by Pink, Nikki
We had BK who’d been working our bar back at the clubhouse and a couple of younger blokes too. Good lads.
I told the boys what was up. The thing about almost all of them being prospects was, they weren’t going to complain. But the Rager’s president, Reap, had brought Everest along. I guess he was the equivalent of me. A fully patched member along for a couple of weeks of partying. In my case it was because I’d organized the whole fuckin’ thing, but him? He really was on the party ticket.
The thing about Everest was that he was, well, the size of fuckin’ Mount Everest. Literally. Except not literally, what I mean is he was really, really big. Like he had a tumor on the gland that produces growth hormones and he grew into a fuckin’ monster before the doctors put a stop to it. Anyway, he’s the kind of guy that needs a three wheel trike because the bike engineers didn’t figure out a way to make a two wheel vehicle that’d be anything more than a toy for him.
So I told Everest what was up. We were now going to be on 24/7 security.
“24/7 beer?”
“What?” I asked
“That was the deal. Unlimited beer while working.” His voice had descended into a growl by the end of the sentence.
I didn’t care. Not my business. As far as I knew we still got beer. The shit we’d been given so far was about $7 a case as it was; who gave a fuck?
“Sure, buddy. Beer included.”
The motherfucker grinned the broadest grin you’ve ever seen. I wondered whether Chad Chad’s budget would stretch to cover Everest’s appetite.
We almost caught the tour bus before we got to the hotel. Almost. We got there just after them and arrived into a whole barrel load of horned up fans. Girls. All of them. I guess guys don’t mob their idols in quite the same way. Don’t get me wrong, The Full Force aren’t in anyway a boy band, they attract ‘serious’ rock fans too, but the two band leaders had another dedicated fan base among young women, and these were the fans that did things like spend hours waiting outside hotels for them to arrive. Or happily agree to go to their hotel rooms.
We parked up in front and sent the cops on their way. They’d been keeping the fans at bay and now we’d have to take over. Babysitting. That’s all it was really.
“Yo, Ev! Want to organize a schedule? Two guys on at once. Two hour shifts.”
He gave a deep grunt that was his way of saying yes. A man of few words.
I headed inside the impressive plate glass doors that swung open with a whoosh to see what we were dealing with. An anxious face greeted me when I entered. He’d been peering outside and he didn’t seem pleased. Not pleased at all.
He was another suit, though unlike Chad Chad Price he carried it off with a lot more aplomb. This was a dapper looking chap without a hint of Chad’s greasiness about him. He was clearly the manager on duty and it looked like his night was turning to crap.
“Uh are you--”, he paused, “umm--”
I waited patiently for him to make sense.
“What are you people doing?” he finally managed to ask.
“We’re doing security. For the band.”
He nodded. “Umm, you see, the thing is--”
Go on, say it. I raised my eyebrows at him.
“This hotel, well, it’s quite a, err, nice hotel. A very nice hotel. And you umm--”
“Are you saying I don’t look nice?” I didn’t say it in a threatening manner, I asked completely calmly. But the thing about looking like I do, with tats, scruffy jeans and a biker’s cut is that even when you’re being polite people can still get afraid of you. This guy looked afraid.
“No, no, no, no. Not at all. Not at all.” He paused again, trying to figure out how to say what he needed to say. “It’s just that when we asked the band’s manager to provide security we thought… you know… men in black suits, shades, that kind of thing. Not…” he trailed off.
“Not bikers?”
He nodded glumly.
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you mate. The cops have gone now, it’s just us keeping that gaggle of horned up fangirls from storming this joint.”
He sighed. “I don’t have much of a choice, do I?”
I shrugged. “Nope. Not tonight anyway. Maybe you should give the band manager another call. Maybe you guys can work something out. Maybe he’ll buy us black suits and shades.”
The hotel manager peeked behind me again outside and winced when he saw the seven bikers loitering around.
“Really?”
I shook my head. “No. Just kidding. I ain’t wearing a suit and nor is anyone else.”
The manager let out another worried sigh, though he no longer seemed too intimidated. At least not by me. “I’ll give the manager a call... Chad Price was his name, right?”
I nodded. “Chad Chad actually. Chad Chad Price so twattish they named him twice.”
The suit laughed.
“So where’s the band?” I asked.
The manager gave me directions to the top floor and I decided to head up and see just what kind of trouble they’d managed to start making for themselves.
I exited the elevator, pocketing the keycard the manager had given me that was required to access this floor, the tenth and top floor of the building.
I gave a low whistle as I slowly walked down the corridor. It was nice up there. Proper nice. Fancy red carpet, nice and deep. Mirrors and paintings and shit on the walls. A real posh kind of place. It was strange to think that Rabbie, Johnny, Si and Neal were staying there. That they were supposed to be staying there. That they were rich and successful enough to be able to afford it. How times change.
Wandering down the hallway I passed several doors. The manager had told me that the band had the whole top floor. That meant they had the two fancy suites - the presidential and royal suites - as well as another six rooms they called “Grand Staterooms”, which meant they were bigger and posher than standard rooms but not quite suites. Whatever they called them it was all pretty swank anyway.
I headed down toward the end of the corridor where the doors for the two suites were. That’s where the boys would be, I figured. It was quiet in the hallway. Too quiet.
Just as I was reaching the end the door of the presidential suite flew inward. As it did sounds of raucous partying poured out into the previously quiet hallway. The doors were clearly well soundproofed.
A naked figure flew out and crashed into me. A naked man, unfortunately. He tumbled to the floor and grabbed onto my cut to pull himself back to his feet. It was Neal, the guitarist.
“They’re crazy! Crazy!”
“Get back here!”
Neal fled down the hallway back the way I’d come just as two nubile dark-haired exotic beauties clad only in tiny knickers burst out of the room. One of them was holding a wooden ruler in one hand while she pulled along her friend in the other.
“There he is!”
Neal let out a shriek and jabbed at the elevator button repeatedly as the two chicks closed in on him, giggling madly.
The doors opened, Neal dived in and before he could get them shut again the two girls had followed him in. As the doors closed on them I heard a feminine voice saying, “You’ve been a very, very bad boy Neal.” He gave a shriek and then the doors were shut.
Uh oh. The manager wasn’t going to be happy when they burst into the lobby. Oh well. Maybe we’d have to get a couple of guys up here to stop the band going too wild in the rest of the hotel. Or not. Isn’t that the kind of behaviour “rock stars” were supposed to engage in?
As I was about to open the door to the suite again I heard thumping and feminine swearing.
“Goddamit open this door!”
It wasn’t coming from either of the suites. I took a few steps onward past the last rooms to the end of the hallway. A green glowing fire exit sign was lit above a metal door with a large push-bar on it. It was coming from the fire exit.
Huh. Weird. I figured one of the groupies must have got locked out there. Probably went to try an
d find somewhere to smoke.
Whatever. I gave the bar a push. “Welcome, groupies!” I announced giving a theatrical bow, pretending I was a doorman or something.
As my head reached level again I was given a rude awakening when a palm slapped across my face. Again.
Before I knew what I was doing my right hand had flown out and grabbed her. I held her hand high above her head and when she tried to free herself with the other one I grabbed that too. A clipboard clattered to the ground between us. She was panting heavily like she’d just walked up the entire set of stairs.
“You again?”
She tried to knee me and missed. I stepped into her, lowered her arm and held it tight against her waist. I found myself holding her close against me so she wouldn’t have room to maneuver.
And that’s how I found myself with a hot angry chick pressed up against me, my hand holding her arse tight so she couldn’t escape, just outside a very expensive hotel suite. I felt a stirring in my jeans as the blood rushed into my cock. It’s bound to happen when you press up against a gorgeous young woman, but with her it was especially sudden. There was something about her - an energy, an aura, some-fucking-thing - that was getting me extra fired up.
My face was still burning from her palm as she glared at me, her face mere inches from mine, her hot minty breath on my face.
She looked gorgeous in her rage.
I imagined holding her down under me, giving it to her as she dug her nails into my back and called me a bastard. A good old fashioned hate fuck. All hot and sweaty and angry. It’d be glorious.
“You lying bastard,” she hissed.
I snapped back from my reverie.
“What do you want?”
“You know what I fuckin’ want. Get my goddamn sister’s ass out here right now. I’ve got work tomorrow and I ain’t got time for this shit.”
Her eyes were fierce, like a mother wolf defending her cub. She really was serious.
“Look, love,” I told her, “your sister is a big girl. Who are you to stop her if she wants to blow a rock star or whatever the hell they’re doing?”
“But she’s only nineteen. We don’t live around here. How would she get home? What if something happened to her? Can I just check on her, please?”
Tears were forming in her eyes and some of the rage was fading. It was like she was giving up. Perhaps she was realizing that it was time to let her sister grow up.
“She’ll be fine, love.”
Her voice was quavering. “Let me just talk to her, please. If she really wants to stay I’ll leave quietly.”
I sighed. This was fucked up. Was it always this difficult with groupies? At the MC we had our own equivalent of groupies - the party girls who loved our bad boy lifestyle and threw themselves at us. But they usually didn’t come with overprotective relatives. They were more likely to be society’s rejects that no one gave a damn about. Except us.
“Look love, I’ll tell her you’re here and I’ll try and get her out to talk with you. Okay?”
She nodded and brushed a stray lock of hair away from her face that had escaped her ponytail, subtly wiping away a tear as she did so as if she hoped I wouldn’t notice. I noticed.
7
Ava
I leaned against the now closed fire exit door and let my back slowly slide down until I hit the floor, legs pushed up against my chest. I rested my head on my knees. My legs were killing me. Hours of standing in line, jumping and dancing to the music and climbing up to the tenth floor had really done a number on my thighs and calves.
I was going to kill that girl. Why did she have to do this? I drove us all the way out here to see the show at the last minute and she disappears off like a groupie slut with the band.
Was that really the girl I’d been raising the last six years? Could it be? Or did they do something to her, coerce her? That didn’t make any sense though. They were rockstars who had chicks throwing themselves at them all the time. They didn’t need to coerce anyone, let alone kidnap them.
Plenty of girls would throw themselves at them. Girls like my sister, I guessed, given the chance.
Shit.
Was I being a dweeb? Maybe I should be cheering on her ‘success’ instead of freaking out. She was an adult and could make her own decisions.
As I pondered my attitude and my sister’s behavior and waited for the return of the annoyingly attractive biker the elevator at the end of the hallway dinged and the doors slid open to a surprising sight.
The guitarist from the band earlier walked out, and behind him came two dark haired Asian girls and a hotel employee in a suit. The odd thing was that the first three appeared to be dressed as ghosts.
I blinked as they walked down the hallway toward me. Not ghosts. They were wrapped in large white sheets. KKK fancy dress party? I gave a tired quiet laugh to myself.
It was obvious they were all naked under their sheets and had been forced to cover their modesty. Probably by that dude who looked like a manager. The silent procession reached the door opposite the one the biker had gone into. The three dressed in sheets looked at each other, then as one they discarded the sheets and tossed them at the man in the suit.
They disappeared into the room and the manager just let the sheets fall to the floor. He looked dejected, broken even. His eyes ran wearily over me, sitting on the floor of the most expensive floor of his hotel.
It looked as if he was about to ask me something, perhaps ask if I was okay. But then he thought better of it, closed his slightly parted lips, turned on his shiny black heels and headed back to the elevator, leaving the white sheets where they’d fallen.
There was a gnawing ball of worry in my stomach as I wondered whether my sister was engaged in similar antics to those two girls. God, I hoped not. God, I knew she must be. As the elevator closed on the despondent manager the suite door the biker-bouncer had entered swung open.
The first thing I saw was his face as it peeked out into the hallway. The cocky, arrogant face from before was gone. I felt my breath quicken. I hadn’t been able to wipe that look off his face earlier. What had happened?
A moment later I found out as the rest of him came into view and I let out a scream. Adrenaline poured through my body and I began to shake. This couldn’t be happening.
He was carrying my sister’s unmoving body over his shoulder.
8
Ava
“Lily!” I screamed as I flew to my feet.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he said.
I held her face in my hands. She was breathing but there was something seriously wrong with her. She was like a zombie.
“What happened? What’s the matter?”
“I don’t know. They said she just did a line of coke. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“You gave her cocaine?” I asked incredulously.
“I didn’t give her shit! I was out here listening to you yapping away as you well know.”
“We have to get her to a hospital,” I said
The biker nodded in agreement.
“Your car downstairs?” he asked.
He was already moving toward the elevator. I followed, my quick steps following his longer strides as he stalked away carrying my glassy eyed sister on his shoulder.
“Shit. It’s parked pretty far away. I don’t want to wait for an ambulance.”
He nodded as he jabbed the button for the elevator a half dozen times.
“Lily!” I yelled at her. Nothing.
“We’ll get her to the hospital, she’ll be fine.”
His confident speech didn’t match his face. His earlier arrogance was completely gone and worry was etched in tired lines across his face.
The doors dinged as they opened and we hurried inside the elevator. It took us down far too slowly. Finally we reached the lobby and hurried across. I barely noticed its opulence as we hurried toward the large glass doors at the front.
“Oh my God!” said the manager from earlier as he saw us run
across the polished marble floor.
The biker’s heavy boots thumped down on the floor with each jarring step as my sister bounced up and down on his shoulder. The manager made a start like he was going to follow us but then quit as he saw we were heading for the front doors, probably glad that whatever disaster had befallen Lily was being taken outside.
We hurried outside to be greeted by a thousand screams and flashes. The fans. The goddam fans. Didn’t they have homes to go to? It was near midnight.
“Clear a path!”
I didn’t know where we were going until we got there. I should have known the biker didn’t have a car.
He stopped at a big motorcycle. All black paint and shiny chrome. The iconic words, Harley Davidson, on the side.
“Maybe we should wait for an ambulance?” I asked. I’d never been on a motorcycle before.
He frowned at me. I looked into my sister’s glassy eyes. Screw it. It was a shame my first motorcycle ride would have to be like this but what choice did we have?
He dropped her onto the motorcycle and she was like a ragdoll. If it wasn’t for one hand gripping her tightly by the shoulder she would have dropped flat out across the bike, cheek resting on the handles. Her body was completely unresponsive.
“Hold her a sec.”
I nodded, wrapping two arms around her to hold her up straight as the biker climbed on in front of her.
He reached two hands behind his back to hold Lily against him.
“Get on.”
So I did. I climbed up behind Lily, sandwiching her between us, a ragdoll between two nervous bodies. My nose pressed into her hair and I could smell the strawberry-scented shampoo we both shared.
“Grab on to me tight, keep her upright. As long as she stays sitting up she can’t fall off.”
“Ok.” I said as I latched onto him tight, pressing Lily between us.
