Ironside

by Alexis Abbott

  “I’m… I’m sorry,” I mumble, scraping the napkin at the thin skin under my eyes. Tears well up instantly and spill over. I’m surprised. I wonder how long they’ve been lingering there, just on the edge. It is a strange sensation, coming back to your body after leaving it.

  “Sorry for what?” the man asks, stepping past me with his hand still on my arm.

  I turn slowly after to face him. I watch him dodge the sticky bluish-green stain on the floor from where some likely-radioactive slushie syrup spilled.

  I clear my throat and say, “I’m trying to get it together. Really, I am.”

  “Oh, I believe you,” he rasps softly. “I only know half of your story, and it’s the half that started when you woke up. I have some ideas about what the first half was like, but I don’t know for sure. All I’m certain about is that somebody messed you up, and we’d better do whatever we have to do to keep that somebody from getting you back.”

  “What about you?” I breathe. I blink rapidly, trying to make the world focus again.

  He’s staring at me. He’s wary.

  “What about me?” he repeats gruffly.

  “Will you let go of me?” I ask, flat-out.

  I notice him clenching his jaw. He wants to say no. His instincts say no.

  But he tilts his head slightly and murmurs, “Yes. But only if you make me a promise.”

  Hardly daring to breathe, I ask, “What is it? What do you want?”

  “Swear to me that you won’t go running out there again,” he says. “Because if you do, it could cost us both our lives.”

  “And you’re willing to ask for my word?” I muse aloud, surprised.

  “That’s what I’m doing,” he sighs.

  “And my word-- you trust it?” I push him.

  He glares at me, those dark eyes penetrating deep into my soul. He shakes his head.

  “Frankly, no. Not at all. But I’m going to let go anyway, because I need to grab you one of those sealed bottles of water from the broken cooler over there. Don’t make me regret that decision,” he hisses.

  He lets go of my arm and I almost stumble back a few steps. I didn’t realize that I was leaning on him the whole time. His gaze is locked on me.

  “Believe it or not, I don’t want to drag you around,” he says. “Unless you want me to.”

  It takes a moment for the suggestive nature of his words to sink in, and then I feel a faint blush creep across my cheeks. My heart thuds painfully in my chest. But I manage to croak out another reassurance.

  “I swear it. I won’t run this time,” I promise him.

  He pushes back from me, letting both arms drop. I feel like a shackle has been shrugged away from my shoulders, my body feeling ten pounds lighter. Almost too light. I realize how very flimsy I feel, like I’m a paper doll swaying in the breeze. My savior was holding me down. He was my anchor. Now I am unmoored. But all I can do is stand here and numbly watch as he steps past me and over to the upturned cooler full of bottled waters. I find myself totally fascinated by the ripple of muscles moving fluidly under his clothes. His long, easy stride. His swaggering gait. How his shoulders are so broad, his back so powerful. His hands reach down into the cooler to extract a couple bottles, and I realize with a flicker of something much more than simple interest that he has very large hands. They are calloused and rough-looking, like they have been suited for a life of toil. I wonder what kinds of dirty work those hands have molded to? What lives and bodies and places have those hands touched? Who felt those hands before me? I can only silently wonder.

  My heart skips a beat when I realize that his body is facing away from me right now, just for a few moments. He isn’t looking at me. His body language does not include me. It strikes like a clanging bell through my mind that if I am looking for an opportunity to bolt, this is the only one in sight. The muscles in my calves twitch, as though begging me to run. The impulse flares up and burns inside of me white-hot for a second or two before dissipating. My feet are fully rooted to the spot. I can no sooner run away from my savior than fight him. I am here now with him for as long as he will keep me. Of course. It’s the only thing that makes sense. I can feel myself memorizing him bit by bit, shaping him into some worshipable deity in my mind. I am a girl, and Daddy taught me well to find a man and make him my god, and I will always be protected from the devil’s intentions. So I fold to him. I turn myself to face him like a flower tilting back to gaze full-resplendent in the sun.

  He twists the cap off a bottle of water and hands it to me. I take it greedily and tilt it back, gulping down impatient mouthfuls of the life-giving drink. It’s not until now that I realize just how parched my throat has been all day. I can feel my body cooling off and loosening up, being replenished by the water. It feels like heaven in my throat. I notice that the man is staring at me again, thinking me over.

  He asks, “So, what do you remember? Tell me whatever you’ve got.”

  I bite my lip and try to open up my wincing mind. I need to remember. It hurts. The memory is painful. But I need to drag it into the light. It starts to come back to me in little vibrant pieces, none of them at all comforting.

  “The first thing I remember is stumbling down the highway,” I begin slowly. “I was… I was crying. I remember my eyes burned. It was hard to see straight. And I was so scared and tired, like my legs might give out. Then there was a car horn. Somebody honking at me. It rattled me half to death, but then the trucker pulled over on the shoulder of the road. He said he could drive me out of Utah. That’s where I wanted to go. So, I climbed up inside the cabin with him.”

  “Wait, wait. Go back,” he says, stopping me. “Why were you trying to get out of Utah?”

  “I was running away from my family and my… my obligations,” I answer. “I was supposed to be married, you know? Daddy-- my father set it up.”

  “Like an arranged marriage?” he questions.

  I nod. “Yeah. Just like an arranged marriage. To my father’s friend. He’s fifty years old. My dad set the date for my nineteenth birthday,” I rattle off. I sound unemotional as the words come out of my mouth. But it’s not me. It’s something inside me.

  “What kind of monster would set up his own daughter with an old man?” he spits.

  I shrug, biting the inside of my cheek to push back tears.

  “I don’t know! My father is that kind of monster, apparently!” I blurt out.

  And as the words fall out of my mouth the emotions start to creep back in, slowly seizing my body bit by bit until I’m crumpling over and nearly falling to the floor. I lean back against the sticky counter by the slushie machine. My chin quivers, my skin prickles up with goosebumps. I was never prepared for this. Any of this. I have lived my life as a caged bird. I am not ready for the world and its worries. I have been kept so quiet and so lonely I never dared to dream beyond the view from my bedroom window.

  “I’m a fool. I ran away because I thought there was nothing worse than marrying an old man I don’t love,” I confess bitterly. “Can you believe it? I thought that was the worst the world has to offer, but I was so wrong. There’s much worse. I have no one to trust. He wants to catch me and drag me back, but now I’m here with you and… and you just don’t seem like the kind of man my father would have sent after me.”

  Again, that ugly blare of panic throttled me and I began to hyperventilate. Immediately, the man rushed to my side and took me by the shoulders, peering intently into my face.

  “Shh, shh. Calm down,” he whispers. “Your father didn’t send me. I don’t even know who you are. But you have to stay quiet, okay? At least until those fuckers have given up.”

  I try to nod in agreement, but my eyes lock onto something else that frightens me: blood. Running down his arm. Dripping onto the linoleum square between us. Again, my heart quickens and I start to breathe erratically, fear taking over. It’s a bullet wound. He’s been shot.

  “Shh. Quiet. I’m fine. You have to be quiet,” he urges me. “I’ve got yo
u. I’m fine. You’re fine. We just have to lie low until they move on.”

  Slowly, my panic ebbs away to a dull throb and I allow myself to fall silent, clutched in his protective arms. I feel almost safe for a moment or two, and it’s intoxicating. Not to mention arousing. My body warms and trembles against his and my muddled mind gets confused trying to work out the difference between panic and desire. The wires are all crossed, I’m sure. But what will happen from here I do not know.

  It’s no longer up to me, though.

  It’s up to him.

  Ironside

  She isn’t running. That’s a step in the right direction.

  “Thank you,” I tell her slowly, reassuringly. “How are you feeling now? How clear is your head?”

  “Uh…” she hesitates, looking uncertain and failing to come up with a response.

  “That’s fine,” I tell her, nodding and pointing to the counter. “There’s counter you can sit on if you want to take a minute while you drink that water--but do drink that,” I add firmly.

  She nods, but I don’t stop staring meaningfully at her. She blushes and quickly takes another long drink, and I nod.

  “You’ve been drugged for god-knows-how-long,” I say. “If you don’t drink up now, you’re going to feel like shit in a few hours. Believe me, I’ve seen it plenty of times before.”

  “How long do you think this is going to last?” she asks softly as she rubs between her eyes on her way to the counter.

  “There’s a chair back there too, but I wouldn’t trust it,” I say as she leans against the counter and holds herself. “Don’t know, but you’re walking and talking right now, so it’s just a matter of getting you to sober up. That’s the bright side.”

  “I’m guessing the downside is whoever’s coming after us, right?” she asks, eyes flitting to the dark windows.

  “Yeah,” I admit, nodding. “You look young, but you’re no kid, and I’m not going to hide anything from you. Those bikers are persistent, and they’re not going to just let us go because we got away. There’s going to be people looking for you all over the state, so we need to figure out what the next step needs to be. And that starts with you,” I add. “So besides your dad, where’s home for you? Who’s ‘your crowd’ and how can I get you to them?”

  She clutches her water with both hands and stares at the ground for a long time. Just when I’m about to walk over and make sure she hasn’t spaced out again, she sniffs and closes her eyes softly. A tear rolls down her nose and drips to the floor, and I get the message.

  There might not be anyone else in the world this girl has besides her relatives, and that sanctuary just turned into...something else.

  I can still only barely wrap my mind around what Justine told me about her father. It isn’t unheard of, unfortunately. Sure, it isn’t the kind of arranged marriage that most people think of, like some old fashioned debutante being married off for land. But out here in the rural midwest, especially further back in the hills where it sounds like Justine must have been coming from...things can get strange.

  Those small towns are ruled by patriarchs in tight-knit communities, and some of them have pretty rigid values. And there aren’t a lot of ways to protect people who need it in those kinds of living situations.

  “Hey, it’s okay,” I say, nodding my head to show I understand why she’s crying and stepping forward. “I hear you. I saw some of that in parts of Colorado. That’s where I’m from. You ever been?”

  It’s a silly question, but I want to pull her mind out of the hole it’s digging itself. She nods her head softly and looks up at me.

  “We drove through, once,” her weak voice says. “It was pretty.”

  And there’s that hollow voice again. I’ve seen it before. She might or might not be dissociating, just zoning out and going into autopilot while her instincts take care of her in the meantime. It’s a defense mechanism. When reality is too hard to face, you just clam up and go inside. I’d seen that look on men’s faces enough times before now.

  I nod my head when I see she isn’t going to say more. Before I can speak again, I catch her glance up at me with a hint of desperation in her eyes. Reluctantly, I open my arms and wrap her in them, holding her to me while she melts against my form and closes her eyes, trying to fight back tears.

  She needs someone right now. Bad. And all she’s got is me.

  There’s something else she isn’t telling me. I have a nose for that. I don’t know what it is, but this girl has some trauma in her past. Even if her choice to turn into a runaway was impulsive, people with good home lives don’t do crazy things like that at the drop of a hat. She’s been hurt somehow.

  I don’t mind. I’ve been burned too.

  “You don’t have to say anything,” I tell her. “I know how it is.”

  “Do you?” she asks.

  “Enough that I’m not going to let you out of my sight until I know you’re safe,” I promise her, looking her in the eyes sternly. “Understand?”

  She nods and swallows.

  Originally, the closest thing to a plan I had in my head was to get the girl somewhere safe with her family or friends, then round up the club and burn that fucking club to the ground. And I still have half a mind to do just that, but not until I take care of this girl who has way more baggage than I ever bargained for tonight.

  None of this is her fault. She doesn’t deserve to suffer from the fallout. I just hope having to babysit a runaway isn’t going to get us both killed.

  While she rests her head against my shoulder and starts to let her weariness get to her again, I take out my phone and write up a quick text to Breaker--our prez. He needs to know I won’t be back until late, and that we’ve got a situation on our hands.

  Break bad news early and often. That’s one lesson I didn’t learn in basic.

  I don’t think the prez will object to me taking this detour. I’ll fill him in on the dirty details when I show up with a girl on the back of my bike, but for now, I tell him that I’ve got someone who might have valuable information on Diesel and his new club.

  That’s true enough, too.

  I hear her stomach growl loudly right after I send the text, and I smile down at her now-open eyes, which she lowers with embarrassment.

  “Tell you what,” I say, “there’s a diner open all night a few miles down the road. I’ve stopped there once or twice before. They make a mean patty melt. You like those?”

  She looks at me as if that’s a tempting offer.

  “Alright,” I say with a grin. “Let me grab another water for you for the road, and we’ll get on our way. Some food will help clear your head, too. Don’t know how long it’s been since you ate last.”

  I wheel my bike out of the back, and Justine follows me cautiously, eyes widening at the sight of the bike. She’s seen it before, of course, but she hasn’t gotten a good long look at it yet. She seems impressed with the sleek, barebones beauty of her, but I’m not the kind of guy who wants to wave his bike around like his dick. I just appreciate a fine machine.

  “How did you get me on this earlier?” she murmurs.

  “Not easily,” I grunt. “I was worried you were gonna blow away in the wind if you didn’t jump off like you were trying to.”

  She blushes.

  “Sorry,” she says sheepishly.

  “Don’t sweat it,” I say with a gruff smile, glancing down at the hole in my shoulder. “We did what we needed to. Now come on. I’ve already talked more tonight than I usually do all week.”

  She hesitates and has a couple of false starts trying to swing her leg over the seat, and I offer her my hand to help support her as she climbs on behind me. She settles in and slides her hands around my stomach, and now that we don’t have the pressure of gunmen chasing us, I feel my heart start beating faster at its warmth.

  Shit, I was worried about that.

  I turn the engine on, and she squeezes me at the sudden vibration under her. It’s one thing to hear a motorcycl
e starting up--another entirely to be on it and feel that beast come to life. I check her hands, then take off down the road.

  It isn’t long before she rests her head against my back, both to shield herself from the wind and because she’s exhausted. There isn’t much to look at in this part of the state on either side of the road, so I can only imagine she has to fight to stay awake.

  As for me, I’ll be surprised if I get a wink of sleep tonight.

  Justine. The name keeps ringing in my head, like a part of a song stuck in my mind, but it only makes me more curious about her. She’s been through more over the past however-many days than some people do in their whole lives. And aside from that, something about her almost seems to glow. It’s like I snatched an innocent little songbird out of a den of wolves.

  I can’t let myself think about her the way my instincts want. I’ve never let anyone know that I have a type, but she’s it. I barely even know her, but parts of her story hit close enough to home that I don’t think we’re as much strangers as we think.

  But she needs my help, not my loving. And that’s what I’m going to give her.

  We pull into a roadside restaurant off the interstate and bring the bike to a stop in the cracked parking lot. It’s late, but not the time of night that drunks are stumbling in. The crowd looks mostly like truckers and a handful of other workers stopping in for a bite. I help Justine off the bike, then open the back and slide my kutte off.

  “What are you doing?” she asks sleepily as she rubs her eyes and watches me take out some gauze.

  “First aid,” I grunt, casually wrapping the bandages around the wound in my shoulder to get some pressure on it. “It’s not bleeding bad, but this’ll do until we can get somewhere safe for the night.”

  “Do you need a hospital?” she asks, eyes widening at the blood under my kutte.