Kick

by Carmen Jenner

  “I take what’s mine, and I take care of mine. Are you mine, Indie?”

  She moans and closes her eyes, tilting her head up toward the ceiling.

  “Look at me,” I command, wrapping my hand around the nape of her neck. “Are you mine?”

  “Yes. I’m yours.”

  I exhale, and reward her by sliding a hand between us to toy with her clit. She bucks wildly on top of me, squirming away from my touch. I hold her still, digging my hand firmly into her hip.

  “Stop, I can’t …” she breathes. “Not my clit.”

  “I own this pussy, baby. I’m gonna make you cum, and you’re gonna milk me with your gorgeous fuckin’ snatch, and then you’re gonna cum again and again, until I say you can stop.”

  “No.”

  “Shh, let go,” I whisper in her ear and I pump my hips in time with her rocking. “Fuckin’ cum for me, baby.”

  “Biker …” Her moans leave her in breathy pleas that I feel every-fucking-where. I feel her give a little, and I want more of it. I want all of her. I want every thought, every breath, every orgasm, and every fucking moan.

  I shift both hands under her arse and stand, taking her with me and moving us under the water, then I slam her back against the glass and let it have her weight. I press my hands against the wall and glide in and out, taking her slow, and driving us both towards orgasm. I don’t think I’ve ever fucked like this. Not even with Lauren. I wasn’t lying when I told Indie I like to fuck, and fuck hard. But right now I care more about her pleasure than my own, which is another thing that I’ve never felt before. As I sink inside her again and again, I don’t care how long it takes. I just want her to feel something other than pain.

  What the fuck has this woman done to me?

  That alone should make me want to punish her, to hurt her, to fuck the shit outta her tight little cunt and feel her break beneath my hands, but it doesn’t. Jesus Christ. I’m like every other fuckin’ idiot stupid enough to get attached to someone, to care about someone other than myself.

  Prez was right. I’m fuckin’ pussy whipped.

  “Biker?” she asks in a whisper. “Is this really happening—oh god, right there. Don’t stop doing that.”

  “Yeah, babe,” I grunt. It’s no fucking picnic trying to hit that sweet spot of hers over and over without losing my shit altogether. “It’s really fuckin’ happenin’.”

  “What are we doing? What happens when the water runs cold?” She bites on her lip and I spear her with my gaze, forcing her to stay with me, though I can tell already how much she wants to let go.

  I’m not dumb enough to think this is the kinda shit that lasts forever. How can it? I abducted her. I held her captive. I drugged her, hurt her. I did shit I had no right to do because she wasn’t mine. She’ll come to see that one day for what it is. She’ll come to see that anything between us was, and can only be a beautiful lie. I’m no Prince Fuckin’ Charming. I’m an arsehole. I’m cruel, and I’m a criminal with no moral compass. Or at least that’s who I was. I have no fuckin’ clue who I am right now.

  “Then we shut the water off and keep fuckin’ in the bedroom,” I say, thrusting in a little harder, a little faster, until she’s throwing her head back against the glass and panting like a fuckin’ bitch on heat. I kiss her neck, her jaw, working her into a frenzy with my lips and tongue, and my cock that’s buried balls’ deep, and then she surrenders. Body and fuckin’ soul, she gives me all of her as that tight pussy milks my dick with her release. And it’s fucking glorious.

  Her surrender is the only religion I need.

  It’s 10:00am when I hear the van and the roar of bikes as Prez and the rest of the boys pull in the drive. Indie’s sleeping soundly so I slip my arm out from beneath hers and ease off the bed, shoving my legs into my jeans and throwing on a fresh shirt. I snag yesterday’s clothes from the pile on the floor, along with Indie’s. They’ll all have to be burned. She was covered in blood and brain matter when I threw her in the shower last night. I shake my head. I really need to stop shooting fuckers at close range in front of her.

  I head downstairs and meet Prez as he’s entering the kitchen. “You okay, kid?”

  “Yeah. Indie was a little shaken up, and the old coot wouldn’t take any of the morphine last night. I haven’t seen him this morning, so he’s probably dead by now.”

  “Speak for your fuckin’ self, you little fuck,” Country shouts from the hall. I turn to see him exiting the gym, arms full of loot: wallets, police baton, and One Eye’s cut.

  I turn to Prez. “Jesus, the fucker doesn’t die, and he has supersonic hearing?”

  “Yeah, I’m fuckin Batman, kid. I’ve already been for a run, taken out a couple bad guys, and made Gotham City safe again this morning while you lazy bastards slept the day away. Though by the way you two was screaming last night, can’t say I blame ya.”

  I roll my eyes. Country sets his loot down on the kitchen bench and begins emptying out the wallets. “You mind if I keep this shit, Prez?”

  “Baton and gun gotta stay with the body, Country. They’re police issue; we don’t want no one asking questions about where they came from. Burn the cards, but you can have anything else.”

  “What do we do with the bodies?” I ask.

  “I got a chainsaw out back. We’ll chop ’em up, weight ’em, and dump them in the dam. It’s far enough away for no one to go lookin’.”

  “Even One Eye?

  “He’s a traitor, ain’t he?”

  “And Squeals?”

  “I gotta go tell the kid’s poor girl that he died protecting an innocent woman. He wasn’t patched, but he’ll have a club funeral. I’ll see to that. I already called Shady. He’ll be here later to pick up Squeals’ body.” Shady was another freelance healthcare practitioner that the club had on speed dial—if by health care you meant freak of nature who liked to play with dead things. He worked the crematory near the clubhouse, and for the right amount of money he’d happily fire up the machine after hours. We call him Shady, ’cause he’s shady as fuck. What other man do you know that sits alone in a crematorium jacking off to the scent of burning bodies?

  Come to think of it, Crazy would probably go in for that shit.

  As though he’s reading my mind Prez says, “I got Crazy out in the paddock setting the cop car alight. Fucker’s like a kid on Christmas morning.”

  I hadn’t seen the cop car last night, which means he must have parked it at the back of the house while I was out.

  “Listen, kid. We searched the Cop’s house this morning. Found a secret room hidden beneath the garage. He had a fuckin’ shrine dedicated to your old lady. Pictures, hair, teeth, video tapes stacked all neatly in a fuckin’ row. I haven’t seen anything’ like it before. And she wasn’t the only one. There’s a fuckin’ slew of bitches they been doing this stuff to. Sickest fuckin’ shit I ever saw. I removed any trace of her, got our fuckin’ tape back too.” He takes a deep breath and then says, “I found your priest. He’s yours if you want it. Otherwise I’ll pull Tank from junkie duty and send him—”

  “I want him,” I say, resolutely. The need to destroy this fucker burns through my veins like acid. I want so badly to meet him face to face and put him to ground knowing he hurt what was mine.

  “You have to take me with you,” Indie says from the lounge room. I didn’t even see her come down the stairs. “You promised me, Daniel.”

  “Yeah, I know,” I say, shaking my head as she comes into the room wearing another of Mia’s expensive outfits, this one a silk sundress. It’s the first time I’ve seen her in a dress, and I immediately wanna take her back upstairs and remove it.

  “You sure you’re ready for that, darlin’?” Prez asks.

  Indie glares at him, her eyes glinting with bloodlust. It’s a good look on her, but I know better than any that that kind of hunger comes at a cost. “I’m sure.”

  “Babe, you don’t need to go. I can put that fucker to ground and you never have to see him again.�
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  Turning to me, she frowns. “I have to do this. I thought you understood that?”

  “I do,” I say, avoiding her angry gaze. “Doesn’t mean I have to fuckin’ like it.”

  “I need to do this, Daniel.”

  “You can’t take the bike. Too noisy; too fuckin’ showy. Cops are already watching the club for her.”

  “What do you mean they’re watching the club?”

  “They’re watching every fuckin’ club. That’s why I wanted her arse inside and away from the fuckin’ windows.”

  “I don’t get it,” I say. “If he knew where she was why didn’t he just bring the whole motherfuckin’ squadron in here and snatch her up?”

  “Because then I’d be in the system, and he couldn’t have me for himself,” Indie whispers. “I could have spoken up and pinned my disappearance on him. If was safer to wait me out.

  “Makes sense,” I agree, because what else is there to fuckin’ say?

  “There’s a Dodge Charger in the garage,” Prez says. He walks around the centre island to the pantry and opens the door. Near the light switch sits a key holder with about ten different coloured keys on it. He lifts a black fob from the hook and hands it to me, reluctantly. “If you destroy my favourite car, I’ll put you to ground, Newbie.”

  “I’ll treat her like she’s my own,” I say, smiling at him.

  “Yeah, I seen that piece-of-shit bike you drive, you little fuck.”

  “A Night Rod Special is not a piece of shit, Prez.”

  “No, a Night Rod Special isn’t, but yours sure fuckin’ is.” Prez shakes his head and turns to Indie. “Make sure he doesn’t drive like a maniac.”

  “I’m not sure that’s possible.”

  “Got you here in one piece, didn’t I? Come on. You need a jacket and then we’ll head out.”

  “We’re gonna do it in broad daylight?”

  “No, we’re gonna do it tonight. But we can’t just walk in there and start shooting the motherfucker. We have to watch, make sure no one is around to witness it. We have to do this shit right or I’m gonna wind up in jail, and you’re gonna be sent home, right where he can find you again.”

  She lets out a deep, shuddering breath.

  “Little faith, Spitfire. He’ll be dead by the end of the day, and then you’ll be free to live the rest of your life. Move to another city, or another fuckin’ country. You’ll be free.”

  Tears well up in her eyes and she nods. “Yeah, why don’t I just move to fucking Ibiza and forget any of this ever happened.” She storms up the stairs and I’m left wondering what the fuck I said to make her so fucking antsy. I’m not expecting her to forget what they did to her. She could live a lifetime and never forget that, but Jesus Fucking H Christ, if it were me, I wouldn’t ever wanna set foot in that city again.

  “Fuckin’ hell, you’re an idiot,” Prez says with a laugh.

  “What?”

  “What?” he says. “Are you fuckin’ missing a couple brain cells there, Kid?”

  “Fuck you.”

  “The bitch is probably feelin’ a little bit fuckin’ vulnerable. She’s been abducted, tortured, raped, mutilated, she’s lost teeth and fucking years off of her life in a few short weeks and you fuck her, you make her feel as if she finally has somethin’ good and stable to fuckin’ hang on to, and then you go and tell her to move to another country?”

  Country comes back from the gym, hauling another load of shit that belongs to the two dead guys. “Didn’t your dad teach you nothin’ bout women, boy? They’re strong as a brick shithouse and fragile as a flower, all the same time.”

  “What Country’s trying to say is that the girl needs someone to be strong for her. She’s done a bang-up job on her own, but sometimes you gotta be able to fall apart and know someone is there to pick up the fucking pieces. Don’t be a dick.”

  “Is that what Raine does for you, Prez? Picks up the pieces when you fall apart?”

  “Get outta here, fucker.” He shoves me, and it’s not so playful. Think I hit a nerve.

  I don’t bother getting my shit from upstairs; I don’t know where we’ll end up tonight. I guess that depends on whether we put the Priest to ground or not. I have some ideas about what I’d like to do to him, but ultimately, that decision is up to her. I meet Indie at the door. Her face is red, as if she’s been crying, and she’s hiding it behind her hair.

  “You nervous?”

  “No, just impatient.”

  I lift her chin until her eyes meet mine. “You don’t have to do this. I can do this for you. I don’t know what you want me to be, but whatever that is I’ll try. It might not work, but I can promise you right now I can take care of this for you.”

  “I have to do it myself. I have to see the fear in his eyes that he put in mine. I wanna watch him burn, and then I’m going to dance in the ashes.”

  “Whatever you need, baby.”

  She smiles up at me, but it’s hardened and doesn’t touch her eyes. She’s not the girl I joked with on the couch yesterday, she’s not the broken woman I held in the shower and she’s not even the sweet satiated woman I lay in bed with this morning, because revenge is sweet. Until it isn’t.

  I stand in front of the sign that reads St Andrew’s Catholic Church. My stomach roils. My hands shake. It’s a little past 7:00pm. It’s taken two days of waiting, of watching, and planning to get to this point. Biker puts his hand in mine. “It’s not too late to back out.”

  “I know.”

  “I take it that means you won’t.”

  “No. I won’t.” I exhale, and I feel as if I can’t get enough oxygen into my lungs. “I may throw up all over my shoes though.”

  “Try not to. It’s evidence.”

  “O–kay.” It frightens me how concerned he is with being invisible, though I guess when you spend your life killing, drugging and abducting people, that’s a given. My head swims a little at that thought. If he’d never left that tape behind, if he hadn’t needed me to find out who these men were, would he have let me go? Or would I still be locked in that room of his at the clubhouse? Would his brothers have killed me? Would he? “Let’s just get this over with.”

  He squeezes my hand. My palm is clammy against his. We walk towards the doors and I let him lead, mostly so my face is covered, but also because I don’t know if I can walk into a room housing that man.

  The second I set foot in the church the walls close in on me. I feel the blackness, the horror, the shame, and the weight of what he did choking me. I can’t breathe. I wrench my arm from Kick’s but he grabs me and shoves me into a pew at the back of the church.

  The Priest seems completely unfazed. He continues with his sermon, and his voice presses against my skin like a thousand tiny needles. “It is because we are all sinners, that we must atone,” he says, and though it’s not said with the same intent or malice behind it as it was in that warehouse, I feel so much of what he did to me. My breath comes in raspy gulps, too fast, too much. I’m going to pass out and blow our cover. I’m going to ruin everything we’ve spent the last two days working toward. And I’m never going to have this chance again.

  Biker leans closer. “You need to control yourself.”

  I snap my head towards him, incredulous that he just said that to me. He takes my hand and squeezes it hard. “Remember why we’re here. Those things he did to you, to the other girls before you—all of that can end here. But you have to keep it together. He might not be able to hear you breathin’ like an emphysema patient, and he may not be able to see your knees knocking together, but that wig you’re wearing is shaking like a fucking leaf in a strong wind. So pull your shit together, and let’s put this bastard to ground.”

  An elderly man about three rows ahead turns to shush us. Kick gives him an apologetic nod and straightens, yanking on his tie. If we weren’t here to kill a rapist I might be able to appreciate how incredible he looks, even if they are just basic dress clothes from Target. I’m wearing pants, a conservative b
utton-up shirt and heels, though I have no idea why I thought the heels were a good idea. I can barely walk as it is, much less try to balance on an extra three inches. Biker shaved his stubble for the occasion and he looks young, so much younger than he does with it. He’s also incredibly beautiful. I mean, obviously there was an attraction there to begin with, but I never noticed before how gorgeous he is, even with the piercings, tattoos, and gauges in his ears. Looking at his face helps me ignore the scene around me; it helps me drown out the voice belonging to the man that tried to destroy me. Kick glances over. His gaze holds mine before turning back to the Priest.

  I tear my gaze from Biker and look at the Priest. He looks exactly the same, only when he had me locked in that room his eyes were black as the night outside, and now they’re almost jovial. The thing that surprises me most is how animated he is, how normal he seems in front of his congregation. And as I look around at the packed church, I see people of all ages and all walks of life who appear to love this sick, sadistic bastard. They know nothing of my suffering, of the suffering of the girls before me. I know Kick probably would have preferred I didn’t know that, but I heard everything his prez said.

  I don’t know what he did to those tapes, or the pictures that I remembered them posing for—when I was out of my mind with grief and pain, they lined up, one after the other and posed with me like I was a fucking trophy, like a hunter would with a deer he’d shot, or a large fish wriggling on a hook.

  All of these people have no idea what their beloved pastor is capable of, and the worst part is they’ll never know, because exposing myself means exposing the murder I’m about to commit, and I’ll be damned if I spend any more time in captivity. I can’t let that happen. I won’t. So while what I’m about to do to the Priest is justice stripped down to its purest and rawest form, to the people sitting around us, this will be an atrocity. I almost feel bad for them that this charming, good-looking pastor has them so convinced he’s a person worth following.

  I stare at him for a long time. He doesn’t look at me once throughout the service. I don’t know why, but a part of me wants them all to know. A part of me wants to stand up and call him out in front of his congregation when he begins talking about sinners again, and that line he used to whisper over and over in my ear as he raped me. I’m weightless. I stand, only to be pulled back down onto the church pew.