by K. L. Savage
“I can’t. It won’t open, Prez,”
My eyes burn with wild hot flames as I grip the rods in my hands and push with all my might. Everyone catches on, and they stand beside me, grabbing the iron rods and grunting as we dig our feet into the ground.
The gate groans in protest, but inch by inch our feet move as the barrier between me and Sarah finally gives. Sweat drips from my temple, tickling the side of my cheek. I narrow my eyes down the driveway. The dusty road seeming longer than usual, the potholes deeper, the sand thicker.
When one of the hinges snaps, the gate swings away. All of us break free, racing down the road. “No, please, no,” I whisper a silent prayer to myself and whatever power there is bigger than me. I’m not the religious type, but right now, I’d get on my knees and pray to God.
It’s Christmas. This isn’t supposed to happen.
When we finally get to the road, all of us come to an abrupt halt. I nearly double over when I look to see the SUV about a half-mile down the road and on its side, smoking. “Sarah!” I yell her name, sprinting down the road. My boots clobber the pavement, and the closer I get to the wreckage, the further away she seems.
“Patrick!” Tongue yells for our brother. I feel like an ass for forgetting that he was with Sarah.
My main concern is her.
The engine is making an awful ticking noise as if it’s about to blow.
Fuck.
“Get back!” Boomer screams at us. He turns on his heel and launches in the opposite direction of the car.
I’m the only one who doesn’t listen to a man who blows things up for fun. Everyone bolts in the opposite direction. Everyone besides me runs away.
No. I run straight for it.
If Sarah is in that car, I want to die too.
“Come on!” Boomer and someone else grabs me by the shoulders and yanks me back.
“No!” I cry out as they drag me back. I fight against them to throw myself onto the wreckage to be with her.
Through life and death our love will survive.
The boom of fire and force fling us backward. The heat is almost too much to bear as it cloaks my body. The power of the explosion slams us against the ground. I land on my back and hit my head against the pavement. My ears ring, my eyes sting from the fire igniting the SUV, and it’s hard to breathe from the smoke lingering in the air. I crawl to my hands and knees and scream.
“No! Sarah! Doll! Sarah!”
I scream for her, my voice hoarse and ragged, hoping she can hear me through the blaring blaze.
“Reaper.” Boomer holds me back again from getting closer to the SUV.
I turn, sneering at him to let me go, but he has tears in his eyes too.
“She’s gone.”
“No! No, she isn’t. She isn’t gone,” I yell, stumbling away from him. How can he give up so easy? Boomer’s tears are silent as they fall down his cheek. The orange of the fire flickers in his eyes, a wicked reflection that shows my hell.
“I’ve never hated fire so much in my entire life,” he mutters just before a sob reaches his throat.
This time, it’s my heart that’s been yanked from my chest. It’s my soul that’s been reaped.
We were a family. What am I going to tell Maizey? What am I going to do? I can’t raise another kid on my own. My chest tightens, and I can’t breathe. My left arm tingles, and my heart feels like it’s about to explode. I fall to my knees, clutching my chest, where I no doubt believe the organ I harvest from others is being harvested from me.
“Reaper! Hey, Reaper? Call Doc! Call 911, fucking something!” Boomer yells at the guys surrounding us. “Reaper, what’s going on? What the fuck is happening!” he screams the last sentence so loud his voice cracks.
Sirens churn the air somewhere in the distance. The scalding torch from the fire feels like it’s melting my skin, but I can’t seem to care.
Sarah’s dead.
And if she’s dead, then I don’t give a fuck about living. Let me burn, let me turn to ash—let me be nothing but a memory.
But damn it, just let me be with her.
I’m drowsy. My head is spinning, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t open my eyes. I groan when I notice every part of me is in pain. What happened? I manage to pry my lids open, blinking to clear the blur. I can’t see anything.
Squeezing my eyes closed, I take a deep breath and try again. I can see clearer this time. I don’t know where I am. It isn’t the basement or a hospital. It’s run down and old. The walls are cracked, the paint is chipping, and the floor is cold, gray, and hard like stone.
Cement.
It’s also cracked, with stains. I can only imagine what they are.
A painful moan comes from my left, and that’s when I see Patrick. He has a piece of glass in his thigh, blood staining his blue jeans.
The accident.
Someone rear ended us, and Patrick lost control of the vehicle.
“Patrick!” I call out his name and try to run to him, but a thick, clear glass barrier is between us, stopping me. I bang on it with my fists, then squat to get to his level since he’s still lying on the floor. “Patrick, get up. Get up. Come on.”
He groans again and finally rolls to his uninjured side, leaving the leg straight that has the glass shard in it. “Sarah?”
“I’m here. I’m here, Patrick. Are you okay?”
“I’ve been better,” he jokes, then staggers to his feet. Dragging his leg behind him, he comes to the other side of the wall and presses his hand against it. “Where are we?”
“I don’t know. It looks abandoned.”
“It’s the asylum,” Patrick recognizes.
“You’re sure?”
“No, but it’s the only place I can think of,” Patrick says. “It’s old, rundown, and the rusty wheelchair in the corner is giving me creepy vibes.”
A sad chuckle bubbles in my throat. “I’ll have to agree.”
“Are you okay? You’re bleeding. Prez is going to kill me.”
“You’re in worse shape than me.”
“I’ve dealt with worse.”
The sound of a door opening to the room has us turning. Patrick tries to get as close as he can to the glass to protect me, but he can’t. While he takes a step forward to challenge whoever brought us here, I take a step back. The further away from this freak, the better.
He comes into a front area just outside of both of our cells. And he’s wearing a baby mask. It’s clear, showing the flesh colored tone of his skin, but the design camouflages what he looks like. “Can’t even show your face?” I spit. “Coward.”
“Oh, so feisty,” he says, lacing his hands behind his back as he steps forward. “And so beautiful. Sarah, Sarah, Sarah.”
I don’t like that he knows my name. And the way he says it sounds like he’s finding pleasure in saying it.
“So young and beautiful to be with men like the Kings. I’m here to show you the fault of your ways. To show you that the good in these people you surround yourself with is fake. I’m as real as it gets, Sarah.”
His words lodge a weight of fear in my belly, causing the nausea to churn tenfold. “And you think, what? That I’m better off with you? I’d never be with you. I’d rather—”
Our kidnapper slams his hands against the door. “You’d rather what?” His spit sprays against the rectangular window. “You’d rather die than be with someone like me? You’re surrounded by people like me. I mean, look at the man next to you. He’s a drunk.”
“He is not!”
“It’s okay, Sarah. He’s taunting you,” Patrick says, trying to get me to calm down.
“I’m telling her the truth!” The man bangs his fist against the door, and I jump. Bile creeps its way up my throat. I want to throw up. All the horrible smells are getting to me. The dust clinging to the air, the mold along the walls, the rotten stench surrounding us; I can’t handle it. “She deserves truth, not constant lies.”
“Who are you?” My voice trembles
. “What do you want? Money? We have plenty of money.”
He tosses his head back and laughs. The column of his throat is thick, and his large Adam’s apple bobs. He is in shape. His arms bulge and his chest is wide, which tells me he’s strong. “I want you to see the truth,” he says. “I don’t want money. Money isn’t important to me.” His hand splays against the window. “But you are. The biker life isn’t for a woman like you, Sarah. I’ve tried so hard to kill a few of them off, to better the world, but no one will fucking die!”
“Oh my god,” I stumble backward. “You buried Tongue! You tried to drown Knives! And Daphne…”
“I’m going to fucking kill you!” Patrick slams his body against the metal door, but the metal doesn’t even creak or give from the weight of him.
“You’ll never be able to get me. You know what these rooms are? These are the insanity rooms. It’s what I call them.” He starts to pace, slowly, dragging his finger along the walls. “These are the rooms the crazies go in, the ones who constantly scream, the ones who cry, who hurt themselves. The ones who have to get strapped down. The ones who wear the straitjacket.” He turns around and walks toward me.
Patrick watches him like a hawk, following The Groundskeeper’s every step.
“So many evil things happened in these rooms,” he continues, lowering is voice. The octave sends shivers down my spine. “I read one man banged his head against the glass so many times, he killed himself.” He tsks, as if he cares. “Shame.”
But he doesn’t.
“If you look, you’ll see the crack. Right there.” He points in my cell, and I follow where he’s pointing his finger.
When I see the point of impact, I lose any control I had over my stomach and vomit.
“Sarah, are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I say to Patrick.
“The baby?” Patrick asks, and I know it’s to see if I feel any pain. I don’t. Yet.
“Baby? You’re pregnant?” The Groundskeeper bangs his fist against the door. “I’ll get it out of you. Don’t worry. You won’t ever have to deliver a biker’s baby.”
I scoot back until I hit the wall, holding my stomach protectively. If I am pregnant, there is no way in hell I’m going to let this man touch me. What scares me even more is how sincere he looks as he stares at me, like he genuinely cares and believes in this mission that he’s on.
“First things first,” he says, lifting up a bottle of whiskey.
“No!” I shake my head, realizing what he’s about to do. I turn to look at Patrick, who’s watching The Groundskeeper unscrew the cap to the bottle, fingers clenched in his palm and chest heaving. He’s already fighting himself. “Don’t do this. I’ll go with you. Okay? I’ll go, just leave Patrick alone.”
“Don’t you mean, Pirate? I’m sure after all of this, he’s thirsty.” The Groundskeeper walks in front of Patrick’s door and pours some whiskey on the floor. “You can’t be a pirate without a nice swig of whiskey. Isn’t that right, Pirate?”
Patrick’s reaction is immediate. His nostrils flare, and he falls forward, catching himself on his fists as he tries to control the disease swirling inside him.
“Patrick, don’t give in. You can do this. Think about Sunnie. Think about her. Hold onto that.”
“This smells so good,” The Groundskeeper says, almost with a sexual gratification. His eyes close as he inhales, and Patrick’s eyes stare at the bottle with want and need. “Watch him fall apart, Sarah. Watch him and let him so you know just how weak the Kings really are.” He places the bottle in the middle of the room and walks out the door, locking it behind him.
The buzzer sounds, and automatically Patrick’s door swings open to allow him in the main room where the bottle waits for him.
“Sarah…” whispers Patrick, a desperate hinge to his voice that’s begging me to save him.
Patrick finds the furthest corner in his cell and sits. His shirt is drench in sweat, and he licks his lips as if he can taste the alcohol. He buries his hand in his jean pocket and pulls out his sobriety chip, bringing it to his mouth and holding it against his lips. I hope he can taste the victory on the small token because it’s the only thing keeping him grounded.
I thought the biggest villain was The Groundskeeper, but he isn’t.
It’s the square bottle with a narrow neck sitting on the floor, the burning smell of whiskey hanging in the air, and the temptation to get drunk. Patrick’s damnation is only a few feet away, and the only thing stopping him from giving in is control.
And it’s fragile enough that it can break at any moment.
What did Porter do?
I know he needs help. I do. He has an identity issue that he has yet to be able to come to terms with. He isn’t all there upstairs, but I guess that’s the story for all of us here at the asylum. We’re all fucked up in the head. Some are worse than others, like me. My mania controls who I am half the time. The battle inside me is loud, a constant bomb ready to blow, until I’m left gasping for air.
Peeking around the corner of the wall, I see him watching through the window of the door that used to allow doctors and nurses to check in on their patients without having to interact. This part of the house, this wing, it’s closed off for a reason. It’s too far away from the main branch of the house because this is where the doctors ran all of their illegal experiments.
Why did I choose to live here?
Because this house is unwanted just like the rest of us. When Porter reached out to me about this place, all of us were homeless, and we banded together to make sure we were protected. Then I found out where it was and who owned it, and I thought there would be no hope.
Jesse is my nephew, the President of the Ruthless Kings. He never got to meet me, and I never got to meet him. My brother had nothing to do with me because of my mental state. I was too much to deal with, too much of a hassle for my family. I’ve always been on my own, and when I explained all of that to Reaper, he graciously had me sign a contract, handed me the keys to the house, and invited me over for Christmas.
I could have a family, one with blood. I want that. I crave that. I’m a lunatic, a havoc, a broken soul, and I’ve found the birds of my flock. That doesn’t mean I don’t yearn for more.
If I’m not honest with Reaper, if I let Porter keep doing this, we’ll end up homeless again. Or we’ll be dead. I have a feeling Reaper isn’t the forgiving type.
“It’s just a matter of time,” Porter says to himself before walking away. His footsteps echo down the hall. When he’s far enough away to where I can’t hear them anymore, I peek inside to see what he was looking at, and my mania roars its ugly head.
I swing my head back and forth, gripping the trim of the door. He kidnapped Sarah. I don’t know the other guy, but this isn’t right. This isn’t right!
I can’t open it because I don’t know if I can trust myself once I’m in there. I might destroy anything and everything in my path.
Including Sarah.
I push off the wall and know exactly what I have to do. Like a pissed off bull, I charge down the hallway until I’m at the front of the house where the others are. They’re sitting on the floor since we don’t have furniture.
“Where are you going, Zain?” Apollo asks. I don’t know if that’s his real name, but I know he’s delusional. He believes he is Apollo, a divinity, a God. He doesn’t believe he is God, but a Greek God.
And honestly, I’m not sure which one is more dangerous.
“Porter.”
“Again?” He stands, wiping off his jeans. “Want me to come with you?”
“No. There are two people he kidnapped in the forbidden wing. Two people who belong to the Kings. I’m telling Reaper. I don’t care what you have to do—you put Porter in a room he cannot get out of; do you hear me?” I don’t say another word. I know Apollo won’t let me down.
I dig for the car keys in my pocket and notice how damaged the Lincoln is. “Damn it, Porter. Damn it!” I punch the hood of the
car with both hands, denting it further, and try to take deep breaths like my therapist said. As long as I can control the outrage, I might not experience a full-blown episode, which I can hardly remember when it happens.
Porter is trying to ruin everything we want for ourselves, but I’m not going to let him. I climb into the Lincoln Continental, and the engine clicks as if it’s about to die, but I pull out of the driveway and take the road leading to the compound. All I can hope is I don’t get killed by my nephew.
The miles of desert on either side get my heart racing. I don’t like to be in big spaces; they make me feel lost and alone. I swallow, keeping my eyes forward on the road. I tighten my fingers around the wheel until the leather squeaks.
A Christmas song tries to play through the busted speakers, but all it does is grate my nerves, so I turn down the volume until all I hear is the scrape of the bumper on the road and the hum of the tires.
Ten minutes later I get to the Ruthless Kings clubhouse, but an ambulance is there, along with firetrucks and cop cars. I park on the side of the road and open the driver’s side door. Immediately, I’m hit with the smell of smoke, and I see Reaper shoving the paramedics off him. It’s chaos, something Porter loves to create.
“What did you do?” I ask, knowing Porter can’t answer me. I can’t protect him from this. I’m not sure what his obsession with the Kings is, but it has to come to an end.
“Get off me! I’m fucking fine.”
“Sir, you had a mild heart attack. We need to get you to the hospital,” the paramedic yells and when I hear that, I run toward the wreck. Water splashes under my feet from the firefighters putting out the flames coming from the car. The smoke makes me cough, but the sorrow on my nephew’s face makes me want to kill Porter.
As much as I want to kill him, I’ve seen Porter on medication, and he can be a good man. He needs help. I won’t give up on him, even if he does deserve it.
“I don’t give a fuck. Get off me!” Reaper shoves the medic again and staggers to his feet.
“The car is empty,” the firefighter informs everyone at once.