Bad to the Bones

by Layla Wolfe

  It was strange, but dangling helplessly before the bloodied, insane swami like that, suddenly all Knoxie’s intelligence came into focus. Faced with the horror of what Shakti intended, suddenly Knoxie was thinking logically, clearly. He knew what had to be done—the only thing he could do to extricate himself. He’d been in strategic scrapes like this in the Gulf, and sometimes playing along, pumping up the enemy, was the only chance at freedom.

  And even that was a long shot.

  “Bond with me, Shakti.” His own words sounded foreign and remote, as though coming from outside the shack. Calming the swami was his only hope of catching him off guard. “Let your wisdom flow into me.”

  The idiot was so carried away with crazy enzymes and bloodlust it didn’t seem to occur to him to question Knoxie’s sudden turn of enthusiasm. “Yes, yes! Your fluids, your essence, will mingle with mine!”

  Knoxie wasn’t sure what that would entail—only that he was dangling from a fucking rope and blood was running down his leg and torso. With Shakti still brandishing that crystal wand, Knoxie needed to encourage harm reduction, so he heard himself crying out,

  “Suck me, o leader! Suck my dick and bond my essences with you!”

  Shakti didn’t waste a split second in crashing to his knees and fumbling with Knoxie’s belt buckle. He humped Knoxie’s leg furiously like a frantic dog, his stiff little boner grating against Knoxie’s torn pant leg.

  Knoxie glanced sideways at Bulsara. He literally held Knoxie’s life in his fucking hands, but he looked as though he could be won over. His gleaming eyes were greedy with lust and he was massaging his own hard flesh twinkie as he gazed upon the bloody scene unfolding before him.

  Knoxie tried winking at Bulsara. He was a C-list actor. He could do this. He mentally steeled himself. Focus. My mind is a sharp beam. Focus. I have one goal, one emotion to convey to the audience. Focus. My mind is so sharp I cut people with it. Focus. As Shakti revealed Knoxie’s dick, embarrassingly halfway hard, and fell upon it with zealous sucks, Knoxie lifted his chin at his jailer. He swiveled his hips, corkscrewing his dick farther into the swami’s mouth in a way he’d done hundreds, maybe a thousand times before in front of a camera.

  “Hey. Don’t you deserve a piece of it too? Come on. Let me taste your essence. Let’s make a chain, Bulsara. A daisy chain. Don’t you want to taste my nipple, too? Come on. Let me suck on you, too.”

  He thought Bulsara was buying it. His eyes glazed over and began to droop as he manipulated his mango, as his partner Adrian would say. Knoxie knew from the flared nostrils and the slack lower lip that the daimyo was on the verge of losing it, so he had to act fast.

  “Come on. Let me kneel and service you. Don’t you want the pleasure? Don’t you want—”

  All in one motion, Bulsara leaped for the wall. He nearly tore the cleat out of the wall, screws and all, in his mania to unwind the rope. The sleek nylon rope unwound vigorously under Knoxie’s weight, so unexpected he did crash to his knees, his bound wrists thudding against the back of Shakti’s neck.

  That was a bonus to having succeeded in his tease, but he wasn’t home free yet by any means. Shakti continued sucking away voraciously at Knoxie’s boner, not seeming to care that he was nearly facedown on the grimy wooden floor. Bulsara was stepping up to receive his reward too, yanking down his clown pants and nearly slapping Knoxie upside the head with his ham roll.

  Later, Knoxie looked back upon the scene as though it were a beautiful slow motion Tony Jaa movie.

  Taking a handful of Shakti’s hair through his kitten-soft angora cap, Knoxie wrenched the sicko out of his lap. He threw him so violently Shakti slid on his ass until he bumped up against the shack’s wall, a ridiculously blissed expression stuck to his face.

  The Glock didn’t come out of Knoxie’s boot as seamlessly. He hadn’t counted upon the strain and agony of his arms having been stretched overhead for so long, or the stabbing pain of having his nipple torn in half. But he gasped when he reached for the boot, giving Bulsara enough time to shout and make a dive for the rope loosely bound to the cleat.

  By a stroke of luck, Bulsara tripped over his own harem pants. In the same exact moment, Knoxie was able to grab his Glock, yank it from his boot, and point it at the most convenient target, the underside of Bulsara’s chin. In a flash of light and a bang that made Knoxie’s ears ring, Bulsara’s mandible was pulverized with a spray of red and white. The body crashed against the cleat where it hung, hooked by an underarm like an empty robe. The yawning cavity where his nose used to be gave him a garish, Joker look.

  Following through in one flowing motion, Knoxie turned his barrel on the hapless leader. The lusty, lopsided eyeball, the glistening lower lip, the stupid tent of his stupid King Dong in his absurd harem pants—suddenly Knoxie couldn’t do it.

  Maybe it was due to Bellamy. She had followed this guy, had worshiped at his shrine, probably literally. But if he blew this guy away, it suddenly seemed like blowing away a part of Bellamy. And even the most hardened Navy SEAL couldn’t bring himself to do that to a woman he loved.

  Instead, Knoxie leaped to his feet and tromped over, yanking up his jeans with his free hand. The swami wasn’t even fighting or attempting to defend himself, that was the most pathetic part. In wartime, you blasted your enemy no matter how compromised or helpless he appeared to be at the moment. Sappy emotions of honor or righteousness never got between you and doing the right thing. And the right thing was always blasting your enemy. He is not your friend.

  But this was a different kind of war, a war fought with rhetoric, seduction, and flowery language. Shakti had seduced his followers with language of the promised land, of milk and honey.

  In defense mode, Knoxie only had his basic training at his disposal. He didn’t even need to point his barrel at the idiot when he said, “You’re too sorry of a sight to kill, swami. I’m going to put you out of your misery another way, bring this whole fucking sad empire down with you. You’re not going to impregnate or drug another fucking teenager again, you worthless sack of shit.”

  Shakti looked up at him, his one eye wobbly. “It has been my dream to own a beautiful man like you. Your beauty will course through me and strengthen me, heal me.”

  Knoxie kicked the swami hard in the thigh bone, just because he could. The adrenaline this released rushed through him, and before he knew it he had the guy in a headlock and was running him across the room. The room was only about ten feet long and the biggest, handiest target was a widescreen TV against the wall behind him. It was paused, absurdly enough, on a shot of Knoxie as Rex Havox. Hands on hips, Rex stood supreme, his enormous dagger of love made even tauter than usual with a tight leather cock ring. Rex seemed to be saying “You should be so lucky to be allowed to suck all of this.”

  Without a shred of hesitation, Knoxie rammed the leader’s head into the screen. Sparks shot from the interior of the set as glass shards screamed, like the crashing of a crystal chandelier. Knoxie jiggled Shakti’s head around in there for a while for good measure, he was that carried away by adrenaline and the rush of revenge. The flesh against metal felt sharp, crisp, broken, the way his bike had felt the time he’d eaten asphalt ten years ago. Or when he’d eaten it half an hour ago after being fucking shot by these lunatics.

  “There,” he snarled with finality. “Take a close look at the beauty coursing through you now.”

  Standing tall, Knoxie finished buckling his belt before he remembered. Taking the bottle of Viagra from his pocket, he rained the pills down on Shakti’s twitching shoulders. He pocketed the empty bottle again, though. He’d kept it after stealing it from Wang Cho House because, if nothing else, he could get that weirdo Bodhisattva for writing illegal prescriptions without a valid medical license.

  Knoxie snarled as the shaman jumped and twitched. He had probably never been manhandled the way he’d always done to his disciples. “I’m going to send you to a deep, dark place, and I’m going to have fun doing it.”

  He had to leav
e while the going was still good. He holstered his Glock, this time in the waist of his jeans, handier if he needed it. Grabbing his T-shirt, he shoved it in his back jeans pocket, only shrugging into his precious cut before banging the hell out the door and jumping down the shed’s steps. Two daimyo, one at the wheel of Shakti’s Hummer, were still outside. It wouldn’t do for them to see blood and have their suspicions raised. Course, if the blood was on him, why would they feel uneasy? It would just be one more day at Bihari.

  He waved casually to the daimyo. He couldn’t break into a run, so time would tell if he made it to his fallen bike before they busted into the shed and saw what havoc Rex had wreaked.

  He had triumphed, but he felt so dirty a swim across a salt ocean couldn’t cleanse him. He had felt like this for a couple years after discharging from the Special Forces. He had had to do some reprehensible things then too, things in the name of his country. Now it was in the name of his club, his town…his woman.

  His reliable Softail hesitated, then leaped into life between his thighs. He dared look behind him, now that escape was certain. One daimyo was walking sideways up to the shack, never taking his eyes from Knoxie.

  The Bihari loonies would really have a bone on for him now.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  BELLAMY

  After Knoxie left for Nogales, and after Speed ran Bodhisattva out of The Citadel on a rail, I started sliding back into another dimension. I knew from seeing Dr. Petrie that I probably needed antidepressant meds for my condition, but I was resisting taking them. After being doused by the “granola” and hash lassis of Bihari, I realized I had probably been in a drug-induced haze for years.

  So, by wanting to get clear, I slipped back into an alternate reality. It was my psyche’s way of protecting me from terrifying situations. Bodhi’s visit brought it all back to me, how close I still was to the danger zone, how I hadn’t freed myself entirely from it yet. Virginia was still up there, for one. And Bodhi wanted me back.

  That made no sense at all. If he just wanted a green card, he could marry any one of a thousand willing victims. Bodhi was one of Shakti’s main advisors, always at his side. Could it be that he really liked me? I was so far removed from any objective viewpoint of reality, I never knew which conclusion I could trust.

  So I withdrew into a shell where I could observe everything around me, gathering information like a toddler. Madison’s old BFF Sabrina came by the Citadel to see me, reminiscing about pre-Coyote Buttes days before our youth went to hell when we’d have slumber parties, play paranormal games, collecting our Breyer horse models because, I guess, we thought we’d be cowgirls someday.

  I wasn’t allowed to leave the airfield because I was under their protection. Lytton was all over me like ugly on an ape, not that I went anywhere other than my room or the hangar. He went overboard when he heard that Bodhi had paid me a visit, and armed himself with a military grade automatic. It felt wonderful to be so protected, but I missed Knoxie with a dull, constant throb.

  Sucking his cock had only put the jones in me. Suddenly I was bombarded by hormones swooshing down and lifting me up, taking me off to distant realms. I was not even in my own body half the time. Like a performing bear, I went about the motions, but the memory of that glorious, unpierced cock kept coming back to me. How velvety the glans against the back of my throat. How delicious the semen, as though he drank nothing but power drinks. His sinewy belly under my probing fingertips. The delight of his nipple bead…

  For lack of anything better to do, I tried to pry information from Lytton about Knoxie.

  “He could’ve gotten anyone to guard me,” I said. I was installing a new ignition module on Faux Pas’s Dyna. The hangar doors had been thrown wide open to reveal an iron-grey sky, the beginning of a wet front. I worried about Knoxie out there on his own. Ziggy had brought my Sporty back and I’d seen him a few times since then, so I knew Knoxie was on his own down there at the dangerous border. I knew he was capable, tough, savvy, but I also knew about stray bullets and fate. “He could’ve gotten his fellow Prospects Bobo and…what’s that new guy’s name? Fudd?”

  “Mergatroyd,” said Lytton, flipping the page on his Kindle. Dr. Driving Hawk needed to keep on top of modern scientific weed farming methods, on top of his chemistry, to assure that his Leaves of Grass farm stayed on the cutting edge. He was always perusing enormous equations that looked like chicken scratch to me. He had way more important things to do than to guard me. “He hasn’t patched over yet. Bellamy, Knoxie wants to protect you. Don’t you get it? He hasn’t been this riled up over a woman since he met Nicole twenty years ago.”

  I set down my wrench and wiped my brow with the back of my wrist. This was the perfect opening to find out more about Knoxie. “Why did he get divorced, do you know?”

  Lytton looked levelly at me. “Why don’t you ask him?”

  “It’s not the sort of thing you ask, if you know what I mean. What is his wife like?”

  “Ex-wife?” Lytton shrugged. “You know I only joined the club last year right before Knoxie and Nicole went bust, so I don’t know her very well. His kids are sharp, though. Had them up to my farm once and they knew a lot about science, about hydrology, botany, and chemistry. I’ll tell you one thing. Knoxie’s not going to commit to anyone again until he feels financially secure. It always rankled him that he lived in a shitty row house with cinderblocks for bookshelves. Let’s face it. Ink slinging isn’t the most lucrative career. He does it for the love of the art. Like I farmed pot for the love of it, before I realized it’d make a shit-ton of benjamins.”

  I frowned. “But is working for the Bones any more lucrative?”

  Lytton frowned back. “You should know better than to ask that, Bellamy. It’s okay. You’re learning.” He eased up on me. “What he’s been doing for us, yes. It’s invaluable. He’s redefining the lines of our backyard, our territory. He’s helping to remove the invaders. People step on our turf, start messing around, putting their fingers in our pies, we’re understandably pissed off.”

  “So he’s…security.”

  “In a way, yeah. More like enforcement.”

  “He’s like the daimyo at my compound.”

  “Yes. But don’t call it ‘my compound.’ Shit. I know enough Psych 101 to know you stop referring to something as ‘yours’ when you want to distance yourself from it. Like a bad habit. It’s not ‘my cigarettes’ or ‘my triple chocolate brownies’ anymore. Anyway, your old man’s perfect for this job. Not only does he have a SEAL background, but he’s a black belt in jiujitsu.”

  “I do feel safe with him. Hey, wait. Don’t jump the gun. He’s not my ‘old man.’”

  Lytton grinned crookedly. “Oh, yeah? He’d have something different to say about that. He took that ugly fucking necklace off you, didn’t he? He’ll be branding you within the week. If you want, that is,” he added, hurriedly.

  A definite thrill ran through my body, stiffening my nipples, at the thought I might be Knoxie’s old lady. I knew it wasn’t right for me to dive into any intense emotional affair at the moment, but I had promised Knoxie I’d do no one else, which meant we were at least halfway exclusive.

  “Anyway,” Lytton said quietly, almost to himself. “June was all levels of fucked-up after a vicious beating when I collared her. I knew I had to make her mine before anyone else did.”

  I had that to think about for another two solid days. That’s how long it took for Knoxie to return from Nogales. And when he did, he was all levels of fucked-up. Madison, the nurse, had to be called to the hangar to make sure he’d be okay.

  I was intent on re-jetting Faux Pas’s carburetor when Knoxie rode in. Since he parked outside the hangar, I didn’t know he was there until Hilary came tear-assing into the hangar proclaiming,

  “Knoxie’s back! Bellamy, stop. Knoxie’s here, upstairs in the kitchen!”

  I actually dropped the screwdriver to the cement floor. I did manage to grab a halfway clean towel to wipe my oily hands on as I
made a mad dash for the stairs.

  “Does he look okay? What’d he do down there?”

  “Whatever he did, he got shot in the leg and arm. Must’ve been the Nogales cartel. I heard Maddy say the bullet went through the calf muscle and he was lucky. No broken bones.”

  “Oh my God!”

  Real terror gripped my heart. This terror ran deeper than the fear I’d felt when Bulsara and his friends had driven off on that mesa, leaving the vultures to pick our bones. This terror was more like the illogical fright I’d had when witnessing Maddy and Ford having some horizontal refreshment on his desk. This was a life-threatening terror. This was my protective shield, my fight-or-flight response to something that endangered my way of life, or something that might possibly bring up unwanted emotions.

  Right now I reasoned the emotion must be love. I loved Knoxie, maybe in a Stockholm Syndrome sort of way, or the childish way a victim loves her savior. But I knew I loved Knoxie as I tore around the corner of the kitchen door, swinging from the doorjamb like a monkey at the zoo.

  “Knoxie!” I cried, my voice wrenched with despair.

  He sat on a kitchen chair, his ripped jean leg propped on another. Maddy had cut the shredded material away, must’ve been a while ago, because she was already encircling the bloody calf with a roll of ace bandage. I’d never seen Knoxie look that exhausted. He had dark circles under both eyes like he’d been the loser in a boxing bout. He hadn’t shaved since he’d left P&E, and the concave look to his chest meant he hadn’t eaten, either.

  Despite that he was flanked by Ford, Lytton, Turk, and a few other Boners, I flew to his side, shouldering them away. “Knoxie. Who shot you?” I was slowly learning not to ask questions like that. Not yet, obviously.