Deserter

by Myers, Shannon

  My breaths grew ragged from the exertion, but I didn’t stop. Every time my fists connected with his body, I saw the horror he’d forced us to live through since he’d come home and it fueled my rage, spurring me on until my old man could no longer fight me off. He glanced a soft blow off my chin before his fists fell back against the carpet weakly, now incapable of defending him.

  I paused to rest as he squirmed beneath my leg, fighting to get up. For the first time in our lives, the roles had been reversed, and I wasn’t willing to give him the upper hand. He did his best to keep me in his sights, even as his eyes began to swell shut.

  “You wanna know the truth, old man? She should’ve left your sorry ass when you were still off at war. And she could have—she was good… and perfect… and men fell all over themselves to get close to her,” I taunted as I rocked back on my heels with a grim smile. “Now, I’m gonna show you the same compassion that you showed her.”

  I stood up, towering over him, and took pleasure in watching him shrink away. Angel once told me that in a fight, there was no such thing as fighting dirty. If you had an opportunity to fuck the other guy up, then you took it. I’d never had reason to put that advice to use, until now.

  My old man raised a bloody hand toward me. “James,” he began, just as my boot connected with his throat. There was a crunch of bone and then he was gurgling beneath me. One of my hits had broken his nose while another had damaged his jaw.

  His hands instinctively came up when I removed my boot, desperately clawing at his crushed airway before reaching for me. I stepped just out of his reach and watched as he choked to death on his own blood and bone.

  “This is on you, old man. This is the ending you deserve.”

  His dark eyes stayed on me as his breaths grew shallower before stilling altogether.

  Donald Quinn was killed on the kitchen floor of a house he despised, at the hands of a son he hated.

  It felt like I’d been waiting for him to die forever, while at the same time, I wished that I could bring him back to suffer more.

  It had been too good for a monster like him.

  I kicked his side and shuddered out another strained breath before collapsing against the wall with a cry. His blood was spattered from carpet to ceiling, and some of it ran in rivets down the paneling before pooling into the carpet beside his body. I held my head in my hands and tried to think.

  Even if I could somehow get it all cleaned up, I had no idea what to do with his body. I couldn’t hide it; I knew that much. I had to call it in; turn myself over to the police.

  Unless…

  I stumbled over to the wall phone and dialed, knowing they’d be around. Then, I went back into the living room and cradled my mother’s body in my arms until I heard the rumble of bikes down the street.

  “It’s okay, Ma. It’s okay.” I stroked the hair back off her face and rocked. “The guys are coming, Ma. They’ll fix all of this for us.”

  I was losing my grip on reality; maybe that’s what happened when you took a life. You gave up your mind in exchange for blood.

  Wolverine was the first one through the door and he pulled back in shock at the devastation. “Jamie?”

  “Help her,” I sobbed. “I need to help her!”

  In the seconds it took Wolverine to realize he needed to keep him outside, Angel had already shoved his way in through the door.

  He dropped to his knees beside me with a roar. “Mary, no!” His hands gently slapped at her cheeks before hurriedly untying the scarf around her throat and tossing it aside.

  It was no use.

  My old man had been waiting for her; knew that I wouldn’t be home until late. One of her cream-colored heels was still dangling halfway off her foot. He’d ambushed her at the door the second she walked in.

  Watching Angel try to piece my ma back together ripped my heart to ribbons, and I shakily offered her body up to him. He snatched her from my grasp and held her to his chest, weeping and apologizing to her.

  Wolverine nodded to me as I approached him, knowing that what I was about to ask him to do was outside of the club’s norm. They’d cover for each other, but I wasn’t sure that extended to citizens like me.

  Instead of asking me why I’d called his entire club in, he surprised me by pulling me into a rough hug. “It’s alright, kid. We’ll take care of this and trust me when I say that your old man will pay for this.”

  I looked up at him with a clenched jaw and nodded, trying to find the right words. He frowned. “What the fuck happened to your throat?”

  I instinctively brought my hand up to my neck, but it came away clean. “I don’t know?”

  “Son, you’ve got bruises running from your chin down to your collar bone and you’re telling me that you don’t know what happened?”

  Realizing what he meant, I took a deep breath. “Come with me.”

  We left Angel on the floor and walked into the kitchen. Wolverine let out a low whistle when he saw my old man’s body next to a toppled over chair.

  “I took care of it… sir.”

  He kicked the bottom of my old man’s boot and looked at me in awe. “You sure as fuck did. Jesus, Jamie.”

  “I didn’t want to call you, but I didn’t know what else to do. I know I’m not a member of the club and if you think I should fuck off and take the heat, I understand.” I felt helpless, waiting for this biker to determine my fate.

  “You took out a man I considered a brother.”

  I dropped my chin to my chest and stared at the bloody carpet at my feet. Wolverine surprised me again when he spat on Donald’s corpse and clapped me on the shoulder. “A brother who fuckin’ cheated me and the rest of my brothers. Look, we don’t allow prospects to break the law and you are way beyond that, son. So, not a member of my club? As far as I’m concerned, you just fuckin’ earned your three-piece.”

  I started to argue that I wasn’t capable of committing a murder for the club until my brain reminded me that I’d done just that.

  I was only a sophomore in high school, and I’d become a murderer and an orphan in the same day. I hadn’t even lost my virginity yet.

  “I—”

  “You’ll sleep on it and we’ll put it to a vote tomorrow. I gotta get you and Angel the fuck outta here right now though. Come on.”

  After battling Angel to let her go, Wolverine drove us back to the clubhouse while several bikers stayed behind to clean the house. I didn’t ask what they were going to do with my mother; I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

  I moved as if I was underwater; sluggish and out of it. Angel immediately disappeared behind the bar while Wolverine steered me through their den. A naked woman was down on her knees, sucking one biker off while another pounded into her from behind.

  I’d often wondered what went on behind these doors when kids weren’t around and now that I was seeing it in person, I couldn’t even appreciate it because my mind was fucked.

  Wolverine had told me on the drive that it was normal to feel sad and even a little guilty over what I’d done. I’d stared out the window and nodded along, wondering how to ever admit the truth.

  Taking his life was the best high I’d ever had. I’d gotten hard, watching him fight for his next breath, all while knowing that I was in complete control. Obviously, I was sick in the head because I wanted to do it again.

  Maybe I was more like my old man than even I knew.

  Wolverine led me into a small room. “You’ll just be in here for now until we can get you something permanent. Try to get some sleep and you can give me your decision in the morning. Whatever you decide to do, the club will support.”

  I stripped out of my bloody clothes and stepped into the small bathroom to shower. As the hot water sprayed my body, I thought back to my conversation with John. It had only been a few hours, but it may as well have been a lifetime.

  Everything had changed.

  If I went off on my own, I could hurt the wrong people. I’d never had the urge to inflict
pain on someone until tonight and now that it had been awakened, I worried that I’d end up like Manson or Bundy out on the streets.

  If I patched in, maybe I could channel the urge and only use it against club enemies.

  There was also a chance that I’d wake up in the morning and never want to lay a finger on another person again.

  Before I could come to any sort of resolution, the shower curtain was yanked back by a gorgeous redhead who couldn’t have been but a couple of years older than me. She shimmied out of her bell bottoms and tank top and stood naked before me, like a culmination of every one of my wet dreams.

  I watched in awe as she stepped into the shower with a grin and dropped to her knees in front of me. “Wolverine appreciates what you did tonight.”

  With that, she took me into her mouth and demonstrated said appreciation before ensuring that I stayed in that shower until I was no longer a virgin.

  After that, my decision was made.

  I was a biker for life.

  Chapter Four

  Jamie: 1982

  “Do you remember when I told you why I named the club Silent Phoenix?” Wolverine stretched out on the couch, amid the buzzing of tattoo guns, and took a long drag from the joint in his hand.

  “Yeah.” The needle clawed at my skin and I closed my eyes, welcoming the sting of pain it brought. “You said it was because the phoenix dies and is then reborn into something else, right?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, but we almost went with something else. We’d been sitting around, drinking beer, trying to decide what the fuck we were going to do. We were the lucky ones, of course. Most of our buddies came home in pine boxes or not at all.

  “We liked riding together well enough, so we decided to make it a club of sorts and started designing our colors. One of the guys, he says he wants a bald eagle. Me? I didn’t want a bald eagle. I’d had enough of that patriotic bullshit to last me a lifetime. If we were going with a bird, then I wanted one that really meant something.”

  I grinned. “You telling me this now because I’m getting it inked onto my back? Like some fucked up bedtime story?”

  It wasn’t my first tattoo. Hell, it wasn’t my tenth tattoo either. I craved the feel of that needle on my skin almost as much as I craved the feel of bones breaking beneath my fists or a tight pussy wrapped around my dick at night.

  Wolverine had been right. Club life was the best life. Anything we wanted, we took and if the fuckers fought back, well, that just made it all the more fun.

  He flipped me the bird. “Fuck your bedtime stories. You earned your ink, now you’ll sit and listen to me wax poetic about the past. It’s a rite of passage, asshole.”

  He said the last part with a smirk and took another hit. “Like I was saying, we founded SPMC just to be able to do something to make us feel alive again. I liked being in a group and I liked secrecy, just like most of the other guys. We couldn’t get a fuckin’ job thanks to our time in the service, so we looked for other ways to make a living. We didn’t advertise what we were, but if someone knew and liked what we had to offer, then they could hang-around or prospect for us.

  “Back in the early days, we were known more for smoking dope and getting into bar fights. You liked pussy and partying? Then, we were your club. Now we’ve got chapters in seven states and an enforcer who’s known in every one of them.”

  I smirked. “You trying to get in my pants, Pres?”

  That earned me another middle finger before he barked, “Take the fuckin’ compliment, Jamie. I told you that story to tell you this one. I’ve been giving a lot of thought to it and you’re eighteen now, I think it’s time you got your road name.”

  I’d been waiting for it since I patched in the morning after killing my old man. I thought I’d get my new name then, but the club felt that it had to be earned. Most people prospected for a year before patching in, giving the brothers plenty of time to come up with something. Now that I was legally an adult, it seemed fitting.

  He walked out and returned with a comic in his hand, holding it up to show me as I straddled the chair. Along with the image of flaming red hair and a green and gold suit, the cover boasted that it was The All- New, All- Different X-MEN, with the tagline, In the mutant heroes’ hour of maximum peril… ENTER: THE PHOENIX.

  “Jean Grey?” I questioned with more than a little disappointment.

  A chick?

  The Pres was losing his touch.

  He laid it on the couch and sat back down. “Yeah, Jean Grey. Don’t sound so excited.”

  I sighed, “I guess I just expected something better; like Beast or fuck, even Quicksilver.”

  Wolverine chuckled and shook his head. “You always want to go for the obvious, don’t you? Use your fuckin’ head, son. Why Jean Grey?”

  It had been a couple of years since I’d picked up a comic. My time had been better spent finding different and more creative ways of drawing blood.

  I wracked my brain to remember Jean’s storyline. There had been her stint as Marvel Girl, but nothing really stood out, other than her having telekinetic and telepathic powers.

  “Wasn’t she a good girl? Always caring about the other mutants or some weak shit?” That was nothing like me. Sure, I wanted to keep my brothers alive and kicking, but that took a backseat to looking out for myself.

  Wolverine exhaled a cloud of smoke and shook his head. “Damn, son, I’m disappointed. You used to know everything there was to know when it came to comics. If you still did, you’d know that Jean died—”

  “Great. So, I’ll forever be known as the enforcer named after a dead female mutant—”

  “Shut your fuckin’ mouth and let me finish, goddammit. When I first met you, you were this scared little boy, obsessed with looking out for your mama. Jean Grey first realized her powers after watching her childhood friend get hit by a car.

  “The night you took out your old man, that scared little boy died and was reborn as a man. Jean Grey operated as Marvel Girl until she was exposed to fatal levels of radiation. She died, but was reborn as Phoenix, fully unleashing her true potential. In my opinion, she became one of the most powerful, not to mention deadliest, mutants.”

  I let his words sink in. Whatever had been awakened in me the night I first killed had never fully gone away. It was like when a dog got a taste of blood and was never the same again. I’d spent the first part of my life trying to be a protector, only to fail when it had mattered most.

  When I finally came clean to Wolverine about what I’d felt as my old man struggled underneath me, he’d helped me harness that need into a skill. A skill that I had used for the club more times than I could count.

  “So, I’m Jean now?” I finally asked with narrowed eyes.

  He returned my glare with one of his own. “You keep mouthing off like you’ve been and you just might be. Otherwise, I was thinking something more along the lines of Grey. How’s that strike you, princess?”

  Grey.

  I liked it.

  It was better than what John had been saddled with—Slim. Not because of his weight, but because the chances of him missing a shot were slim. The guy was an excellent marksman, but I knew he hated having to explain how he got his road name to everybody we met on runs.

  I used to joke that his name was a reminder to the club whores of what their chances were with him. He’d been right; Lou was it for him. He didn’t give any of the other girls a second glance; which was a fucking shame because club whores were a damn good time.

  “It’s not a bad name,” I admitted. “I have to say, I thought you’d lost your goddamn mind at first.”

  The needle dug into the sensitive flesh near my spine and I fought the urge to groan in pleasure. I loved pain, both inflicting and receiving.

  If I’d let him live, I was sure my old man would’ve gotten a kick out of the fact that I now sought out abuse when I’d cowered and hid from it with him.

  Wolverine rolled another joint and lit up. “I wanted to talk to you away
from the club about something else. As you know I’m not only the chapter Pres, but the national one as well. I’ve kept our club in line since it began expanding. Any murders we’ve committed have stayed under the radar or we’ve paid off the appropriate people to keep it from ever seeing the inside of a fuckin’ courthouse.”

  The gun stopped buzzing as the tattoo artist, Dagger, inspected his handiwork.

  Wolverine waited until it fired back up before continuing. “The trouble is, the new police chief don’t like us running things. I can’t take a shit now without him wanting to add it to my jacket. He got it in his head that we’re going to go after his wife and daughters—raping and pillaging like we’re fuckin’ Vikings. My guy told me that they’re planning to hit me and a few others with conspiracy charges.

  “So, I’m pulling every chapter down here to send a message to the new chief. Don’t fuck with Silent Phoenix. If this shit goes south and the charges stick, I need you to be ready to step up.”

  If I hadn’t had a needle pressed up against my skin, I would’ve stood up and started pacing the room. “Me? I’m just an enforcer. Why not Dragon? He’s the VP.”

  “You’re the National Enforcer, don’t sell yourself short. And settle your ass down, I’m not handing over the Crown Jewels. Dragon will act as Pres should something happen to me, but in the meantime, it’s time for you to take on more responsibility.”

  “Can’t you ask one of your original guys?”

  He leaned forward until his elbows were resting on his knees. “I didn’t choose your road name on a whim. It was presented and voted on by the club. Ain’t that clicked yet? I’ve seen some impressive shit with you and there will be a day when you’re ready to become this club and wipe out any motherfucker who crosses you.”

  * * *

  I poured another shot of tequila with unsteady hands, sending most of it spilling onto the bar top.

  Become the club?

  Fuck me, I was too young to start thinking about that. I paid my dues, got my hands dirty when needed, and had anything I wanted at my fingertips.