Hard Roads

by Lily White

  The biker smiled. “Sure, we have time. The money’s right here, so my buddy is just going to go inside and get the clothes. When he gets back we’ll make the exchange.”

  Thick tension filled the air as the biker’s friend ran into the house. Within seconds, I heard the sound of tires crunching over gravel and brakes squealing loudly behind us. The men who held me turned their heads, but I kept my eyes trained on the biker in front. He smiled at me quickly before pulling a gun from his side and aiming it on whoever was coming up from behind me.

  There was mass confusion almost immediately amongst the men. I was dropped to the ground, my elbow hitting sharply against a rock, the skin splitting open so that when I turned my head, all I saw was the crimson red of my blood against my skin. I didn’t feel any pain as I laid there helpless and unable to move because of the drugs in my system.

  The sun had finally set behind the horizon, but the sky appeared to still be lit by the gun blasts that sounded above me. I wanted to move away, scurry beneath a rock or bush to escape the loud booms and screams of the men. It sounded like there were hundreds, but I knew it was impossible. Rolling to my back, I moved my head to the side, my eyes locked to the biker with the friendly eyes.

  A large weight fell on top of me and I felt liquid, thick and hot, fall on my face. I couldn’t move to wipe it away so I just kept staring at the biker, watching as he fired shot after shot. I don’t know why but I hoped he would win. Maybe it was my past growing up in a club or maybe it was the fact that I remembered the look in his eyes.

  When his body jerked back suddenly and he fell backwards to the ground, his feet lifting up in the air, I heard a heartbreaking scream that was so loud, tears burst from my eyes.

  The weight above me was lifted away and I was pulled into the air, a strong set of arms wrapped beneath my legs and back. The scream wouldn’t stop and finally, as I watched the biker being pulled away from the yard by two other men, I realized that the scream was coming from me.

  “Get her in the car! Now! Back seat!”

  The voice was familiar but I couldn’t place it. Time stood still even though everything around me seemed to be moving in fast forward. Heavy breathing sounded above me and my body was jostled as a large man carried me, running from where the other men now laid in puddles of blood that soaked into the water starved earth.

  Nightmares flashed through my memory. Crimson puddles that my hands and face had been shoved against as two men raped me in front of a laughing crowd. I closed my eyes in an attempt to escape, but it didn’t matter. Opened or closed the bodies still haunted me, those in Diablo’s yard and the ones that now littered the ground over which I was being carried.

  So much blood.

  So much violence.

  It seemed like I was stuck in a never-ending cycle of terror and pain.

  I tried to turn my head, desperate to find the biker who I’d seen dragged away by his two friends, but before I could locate him, I was shoved inside the backseat of a car. My body flopped helplessly over the leather interior and when the door shut, I was once again delivered to darkness.

  It wasn’t long until another door opened and the car shook when a large man sat in the driver’s seat, immediately starting the engine and peeling out so fast that I could hear the rocks kicking up against the undercarriage as we fled. Turning my head, I noticed his head was bald, the scant light of street lamps shining against his hairless skin.

  I should have been afraid, but I wasn’t. Closing my eyes, I started to hum my mother’s lullaby again because it soothed me. It took me away to a place where the monsters couldn’t hurt me, where the nightmares were extinguished by a light so brilliant that nothing could exist in the shadows.

  Even though my body was being thrown around by the erratic movement of the car, I kept humming. I felt my lips pull up into a smile and a tear drip from my eye.

  Maybe this was the end, finally.

  Maybe this was where I’d be granted freedom.

  Opening my eyes once more, I looked at the head of the man who’d taken me. I wasn’t afraid anymore. I didn’t care about who he was or what he would do to me.

  The worst had already been done.

  I’d witnessed death. I’d been raped. I’d been beaten. What more could there be?

  My eyes closed one last time and I let my body slip into the hazy oblivion the drugs created within me. Slipping into a darkness that was comforting and safe, I had no other choice but to let go.

  It felt good when the fighter inside me surrendered because, for once, there was nothing left to fear.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  JD

  She slept the entire drive. Silently and so fucking still I was scared that she was dying, but she only slept. Every once in a while, I would reach behind me to touch her. She’d flinch away at the contact, but it was all I needed to know that she was still with me.

  I drove straight through, not stopping for water, food or gas. I had to use the bathroom for the last 50 miles of the trip, but I didn’t dare stop that car. The only time I even slowed down was when I finally approached a thin hidden driveway that led deep into a wooded lot where a small house was surrounded by trees a hundred times its size.

  By the time we reached the house, the sun had started to cast light over the ground from where it sat at the horizon. The forest around us looked magical, the colors of the different plants perfectly contrasted against the black earth beneath. My breath was stolen from my lungs by the sight, but I refused to get lost in its magical beauty because the only thing I cared about was sleeping inside the car.

  I had her back. She was safe. I could still save her.

  Those were the only thoughts that I had as I drove down dark roads, racing to a place where I could hide her from the world.

  It wasn’t until I saw those men holding her in the yard that my heart started to sting. I thought I didn’t care, I thought I was only looking to right a wrong that I’d committed before leaving it all behind as I forged a new path. But seeing her there, dressed like a hooker and held up by two men, the rage that I didn’t realize had been simmering inside me for days sparked to life, catching fire to my blood, my breath, my skin.

  I was absolutely seething by the time the trucks pulled up and I was the first man out of that truck, the first one to pull his gun and I shot the first of Hector’s men directly between the eyes. I wasn’t playing around. Not when it came to her, not anymore. She was my single focus. With my gun drawn, I watched as they dropped her, how her small body slumped to the ground, blood spraying out over her arm from where she’d been injured.

  And then… I. Saw. Fucking. Red.

  Nothing mattered except getting to her. Nothing could stop me from reaching the girl that somehow had weaseled her way into my thoughts in so short a period of time. I’ve worked for years to pay back my debts and crawl out from beneath the weight of Hell’s Rebellion and for what? To meet a grey eyed girl, a little imp that clawed at me like a spitting cat, who would turn my entire world on its head.

  It wasn’t love. Not yet. But it could be and that thought wasn’t far from my mind as I carried her sleeping body inside the house, finding a bedroom with a king sized bed and tucking her under the warmth of the down comforter, just to clean her up and then sit there for hours to watch her sleep.

  I was her guardian.

  A loyal and violent dog that wouldn’t leave her side.

  I sat by her side all day, my tired eyes refusing to close despite the burning pain of my exhaustion.

  She was so beautiful, lying there within the crisp white of the sheets, her dark brown hair flowing over the cotton pillows. She was my responsibility, my chain. I couldn’t survive unless she survived. I could never be sane unless she regained the light I’d seen inside her before I threw her to the wolves.

  I would never, in however many years I had left to walk this earth, forgive myself for what I’d done to her.

  By the time the sun was setting again and as shad
ows fell over her face, I slumped back in my chair, finally closing my eyes and giving in to the exhaustion of my mind and body.

  …

  WHACK!

  Jumping to my feet, my hands were balled into fists and I was swinging out at an unknown assailant who’d just pounded me hard in the side of the head. My arms only caught air and by the time I cracked open my eyes, I found that no person was standing in front of me with the Louisville Slugger I’d assumed they used to beat me down.

  My skull throbbed and I looked down at the chair where I’d fallen asleep, suddenly remembering where I was and why I was here. I must have fallen to the floor because there was no explanation for what had happened, except…

  “Fuck.”

  Holly wasn’t in the bed and instead of finding the small, sleeping girl, I found empty sheets, bunched and damp from sticky sweat. The room was still dark and a green flashing alarm clock on the side table revealed to me that it was only three in the fucking morning. Panic set in as I felt around the room, desperate to find a light. Once my hand landed on the plastic switch in the wall, I flipped it up, my eyes searching the room until finally landing on the scared girl balled up in the corner of the room.

  Her knees were pulled to her chest and she stared out at me with blank eyes as she rocked back and forth.

  “Holly?”

  I took a step to approach her, but she balled against herself tighter, absolute terror written into her expression. I stopped, not wanting to frighten her anymore than she already was.

  “Hey, Holly. It’s me, babe. JD.”

  There was no recognition, no softening of her terrified expression. She just kept rocking with her unblinking eyes locked to mine.

  Christ, what the fuck was I going to do? I’d never dealt with someone in this condition before and I wasn’t sure if I should approach her or leave her be. This wasn’t the fighter I’d met in the middle of the road. This was something else entirely. A woman so scared that I felt scared myself just looking at her. She resembled a small child; lost to a cruel and unforgiving world where nobody loved her or cared if she was okay.

  Moving as slowly as possible, I approached her like I would a stray and injured animal. With each step I took, she scrunched further against the wall, attempting to make herself as small as possible. I couldn’t keep moving forward, knowing full well that with each approaching step, I only intensified her fear.

  Keeping my voice as calm and soothing as possible, I tried talking to her. “I know you’re frightened, Holly, but I’m not going to hurt you. You’re safe now. Nobody can or will touch you if you don’t want them to. Understand?”

  Nothing. Not a blink. Not a smile. Nothing. Her expression remained stoic and terrified.

  Backing up, I slowly grabbed the chair in which I’d been sleeping and dragged it to the foot of the bed. Sitting down, I wanted to show her that I wouldn’t move closer to her, that I was not a large threatening man who lorded over her small, curled up body.

  Seconds became minutes, approximately forty-five of which were spent just sitting in the vicinity of each other. I noticed small things about her as we sat there. She’d rock faster if I looked anywhere but her eyes. She’d curl into herself if I moved suddenly or shifted my position in my seat. However, when I was perfectly still and when I allowed myself to get lost in her colorless eyes, she would hum. I didn’t recognize the song, but it was beautiful. It sounded like something a mother would sing to her child. Not happy or sad, the song was simply soothing.

  After another twenty minutes, I’d heard the song several times, and softly, I started to hum along with her. There was nothing else I could do and if that song was what she needed, then I’d sing it. She stopped when I first started, her eyes widening more as I refused to quit going just because she’d done so. I didn’t care if my pitch was correct or if I was even keeping time. All I cared about was becoming part of whatever would make her feel better, whatever would make her feel safe.

  I couldn’t keep my thoughts from traveling to dark places as I hummed the song to her. What had those bastards done to destroy her? What could have been so bad that every brilliant spark that had existed inside her was now absent? She’d been raped, I knew that, and I could tell from the bruises that she’d been beaten as well. My hands would have curled into fists at the thought if I hadn’t been making sure not to move in front of her.

  So I kept humming.

  Her song, even though I’d never heard it or sang it before, I hummed.

  Finally, after several intense minutes, she started to relax. Her eyes blinked. Her chest stopped heaving with terrified breaths. The muscles of her body loosened and she stopped rocking. She didn’t move to get closer to me. She didn’t attempt to communicate in any way.

  She started humming with me.

  Another hour passed, and together we must have sang that song a hundred times. It exhausted me even more and I felt bad when my lungs finally begged for me to stop. My chest burned and my throat felt rough like sand.

  When I stopped, she stopped, but she didn’t tense up or rock again, she sat there silently until she fell asleep.

  When her eyes finally closed and her breath evened out, I sighed in relief. It had felt like I was talking a jumper off a ledge or negotiating a hostage situation. My neck hurt from the tension running through my body and my spine felt locked in place. I remained in that chair for a little while longer until something so small, so miniscule in light of this tragic situation, happened that it caused me to laugh.

  Holly snored. It was a tiny little sound, but it echoed in the silent stillness of the room.

  I couldn’t help but laugh because it was something so cute and normal in a situation that was anything BUT normal.

  Shaking my head, I stood up from the chair, grinning as I approached her. I bent down and picked her up, carrying her to the bed to tuck her back beneath the sheets. Standing above her, I considered all my options. I was scared shitless to go back to sleep for fear that she would wake up and try to leave. I couldn’t let that happen, not until she could take care of herself again.

  I had no choice but to stay awake, so I left the room, pulling the door closed, but not so much that it clicked shut. With light still pouring in through the windows I looked around the house and was surprised to see that it was furnished tastefully. Comfortable couches and chairs were placed around the living room and a T.V. was affixed to the wall above a fireplace.

  An open kitchen was at the back of the house, which had cement countertops and stainless steel appliances. This was not Henry’s style and I couldn’t understand how or why he knew about it. Concern touched my thoughts that we were intruding on another person’s property, but I quickly got over it, realizing Henry would never have sent me here if he hadn’t known it was safe.

  The wood floor shook when I crossed the living room and stepped into the kitchen. Pulling open the cabinets, I saw that everything we could have wanted was stocked. Canned and box food, soda, bottled water. Everything was here. The fridge was equally well stocked with items that wouldn’t perish with age. My eyes flicked to the counter and I saw something that made me sigh in relief once again: coffee. Rushing over, I dumped water and grounds into the machine, eyeing the brewing mixture as it dripped slowly into the decanter. No sooner than it had beeped that it was finished did I have it in my cup, swallowing the hot liquid down as quickly as I possibly could. Once the second cup was in my hand, I walked back into the living room, kicked off my boots and sat back on the couch.

  Despite the caffeine racing through my blood, my eyes were closing, so I flicked on the T.V. It didn’t matter what I watched because every thought I had was on Holly. Pain and guilt washed over me every time I considered what happened. I realized it would have happened anyway, regardless if I’d been the man to grab her or not. However, having been that man, I couldn’t forgive myself for what I’d done. She didn’t deserve it, not for the actions of her father.

  I wondered where the Joker was and if
Henry had been able to find him. Mostly, I wondered what would greet me when Holly woke up again. Would she still be scared? Would I ever be able to remove her from that corner?

  Would I ever be able to find the light inside of her that had burned like fire before I whisked her away from her life?

  Ultimately, the fate of me, Joker, Henry or anybody else involved in this didn’t matter. It was her fate that mattered and I prayed to God or whoever would listen that this girl could be returned to the peace that she’d known before me.

  Pot after pot, I drank coffee until I couldn’t stay still, until every cell inside me was buzzing from the effects of the caffeine. Yet I wouldn’t let myself sleep. Pacing helped. On two occasions I dared to step outside and look at the forest that spread out around the house. I never left the front step, but I allowed myself to become lost in the sounds of the animals and the brush of the wind through the canopies of the trees.

  It was during the second time I’d gone out there that I heard something in the back bedroom. Crossing the house in three large steps, I pushed open the door just enough so that I could look inside.

  Holly was sitting on the bed, her legs bent in front of her and locked in place from where her arms wrapped around them. Her eyes were open and she was looking around the room, confused as to her surroundings.

  I started to walk in, but stopped when I worried that the sudden intrusion would force her back into that terrifying, dark place where I’d found her earlier in the day. Not knowing what else to do, I knocked.

  Her eyes shot to the door, but she didn’t move or speak. I gave her a few seconds longer and softly, I knocked again.

  When she didn’t respond for a second time, I spoke loud enough to be heard through the door.

  “Holly, listen babe, you’re safe here. There’s a bathroom if you need to use it and there’s food and water out here in the main house if you’re hungry. I don’t want to intrude by barging into your room, but I want to let you know you’re in a safe place.”

  There was no reaction in her expression, but she watched the door intently.