Hell's Ink

by Nicole Reed

  “Hit him,” Ward said, his voice low and deadly-sounding, even to Hold’s ears.

  “Sorry, man,” Mikey muttered, seconds before his meaty fist pounded the side of Hold’s already bruised jaw.

  The brutal impact of Mikey’s balled-up hand snapped Hold’s face to the left, the powerful swing solid and true. Pain vibrated through Hold’s entire skull. A measure of saliva gathered in the corner of his mouth and he turned to spit it out at his feet.

  “Again,” Ward quickly said, not hesitating to continue this fucked-up madness.

  Mikey threw a powerful uppercut to his abdomen this time. The impact took Hold by surprise, knocking the wind out of him and he groaned because of the toll already inflicted upon his sensitive flesh. He doubled over his stomach, protecting himself the only way he could. Hold tried to breathe slowly through his nose because every movement fucking hurt.

  “Harder,” Ward said. The unmistakably sadistic glee in his voice caused Hold to glance up at his father.

  A slight hesitation on Mikey’s part gave Hold time to see the insidious malice in Ward’s eyes. The next fist to his face was delivered on Ward’s request. As it connected to his lower jaw, Hold’s teeth cut directly into the flesh of his cheek. Blood welled sharp and coppery in the confines of his mouth. This time he hawked the red-tinged mucus directly on Ward’s shoe.

  “Fight back, dammit!” Mikey hissed underneath his breath.

  “I’m not going to fight you, Mike,” Hold said, his heart painfully hurting for what Ward had ordered Mikey to do. “You’re my brother.”

  “Tell him what you told me, Mikey.” Ward raised his voice over the brothers. “How you were tired of all those years of watching him be pussy-whipped by Hels. Tell him how it made you sick, and question whether or not Hold would be the right future leader of the club.”

  The guilt reeked like stinking meat off of Mikey. His good eye glanced away, refusing to even look at Hold’s face. When Ward was running his mouth, Hold convinced himself that he was only stirring the pot, but now he knew the truth: Mike didn’t believe in him. Evidently he hadn’t in a long while. It was a sharp, stinging betrayal to Hold. His brother, his friend, secretly hated him?

  “Hit him,” Ward ordered Mikey, stepping back from the fray.

  Did Ward think that Hold was going to fight back against Mikey? He couldn’t even center his thoughts, the mental anguish brought on by Ward’s revelation cutting deeper than his beat down until the one-two punch that Mikey next delivered to Hold’s solar plexus in consecutive order brought him back to the physical pain.

  “Fight me!” Mikey yelled in his face, spittle flying everywhere.

  He stared Mikey down, daring him to explain his thoughts. He tried to put words in his gaze, silently questioning Mikey. Why, man? Why didn’t you say how you fuckin’ felt? Pussy! Hold wanted to scream his thoughts at the one person on this earth he thought he could trust. Whatever Mikey saw spurred his next actions.

  Hold took consecutive hits to his midriff, tender aching sides, then one directly to his temple. Stars burst free behind Hold’s closed eyelids and an intense explosion of pain targeted his body, along with a rolling bout of nausea. For a second he thought he was going to lose the little bit of water he just drank. Hold regained his vision long enough to dodge a few more mighty swings, rocking on the balls of his feet. Blood flowed in rivulets down his face from a cut somewhere on his forehead. His own fists, remained glued at his side, never moving from their frozen place.

  “You goddamn always chose her! This was our motherfuckin’ life, Hold! Yours and mine to rule someday. Was she worth it? Turnin’ our backs on our brothers? You never thought what it cost me! Not once over the years!” Mikey yelled, his face mottling red.

  The venomous words spewed outward. As Mikey spoke, he kept swinging at Hold, catching him off-guard because of the anger that marinated all of Mikey’s blame and recriminations.

  “That bitch never really loved you! She hated everything we stood for and you fuckin’ knew it! But did you cut your losses? No! You dragged me down with you. Goddamn you, Hold! Damn you!” Mikey shouted, his eyes shedding tear after tear.

  Hold saw the force at which Mikey’s arm now swung at his face. His body starting to fold into Hold’s with the momentum. Intuitively, Hold brought his rock-hard forehead forward to crash against Mikey’s nose. The cracking sound meant only one thing: he’d broken it.

  He couldn’t have planned it better. His actions automatically ceased Mikey’s tirade. They glared at each other through the bright red spurting freely from Mikey’s nostrils and Hold’s facial cuts spilling his own blood. Both men breathed hard in the silence, having a shared knowledge that things would never be the same between either of them.

  Mikey dropped to the dirt on his knees, shoulders hunched and shaking, the last several minutes plainly taking their toll. Hold knew Mikey didn’t have a choice in Ward ordering the beating, but he did have a choice in telling Hold how he felt in the first place. Instead he held it in, clearly harboring hate for Hold. Mikey’s rage and resentment now contaminated Hold’s already diseased world.

  “That’s enough,” Ward calmly stated.

  Yes, it was, Hold thought to himself as he licked the coppery taste from his split lip. He silently swore his vengeance against the man who taught him everything he knew about brotherhood: his father.

  The garage was noisy, the sound of tools hammering, each grease monkey working in some weird synchronization. Hold was intently aware of his surroundings while doing his job. The air he tasted and breathed was filled with the acrid, burning smell of motor oil mixed with the funk of body odor. The thumping bass of hard rock music blasted from the small stereo in the corner, echoing off the walls.

  This was his solace from the blackened world that had become his life, the only time in the last year that he’d felt remotely part of the family he’d been born into. Nothing would ever be the same… yet he couldn’t leave—it was his legacy. Where would he go anyway, Hold thought wearily to himself, before returning to the work at hand.

  He gripped the drill bit tighter to enlarge the holes on the drill plate he worked on. It’d been more than a fucking week since this bitch of a motorcycle came into the garage needing its transmission replaced. Some fucktard burning up the gears, not knowing how to roll would be his first guess. He perched on a work stool while hunched over the motor.

  “Goddamn it!” he exclaimed. A burr of metal had quickly sliced the calloused skin of his index finger. Tiny red bubbles escaped the shallow puncture wound, along with a prick of pain. Instinctively, Hold brought his finger to his mouth, soothing the injury. The coppery taste churned his already rancid stomach. With a popping sound, he slid his finger past his lips to stare at the small cut, before shaking away the pain. The memories, however, didn’t go away so easily.

  His gaze locked on his wound: it wasn’t the cut he thought of now. Hold remembered the feel of the leather that he’d gripped tightly in his hand. His breath quickened, remembering the metal spikes lining the belt. They’d made deep indentations in his roughened palm, and the tips of his fingers. He remembered the fury at her betrayal blending with some dark sexual need that incinerated everything else inside of him. In his mind, the brutal scene played over and over, each lash that he inflicted marking her beautiful tattooed skin. The puckered welts rose on her flesh, bursting open, and the ruby red blood slowly spilled to the floor where he now sat.

  The surge of body heat that now filled Hold completely had nothing to do with lust and everything to do with regret. Regret for what he had been forced to do, regret for hurting her, and then regret that he hadn’t had one more lash—one final, hefty swing that would’ve marked her for what she put him through these last six months. The choices he made for Hels pitted him against his family, rendering a tear that he doubted would ever mend.

  Hold had paid a steep price for his treachery, the scars that lined his own body a testament to the love he once had for her. Luckily, as he
’d been constantly reminded, it hadn’t cost him his own life and he’d retained his status of vice president. The upside for Hold was that Ward’s choice of punishment, that he’d ordered Sandman to administer, had splintered the MC because it wasn’t a club decision. It thankfully gave Hold solid allies. He held on to this quiet vengeance inside of him, waiting for the right time to unleash it.

  No one, not even Hold, understood Ward’s vendetta against Hels. He himself had seen the fanatical gleam in Ward’s eyes whenever her name was mentioned. Since she escaped, there were deep debates in hushed tones throughout the clubhouse, speculation as to the reason why Ward had forced her back only to have her punished so gravely by Hold.

  That bitch will eventually heel. I’ll see to it! Dead or alive, boy! Dead or alive! The memory of Ward’s words, harshly whispered into Hold’s ear months ago, echoed through his mind. He clenched his teeth, fighting back the rolling black rage that’d assailed him. Hold shook his head, clearing thoughts that no longer mattered. He was forced to play the part of son, brother, and friend, but it had made him into someone he despised: a liar.

  Hold reached for the small brass hammer in his open toolbox. He gently tapped the shifter shaft free from the transmission case. Life goes on. A couple of months ago he’d read a sentence on the back of one of his mother’s prized paperbacks littering her office in the garage. Usually Hold and some of the other club members ragged on her for reading the raunchy romance novels she always seemed to pick up when she went into town. But that day he read a sentence that made sense to him: A torched past, where fallen embers still scorch the present, leaving only ashes for the future.

  Hold found himself getting emotionally further and further away from everyone. Feeling as if his anger not only blistered the insides of his flesh, but also seared the ties that bound him to those he’d loved. The excruciating pain of a solitary existence wasn’t one he’d ever choose, but it did provide an advantage. It set Hold apart from those around him and gave him a sense of clarity about the world he was born into. He was able to see the faults that destroyed the club day by day, starting with Ward himself, and the decisions he made that jeopardized his brothers’ lives. And he knew there was no future if Ward kept pushing the club toward business that divided the MC.

  Now was the time to handle his shit and be the man he was born to be… the leader of the Hell’s Highwaymen Motorcycle Club. Hold had always lived and regulated by the three-piece patch he wore on his cut and skin. It wasn’t ever just black ink tattooed on his body, but the religion he worshipped, and the law that governed his life. Nothing else mattered.

  The club had cost him everything, but he still believed in it. Hold would own his decisions. Now he’d be what this existence had shaped him for, even if it meant overthrowing the man who’d groomed him to take his place. Ward would reap what his sins had sown and so would the men who followed him.

  “You look like you could use a hand, man.”

  Hold grimaced at the sound of Mikey’s voice behind the veil of his black thoughts. He shook his head, quickly glancing over his shoulder and up at Mikey. Hold turned back to the motorcycle he’d been working on. Things were strained between them at best. This guy used to be his best friend. Now Hold wasn’t sure what the hell he was, but right at this minute wasn’t the time to get back into the same old damn argument.

  Mike tried at least once a week to talk to him. Hold couldn’t stand the sight of the big bastard. It was a painful reminder of how the people you love could hurt you the most if you gave them the chance. The bond they’d once shared was damaged, stripped away with every pound of flesh Mikey took from him.

  “You still gonna pull this fuckin’ shit? Pretend like I don’t exist? Is that how it’s gonna be, Hold?” Mikey asked.

  Hold didn’t have to look at Mikey to know that he’d squatted down so that if Hold turned, they’d be eye to eye.

  “Look at me, brother,” Mikey said quietly.

  At the mention of family, anger ripped through Hold. He balled his fists at his sides and turned his head to glare at Mikey. “You’re no goddamn brother of mine.” His guttural response was hardened by the acts that Mikey committed and the night Hold couldn’t forget.

  He stared hard at the man who he’d once considered closer to him than any other. Family by choice and not by blood, more sacred than a shared name, bound by respect, loyal to death—he’d loved the big bastard like a real brother.

  At this close range, Hold noticed that Mikey’s cheeks were gaunt from obvious weight loss, but it still didn’t detract from the magnitude of his size. His nose sat crookedly, altering the dimensions of his face—a token left for a friendship lost. Hold didn’t miss the flash of grief that passed swiftly across Mikey’s features.

  Good! Do you fuckin’ feel bad for what you did? Fuck you, ya bastard! Hold trembled at the thoughts he wanted to shout at him.

  “Hold, man, we’ve gotta move past this. Not just for us, but for the club. There’s more important shit to worry ‘bout than this beef between you and me,” Mikey said, his voice pleading with Hold.

  Hold ignored Mikey as he quietly stood. Looking around he realized that most of the other guys had already packed up for the night. More than likely they’d drifted over to the clubhouse next door for a beer. The only sound between Hold and Mikey was the music pounding in the background.

  He leisurely strolled over to his workbench, tossing the wrench down with a loud clang. Hold reached for a well-used rag to wipe the oily grime from his stained hands. He needed a minute to calm all of his fucked-up, racing thoughts.

  The blame didn’t rest entirely on Mikey for his beating that Ward ordered. Hell, Hold knew all the bruises and scars Mikey endured were his fault. Mikey had done everything Hold had ever asked of him, regardless of the shitstorm it put him in. For the past, Hold owed so much to Mikey. His loyalty had everything and nothing to do with the grudge Hold held down in the darkness inside of him. The hardest part to forgive was knowing that his brother secretly hated him and was too pussy to say anything.

  You don’t harbor hate for your brother. It festers inside you, blackening your soul, paralyzing loyalty, questioning bonds of brotherhood. And Hold personally knew how that would turn your accountability in a second. Trust is everything in this life, and he and Mikey no longer shared it.

  For these last couple of months, Hold had been biding his time, saying all the right words when necessary around club and family members, playing his part in this farce of a shared brotherhood. After the beat down neither of them spoke to the other for the first time since they were kids—which almost killed Hold, but he dared not say a word. One day Mikey apologized, letting Hold know how he felt bad for what’d happened… and Hold refused to hear it. He wasn’t ready, not then and not now.

  “Let’s go next door and grab a beer. Talk this shit out once and for all,” Mikey said, standing up to face him.

  “Seems to me you’re too busy bein’ stuck up Ward’s ass to have a drink,” Hold said, turning around to watch Mikey’s reaction carefully. He folded his arms across his chest and leaned back to wait for his answer.

  Mikey flinched at Hold’s statement, though not denying it in the least. These past months had divided many in the Hell’s Highwaymen Motorcycle Club. Mikey seemed to have sided with Ward, turning his back on Hold, just as he’d feared.

  “I’m here, ain’t I?” Mikey replied, walking to stand all up in Hold’s space.

  Hold glared up at Mikey. Almost every memory he’d accumulated these past twenty-plus years of his life contained Mikey. Thick as thieves, his ma, Sage, always said. Glancing down he saw that Mikey’s cut draped loosely over his wide shoulders. Hold’s matching one hung from a metal hook beside him on the wall. Their cuts weren’t what bonded him to Mikey—it went deeper than the MC. He grudgingly realized he owed Mikey.

  “Ward send you?” he asked, his eyes searching Mikey’s for the absolute truth. Hold had to know.

  “Hell fuckin’ no. You
gotta ask me that, Hold? After all these years? Goddamn it, I’ve missed you, ya ugly fucker.”

  Hold knew Mikey meant what he said. He noticed the regret plainly reflected in his eyes. What he didn’t know was if their friendship was salvageable. But Mikey had always been there for him. Always.

  He reluctantly nodded, throwing the rag down on the workbench. The motorcycle would have to wait.

  “Let’s grab a beer,” Hold said, reaching for his cut, and grasped the warm leather tightly in his hand. He ambled over to the other end of his family’s garage, sliding on his cut as he walked.

  The entire compound was nestled back in the woods about a half-mile from the main road. The garage was a one-story structure built of concrete, metal, and glass, with five distinct garage bays for business. A large sign above it proclaimed Dawson’s Garage. Built next to it was the clubhouse, a two-story wooden building with a matching silver tin roof. On the bottom floor was their war room, where the members met, along with a full bar and large gathering area. Tables and chairs, video games, pool tables, a jukebox, and flat screens lined the wall. Most of the original MC’ers had bedrooms on the second floor, including Hold, but most nights he went home to his small ranch-styled house only a couple of miles from here.

  A door connected the garage to the MC’s clubhouse. Hold walked through it, knowing Mikey followed closely behind. He could hear the deep laughter of several members mixed with the high-pitched voices of the women who always seemed to fill the area when the men were present. The noise of the heavy clink of balls, hitting and rolling across the billiard table, loudly resonated over the heavy blues someone was playing on the ancient sound system.

  Several of his brothers didn’t try to disguise their questioning gazes aimed directly at him, seeing him and Mikey together. Everyone knew about their bad blood over the night Hold was beat down. Some agreed it was fitting while others saw it as Ward going off the motherfucking deep end. They’d almost all agreed that Ward should’ve just let Hels go. If she talked, she would’ve had to prove shit, and Hels couldn’t. She didn’t know anything about their business during the years she’d been on the run. Ward tried to fuck with an ATF agent when he should’ve just walked away.