by Paula Cox
But the worst thing she ever says to me comes after almost two months of being parted from Slick, dreaming about him every night, missing him with an ache in my chest and seeing him in Charlotte’s gorgeous eyes. It’s late, the sun set and Heather’s tall lamps throwing overlapping shadows across the room, Charlotte asleep and moaning on the monitor. Heather is drinking wine, too much wine, but it’s a Saturday and the store is closed tomorrow.
We’re talking about fashion, and then Heather says, “But you used to be such a wild little animal. Now you’re a Little Fashionista. How does that happen?”
I shrug, smile, but there’s a searching look in her eyes. Now that I think about it, she’s been giving me that searching look all night. “What is it?” I ask.
“It’s just . . . Slick . . .”
“What about him?”
“Listen, Brianna,” she says, voice low. “If you ever wanted to talk to me about anything that may have happened when you were younger, and he was older—”
“Stop,” I interrupt, voice firm. “Don’t go any further, Heather.” My tone is ice-cold.
“I’m just trying to help—”
“Listen to me, right now,” I say, holding her gaze. “When I was a teenager, I was the one who always wanted to be with Slick. I was always hinting to him, and even throwing myself at him sometimes, because my hormones were going crazy and I wanted him so badly. He was fire and I was a moth, or something like that. Another man might’ve just taken me and been done with it. But not Slick, never Slick. Slick never let me kiss him, or even be near him in that way until I was eighteen years old. He was adamant about it. Even when I was fourteen and, for the one and only time during those years, dressed up in the sexiest outfit I’d ever worn, he brushed me off.”
Heather looks wary, unsure, so I go on: “Let me put it in plain terms. I do not want Slick because he took advantage of me at a young age, or anything sick like that. I do not want Slick because he is an evil man; I want Slick because he is the best man I know. I can’t believe you would even suggest something like this, Heather.”
She sips her wine, and then says, “I’m sorry. I am. I just had to make sure.”
“Well, now you’re sure,” I say, anger bubbling up inside of me. I force it down, telling myself she just wants what’s best for me.
But that’s part of the problem. I’m the one person who doesn’t get a say in what’s best for me.
Chapter Sixteen
Slick
They lock me in one of the dormitory rooms like a goddamn animal. It ain’t as bad as when I was locked in the warehouse, ’cause at least here I have a bed, and a toilet, and it’s warm, and I don’t spend my days wondering when some masked bastard is going to come calling with a machete. In that way, it ain’t as bad, but in another way, it’s much worse. These are my people. This is my club, my father’s club. For years, I spent my life being the best damned courier for the Ragers I could be. And then when I do more for them than anyone’s done in years, wiping out a rival club, they throw me in here.
I spend the next few weeks trying to convince myself to wait it out, to be patient, to not rock the boat too much otherwise I’ll never be VP. But it gets more and more difficult the longer I’m locked up here. I tell myself to stay calm and wait Grizzly out. He won’t keep me in here forever, and if I haven’t caused a hassle, when I get out it’ll be easier to get back to work with the club. But I can’t let go of my anger; it builds each morning I look out of the barred window and see one of Clint’s asshole goons guarding me, each time I try and open my door and find it locked. I’m allowed in the bar, but only with an escort.
If I want to be a part of this club, I have to be a good boy. That’s the message I’m being sent. Spike and my old boys and their sons are useless to me, just like any band of men is useless without somebody to lead ’em. And I’m not doing much leading from inside this cell. I wake up, work out, get breakfast, work out, get lunch, read, get dinner, sit in the bar with the men, go to bed. Over and over, for almost two months, this is my routine. I think of Brat more than anybody else, think of how brave she was to come after me like that, think of how mad she was. I think about our daughter, and how I was going to get to know her before Grizzly fucked everything up. I don’t think of the Skulls, of their charred flesh, burning skin, stinking corpses. I try not to, at least.
The man who guards the outside window is called Trevor. He’s the eight-fingered man who was with Clint when he brought me to Grizzly’s house a couple of months back. I can’t get out of the window because of the bars, but I can open the window by putting my hand through the bars.
“Trevor,” I say, when I’ve learnt his name. “Don’t you reckon it’s strange that a man like you—I know about you; I asked around—is sittin’ out here like this? Just sittin’ there, like a fuckin’ mall cop. You’ve killed people, man. You’re a damn soldier.”
That doesn’t work. He just sits there on his foldout chair with one earbud in, listening to the radio, ignoring me.
I try a few more tactics on him, to try and get him on my side, like playing Clint down or trying to get to his pride. It’s the shit they used on us back in the warehouse. But this man is loyal, and he’s been given orders, so he doesn’t reply. My objective was to get him on side so I could get news about Brat. Being in here not knowing what she’s up to is killing me. All over again, I’m left to question if she’s forgotten about me, if she even cares, if she’s found somebody else, only now it’s worse because I have the kid to think about. I’m all too aware that one month to an adult may not be that long, but to a kid it’s a century, and I’ve already missed a thousand years with my child.
That, and the fact that Grizzly and Clint are treating me like a chump even after I wiped out the Skulls, is what solidifies my decision to break out. I’m not about to sit here for two more months—hell, maybe it’ll be two years—while Clint pulls Grizzly’s strings and turns the whole club against me. The only problem is, once I’ve broken out, I’ll be a wanted man. Going against club orders is never a good idea. But I have a daughter to think of, and I reckon it’s a damn sight more stupid to leave her out there, alone, without her father.
I decide to do it at night, when the guard is taking me from my room to the bar area. In the days, I get myself ready. I don’t work out in the morning for the next few days, letting my muscles rest up, and I go into the bathroom and make a couple of shanks out of mirror glass, plastic, and tooth floss. Then, when I’m ready, I stuff the shanks in the pocket of my leather and wait for the guard to come and collect me for the evening. Sitting on the edge of my bed, I can’t help but reflect on the past two months and feel like a complete chump. I’ve sat here, like a good little prisoner, every evening waiting to be escorted to the bar of my own damned club. If Clint is there, he’ll sneer at me. If Grizzly is there, he’ll ignore me. I’m stewing on this when the knock comes at the door.
“You comin’ out here tonight?” the man asks.
“Yeah,” I reply.
I think it might be Gregory, but I can’t be sure; they change the inside guards regularly. When I open the door, I see that it’s a man I’ve never met. He has shaved bald and waxed his scalp. His face is covered with tattoos in geometric patterns, and the word KILL tattooed on his knuckles.
“You new?” I ask him.
I take my time pulling on my leather, doing it slowly, making it so he feels at ease and doesn’t think to look inside the jacket.
“Just been patched,” he says.
“I’m guessin’ it was Clint who patched you, eh?”
“How’d you know that?” the man asks, suspicious.
“Because then he can use you as one of his soldiers to take over the club, and kill Grizzly, or at least push him out.”
I stand tall, facing him, wondering how tough he feels with his tattoos and his new patch facing down the man who killed all the Skulls; everybody in the club knows about it. The man swallows as I stare him down. He looks like h
e wants to take a step back, but he would be failing in his job if he did that. Instead, he waves a hand at the door. “Come on. Let’s get going.”
“Nah.” I shrug, and then sit on the edge of the bed. “I’ve changed my mind. Might just hang out here.”
“Fine,” he says. “Don’t mean a thing to me.”
When he turns around, I make my move. In one fluid motion, I reach inside my pocket, jump across the room, and clamp my hand over his mouth and drag him back into the room, the shank pressed into the back of his neck. I kick the door closed and shove him onto his belly.
“So,” I say, knee jammed into his lower back, “I don’t reckon I’m gonna be here much longer, so I need you to tell me where Grizzly has sent Bri.” The man tries to speak, but I still have my hand on his mouth. “I’m gonna take my hand away now. You oughtta know that if you scream, I’ll do you like I did the Skulls, every damn one of ’em. You think you’re a real tough killer, eh? Just get between me and Bri and see how tough you are. Nod if you understand.” He nods, and I release his mouth.
“I don’t know nothin’ about the Boss’s daughter, man.”
“The Boss,” I say, musing. “Are you talking about the club’s Boss, or your Boss?”
“It’s the same thing,” the man says, in a pleading tone.
“Whatever.” I push his face into the floor, squashing his nose. He groans, but knows to keep his voice low. “I need you to listen to me now, and listen fuckin’ close. I’m getting out of here tonight, and if you try and stop me, I will make sure you die. I don’t care when, or how, but one day, I’ll kill you. You understand? Nod.”
He nods again.
“Good. So I’m gonna need you to wait here for around five minutes, and then you can go out into the bar and tell ’em I overpowered you. I know what you’re thinkin’. What’s to stop you from running in there as soon as I leave? But just remember, I’m the man the Skulls called the Beast ’cause I slaughtered twenty men in one night, and I’m the fuckin’ man who blew up those Skulls all by my goddamn self. You don’t wanna give me a reason to come after you.”
“I—” When I let go of the back of his head, he whispers fiercely, “I get it, man. I really get it. Come on, man. I get it. I get it!”
I stand up slowly, watching him for any sign of movement, and then creep out into the hallway. I mean it, I’ll come back for him, and he knows I mean it. Sometimes it’s good being the Beast. I creep through the hallway, listening to the sounds of the men in the bar, and then, when I’m in the lobby area, I walk out of the club and hug the wall, making my way around the side of the building to where Trevor usually sits, day and night, the most loyal, stupid man under Clint’s orders. When I reach him, sitting in the setting sunlight and listening to his radio, more like a man at the end of a hard honest day of laboring than a club man, I crouch behind him and bring the shank around to his throat.
“No,” I say, when he goes for his gun on instinct. I take the gun with my free hand, and press the gun into his head instead of the shank.
“I could shout and have every fucker in there out here in a second,” he says.
“Maybe,” I reply, “but I could pull the trigger and have every piece of your brain out here in a second, too.”
He nods at that, a killer accepting he’s been bested by another killer. “Fair enough,” he says. “What’d’you want?”
“I need to know where Bri is—Grizzly’s daughter. I know you’ve heard somethin’ about it, maybe in passing. So I need you to tell me in the next ten seconds or I’m sorry, Trevor, but you’re a dead man.”
“You’d really kill me out here?” he asks. Not scared, just curious.
“Yeah,” I say. “I really would. Don’t want to, truth be told, but I will.”
“Escaping is one thing, but killing on your way out is another, right?”
“Exactly. But enough talking. Tell me what I want to know. You’ve got five seconds left.”
He sighs, and then says, “In the city, at an apartment owned by a woman called Heather.”
“Her mom’s friend? Alright. Now what’re we goin’ to do about you callin’ those men the second I remove this gun?”
“I don’t think there’s much you can do—”
I slam him across the back of the head with the barrel of the gun. It ain’t like in the movies, where they just collapse and that’s that. He wobbles, tries to stand, so I slam him twice more. Four times total, and then he’s passed out, crumpled on the floor, his radio off to one side and his headphones in a question-mark pattern.
I don’t waste any time, just sprint across the lot, take the first bike I see, hotwire it, and then cruise it out as quietly as I can. Only when I’m a good half-mile from the clubhouse, I rev the engine and speed toward the city, knowing that I’ve done something I can’t take back, but unwilling to sit in that damned room one day longer with my daughter and Brat out here, alone, without me. I tried to do it the proper way. I tried to wait it out. I tried to stand by and let Clint fuck up my life. But I won’t stand for it, not anymore.
I spent two long years as a prisoner. I’m not spending two more.
Chapter Seventeen
Bri
At first, I think it’s just the rain pattering against my window. I roll over and bury my head in the pillow, ignoring the constant pat-pat-pat. But after around ten minutes, it stops, and then after around another ten minutes, it starts again. I don’t dare to hope, as I rise from bed and creep across the room, wincing every time the floor makes a creaking noise. I can’t hope. I can’t let myself believe. It’s not possible. Slick would never risk his life in the club like that, not for me. He’ll do what Dad tells him. He’ll serve his time.
Going to the window, I look down on the street. It’s dark, difficult to see anything, but there’s a shadowy form down there. The form steps forward into a streetlamp and Slick, in his leather and just how he was the last time I saw him except that his hair is longer and he hasn’t shaved in a few days, smirks up at me.
I glance back at my bedroom, at the baby monitor on the nightstand. She’s getting so loud now that I probably don’t need to use one, but if mothers aren’t allowed a little paranoia, who is? I take the baby monitor and creep through the apartment on my tiptoes. For such an expensive apartment, the floors in here seem to creek with each light step, as if wanting me to fail. I open Heather’s bedroom door, lean in, and place the monitor on one of her shelfs. She mutters something in her sleep and rolls over, but does not wake. After that, I return to my bedroom and throw on some jeans and a sweatshirt, before creeping out of the apartment. It’s only when I’m downstairs, walking into the cooling night air, that I let myself breathe a sigh of relief.
I look around the street for Slick, but he’s nowhere to be seen. For a moment I wonder if perhaps I dreamt the whole thing, or hallucinated it. It would be possible, considering just how much I’ve been thinking about him these past two months. I walk toward the end of the street, under the streetlamps, and then almost jump into the road when Slick says, “Hey,” from the darkness of an alleyway.
“Are you trying to kill me?” I hiss, hand on my chest.
He smirks, and immediately any panic or anger drops away. First, I waited two long years to see that smirk. Now, I’ve waited two long months.
“Aren’t you glad to see me?” he says, approaching.
“No, of course I am. You’re the most welcome sight a woman could see at night, alone, in an alleyway—”
He presses against me, and then kisses me on the lips. I kiss him back, my body instantly alight at the roughness of his lips, of his prickly beard. When he breaks off the kiss, I’m gasping even more than I was when he startled me. “Is our daughter safe?” he asks quietly, hands wrapped around my waist. That this would be his first question makes me want to kiss him again, but harder, with more meaning behind it. But I’m too aware of Heather’s apartment building, a watching sentinel from which Heather could emerge at any moment, wagging he
r finger and talking about leather-wearing bandits.
“She’s safe.”
I tell him about the baby monitor, and how Heather has taken care of her countless times.
“Then let’s ride,” Slick says.
“Ride, where?”
He shrugs. “Anywhere. Away from the city. To the Rockies. I need to get away from bricks and steel and all that civilized shit for a while. I’ve been locked in the goddamn clubhouse for two goddamn months.”
When we find his bike, I see that it’s not his bike but somebody else’s. I vaguely recognize it from the shop. “I’m pretty sure this belongs to one of Clint’s men,” I mutter.
“Clint’s men,” he echoes. “This amazes me. Everyone talks about Clint’s men like it’s natural, like there should even be such a thing as Clint’s men . That’s what he’s done. He’s played the long game, made everyone think it’s all normal.”
