Bear

by Zahra Girard

“Or today could be the longest, most agonizing bris in history, and Bear and I will be your mohels. I got to warn you, though, we’re not very good mohels. The only training I have is that one Seinfeld episode.”

  “The fuck is a bris?” the Devil says.

  “’Fuck You’, are you that much of a fucking idiot you don’t know what a bris is? Educate yourself, man, there’s a whole wide world out there,” I say. “Tell us what we want to know or we’ll cut your fucking cock off with a rusty hacksaw and feed you the pieces.”

  “Fuck you,” he says.

  “We’ve already established that’s your name. Keep up, dumbass,” I say.

  Rog leans in to whisper to me.

  “Follow my lead,” he says, then he raises his voice loud enough that the prisoner can hear it, too. “There’s just one problem, ‘Fuck You’. I had a look around when we first got here, and there isn’t anything sharp to speak of.”

  “You sure?” I reply. “You mean we’ll have to use our own knives?”

  “I sure as shit don’t want to use mine. I use this knife when I fish. And I eat what I catch. No way I’m putting some guy’s cock-blood all over it.”

  “Well, I’m not using mine,” I answer. I pause for a minute and belt our captive in the face, just for the hell of it. “What do you suggest we do?”

  “I had a look around in the kitchen earlier. Preacher’s got some butter knives. They’re blunt as hell, but, I suppose if we saw enough, it’d work.”

  “Seems like that should do the trick. Go get ‘em. I’ll get this guys pants off and then we can saw his cock to pieces.”

  “Wait. Wait. What the fuck? You’re actually serious?” the Devil says.

  “Sorry, man, you had your chance.”

  Rog leaves, and I start to strip the captive down. Pants off, eyes bugging out and spinning in their sockets, he’s a pretty pathetic sight.

  “You guys aren’t serious?” he says, when Rog gets back with a pair of knives that look like they’d struggle to cut through warm butter. “You’re not really going to saw my cock off.”

  “Well, ‘fuck you’,” Rog says, “consider this a lesson — two lessons, actually. Lesson one: you now know a few words in Hebrew. Most people don’t challenge themselves to learn a new language, but today, you have. That’s a sign of growth and personal development. Now, for lesson two: the opposite of growth.”

  Rog holds his butter knife in his hands, turning it over and running his finger along what would be called the blade if it could actually cut anything.

  I’m not so patient.

  I can feel the time slipping through my fingers — every passing second brings me closer to the deadline that’ll cost me my little girl.

  It makes me a bit rash.

  I lean in.

  I bring my knife down. Hard.

  It takes a whole hell of a lot of pressure to slice a gash in someone’s thigh with a blunt butter knife. It gets messy. Blood runs like a thick, sludgy creek from the gash in his thigh and he hollers bloody fucking murder.

  I twist it a little, grinding it against bone. He screams again and again until his voice is this hoarse, pathetic warble.

  I leave the knife in his leg. Spit in his face.

  Rog stares at me. Dumbfounded.

  Leaning forward, I grab hold of our prisoner by the jaw, clamping his mouth shut and squeezing until his eyes bug and his face changes color from angry red to the chalky white of shock.

  “Listen: I am tired, so fucking tired, of waiting for you to figure your shit out. This isn’t a game. This isn’t like the movies where you can hang tough and prove how heroic you are. Tell me where the truck is, or I’ll do to your cock what I just did to your leg and then I will shove the bloody pieces of your dick down your throat.”

  He stares numbly at his leg.

  I hit him again. Knuckles to jaw. It’s therapeutic.

  “Now.”

  “Impound lot. Just south of Spanaway, where highway 7 turns into the 507.”

  Rog has got his eyes half-closed, focused. He furrows his brow.

  “That’s a county sheriff’s lot, right?” He says.

  Our captive nods.

  “How the hell do you have our truck at a county impound lot?” I growl.

  ‘Fuck You’ gives me a look that screams his name.

  “Why the fuck do you think? We’ve got the damn sheriffs on payroll, that’s why.”

  I’ve had enough of his bullshit; the knife is in my hand before I know it and just as quickly in his throat. He dies with a geyser of blood shooting from his gaping mouth and a look of wide-eyed fear on his face.

  “Jesus Christ, Nash,” Rog says.

  I can’t remember the last time he’s used my real name.

  “Give me a hand with this piece of shit — find something we can use to sink him in the pond.”

  “You didn’t need to do that,” he says. “The fuck’s gotten into you?”

  “I’m tired of being dicked around. I want to get this shit over with so I can get my daughter back,” I say. “Besides, the fuck’s gotten into you that you’d give a shit about a Devil?”

  “It’s not the Devil that I give a damn about. It’s you. You are losing it, man.”

  “You don’t need to worry about me, brother.”

  “I don’t need to worry about you? So, it’s normal to kill someone with a butter knife?”

  “I’ll do what I have to do.” I lean down and haul the bloody corpse onto my shoulders. Slick, congealing blood slides down my arms, but I hardly pay it any mind. “If you want to sit there contemplating morality, feel free. But I’ll be outside getting my job done.”

  He joins me after a minute, face a shade of white. Any other time, I’d sit down with Rog and talk this shit out. He’s my brother, he’s the club’s treasurer, and, in ways that extend beyond money, he helps keep us on track.

  But his daughter’s not in the hands of some corrupt judge. His daughter doesn’t have a deadline dangling over her head.

  I’m through fucking around — I’ll kill whoever I have to to get my little girl back.

  We tie some rocks and cinderblocks to the body and sink it in the pond. There’s a splash, lily pads rock in the water, waves push away the algae and the slime, but, eventually, the waters settle and the algae returns to it’s place.

  It’s low effort, but it’s more than this piece of shit deserves.

  “Gunney needs to know about the truck,” Rog says, staring at the pond. He’s got his phone out and doesn’t take his eyes off the spot where we sunk the body while he dials.

  I pull out my phone. I’m edgy, a cyclone of emotions inside me, pulling me every which way. I’ve got the urge to call Roxanna — to hear the voice of someone who cares almost as much as I do about getting my daughter back, someone who’s not wrapped up in this shit that’s going on between my club and the Iron Devils.

  There’s a text and a voicemail waiting for me. The interrogation was so engrossing I didn’t notice my phone go off.

  The text is from that number that raises rage inside me. Kidnappers.

  You’re running out of time.

  That’s it.

  They’ve kidnapped my daughter and all they can be bothered to send is five fucking words?

  Shoving my phone back in my pocket, I turn to Rog.

  “What’s the word?”

  “We go back to the clubhouse.”

  “And?”

  “And we figure this shit out.”

  “That’s it?”

  “What do you want to do? Bust into the impound lot, deal with the fucking sheriffs, all by yourself?”

  “I want this done with. I want my family backing me. I want my daughter.”

  “Do you know why Gunney is so hard up to get our shit back? Do you think he’d give a God damn if it was just some fucking car parts? Do you think the Devils would risk so much just to get some fucking carburetors and mufflers?”

  “Tell me what’s going on, Rog. Tell me now.”


  “Gunney cut some deals. Reached out to some contacts he made overseas when he was still in the Marines. We’re mostly legitimate, Bear. Mostly’s the key word. We have to survive and we needed a big score. There’s some serious firepower hidden with the engine parts in that truck. And some serious fucking customers waiting for their orders. Customers we do not want to piss off. If we lose this cargo, if we fuck this up, we are in some deep fucking waters.”

  “Jesus Fucking Christ. Life made more sense in prison.”

  “Either we get those guns back, or we’re dead.”

  I’ve stopped listening. Rage beats a furious rhythm against my eardrums, deafening me to the world. My bike roars between my legs and carries me forward, the wind whipping my face and one thought screaming in my skull: my new relationship with my daughter is going to be baptized in blood.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Roxanna

  They descend on the Busted Crown like a pack of wolves. Predators. Armed to the teeth and ready to kill. One bike follows another so close it’s hard to tell the difference between the roar of each one, they’re so tightly intertwined. I start pacing from the moment the sound of their arrival reaches my ears, fear and dread building inside me.

  Ozzy is the first to enter, and he nods in my direction as he sees me sitting at the bar, nose-deep in a glass of red wine. It’s not even noon and I’m on my third glass, seeking the kind of buzz that’ll quiet the riot inside me.

  Jynx enters, followed by a handful of men wearing the patch that identifies them as prospects. Jynx is wearing men’s clothes now and heads straight for the bar and the beer taps. Gunney and a few others wearing Kings patches enter soon after. Not a single one of them doesn’t have blood on him.

  My stomach turns at the sight.

  One man sporting a gruesomely bloody bandaged wound sits down next to me, and Ozzy sits down to my other side.

  “Who’re you? New club girl?” the new guy says, hardly showing any pain despite bloody bandage he’s sporting.

  “She’s Bear’s girl, brother,” Ozzy says. “Roxanna.”

  “Nice to meet you, Roxanna,” he says. “I’m Preacher.”

  I stare at his hand for a second before I shake it. It’s caked in blood, but I don’t want to be rude. “Nice to meet you, too.”

  Either I’m not able to keep my face from having my question written all over it, or Preacher’s heard what I’m thinking a million times before.

  He pulls down the collar of his shirt. A scar, thick, white, and wicked, runs in a circle around the full circumference of his neck.

  “I earned this collar and the nickname along with it. A while back, I decided I’d go looking for some peace and quiet in the crook of a noose, save the people in my past the trouble of having me in their future,” he says, his voice as level as if he were telling me what he ate for breakfast. “The beam I hung myself from broke after a minute or two — it might’ve been longer, but I wasn’t in a timekeeping mood when it happened.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  “Sorry for what?” he says, raising an eyebrow. “That I learned I really didn’t want to die? I was grateful when I woke up with my neck ripped to shit and my lungs still working.”

  “What I meant is I’m sorry you had to go through such an awful experience.”

  “Life’s shit and God’s a bastard, sometimes. After I woke up, I came in here. I wasn’t part of the club back then, but this was the closest bar I knew of and fuck, I’d just hung myself and I wanted a beer. They let me drink on the house on account of my bleeding throat, and I found myself some brothers. People that’ve been through shit just like me. It was one of the best days of my life.”

  “I’m glad you found yourself a family.”

  “Yeah, they’re all right. Worth every scar.”

  I contemplate my wine glass and let the conversation die for a while. Though Preacher doesn’t seem that bad of a guy, the way he so casually talks about his own near-suicide, and the fact that he’s covered in blood, doesn’t predispose me to talk to carry the conversation with him much further.

  Glass empty, I pour some more, then turn to Ozzy. There’s a bloodstain on his pants in a splatter pattern large enough that whoever provided the material for it is definitely not alive anymore.

  “What happened earlier?”

  “A whole lot of shit. Some Devils carked it this morning.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better, and I’m probably not going to be the only one with a collar by the time this is over,” Preacher chimes in.

  I look back through the room. There’s not a person there who isn’t wearing a grim mask of some mix of rage, resignation, and determination.

  “Where’s Nash? Why isn’t he here?”

  Preacher rolls his head in a circle, and the scar around his neck flexes and stretches, shrinking and growing like this live thing. “He and Rog had some errands to do. They’ll be along soon.”

  “Errands?”

  He gives me a knowing look.

  My stomach turns again thinking about where things are heading. Everybody’s covered in blood and now this? I might not feel unsafe in this room, but I feel alone. Every one of these men seems on a course to murder, and, I can’t help but think that at some point my parents will be swept up in the current of violence.

  My father might be mixed up in something illegal, but there’s nothing that justifies the kind of justice I can see the Wayward Kings dispensing.

  I can’t let that happen.

  I lean in to Ozzy’s ear.

  “I have a friend coming out to see me. Her name’s Maria. I’m going to try and get ahold of her — she’s on a plane right now, I think — but, if she comes here first, tell her I’m at that cafe in town. The one that has the red barn on it’s sign.”

  “You mean the Red Barn cafe? Yeah, sure, I’ll let her know,” he says. “Are you alright?”

  I almost don’t register his question. It’s nearly inconceivable to me that anyone in this room could be ok with how things are going. “What do you think?”

  “I honestly don’t know, which is why I asked.”

  “It feels like the one thing I can be sure of is that I’m seeing some of you for the last time.”

  “That’s life, sometimes. Keeping this town and this club safe sometimes has a cost.”

  “You’re all just going to accept that this has to end with a bunch of people dead?”

  He’s quiet, a shrug his only response, and it’s maddening how accepting they are, that it’s a given that they’re going to kill more people today and probably lose some of their own.

  I finish my wine in a hurry and rush to the door. I can’t be in here anymore.

  Samantha, shouting for me to wait, races to catch up to me in the parking lot. I’m steps from the clubhouse when her hand on my shoulder brings me to a halt.

  “Where are you going?” she says, her voice an equal mix of concern and suspicion.

  “Out of here. I know what they’re going to do and I can’t take it.”

  “I had the same problem as you, years ago, when Gunney first joined the Kings.”

  I cross my arms over my chest. “Yeah?”

  “When he decided he wanted out of the service, he was a wreck. He came back from that shit that went down in Bosnia, having to just stand around with his dick in his hands as a Peacekeeper,” she practically spits the word, like it turns to bile in her mouth. “Watching people get butchered while command just keeps telling everyone to stand down. He was a drunk and angry at the whole goddamn world. I was so fucking close to leaving his sorry ass.”

  “So?”

  “Gunney got his life back together because he found the Wayward Kings. These boys are broken as all hell, but, together, they make it work. It’s where their name comes from; they might be lost or fucked up, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be kings. And they keep this town safe,” she says.


  “And that justifies murder? I should just sit back and let Nash – I mean Bear – go on killing people?” I say.

  “Sometimes the answer to a fucked up problem is an equally fucked up answer. But that doesn’t change the fact that they’re still good men doing the right thing. What would you do if you were in their place and no one else gives enough of a god damn to help?”

  I waver for a moment. There isn’t much I wouldn’t do for my own family. And Maria, too. She’s always been my rock to cling to when I felt like the world’s about to sweep me away. I’d sacrifice myself for any of them.

  But even so, as much as I care for Nash, I can’t sit around when I know what the club is planning. There has to be a better way.

  “I can’t do this.”

  I shove Samantha off of me and turn on my heel to head toward the truck.

  One foot’s in the old beat-up truck when another pair of bikes roars into the parking lot. Nash and Rog. Nash gets off his bike and just the sight of him pulls me towards him like a magnet. I wrap him in a hug before he’s even got his helmet off. I can’t help myself, and, in my heart, I’m hoping for a chance to change things.

  The feel of him calms me, like balm soothes a burn. He’s solid, something I can cling to in the chaos rushing around me. His lips meet mine and heat tickles me from my head to the tips of my toes.

  It gives me hope.

  “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” he says, smiling as he kisses me.

  “I missed you,” I say, sinking my face into his chest. For every thought swirling in my head — fear, anger, the sense that I’ve lost all control — what comes to the forefront is the truth: I care for him. There’s something about being around him that feels so right.

  I breathe in. Scents assail my nostrils. Gunshot. The metallic tang of blood. The taste of him on my lips turns bitter. I want to spit it out, expel it along with the heady, gut-turning scent of blood and death that clings to him.

  I pull away a bit and look up at him. His eyes are heavy, cold, untouched by the smile on his face.

  “What did you do?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he says, his voice cold and brusque.