by Dark, Raven
“Spider, there’s hundreds of places listed here. There’s…oh shit.” He freezes, staring at one of the pages in his hand. “Oh, Spider...” He says my name in a low sing-song voice. “Someone’s got some ‘spaining to do.”
Not liking the sound of that, I snatch the paper from him and glance at the black and white photocopy of a pic on the page. Unlike most of the photos, which are bad ID snapshots like you get when you register for a driver’s license, this one is a glamorous shot that looks like it was taken by a professional photographer.
For the second time that day, blood thunders in my ears.
Fuck me.
The name beside the image is Emma Wineman. The name is different, but the face is unmistakable.
It’s my little thief.
21
The Monster’s Return
A few minutes before the end of my shift, Monica asks me to deliver an order to one of the MC members in a party room. She pours the whiskey and adds it to a tray with a basket of wings, then sets the tray on the bar for me.
The kitchen usually closes at midnight, and it’s almost seven now, but orders are that the kitchen stays open to MC members at all times.
I take the tray and glance over my shoulder at Clive, the security guard who’s been watching my every move since Spider left with Striker over an hour ago.
“Are you going to follow me while I deliver this?” I half tease, holding up the tray.
Standing against the wall near the bar, the hard-faced guard gives me a humorless, deadpan stare. He’s all ice and businesslike, not unlike the guards in the Colony. It makes me uneasy, but I’ve seen him around, and he’s always like that. At least he isn’t creepy, staring at me as if he’s undressing me with his eyes like Tony.
I’m starting to wonder if there’s been some sort of trouble with the Satan’s Bastards. I hope Spider’s just being overprotective.
I head for the hall that leads to the row of party rooms, toward the security door I’d run through with those tips what feels like a thousand years ago. He watches me, but doesn’t follow. But then I’m not going through that door this time.
Stopping at the room just before the security door, I knock on the entrance to the party room.
“Come in.”
The deep, low voice belongs to Axe, the doctor who gave me the birth control implant. That was the only time I’d seen him, but I recognize his voice.
I push open the door, expecting to find him sitting on the couch with one of the strippers dancing for him, but when I look in, I don’t see him.
“Your order, sir.” I step into the room.
He appears at my side as if out of nowhere, and I startle. I barely have a chance to register his glasses and narrow features before I see his arm move swiftly out of the corner of my eye.
There’s a sharp prick of pain in my arm. I jolt and the tray drops from my hands with a crash. I open my mouth to cry out, but Axe’s hand covers my mouth.
Dizziness swims in, and the room spins.
Axe scoops me into his arms.
The world goes black.
* * *
I wake seconds later in nothing but darkness.
The world is completely devoid of light, the kind of total darkness I’ve been in before.
Panic seizes me. The last time I was in darkness like this, I was in isolation in the Colony. I jerk, but my body feels slow and heavy, my thoughts forming at half speed.
When I tug on my upraised arms, the sound of a chain clinking filters through my ears. My arms scream in pain, as if they’ve been in the same position for too long.
Several realizations hit me at once.
First, my arms are stretched above me, and the cold length of a metal chain is wrapped around my wrists, the links biting into my skin. Second, I’m on tiptoes, my heels raised off the ground. Rough cement chills my bare toes. Third, I’m wearing not a stitch.
I’m naked.
Again.
Seriously? How does this keep happening?
Except, the last two times I was nude, I was tied to Spider’s bed, and then to a tree in the hot desert. No such luck now. This time, I’m strung up, hanging from a chain like a fish about to be gutted.
I’d never heard of the pastors stripping congregants naked when they put them in isolation, and they hadn’t done that to me when I was locked in there.
I must be still with the Devil’s Outlaws, but why would Spider string me up like this? Things had changed so much between us. In the past week since that incident with Cap, he’d been like a whole different man. Gentle. Compassionate. Loving.
This doesn’t make sense.
My gaze flits around me, but wherever I am, it’s too dark to make out anything in the room. It’s cool and the smell of must hangs in the air, like a basement. If there are windows, they’re boarded up to keep out all light.
I can’t see anything, but I have a feeling if I could, my vision would be blurry.
I remember this feeling. It’s like when I orgasm, but without the pleasant, heavenly sensations associated with it. My head is buzzing, and my veins tingle.
Then the memory of what happened seconds before I awoke floods back.
The prick of a needle in my arm. Axe, picking me up in his arms. Then…nothing.
Drugged. The doctor drugged me.
Why?
The obvious thought hits me hard. He’s working against Spider. Betraying him for some reason. That doesn’t make sense, but Spider wouldn’t suddenly put him up to something like this. Not after the past week. He wouldn’t.
If the ache in my arms is any indication, it hasn’t been seconds since Axe stuck me with that needle. How long, then?
“Spider!” My voice comes out shaky and too high. “Let me out of here!”
No one answers, and the darkness remains.
Those days I spent alone the blackness of the isolation chamber fill my thoughts, wearing away my resolve. That fear that I’ll be left here alone and forgotten sets in, chilling my bones. I envision the walls of this room, wherever it is, closing in, my oxygen running out. I picture the minutes turning to hours, then days, and then longer until I starve or die of thirst.
“Spider! Someone help me!”
Several long minutes pass in silence. There is no sound in the room, save my own ragged breathing. The minutes stretch on. Countless times I twist and try to wriggle my hands free, but the chains are too tight. Panic burns up my insides.
“Let me out of here!”
No one comes. Still the darkness remains, thick and endless. My arms and legs are aching. More minutes drag on until I’m sure my arms will fall off.
“Help!” I scream. “Someone help me!”
My breathing comes in short gasps, my heartbeat filling my ears.
If no one comes for me…
Tears sting my eyes, but I squeeze them shut and will the tears back. Have to stay strong. Someone will come. I have to believe that. Whoever did this can’t just leave me here.
Can they?
What must be a good hour after I came to, lights flicker on, long, thin luminescent rods mounted near the top of a white washed wall. The rods hum with electrical power.
Momentarily blinded, I shut my eyes, turning my face away until they adjust. My vision is blurry; the random patterns in the grey cement covering the floor look fuzzy.
Slowly, my vision starts to clear and I glance around.
I’m in cell about the size of a small living room. Four plain white walls stare back, featureless and unadorned without anything to indicate where I am. No windows. There’s nothing but a small metal cot with a thin, yellowed mattress up against the wall opposite a steel door. I glance over my shoulder. Only another blank wall.
No, it’s not totally blank. There’s a small camera mounted in the corner near the ceiling, a dark lens glaring right at me like a single black eye.
The isolation chamber had those too, allowing the pastors to watch captives every second.
I
can’t be there. I can’t have been taken back to the Colony. If I was, the doctor would have to be working for His Holy Peace, and that makes about as much sense as my having two heads. His Holy Peace members considered men of the outside world to be beneath them, and criminals like bikers would be the lowest of the low. Members would die before they allied themselves with them.
So, if I’m still with the Outlaws, how many of Spider’s friends are up there watching me? Is he there, too?
I close my eyes. This is just like Diesel’s party all over again. I hate being watched, and I hate being on display like this.
And yet, there goes my core, throbbing, just like it did that night. My body is such a traitor.
A sharp metallic sound makes me jerk my gaze to the entrance of the room.
A slat has opened in the door. For a fraction of a second, I catch sight of eyes peering in at me before the slat slams shut.
Keys jingle from outside the room. A lock clicks. My thoughts still move sluggishly and I shake my head, trying to drive the drugged feeling off. If I have an unfriendly visitor, I can’t afford to have impaired judgment. I need to be on my guard. My head swims and I groan.
The door opens. For all my worries about the Outlaws watching me, some brainless part of me half expects to see Seth walk in. Or Jacob. Deacon Jacob liked putting people in isolation for the tiniest infraction, leaving them in for as long as he possibly could without getting himself in trouble for mistreating members.
The rational part of me expects to see Axe, but my visitor isn’t a member of Peace, or the club doctor.
“Rise and shine, Wildcat.”
“Spider…?” I squeak.
He smirks at me and shuts the door, locking it.
I shake my head groggily, as though to clear away the image of him that must surely be a hallucination brought on by the drugs. Nope. When I look at him, Spider is still there, larger than life, decked in his low-hanging jeans and cut, blond hair slicked back. Sexy as ever.
He’s not a hallucination. He’s really there.
“You did this?” I snap.
He spreads his hands with a shrug.
Betrayal cuts an icy path across my heart. Rage burns in me, white hot and scalding. “Why?” I snarl.
“Why? Really?” He strolls over until he’s standing in front of me and crosses his huge tattooed arms.
I thrash and the chain on my wrists clinks heavily, tugging painfully on my arms. “I trusted you!”
The smile drops from his face. His expression changes so swiftly that it’s unsettling, his eyes turning from dancing blue fire that takes in my nakedness to icy spheres of peril.
“Don’t,” he growls, stalking forward until his face is almost in mine. “Don’t talk to me about trust.”
The implications in those words knife at my chest. Betrayal drips from his tone.
My heart starts to pound.
The only thing I could have done to tick him off badly enough to do this was the phone calls I made from Sam’s cell. He must have found out about them.
An absurd guilt stabs at me. Unwilling to tip my hand, I force my eyes to stay on his, willing away the urge to look at his feet and show weakness.
He steps back a pace and looks me over. His eyes roam over my breasts, over my exposed sex. Familiar hunger that once made my blood run like fire flashes in his eyes, but it’s there only a moment before the light in them goes out and he’s ice again.
“What were the rules I gave you the day you started at The Devil’s Den again?”
Gulp. So this is about the phone calls. Except something is off. He’s too angry for that. He did say if I tried to escape, he’d kill me, but I can feel it, I’m missing something.
I say nothing.
He smiles, but it’s an empty expression, without humor. The man before me is not the man I made love to every night for the last week. It’s not the man who told me about his horrible, abusive parents and that awful spider bite that almost killed him. This is the monster who kidnapped me. The one who threatened to take my life. The killer who is devoid of emotion and feels nothing for me.
My captor is back.
“Now is not the time to play the silent card, thief.”
Thief. I’ve fallen back to that status again. The thought guts me.
“What were the rules?” he repeats coldly.
The warning in his voice leaves no doubt. If I don’t respond, I’m in for the kind of hell that will make the night I spent tied to that tree look like a cakewalk.
I hate how much my voice shakes when I answer. “Don’t leave without permission. Hand in all my tips, and…”
“And?”
I draw a trembling breath. “No phone calls.”
His arms tighten across his chest, his eyes trapping mine. “Who did you call, Stephanie? Or should I call you Emma?”
The use of my real name sends a jolt through me.
He knows who I really am. How?
My thoughts race, questions tripping over themselves in my mind. Does he know about the Colony? Or about Seth, and why I left? Does he know I was supposed to marry Seth? Or about my parents, or Sarah?
And if he does, are they in danger? Will the club pay them a visit? Will they send me back?
Either notion makes me physically sick. The thought of being forced to marry Seth makes me as nauseous as the idea of Spider getting near my parents, or his finding Sarah.
It might seem strange for me to think that a biker gang would want anything to do with a religious cult or have any reason to drop in on them. The thing is, I’ve heard countless stories from the pastors about gangs whom they claim would try to force them to give over their sources of income—businesses that have allowed them to live off the grid without outside help. But I’ve also had to consider the possibility that they’d decide to take my going against them out on my parents and friends in His Holy Peace.
The members of the Colony are well protected by their guards, but only the guards know how to defend themselves. Parishioners in the Colony are forbidden to fight and have been programmed not to retaliate, kept from any knowledge that would allow them to protect themselves. If the Devil’s Outlaws had any reason to harm them, the guards would retaliate. There’d be bloodshed. And if the guards were outnumbered by the Outlaws, they’d lose. My parents, my friends… They’d be lambs to the slaughter.
Telling him anything about the Colony is not an option.
I lower my head to hide any panic he might see on my face and try to control my breathing. Even if the Outlaws didn’t go after them, if he sent me back, within hours of my being thrown at Seth’s feet, I’d be forced to walk down the aisle with him. And then…
I shudder. I’d rather he draw the gun he’s wearing in that holster on his hip and shoot me dead right now.
“Who’d you call, Emma?”
Putting on what I hope is a brave expression that gives him nothing, I raise my eyes to his. “Why are you bothering to ask, Spider? You already know.”
He does, I can see it in his eyes.
“Because I want to hear it from you.”
I don’t reply.
Spider takes a step forward and seizes the back of my hair in his fist. He jerks on it hard, pulling my head all the way back and ignoring my hiss of pain.
“I have all the time in the world, Emma. If you don’t answer, I’m happy to spend hours in here making you talk. By the time I’m finished with you, you’ll be singing your whole life story. Who. Did. You. Call?”
The anticipation in his voice makes my blood chill. I don’t want to know what twisted methods of torture he’ll use to make me talk. He’ll not only do it, but he’ll enjoy it.
“Nan…nanny agency and….ah…a boarding house.”
He releases my hair, only to run his thumb over my lips. I twist my head away, and he taps my face with his palm. It’s a light, almost affectionate tap.
What the heck is wrong with him?
“Why?” he asks. “Why did you call th
em?”
And this is where it gets tricky. I can’t tell him about Sarah. Doing so could put her in danger from him and the club or worse. The only other reason I can give will get me killed. But that’s the thing. I’m already dead. I’ve tried to escape once already. He can’t let me live.
When I don’t answer, he grabs my hair again, but this time he yanks my head down, bending me forward.
The strain already making my arms ache doubles in intensity and I cry out when they yank backward.
He eases up, letting me answer. I huff, giving the only possible reply. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“You were trying to escape.” His voice is rough and demonic and utterly unrecognizable.
I freeze. The betrayal in his tone twists my insides.
“Say it,” he orders.
I remain silent, unable to say the words that will end my life.
Spider releases me again and steps back a pace.
He draws his gun, cocks it, and puts the muzzle to my forehead.
Expecting him to pull the trigger and have my brains splattered all over the walls, I scream.
Spider cocks his head, watching me with those empty blue eyes. The muzzle of his gun presses into my skin. My whole body shakes, my eyes squeezing shut, my breathing coming in high-pitched gasps.
So this is it. This is the moment when he ends my life just as he promised, and he’s not even going to bother with skull fucking me first.
“I was trying to escape!” I rush out.
Of all things, a smile appears on his lips. It’s a pleased expression that is almost more frightening because it doesn’t touch his eyes.
He puts the safety back on his gun and returns it to his hip. “See? Was that so hard?”
“You put a gun to my head…” I rasp shakily.
I don’t know why I’m surprised. This is who he is. Over the last week, I’d thought he changed. He hadn’t. He’s still a killer. A monster. I was the stupid one for letting myself forget what he is. Self-loathing punches a hole in my heart.
He drops his arms and turns his back to me, striding slowly toward the wall in front of me. He appears to be studying the wall.
