The little girl was just that—petite and child-like. Her raven black hair had wrapped around her face and elbows in the night, indicating that Baby had been flailing as she slept. Her breath rattled harshly in her throat—it seemed likely that she hadn't gotten any decent shuteye in quite some time. Her eyelids flickered and she squirmed. She really did look like a baby, Athena thought.
Returning from her own cot with the blocky pillow and quilt, Athena swaddled the sleeping kid. Then she meandered out into the world, careful to close the garage side door behind her. As expected, this Waco morning was hot and bright and already humid. A fearless lizard scurried through the dirt at Athena's feet.
She made for the wellspring in the center of camp—a funky little fixture of the property. Most of the Barons retrieved their drinking water from the spring, which one used a foot-pedal to operate. Athena liked to drink her first glass of water in a day at the site, as it allowed her to stroll the perimeter and see what had transpired in the night. In this case, the bacchanalian remains of the Barons shindig were littered everywhere. Cigarette butts every few steps, distressing piles of spilled liquids and (she hoped) food. Like I'm the fucking maid around here, she thought. Great. Six a.m. and already angry.
But despite her habit of heading straight for the wellspring, Athena found her feet moving in a different direction: back toward the lodge. The lodge was the main house (though “house” was a generous name, for any property of the Barons'), central hub for God and his closest minions. While Tuck oversaw the second-tier in the rooms above the garage, the lodge was situated about fifty feet further up the hill. It came equipped with a kitchen, a bathroom, a porch, and all the creature comforts that the Barons were supposed to eschew—cable, electricity, etc. Yet none of the men questioned this discrepancy. They were loyal to their leader.
Before she quite understood what she was doing, Athena found herself rapping on the lodge door. She knew her face was still puffy with sleep and her hair likely looked wild, but this was the funny thing about courage: it arrived in spurts, and you couldn't well ignore it when it came. After what felt like a few full minutes, a noise came from beyond the threshold. Athena leaned close.
“Who is it?” croaked someone. A woman.
“I need to speak with the man upstairs.”
“You crazy, A? It's fucking sunrise. Not even.”
“I need to speak with the man upstairs. It's important.”
Another few heartbeats ticked by, but then the door creaked on its hinges. Athena beheld Zuzu—God's personal favorite concubine. Z was a big-boned, dark-skinned woman with piles and piles of kinky hair always resting in some elaborate beehive formation atop her head. Her eyebrows were drawn into thin, perpetually surprised lines, and her lips were full and wide. These features alone gave the otherwise imposing woman an air of innocence.
“He's not gonna like this,” Z said, feebly clutching her silk robe tighter about her well-apportioned chest. “Follow me.”
The stairs were ancient, and made loud protest as the pair ascended. Athena tried not to focus on Z's enormous ass, which was another of her calling cards—the woman had drawn in many a Rider with the heart-shaped swell in her jeans. Z functioned as a kind of Madame for most of the other concubines (that was God's classy term for his hookers) who hung around the camp at all times, like so many gadflies. Athena didn't like to associate with the mistresses, who only served to remind her that she was different from both the men she called her friends and the women who traded on their sex appeal.
Finally, the pair reached the heavy oak door that demarcated God's quarters. Athena had never seen the room up close, but it felt very old-timey Southern in here—very Gone With the Wind. She thought she could hear a man's rattling breath, but just as soon as this thought occurred to her, she wondered if she'd imagined it.
“Honey bear. Sark has something to say to you,” cooed Zuzu, through the door. From the folds of her enormous bosom, she extracted a damp-looking, flat cigarette. With a goading glance, she offered some of this to Athena—who declined, as politely as she could.
As Zuzu was lighting the spliff with a lighter she'd likewise removed from some improbable place on her body, the door swung open. God stood there, entirely dressed and sour-looking. He wasn't an unattractive man for being in his mid-fifties, but he sure did wear mean like no one else. His lip was curled into a perpetual sneer, and his eyebrows arched towards the center of his face as if making a mad dash for his nose. Yet his cheekbones were severe. Below leathery skin and long, thick, grey curls, there was the ghost of a handsome man.
“And what the fuck do you think you're doing at my door so early in the morning?” he drawled slowly. Without looking over to Z, he reached out for the weed and pinched the glowing tip of her joint between his thumb and forefinger. Athena wasn't sure, but she thought she might have heard a little sizzle between the thick pads of his fingers as he did so.
“It's about the girl. Baby.”
“Nobody puts Baby in a corner,” Zuzu laughed languidly, as she collapsed into a nearby chair. She didn't seem affected by her lover's removing the spliff. Likely, Athena immediately gathered, because she was already high on something else.
“What about her?” God said, through gritted teeth.
“If you really want to keep her protected, I don't think you should just let her run wild around the camp. Assign someone to her. Make her somebody's ward.”
“Is this you interfering in my business affairs, Sark? Because I hope you know exactly how important you are to this organization.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Not, is the answer. You are not important.”
Athena swallowed. She hadn't expected quite this level of cruelty, as every other Rider seemed to operate under the pleasant assumption that the MC bound folks together for life. They were all supposed to be a family, and she was merely the pesky little sister. God, however, didn't appear to agree.
“I'm saying this for the club's benefit,” she started again. “If you don't know about the crime she was involved in, who's to say she doesn't have something that could compromise everyone? She could be dangerous, I mean. She should be watched.”
“You think this hasn't crossed my mind, Sark? How stupid a man do you take me to be?”
“But it works both ways, sir. I'm thinking—I'm thinking also, what if something bad was to happen to her here? Something with one of the men, say? You wouldn't want to be held responsible in the eyes of the law, would you?” Athena fixed G with her fiercest stare. She puffed out her chest for good measure.
God seemed to think for a moment—or he pretended to. Zuzu began to sing quietly to herself, as she traced patterns in the decrepit fabric of her chair. Then, suddenly:
“Take care of the little bitch, then. See if I care.” Before Athena could huff out a response, the leader slammed his bedroom door an inch shy of her face. Zuzu shrieked at the noise, then started to laugh madly.
Chapter Ten
BRIDIE: I greeted the next day from the ground. Turns out I'd fallen asleep in a huddled corner of a shelter I found. As soon as I'd met the bikers in that freaky woodland commune, they'd all scattered to the four winds. Part of some kind of celebration, I think. I didn't know what to make of it then—in fact, as I told you, the only things on my mind were my very basic needs. Shelter, water, food. And everyone at that club seemed like such a goddamn devil! I was looking for a place to hide once I was released into the campground, and the first thing I saw was some old lady chucking a tire iron at her jilted lover or something. Couldn't make out their faces. I just knew these were rough, serious, miserable people. I didn't think they'd show a little podunk country girl mercy of any kind.
Though I'd fallen asleep in a bed of tires, someone had snuck up in the night and put a pillow under my head. There was a blanket over me, too. I smelled gasoline. I felt grubby, and my body ached all over from resting on all that rubber.
My eyes adjusted slowly to the light—in fact, it
was hard to say immediately what time it was. I blinked slowly, until these shapes started to materialize: Harleys. I saw ten or twelve Harleys, pressed up against one another. All different colors. And something about them looked like skeletons—I remember I'd just finished this schoolbook about the Parisian catacombs, and this room reminded me of that. Everything I could touch seemed chilly and dead.
I cleared my throat and sensed then how hoarse my voice was. I heard my echo and knew that I was alone. You know how sometimes you make a sound in a room, and you're just certain you're by your lonesome? I felt that. Feeling slightly braver, I stood up and stretched. Tried to get my eyes accustomed to this tomb. It was then that it occurred to me, hey—I could run. Nobody's watching, nobody would chase me down. I could take off into the desert on one of these big black metal horses, and I could find some way to live free, by my wits. I was smart, I was pretty—the idea seemed so tantalizing, so palpable just then. I got up on the nearest motorcycle and put my hands around the grips. It felt so heavy beneath me, but I wasn't afraid.
Just as logistics started to play out—how was I going to steal a bike unnoticed, how would I get food and money—a whole wall of the structure started to lurch. I hadn't realized I was sitting in a garage, but sure enough a slip of white Texas sun crept up from the ground. I was temporarily blinded by the glare, and could only determine the outline of a short, slightly stubby person holding something out to me.
“You hungry?” the stubby person called. Her voice was scratchy and low, not so unlike my aunt Caroline's after she'd smoke a half pack of her beloved menthols. But this woman was younger. Probably not too much older than I was.
I don't remember if I said anything, but I abandoned the whole escape plan that instant. No one had fed me in two days. I hadn't realized quite how hungry and weak I was until I saw what the tray contained: a hefty hunk of bread, a bowl of honey and a stack of bologna. Pretty goofy meal, in retrospect. But then and there? That was the best Sunday brunch I ever had.
As I gobbled the food right down on the floor of the garage, the mysterious woman poured me coffee and started to talk. I couldn't follow everything she said, but I made out her intro: “I'm Athena. I'll be taking care of you, so none of these louts give you any trouble.” She started to prattle on about her work in the garage and how and where she could use help, but I swear I wasn't paying any attention. Tell you one thing, though. Slowly but surely, I was beginning to see the light.
Chapter Eleven
Once Tuck had reluctantly peeled himself out of the dank sheets, he ventured into the common area. Spivey, Yak and Bo Diddly were all clustered around an upturned barrel, playing a silent game of Texas Hold 'Em.
“That deck's missing a Jack of Clubs, if I recall,” Tuck yawned. He stretched his arms wide, and lumbered toward the curtains. He smiled a little as the heat hit his face, recalling his dream. Somewhere below him, at this very second, Baby was moving around. He got slightly stiff all over again just thinking of her.
“Sucks for you, Bo!” crowed Yak. He bent over the barrel and began sweeping a pot of spare change toward his bucket seat.
“What you fools playing for, anyway? We're all so bored it's come to quarters?”
“Dumb piece of shit,” Spivey drawled. He gripped a toothpick between his front teeth. “We've got stakes, alright.”
“Playing for little Miss Hot Pants,” Bo said as he failed to pull off a convincing poker face.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Tuck asked, unable to keep the anger from his voice.
“Means whoever wins the next hand gets to tear up little miss virgin. First come, first serve.”
Tucker swallowed slowly.
“I don't know what the fuck you heard,” Spivey continued, cool as a cucumber, “but God didn't assign nobody to her. Think that means we all get a slice.”
“What's the big deal, Spy? Plenty of other willing women on this godforsaken compound,” Tuck tried.
“And none of ‘em with hair like an Indian and tits worth two handfuls.”
The men crowed at this. Their leather pants squeaked in chorus as they rustled in their chairs.
Tuck approached slowly. Then, in one fell swoop, he nudged his foot below the barrel and jerked upward. The makeshift table toppled onto its side, causing the cards, the tiny pot and the men’s effects to go flying across the floor.
“The FUCK!”
“Tucker, you done lost your mind?”
Bo Diddly didn't say anything, but kept his confused face on. He wasn't known about the club for being much of a brainiac, that was for sure.
“If I hear so much as a rumor that any of you shitheels have sweated the girl,” Tuck murmured, bending low, “it won't just be my foot. You'll talk to the business end of my sawed-off. As I'm your Lieutenant at arms, and as I fucking live and breathe.”
Before he could gauge his comrades' response, Tuck launched down the rickety stairs. He hadn't felt this riled up in...well, who knew how long. Tuck didn't get riled up. The perpetual cool-headedness was what made him such a great gun for hire.
He lit his first smoke of the day, and began a tromp toward the garage. If anyone could temper his fury, it'd be his favorite mechanic. He wheeled towards the gaping wall, shouting across the short distance: “ATHENA FUCKING SARK, YOU WON'T BELIEVE THIS.”
When he reached the garage, he took in the surprising sight of his best friend, her face covered by worker's goggles, bending low over a dismantled bike engine. She was pointing to various cables and connective tissues, talking aloud for the benefit of someone he couldn’t see. As his eyes adjusted, Tuck realized his friend's young pupil was Baby, who looked freshly scoured, fed, and well rested. Her eyes sparkled, but this time with something other than fear—intelligence. She was listening reverently to Athena's wandering monologue, which Tuck could now overhear pieces of: “The rocker arm sits on top of the cylinder head. Puts the tiniest bit of pressure on it in release, and that drives it toward the block. Now this is only a Honda, but you get the idea.” Baby just nodded her head.
“As my assistant, you're just going to be in charge of cleaning out some of these blocky pieces before I can get to work on them. For now, that is. Can't fix shit if I can't see the problem. Are you paying attention, B?” The young girl nodded again, with two sharp little strokes of her chin. She'd piled her raven hair high on her head into a sloppy bun.
“You don't say much, do you?” Athena ventured, leaning back against the wall.
“Not much to say.”
“I won't press you. Whatever's happened to you before now isn't quite my business, is it?”
Tuck took another step into the shadowy garage, preparing to make his presence known.
“It looks like Sisyphus,” Baby said then. Her voice was plaintive and thoughtful, utterly bereft of tragedy.
“Say what now?”
“It's this piece? By the rocker arm pin and the block? It looks like Sisyphus, pushing the rock up the hill. He always has to do it, even though it always falls back down just the same way.”
“Huh. Guess I don't know that one.”
“But your name's Athena!”
“So?”
“It's all from Greek mythology!” And then, unexpectedly, Baby laughed. Her laughter was joyful and loud; it came from a deep, untapped well in her body. It occurred to Tuck then that this was a girl after his own heart: a lonely, strange, curious person who saw patterns in the fabric of the world that were hidden from other people.
Athena didn't seem so amused—which was no real surprise, given how much she hated to be confronted with things she didn't know. She directed her attention back to the engine, attempting to get the lecture back on track. “Right. Well, of course. Anyways. Your gloves and grease will be in this drawer, and you always use protective goggles. Hear that? Always, always, always.”
“Listen to the lady. She knows what she's talking about,” Tuck heard himself say. He found himself blushing as he sauntered into the garage
, and felt uncharacteristically sheepish of his bare, muscular chest. Suddenly he wished he'd worn a shirt outside. But then again, fuck that noise. He was Tucker LaRouche! He'd killed men with his bare hands. Some precocious teenager with a great rack wasn't going to knock him down to earth.
“Look what the cat dragged in,” Athena said, though her voice betrayed welcome. Tucker tamped down his shyness and stared at Baby, meeting her gaze with clear eyes. He drank in the contours of her face—somewhat elfin, but strong. He felt her watching him as well. Her eyes went deep; they seemed to scour his mind. She wasn't afraid of him, that was for damn sure.
“I remember you,” Baby said. “You're—”
“The lieutenant,” Athena pronounced sarcastically. “He's our nation under God. Oh, but don't go trying any funny ideas, mister. I have permission from the man himself that she's my ward. She's under my watch, only.”
Tuck felt a wave of relief at these words. Yak and Bo and Spivey wouldn't step to Athena if she brandished their leader's approval. Her oversight was a mark of trust. Out of habit, the biker kicked a bucket upright with the flat of his boot and took a seat. It was funny: the garage smelled and seemed the same, but then here was this lovely creature, furrowing her brow at a dismantled engine. This felt—Tuck struggled for a word that fell out of reach—surreal.
“So what's the story, Morning Glory?” he ventured. “You want to tell us how you came to be entangled in the Barons of Sodom MC? Pretty young thing like you?”
“Baby, he's all talk. You don't have to pay any mind to this piece of shit.”
“Oh, I won't,” the girl said. Her voice seemed to be getting louder—more confident—all the time. “And between us three, it's really Bridie. My name, I mean.”
“Bridie? Like, Bride?”
“Yes, captain. They got it wrong in the intros.” She grinned.
“It's lieutenant.”
Vulnerable (Barons of Sodom) Page 4
