Satan's Property

by Celia Loren

  “Spirited Away,” she confirms.

  “That was it!” I reply.

  “You like Miyazaki?” Twitch breaks in excitedly. They quickly start talking about the movie together, and then branch out to a bunch of names I’ve never heard of.

  Liz nudges me. “I saw that,” she whispers.

  “They’d be good together, don’t you think?” I ask.

  “I think you’re right. Maybe I’ll mention something to Flint. And speak of the devil...” she says, as Flint ambles over to us, eyes on his wife. She stands up, and he plants his hands on her ass, taking a good squeeze. I look away, trying to give them a little privacy, though it seems like they don’t really care.

  “So, Violet,” I glance up at my name to see Flint looking down at me. “Maybe it’s time for you to get behind the bar. Sun’s starting to go down.”

  “No, no, let her stay,” Liz whines.

  I smile at her, then look over in Drifter’s direction to see Cherish sitting in his lap. She’s wearing a short, tight dress, and I have to admit she looks hot. He wraps an arm around her waist as she whispers something in his ear.

  “No, I should get inside,” I say, standing up. “Looks like everyone’s really starting to arrive now.”

  Stephanie makes a whispered goodbye to Twitch and I mentally pat myself on the back for following my instincts on that one. Behind the bar, she quickly shows me how to fit a bottle pourer on top of the liquor bottles, and how to hold the bottle so I don’t get alcohol everywhere while I’m pouring a shot.

  The light in the lounge gets darker as the sun sets. I see the kids who were playing out back passing by the windows as they’re escorted home by their moms, who are completely ignoring their pleas to stay. Most of the old ladies clear out too, at least the ones who have kids to tuck in and don’t want to stick around for the real party. But some of the younger wives are still hanging out.

  I’ve been to some smaller parties at the Devil’s Army clubhouse, but when my dad was alive he was always shielding me from the truly crazy stuff. And Rooster didn’t really want me around to ruin his fun, so I’m not completely prepared for how out of control this party might get.

  A few hours later, Stephanie and I are kicking ass behind the bar, expertly spinning around each other to serve all the drunk bikers crowding around. I feel like an old pro with the bottles by now, smoothly running a bottle of Jim Beam over a row of shot glasses, filling them up to the brim. There is some dim light coming from a few outdoor lamps, and hard rock playing over the speakers.

  I look over to one of the tables and see several of the brothers doing lines, including Hollywood. I tried coke once and didn’t sleep for two days. I’ll stick with weed, thanks. I pour two shots of vodka for Stephanie and me and pass one to her.

  A brother from one of the other charters comes up to the bar. I recognize him at once. He’s built like a linebacker—broad shoulders, no neck, over six foot. This is the second or third time he’s come up to me. Stephanie tries to serve him, but he waves her away and points to me.

  “Hey, what can I get for you?” I ask, leaning on the bar. He places his hand over mine and runs his thumb over my knuckles.

  “I’m Bull,” he says, yelling a bit over the music. Fitting, I think. All he’s missing is a ring through his septum.

  “What can I get for you?” I repeat. He runs his hand up to my wrist and fastens his monster hand around it.

  “How about we head up to the third floor together?” he suggests. I try to pull my hand away, but he’s tightened his grip. Stephanie filled me in on the third floor earlier today—it’s rooms they use for two things: storage and hooking up during parties.

  “She’s not a sweet butt here,” I hear Stephanie say as she appears next to me. I’m surprised by the resolve in her voice. Maybe she knows how to handle aggressive men better than I do. I glance at her and feel her hand at the small of my back, supporting me.

  “She sure looks like one,” he says, running his eyes over my body. I think of what Flint told me when I got here; he can’t be everywhere, and these guys are used to getting what they want. “So whose old lady are you then?”

  “Well, he’s not, you know, here, but I am one, an old lady, I mean,” I say, stumbling over my words. I pull my arm back from him, and this time am able to wrench it from his grasp.

  “Hey, how about you and I do a shot?” Stephanie says to Bull, trying to lighten the mood. She pours a couple for the two of them, and Bull reluctantly pulls his eyes from me and settles onto a stool. I see Stephanie wave over one of the other sweet butts, who wraps her arms around Bull’s shoulders.

  I shake off his touch and keep serving drinks at a breakneck pace. The lounge is packed and people are all but having sex on the couches. Actually, they might be having sex, but it’s hard to tell in the darkness. Bull glances over at me from time to time, but the sweet butt is whispering in his ear, keeping him calm and interested. He keeps throwing back shots, and Stephanie has no choice but to keep serving him.

  My feet are starting to ache from Stephanie’s heels, which are probably a half size too small. I think since I’m behind the bar, no one’s going to be able to see if I put on the sneakers Liz brought for me, or notice that I’m several inches shorter than before.

  “Hey, I’m just going to run upstairs and change my shoes,” I yell in Stephanie’s ear. “I’ll be two minutes!” She nods and begins serving someone, so I run around the bar and head across the lounge toward the stairwell.

  I pull open the stairwell door and am on the second step when I hear the door slam behind me.

  “I never caught your name,” someone says over my shoulder. I turn and see Bull standing just inside the door.

  “Violet,” I say, trying to keep my voice level, “My name is Violet.”

  “Violet,” he repeats, tasting my name on his tongue. “Well, Violet, you look damn fine in that little skirt,” he continues, walking over to me and laying one hand on my inner thigh.

  “Look, I told you, I’m married,” I say, showing him my ring finger.

  “Yeah, me too,” he says with a grin, holding up his own ringed left hand as proof. “Come here,” he commands, picking me up off the step.

  “I said no!” I shout, squirming from his grasp. He pushes me up against the cold wall and presses against me. I feel his full-on erection against my thigh and smell the alcohol on his breath as he starts to roughly kiss my neck. Thick fear clouds my mind. “Get off me!” I yell, but he presses his mouth over mine.

  I hear the stairwell door open again, and before I know what’s happening Bull is wrenched off of me. I see the blur of Drifter’s shape in the doorway as the door starts to close again. He’s plucked Bull off of me like a doll and tossed him back into the lounge. I dash out after them to see Bull stumbling back into the party and Drifter pursuing him, fists clenched. Brothers clear out of their way and form a loose ring around them, waiting to see the action.

  “The fuck are you doing, Drifter?” Bull sputters, regaining his balance.

  “She said no, you piece of shit,” Drifter growls at him.

  “Drifter, it’s OK!” I yell. I try to go to him but am blocked by one of the Sons. “Let me through!” I try to push through the wall of black leather.

  “Let them settle it,” someone hisses back at me. I step back and peer around him nervously. I hope no one knows this fight is about me.

  “What do you fucking expect?” Bull shouts, “She’s dressed like a goddamn whore—she was shaking her tits in my face all night!”

  He’s barely finished his sentence when Drifter lands a hard punch across his jaw. Bull takes a couple steps back and rights himself, blood spilling from the corner of his mouth. Bull puts his hands up and swings wildly at Drifter. Drifter ducks down and Bull’s fist sails over his head. While Drifter is still low, he jabs Bull quickly in the gut. Bull doubles over and brings his arms in to his stomach.

  I see a flash of silver as Bull rights himself and lunges at Dr
ifter.

  “Knife!” I scream, before my brain has even registered what I’m seeing.

  Drifter jumps back, but it looks like Bull may have tagged him. The brothers around me yell in protest at this sudden unfairness, and several start eyeing Bull for a chance to intercede. Drifter recovers faster than Bull, whose thickness makes him slow and awkward. Drifter catches Bull’s arm and spins to elbow him in the face. Bull drops the knife and Drifter tackles him.

  Bull hits the floor with a thud and Drifter kneels over him, raining punches down on his face. The brothers finally spring forward and I see Flint and another brother pulling Drifter to his feet. Bull is a bloody mess on the floor, but he’s moving around and groaning. So, still alive, at least. The ring of brothers loosens up and I push my way toward Drifter. His eyes are hard and cold, and the veins in his neck are popping out, but he’s making no movement back toward Bull. Flint isn’t taking any chances though, and restrains him by the arm while talking calmingly in his ear.

  I approach Drifter and watch his eyes soften as he sees me. Flint feels Drifter’s muscles relax under his touch and releases him.

  “You’re bleeding,” I say to Drifter, coming closer to examine his body.

  “What?” he says, frowning. He brings up a hand to his chest. His expression is one of mild surprise as he pulls his hand back and sees blood on his fingers. “Shit. Can’t believe that fucker pulled a knife on me.”

  “Sit down,” I order, pointing to one of the couches behind us. The brothers raise their eyebrows in surprise at my tone, but they obey all the same. Drifter leans back in the seat with a small wince, and I pull a standing lamp over to him.

  In the light, I can see a wet red splotch spreading across the right side of his chest. His dark grey t-shirt has been slashed open and I delicately pull the fabric back to better examine the extent of his wound. It’s deeper than a scratch, that’s for damn sure.

  “This needs stitches,” I say to Flint and Tag. “He needs to go to the hospital.”

  “I’m fine,” Drifter grunts.

  “No, you’re not,” I respond firmly, locking eyes with him. I think I see a flicker of a smile cross his face and I frown at him. I look up to Flint and Tag and see them exchange glances.

  “We can’t go to the hospital right now,” Tag says. “We’re under too much heat because of some recent club business.” I stare at him, wondering if he’s referring to the hit I heard them planning out the night before. “They’ll use one of our brothers showing up at the hospital with a knife wound as an excuse to turn this place over.”

  “He’s right,” Flint says, “We can’t risk it right now. Can you power through this one, Drifter?”

  “Sure,” Drifter says, hiding a grimace. “I’ve had worse.”

  “No,” I say again. “You think Bull keeps that knife clean? He probably uses it to clean his fucking teeth. You’ll get an infection.”

  “Violet, it’s fine,” Drifter says, starting to rise.

  “I’ll do it, then,” I say. Drifter looks up at me curiously.

  “You’ll do what?” Flint asks.

  “Sew him up.” Their expressions range from surprised to incredulous. “I was a nursing student in college,” I continue, pressing my case. “I interned in an ER. I know how to stitch someone up.”

  Flint and Tag exchange worried glances.

  “Good enough for me,” Drifter says, standing up. “Where are we gonna do this?”

  “My room,” I answer quickly, before Flint and Tag decide to just let his wound fester with bacteria. I cross toward the stairwell door with much more confidence than I feel. Flint follows behind me up the stairwell steps.

  “What do you need?” Flint asks.

  “I’ve got needle and thread. I’ll need gauze, peroxide—do you have a first aid kit anywhere?”

  “In the office,” he confirms, “Go get it, Tag.”

  Tag turns around and heads back down the stairs toward the office. We continue in silence to the second floor as I try to recall all of my training in suturing a laceration. I push the door open, flip on all the lights, and spread a bath towel over my bed. “Lie down,” I order Drifter.

  “Ooo, bossy. I like it,” he says with a wicked grin.

  I roll my eyes with him as he concedes and lies down. I find the sewing kit I used to fix Hollywood’s jeans and put it on my bedside table, then leave for the bathroom.

  “Flint, why don’t you wash your hands, too. Just in case,” I add. He follows me into the bathroom, and we scrub our hands thoroughly at the sink.

  We move back into the room as Tag appears with the first aid kit. I kick off my shoes and open the kit. I’m pleasantly surprised to find sterile gauze, scissors, hemostats and peroxide. I suppose these guys are used to dealing with injuries. I put the gloves on and cut Drifter’s shirt up from the bottom to the neckline, pulling it open. The blood is all over his chest and filling up his wound.

  I hear Tag grunt and turn away.

  “Tag, we don’t really need a third pair of hands here,” I say, relieving him. It’s always funny to me to see who can’t handle the sight of blood.

  “Well, guess I’ll see how they’re doing downstairs,” he says gruffly, disappearing from the doorway.

  I unscrew the cap of the peroxide and kneel on the floor at Drifter’s side.

  “Flint, could you open that packet of gauze please?”

  He reaches into the kit and carefully rips it open. I turn to Drifter.

  “This is going to hurt like a bitch,” I warn him. He nods.

  I pour the peroxide over his wound, flushing out the blood, and cleaning the area around it. I quickly take the gauze from Flint and apply pressure to the wound to staunch the bleeding. Drifter grits his teeth as the peroxide flows over him and I can hear him sucking in air purposefully through his nose but he doesn’t make a sound. His hands are clenched resolutely by his side, pressing into the mattress. I hold the gauze to his chest with one hand and hold up the needle with the other.

  “Flint, get you lighter,” I say, “Heat up the length of the needle while I hold it to sterilize it.” He takes the lighter out of his pocket and I hold the eye while he runs his lighter along it. I place it on a piece of gauze to cool down.

  “What color thread?” I ask Drifter.

  “Green, like your eyes,” he says, with a small grin.

  Tag reappears in the doorway, eyes on the ceiling. “Flint, Bean needs your advice about Bull. Apparently there’s some shit about how his wife just ran out on him...” he trails off.

  Drifter glances up at Flint, his eyes hard. Flint looks down at him and smiles grimly. “Don’t worry about Bull. I’ll handle him.” I hear conviction in his voice, and believe him. “Violet, you want me to send someone else up?”

  “No, I’m OK here,” I reply as I test the temperature of the needle.

  Flint crosses to the door and leaves with Tag, closing the door behind him.

  I cut off a length of green thread and dip it into the peroxide, then dip the needle in for good measure. I thread the needle then lay it back down on the gauze on the bedside table. I pick up the gauze covering his wound and blot away the blood. The cut is about three inches long, and deep in the center.

  “I’m going to have to do a couple sutures inside to bring the tissue together,” I tell Drifter. He nods.

  “You done this a lot?” he asks suspiciously.

  “So, uh, where’s Kalb tonight?” I say quickly, picking up the needle and averting my eyes.

  “Uh-oh,” he says, a line forming between his eyebrows as he studies my face.

  “I can do this,” I whisper. “I promise.”

  The crease between his brows vanishes. “I believe you,” he says, turning his face to the ceiling. “Stitch away.”

  I take a deep breath and pull the needle through the inside of his cut, then use the hemostats to knot it off. I cut the thread off and then repeat the process a second time.

  “OK, now just the outside ones
,” I say. Drifter grunts in response. He’s staring at the ceiling and I can tell he’s concentrating through the pain.

  I start at the far end of the laceration and work my way back with the purse string sutures I learned in school. I finally reach the end of the wound and knot the thread again, then cut off the extra. I lean back, a wave of dizziness hitting me. I felt oddly calm during the whole procedure, and my nerves are now getting to me all at once. I look over my work, the dark green thread creating a lattice across Drifter’s chest. Holy shit. I cannot fucking believe I just did that.

  “Done,” I say with a relieved grin breaking over my face.

  “Done?” Drifter asks, picking his head up off the pillow.

  “Yep,” I respond proudly, dabbing some peroxide onto another piece of gauze and cleaning up the smudges of blood on his skin. “Not the prettiest sutures I’ve ever seen, but serviceable.”

  “So, tell me. How many times have you really done that?” Drifter asks, narrowing his eyes at me.

  “Um. Twice,” I admit.

  “Twice?!” he exclaims.

  “When I was in school,” I say, biting my lip.

  “Wait...You’re not even a full nurse?!” he gapes at me.

  I eye him nervously. Shit. Is he pissed? His head falls back against the pillow as he bursts out in an open-mouthed laugh.

  “Oh man, that’s great,” he finally says, looking at the stitches. “Seem good to me,” he says.

  “Can you sit up?” I ask, offering him my hand. He grabs it and sits up. “And, um, take the rest of your shirt off?”

  He grins and gingerly pulls off the shreds of his t-shirt. I feel the color rise in my cheeks at the sight of his torso fully exposed. I place a square of gauze over his wound and then wrap surgical tape around his chest to keep it in place.

  “There,” I say, pulling off my gloves.

  He starts to swing his legs over to the floor.

  “No, no, no,” I say, stepping in front of him. “Whatever you need, I’ll get it for you. If you move around, you’ll just increase the bleeding.”

  “Alright,” he says, relaxing back on the bed with a smile. “I was going to spring Kalb from my room, and...well, get my pipe from my dresser drawer. To help with the pain,” he adds.