluctantly to the dead man in the room. He no longer quivered, and the pool of blood beside him had grown wide and deep-looking.

  “Did you know that man?” Tati breathed.

  “No. I've never seen him before in my life.”

  My twin looked relieved. By mutual, silent consensus, we crept over to the corpse. He looked like a rag doll, in that stupid mask. Gingerly, I bent down and lifted the plastic's corners.

  It was a young kid my sister had shot—he couldn't have been more than our age. His face was relaxed now, colorless. His hair was a sandy brown. His nose, aquiline, reminded me of Carter's—and something about that was tremendously sad.

  “I didn't know what to do, Gizzy. He was going to kill you...”

  “I know that. Thank you,” I said to my sister. Looking over, I saw that she was still shaking, violently. “Seriously, T. You saved my life. I just wish I knew what he wanted, or what he was doing here.”

  Tati tilted her head, and looked at me a little strangely. “You've never seen the masked riders before?”

  I shook my head.

  Bending down, my sister gently lifted and set aside the dead man's crumpled arms. On his braided leather vest—swinging so limply now, around his skinny rib cage—Tati indicated a coat of arms, embroidered just over the left breast, among the fringe. A ghoulish, gaping skull was pictured there, with a red-eyed snake emerging from its jaws.

  “He's from the Satan's Refuse MC,” Tati continued. “We've seen these guys all over the highways in Missouri. They're like The Warriors—they raise hell from town to town, they're always dressed up in some kind of freaky costume. I couldn't place them, but I figured you'd be able to. I figured the Coffin Cheaters would've seen 'em before.”

  She dropped the boy's wrist, and it fell against the concrete with a sickening, wet flop. I fought the urge to retch.

  Unsavory characters...

  “We should check to see if there's more around,” Tati was saying now, though her voice sounded so far away. “They're like roaches. If we've got one, three more'll come to his funeral. The band ran into some trouble with these guys in Kansas.”

  I'd never wanted to kill anyone. I'd prayed and prayed that I'd never see another man shot above me, for me, the way my father had been. This stupid gangster on the ground—he looked so small. I imagined him pumped for his previous evening, raising hell at Casablanca. Had he been the one to slash my sweet Carter across his forearm? This train of violence—when the fuck was it going to end?

  “I'm serious, Gizzy. It's strange enough that he knew to come here, when that moat is supposed to keep us hidden from the road. We've got to protect ourselves. You understand that, right?” She was pleading with me now, still gripping her weapon tight.

  “Let me see that gun.”

  “Why?”

  “Just let me see it!”

  Tati forked over a sleek, light, ultra-compact pistol.

  “When did you start carrying this?”

  “Are you kidding? Everyone's got a gun. If I didn't have a weapon, I'd never sleep easy in a cheap motel. You know what kinds of riff-raff those musicians hang around with?”

  “Don't use it again. Hear that? I'm serious. I don't want any more bloodshed.”

  Scowling slightly, my twin clicked the safety of her firearm. We gazed for another moment at the prone body on the ground. Then, Tati bent low, as if to move the dead man.

  “No,” I countered. “Leave the body, just as it is. Leave it so the mask and the crest are visible. Satan's Refuse is responsible for all the recent attacks in the area, and now we can finally prove it. The council will have to believe what they can plainly see.”

  “But if we leave him here, they'll be able to figure out that we killed someone,” Tati said. “That I killed someone.” Her voice shook and shook.

  “Then maybe they won't try to fuck with us again,” I said. To my surprise, my voice came out strong and clear. I suddenly felt completely in control of the situation, for the first time in days—possibly weeks. It occurred to me that we'd survived this much. It seemed now, with this would-be murderer dead at our feet, as if there was nothing more to fear.

  “I love you, Tati,” I told my twin, bringing her damp frame towards me. She was soaked through with an anxious sweat. “And you saved my life. Thank you, always.”

  “You'd have done it for me, dumbass,” she sobbed into my shoulder.

  Though I felt sick looking down at the man we'd killed, I knew she was right. I would have killed for my sister, no fucking question.

  Chapter Fourteen

  * * *

  I sped all the way to Casablanca, still bouncing with adrenaline from the show-down in the garage. I knew that I ought to have been in shock, but I had tunnel vision, and the pinnacle of my focus was clamped on Carter. Once again, it had been merely hours since last we'd seen one another, but I felt the lapse. And, too, now that we both had seen riders from Satan's Refuse, perhaps there was some chance of derailing the showdown between our clubs. Maybe it wasn't too late to stop this train before it left the station.

  Tati kept apace behind me, even though it appeared that she hadn't been comfortable on a motorcycle for some time. I lent her a newer, bucket-seated Fat Boy, an ungainly but cozy ride. She'd clammed up since the scene in the garage. After all those unsent letters, it was a wicked shame that these were the terms of our reconciliation: my sister, committing murder on my behalf.

  The palms were wending this way and that above our heads. The air implied a storm. But as soon as Scotty's shack materialized before me in the swampland, I pressed my foot further into the gas pedal. The wind whipping against my face dulled some of my aches and pains, blunted my humming memory of recent events—and the promise of seeing the boy made me almost giddy. He would set this all right. He would know what to do.

  I hopped off my bike seat near as soon as the engine had come to a stop, and started sprinting towards the club. Tati, just parking, called to my retreating back—but I wasn't thinking about my sister just then. Because here was Carter, his hair wet from a recent shower, his chest bare, smoking a cigarette on the abandoned dance floor as he paced to and fro. When he saw me, his brow unfurrowed. I saw, in that instant, that he'd been worried.

  “Back so soon?” the biker smirked.

  “You know me. Just can't pass up a good day-drinking spree.” He laughed for a moment at my shitty joke, but then I watched his face scan mine—the way it had all those days before, on the road.

  “What happened? Are you hurt?”

  “I'm fine. I'm...shook up.”

  “Did someone hurt you?”

  In a few neat steps, he crossed the distance between us. With a firm hand, he pulled my chin up to the light, so as to inspect my face from every angle. When his eyes landed on the tender part my temple, his expression softened further. He drew a rough finger up to the wound.

  “Concussion?”

  “No. Really, Knox, I'm fine. Just had a run-in with some angry Coffin Cheaters. And a masked sonofabitch.”

  “The masked men?”

  “They're called Satan's Refuse. Tati told me.” Suddenly, in the midst of thi
s sating reunion, the floor below me was beginning to swim. I realized I hadn't slept in a day and a half. The facts of the day—the complicated, wild facts of the day—were already beginning to seem as if they'd happened to someone else.

  “You need to lie down,” Knox intuited. And neatly, like I was nothing, he scooped me into his arms and carried me in the direction of that small chaise from our first meeting. Though the sky continued to darken overhead, my eyes cast around for the sundial/birdbath/whateverthefuck. I was pleased to see it still standing there.

  Above me, the biker was fussing. With gentle fingers, he continued to inspect my head scrape—until his eyes fell downward, and took in what I imagined were the red lines along my throat. His touch was light and soothing. I grew dimly aware of Scotty, ever-perturbed, waddling towards us with that same silver tray from our first, botched date. He carried a pitcher of water.

  The last thing I remember were Carter's violet eyes, running over my wounds. His gaze was set with a mixture of anger and concern, but I remember feeling so safe. And there, in his arms, I drifted into the deepest sleep.

  Chapter Seven

  When I opened my eyes next, I was disoriented. A red sun was curling around the edges of the world, but for the life of me I couldn't say if it was dawn or dusk. The air was thick; I was still on the patio. Around me, the bar was silent. It seemed that Scotty had elected to close his bar's doors to the public for another day.

  The next thing I knew was thick, hearty snoring—of the kind I hadn't heard since I used to sleep on the floor of my father's bedroom, as a child. My eyes adjusted to the light and I found Carter, sprawled in an iron-wrought chair by my feet. His thick locks were tousled by sleep, and a strand of dark hair had fallen across his face. His barrel chest was rising and falling slowly, so the very ribs of his wifebeater appeared to breathe. His muscular arms swung, relaxed, by his sides. For however long, he'd stayed with me.