Bang Lords Box Set (4 Book Series includes All Bonus Chapters)

by Dani Stowe

  “My workspace?”

  “Yeah,” he blushes. “You’re the Queen of the Chem Lab, now.”

  “Wonderful,” I shrug as a bubble pops on my nose, making us both giggle.

  After we get dressed, Jaxon hovers in the corner of the lab for a few hours under the vent. I use the time to assess the lab more thoroughly and I make mental notes on the many things I find where NIM has been breaking the law, which I figure I should inform them about until I find government documents hidden in small places and realize how really smart the men of NIM are. The government pays them to do the some of the shit they do.

  Now and then, I spy on Jaxon. He’s donned a large, thick black apron, which I assume is to protect him from flames. He occasionally flips down a heavy black welding helmet over his face before he lights up a torch underneath the large vent I’d noticed earlier. Whatever he’s doing fills the room with the scent of burnt metal and oil as he intermittently hammers away to fill the room with ear-piercing banging. I’ve decided not to ask him if he needs any help. Last thing I want is to get chopped or burned while he’s using a torch, although I get the feeling he’s building something rather than experimenting.

  “Sue,” he calls, his helmet removed and points with heavy thick leather-like gloves to an oblong counter. “Can you bring me that box?”

  “Box?” I question, looking at the table and see a little blue box. It’s not much bigger than the box NIM uses to carry their stupid pill, the Bang, around. “This one?” I point.

  “Yeah,” he nods, pulling off the gloves. “Bring that here, will you?”

  I pick up the box. It’s very light. In fact, it feels nearly empty except there’s a tic-tac inside as I gently toss it about. I decide to shake the box, believing the Bang is indeed within before I hand the box to Jaxon. “You know, you don’t ever need to take that pill again. In fact, I wish you would abandon the Bang and the development of that drug altogether.”

  “There’s no Bang in that box,” he chuckles. “Well...maybe. Open it.”

  “Open it?”

  He nods with a grin.

  I open the box and inside is a diamond. An enormous single solitaire diamond that has got to be at least a few carats.

  “Can you pick up the stone and drop it right in this empty space here.” Jaxon puts a ring out to me.

  A shiny golden ring, which I assume he’s been working on all this time, hosts a tiny claw that seems empty, like its waiting to grab onto something, waiting to grab a hold of the diamond.

  My breathing picks up. For the latter part of my existence, I’ve found it difficult to breathe, but right now I can’t stop taking in so much air. I pick up the stone and ready myself to drop the gem into the space.

  “Wait!” Jaxon retracts the ring and my body tenses. I almost dropped the diamond! “Let me get in a better position, to make it easier for you,” he says, getting on one knee.

  I pause, staring down at Jaxon and again, our roles—our magnetic poles—have been reversed. Instead of Jaxon looking down at me from the ceiling of Charlotte’s room, eager to pull me up, it’s me looking down, eager to fall to him.

  “Will you marry me, Ursula Chandler?”

  I shove the stone into the ring’s claws before our poles are forced to become split again. “Yes.”

  Jaxon clasps his hands around my hand trapping the stone with his fingers in its place. He kisses my fingers as a tear rolls down his cheek and I tug, helping Jaxon to stand up so he can kiss me.

  My stomach growls.

  “You hungry?” he asks, turning back to the workstation. “I need to solder the diamond in place, but when I’m done, we should eat. I’ll take you out to wherever you want to go.”

  Watching Jaxon preparing to finish my engagement ring, “I love you, Jax,” just pops out of my mouth. My head spins. The words just fell out as if I had no control.

  “That sounded easy.” He bats his pretty lashes with a blush of his cheeks.

  I play coy. “What sounded easy?”

  “Telling me you love me. You haven’t said it before. Is it hard to say?”

  Without any control, my arms wrap around Jaxon’s waist, squeezing him so tight I’m making it hard for myself to breathe. My voice strains, “Only when I hold you like this.”

  He laughs. “You know I’ve always I loved you. You’re more precious than anything this earth could’ve given me. I’m so happy you’re with me, Sue.” Keeping the diamond in place, he turns his head, dipping his lips to kiss my cheek. “I love you. Let me finish this. I want to put this on you.”

  I loosen my grip but the hold Jaxon has on me still feels tight. He takes my breath away though I’m not surprised to have more of the same words fall right out of my mouth oh-so-easily as I watch the huge gem being wedged with painstaking precision into its proper place. “I love you, too.”

  End of Book 2

  FIX HER

  Chapter 1

  Dontyne

  Three.

  Three geeks and a dark lord stand together but uneasy.

  “I don’t think this is a good idea,” shuffles Elliot. He kicks the parking lot pavement with the front sole of his black leather shoe.

  “That’s right, it’s not a good idea—it’s a great idea,” snorts Nick.

  “But if Charlotte finds out—”

  “If Charlotte finds out!” cuts in Jaxon. “Hell, if Sue finds out, she’ll move out and I’ll be back to stalking her. Do you know how much that sucks?”

  “Stop acting like pussies. The girls are not going to find out,” flares Nick. “Damn, both of you are acting like socially inept nerds. Stop acting like we’re back in fucking high school. As soon as these chicks came back into your lives, the two of you have reverted back to behaving like a couple of desperate horny fucktards. We had a goal. We created the dream and now we need to see it through. So, act your age, get your dick on, and man up.”

  “But a club?” Elliot scratches his head. His pale face beams through the dark hour as it is nearly midnight.

  Nick cocks his head towards the entrance fronted by a gate composed of eight-foot-tall solid steel poles at least a half-inch thick. The gate appears impenetrable, as if it were made to keep certain nightlife out or perhaps the night creatures in. Beyond the gate sits another set of heavy doors—a backup to the fortress that is the nightclub, called The Island.

  “Elliot, you know as well as I do,” continues Nick, “we need to do this. This is the best place to test the Bang. And don’t worry—this is a nice club. There are a few dancers inside but if you want a striptease, you have to pay and you’ll be taken to a room in the back. And no hooking, at least, not that I’m aware. This place is all hush hush. Your chicks aren’t going to find out. Plus, there’s plenty of money rolling around inside. Once we pop the Bang, we’ll have a good idea of how effective the drug is in the presence of...” Nick squints, trying to pick his brain for the answer. “What’s the word?”

  “Antagonists,” replies Elliot, adjusting his glasses.

  Nick points, his hands in the shape of guns, towards the hardened gates. “Thanks to Sue, we already know how other drugs can interfere with the Bang’s potential. But we need some real-world test results to see what else might interfere with our drug reaching maximum effectiveness.”

  Jaxon scratches his jaw, puts his hands in his pants’ pockets, and kicks some gravel. “I don’t know. Why can’t we just wait and see how the human test trials turn out?”

  “Fuck the trials,” Nick curses. “Why are you all acting like a bunch of middle schoolers?” Nick kicks a few rocks at Jaxon and Jaxon kicks a few back, which surprises Nick. “This is about us. This is about taking ownership of our creation and everything we’ve been through. Isn’t that right, Don?” Nick lifts his chin and fronts me.

  Like the others, I keep my hands in my pockets.

  “Why are you so quiet?” Nick smirks. “Don’t you have an opinion? You always have something to say, except when it comes to the Bang, then you�
�re quiet as fuck. You’re the damn psychologist, an exceptional doctor with all that goody-two-shoes shit you do. Say something to them.” He points to Jax and Elliot. “Motivate them. Believe me, we want to go in there. You want to go in there.”

  I clear my throat. “They’re entitled to their opinions, Nick. We’re all friends here. Maybe we should sit down and talk about this, considering their reluctance. Maybe you need to talk about this.”

  “Ah, shit.” Nick rolls his head back with irritation. “Here you go again, Dr. Phil. Instead of sticking to the task at hand, you’re trying to psychoanalyze me.” Nick walks away as he talks. “Right now is not the time, Don.”

  Nick goes to open the back door of the limousine we arrived in. “Lou, get up,” he orders and we hear Loulah respond from inside with a yawn.

  “Nick, I’m tired. Can you have the driver take me home now?”

  “No,” Nick says firmly without any sympathy. “Hand me the bag.”

  Loulah sighs, leans back into the limo, and then leans forward, one leg coming out as she hands Nick a small leather bag, which he unzips to look inside.

  The Bang.

  Nick leans down into the car fronting Loulah to get in her face. “I’m going to shut this door. You keep it shut and the windows up. Do you understand me?’

  “Mhm,” she nods with a flat grin. Nick lifts her leg by the thigh to tuck her back in the vehicle. He lightly taps her bottom, which is a different move for him, and shuts the door, pushing on it firmly.

  I’ve known Nick a long time and jeez, what I would give to get in that man’s brain. Except he won’t let me. He refuses therapy, although he’s admitted more than once that he’s “messed up in the head,” and don’t we know it.

  “Open your hands,” he commands and we all put out our palms like good little boys ready to take our big boy vitamins.

  The faint boom of bass reverberates through the concrete walls of the building before us like a muted drum sounding off, preparing us for battle. And what the hell are we fighting for? I have no fucking clue. I just know Nick wants all four of us to go into the club and test the Bang. At least, that’s the plan, though I can’t shake the feeling there is more going on here than it seems.

  Looking at the building where I know inside are bodies—restless, eager, angsty, needy, hungry, horny bodies—I can only presume there will be hell once we pop the Bang.

  There is a part of me that believes Nick has been waiting for this moment, the moment he would be allowed to unleash true savagery among the spoiled and domesticated. It feels like he’s dragging us through a scene of one of his favorite books—his dark books—and he’s about to drop us onto an island, i.e. in the club, just to see whether we’ll make it out alive.

  Sometimes, I wonder why I follow Nick—do what he says, behave the way he wants me to, because I know he’s just trouble. But in the end, I believe I’m committed to Nick and his antics because he’s always been committed to us—his friends. Most times, he just wants us to feel empowered, which I do feel when the four of us are working together. Power was the one thing we lacked as individuals until Nick unified us, at which point I felt invincible.

  I knock myself lightly on the chest.

  Fuck, I’m psychoanalyzing myself.

  As I hold out my hand, Nick drops a small, clear, round plastic container with a pop top into my palm. I lift the container to eye level and examine the tiny white pill within. To think how powerful something so small can be... It takes me back to a time when I wished I was small, but instead, I was big—a big boy—all around...

  “Hey Tiny, why are you so fucking fat?” asked Jimmy Burns, a sophomore. He was so tall and physically powerful, he could’ve been an athlete. But he was not smart, definitely not smart enough to keep his grades up, so he used his height and natural born athleticism to bully people.

  I dropped my head. I knew what was coming when he used the double “F” phrase and I was surrounded. There was no way I was going to get out of getting my ass kicked—again. So, I put my face in my hands.

  “Aw, look. Tiny Don is going to cry,” smirked his friend.

  “You know why they call him Tiny, don’t you?” Jimmy questioned the others. “Because he’s got a tiny—”

  “Don’t call me Tiny!” I cried through my palms then spread them off my mouth. “My name is Don-teen.”

  “Did you just talk back to us?” asked a third boy, who pushed me from behind. I nearly fell forward but Jimmy caught me by the throat, choking me with one of his big hands.

  “Haha, did you just see his belly jiggle?” jested a fourth kid, who was smaller than me. I probably could’ve kicked his ass, but I was too scared to even consider fighting back then.

  I felt a blow to my gut as Jimmy held me by the throat and, as usual, I whined with my cry. Jimmy let go and called me a crybaby, so I placed my palms back over my face. I bent my knees, readying myself in the event I would fall over, which was always what happened and what I wanted to happen because the sooner I went down, the sooner the humiliation, the beating, and the anticipated pain would be over.

  “Hey!” interrupted a voice from outside the circle of teasing, laughing jerks.

  “It’s the new rich kid,” whispered Jimmy and I spread my fingers to take a peep at Nick Rohr in sunglasses with his head poking out the back of a limousine, which had snuck up on us out of nowhere. “Move along, rich boy,” shouted Jimmy. “This ain’t none of your business.”

  Nick pointed straight at me. “I have some business I’d like to discuss with the kid you just punched.”

  Jimmy put his hand on my shoulder. I remember wincing, fearful Jimmy might try to choke me again. My throat was still sore from the first time.

  “This kid?” Jimmy laughed. “Sorry, but Fat Boy is a little tied up at the moment. Tiny has some unfinished business he needs to attend to with us.”

  “Like getting his ass kicked!” laughed the shorter kid, but he stopped laughing when an extremely large man in a black suit emerged from the front passenger seat of the limousine and stomped straight towards us.

  “Holy shit!” screeched one of the boys and, in but a few seconds, I was standing alone still peeping through my fingers but upward, as Nick’s bodyguard towering over me had to be at least seven feet tall.

  “Mr. Rohr wants to speak with you,” the baldheaded man grunted. I had no idea what ethnicity Nick’s bodyguard was—mixed, perhaps. In fact, the man looked like he had been bred to be a tough mutt—the kind you find on the streets with scars on their faces, which the man had across his bottom lip that split dead center down to his chin. He was the kind of man who was bred to survive.

  “Uh... yeah, okay,” I responded with a shrug because I had no choice. I wiped my face with the neckline of my shirt as I headed over to the limo where Nick opened the door, sliding himself across the backseat to the opposite side to make room.

  Hopping in, I noticed how cool it was inside, especially after Nick’s bodyguard shut the door behind me. Outside was hot and I’d been sweating. I used to sweat a lot back then on account of my weight but I was downright dripping from all the anxiety of the afternoon.

  “Why are you so fat?” asked Nick, taking off his dark sunglasses with thin gold frames that made him look like he was trying to look old, really old, like an old man rather than hip or cool.

  I admit the kid was dashing. Nick wore a long sleeve V-neck sweater-like navy shirt, despite the heat, and off-white colored slim jeans with brown leather boots. He could’ve been a model for Hilfiger. In fact, Nick looked a lot like the young models featured in posters hanging behind glass windows at the mall. I could see why girls at school weren’t just intrigued but desperate, and I heard even suicidal, over him.

  But the fact Nick asked me why I was fat—that hurt. I grabbed the handle, ready to jump out because I didn’t want to discuss my weight issues with some handsome fucker, but the vehicle was already speeding along.

  I faced him. “That’s rude, don’t you thin
k?”

  “What?”

  “Asking me about my weight, especially since we’ve just met.”

  “No. My father says I should always be direct and honest.”

  “Honesty hurts sometimes.”

  “I’d have to agree,” nodded Nick. “But rather than lie, I find it simply better to cut straight to the point and be honest, unless there is something to be found more valuable in silence, in which case I simply refrain from speaking.” Nick folded his glasses in his hand then hung them in the V of his shirt. “Which do you favor? To lie or keep silent?”

  Nick talked like he was an adult back then. I could see why teachers like my mom were intimidated by him and not just because his dad had money.

  “I’m not the type to speak much,” I admitted, which was true. On account of my weight, I rarely spoke to avoid attracting any more attention. “I’m more of a listener though I’m not sure I want to hear what you have to say. You might think I’m fat, but I’ve never met a dude so high maintenance. Are you trying to look pretty?”

  Nick laughed, smacking his thigh with an extremely loud whack and then another. It was very odd and looked painful. Just as quickly, he turned serious. “You know, I heard you were smart. I heard you won an essay writing contest for literature and your dad is a gynecologist. Is that right, kid?”

  Kid? Kid! He had just called me kid though I was positive we were both in the same grade—freshmen.

  “I’m not that smart,” I shook my head, “and I heard you’re hiring for homework. I don’t do that kind of thing. I also don’t talk girl parts. I like them but I’m overly educated on the subject, to be honest.”

  Nick coughed into a closed fist. “Three hundred dollars for two ten-page essays—one on sexual reproduction and one on anger management, with revisions if I don’t think it’s good enough. First drafts due after school by Friday.”