Heart Recaptured

by Tillie Cole

  Styx released me and set to go after Mae, but this time I pulled him back. “Stop. Let the bitches work this shit out themselves. Lilah ain’t listening to no fucker about this Prophet David or The Order shit. Mae needs to set her straight. Sometimes I think I’ve got through to her. Then something happens to set her off rolling around the ground, spurting gibberish or just outright freaking out. We both know this was all gonna come to a blow at some point. Lilah’s brainwashed to shit and only Mae can get her out of it, no matter how much they seem to piss each other off.”

  Styx sighed but slapped me on the back in agreement.

  “Mae! Stop!” Lilah called out as she ran after her sister. Mae whipped around to face her, both of them dead center in the yard, the light from the garage like a spotlight on them both.

  “Anyone got lube? Or a shitload of mud? These hot bitches are fixin’ to fight, and I want front row seats! I’ll come just watching them slide over each other’s tits… or trib. Fuck, let the bitches scissor!”

  Styx and me as one turned to face Vike, who stood brazen as all hell with tissues stuck up his nose from where I broke it. Styx growled out a warning, pulling out his German knife from his boot, licking the blade. AK dragged Vike back by the shoulders through the circle of brothers and bitches and took him out of our sight.

  “I’m gonna murder that fucker,” I spat, a wave of jealousy taking root. Vike didn’t talk about Lilah that way.

  “You gotta get through me first,” Styx signed back, causing me to smirk.

  “Lilah, please leave me alone,” Mae said dejectedly, pulling everyone’s attention back on them. “I have no idea what else to do for you. You have been here living outside of the faith; it is the only place for us to be. We have nothing; they never let us have anything that was of substance. I have done everything within my power to make you comfortable, as has Styx, Ky, Beauty, Letti, all of the brothers, but I am at a loss now.”

  Mae reached up to her cheeks with her hand and brushed away her tears. “I thought I was saving you by taking you from the commune, the place where we were stripped of our childhood and told repeatedly that we were evil. We both watched Bella die on that cold prison cell floor and we both know it was at the command and bloody unclean hands of Brother Gabriel, yet you are determined to return to that place. But I have said it to you a million times, sister. There is nowhere and no one left to return you to.”

  Mae stepped closer to a very still Lilah and, cupping her cheeks, said, “I am not your jailer. I am not going to keep you here against your will. I love you more than my life and I just want you to be happy.”

  Lilah sniffed and I knew she was crying again, her hard-ass attitude gone to vapor. My gut was tight as I waited for her response. Would she wanna leave us? Because no way on this earth was she going anywhere. I wouldn’t fuckin’ allow it. The bitch was mine now whether she knew it or not; she was mine to keep.

  Raising her head to face Mae, Lilah opened her mouth, and I stopped breathing. “I—”

  Suddenly, from behind the gate, bright lights blared and a huge explosion sounded. The metal gate blew off its hinges, flames and debris bursting into the air.

  “Get the fuck down!” some brothers shouted, and I realized it was Tank and Bull, ordering everyone to take cover.

  “MAE!” Styx shouted, stutter free.

  I too only had one thought: Get to Lilah.

  Screams and pained crying was coming from all around the yard. People were hurt. Fuck, maybe some were even dead. Pushing up on my arms, I saw Lilah and Mae huddled together on the ground, Lilah struggling to get them to their feet, her face stricken with fear. The fallen gate had blocked our path, the heavy metal wedged against the garage door, our bitches trapped underneath.

  Styx’s hand grabbed my cut and he dragged me to my feet, my ears ringing due to the volume of the blast. We both cast a glance around the yard, seeing blood and people scattered all around the place like fuckin’ confetti. Tank, Bull, Cowboy, AK, Smiler, and Viking were all getting up, holding their guns, uninjured except for cuts and bruises.

  “Ky!” Lilah screamed and, when I looked to her, she was holding a limp Mae in her arms.

  “No!” Styx roared and took off to where they were caged in.

  “Move the gate, now!” I ordered to the brothers, and seeing Styx and me at the gate, they all ran over, gripping the metal, and we lifted as hard as we could.

  “Ky, she is not moving!” Lilah cried, and I caught her rocking Mae in her arms. “Her head is bleeding!”

  “I-i-is sh-sh-she br-br-breathing?” Styx managed to push out, and Lilah’s shocked eyes slammed to his.

  “Lilah, baby, is she breathing?” I pushed gently as the gate began to lift off the ground.

  Lilah bent down and a look of relief flashed across her face. “Yes. She is breathing.”

  Styx exhaled beside me, and I looked to my brothers. “We need to get this the fuck off them. Ready, one, two, three!” We all pushed the gate up, tilting it to the right.

  “She’s moving!” Lilah yelled, and we froze. Mae’s hands were moving and a pained groan slipped from her lips.

  “She was knocked out, man,” I told a panting Styx. “She must have got the blowback from the blast.” The brother was about to lose his shit if he didn’t get to his bitch soon.

  “Again! Let’s move this hunk of shit!” I shouted out to the brothers and on a count of three, we managed to lift the gate until it almost was off the women.

  The roar of an engine and the squeak of tires suddenly sounded, causing us all to snap our attention to the front of the compound.

  “Incoming!” Hush shouted. I looked up to one of the lookouts, where Hush was keeping watch over the road, an AK-47 firmly held in his hands. “Truck, men in the back!”

  “Bring the fire!” Bull ordered. “Take out as many of the fuckers as you can!”

  Hush lined up his rifle, raining bullets on the cunts, whoever they were.

  With one last heave, we managed to tilt the gate enough for Beauty to crawl underneath to get to Lilah and Mae. Smiler followed. The brother may not say much, especially since his road brother Rider turned out to be rat, but he was ex-special forces like AK and could patch up cuts if need be.

  A loud whistle cut through the sound of Hush’s fire and I knew it was Styx. “Get the brothers to their positions! I want these fuckers to the boatman.” Styx signed and I boomed out his order, the brothers falling back to the garage to retrieve rifles and Uzis to then take their places.

  Within seconds, a truck came into view. Several men jumped to their feet in the bed of the Ford F-150, pulled out rifles from underneath a tarp, and began to open fire.

  A storm of bullets from the Hangmen pierced their truck. Hearing what sounded a fuckin’ war cry from behind us, Flame came barreling outta the clubhouse, two M16s in his arms. The psycho fucker ran toward the truck, no protection on his bare torso, covered only by his cut, his legs covered only by his jeans.

  The truck swerved as Flame hit someone in the cab, shattering it’s windshield. It turned, skidding on the asphalt as it tried to speed away. Hearing a female screaming, I looked back to see Lilah crawling out from the gate with Smiler and Beauty rushing to the clubhouse with Mae. Lurching to my feet, I ran toward Lilah just as Tank shouted, “Take out the fucker on the roof. They’ve got a sniper!”

  Lilah froze, her attention focused on something over my shoulder. When I looked back, the sniper had taken aim straight at her. Like some fucked-up war movie, everything seemed to slow as the cunt fired… right at Lilah.

  Running as fast as I could, I dived at her, crushing us both to the ground, rolling to save her from the impact. Lilah gripped my cut, her face buried in my chest, and I held her tightly, praying the asshat from the sunroof had been killed.

  I heard Flame thunder out a scream and then suddenly the firing stopped.

  All I could hear was Lilah panting harshly against my skin and the murmur of voices and guns loading in the background.


  I don’t know how long I lay there with my bitch in my arms, listening to my heartbeat thudding in my ear. Then someone shouted, “Clear!” I exhaled a huge sigh of relief and began searching Lilah for injuries, trying not to lose my shit at her constant whimpering. She was okay. Thank fuck, or I’d be murdering mad.

  Feet pounded near my head. “Ky! You down?”

  Lifting up on my elbows, Lilah still curled into a ball at my side, I saw AK, Cowboy, and Hush standing above me. “Nah.”

  “Is your bitch?” Hush asked.

  “She’s good.”

  AK sighed and I caught him checking around the yard. Moving to stand up, Lilah gripped to me tighter and Cowboy offered me his hand to stand.

  Keeping Lilah glued to my side, I asked, “What the fuck was that?”

  Tank, Bull, Viking, Flame, and the rest of the brothers rushed over. Styx followed behind, a fuckin’ murderous glare on his face. Of course, Flame began pacing, his M16s strapped to his back, blade in his hand.

  Tank stepped forward. “It was the Klan, in case y’all didn’t catch their motherfuckin’ Swastika inks. Homemade IED to the gate. They’re lower rank rednecks, if I guessed right. The fuckers were shit aimers. If it were the officers, we’d be buying a shitload’a body bags. One thing’s for sure. White power wanted us to know it were them attacking.”

  “Fuck!” Styx signed, and I voiced his word out loud. He looked around the yard. “Any injuries?”

  “Two club sluts and one hang-around dead. Everyone else has surface wounds,” AK reported. “I’ll get the guys at the morgue to come get them under the radar, ASAP. Dispose of them quick and clean.”

  Flame suddenly pushed forward and got in Styx’s face. “Let me go after the white power cuntbags. I need blood. I need to see their blood run like a motherfuckin’ river at my feet.”

  Styx looked to me, silently asking my opinion, and I shook my head. The Nazis wanted us to follow them, and we’d follow them right onto their turf and straight into a trap. Why else would they strike us face to face? We needed a plan. Then we’d let the psycho loose. I knew Styx agreed by the look on his face.

  He shook his head at Flame, then addressed everyone else. “Get this place cleaned up. Block the gate up good. We’ll use the back exit from now on. Church in an hour. We need to take this shit to the table.” He turned to Flame. “You’ll get your kills, brother, but we need to wait this shit out. I ain’t losing brothers because we didn’t think it through.”

  Flame twitched, his teeth gritting together, the corded muscles in his arms straining. He stepped up to Styx, and I braced to tear the nut job off our prez.

  “She was fuckin screaming!” Flame hissed, his black eyes crazy wild and his teeth gritted together so hard I was sure his jaw was gonna snap. “The fuckin’ blast made her fall off the bed and on the floor, and she was screaming! The bullets were coming in the through the window, and She. Was. Fuckin’. Screaming! I can’t hear the screaming! I can’t take her screaming!”

  Lilah tensed and her head cocked to one side. “Maddie? Is Maddie okay?”

  Flame hissed and swung to face Lilah. I pushed her behind me and faced Flame’s psycho eyes.

  “She was screaming!” he yelled. “I couldn’t touch her. I couldn’t touch her! She was screaming and looking at me! She. Was. Screaming!”

  “Flame, is she okay?”

  “She’s on the floor, hiding. No blood. No damage. She’s not hurt.” Lilah breathed a sigh of relief. Flame took out his blade and started ripping at his skin. I glanced down to see Lilah watching him with huge eyes.

  “I had to kill them. Had to stop her screaming.”

  AK stepped forward. “Flame—”

  Flame swung around and fisted AK’s cut. The brother didn’t even flinch. AK and Vike had known Flame for years. They were the only fuckers that could understand him. “They could have killed her. For that, they will die! They could have taken her from me. They could have taken her from me! And she was screaming, but I couldn’t touch her!” He let go of AK, sliced at his arm, and hissed out in relief as blood dropped to the dirt. “I need to kill.”

  “Soon, Flame,” AK said. “Soon.”

  Flame growled and marched back to Styx’s apartment entrance. The brother had to make sure Maddie was safe.

  Styx cleared his throat, signaling for my translation. “One hour ‘til church. I gotta check on Mae.”

  Styx ran into the clubhouse and the brothers dispersed, cleaning up and getting prepped for war.

  Reaching around, I took Lilah’s hand and brought her in front of me. She was covered in blood and shaking. “You okay, sweet cheeks?”

  She went to nod her head, but at the last minute, it shook and she buried her face in my chest, crying her fuckin’ heart out. My chest tightened and I fought to breathe. Pressing a kiss to the top of her head, I guided her to the clubhouse entrance.

  As we entered the door, the place was going crazy. Bitches and sluts were cleaning up the bar and anywhere else that had been hit by stray bullets or the impact of the IED.

  “Can we see Mae?” Lilah asked, her mouth muffled in my cut.

  I nodded and walked down the hallway to Styx’s private club room, a few doors down from mine. Mae was propped up on the bed, Styx lying at her side as Smiler stitched her head. Styx saw me approach. Then his eyes dropped down to Lilah peeking around my waist.

  “There, that should do it,” Smiler said and backed away.

  Mae breathed a sigh of relief, then looked up at Styx, following his gaze to Lilah.

  Tears filled Mae’s eyes and she held out her hand. “Sister…” she whispered. Lilah let go of my waist and rushed to Mae, carefully wrapping her arms around her waist.

  “I am so sorry. I should not have spoken to you in that way,” Lilah spoke quietly. “When I held you, unmoving, in my arms, I feared I would never speak to you again and I could not breathe at the thought.”

  “Hush, everything is fine. I am fine.” Mae guided Lilah back and held her face in her palms. “We will all be fine. We will find a way for you join this strange world.”

  Lilah nodded and whispered, “I suppose I must finally accept that The Order has gone. I just… I just do not know how to do it…”

  Mae nodded and winced at the movement but replied, “Yes, you must. It will be hard, but I struggle too, sister. I am trying to find my way too. We can do this together. I promise you.”

  A light knock to the door sounded behind me and Beauty walked though, her blond ponytail bouncing. Styx, Mae, and Lilah looked toward her.

  “I’ve checked on Maddie. She’s doing just fine. There’s little damage to the apartment from bullets. I asked Maddie to come down like you asked, Mae, but she said no. She said she wanted to be left alone in the bedroom. Flame’s outside the door. She’s safe.”

  Mae dropped her head and Styx got up from the bed and looked at me. “I wanna be alone with Mae. Take Lilah to get cleaned up, and no one disturb me until we’re to meet at church.”

  “Sweet cheeks?” I said, and Lilah turned to me. “Let’s get you cleaned up and rested.”

  She nodded and turned to Mae. “I am truly happy for you and Styx, for your engagement. I can see that Styx makes you very happy. I was wrong to put our fate on your shoulders.”

  Mae kissed Lilah’s cheek and then held her hand out for Styx, who was watching silently at the side of the bed. He took her hand and crawled beside her, kissing her face and pulling her into his chest.

  Everyone filtered out of the room, but I noticed Lilah watching the couple through the small slit in the doorway, a strange look on her face. Envy? Jealousy? I didn’t know. Taking her hand, I tugged her to me, and she bowed her head in embarrassment.

  “Let’s go,” I ordered.

  Lilah frowned. “My apartment this way.” She pointed up the stairs.

  I pulled her toward me until she fell into my chest. “You ain’t going to the apartment. You’re coming to my room.”

  Her head s
napped back in surprise and her mouth dropped open. “I—”

  Walking forward, I pressed my forehead to hers, my hands in her hair, and reiterated, “You’re coming with me, to my room, where I can protect you, where I know you’re safe. You don’t get a choice.”

  “O-okay,” she whispered, and I finally let myself relax. I took her hand and pulled her into my room a few doors down, shutting us in and bolting the lock. Bolting both locks.

  Lilah stood awkwardly in the middle of the room, head down, staring at her feet. She was one stunning bitch… my pilgrim blonde.

  “Go shower, Li,” I said, pointing at the door to the bathroom. “You need to get cleaned up, get all that dirt, grease, and blood off your skin.”

  “Okay. Thank you,” Lilah said and proceeded to the bathroom, casting me a small smile over her shoulder before locking herself in. Placing my hands on the back of my head, I blew out a long breath and slumped to the side of the bed.

  As I thought of the moment I saw Lilah trapped under that gate, then that Nazi fucker aiming a slug at her head and what if I hadn’t jumped in the way and she’d been hit, I felt fuckin’ sick to my stomach.

  Falling back on the mattress, I stared at the ceiling and squeezed my eyes shut as I heard the water turned on. My old man had always told me to fuck as much pussy as I could handle, but never settle down. Fuck sluts, plant them with a couple’a kids to carry on the Willis name, but never give them my patch, never make them mine.

  But thinking of that bitch in the shower right now had me twisted up in knots. I didn’t wanna fuck any sluts when she was around. Hell, when she wasn’t! I only wanted one pussy… hers, even if the bitch it belonged to was some kind of other-level crazy. She stirred things in me that I didn’t even know existed, made me think things about property patches and putting my club colors on her back.

  My eyes snapped open at these thoughts, and I knew one thing. I fuckin’ loved the bitch. I was fuckin’ in love with the bat shit-crazy pilgrim blonde taking a shower in my bathroom right now… naked.

  Fuck! Blood traveled to my dick and I almost came at the vision of taking her. I’d never had to work for a bitch, always clicked my fingers and sluts would come running. Forget looking as good as I do. Just being in the club would get me laid. Hell, I could be the ugliest motherfucker to grace the planet and I’d still get a slut sucking on my cock. But Lilah was more; she didn’t cave to my pussy-trapping smile, didn’t fall on my bed and spread her legs, wasn’t impressed by the club. Shit, the opposite was true. Maybe that’s why she was different.