by Zoey Parker
His breath was hot on my ear. “One night, my father came home, drunk and angry, as usual. He asked my mother for his dinner. But my father, you see, always used our money to buy his drinks. So we had no money to buy food, and without food, there was no dinner for him. This made him angry, too. He hit my mother.”
Lobo’s hands pressed down harder on my shoulders as his intensity grew. Across from us, I could hear Luke whimpering in pain. The blood continued to flow down his face. “I tried to stop my father, but he was much bigger and stronger than me. He hurt me badly, just like I have hurt your brother here.” He pointed at Luke again. “It is not a good thing, this violence. It is ugly. I do not like it.
“When my father hurt me, I decided that something must be done. It took me a long time to recover, but while I lay in the hospital, I came up with a plan. The night I returned home, I stole enough food from the market to make my father a feast. He came home drunk, and I gave him the food. He ate and ate and ate. He left none for my mother and me, though we had not eaten anything and were very hungry.
“My father ate until he was full, and then he fell asleep. I waited until my mother had gone to sleep, too, for it is not good for women to see violence. When she was gone, I took the syringe I had taken from the hospital and stabbed it in my father’s eye.”
I was shivering in fear. Lobo’s story was appalling. I wanted so badly for Blaze to be here. He would know what to do, how to fight back. But he was gone and couldn’t possibly know how much danger I was in, trapped down here with this madman.
“Do you know what it sounded like when I stabbed my father?” Lobo asked me. “He howled. He howled like a wolf as he died. And that is why I am called Lobo. Because I am the noise that precedes your death. The howling. Just like my father.” Lobo’s hands had tightened into vices on my shoulders, squeezing with immense strength.
Everything was reeling. I felt nauseous.
This was what happened when you danced with the devil.
The water kept dripping from the ceiling. Lobo’s men had not moved or even blinked during his story. Luke had not moved either. The sounds coming from him had stopped. I could not even tell if he was breathing anymore. For all I knew, he was dead, and I was alone.
“I do not want to hurt you,” Lobo said to me. “But I need you to tell me where the guns are that I was promised. That is all that I want. Once I have the guns, I will leave. I will kill your brother, of course, for planning to steal my drugs from me and take all the riches for himself. But I will leave you alone. All you have to do is tell me where the guns are.”
Lobo’s voice was brimming with tenderness. It was a sickly sweet tone, like a kind uncle who wanted only a simple favor.
But I had seen what he did to my brother. I had seen the demons lurking in him. He was a monster.
More importantly, I had no idea where the weapons were hidden. The Inked Angels had a thousand different stash spots scattered across the city, and they could have kept the items they had promised to Lobo in any one of them. There was no way for me to know where to look.
“Where are the guns?” he said softly, looking straight at me. Those eyes were hideous—all black, colorless, barely human. “Tell me where they are, and everything will be okay.”
“I don’t know,” I whispered.
It felt like he was staring into my soul. Those eyes pierced right through me. I was pure fear. Cold sweat slid down my face. Water dripped from the pipes.
A clanking sound rang out from somewhere behind me. I tried to turn my head to see what it was, but I could not move enough in the chair. Lobo looked up, and a broad grin broke out across his face.
“Perfecto,” he said happily. “Right on time.”
I heard footsteps shuffling forward, and the rustle of several large objects sliding across the ground. My pulse quickened.
Then I saw what it was.
Several more men dressed in all black were dragging the bound and gagged members of the Austin Inked Angels charter. They had been badly beaten. Bruises covered their faces and arms, and what little was left of their tattered clothing could barely conceal the deep cuts on their torsos and legs.
The Diablos pulled the men around into a messy half-circle in front of Lobo and me. I saw them all—Skull, Chain, Cannon, Grimace, so many others—men who had watched me grow up and guarded over me. My brother’s men.
Our only hope of rescue was gone.
The men were groaning in pain as the Diablos tossed them onto the wet concrete floor. I looked over to Luke. He had struggled into a seated position, and as he saw his soldiers being brought in, trussed up like wild game, his eyes bulged wide.
“No!” I heard him scream. “Not my men!”
I felt like my heart would explode. Sheer panic overwhelmed every inch of me. This was it—this was the end of everything. I would watch my brother and his men be murdered here, and then Lobo would kill me, too. He would do it slowly. He was a man who liked playing with his food.
Lobo walked slowly along the line of Inked Angels. He ran his fingertips along their faces and brought it to his nose. He inhaled deeply, like the scent of their sweat, their blood, and their fear was a precious perfume to him.
I had no doubt he savored this. Where did evil men like him come from? I thought back to his story and another shiver tore down my spine.
“Now, mi amigo,” he said to Luke, “I will kill your compadres, uno a uno, until you tell me where my guns are. Entiendes?”
Luke screamed again. I couldn’t cry out, couldn’t even move. All I could do was sit still and let fear consume me.
Lobo turned and paced back down the line. He seemed to be considering the men like they were livestock for sale, one hand stroking his chin. He murmured to himself as he walked.
“No, not this one. Perhaps him? No, no. Ah, yes.” He stopped in front of Skull. “I think we begin here, mis amigos.”
Luke’s eyes were wide in fear. The veins in his neck and forehead stood out like tension cables. He screamed, over and over, until his voice was too hoarse to make another noise. Tears streamed down his face.
As long as I could remember, Luke had cared for his friends. He was a leader—strong and confident, unafraid to take charge. The men who were his patch brothers respected him, because they knew he would always do right by them. This was the ultimate torture for my brother. He could handle pain, but to watch the men who trusted him be killed withcold precision—that would be too much to bear.
It was heart-wrenching to watch his face and body contort. He would have done anything to save them, but the bindings on his wrists and ankles prevented him from moving. The two goons standing at attention on either side of him watched him warily, ready to beat him to a pulp if he did manage to break loose of the ropes.
Lobo snapped his fingers and pointed at Skull. A pair of the men who had first dragged the captives inside jumped to attention.
“String him up,” Lobo ordered. They sprang into action, hauling Skull by his armpits over to where several chains dangled from the pipes above.
I watched as they fastened the chains around Skull’s body. Once the links were secured, they pulled down on the loose ends, so that Skull hung upside down from his ankles a full five feet above the floor. Blood leaked from the wounds that crisscrossed his body, but the worst was yet to come.
Lobo did slow laps around the suspended man. Skull’s face turned red as the flow of what little blood remained in his veins rushed to his head. He was starting to struggle to breathe.
Just like he had done with me, Lobo ran a fingertip down Skull’s cheek. It was like he was touching a steak to ensure it had been properly cooked. The same callousness, the same carelessness, the same lip-licking, eternally unsatisfied hunger was painted across his face.
“I will begin the easy way,” Lobo announced. “Where are the guns I was promised?”
Skull spit straight in Lobo’s face.
I almost wanted to laugh. Skull had been around me ever since
I could remember. He had joined the Inked Angels at the same time as my brother. I couldn’t even count the number of times I had seen them come limping up the driveway, bleeding and bruised after a fight at the bars, but still laughing with their arms around each other. Luke and he were best friends. They had been through war together, never letting anything come in between them.
And now Luke would have to watch him die.
I couldn’t bear to look at my brother. It was bad enough to hear his wailing. “Not Skull! You motherfucker, don’t you dare touch him!” Luke wept. “Please, God, don’t touch him.”
Lobo reached up and gently wiped the saliva from his face. He grimaced and reached out for the rag from one of his men. As he cleaned off where Skull had spit, he spoke.
“That was very rude, my friend,” he said.
“I ain’t your fuckin’ friend,” Skull sneered. It was becoming harder for him to talk as more blood kept rushing to his head.
“No, I suppose not,” said Lobo. “Pity.” In a sudden blaze of motion, he whipped a knife out from his boot, spun, and slashed across Skull’s throat. Blood foamed and jetted. I could hear Skull gurgling as the life slipped from his eyes.
To the other side of me, I saw Cannon puking. The others were pale as ghosts. This was nothing you could be prepared for.
Between them, Luke had buried his face against his shoulder. “Make him watch,” snarled Lobo, stabbing a finger at him. The men next to Luke grabbed his head and forced his gaze upward, towards where Skull’s lifeless, dripping body was suspended.
“This could all be over so soon,” crooned Lobo. “I will end your life mercifully. Just tell me where the guns are.”
It took Luke several long seconds to gather his breath enough to speak. When he did, spit and blood flew from his mouth.
“Rot in hell, you son of a bitch.”
Lobo sighed, dropping his head like a parent disappointed in a misbehaving child. Then he shrugged and waved his fingers towards where the rest of the Inked Angels sat.
“Ay, Dios,” he bemoaned. “Very well. Next!”
The bloodshed had only just begun.
Chapter 8: Dancing with the Devil
Blaze
I watched the truck vanish into the distance. There was no way I’d be able to catch up to it, and even if I did, I was outnumbered and outgunned. To put it simply, I was up shit creek without a paddle.
But fuck it, Olivia wasn’t worth chasing anyway.
That whore. That absolute fucking whore. She didn’t deserve anything from me. Let her run away, back to her brother and his band of fucking backstabbers in Austin. It suited her to be with liars and traitors. That was what she was—nothing but a goddamn liar. I had no use for her. No use for a wife who led me around like a bull with a ring in his nose. I was a show pony for Luke, a distraction while he cooked up whatever idiot scheme he had in mind. He set her loose on me and she went to work, fucking me into a false sense of security.
I’d let her fool me into a state of dewy-eyed stupidity. Croak had suspected what was happening. He’d tried to wake me up, to keep me from falling into her trap, but it wasn’t good enough for me. No, I was far too stupid. Trust a bitch? Never again. Especially not her. I hoped she was dead.
Is that so?
I practically tore my hair out by the roots. Christ, if there was ever a time for that voice in my head to stay completely fucking silent, it was right now. The last thing in this world I wanted to hear was this simmering doubt, this whiny little insistence that I really did love Olivia.
For a brief moment, I wondered if it was true. We’d spent how many days wrapped up in each other, fucking and talking and opening up? It was unlike anything else I’d ever done. She’d coaxed these feelings out of me, this warmth that even now kept hanging around my fucking heart like some drunk asshole staying at the bar too long.
No, fuck that. I didn’t love her. I never had. She was not only dead to me, she was gone forever. As far as I was concerned, it was as if she’d never existed. I might as well get to work wiping her memory clean off the grid and go back to my life the way it was before any of this shitstorm had begun.
If only that were possible.
* * *
The ride back to Houston was hot, dusty, and furious. I put rubber to the road, flying past Mexican police without giving a single fuck if they took after me. They’d never catch me, not with the beast I was riding. Those poor suckers couldn’t stay with me even if they had a ten mile head start.
It felt good to fill the wind whip past me. I let myself pretend that all the shit of the last few weeks—everything since the wedding—went with it. Gone went the sound of Olivia screaming my name from the porch as I threw myself into her, exploding together. Gone went the days tangled in the bed sheets, moving with and in her for hours on end. Gone went the night on the beach when I’d first made her mine. Gone went the leather lingerie, the “Do you like it?” that still haunted me.
I left it all behind me in Mexico. Good fucking riddance.
I saw the border crossing swim into sight up ahead. Wheeling into the line of cars waiting for entry, I brooded, doing my damnedest not to think of her once. Gradually, I scooted forward, pulling up to the booth.
“Bringing anything across?” asked the border patrol official in a thick Texan accent.
“Just a whole lot of stupidity,” I told him.
The official looked up at me. His eyes were hidden behind mirrored aviators, wrapped in a gold wire frame.
“We all got some of that, son,” he said. “Welcome back to the States.”
I nodded and twisted the accelerator. My motorcycle shot forward in a cloud of exhaust, leaving the booth and the man behind.
The road was smoother on the other side of the crossing. As I drove, I drew closer to the sign pointing the way to Houston. It loomed large, a big green square outlined against the turquoise sky.
I didn’t even want to be in the same country as the bitch. The thought made me want to puke.
I pulled off to the side of the road and got off my bike. I needed to stretch my legs; eight hours straight in the saddle was enough to do one hell of a number on a man’s body. The sun beat down overhead, as consistent and relentless as any motherfucker in this life or the next.
Fucking sun. Fucking sky. This whole fucking world was a mess that never ended. You go after a girl, and her brother puts a bullet in your leg. Then, when a second chance comes around out of nowhere, she ends up being a manipulative traitor, only out to screw over you and the men you call your brothers.
I hated it all right then.
“Fuck you!” I screamed at the sky. On the far side of the road, a family of Mexicans carrying a wheelbarrow of goods into the border town looked up in surprise at my outburst.
“Aw, fuck you guys, too,” I mumbled. I let my arms fall by my side. The saddle had done a number on my body, but fuck, that girl had done a number on everything else. I was a wreck.
There were only two things a man like me knew to do when the world was going to shit and he needed some way to stop if from falling apart completely: drink and fuck.
I got on my bike, but instead of roaring home, I turned around and headed back into Mexico.
* * *
Twilight brought the little shanty town to life. It was a rundown shithole that lingered on the last few acres of Mexican soil, just enough space to let tourists exorcise all their vices before they went back into the United States. The town was brimming with bars and whorehouses, and cops knew better than to even bother interfering with all the fuckery that took place on a nightly basis.
I idled through town, the motor beneath me purring quietly as I turned corners and crossed intersections. I watched as weedy-looking American teenagers ducked into houses where hookers in lingerie danced in the window frames.
Everyone here just wanted to get their rocks off and go unnoticed. Given the way I was feeling, that was just fine with me. And if anyone wanted to try and fuck with me, we
ll, let’s just say I wasn’t going to go out of my way to avoid a fight with some lippy motherfucker, either.
I parked my bike outside a saloon and walked in. It took only moments before I’d thrown back three shots of home brewed tequila. When in Mexico, right? But the liquor barely put a damper on the bee’s nest that was my brain. All I wanted was to shut it all down—radio silence upstairs, please and thank you.
It took another four shots before my thoughts actually began to quiet. With a warm, steady buzz building in the front of my head, I was able to start shunting Olivia and everything that had to do with her away into a locked mental cabinet that sat somewhere deep in the dustier corners of my skull. If I had any luck at all, I’d be able to keep her there forever, too.
