by Nicole Fox
It was Blade, leaning over me. We were in a car, and my head was resting in his lap. In the driver’s seat was the clawed man–recognizable for the mangled hand clutched around the wheel–and he flashed an evil grin in my direction before returning his focus to the road.
At the sight of them–their leering, animal faces as twisted and ugly as their hearts–a great rage rippled through me. I coiled my will, like a snake about to strike, and surged towards Blade.
“Argh!” I grunted as I felt ropes tighten around my body. Blinking, I cleared my vision further and glanced around: my arms, legs, neck, and mouth were all tied. Whatever poison Blade had used was still thick within me; although the bindings were so tight they turned my flesh blue, I could not feel them.
I did, however, feel the icy, jaggy nails of the clawed man as he reached down and stroked–ever so gently–the line of skin visible at the hem of my shirt.
I shivered. His touch felt frigid and biting, like alcohol on an open cut.
“Mmhmm,” he moaned in pleasure. It was a sound like sour milk glugging out of a carton. “Skin like cream. Skin like porcelain. White and soft as a dove.”
Teasingly, he dragged his fingers up the length of my shirt, pausing above my cleavage. Lovingly, like a father would undress a child, he began to undo the buttons there.
“Naawww!” The sound surged through me, choked by the gag in my mouth, but I still managed to make my scream heard. I writhed and bucked, trying to knock his fingers off me, but they kept their grip, light and yet inexorable as a skater slicing across ice. My buttons were undone. Despite my efforts, he gripped the edge of my shirt and peeled it and my bra slowly away from my skin. My breast was exposed. In a raging horror, like an animal fighting to claw its way out of my gut, I felt his fingers close on my nipple. I froze, as if the touch had sucked all of my energy out of me.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “You and I are going to have so much fun, once we make it back to the compound.”
His hand traced around my breast, flicking and pinching, and then navigated up and down the side of my neck. A pressure near my ear–pressed in the crook of his legs–hinted at his growing erection. My skin prickled in protest wherever his slimy touch rested, and yet, the more he fondled me, the more I felt something powerful–a deep-seated visceral rage–overcoming my terror.
He worked my other breast free, feeling them both, while I focused on the gag in my mouth. He didn’t notice, but instead slithered up to start stroking my hair, my cheeks, my lips. The gag was tight, but not so tight that I couldn’t manage at least one quick bite.
“Argh!” He roared in agony as I pounced, hurling all of my energy into fighting my bounds, into wrenching my mouth open and closing it over the tip of his finger just as it crossed the threshold of my lips. I tasted blood, but I didn’t care. I longed to make him suffer.
“You stupid cunt!” He screamed, drawing his hand back and slapping me. I could have cried out, could have trembled and twisted, but I didn’t. I took the impact–the pain was distant compared to my terror–and glared right back at him with gleaming, hate-filled eyes.
“Oh, you’re going to regret that,” he hissed, seizing me so hard by the breast that I felt my flesh bruising. “You’re going to wish you hadn’t done that, Erica my sweet.”
“Hey!” The clawed man called from the front seat. “You mind the goods, Blade! Remember, she’s mine first. I’m gonna be the one to fuck that honeyed little poozle raw. You keep your filthy hands off her until after I’m finished. Remember that Blade.”
Blade grunted in distaste, but stuffed my breasts back into my shirt anyway. I could hear him mumbling the rest of the ride, “My filthy hands, you perverted little cripple? You’re the one with a hand like a meat hook.”
And though his hands slid over me the rest of the ride, he did not dare slip beneath my clothing.
“Remember this, Erica,” I told myself, trying to swallow my disgust. “They hate each other. Maybe you can use that.”
I focused for the rest of the ride on returning clarity to my mind and body by fighting off the rest of the drug. It was hard, and every victory brought another terrible blast of reality into awareness–the shooting pain in my hands and feet, the stink of Blade’s pants, so close up next to my face–but still, I persisted.
The clawed man parked the car. I could feel it in the jolt that sent me rocking back and forth on Blade’s lap. A moment later, the door was opened, letting in a dark stream of cold night air. I must have been out for a while.
The clawed man smiled. He looked monstrous, with his mangled hand held out before him like one would hold a candle, outlined in the moonlight.
“Welcome,” he said, “to the Crooked Jaw compound.”
With that, he reached down, seized the rope just below my breasts, and heaved me out of the car to my feet. Whoever had bound my ankles, however, had bound them too tight, for they folded like old putty and I collapsed to the cement.
“Jesus, Marco, be careful!” Blade snapped, sounding scandalized. I guessed he only wanted to hurt me by fucking me. Throwing me around on the pavement wasn’t fun.
The clawed man–or “Marco” as he was apparently called–merely chuckled and hauled me back to my feet, leaning me against the car for support. My knees were bleeding from the impact, but I barely felt it. Instead, I glared right into his eyes.
“Brave girl, huh?” He said. “Dominic choose wisely.”
“That’s right. Brave fucking girl,” I thought. If I had not been gagged, I would have roared it. It occurred to me again how much I had changed. Last year, I would have been twitching on the ground, begging. But not now. I was Dominic’s girl, and I wasn’t going to give this asshole the satisfaction of seeing me squirm.
He must have sensed my retaliation, for he flung himself against me, knocking my head back against the car and pinning me with his body. He grunted, his breath like hot acid in my ear as he hissed, “Before, I was just gonna have my way with you, then kill you while Dominic watched. But now, I’m gonna keep you both alive long enough for him to see me break you. He’s gonna watch me fuck you, over and over, and then I’ll watch you both die.”
His mangled hand was like a grappling hook against the soft flesh of my stomach. His cock was hard as iron, pressing against my thigh. But he did not do anything. Just make that threat. It was funny: he intended it to scare me, but, strangely enough, it made me feel better.
Dominic is on his way.
I just hoped that he’d be able to rescue us before we both ended up dead.
# # #
After that, Marco marched inside through the main door, leaving Blade to half-drag, half-carry me around the back and down a flight of stairs, to a basement. In this place, I assumed it was a dungeon. As he worked, panting and sweating like the fat old man he was, I made absolutely no effort to help him. I’d sag when I felt his grip weaken, and stand strong when I could make him stumble into me. This resulted in many bruises on my shins and hips from colliding with the stone stairwell, but I didn’t care. I could sense Blade’s frustration growing, and, with it, I had the budding–just the slightest little inkling–of a plan.
At last, we made it to the bottom of the stairwell. It was wet, and stank of sewage, and when he jangled the keys to undo the lock, I mistook the sound at first for the jittering of rats.
“The first step,” I thought, “is to get him to remove this fucking gag.” Blade’s frustration was so ripe I could practically smell it. “If I’m going to succeed, I have to talk to him.”
I moaned and worked my jaw back and forth, an obvious plea for its removal. Blade eyed me with annoyance.
“Once we’re inside, Erica my sweet,” he replied. “You can use that mouth all you want.” And with that, he opened the door and shoved me inside. I winced, both at the sudden impact of striking a hard cement floor, and the idea of using my mouth on any of these guys. Blade slithered over, grabbed me by the hair, and dragged me to the next room, where, with a different
key, he unlocked the door and flung me in.
Smarting with pain and humiliation, I barely noticed him crouching down beside me until I felt a tugging at the strap around the back of my head. With a few quick tugs, it came lose, and my gag fell away.
I twisted around, gathering up all my spite to hurl at him in whatever words I could muster, but my savagery was lost in my throat. My first, aching word was:
“Thunder!”
There he was, lying in a battered heap upon the floor. He did not appear to be tied up, but the mottled bruises covering what little flesh was visible showed how badly he had been beaten. Apparently, they did not feel the need to bind him–his injuries were confining enough.
“I’ll be back for you later,” Blade growled, and he marched away. The door slammed behind him, and I heard the distinct sound of a key turning in a latch as Thunder and I were locked inside.
“Thunder! Thunder! Are you okay?” I tried to wriggle towards him, but I was tied too tightly. He did not move, and I felt, at long last, despair beginning to settle in.
“Please, Thunder, please,” I whimpered. The pain in my wrists and ankles was enormous. I tried to distract myself by rolling onto my back and getting my bearings on the room.
It was, as I had predicted, little more than a basement. Stone walls surrounded us on all sides, bottomed by a cement floor, chillingly angled to a dip in the middle, in which there was a small drain.
I did not like to think about what they used that drain for.
In the corner, there was a cot, nailed to the floor, without pillows or sheets. A dingy, yellowish sink waited nearby, and under that was a large tin bucket with a heavy lid. I did not need the smell to tell me what that was for.
The whole place was a prison cell, and Thunder and I were trapped inside it.
“Uh…Erica? Oh, no. Is that you?”
“Thunder!” I gasped. I tried to roll to him, but my bindings were wound too tight. Fortunately, I could hear him moving towards me.
“Those fuckers,” he grunted, as I felt his weak, swollen hands scrabble against the ropes. At last, I felt the pressure release, and after several long minutes of working feeling back into my arms and legs, I was able to move again.
“Thank God!” I cried, and threw myself around him in a hug. He winced–obviously, he had some ribs or something broken–but he did not complain.
At last, both our eyes wet with tears, we drew apart.
“What can you tell me about this place?” I asked. “And the two men who brought me here?”
Thunder sighed. “Let me guess. One was that stinking old lawyer–smells like cat piss and looks about as nice?”
“Yes!” I exclaimed, and doing the impossible–chuckling.
“Apparently, he’s been behind all the ‘legal’ shit that the Crooked Jaws have been performing. He’s their insider.”
“Figures,” I growled. “I always knew the man was slimy.”
“And the other guy, did he have an injured hand, bent out of shape like a claw?”
“Oh, my God, yes!” I gasped. “Who is he? How did you know?”
He sighed again, and then proceeded to tell me a long, horrible story about a man named Marco “La Gancho” Herrera.
“You mean…Dominic did that to him?” I murmured. “My Dominic?”
“Yes,” Thunder said sadly. “And though he’s never said it aloud, I know he regrets it.”
I whistled through my dry, cracking lips. “No wonder he hates Dominic so much.”
“He hates Dominic more than he hates any man in the world. Which is why they brought you along as well, those bastards. I would have been enough as a hostage, but I think he really wants to make Dominic suffer.”
“By hurting us?”
“By hurting us.”
We let that sink in.
“But don’t worry,” Thunder said at last. “Dominic is loyal to me, and I think he loves you. He’s sure to save us.”
At his words, I felt a swelling of warmth in my heart. It was the warmth of affection, not the warmth of rage. It made me feel braver.
“It will be dangerous for him,” I commented. “We have to help him any way we can.”
“How?” Thunder spat sadly, gesturing around the room. “We’re trapped in here, and I’m no use in a fight right now. Trust me.”
“I’m not sure we’re the ones who will need to fight,” I whispered. Then, I leaned close to him, so close that not even the walls could hear. I told him about my history with Blade, and how Blade and La Gancho did not seem to get along.
Slowly, hesitatingly, achingly, we began to concoct a plan.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Dominic
Though the roar of my motorcycle engine battered against my ears, and though my heart thundered, I felt strangely calm. Erica and Thunder needed me. I wouldn’t let them down by panicking, or losing focus.
And yet, as I rode my way to the Crooked Jaw compound, there wasn’t too much to think about. I had no plan. I had no weapons. My fellow Spires had protested both of these, but I wouldn’t risk it.
“No!” I’d declared. “Absolutely not! If they find out I’m armed, or trying something, they could kill Erica or Thunder on the spot!”
And though they claimed, again and again, that Thunder knew the risks of the club lifestyle and would not want me doing anything so stupid, they could not deny that Erica was, by all accounts, an innocent bystander. It was strange: I had expected them to harp on Erica the most. Thunder was an old friend, so I’d presumed they’d attack with such things as, “You’re gonna die for some slut you just met?” Or “Come on, buddy. There’s a thousand more like her.” But they didn’t.
Maybe they sensed something profound in me when I talked about her. Maybe they were just too conditioned by my harshness, to taking my orders, to try to argue with me.
“Yes,” I told myself. “That was it.”
I had been a hard leader for the Broken Spires. A good leader, yes–I’d brought the Flames more territory and fortune than the last three leaders combined. But how did I do such a thing?
I thought of Marco’s hand.
“By being hard,” I muttered. “By being cruel.”
But it wasn’t just Marco. All the people who stumbled across the path of my ambition–other Broken Spires, rival bikers, even cops and women–were chewed up by my ruthlessness as easily as a wood chipper devours wood.
I had been an enormously successful motorcycle club leader. But at what cost?
I thought of my initial horror, at seeing Marco’s hand. How I had been sickened, but also excited, triumphant. And how, the next time I left someone broken and bleeding on the ground, as a direct result of my actions–and not just self-defense–my nausea had lessened, and my exultation increased, until, time after time, death after death, I did not feel that horror at all.
Perhaps that was the price of my success: the little piece of myself capable of disgust at the thought of violence. A small fraction of my soul.
Was it worth it? Four weeks ago, I would have said, “Yes, definitely!” But now…
Something had changed. Even my dreams of retirement–of lavish parties and lewd women, a new one every night, had changed. I thought to myself, “That won’t bring that little part of me back. Why should I try? It’s dead anyway.”
I imagined it: drink after drink, one night stand after one night stand, all to drown out what I was just coming to realize:
There is a cavity in my heart. A hole bored through so I could attach cruelty and heartlessness, like the dire trophies of a barbaric mountain king.
I inhaled, feeling it ache. I needed it now: that coldness. Perhaps it would help me save Erica.
Maybe that was the point–what made it worth it. If it helped me to rescue Erica, it would all be worth it.
“She’s it,” I realized, then and there, the vibrations of my bike surging through my body, the wind whipping past my helmet. “She’s what I need to fill the hole.”
I imagined her instead, in my retirement. Having a home. Maybe a baby. Teaching it to ride a bike, when it was old enough. These daydreams struck as surprising and yet incredibly familiar, as if I had wanted them all along, without really knowing it.
I want a family, and a woman I can love the only way I know how to love anything–fiercely, and to the bitter end. She’s your redemption. She’s your way out. I just have to make sure I find a way to save her.
I thought about our nights together. How, in times of need, I’d been able to rely on her, even though she barely knew me–and what she did know was probably terrifying. And yet, she stood bravely and helped me. Because she was loyal, and kind, and generous. “Those are the pieces of my heart I want back.”
