by J. L. Beck
“Didn’t I tell you more than once you couldn’t save everybody…?” It was as if he were whispering.
“I wasn’t trying to save anyone. I just wanted him to leave me alone,” I almost cried out. I wanted him to understand, to listen.
“You were, and you have been this whole time.” He whirled around so fast, I felt like I was going to be sick. My body quivered with built up emotions.
“I did nothing wrong,” I yelled my voice growing weak. He crossed the room in what seemed like less than a second coming face to face with me. He reached his hand up, and on instinct, I flinched away. Not because I thought he would hurt me, but because it just had become a habit.
“You’re so right, Maggie. You haven’t done anything wrong. You have been the kindest individual you could be, and I understand that now. What you don’t get is when I told you to stop…” his words stopped as his eyes dropped down to the spot where Blake’s hand had touched me, “…to stop sticking up for me—you caring has brought all this on you.”
His voice was soft, caring, and I wanted to press into his touch as his fingers gently ran across the slap on my cheek.
“I don’t care. It was the right thing.” The words didn’t sting quite as bad as the reality of what they meant. I had been doing the right thing. I had been sticking up for Diesel because no one else would. Even if we were both damaged from the outcome of it all, I would rather have us both here than an early death for him.
“In reality, it isn’t. You don’t deserve to be called names.” His breath could be felt against my own lips, and as I lifted my eyes up to his, I almost gasped. In those eyes, I saw a flicker of something that I had never seen in all the years I had known him. Love.
“It’s not the names that hurt, Diesel. It’s the physical things that hurt. I can wipe away the hurtful comments like a chalkboard, but I can’t undo the physical. I can’t make my mind forget what a slap feels like.” A tear escaped my eye, sliding down my cheek. Diesel’s thumb stopped it, pressing softly against my skin.
“You won’t ever have to… I’ll help you forget.” His lips pressed against mine feather soft, the connection causing goose bumps to develop on my skin. His hand sunk into my hair softly as if he wanted to breathe life back into me. Was he afraid the others would shut out the goodness that was inside of me?
When he pulled away from me, my mind was spinning and my cheeks were flushed. Long gone was the very thought of pain. Now it was replaced with something else. He pressed our foreheads together and stared deeply into my eyes.
“I won’t let them hurt you anymore. I won’t let them break you, beat you, or make you weak. You didn’t listen to my warnings. You didn’t stay out of it. None of that matters though—all that matters now is that they stop hurting you. You were there for me, even when I didn’t need you. Want you. I will be here for you.”
“What’s her name?” I could hear someone ask but couldn’t answer. My throat ached as if someone had shoved a baseball bat down it.
“No idea. I never asked Killer, and at this point and time, I don’t feel like going back in there to do so.” The voice speaking was deep and robust. My body felt weak as I tried to move around in the arms of the person carrying me.
“Fuck. She’s waking up. Let’s get her to a room.” I wanted to grunt, doing anything I could to let them know I was still here. I had no idea where I was or what was happening.
I hear the clicking of a door opening and my body being placed on soft sheets. I willed my eyes to open, but they wouldn’t. It felt as if cinderblocks were laid upon them.
“We need to go get Greg,” one of the voices said. Who was Greg? Were these people going to hurt me?
I heard the click of the door closing as whoever was in the room left. It was then I focused on getting my eyes to open. Think happy thoughts, I told myself—when in reality all I could see was the darkness in the man’s eyes that I had loved. I knew it was him. Not just by looks, because he looked very different than he used to, but in my body, my soul. I felt a pull. Kind of like love at first sight, but more so along the lines of seeing an old friend after not seeing them for years. You just know.
As I focused on Diesel, who was now going by Killer, my eyes popped open. My throat throbbed, and as I tried to lift a hand up to my throat, I realized I was unable to do so. Was I paralyzed?
I tried wiggling one of my toes, and it worked. What the fuck was wrong with me? Panic seized me as I looked around the room. It was simple. A bed I was laying on the corner. A dresser with a TV in front of me. A closet to the right, and a door that lead to what I would assume was a bathroom.
It was personal living quarters, but why? Which led me again to the question of, where was I? My eyes swiveled around the room. No windows, no escape route.
I could hear voices approaching and forced my eyes closed not wanting them to think I was awake yet. What if these people wanted to kill me? After all, what was it Diesel was supposed to be? Dead. I had gone to his funeral. I had wept at his casket and clasped his hand in my own. Yet he was alive. Breathing, seething in rage. He had almost killed me.
Not only that, but it was completely obvious he hadn’t a clue who I was. If he had, he wouldn’t have ever laid a hand on me. The man I knew, and the man who he was now, were two very different people.
“What the fuck happened out there? I told you guys to lay low. Now you got people questioning us,” a voice raged just outside the door. I forced myself to stay unmoving, which wasn’t an easy feat when all I wanted to do was to run from wherever I was.
“Killer. He went off the rails. He’s been in the training facility since we got back. I think this is someone from his past.”
The person speaking couldn’t have been any more correct. I wasn’t just someone from his past, though.
“Fuck, Christ. What did you use to dose her up?”
“L1,” the man responded. What the fuck was L1?
“Good. Let’s hope it doesn’t have any adverse effects on her,” the man who I assumed was the leader said sounding relieved.
“Do you want us to do some background work on her? I’m not sure she can ever leave this place. People in the club honestly thought Killer committed murder.”
I could practically feel the anger and confusion filling the room. They weren’t alone in their emotions. I wanted answers, too.
“Full background. Find out where she lives, placement of work, and any other information that would be helpful. She has free will to the entire building. She isn’t to leave under any circumstances and let Killer know he isn’t to have contact with her.”
The man sounded disappointed as if he had expected more from Killer. I almost couldn’t blame him. At that moment when he had his hands around my throat, I saw a lost man, a man who had so much hate and anger built up. He wanted to unleash fury on anyone who made him feel something he didn’t want to feel.
Maybe that’s what I did—made him remember.
“Yes, sir. I will let him know.” That was the last voice I would hear for hours. No one would come to check on me or make sure I was still breathing. I would lie in that bed until whatever it was they had shot me up with wore off.
Eventually, I did. My toes wiggled, which led to the feelings in my legs coming to life. As I progressed, I attempted to stand, only to fall back on the bed at a strange angle. My body ached in a strange way as the drugs continued to wear off.
“Help.” I tried to say, but nothing escaped my lips. My mouth felt as if it were filled to the top with cotton not allowing a sound to escape.
Without a way to move, and no voice to call for help, I used my legs to roll myself over onto my side. It was there I fell into a fitful sleep praying I could bring myself to be the one thing that could save Killer.
seven
KILLER
MY FISTS CONTINUED to beat against the punching bag. The sound of skin breaking filled the air. Blood seeped from open wounds on my knuckles, but I felt no pain. There were no feelings
of hurt. Just gleefulness filling my blood with a high unlike any other.
Was it my fault that woman almost died? I had almost blown the cover of my people. I had almost lost us the power of freedom—and for what? For anger issues, for hate toward some little bitch.
I heaved a breath into my lungs and then another. My fists pounded into the bag harder, each hit fueling the fire inside of me. My muscles burned for a break. Memories invaded my mind.
“Thank you, Diesel.”
FUCK!! I stepped away from the punching bag, grasping the hair at my scalp painfully.
Who was Diesel?
She wore a red dress today. Her hair was in soft curls, and her body reminded me of a dancer’s.
“Stop!” I cried out. I didn’t want the memories anymore. I didn’t care about who I was in the past or what meant something to me or not. I didn’t know that person. I wasn’t that person anymore. Those memories shouldn’t have meant anything to me because I wasn’t him.
“Killer,” Gauge called my name, but I couldn’t bear to listen to him. He believed in me. He thought my life would be easier if I embraced the memories. He was wrong.
“Killer. Listen to me.” He tried to reach out to me again, but his efforts were worthless. I felt like I was drowning in water at the bottom of a pool. His voice was muffled, and as I looked up at him, all I saw was a blurry image. With fists clenched, I squeezed my head, pounding on the sides of it to knock some sense into myself. This had to stop. I was going crazy.
“When I see your pain and you hurt, it makes me want to try. It makes me want to live to see another day. You’re my reason to breathe.”
“NO!” I bellowed out again. She wasn’t my reason to breathe—she was nothing. Whoever she was, she was nothing.
“Killer, stop, or I’m going to have to give you some L1.” The mere comment of a drug once used on me pulled me from my mind. How dare he use a drug on me that was supposed to be banned.
“L1, really? You would use the one weapon they used on us all the time. You know what it was like to be in that facility, Gauge. To have your memories wiped. To have been given a number instead of a name. All I knew was that I had cancer, I died, and now I’m here. How could you threaten me with that?” I screamed. I was losing my shit. I was completely lost and for what reason? I had no answers, no one to turn to. Even if I could turn to someone, the very people who knew the answers I wanted to know would do anything they could to keep it under lock and key.
“Calm down. Deep breaths dude,” Gauge said calmly. I listened to his voice, forcing each breath into my chest slowly.
Hitting the floor with a thud, I crawled into a ball. I couldn’t see myself as a man at this moment. I wasn’t acting like a man. I was broken, fractured straight down the middle.
“Someone get the stretcher. I think he’s going into remission.” I could hear Gauge yelling for help, but my eyes glazed over. My veins felt like they were filling with steel, like I was capable of any and all destruction.
Pain. Hate. Anger. Rage.
“Hurry, he’s fading fast…” Gauge’s voice was still there, but underneath it all, was something else. A tiny spark in the back of my mind. I held the match to ignite it, and I wanted it to catch on fire. I wanted to destroy. Set my memories ablaze and never have them again.
“We’re losing him…”
Oh, they didn’t have a fucking clue. Losing me would have meant they would’ve had to have actually had me at one point in time. We all knew that wasn’t true.
“Get the gun ready,” a man said above me. He was big, but I was bigger. I could snap his neck. I could take him out of his pathetic misery. A smile formed on my lips. They had no idea the monster that was about to be unleashed on them.
I felt the prick of a needle entering my arm but didn’t care. There was nothing they could do once the Killer came out to play.
“Everyone stand the fuck back until it kicks in, and then we’ll take him into medical housing for a while.” I wanted to laugh at his pathetic attempts at warning the others. If anyone died today, it would be their fault. Blood may stain my hands, but it was their fault I had lashed out.
“You cannot stop me. Nothing can stop me,” I growled.
“Come back to me. You can’t leave me here. God, you can’t take him. You can’t.” I could hear her cries and feel her tears against my skin. It wasn’t real… It’s not real.
“Shoot him again,” someone yelled. Another prick to my arm, which caused me to fill to the brim with rage, lashing out even more. The steel shot through my veins moving my muscles and causing my body to bow off the floor. My head was hazy and the room spun as the walls began to close in on me. Those who seemed far away were now right on top of me, their faces masked in hate.
“I’ll kill you all,” I screamed.
“Come back to me. You can’t leave me here. God, you can’t take him. You can’t.”
“Stop fighting it, Killer.” I shook my head hysterically. Her words echoed inside of my mind… It was like a prayer to my heart.
“Come back to me. You can’t leave me here. God, you can’t take him. You can’t.”
I clung to her words. As my body settled into a deep darkness, the light before my eyes dulling like a candle that had been burnt out. The light dimmed until eventually… it was gone.
I was gone.
Sweat trickled down my spine as the coldness of the chains pressed against my wrists, biting into my skin. I could feel the blood seeping out of the wounds the metal had caused from me being suspended in the air by my arms. My body sagged, weariness threatened to take me, and yet he kept on with his torture.
Whip. Another lash to my torso as a sinister smile spread across my face. The pain left behind by the whip was nothing compared to the fury that was threatening to escape.
“You can whip me all you want. I won’t obey on my own accord,” I said, bitterness in every word I spoke.
“You will… or we get the L1. Oh, and me whipping you is more fun for me than a technique used to get you to obey.” The cockiness in his words made me manic. I could feel the madness running through my veins as I closed my eyes, gritted my teeth, and took a deep breath.
“Fun for you? Well, now it’s time for me to have a little ‘fun’ of my own.” Before he registered what I had said, I mustered up all the strength I had left in me and grabbed the chains, winding the metal around my hands. This movement lifted me higher up, and when I had a good grip, I yanked as hard as I could. With a loud snap, the chains instantly broke from the lock that was cemented into the ceiling as my blood pumped through me in a frenzy. The sound of my feet hitting the ground echoed throughout the cold, white room.
Standing up, I took a step closer. A step closer to my victim. Chaos swirled around in my head as the broken chains dragged behind my bloodied and battered body. No longer was there humor in his eyes. No, there was fear, fear that made me happy, crazy with a need to destroy. I watched as he brought the whip up, his hand trembling as he lashed it at me, the thin leather wrapping around my wrist as it cut into my skin. I wanted to laugh. Was this his way of stopping me from hurting him? From ripping his still-beating heart out of his chest?
With precise precision, I grabbed the whip that stood between my tormentor and me. I pulled with all my might watching as he tried to resist me, to fight back against my strength. As if he could hide from the anger that he had stirred inside of me. The friction of my skin against the leather caused the whip to slice my palms wide open. I could feel the blood dripping from the wounds, but my mind was on the man before me. A demented smile formed on my face as he fell to the ground landing on his knees. With a flick of my wrist, I was wrapping the whip around his neck while I wiped the blood from my torso. The blood he had caused me to bleed, I smeared across his face.
“Don’t… don’t kill me. I didn’t want… they made me do everything to you.” His words came out in a rush as I listened to him beg and plead for his life.
“It’s a little la
te for that.” There was no mercy in my voice, no remorse for the things I was about to do to him. I was a killer.
Those were the last words I had said to him before I ripped him to shreds, piece by piece. The last words before I came down from my high of vengeance. From my high of retribution. Of the need to feel his blood coating my hands in return for him making me bleed.
“11.” The voice crackled through the speaker that was located by my door of captivity.
“11. Congratulations. You learned the lesson in today’s training. Kill for revenge.”
***
When I awoke, my head throbbed. I wasn’t sure what was up or down. The blankets before me weren’t my own. The bed not my own, yet I was here. In this bed. There were no restraints, and as I looked at my arms for injection marks to see if it was all a nightmare, I realized I truly had gone off the rails.
“How are you feeling?” Gauge asked me. My gaze swung to him. He was standing in the doorjamb staring at me with a grave look of disappointment. Somewhere inside of me, I knew the way he was looking at me should’ve mattered, that me hurting him and my brothers should’ve of bothered me. Yet it didn’t.
“Like I got hit by a fucking truck. “
“It’s the L1.” One letter plus one number was the result of me losing control over my own body. He knew I hated that drug, yet he doped me up on it anyway.
“We didn’t have an option. You ended up almost killing a woman, who we had to bring in, and then you just totally lost it. We had to do what we could to calm you down. You were manic, and we didn’t know what you would do.”
I didn’t want to blame Gauge for having to shoot me up. I don’t remember what happened, but I’m certain I was too far gone in an uncontrollable state if he had to put me down. I rubbed a hand down my face. Sweat clung to my hair and tension filled my belly. The woman. I remembered her and her stupid fucking friend.
