Wicked Tales Anthology

by Brandy Slaven

In that moment, I could have fucking killed him for asking that question. What in the hell was going on tonight? Were things weird because it was Halloween and all the looneys were out, or what? I was ready to go back to the Clubhouse and return to my duties of being everyone’s bitch until I got my full patch. I’d take that shit over this any day of the week.

  "I want to hang out with you," she said.

  And I wanted to fucking puke.

  "You can hang out with me, I'll be around." He told her, and I sighed. I was over this, all of it.

  I turned and walked out of the room. If he wanted to stick around and play with that freak then that was his problem, not mine, and I wasn't going to stick around and watch him do it.

  "Steph," Hash yelled from behind me. "Stop."

  I didn't stop. I kept walking through the eerily quiet barn towards the exit. There was no one in here, and the place had suddenly turned into a ghost town. I'd forgotten about how weird this was because I had been sucked into Hash's drama.

  "Where are all the people?" Hash asked when he made it to my side. "This place is fuckin' weird. What's going on here?"

  I shrugged my shoulders. How the hell would I know what was going on, I'd been with him.

  "Don't know," I mumbled.

  "This place was crawling with people when I came in here."

  It had been when I'd come in here too, but I didn't tell him that. I was mad at him and wasn't really in the mood to talk to him anymore. I'd had more than enough of him and was done with his shit and ready to get the hell out of this place.

  "I'm leaving," I told him, and I had every intention of doing just that.

  But, Hash had other plans, and he wasn't ready for me to leave just yet.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Lead the way, Hash

  When I made it out of the barn a hand latched onto my shoulder, and I was jerked to a stop. I shrugged him off and kept walking. I didn't much care for him putting his hands on me when uninvited.

  "Don't touch me," I grumbled angrily.

  I didn't even know what I had to be angry about, he'd wronged me in no way and didn't deserve for me to take my frustrations out on him.

  "What the fuck is this," he whispered. "Is this some kind of joke that we were left out of?"

  His words were what finally stopped me in my tracks and had me looking up.

  My mouth fell open as I watched people come pouring out of the cornfield maze and head into a trail that lead into the woods. There were no people hanging around the fire barrels or lounging on bales of hay.

  "What is this?" I asked quietly, which was stupid because he clearly didn't know what was happening any more than I did. "Do you know what's back there?"

  "Nope." He said, making the p pop.

  I thought about being curious and giving a shit but decided against it. I was leaving, what did I care about what was going on in the woods. I didn't.

  "I'm outta here." I said.

  "No, wait," Hash rushed out. "Now I remember. The billboard said something about a cemetery being close. I bet that's where they're going. You can't leave, not now. We need to go and check out this cemetery. It could be cool."

  It wasn't cool. I didn't need to see it to know that in no way was it cool. Look at the barn, that place hadn't been cool either, and I only needed to see the inside of two cardboard rooms to know that.

  "No," I said stubbornly. I was serious, and he could fuck off.

  "No?" He asked curiously. "You're really gonna tell me no and storm off in a huff? That's not cool, especially since you and I have things to talk about now. You can't just walk away from me before talking about what's between us. You've been avoiding me, and I'm over it."

  Oh shit.

  I did not want to do this with him. Not now, not ever.

  I turned around and faced him.

  "You want to go and hang out in a cemetery and talk about our feelings?" I asked incredulously.

  Unbelievable.

  His eyes were serious but warm, and they were on me.

  "No," he said. "I want to go hang out in a cemetery and enjoy whatever spooky shit they've cooked up because Halloween is my favorite fuckin' holiday. I want you to come with me because you're my best friend, and I miss you since you've been avoiding me because you've got it bad for me. We don't need to talk about our feelings if you don't want to. I just want you to own up to your bullshit and admit it."

  Owning up to my bullshit and admitting it was harder to do than I would have ever imagined, and I'd never had trouble with it before. I imagined the only reason I had trouble with it now is because there was so much riding on it, like our friendship. And I didn't like how blasé he was being about the whole thing, like it was no big deal, and we could forget about the whole thing and go back to the way things were. I couldn't go back, I didn't want to hide.

  I swallowed painfully, but managed to hold his gaze steady.

  "You're right," I said in a strained voice. "I do have feelings for you that go beyond friendship. I'm sorry if that makes you uncomfortable and means you don't feel like-"

  "Shut up," he said, cutting me off.

  My mouth snapped shut, and I grimaced. I didn't like him cutting me off, and I sure as fuck didn't like him telling me to shut up when it took everything I had in me to talk about what we were talking about in the first place.

  He came at me, moving into my space and making my breath hitch.

  "What're you doing?" I whispered hoarsely.

  Without warning or word, he leaned in and kissed me. His lips moved against mine as my lips parted in shock. He took advantage of my parted lips, and his tongue slipped inside. He gripped my shoulders as he explored my mouth and pulled my body roughly into his.

  I shook my head, tearing my mouth away from his.

  "What are you doing?" I asked in a breathless voice.

  God damn it.

  Why would he do this to me? Why would he kiss me?

  "Why're you doing this?" I whispered.

  "I like you too," he whispered back. "That's why."

  "Don't fuck with me, Hash." I ground out. "Not about this. It's too important."

  His arms slid around my back, and he hugged me to him.

  "I would never mess with you on this, Stephan, not about this." He murmured. He kissed me on the lips again, just a peck this time, before letting me go and stepping back. "Let's go check out the cemetery. Then we can go home, but I want to see what's going on in the woods first."

  What in the actual fuck was going on here?

  "Just like that?" I asked. "You're down with me being into you, you kiss me, and now you're ready to go to the cemetery?"

  He was out of his mind if he thought it was all good, and we could just move on from this like nothing happened.

  He sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. "No, my brother, not just like that. We've got a lot of heavy shit we're going to have to deal with, but it's not going to ruin anything between us. I won't let it, and I won't let you ruin it either. Now, let's go."

  I wanted to go alright, just not where he wanted me to go.

  "We'll talk on the way," he suggested, and I groaned, giving in. I had a hard time telling him no, and it usually got us into trouble. I always tagged along with him, and he was a troublemaker in the extreme, and I always had to take his back when shit went down. That was what it meant to be a brother, we had each other’s backs no matter what and always would.

  "Fine," I sighed loudly. "Lead the way, Hash."

  I wasn't happy about this at all. Hash, though, well, he looked fucking thrilled and made me wish his girl from earlier had smacked him a little bit harder because he deserved it, and I certainly couldn't smack him upside the head. Not when I could still feel his lips moving against my own. And it had felt good. Damn good. Too good to ever come back from.

  He grabbed me by the arm, and we started walking. I did it mutely and sullenly. Hash did it chatting. He seemed to be in a jovial mood all of a sudden, and it annoyed the shit out of me.<
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  "I'm not going to kiss you again while we're here because some of the guys are here, and I don't want them to see us together like that. It's nothing personal, I just don't think it's anyone's business what we do."

  Some people might see this as a slap in the face, but I did not. I was actually on board with this one hundred percent. But it bugged me that he was so down with this and how fast he was.

  "What's your deal?" I had to ask. "I mean you seem like you're actually happy that this happened, and I never said anything before because I knew you were only into chicks. I didn't want to make things weird for you, and I didn't want to fuck up what we've got going. We're family, and I can't afford to lose you."

  "You aren't going to lose me," Hash said as he dropped my arm and fell into step beside me. "I'm your ride or die, there’s no getting rid of me. And I do like girls, lots of girls. Big ones. Small ones. Redheads. Smart ones. Ones with big t-"

  I elbowed him in the gut. "Shut up, idiot." I said around my grin.

  He did no such thing. He never listened to me. Sometimes it was depressing.

  "That's not going to change, ya know?" He said seriously, losing his playful tone. "I'm not going to commit to just you, and I don't want to start this off based on a lie. I like women, and I'm not gonna stop. I'm also not ready to settle down with just one person, but I want to explore this with you. I never thought I'd be into a guy before but I am, and I want to explore it with you but I'm not giving up girls."

  Well, that was a relief because I wasn't about to give up girls either, and I wasn't interested in settling down with just one person at this age.

  "They wouldn't understand," I said quietly, not talking about girls but the rest of our brothers. Since he was my best friend, I knew he'd get what I was talking about.

  Hash grinned and lifted his eyebrows suggestively. "King would understand," he said.

  He was right, King would understand. Hash and I had seen the man in action before in the back room at a bar we weren't supposed to have been at because we were underaged. There'd been a nameless man on his knees in front of King with his mouth wrapped around his cock. King had stood with his eyes closed tight with his fingers tangled in the man’s hair while he thrusted into his mouth. It had been hot as fuck, but I'd been uncomfortable watching it because I thought Hash was going to see King differently after that. He hadn't, and I realized I shouldn't have worried in the first place.

  "King is a scary motherfucker," I muttered under my breath.

  "You'd do him too, wouldn't you?" Hash joked. Or, at least I hoped he was joking. Did I think King was attractive? Hell yes, I'd have to be blind not to. But he was a closed off person who kept to himself, and his intensity scared the shit out of me. He scared the shit out of me. He scared the shit out of everyone because he was that guy, the scary, hardass, motherfucker who did things for the Club that no one else was brave enough to do. He did our dirty work. He was our enforcer, and he was damn good at his job. The best. We were more than lucky he'd joined our family; my brother would be lost without him, and he'd be really fucking unsafe.

  "No," I ground out. "I wouldn't do King. Christ, Hash. What the fuck are you talking about? Don't say shit like that. Someone might hear you and then we'd all be in a world of shit."

  Hash chuckled. "He wouldn't kick my ass. He wouldn't kick your ass either. He owns his shit and would probably make a joke with you about being into him."

  "I'm not into him," I snapped, making him laugh even harder.

  "I know," he said. "I just like giving you a hard time. You make it so damn easy to pick at you."

  I rolled my eyes as we stepped into the woods, following behind the last people to leave the maze.

  "We were here last night,"I overheard a guy in front of us say to his buddy. "It looked real, and we had to come back tonight to see if they sacrificed the same chick as they did last night. She was smokin' hot and had a bangin' body. She was naked and tied down, I'd never seen anything like it before in my life. It looked so real, even the blood looked real, man."

  Sacrificed?

  Oh, fuck no. Even if it wasn't real I didn't want to see it. This place sucked. A maze in a cornfield. A shitty barn filled with fake smoke and bitches covered in spaghetti noodles. And now people were being sacrificed.

  Fuck no.

  "We gotta get out of here, Hash." I urged.

  He laughed. Actually fucking laughed at me.

  "This is going to be great," he said happily. "It just keeps getting better and better."

  That was highly debatable.

  He rubbed his hands together gleefully, looking like a kid about to head down the stairs to a pile of presents on Christmas day. He was fucking nuts.

  "This is not going to be great," I shot back just for the sake of arguing with him.

  "You're a pussy," he taunted.

  I rolled my eyes at him again. I wasn't going to fling a dirty name back at him; name calling was beneath me. For now. I would make no promises about later.

  "Totally a pussy," he snickered.

  "What the fuck ever," I bit off.

  The trail opened up to a metal fence and arch way. The graveyard lay ahead, the tombstones visible in the moonlight. There were barrels filled with fire out here, too. And idiots, tons of idiots milling around. And a platform that had nooses hanging from a tree over it.

  "What the fuck," the guy in front of us, not the one who'd spoke the first time but his buddy, said.

  "What the fuck is right," his friend said. "This wasn't here last night. There was an alter here last night and a table where the girl had been strapped down to. Not a hanging station."

  A hanging station, he'd said.

  Jesus Christ.

  That's exactly what this shit looked like. And who stands around and watches as a girl gets murdered, even if it is fake? What kind of person gets joy out of that? Not me, but apparently Hash, that's who because he said so as soon as I thought it.

  "Bummer we missed out on the sacrifice. Don't you think?"

  Now he was just being an asshole, and he knew it. I told him no anyways. He just laughed, which didn't surprise me in the least. He'd been laughing at me a lot tonight. Then again, I'd laughed my ass off while that girl had wailed on him. Sort of made things even, if you thought about it.

  Pumpkins were strewn all over the cemetery, some even sitting atop tombstones. They'd decorated for Halloween. How cute.

  A large crowd had grown in front of the platform. A dark, hooded figure stood on the platform, and they weren't alone. A naked woman stood beside the hooded figure with her hands tied by rope in front of her. Her pale skin glistened in the moonlight. It looked like she was wearing silver glitter all over her body. Her long red hair hung down, covering her breasts from view of the restless, jeering crowd.

  They were rowdy, and many of them had plastic Solo cups in their hands, and I knew there was alcohol inside those cups. It's why they'd gotten so loud, they were all loaded and would more than likely be driving themselves home and putting everyone around them in danger. Stupid fuckers. I needed to make sure we were out of here long before everyone else started to clear out.

  The poor girl on the platform looked terrified, her eyes bulging, with tears streaming down her cheeks. If she was an actress, she was a damn good one, I'd give her that. If she wasn't an actress and really was terrified then my heart went out to her. This was beyond fucked up.

  She had a tattoo on her right hip, some kind of flower. It was big and covered up most of her hip. There were more flowers on the inside of her forearms as well. She was pretty, and Hash had said something about being into redheads, maybe he'd invite this one back home with us as well. Probably not, he seemed to save it all for the crazy ones.

  Just my luck.

  "Boys are over there," Hash muttered, and I turned to look at him. His eyes were glued to the stage and he no longer looked like he was having a good time. Finally, a normal reaction out of him. It was about damn time. It also looked like
he wouldn't be inviting the redhead back home to the Compound with us.

  "We should join them," he said. "They'll think it's weird if we don't and give us both shit for it. We need to be normal, need to act how we normally would so no one thinks there's anything up with us."

  He was right, of course. Still, I asked, "Which boys did you come with?" His answer would make a big difference in whether or not I gave a shit about what they'd do if we snubbed them.

  "Batey, Rover and King," he answered me quietly. His eyes were still focused on the stage, and he looked like he had no plans on moving any time soon.

  I groaned when he said King's name because I knew Hash was going to get his rocks off by getting little digs in about me wanting King, which I absolutely did fucking not.

  This fucked up night just kept getting better and better.

  Batey was my brothers’ best friend and right-hand man. They'd been thick as thieves since they were kids. If I did anything he thought was wrong he'd run right back to my brother and tattle like a little bitch. It was annoying, and he did it all the time. Which was funny because he was usually a lazy fucker and didn't deserve his place beside my brother at the table. I always thought he'd only gotten it because he was best friends with my brother and his old man had been a member at one point too. Outside of being someone you could have a good time with, he was basically useless. I was the only one to see it though and always, but always, kept my opinions to myself on the matter because it would piss my brother off to hear me say it.

  Rover was unexpected because he was new, and nobody trusted him yet. He seemed like an alright guy though, outside of being quiet and keeping to himself.

  And then there was King. Who was also unexpected because this shit really did not seem like his scene, and I had assumed they'd both be with my brother on their run.

  I asked Hash if he knew what was up with that since it looked like he'd come here with them.

  "They got back early." he answered. "You probably just missed them when you left the Compound. Lucky fuck. Batey texted me about this place the other day and then again when they were almost here, telling me to meet them here. He knows how much I love Halloween and thought I'd get a kick out of this place. Now, I'm thinkin' I should have stayed home."