by Snow, Nicole
Pulled the trigger again for Summertime. Whatever the fuck I'd said to her that night when I was blind to everything except raw bloodlust, revenge, and hate, it worked.
The dummy's head exploded into a thousand pieces on the third try. I grunted to myself, satisfied, knowing it'd be at least ten minutes before the urge to kill swept over me like a fresh tidal wave.
Those evil words stayed with me, even after I stuffed my gun in its holster and watched the dog, chewing his boney treat to a mess.
Evil or not, they'd done their job. They'd kept her the fuck away. They'd saved me from the demons for a few more hours.
Only goddamned thing I ever asked for.
I'd been outta my fuckin' mind to think I could ever bring a girl like her into this sick, toxic life. Sure as shit wouldn't pull her deeper, drowning her, painting a goddamned target on her back like Freddy and Grandpa, or all the other boys in this club and their old ladies.
Fuck the past. Fuck it all.
“Bingo, you big damned badass,” a voice growled. I looked up to see Firefly standing there, our big Enforcer, a new rifle hanging over his shoulder, leaning down to pat my dog on the head while he snarled into his bone.
“Leave him be. He's chewing his heart out.”
Firefly smiled. “Don't take much, does it? I'll bring him a new one next week. Whole fuckin' club might as well get its jollies in before the Prez takes us to the grinder.”
Drawing my switchblade, I stiffened up, standing over a stump with a spare sharpener we used to keep our shit stabby. “He ain't taking us anywhere, brother. It's the goddamned Deads screaming for blood.”
“Can't argue. Won't be easy, though. Some of our boys got a good chance of getting shot to shit on this run. Deads got the numbers. We've got the brains, the balls, and bigger fuckin' bullets. Only question is if it'll be enough.”
I snorted, ripping the sharpener up and sliding my knife through it. “You're going soft like Skinny boy, Firefly. Ever since you married that chick and knocked her up. You're talkin' like you're afraid.”
“Afraid? No.” I could practically hear the steam hissing out his mouth. “Fuck yeah, family changes a man. I'm gonna have a kid hanging on my arm in five or six months. I ain't going back on anything the Prez orders, and neither is Skin, because both of us have got a fuck of a lot more to fight for here than you do.”
My eyes tried to dig a hole through his skull. He didn't have a fuckin' clue.
Firefly and Skin, they'd go off like bombs for their women, their kids, putting the patch last. For me, these colors came first, second, and third, equal partner to the bloodlust boiling me alive for over three fuckin' years.
None of the brothers knew what really happened to Piece.
They didn't know about the blood oath Prez promised me the night I reported in. Didn't know he'd told me to keep it quiet because we didn't have the strength to fight like we needed to in those days.
Dust slapped his big arms around me, pulled me close that night, promising we'd rip the throats out of the sorry fuckers who'd done my brother one day, when the time was finally right.
Prez got me drunk. Held me back. Stopped me from going deep into Georgia on a suicide run, with nothing but my gun, a pack of grenades, and enough rage to blast myself to kingdom come.
Would've done it, too. Would've driven into the Deads' clubhouse and blown myself up like something outta the shit overseas.
Firefly's rifle cracked. I blinked.
We'd stopped talking. I slid my knife against the stone hard and fast, thinking about skinning the fuck outta every sick motherfucker I could find who wore the bloody hand on their cut.
His shot went straight through the boards hiding the dummy whose head I'd taken off, and kept going. The mannequin's body joined its head in a million pieces, shattered beyond redemption.
“Goddamn, this baby's got a kick. Helluva a scope on her too,” he said, more to himself than me. “Haven't had this kinda firepower in my hands since the army days.”
“That's one big fuckin' check mark in our column,” I said. “Quit worrying so much about the op. We're gonna kick their asses so hard into the ocean, the Grizzlies will be on their damned knees, begging for our routes. Haven't ever let death stop us before, and we're not gonna start.”
“Brother, I'm telling you, you've got it all wrong. Ain't death I'm worried about.” He looked up, anger in his big blue eyes. “It's my wife and kid coming up without me that's making me stand here and practice the shit outta this gun 'til I've got it right. It's a motivator – not a damned detriment.”
“Whatever. We'll see about that.” My fingers began burning.
I had to test my knife. Firefly's mad eyes stayed on me the whole time as I laid my hand against my tree bark, taking the freshly sharpened blade in the other. I started stabbing that fucker right between my fingers like a jackhammer.
All the brothers winced when I did it. Turned their stomachs, expecting me to lose a finger or two every time.
Fuckin' pussies, all of 'em.
They thought I was outta my damned mind.
Maybe I was, ever since that night when the lights went out forever.
My blade stabbed faster, faster, dangerously close to carving off one of my digits, closer on the next thrust. Fucked up as this shit was, it always took the edge off.
Reminded me how close death and dismemberment lurked every day, wearing this patch. Reminded me to be fearless, hard as a stone, ready to do whatever it took to keep my Veep patch and mean it.
Reminded me that giving yourself something to lose was fuckin' stupid. With two brothers going soft thanks to their girls or babies on the way, it'd be up to me to pick up the slack, to charge in and cut every throat we needed to, without any second guessing.
Some of those sick bastards probably had old ladies and kids, too. That family shit would make them hesitate, and it'd be fatal when my knife went through their throats, before they put theirs through mine.
Firefly sat on a log, cleaning his gun, when my fingers finally cramped up and gave out. I dropped the knife, letting it clatter against my boot. Picked up some mud when I reached down to grab it, and I wiped it on my thigh, feeling a little hate streaming out my body.
Wish there were a whole lot more going with it, but fuck if I hadn't stopped wishing long ago.
Bingo started barking just then. He'd dropped his bone, causing it to roll down the small incline, just outta reach from the spot where he was straining on his chain.
“Shit. Hold up, boy.” I looked down, noticing how the fuckin' thing had gotten lodged in that little pit we used to hide our spare guns.
Not an easy climb. I got down on one knee and slid, turning to see Firefly standing by my dog at the last second.
Lost my grip somewhere along the way and fell three feet, smack in the mud, right on my ass. Overhead, Firefly and Sixty looked down at me, laughing their asses off.
“You need a rope down there, bro?”
Fucking shit. Sixty's crap didn't deserve a response, so I reached into the muck, digging around the cold metal box to see where that damned bone had gone.
Took about a solid minute for my hand to come up with that chewed up, dirty, mottled white stick. That was when the wrecking ball crashed through my brain.
I toppled back against the wall, twitching like a current went through me. My eyes weren't seeing the club's spiderholes anymore.
Instead, I saw the hell in grandpa's fire pit three goddamned years ago.
My brother's bones. What was left of his scorched cut. They'd burned him, bones and all, incinerating his leather, his clothes, his flesh. His whole fuckin' body.
Everything except the head I'd found, next to grandpa, who was barely breathing after his heart attack.
They'd ripped out his fuckin' eyes. My eyes, the same hazel set we shared as twins.
That sick, soulless grin from my own flesh and blood haunted me. Stalked me like a demon through time and space, always sideswiping me like
this during the most mundane bullshit.
Damn. Damn!
I quietly cursed the shit out of everything now, swinging the bone, holding my muddy face up to the sky and screaming.
“Joker! Fuck's sake!” Firefly's booming voice cut through the nightmare. “Get a damned rope. We're coming down for him.”
“No!” I snarled, shaking my head.
Holding the bone between my teeth, no different than my dog, I pushed my fingers deep into the muddy walls of the pit where I could find the wooden boards. They were rotten and dirty but they held a man up. I climbed through the slippery shit with brute force, one push at a time, hauling myself over the ledge about two minutes later.
I ignored the hands my brothers held out. The bone plopped outta my mouth and the big dog started growling, staring at me all covered in mud.
“Shit, Veep, you okay?” Firefly asked, shaking his head.
“We've gotta get a fuckin' gate around that thing,” I said, standing, shaking off the muck clinging to my jeans.
Picking up the bone, I carried it over to my dog and took him off his chain. He plucked it up in his mouth as we made our way through the clubhouse, heading for my room.
Time to go. I'd drop Bingo off and then hit the showers, blast all this crap away, before I hit the bottle or my bike.
Didn't know about the order just yet. Shit, maybe I'd ride into town, check out the new skin shop, the Ruby Heel. The girls there were easy, desperate to suck the cock of any man wearing this patch.
Probably thought it'd bring 'em more money than what they got in tips at our joint. Or maybe they just got wet for any man with a bike, a cut, and a dick between his legs that could fuck them to high heaven.
I stopped by the sink near the back, jerking the bone outta the wolfhound's mouth one more time. Rinsed that shit off before I gave it back to him, stroking his head. “Savor the fuckin' flavor, wolfie. Took a little detour through hell to bring it home. You're welcome.”
He looked up, wagging his tail. Bingo whined through his clenched teeth, snug around the bone. We walked into my room and I left him by his bed, gently closing the door behind me.
Skin stood at the end of the hall, looking at me like he'd just seen a ghost. “Christ, Veep, what the fuck happened to you?”
“Just a spill,” I said, wondering why the fuck the universe was conspiring to keep me dirty. “What's your deal?”
“You've got a visitor.” His smile jerked up, following the scar going across his cheek, and I sure as hell didn't like it.
“Visitor?”
“Yeah, some chick, showed up at our gate and called your name. Lion and Tin were gonna chase her away 'til she insisted she knows you.”
“Better be Honey-Bee,” I growled, thinking about the skinny little stripper with the sweet ass I'd fucked three times the other night.
“Definitely isn't Honey-Bee, brother. Meg's been busy telling her you're bad news.”
Stopped myself just short of telling his old lady to fuck off. Woman had no business telling her girls who they could and couldn't fuck in this club. Would've said we'd fucked up making her lead manager at the strip joint, but she had the business end down, better than any of us.
Besides, I really didn't need a fuckin' fight when I was still dripping mud on the floor.
“Fuck me, Veep. You've got your hands full,” Skin said, his eyes following a clump of mud sliding off my jeans to the floor. “You want me to tell the boys to send her away?”
“Nah. I'll do it myself, jettison whoever the fuck she is so I can clean up.” I walked past him and Skinny boy shrugged, careful to sidestep so I didn't brush my muck on him.
Rage nipped at the back of my brain. Fuck, why today? Why now with these damned disruptions?
Wanted nothing better than to hunker down in a nice, hot shower, before I decided to figure out how I'd un-fuck my head tonight with the usual distractions.
Lion and Tin nodded at me in the garages. They still manned the gates most of the time, even though we'd made 'em full patch a couple months ago, both the wounds they'd taken in our dustup with the Torches MC healing nicely.
“She's out there, Veep,” Tin said, pointing to the shitty, rusted blue hatchback sitting by the gate.
I marched right past them, already muttering under my breath.
What the fuck was this? Who was it? Why hadn't the bitch been smart enough to walk the fuck away after we'd finished?
Every girl in the county oughta know by now I didn't touch the same pussy twice unless it was fuckin' amazing. And it damned sure never went beyond that.
When I saw the little honey step out behind the car with her long, black hair rolling across her shoulders, my dick twitched. She held her face to the side, and I forgot all about Honey-Bee and the other bitches at the Heel, wondering if I'd found my fuck for the night without having to leave the clubhouse.
Shit, whoever the fuck she was, maybe I'd be giving her another ride on my bullet after all.
Then she looked at me, full frontal, and my blood turned to ice.
Summer. Fuckin'. Olivers.
Like a ghost who'd reached through the past, caught me by the throat, and slammed me against the pavement with the force of a thousand suns.
“Hi,” she said softly. Just husky enough to ring my ears. Like I needed another shot through the heart. “Uh, holy shit. What happened to you?”
I stepped up to her, my jaw clenched, trying to stop my heart from tearing out my ribs and slapping her in the face.
“What the fuck you doing here, Summer?”
Her face soured, causing her bottom lip to stick out.
I remembered biting it. Fuck yeah, I did.
Feeling its softness. The little curl it'd make beneath my tongue when she moaned. Tensing for the hot air rushing out her mouth, all the pleasure I swallowed, all the times I fucked her 'til she collapsed.
“I came to see you, Joker. It's been awhile. But maybe this isn't a good time...looks like you have your hands full. I can come back, whenever it's better for you.”
“Babe,” I started, and stopped. Balled my hands into fists for using that word. Fuck!
Old habits never died easy. They died harder than most men.
Her big green eyes widened. I shook my head, coming closer, making her back up so she wouldn't touch my muddy fuckin' chest.
“Summer, ain't never a good time to see me. You oughta know. Get in your rusted out box and go the fuck home. Whatever you've got to say, I'm not hearing it.”
I kept moving. Backed her straight into her car. She stood up straight, making herself a little taller, but she still fell at least a foot short of me. Those defiant little eyes I'd rolled into the back of her head those summer nights so long ago went off like firecrackers.
“I don't care,” she said, defiant as ever. “I've been thinking about the past. About us. You told me to back off after the horrible things that happened that night. I don't blame you. But I can't stay away forever, Jackson. I haven't forgotten. I tried. I can't. I can't forget you.”
That shit struck deep, found its target somewhere deep inside me, and exploded. If it wasn't for the nervous tremor in her voice, I would've believed every word.
Maybe I would've grabbed her, thrown her against my chest, and held her the way I'd started to when I took those trips to Seddon for more than club biz. Maybe I would've pushed my lips on hers, searching for the spark I'd smothered for three fuckin' years, trying to find out if I was still human.
I didn't. Something about her voice was strange, off by half an octave, strained. Off.
Something that stank like desperate bullshit.
“Jackson, please,” she whined again, when I went too long without giving her an answer. “I can't forget, I'm telling you –“
“I can, Summertime.” Pain criss-crossed her face like spiderwebs when I called her that name. “You wanna use names you really shouldn't around here, then so will I.”
Her lips popped open, shocked and kissable
as ever. I pushed my palm against her mouth, held her face, silencing her.
“Go the fuck home, Summer. There's nothing here for you. The shit we had three summers ago – it's as dead as my poor fuckin' brother. So's the man you knew. Last warning you're gonna get.”
“Joker...Jackson...” She looked at me intently, her bright green eyes going dark. “Goddamn, why do you have to be so stubborn? Is it asking too much to just sit down and have a drink with me? We shared something once...something beautiful. You're hurting, and so am I, ever since you left me alone that night. We can talk this out. We can catch up. Maybe we can find each other again.”
No. Fuck no.
I reached for her shoulders and pulled her in. Pressed her against the muck caked all over me, ruining the shit outta that pretty little blouse covering up her body.
First, she gasped. Then she squirmed while I held her, fighting me, whimpering in disbelief.
“No. We. Can't,” I whispered. If she didn't understand what I said with words, then the dirt would make her.
This woman had already taken a roll in the dirt with a bastard. She'd been lucky to walk away with nothing but bitter dirt, rather than blood.
Wasn't changing. Wasn't fuckin' letting her open me up, get back in my blood, and heat everything to a thousand degrees 'til I did stupid, dangerous shit that could get her killed. Hell, maybe me and my brothers, too.
She fought with her hands, slapping my chest, trying to stop the muck from getting all over her.
Too damned late. Her fight was easy. Mine, it was all on the inside, and it burned like a nuclear fire.
Took everything I had to keep from cracking, to hold my fuckin' dick down, as soon as I felt those perfect tits I'd had a dozen times pressed up against me.
Fuck, a dozen times too many. I let go.
Summer flew backward and banged against the car door when I pushed her away.
“Fucking asshole! I drove all this way for this? What the hell is wrong with you?”
“You know damned well what,” I snarled, giving her one last jagged look before I turned my back.
