by Sara Crest
Johnny grabbed Freddie by neck, pushing him against the wall. The other guard pulled out a gun and pointed it right at him.
“I’m here to take Chuck’s place, I’m here to put this club back on track, and first thing I’m gonna do is make sure little shit stains like you have no place in our brotherhood.”
Johnny turned to the other guard, his hand was shaking as he tried to keep the gun pointed at Johnny.
“Go ahead, shoot me. You and I both know I rode here on the bike of our founder, in a few minutes I’ll be a leader, if you think you can live with knowing you killed one of your leaders then go right ahead.”
The guard slowly lowered the gun.
“Now give it to the girl” Johnny ordered.
The guard walked over to me and handed me the gun, I held it awkwardly between my thumb and pointer finger, not really wanting to touch the thing.
Johnny turned back to Freddie who was struggling to breath from the tight grip Johnny had on his neck. “Now, unlock the door and open it, I have some words for the men inside.”
He let go of Freddie’s neck and he collapsed onto the ground coughing, unable to respond. The other guard piped up “we can’t open the door for you, they don’t give us keys. We’re just stuck out here keeping watch until they come back outside.
Johnny looked at the guard and then down to Freddie who was still on the ground coughing. “You boys might want to take a few steps away from the door.”
Johnny walked back over to me and the bike, taking the gun from my hand and chucking it as far as he could into the woods before getting on.
“Ash, you’re gonna have to forgive me for what I’m about to do.” He turned the motorcycle on and began revving the engine hard. “Also you’re probably gonna want to hold on.”
I grabbed on just in time for him to hit the accelerator and lean back, causing the bike to do a wheelie as we sped toward the door. Before I even had the chance to scream we burst through the front door and sped into a large living room with 7 now very startled men.
The men jumped from their seats, some took cover assuming that we came to attack them. Johnny landed the front wheel of the bike and slid to a stop, leaving a tire mark from the doorway to the living room.
I caught my breath, I couldn’t believe that he actually just did that. Johnny stood up proudly from the bike and calmly walked over to the center of the room, the eyes of all the leaders of the club fixated on him. During our slide we had crashed into their glass center table, shattering both the table and the bottles of liquor that rest on it.
“You folks ain’t exactly the easiest to track down.”
I looked around the room at the men who led the club, nearly all were as old as Chuck was. Hell if I had seen them on the street I wouldn’t have been able to tell that they were ever part of a gang if not for the tattoos on their now wrinkled arms.
One of the men immediately who had ducked behind his chair stood up and became angry. His face turned beet red as his nails dug into the back of the chair, a single vein protruded from his head and seemed to throb in anger.
“Bot you’ve got some fucking nerve” he barked in a thick southern accent. “Who the hell do you-” he stopped when he saw Chuck’s motorcycle, staring at it for a few seconds and slightly calming down. “How the hell did you get that, who the hell are you?”
“Boys you all might not know me by my face but I assure you that you know me by name. Johnny Odell, former chapter leader, you might remember me from the time that you fucked me over and left me to fend off a full blown mutiny on my own. I just rode god knows how many miles on Chuck’s old beat up machine just to talk to you.”
The man sat down and began stroking his graying beard, the other leaders were still in disbelief from the events that just occurred but began to calm down and take their seats.
“So you think you can just barge in here, with a whore on the back of your seat and speak to us huh?” The man replied.
“Excuse you I am not-” I tried to reply but before I could finish the sentence Johnny walked over and grabbed the man by his beard, pulling him his head down between his own legs.
The man grunted in pain as Johnny got on one knee to get on eye level with him, keeping a tight grip on his beard. “Without that woman I wouldn’t be where I am right now, you call her that again and I’ll tear you goddamn beard off.”
Johnny looked back at me and our eyes met, from the way he looked at me I could tell he cared. All it was doing was making these last few minutes harder. I just wanted this to all be done so I could get out of there.
Johnny stood up, letting go of the man’s beard as he groaned and rubbed his now sore face.
Another leader spoke up, another old man from across the room “I assume you didn’t come all the way here just to disrupt our meeting, what the hell do you want.”
“It’s to my understanding that you boys have an opening, I’m here to fill it.”
“And what the hell makes you think that we’ll take you, you could barely even control your own chapter now you think you can just-”
“You don’t have a goddamn choice old man” Johnny interrupted. “I don’t know if you heard me the first time but that bike right there, the one with the gorgeous lady sitting on it, that bike belongs to Chuck. His wishes are that I get to join you all to take his place, it’s his last order and last time I checked if you had an ounce of respect for that man you’d take that order.”
It was all happening before my eyes, Johnny was slipping through my fingers and there was nothing I could do about it. He was just moments away from getting what he tried so hard for, I had tried to support him every step of the way in most cases. Maybe I should have been more selfish, maybe I should have given him an ultimatum, maybe I should have told him more how much I loved him. If I did all of that then maybe he wouldn’t feel the need to do this, maybe he would have turned away from his dream. I hated how selfish my feelings were but how else was I supposed to feel about the man who helped push me out of my shell? It was all too late now.
I tried to hold back my tears as the leaders spoke to each other in hushed whispers. Johnny stood proudly looking down on all of them where they sat, knowing that he had won.
The leaders murmuring began to simmer down, the looks on their faces seemed to turn to acceptance with their situation.
“It seems like we don’t really have a choice, as much as I hate to say it” one of the leaders said. “Johnny Odell, looks like you’re in.”
I was practically shaking, I didn’t think that it would hit me this hard but actually knowing that I was losing him was getting to me. I looked up to Johnny but he was still facing the leaders, standing in complete silence in the center of the room with his arms crossed.
He slowly took off his vest, looking at each individual patch as everyone in the room looked at him and wondered what he was doing. He held the vest in both of his hands and squeezed it tight in between his fingers. He turned his head to the side a bit and I could see the little smirk he would always get whenever he was about to do something. He looked up at stared at every single man in that room and then looked back at me.
“I made a promise to you, and a man keeps his promise.”
He lowered his vest and dipped it in a puddle of alcohol that remained from when we crashed into the table, making sure to soak the edges. Before I even knew what was happening he took a lighter out of his pocket and held the open flame to the alcohol soaked edges of his vest, catching it aflame before tossing it nonchalantly to the side.
“Boy what the hell are you doing those are the symbols of the Rolling Raiders! your brotherhood!” one of the leaders cried out as the rest looked on in complete bewilderment and shock.
“Johnny” I said “what are you doing, isn’t this what you want?”
“Ashley, I never in my life thought I could get to where I’m standing right here. I always thought that I’d end up dead long before I ever got this chance. Even when the opportunity wa
s staring me right in the face back in Seattle I wasn’t sure if I should take it. You were the one that lit the fire underneath me, you were the one that gave me the drive to actually come here and prove that I could do it… and it made me realize that I had to keep my promise to you. With your help I was able to show that I could fulfill my dream. All along I don’t think it was ever about actually being a leader it was about proving to this whole club, and to myself, that I could become one, and with that man saying I’m in we just proved I could.”
Johnny took my hands and leaned over “you could have left me at any time but you stood by me and got me here, you were my driving force, my push. Now I have to keep my promise to you and be the driving force in your life that you wanted me to be.”
I pulled him into me and kissed him, I was so happy that tears were streaming down my face as our lips interlocked in heated passion.
I broke away for a moment “so, does this mean?”
Johnny turned to the leaders, still shocked and bewildered over what was unveiling before them.
“I quit” Johnny said through his teeth, turning back to me to kiss me again.
“You think you can just barge in here, get your way, and then just quit? You think you can quit after everything this fucking club has given to you? You’d be nothing without us!”
Johnny walked back over to the man and got in his face, pressing their foreheads together. “Is that what you think old man? When I fought my way up the ranks to become a chapter leader did anyone in the club help me? When I became a chapter leader my friends were taken from me and did you help in my retaliation? When I was tasked with recruiting dozens of men in a part of the country we’d never even operated in before were you there? When I dealt with goddamn mutiny did you send help? No. The only people in this goddamn organization that have been on my side have been Chuck and the men who I recruited. You all did jack shit.”
Johnny stood up and pointed behind him, his finger pointing directly at me. “That woman has been the only consistency I’ve gotten in the years I’ve been in this club. If there’s anything I’ve learned while being a chapter leader is that you stand by those who stand by you. That’s what I’m doing now.”
He walked back to me grinning from ear to ear, not only had he won but he won on his own terms. I couldn’t believe it. He was actually choosing me over the gang, I never thought he would do it but he did.
He gave me a quick kiss on my lips before stepping onto the bike. “Let’s get out of here.”
He hit the throttle and burned rubber, leaving even more skid marks all over the floor before accelerating through the doorway, nearly hitting Freddie and the guard in the process.
“Hahaha! I’m free!” He shouted out laughing as I held onto him for dear life.
I was practically squeezing him, any harder and I swear I would have gone through the man. Tears of happiness were streaming down my face and soaking into his t-shirt. I didn’t care how fast we were going, I just cared that I had him.
Before long Johnny made a hard turn into the woods and towards the cabin we had stayed in the night before, sliding to a halt as he took a deep breath with a huge smile on his face. He got off the bike and scooped me up out of my seat, kissing me long and deep before I even had the chance to say anything.
“Johnny, you are full of surprises” I said grinning ear to ear and running my fingers through his hair.
“Well here’s something that shouldn’t come as a surprise. I love you and I’m going to do everything I can to keep you by my side. I’m never gonna let you go.”
He kissed me again, my face went completely red as I embraced his lips again and again. I was his and he was mine.
He began carrying me towards the cabin, my hand massaging his chest with every step he took. “I hope you’re fine with waiting for a few hours for our next adventure” he said jokingly.
“Oh, I think I’ll be able to manage” I said smiling.
Johnny opened the door to the cabin, and our new life together began.
Part I
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