by Hazel Parker
Her eyes were downcast, as if she were afraid to look at the camera. Her lips looked swollen. Both of her arms were down by her side, indicating that someone else was holding the camera. In the background, it looked like…it looked awfully familiar, but I couldn’t place it. There was sunlight pouring in at an angle, as if from a sloped rooftop.
“Carrie?” I said in a light tone that quickly got darker. “Carrie? Carrie. What’s going on?”
“Lane,” she said, her voice sounding like she’d been sobbing for the last few minutes. “Lane, baby, I’m sorry. I should have listened to you. You were right. Damon, he—”
“Damon what?” I said, my gut already telling me I was about to hear something that I really wouldn’t want. I made it a point as I spoke also to start recording the call, so I could analyze it later. “What the hell is going on?”
“He…he killed the guy watching out for me, Lane! He chloroformed me, and I woke up here, he’s, he’s—”
And then the camera turned, and I went from seeing the angel of my life to the demon, the bane of my existence. Damon Wicker.
“Hello, Lane,” he said, a disgusting smile crawling across his face. “Or should I call you Niner? Or maybe Officer Bentley? It’s so hard to tell you with you. They say I’m the criminal, but you’re the one with so many names, it’s hard—”
“Where the hell are you?” I shouted, oblivious to anyone staring at me in the street. “What the fuck have you done with her? What did you do to her?”
Damon just cackled, all too entertained and amused by my fear. I wanted to reach through that goddamn camera and choke the life out of that asshole. I wanted to dig my nails into him, rip those tattoos off, and then kill him. I wanted to destroy him, but to do so very slowly, as if that might somehow avenge the deaths of all of the women that he had killed.
“Oh, her?” Damon said, taunting me by turning the camera to Carrie, who, with the camera pulled out, was shown to be chained down to the ground, held in place like a slave. God, I wanted to kill that man so bad. “So far, just what she has told you. You do have to hand it to me, Officer Lane ‘Niner’ Bentley.”
He cackled at his own terrible, awful “joke.”
“I may do things that boring society would consider illegal, but I am a truth-teller. I have never shied away from the things that I have done.”
“You think that makes you some goddamn hero? You think that makes you a good guy because you haven’t lied? When I see you, Damon, I will fucking kill you. You may have gotten away with it once, but no system is going to prevent me from coming after you again. I will find you, and I will kill you.”
“Bahahaha,” Damon laughed. “Well, you are in luck. I am putting an invitation out to you and the Stones—all three of them—to show up to a meeting spot that you will be informed of within the next thirty minutes. You are requested to be at that spot at eight o’clock tonight. We will give you a proposition that, let’s see…could save the girl’s life?”
No, there was some catch, some bullshit, some wicked nonsense to this that Damon wasn’t saying. Even if he did spare Carrie’s life in exchange for something, it was like doing a deal with the devil. He’d cripple Carrie, rape her, mutilate her face—something that, yes, might have meant she lived, but it would have been so vicious that it would have altered her life forever.
“Of course, such a trade comes at a price, you know. I trust that you and your capitalist-loving cronies understand?”
“You fucking touch her, I will make sure the only thing else that touches you is a goddamn bullet through your skull!”
“Temper, temper, temper, Lane,” Damon said, mockingly tsk-tsking me. “I can certainly understand now why the NYPD couldn’t keep you around. Maybe this also explains why Carrie couldn’t keep you around, either!”
Damon threw his head back and laughed some more as I shook so much that I felt like I’d crush my phone from the tightness of my grip. And then, just to make a point, Damon gave the camera to someone else, lifted Carrie from the ground, and then shoved her down to his crotch. He had pants on, and I knew he hadn’t done anything, but the message was clear.
Wait too long or refuse to play along, and that was about the gentlest thing that Damon would do to her.
“Eight o’clock tonight, Officer Lane Niner Bentley,” he said. “I look forward to seeing you!”
He laughed some more before the call cut off. I almost turned and chucked my phone in sheer anger before common sense won out, reminding me that I’d recorded that call for a reason.
But if I didn’t figure something out within the next eight hours—really, probably within the next hour, knowing how Damon operated—then it wouldn’t matter how much evidence I would have collected. He’d kill Carrie, but not before ensuring her soul would be tormented by her final moments for the rest of eternity.
I couldn’t do it alone, though. I’d done it alone before and look what that had gotten me. A lot of enemies of a different kind, and even if I didn’t exactly have “bosses” or many “co-workers” who wanted to see me fall, I still needed the full support of the Savage Saints.
I sprinted home, ignoring the honking cars as I raced across different streets trying to get to Brooklyn Repair. A few guys on bikes yelled at me to watch where I was going, but their words barely registered with me. Nothing short of the complete recovery of Carrie as I had last seen her would make me feel at ease.
As soon as I reached Brooklyn Repairs, I yelled as loudly as I could.
“Everybody who is not in the club, out right now!”
A few customers looked at me. I stared at them and made a threatening motion. Yeah, we’d have to deal with some bad Yelp reviews. Big fucking deal. They all scrammed.
The prospects, Uncle, and Biggie came over to me, looking at me with some mixture of annoyance, confusion, and fear.
“Niner,” Biggie said. “What’s—”
“Get Marcel over here as soon as possible,” I said. “You two. We all need to talk.”
* * *
“That’s it?” Marcel said after I played him, his brother, and his uncle the video in the office.
“That’s it,” I said. “You want to know what I think? I think Kyle is using Damon to kill you all. He wants the four of us gathered in one place so that he can end us with ease. Once that’s done, no one’s going to stay in the club. Fitz is going to go back to Manhattan, and all the prospects are going to go back to their old lives.”
“Shit,” Uncle said. “Always knew Kyle was a real sleaze ball, but this right here is a new fucking low, even for him.”
“I told you, he’s bound to do anything. If you’re surprised by this, then you didn’t take him seriously enough.”
“Alright,” Marcel said, putting his hands out, controlling the room. “Look, this is not the place to cast blame. I am only interested in getting Carrie back and this fucking Damon guy finally killed. I don’t give a shit what led up to this if it can’t tell us where the hell she is.”
There you go, Marcel. That’s what I’m talking about.
“Let’s watch the video again,” I said. “And this time, let’s try and see if we recognize where they are. If we can pinpoint their location, we can launch a strike in the next hour or so—”
“And maybe have a chance to save her and take out Damon,” Marcel said. “Alright. Go ahead, Niner.”
I did so, playing the video from the start. Thankfully, having already lived through it twice now, it didn’t blind me quite as much as it had before, but it was still excruciatingly painful to see Carrie hurt and Damon laughing. I paused it before it got to the end—I didn’t need any further reinforcement of the imagery Damon had tried to provide.
What place is like that…empty…sunlight in…
“Looks like an abandoned building of some sorts,” Uncle said. “Not a surprise, really. You figure that a guy like Damon’s going to go from place to place—”
“Wait,” Biggie said. “Is she…is she chained? Nin
er, play the video from the start, will ya?”
I did as commanded. I already had an idea of where this was going.
“How many places in the area do you think have chains set up like that?” Biggie asked.
“From knowing what I know as a police officer? Very, very few. The places that would wouldn’t do so in such an open area—it would either be a private sex place or it would be a dark room, but definitely not an open area.”
It’s where we first ambushed that one Bloodhound.
“Maybe it’s where we ran into the Bloodhound,” Biggie said, making me feel more confident about my notion. “Damon probably assumes we won’t think to check it since we found the one guy there. Maybe he thinks that we’ll have checked it off, as it were.”
“Well, what the hell are we waiting for?” I said, already standing up. “Get everyone you can together right now. I already got rid of the customers. Marcel, sorry, business needs to go to the side for today.”
“I don’t think anyone’s going to question or disagree with that, Niner.”
Perfect.
“We need to all move out en masse, but we can’t bring bikes. It’ll be too loud, and they’ll kill her as soon as they know that we’re on to them. We need…”
It’ll be just like the old days.
“To treat this like a sting. Get in there, overwhelm the shit out of them, kill Damon, get Carrie, and leave the rest behind. At this point, Marcel, we’re not bikers anymore. We’re a bunch of goddamn Savage Saints.”
“Absolutely,” Marcel said. “You’ve helped us up to this point, Lane; the least we can do is help you. So yeah, let’s start putting—”
“What the fuck?”
The voice from outside carried all the way to the office. I cocked a gun and hurried outside, but there was no threat present.
Instead, the corpse of the prospect tasked with watching Carrie this morning, Danny, had been dumped just inside our garage, with a piece of paper that said “Lift Me” over his chest. I did so before the rest of the club could see what I saw.
They had carved the address of the meeting spot into his chest and stomach. The sight was horrid and left little doubt about what they would do to Carrie or to us.
“Oh my God…”
I may have tried to hide it from Marcel, but the president needed to know everything. I guess in some ways, I was glad. If he didn’t realize the extreme measures that the Bloodhounds were capable of, he could have no appreciation of the enemy.
“Now you know,” I said. “Now you know what they can do. So let’s hurry up before they do this to Carrie.”
And God help everyone in Brooklyn if they do.
Chapter 20: Carrie
I know it sounds weird, but a part of me silently wished that Damon had his pants off right before he hung up with Lane.
It would have given me such great pleasure to gnash my teeth on his dick and turn him into a eunuch for all those present to witness. True, I would have suffered more abuse and more violence, but it would have been worth it.
But, instead, he kept the gesture symbolic as he hung up the phone, handed it to one of his minions, and then pulled me up by the hair. I had my hands bound to the ground by chains, making it impossible for me to escape. They had also tied my feet together with rope so tight, it cut off the circulation.
“Hello, Carrie,” Damon said as he smiled at me, his rancid breath impossible to turn away from. “You and I have had many encounters before, but never have we been quite so personal as this. I hope you know that I am very much looking forward to getting to know you.”
“Fuck off and die, you shit,” I said. “I wished I’d called the police on you when you walked into my restaurant.”
Damon just laughed. Cackled, really. It was certainly a little bit theatrical.
“And what were you going to tell them, hmm? That a scary-looking man had come to your store and wanted some food?”
He laughed some more, but this time, instead of allowing him to mock me, I spat at him. That cut off the laughter immediately. He wiped the spit off, smeared it on my face, punched me in the gut, and then shoved me to the ground.
“God, you stupid fucking cunt,” he said, but he seemed to return to his majestic, grandstanding self shortly after that. “Tell me, Miss Carrie, what do you know about me? I like to make sure that my guests of honor get to know me before the fun begins. After all, what could be more important to an erotic encounter than the connection of shared interests?”
“Like I’d ever say a goddamn thing to you!” I said with a sneer. “You’re a disgusting pig and a rapist. And that’s all I’m going to ever admit to knowing about you.”
But as I spoke, even though I thought I was telling Damon how he really was, he seemed instead to relish it. It was like he wanted me to call him a rapist. He seemed to…I couldn’t believe it, but he seemed to be aroused by it.
“Oh, my, tell me more,” he said, his eyes narrowing like a predator spotting unsuspecting prey.
Well, I was plenty suspecting. But there wasn’t much I could do about it.
But then, before I had a chance to say anything else, anything stupid that would have gotten me in trouble, Lane’s words from before flashed in my mind—the words that warned me that a man like Damon got off the most from being seen as fearful and significant. The more I told him what he wanted to hear, the harder he was going to be, and the easier it was for him to hurt me. In a way, he was like many a nightmarish creation of horror movies, feeding and thriving off of my fear.
So, it was time to do the opposite.
“You say you want to know more?” I said. “You want to know what else I know about you?”
“Mmm, yes,” Damon said, licking his lips like a wolf moving in for the kill.
“I can tell you that you’re a nobody.”
Damon recoiled for a second before he started laughing.
“A nobody?” he said as if I had just stated the most preposterous thing in the history of mankind. “I am very well known to quite a few people if you must know, Miss Carrie! Do you think I get a reputation like I have if I am a nobody? Foolish woman!”
But the result was just different enough that I knew I had gotten a little bit under Damon’s skin. I didn’t know if it would be enough to stop anything from happening—in fact, a great deal of me feared that it was going to accelerate the process rather than prolong it—but if I was going to get hurt by him, then I was going to make it as harsh and cruel for him as he was for me. I just had to hurt him in a different way.
“Maybe a few families know of you, sure, but you’re nothing compared to the real criminals of the past,” I said. “Ted Bundy? Jesse James? Those are names people will remember. Damon Wicker is just an anonymous criminal that no one gives a shit about. No one will—”
Damon came and smacked me again with his hand, knocking me to the ground. It was working, although I wasn’t sure what “working” meant in this contest.
“You are a fucking stupid bitch, you know that?” he said. At least I’m getting under his skin really good. “You think I’m nobody? By the time I’m through with you tonight, I’ll be someone you never forget. I’ll haunt your fucking dreams, Carrie. You’ll never be able to look at another man without seeing my face. You will go to the grave with your last memory being of me.”
“Perhaps so,” I shot back. “But that won’t get your name in the newspaper. You won’t ever be remembered or given coverage in the news. You think you’re somebody? Lane is more of a somebody than you are. Lane—”
Damon then kicked me, and it was only because I saw the kick coming was I able to “go with it” a bit and not have it hurt as much. But that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt—oh, it fucking hurt like a motherfucker.
“This would have been so much easier if you had just kept your whore mouth shut and your legs open for me,” Damon said as he grabbed me by the hair and pulled me in close. “But instead, like the stupid bitch that you are, you just couldn’t he
lp yourself, could you? You’re a dead bitch, Carrie. I won’t kill you now. But you are not making it out of this day alive.”
There was something absolutely paralyzing about the sincerity in his words. I knew nothing that I said or did would change Damon’s mind; if not even sex would cause him to spare his life, then nothing in this world would stop him from killing me. I very much feared that my last day was going to be today because I hadn’t listened to Lane.
But it was for that very reason that I held on to a glimmer of hope.
“Yeah, but you’ll be dead too,” I said, my words weary and my body tired from the physical beatdown. “Lane will come with the Saints. And he’s going to kill you.”
“Hah! You have retrieved your sense of humor, it seems! Very good, Carrie, very good. There’s just one problem with that idea. I have already broken free from his grasp once. I can easily do it again, most especially because he is no longer a cop. If he couldn’t beat me when he had all of that at his disposal, what’s to say that he’s going to succeed now? Face it, he’s a failure. If he does see me, it’s because I will have let him.”
“You’re wrong,” I said, although I couldn’t pretend I was one hundred percent certain of my convictions. I absolutely had a fear in my stomach that I was just bullshitting like mad and there would be nothing I could do to stop it. “He’s freer now. He was constrained by the law and the regulations before. But now, he’s free to do as he pleases.”
Damon scoffed and started to walk away. At least he’d stood up to take his anger out on something else. It was hard to feel good about “winning” then the only thing that I’d earned was a few hits.
“Maybe so,” he said. “Maybe Lane is freer than before. But it doesn’t matter. He and the rest of the Saints won’t be around for long. And I don’t mean because of what I’m doing.”
“What?” I said, more of a gasp than an actual coherent word.
“Ah,” Damon said, sensing doubt and fear. “You see, there’s a perfect storm of events coming down to end them once and for all. I am but one part of that plan. A very-well compensated and rewarded part, but just a part all the same. Even if a miracle happens and Lane does indeed manage to kill me, it will only prolong the inevitable. The end of the Savage Saints is at hand.”
