by A. J. Downey
I tracked her out of the corner of my eye as she moved to the end of the bar and spoke softly to Skid, who was well on his way to drunkville. They exchanged words and with a final look in my direction, she gathered her purse, keys, and jacket, and slipped out the door. It was written all over her, in her tense posture. The girl was going to run. I felt a surge of fierce pride and relaxed. There wasn’t anything I could do but let the afternoon drag on into evening. I was getting antsy by the time evening was dragging on into night. The more the minute hand crawled along the clock face, the more hash marks the hour hand passed by, the more resigned I became about my fate, the more hopeful I became about Dani’s.
No one was saying word fucking one about where we were making the run to. Which direction we were going. Nothing. Not. A. Damn. Thing. Which, by all accounts and the writing on the wall, spelled out only one thing for me: I was a fucking dead man. I had nothing to pass D on where I was headed. I had nothing at all to tell my club. Not even a fucking goodbye, which was worthless anyways. I didn’t give up, I wouldn’t give up, until the bitter fucking end. I was a Sacred Hearts Man and I was going to bleed my club colors-red, white, and blue.
Pipes eventually made his appearance, “Flyer! Prospect! Let’s roll,” he called, and I got up and stretched, racking my neck.
“It’s about fucking time, Man. I was getting bored,” I said, and followed the two men out into the crisp night air. We started our bikes and geared up to ride, all the while I had the feeling we were being watched.
I hoped it was my club and that they had eyes on me, but I was pretty sure it was just wishful fucking thinking on my part.
“Where we headed?” I asked nonchalantly.
“Same fuckin’ direction I am, shut up and fall in,” Pipes said. It wasn’t out of character for the dude. It was how he always was, so I couldn’t say he was being intentionally obtuse.
We mounted up and rode out and as we rode, I enjoyed it. It could be my final ride, after all. The wind in my face, the thrum of my bike underneath me, the steady rumble of all those horses as we powered along the big slab. We were headed up into the hills when a few cars moved on past us. I glanced at just the right time and holy fucking shit! I had to pretend like I didn’t see but yep, there was my clever girl.
What the fuck was she doing!? I thought as we powered up into the hills. I followed Pipes, Flyer to my right as we kept in formation. I knew the jig was up when Pipes hit his signal and we turned into the overlook. Fucking Gordy sitting on a picnic table smoking a cig, waiting for us. We pulled off to the left into the overlook’s lot and I wondered briefly where Dani was, shooting off a prayer to whatever power that was that she was safe and would stay that way. I had to smile on the inside when I realized that I hadn’t been paranoid or hopeful. We were being watched back at the club, probably by one very curious and industrious Raccoon.
I didn’t look for her as we crunched across the gravel towards Gordy. Instead I tried to play my part, “Hey Man, you comin’ with us?” I asked the ‘Kings SAA. Gordy fell in next to me and put an arm across my shoulders.
“We thought we’d have a little chat before you went runnin’ off,” he said jovially.
“Runnin’ off? What do you mean, Man?” His smile faded and he squeezed me around my shoulders and shook me back and forth, putting me off balance. He laughed, but it was forced, and I knew what was coming. I just prayed he hadn’t made the body armor I had on under the bulk of my jacket and cut.
“Did you really fucking think we wouldn’t figure it out?” he asked.
I kept to my role, “Figure what out, Man?” I frowned and he abruptly stomped on the back of my knee. It hurt but not too bad, but it wasn’t meant to hurt necessarily, it was meant to take me down. To bring me to my knees. Pipes and Flyer got a hold of my arms and I shouted.
“Fuck!” and struggled, but there wasn’t shit I could do about it.
“Now let’s you and me have a little chat, Thirteen,” Gordy said, and came around from the back of me, to where I could see him. A shiny nickel-plated gun glinting in the weak moonlight.
“What the fuck, Man!? What’re you doing!? Is this some kind of joke?” I cried.
“Awww! Cut the shit, Boy!” Gordy pointed the gun in my face and I looked up at him. If I had any fucking chance of surviving this, I needed to take any shots he fired to the chest and by the looks of the gun in his hand, he needed to back up.
“What’s wrong? Nearsighted?” I asked with a smug look. Gordy barked a laugh but he did what I needed him to do and began to put some distance between us.
“So how long you been one of them?” he asked. I lifted a shoulder in a shrug, which was only moderately effective with my arms held out like they were by two dudes.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lied.
“Whew! Pig wasn’t lyin’ when he said you had a brass pair! Look at you and the way yer lookin’ at me. Bet if I blow that horse dick of yours off, you won’t look so fuckin’ smug. Would yah?” He aimed his gun at me again and this time I really didn’t like where he was pointing it.
I struggled and almost got loose, score one for me. It was Pipes who muttered a curse and said, “Gordy stop fuckin’ with him man! He ain’t gonna tell us shit, but these Bleeding Heart assholes are slicker ‘n owl shit and he might have ‘em out there right now. You heard Griz! They got at least one sniper in their crew. Just fuckin’ do him and let’s get out of here!” There was some real fear in his voice and I was betting dollars to pesos that he’d gotten a firsthand look at whatever Archer, Rush and Nox had done to Ace and Deuce. The fact that no-one that had seen it was talking about it, just told me how bad it really was.
“Yeah. I get you,” Gordy said, which wasn’t at all what I expected him to say. I’d fully expected him to tell Pipes to stop being such a fucking pussy! Gordy took a few more steps away from me and by now he was a decent bit of distance. I swallowed hard, my heart hammering hard, the adrenaline flowing.
“It’s really too bad. I thought you were a badass dude and that you’d be a good fit for us. Huh, oh well.” He lowered the gun and fired three shots that I know of, but it was the first that punched me right in the center of my chest, dead center in the ballistics plate I wore. Fucking agony! I felt a second thud into my shoulder and that one really fucking burned, I think the third shot went wide. I tried to hold on, tried to stay conscious, but honest to God, mercifully, I blacked the fuck out.
“Thirteen!”
I heard a female voice scream. I groaned and tried to push myself to my feet, my vision was black and I opened my eyes… White hot streamers of pain streaked the gravel in front of my face. I coughed and groaned and then the stars where whirling crazy among the trees. I was on my back and a fresh round of agony ripped through my chest. My hearing kept going in and out of focus, I was in so much pain I couldn’t concentrate on a damned thing. Whoever or whatever was touching me, shaking me, hurting me, blessedly left me alone.
I lay on my back panting. Every breath ripped new agony through my chest and my fucking shoulder burned but at the same time felt like I had broken shards of glass being ground into it. I ached, my whole fucking chest ached and I had a brief moment where I was totally cool with dying as long as the fucking pain just stopped.
Light fell across my face and I put up my hand to ward it off. Strong fingers, feminine hands, closed around my forearm and I heard a woman’s voice, strong and high with panic.
“Come on, Thirteen! You have to help me, you’re too big! I can’t lift you!” but she was trying and I would give anything, anything at all for her to fucking stop. I heaved myself to my feet and she got under my uninjured arm. The light was coming from her car. She got me into the passenger seat, I don’t even know how. All I knew was that there was this fucking angel from God and that she was helping me. The door slammed shut, the light went out, and I think I went out with it.
Chapter 14
Dani…
I was terrified. He wa
s bleeding and I couldn’t see how badly, and I didn’t dare stop to look. I knew where the Sacred Hearts club house was and as I drove, I couldn’t help but fear I would be too late. It was at least an hour, hour and a half back the way we’d come and over the county line. I wanted to speed but I didn’t dare. If I were pulled over with a bleeding man who’d been shot in my passenger seat, they would search the car and find the stolen jewelry. And with Thirteen an obvious biker, they would blame him, and then it would be all my fault, and this was such a mess! I drove five miles an hour above the speed limit, jumping at shadows all the while.
I felt a triumphant surge when I saw two riders coming in our direction, a tow truck behind them. I laid on the horn and they startled, gunning their engines past my car and continuing on their way, and I let out an inarticulate, frustrated scream, pounding my steering wheel.
“Just hold on, okay Thirteen? We’re almost there.” He didn’t answer me, he was unconscious, and that just made the tears flow faster. I counted the mile markers and watched for mile marker fifty-eight. From everything I’d heard, the club house was about a quarter of the way between mile marker fifty-eight and fifty-nine, on the left. There! I pulled into the turn lane and onto the inclined drive, braking hard in front of the heavy iron gates barring my path.
No! I’d come all this way! Not to be deterred, I opened my door, jumped out, and laid on the horn. I screamed, I yelled, I cried and looked wildly for a solution. I finally spotted it, perched high on a pole to one side of the gate. A camera. I jumped up and down, waving my arms wildly all the while the tears poured down my face. I must have looked like a wild crazy woman and right now I was! I would do anything to get Thirteen the help he needed and if they didn’t open the damned gate then I would call the police. Except I didn’t have a phone!
“Pleeeease!” I screamed and bent at the waist, sobbing. The gate kicked to life and began rolling aside and I straightened. I didn’t waste any time but jumped back in the car and pulled through in a spray of gravel, up into The Sacred Hearts’ club house driveway. For me, into the belly of the beast.
I skidded to a stop in front of the club’s front door and jumped out to men pouring from the front door, guns drawn and pointing at me and my car. I didn’t care, I threw myself around the back of my car and wrenched open the passenger door, all the while screaming at them.
“Help me! Help! It’s Thirteen! They shot him! I hid and I saw and they shot him!”
“Slow the fuck down, Bitch! What the fuck are you saying?” I looked up and behind the man giving me a dark look was the doctor from my apartment. I nearly caved with relief.
“Doctor, help! Doctor, help me, please! Please!” I cried, he came striding around the front of my car where I tried to get Thirteen to help me again.
“Doc, wait, Man, we don’t know who this –“
“Aww hell! Fucking shut up and help me! It’s R.T.!” the doctor yelled, and I was suddenly swamped by a whole lot of men in a whole lot of black leather. A big, huge man with blonde hair in a braid moved me aside and the man who’d snarled at me first grabbed me by the arm. I went with him, moving aside, getting out of the way of the men who were trying to help Thirteen.
We went into the club, Thirteen carried limp between the big blonde man and a Mexican man. The doctor yelled to a tall, young, and skinny brother with lots of tattoos, “Disney! Get my bag and come help me,” he then turned his attention, “Take him to his room,” he told the other two and they obeyed immediately. I went to go with them, to go with Thirteen, but I was savagely pulled back against the snapping man’s chest.
“Whoa! Where do you think you’re going, Sweetheart?” he demanded, and swung me around hard, slamming me face down onto a table. I was bent at the waist, one of the chairs digging painfully into my stomach when another man wrenched my hands behind my back and began to tie them. I collapsed into sobs and tried to wrestle my way free, but there were three of them now. One held me down, the other tying my wrists, and the last patting me down.
“Nox, let her up,” one of them said. One of my arms was pulled free and they jerked my purse away from me. I was shoved down again and my wrists were retied. I struggled and screamed and fought, but there wasn’t any way I was getting free. I knew that, deep in my heart, but I was so damned tired of being manhandled and mistreated and I just so desperately wanted to get to Thirteen, to know he was being cared for, to know if he was alive.
“Knock it off, Sweetheart! You ain’t going anywhere,” one of the men grated, and I kicked out with my foot and met shin. He cursed and, with my hands firmly tied behind my back, I was wrenched up by my arms, my shoulders painfully jerking in their sockets and protesting the unfamiliar strain. I was carried, hissing, spitting, screaming and crying, between two of them while the third followed us through the club. I didn’t make it easy for them but I was outmatched, by, like, a lot.
They carried me outside and across grass to another building. I almost got away once, getting one arm free from one of my assailants, the one on my left crushed down harder with his grip on my other arm and cursed at the one on my right, “Fucking hold her, Rush!”
The third man opened the door at the one end of the building and held it for the two to carry me through. We passed through a narrow hallway, doors to either side, before the third man, Nox as the nameless man had called him, opened one of them. The two thrust me into the empty room and I stumbled, falling to my knees. With dark looks from all three, like they were the Devil’s own, they swung the door shut. I screamed in rage and anger and sorrow, and threw myself against it. I kept screaming, long and loud, and kept throwing myself at the door until I just didn’t have any fight left in me.
An hour passed, one of the longest of my life. I had finally settled in the middle of the room on my knees, bowed forward over them, my forehead to the floor. It was the only way I could get comfortable. My hair hid my face, not that it made much difference. The room had no lights, no nothing… not a stick of furniture. The carpet was that mat kind, super low to the ground and might as well not be called carpet at all. The kind you found in office buildings, easy to vacuum or whatever.
My face was hot and tight from crying so damned much and I didn’t care. I was miserable. I was scared for Thirteen and I hadn’t seen a soul since they’d thrown me in here. Every once in a while I heard low voices on the other side of the door, but they were indistinct, low and muffled by the walls and the door. I couldn’t understand what they were saying. My hands were cold, my shoulders stiff from the unnatural angle my bonds pulled them into, and I was just incredibly drained from everything. Physically, emotionally, mentally drained.
The door opened and I looked up through a curtain of my hair. The man was slender, with short, light brown hair and grey eyes. He frowned down at me. I glanced at the name flash on his cut. ‘Blue’. He had a small bottle of water in his hand and he stepped into the room. The door was pulled shut behind him by the third man, who had long brown hair in a ponytail and a five o’clock shadow along his jaw. He gave me the dirtiest look before closing the door behind Blue, who knelt down in front of me. I looked away from him.
His hand cupped my chin and I stiffened. He tugged on my face, gently but insistently, and just waited me out until I complied and looked up at him. He set the water down and with the one hand under my chin, smoothed my hair out of my face with the other. It took a few seconds with as wild and as much hair as I had, and I took the time to study his face.
He had a slight furrow between his brows and his eyes held a tension around them. The cool gray depths spoke -as loudly as his voice was silent- that he didn’t like what was happening to me, that he didn’t like what he was seeing. I stilled and let him move my hair, I didn’t try to bite him or beg him for anything; instead I waited to see what he was here for, to see what he was going to do…
He lifted the bottle of water and cracked the seal in front of me. I was suddenly dying of thirst, my mouth dry and full of cotton from screaming, my li
ps cracked from the salt of my tears. He put his hand gently under my chin and placed the mouth of the bottle to my lips and helped me take a sip. It was cool and refreshing and slid down my throat, soothing the rawness. I can’t remember the last time a drink of water tasted so pure and so sweet.
He stopped for me to catch my breath and I asked him, “Is Thirteen okay? Is he alright?” I begged and pleaded with my eyes for him to tell me something, anything about Thirteen’s wellbeing. He frowned and looked torn, and finally put his finger to his lips in the classic sign for hush, before, with a glance over his shoulder at the closed door, he turned to me and nodded. Relief exploded through my chest and tears of relief flooded my eyes and slipped down my face.
Thank you. I mouthed and he nodded, and helped me finish the little midget bottle of water. He stood in one fluid motion and knocked on the door. The same man opened it and glared at me, giving me a tempestuous look that screamed I want to hurt you.
“I’ve already been through hell! So give it your best shot. Not only will I survive, I’ll win!” I snarled at him. I don’t think he was expecting that, because his expression went from mean-mugging me to surprised, his eyebrows meeting his hairline. He looked at me and his face smoothed out into lines of careful consideration, to an expression of thoughtfulness. I spit at him and he closed the door with a soft thunk. I bowed my forehead back to the floor.
Thirteen was okay. I sighed out. If Thirteen was okay then my work here was done. They could do whatever they wanted to do to me. I’d gone above and beyond the call of duty and I was tired. Thirteen had saved me and I had saved him back. Everything else was just window dressing. As I knelt on the hard floor, my feet and legs gone numb, my hands gone numb, too, I wondered what would happen to me.
