Chains sucks in a deep breath and nods, “Just be careful. You know the tourists can get a bit rowdy.”
“They should really take notes from Fury. I’m a tough cookie, one who can handle herself.” I tell him.
Chapter Two
I sat with my anger long enough, until she told me her real name was grief.
~ Unknown
Octavia
I lied to him and I have absolutely no regrets about it. Tonight, is my final night of freedom before I’m shipped off to bumfuck nowhere. I stayed in the bar long enough to trick Agony and the girls that I was stickin’ around for a while. I had a couple slushie martinis with them, said I had to go pee and snuck out the front door.
For the last three months, I’ve been a fucking prisoner.
Xander wouldn’t let me leave the clubhouse, too afraid his precious alliance maker would be shot down and with it, the alliance our father contracted years ago. Speaking of him, my father that is, he hasn’t been seen in almost a month. He’s so good at just going around and doing whatever the fuck he wants. Honestly, it feels like he doesn’t even give a damn that his daughters are dead. But, that’s not too shocking considering most of our moms are clubwhores.
The only prestigious one would be Troy’s mother, but if you ask me she’s more pretentious.
I walked six blocks in four-inch heels until I decided fuck it, I wasn’t gonna walk three more until I arrived in my favorite club. So, I’m in some hole in the wall joint that I’ve never been to before. I planned to use this night as my last hoorah so to speak, making sure I had a couple hundred bucks in my bra with my ID. I didn’t even bring my phone along with me because I knew the second any of them figured out I wasn’t at the club, they’d try to use that ‘Find a Friend’ app and see where the hell I was. No way in hell was I going to let that happen. I want my freedom. They all know it’s the last time I’ll ever have it, but they wouldn’t ever give me a gift like this . . . because my brother deemed it so. He’s their Prez and they’ll always follow his command.
The club I’m in is called ‘Sashay’. Not only was it the closest one I could see in eyesight when I gave up, but they had such dope music coming out from the entrance. Some sick remixes of Marshmello songs.
I paid the bouncer at the front and sashayed my ass through that door. In a monochromatic silver-plated dress, any way I moved my body, it would appear a different color to the people surrounding me. I went up to the bar as soon as I went inside, ordered three shots of rail vodka and threw them back. I have a good bit of money for tonight, but it doesn’t mean I want to burn through it.
I haven’t worked since the shooting because of Xander and his rules. It’s been driving me crazy, not being able to get my creative juices out. So, I’ve been editing old photos of shoots I did at the beginning of the summer.
Worry About Me by Ellie Goulding and Blackbear pumps through the speakers. The lyrics flow through my head while I weave my body to the beat of the music. I shut my eyes, throw my hands up in the air and allow the music to distract me. I need it more than anything right now— to just be this woman in a club.
I’m not Octavia Spencer.
I’m not Breaker’s sister.
I’m not the only remaining Raiders MC princess.
I’m just a girl in a dress, a couple drinks in, dancing in a club.
My shoulder length red hair falls back as I dip my head. I only open my eyes when I feel someone grinding their body against mine. Immediately, I turn and see someone who obviously isn’t a tourist. I’ve seen him a few times in the bars, and he’s just a plain tool.
I weave out of the crowd and get off the dance floor. This guy follows me, though. “Yo, what’s the problem baby?”
Furrowing my brows, I take in a deep breath. “First of all, I’m not your baby. My problem is I don’t wanna be gyrated on. So, let it go. Leave me alone.” Instead of waiting around for this guy’s response, I get out of the way and head back over to the bar. Ordering another two shots, I slam them back and go out on the dance floor once again.
Everything is fine for a while. The DJ switches it up a bit but I practically die with excitement when Machine Gun Kelly’s ‘Bloody Valentine’ blasts through. It’s the perfect mixture of rap and rock.
A sudden pressure pushes against my back, and again, this dude is swarming me. That’s it. I make my way out of the crowd and head for the sign that says restrooms. He won’t be able to follow me in the ladies’ room, and it’ll give me a chance to take a break. The line to the bathroom is at least fifteen girls long, but I see a lit up green exit sign. It wasn’t my plan to get out of here this early, although I wasn’t planning on being annoyed by some dude who can’t take a hint.
Making my way past the line of women, I push the bar on the door and walk out into an alleyway. The cool LA air is refreshing while the sounds of sirens and mixture of laughing people fills my ears. LA might be too much for some people, but it isn’t for me. It’s my home, every chaotic bit of it.
I pull my zippo lighter from my right bra cup and grab a menthol cigarette with it. Lighting the bitch up, I take a drag.
“Can I bum a cigarette off ya, baby?” You’ve got to be kidding me. Just from hearing his voice alone I know this is the same guy from inside.
Turning in his direction, I’m losing my shit. “What the fuck is your problem? I don’t want you around me at all. I’ve made that fucking clear, numerous times, but still you follow me like some freaky ass stalker. So, let me be clear, stay the fuck away from me!”
He sneers with his pearly whites and shuffles his fingertips through his dirty blonde hair. “You know, I’d love to do that . . . but I can’t, Octavia. Your head has a pretty penny on it you know.”
All of a sudden everything changes. My heart beating in my chest pounds like it never has before, my eyes widen and my throat goes dry. This stranger isn’t just a stranger. He’s been hired by someone, someone who prefers me dead.
“I had a feeling I didn’t get you the first time. Hell, it was my own fault. I should’ve turned your sister’s body over and checked for a pulse. I won’t let that happen today. Today will be different.”
I don’t think, instead I react. Pulling my leg back I slam it in his crotch and run as fast as I can away from him. My heart pounds like a beating drum. I’m in full on survival mode, even tossing my heels off to run barefoot back out to the main road.
I’m able to get out of the alleyway and run two blocks back toward the club, but a gun fires and I swerve down an alleyway. Looking around frantically I’m not sure where I am at the moment, but I only know to keep running, because if I stop, I’m going to be dead.
Continuing to run, I realize I’m on Lindley. Okay, I do know where I am. I do fucking know.
Think. Think. Think.
I didn’t bring my phone, so I’m fucked. I’m the only one who can watch out for myself right now.
I’m by Pershing Square . . . maybe I could use that to my advantage. I run as fast as I can until I’m on the orangish-red stone covering the park. Taking a breath of relief, it quickly ends when I feel arms wrap around me and slam me to the ground. “No, no, no. Let me go, please. Please, I’ll pay you. I’ll pay you more than your boss!” I cry, tears streaming down my cheeks.
“O. It’s me.” Incognito’s soothing voice reassures me, and I feel like I’m going to throw up. How did he know where I was?
“H . . . how d-did you?” I stammer out, wiping the tears from my eyes.
He pulls me into his strong arms, holding me tightly against him like he did when we’d be in his room. He’d always hug me so tight. So tightly that I felt calm and reassured no matter what type of thing was going on.
“I knew you were pullin’ a stunt as soon as I saw what you were wearin’. Sure glad I tailed your ass.” He confesses.
I nod my head, unable to hold back my tears. “Me too.”
He places his hand behind my head, pressing his lips to my forehead and simply sits her
e, holding me close. “You knew this was risky and you did it anyway, O’. Fuck.” Incognito and I dated for four years, until three months ago, when my sisters were slaughtered and . . . and I lost my freedom, and I became the woman holding the deal with the Reapers.
When my sisters died I didn’t just lose them, I lost the love of my life. I lost him.
I tear my head away from his grip and look at him, with nothing but a small park light illuminating us. “I needed my freedom for one last night. Everything has been taken from me, Inc.” I call him what I always have, looking into his dark eyes, then down across his toned body, following his tattoos down until I see his hands. The hands that have my name tattooed on his fingers.
Even now, with over three months of staying apart, it hurts just as horribly as it did the first day. Tears continue to spill and I pull away from him, knowing being this close with him is haunting me like a ghost. I only want to be in his arms like this forever, his body towering over me while we’re making love.
Incognito was my first in every sense of the word. My first love. My first time. My first fucking kiss. I’ve loved this man since I was a teenager, and he’s what I’ll never be able to have.
Not now.
Not since the Reapers MC came into the picture.
“Octavia, um, I should get you back to the clubhouse.” He coughs to clear his throat, telling me his plan.
Shaking my head from side to side, “No, Inc. I can’t go with you. Please don’t make me.”
“I . . . I think you need to. I don’t know who the fuck he was working for. I saw him chasing you and shot him in the head. I didn’t even fuckin’ think, O’. I just saw you in danger and I reacted. I need . . . I mean, I’m asking you to come with me so I can get you home safely. We need to keep you alive because tomorrow—”
“That fuckhead from the Reapers is coming. I know!” I scream, losing it. I’m barely holding any of this inside. “Trust me, I know. Look, I’m sorry, but . . . don’t follow me. I need to . . . I need to think about things on my own terms.” I’ve never ran from him before, but this will mark the first time.
Hopefully, it’ll be the last.
I can’t bear what’s happened between us. How we went from everything, to nothing— all because of my father’s deal with the Reapers, with a Prez who’s dead.
Chapter Three
The wolf in my heart will never let the world see the lamb is in my soul— but sometimes you see it in my eyes.
~ Unknown
Octavia
“I’m surprised you showed up here,” He says, leaning against his wooden island.
I nod, shocked I’m even here. “Yeah, me too.”
He furrows his brows. “So, why did you?”
Troy asks such a good question, one that even I don’t know the answers to. At least not yet. “Not sure,” I mumble, looking at the faux brick wall behind his TV. I bet it’s wallpaper, it’s probably not even stone.
“Sure, you do. You know, you can’t play the dumb little girl forever, Octavia.” Octavia. Everyone in the family calls me O for short, but not Troy. He was never around long enough to get that memo. But of course, his mom never let him around us. We were negative influences, bad role models. She made a plethora of excuses on why we couldn’t come to his birthday parties as a kid, or he couldn’t come to ours. Dad had to get us enrolled in the same after school daycare just so we could see our brother. Isn’t that sad?
Even now, here we are in our twenties and our relationship is still stressed. I shut my eyes for a second and look to my brother, who looks so much like our father it’s uncanny. “I didn’t have anywhere else to go. That would be safe I mean.”
“Sure you do, the club. Why’d you come here?” He questions, walking over. He takes a seat across from me in some modernized black leather armchair.
“I needed a break, Troy. Things change tomorrow. I just . . . needed some space where I could think on my own.”
“Change how?” He asks.
“I’m moving to Montana tomorrow, I think. Honestly, I don’t have the details. I’m sure I’ll be told sometime in the morning by our father or Xander.”
Troy’s focusing in on me a bit more than he was before. “Octavia, what do you mean? I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
“Dad made a deal with another club,” I’m realizing now that I’ve never had to say this out loud before. “One of the girls was supposed to marry the son of the Reapers MC Prez. Since all of our sisters are dead, that just leaves me.”
“What? You can’t be serious.”
“Does it sound like I’m joking, Troy?” I snap.
He glances down to the floor in what I believe is disbelief. He probably can’t fathom why our father would do something like this, but I know why. Before I was born there was a war with the Demons of Hell MC, a war so gritty and horrid that our father did the one thing he’d never done before— he retreated. He pulled what was left of his club and started back up in Los Angeles. Securing the Reapers as our allies was important, as it still is in a sense.
I didn’t care about all of this until I became the woman being sent away. It’s been over twenty-something years. Can’t they just throw out this ridiculous agreement? I don’t understand why it’s even still happening. Our club is great. We might only be one measly club, but we’re strong.
“Holy shit. I knew he was fucked in the head, but I had no idea he was like this.” Troy states.
I can’t help but roll my eyes, “Yeah, well, you were never around as a kid so you didn’t see it. Nowadays he prefers to ride around, drink and do what he typically does.”
“I can’t believe Jack did this to you,” Troy doesn’t call our dad, well, Dad. He calls him Jack.
“He did it to all of us. I’m just the one with the shortest straw.” I grumble.
“Wow, that was morbid. You’re here, still breathing and you’re complaining you got the short straw? Didn’t our sisters get that? They’re the ones burned into nothing but ash.”
Okay, maybe that was a little fucked up. “I didn’t mean it like that, I just meant . . . shit. I don’t know. I never expected to be in this position.”
“You aren’t in any position. Just don’t do it. It’s not that difficult.” He says, throwing his hands up in the air from his obvious frustration.
“It’s not that simple.”
“It is. You’re the one making it difficult.”
Jesus. Why the hell did I even come here? “I can’t just do that. You may not understand what it’s like to be part of the club ‘cause you were never around when we were kids. Hell, even now . . . it’s not like you make an effort to be one of us. Things are done for a reason, Troy . . . and I can’t defy this decision Dad made years ago. ‘Cause even with his eccentric personality, he does things for a reason. I think he needs the connections. I don’t think he has the same connections as the Reapers.”
Troy shakes his head while his face flushes red. “I will never be a criminal, Octavia.”
“We’re not criminals, dear brother. We simply do things the law won’t.” I defend not only myself, but my friends and family.
Troy scoffs, and I know I’ve struck a nerve. “There is a system in place for a reason. It’s not my fault if you don’t understand why it’s there, and I won’t keep preaching to any of you when you don’t give a damn.”
I rise, realizing my time here is coming to an end. I came here because it was one of the only safe places I could come. We’ll always have a stressed relationship with Troy, and I don’t know if it’ll ever change. I walk over to his front door and turn, looking back at him. “For what it’s worth, I truly hope you never have to see the world the way we do. I pray that your precious system doesn’t let you down the way it has to us.” I say my peace, not even listening for a goodbye from him and leave, heading back to the clubhouse.
Tomorrow, my life will change forever.
Chapter Four
“To burn with desire and keep quiet
about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.”
~ Federico Garcia Lorca
Zane
“You ready for this shit?” Grim, my Sergeant at Arms, asks.
Shrugging my shoulders, I answer. “As ready as I’m gonna be. Fuck, I’ve known about this for longer than I can remember . . . but I gotta admit, never thought it would actually happen.”
Grim cocks a brow, “You thought this would never happen?”
“Yeah, I know, it was dumb. They just never said shit to us for so long.”
“Maybe they were waiting to see how their Hunger Games life worked out. You know? See who had the best odds in their favor or whatever. Obviously, it was Octavia.”
I roll my eyes. “That’s a brutal joke, even for you. Someone’s been killin’ these girls and you gotta make jokes.”
“Damn straight I do. I’m kinda wonderin’ why you’re still gonna shack up with this chick when she has a bullseye on her back.”
I shoot Grim a knowing look from across the hotel room. “You know damn well why I’m still honoring this agreement.”
Grim’s joyful smirk turns into a grimace after realizing why. “Your dad made the decision and you’re gonna honor it.”
“Bingo,” I murmur,
Grim and I were the only two who took the trip from Montana. We were gonna ride out, take a whole week and just enjoy our time on the road . . . but honestly, I don’t have the luxury of doing it. So much is happening in our club, too fucking much to list. I have decided I’ll be making a surprise pit-stop to Las Vegas for a day before the three of us fly back to Montana. I have a feeling Damon isn’t telling me something, and from what I’ve heard no one has heard from Amara in a bit.
Mayhem: A Reapers MC Boxset Page 17