by Brook Wilder
Guilt, cold and greasy and slick settled uneasily in the pit of her stomach, urging her on. She’d made a promise to Carla, to do everything she could to help the farm. She’d made a promise, and she always kept her word, no matter what. That thought had her charging forward at a reckless speed and Elle gasped when she ran out into a small clearing. She had to windmill to stop herself from falling flat on her face, or running smack dab into Carla’s back.
She gasped in dismay to see Carl and Hot Wheels surrounded by four of the Nomads, and what was even worse, one of them was their leader, Damaris. Elle shuddered at the look in his eyes, pure malice, and underneath that, joy. He was reveling in the fear he was causing. Even his men looked a little uncomfortable but they held their post, making sure that neither women could run while their leader confronted Joel.
“Carla!” Elle hissed, still hiding behind her friend. Carla turned to give her a shocked look that turned quickly to dismay.
“Elle, what the hell are you doing! Get out of here. Run while you still can. Before they see you. Please!” Carla pleaded but Elle just shook her head.
“No, I got you into this mess. I’m not going to just leave you guys alone.”
“Then you’re a damn fool,” Hot Wheels added quietly, careful not to draw too much attention, “But a loyal one.”
“Honey is right behind me. He said he was calling the cops–.”
“Well, thank god there’s at least one functioning brain between the two of you.” Hot Wheels said but Elle could hear the relief in her voice. They were genuinely terrified of what the Nomads would do. That thought had her looking over just in time to see Damaris strike out, hitting Joel across the face.
“No! Stop it!” Carla shouted, but the leader of the Nomads didn’t even look over.
“What the hell do they want?” Elle muttered.
“Control of the farm,” Carla finally answered, “One way or another. Just like he threatened before.”
“But they can’t just come here and take it like that. It’s not legal!” Elle protested, horrified.
“Hah,” Hot wheels snorted, “You really think they give a damn about legal, sugar?”
“Well, no, I guess not–.” Elle bit off her words as the rustling of the plants gave way to a new, familiar face. And not the face she’d been hoping to see.
“What the hell is he doing here?” Hot Wheels spat out the words as Viper pushed through, shooting a gloating grin at Joel as he stepped up beside him. He was all condescending arrogance with the leader of the Nomads and the other bikers there holding Joel back.
“Viper, I should have known you would be here,” Joel growled out, his words slightly muffled by a bloody lip, “Like a mangy dog scavenging for scraps.”
Viper growled and lunged forward but Carla interrupted, distracting him.
“What are you- How are you– What are you even doing here?” Carla stuttered out the shaky words and Viper just smirked.
“You didn’t think I was gonna let the Nomads have all the fun, did you? Besides, this is my farm now. I have to protect what’s mine.” Viper sneered the last words towards Damaris and the smaller man nearly growled at the not so hidden threat.
“Yours, Viper? My crew is here. Where are your men? Hmm? Where are the rest of big, scary Dirty Cruisers? And how, exactly, do you think you’re going to stop me from taking this nice juicy plum for myself. I should just pluck it up. It would be so easy.” Damaris smiled his snake like smile at Viper then, “I’m just kidding, of course.”
“Of course,” Viper hissed back, and there was a new malice in his beady eyes. Greed had gotten the best of him and he already had a tenuous hold on the Cruisers. He couldn’t afford to look weak in front of the other crew’s leader, but at the moment, he had no choice.
Elle had been hidden behind Carla and Hot Wheels up till then but she felt the exact moment that Damaris saw her, recognized her.
“You!”
The look on his face had Elle stumbling back as fear, potent and raw filled her. She’d never been looked at with such pure hatred before, but there was also a twisted lust in his gaze that had nausea rolling alongside the terror.
Carla tried to block his path as Damaris lunged after Elle but she was knocked away with an almost casual blow that had her toppling to ground.
“You should have taken my offer before,” he growled out as he stalked even closer to her, “things would have gone a lot easier for you. But not now. Oh no. Now, I’m going to make it hurt.”
Elle tried to get away and she screamed as she felt the brush of his outstretched hand against the back of her shirt but then it was gone and instead of falling into his clutches, he was just…gone.
She looked back in shock to see Damaris being pulled rapidly away from her and for a moment she didn’t understand what was happening until she saw the man directly behind him. Sparkplug! Hot Wheels lurched, recognizing him at the same time, tracing his obvious black eye and what looked to be evidence of a bloody nose with a look so full of love that Elle had to look away for a moment.
Wait a minute, how had he gotten away from Scorpion? They knew he must have been tipped off somehow and had feared the worse for the other man. But before she could ask the question out loud, Sparkplug was already answering it.
“Your thug Scorpion throws a mean right hook, but I’m tougher than I look.” Sparkplug sneered as he drew Damaris out into the middle of the opening. “A punch doesn’t keep me down for long. You should have had him kill me.”
“I’ll remember that for next time,” Damaris spat back, his cool composure long gone as the feral animal underneath was revealed.
“There won’t be a next time. Consider this an official challenge.” Sparkplug said, the only warning before he pulled back his own fist and let it fly, landing a hard blow. Elle flinched away from the fight, waiting for the other Nomads to step in and was surprised when no one did.
“Sparkplug challenged Damaris for leadership,” Hot Wheels explained quietly, “The other’s won’t do anything. And honestly, by the looks on their faces, they don’t want Damaris to win.”
Elle just shook her head in confusion as the fight continued. Although it wasn’t much of one. After a few hits, Damaris was on the ground, growling in wild anger as he held a hand over his nose.
“You broke my fucking nose!” He shouted, but it came out more of a gurgle before he turned to the three bikers that stood around them now, “Do something you imbeciles! Kill him! Rip him to pieces!”
But they didn’t move. They didn’t even blink and Damaris made a wordless noise of rage before charging Sparkplug again. One more blow had the leader of the Nomads falling back to the ground, unconscious. Well, the old leader of the Nomads.
As Sparkplug looked at the other three, bloodied and battered but still standing he raised up one clenched fist.
“I won. I claim the right to take over as the new president of the Nomads. Any objections?” He asked wearily. Slowly, they all shook their heads, not even sparing a glance for the man who was still lying unmoving on the ground. “Good.”
He held out a hand for Hot Wheels and she was by his side in an instant.
“We’re leaving.” Sparkplug said. One of the men stepped forward but the new leader just held up a hand to stop him, “I said we’re leaving. We are done here. Had no business here in the first place.”
The fight seemed to have taken forever to Elle when in reality it had only been a handful of minutes. Soon Carla was helping Joel to his feet, holding a piece of fabric she’d torn from her own shirt to his face where Damaris had hit him. They were all turning, the tension depleting, oddly anticlimactic when Elle noticed it. Faint at first, barely detectable but in just a few seconds, filling the air with its acrid scent. It was smoke! Someone had set the fields on fire.
Joel cursed as the air was suddenly thick with dense black smoke, at least Elle was pretty sure it was Joel. Suddenly, the smoke obscured even the small clearing, cutting her off from everybod
y else.
She peered through the hazy smoke and could just make out a figure coming towards her. She sighed in relief but it was short lived as the person cleared the fog and his features drew into awful clarity.
“Viper!” Elle said in shock, almost forgetting his presence after the surprise of the fight between Sparkplug and Damaris, and the even more surprising declaration that he was the Nomad’s new leader. She had thought this was all over when the smoke started. It clicked for her then.
“The fire,” Elle gasped. “You started it!” It wasn’t really a question but the arrogant jerk answered anyways, his expression all superior condescension as he drew closer.
“Of course it was me. If I can’t have this farm, then nobody can have it!” His answer was that of a petulant child and she told him so, hoping that she could keep him talking long enough to find a distraction, or to try and find Carla or Joel, Hot Wheels or Sparkplug, anyone! And where the hell was Honey!
But instead of distracting him, her plan backfired and he snarled at her as he leapt forward.
“Petulant child?” He stumbled over the first unfamiliar word, but he understood the last one just fine, and he looked completely outraged as he reached out, grabbing for her arm. “I’ll show you who’s a child. I’ll show you, and Honey and Joel and all those other stuck up people who think they’re so much better than me.”
“No–No I never said that they were.” Elle stuttered, afraid of the deranged light suddenly flared in Viper’s beady eyes.
“Come on,” He growled the words as he shoved her forward, further and further away from her friends, “I may have lost the farm, but I sure as hell am not going back empty handed
Chapter 32
Elle ran, partly because of the man at her side, his grip on her arm bruising and painful as he dragged her along behind him. She had tugged and yanked until she thought her shoulder was going to pop out of its socket but still, Viper’s hold didn’t loosen. But the other thing that kept her legs moving even though her lungs were burning and she was starting to feel lightheaded was the roiling black smoke that seemed to be following them like a malevolent shadow. It was so close that she could feel the raging heat of the fire itself as it spread. And it was closing in on them.
As her legs moved, almost of their own accord, her mind wandered, surprisingly calm, disconnected from what was actually happening to her. She wondered if it was shock again, but it felt different this time. More like a choice, than something that her body and mind simply reacting to a traumatic situation.
Just keep running. You can do this. You can survive, you are stronger than you ever realized. And you deserve love. Elle marveled at the inner voice as it spoke, and mentally thought that it was really Electra speaking instead of plain old Elle. She had to wonder at that last though. Of course she deserved love. Everyone did. She truly believed that.
But did you mean it. Really mean it? Damn you, Electra, Elle thought, realizing how ridiculous it was to be arguing with herself while she ran for her life from a raging fire being dragged along by a greasy scumbag.
Of course I meant it, she tried to convince herself. Of course everyone deserves love. Including you? Yes, of course! She thought, answering in her primmest, most proper teacher voice as Honey would have called it. And then the truth of it hit her. Because for the longest time, especially after her parents had died, she’d truly felt like no one could ever love her.
And as Elle had grown older, her anxiety driving her further and further away from other people until she was totally alone, she had believed that that was what she’d deserved. But Honey had given her a gift more rare and more beautiful than he could have ever imagined when he’d given her his love. He’d given her back her belief in herself. For the first time in nearly fifteen years, she felt whole again. And she knew it was because of Honey.
Elle glanced sideways at Viper who was looking panicked now and made a decision. She had just found love, she wasn’t about to let anyone take it away from her. Especially not this sneaky, sniveling, rotten, greedy piece of…of shit! She was so shocked at the profane thought that she nearly tripped over an uneven mound of dirt as she ran and an idea exploded in her head.
That was it. That was how she would get away from him! Get him off balance long enough to let her go and then she’d bolt for it. Elle just prayed that she would be bolting in the right direction, towards the office and the greenhouse and not straight into the waiting arms of the fiery inferno that was turning the air hot and unbearable around her.
On the next uneven spot of ground she intentionally threw herself forward, scrabbling with her one free arm to catch herself before impact. She wanted to free herself, not seriously injure herself in the process. It still hurt, a lot, when she landed but a few bruises were more than worth it as she felt the pressure around her wrist lessen. But it wasn’t enough.
Even as she tried to tug free, Viper’s fingers still stayed clamped like a vice around her wrist. He pulled her almost back up to her feet but she was still unsteady after the fall, even if it was self inflicted.
“Come on! Get up, you worthless bitch!” Viper snarled the words at her as he shoved her still stumbling form and she toppled to the ground again. It took every ounce of strength she had but her anger and the adrenaline flowing through her gave her the little extra that she needed to push herself back to her feet.
“I am not worthless,” Elle said back to him, her voice disconcertingly calm, surprising even herself, “And I am not a bitch.” She threw her shoulders back, pointed her chin in the air and stared at him as if she could see right through him, as if he was completely meaningless. And in a way, he was.
Here they were, stuck in a field that was on fire and he was throwing a fit like a spoiled child. She certainly didn’t have time for that. She had to get back to the man that she loved. She just prayed the Honey wouldn’t be to mad about the risk she’d taken, but he would realize one way or the other, she would do anything and everything for the people she loved, and that included him.
“Wh–What are you doing?” Viper suddenly asked, sounding a little more uncertain than he had before.
“I am getting the hell out of here, that’s what I’m doing.” On the last word, she jerked her arm back as hard as she could, dislodging his grip on her wrist and without waiting another second turned on her heel and dove into the surrounding plants. She ran until she found a row, and the open ground next to it and kept on running. Elle didn’t look back but she could hear Viper’s frantic footsteps crashing through the field behind her, and it spurred her on even faster.
Elle stumbled to a frantic stop as a sudden rolling wave of heat and fire slashed across the path in front of her, blown by the breeze. She was barely aware of Viper coming to crashing halt a few feet behind her but as she turned to face him, surrounded now by the voracious flames, and knew there was no way out.
There was a moment of complete silence, of stillness within her as she turned to face him and she felt a pang of sadness, not for herself, but because Honey wouldn’t know what had happened to her. She hated to think of him wondering, searching.
“This is all your fault.” Viper growled the words, a feral animal backed into a corner. Elle nodded sadly.
“I know.” The words had barely left her lips before he lunged for her again, enraged beyond thought, pushed forward by fear as he grabbed her and slammed her to the ground so hard that all the air, or what little of it was left anyway, left her lungs.
***
“Elle!” Honey’s voice echoed out over the field and he could hear the other’s shouting her name as well. “Elle, where the fuck are you?” He muttered the question out loud, but on the inside he was pleading for her to be safe. For her to be unhurt. He couldn’t even begin to contemplate the alternative.
He had run after Elle as soon as she’d taken off, but then his instincts had him stopping, dialing 911 and making sure the cops were on the way before following the path she’d taken through the field
s.
A part of him had rebelled at calling in the authorities but then the realization struck. They were legit now. That was one of the perks, he supposed. Before the law and him had always been on opposite sides and things were different now. Honey thought it would still take him a while to get used to that.
After making the call he’d run after her, trying as best he could to make his way in her direction. Once he’d gotten close enough he’d been able to hear voice and he made it to the clearing in time to see Hot Wheels helping Sparkplug, and the rest of the Nomads get back to the parking lot as smoke, thick and choking, had filled the air. A moment later Carla and Joel had emerged, and he’d run to them.
