by Kara Parker
“I didn’t do it,” Falcon said. He looked Marco right in the eye. He didn’t care that he was lying. His literal life was on the line. He would have lied to the Pope himself at that moment if it would have extended his life even a little bit. He lowered his gun and Marco ran over and snatched it from him. Falcon’s phone was in his back pocket; he hoped he could get ahold of Grace, but Marco was smarter than he looked and he took the phone, too.
How is this happening? I was so close. He couldn’t believe this. He had been so close, ready to leave everything behind. But somewhere along the line he had fucked up and now he was done for.
Numbness fell over Falcon as his hands were wrenched behind his back and handcuffs were tightened around his wrist. He had been so close and so confident and now it was all ruined. He was going to die, horribly, and he was going to deserve it.
Chapter Thirty-One
He had no phone, no gun, no knife and he was handcuffed in the back of black SUV. Falcon Marks was fucked. They were taking him back to the boss, back home where he would be punished regardless of guilt. He was guilty, he knew that, but he didn’t feel guilty; he felt pissed that he had been caught. He should have paid more attention, should have watched the boss and seen how he acted. He should have known Ernie would go above him. He should have known his boss was going to check up him.
He hadn’t done this well enough. He had been made an informant by the police and then thrown straight to the lions. Grace hadn’t told him how to do anything; she just told him to keep her informed. That was all. He had done that and now he was fucked. She hadn’t helped him prepare for this in any way. He had done all of the work and what was his reward supposed to be? Nothing. He was rewarded by a fake death and a new life he didn’t want.
He watched the desolate buildings disappear as they were replaced with more open spaces as they left the city behind and headed out into the outskirts. Hidden down a nameless road was the Screaming Eagle’s headquarters. It made sense that Falcon would die there. It would be a full circle; he hadn’t been born in the clubhouse, but he had become Falcon Marks there. That place had turned him from an angry teenager into a man and it made a sick sort of sense that it would be the last place he saw.
“What’s your phone’s password, Falcon?” Marco asked from the passenger seat.
“Fuck off,” Falcon said, still staring out the window. Where was Grace? Something had gone wrong and she was no where to be found. Wasn’t she going to come and get him? She had put him in this situation and she needed to be the one to get him out of it.
“That didn’t work. Is there a space between fuck and off?” Marco asked.
“Fuck off is not the password,” Rubio said with a sigh. “He’s telling you to fuck off.”
“Oh,” Marco said, his face falling a little. “Hey! You fuck off, Falcon. You’re the traitor, not me.”
“I’m not a traitor,” Falcon said quickly. He needed to keep that one thread alive. He was innocent; he didn't do it. He needed to say it enough until he believed it himself. He hoped the repetition of the lie would somehow make it a truth.
He felt like he was going to throw up. He felt sick and lightheaded and desperately wanted to be anywhere else. He kept going over every mistake he must have unwillingly made in the last few days. His mind reworked space and time so Falcon had never met Grace, had never been chased by her in the woods, arrested by her, turned informant by her. If only he had escaped that day in the woods. If only a million things would have been different, then Falcon might not be in the situation.
There was no changing anything. He could only move forward now. He was out of control. He had no say in what was about to happen. He needed to be smart and he needed to be patient. He needed to stay alive long enough for Grace to come and get him. She hadn’t come yet, which was troublesome and from the back seat he could see that his phone hadn’t rang or received a text. Maybe she was just being cautious. Maybe she knew he had been busted and she was trying to keep him from getting in even more trouble. Maybe she was planning a big rescue right at that moment.
Or maybe she had just written him off. The coffee he had drunk earlier was stirring about in his stomach as they pulled into the Screaming Eagles’ headquarters. It looked like it always did. A sturdy but rundown wooden building tucked away from the road, hidden from any prying eyes. But at that moment as the door was opened and Falcon was dragged out of the car, the building looked like something out of a horror movie. It was all dark windows and broken shutters. His body was fighting against going inside, his instincts screaming at him not to enter. But he had no choice.
The door was opened and Falcon faced down a room full of furious look Screaming Eagles. He realized then he would have to walk the gauntlet. The boss was nowhere to be seen, but the club was filled with members. As the door opened the members split down the middle making a path Falcon would have to traverse.
“Move, rat,” Rubio said as he pushed Falcon forward. His hands were still handcuffed behind his back as he stumbled into the clubhouse. He stood straight and marched down the makeshift aisle, but he didn’t get far before it started.
“Traitor!” someone yelled.
“Rat!”
“Burn the rat!”
“Kill the traitor!”
They were screaming at him. All of them and all at once. Like a flip had been switched and the members of the club had turned from friends to people who wanted to watch him burn. He didn’t stop, he didn’t hesitate, he marched down that makeshift aisle. People were grabbing at his clothes, shoving at him, and spitting on him and with every stumble, Rubio was there to shove him forward. He pushed forward but it was nearly impossible to get any momentum. People were trying to hold him back like they wanted to pull him back into the crowd where they could rip him to shreds.
It was a spontaneous act of group fury. Nothing like this had ever happened to the Screaming Eagles before. Falcon was depending on Rubio to get him to the boss’ office; he didn’t know what would happen if the crowd managed to grab him. So step by slow tortured step, Falcon pushed his way through the gauntlet. But there was only one place to go, one place that was worse. The boss’ office. Falcon had no idea what awaited him in there, but his imagination wasn’t short on ideas.
Marco opened the door and pushed Falcon through. He closed the door with him and Rubio on the other side. It was just Falcon and Ernie alone in the tiny, smoke-filled office. The boss looked at Falcon across his huge desk. His face was set into a deep frown and his eyes were filled with fury.
“You little piece of shit,” Ernie said. His voice was quiet, but it seethed with anger and hatred and frustration. It was worse than yelling. Yelling was the punishment; if the boss wasn’t yelling, the punishment hadn’t started yet.
“I’m not a rat,” Falcon said, his words tumbling over each other as he hurried to get them all out. He opened his mouth to speak again, but he didn’t know what to say and so his mouth hung open as Ernie continued to speak in that low and dangerous voice.
“Liar,” Ernie hissed. “You betray me and then you come to my office and you don’t even have the dignity to admit what you’ve done? Grow up, Falcon. Be a man for once in your life. You swore on your daughter’s life that you weren’t working with the cops. You swore on your child’s life. What kind of man does that?”
“Don’t touch Sophie,” Falcon said. His heart had stopped beating; he could barely breathe. Sweet innocent Sophie, how had he involved her in all of this? What had he been thinking.
“Suddenly you care about your daughter? Did you care when you gambled her life? You’re a bad father, Falcon, don’t try and make up for it now. It’s too late for that. You’re nothing. Do you understand that? You are nothing. You are a useless grunt who barely knows his asshole from a hole in the ground. Did you really think I was going to promote you? Did you think I would really put you in charge of anything? You’re an idiot and everybody knows it. No one in this gang had any faith in you. You could have chan
ged that, Falcon. You could have made a name for yourself, but I guess they were right. You are useless, a stain on this organization. And a promise is a promise, Falcon. I’m going to make you pay for betraying me. I’m going to hurt you more than you’ve ever been hurt before and then I’m gonna hurt you some more. And when you finally come to me and beg me for death, I will be merciful and grant it.
“Marco!” The boss cried out. Marco quickly swung open the door and peered in. “Give Falcon to the crowd,” he continued with a lazy wave of his hand.
“Wait!” Falcon cried as Marco began to tug on his arms. “I’m innocent. I wasn't working with the cops. I swear it. You have to believe me, don’t do this!”
But it was too late, Marco and Rubio were pulling him out and the cuffs were digging in his wrists and he got one look at the angry faces waiting for him before he was thrown into the crowd and the world was rendered to nothing but violence and pain.
Chapter Thirty-Two
He wasn’t dead and he wasn’t quite ready to beg for death yet, but Falcon Marks didn’t feel great. He had been thrown to the figurative wolves that were his brothers and their groupies and they had rendered him asunder. He didn’t really remember what happened after the boss kicked him out of the office. He remembered grasping hands reaching out and pulling at him, pulling him in a million different directions. There were hands on his clothes and his hair and his skin. They had pushed him onto the floor and then the kicking started and Falcon didn't remember much else.
He had been pulled out of the scrum at one point and thrown down into the dungeons below the Screaming Eagles’ clubhouse. He was in a literal dungeon. He was sitting on a cement floor and in front of him were iron bars no more than four inches apart. The bars went down into the ground and were encased in cement. Falcon knew this because he had helped construct the very cage he was sitting in. There were no windows. Just three cement walls and the last wall was made of bars.
There was no clock, nothing to do or look at. Just the cold, hard cement beneath him. There was no one else in any of the cells. Falcon was all alone. He had no idea how much time had passed. Time seemed to stop in the cell or, perhaps, it was moving very quickly; he had no way to know.
His face was covered in bruises, his left eye was swollen shut, his upper lip had split, and his nose was broken. He was pretty sure he had cracked a couple of rib and there were bruises covering his body; they went up and down his legs and arms and all across his torso. His body was nothing more than a mass of throbbing, unending pain. Everything hurt. Moving at all hurt. Sitting hurt, standing hurt, laying down hurt. It hurt too much to sleep. He could occasionally doze off, but then some pain would waken him and he would rise, groggy, confused, and alone.
Where was Grace? It had been long enough. She hadn’t seen Falcon on the road. She hadn’t seen the shipment so she had to know that something was wrong. But she still wasn’t here. There had been a shootout along the route and she hadn’t called him to warn him about it. She had hung him out to dry. She had used him and then when things went sideways, she had left him.
He had no one to help him. He had betrayed the gang and the cops clearly didn’t care. He never should have worked with them. Never. He should have gone to jail when she first caught him; it would have been better than this. The cops had used him and fucked him over and what was truly terrible was that he had helped them. He had been complicit in his own destruction.
Would it have been so bad for Sophie to have a biker for a father? Even one who was in jail? They could have written to each other, long letters where they told each other everything. She could have been there the day he got out. Now he would never see her again. He had been a good dad so far, he had provided for her, cared for her, spent time with her. He hadn’t been doing so bad.
Then Grace showed up with her anti-biker crusade. She had recruited Falcon and offered him no help or guidance. She had just ordered him and he had followed. Maybe the boss had been right. Maybe Falcon was just a piece of shit, a terrible father, and a terrible man.
Grace hadn’t even bothered to see him last night. The night before the big raid, the night before the defining act of his life, and Grace couldn’t be bothered to see him. She hadn’t cared about him. She was just another uptight cop who needed to get her rocks off with the bad boy. She just wanted a little thrill, to do something bad and she used Falcon. Why did she act like such a great cop anyway? What cop fucks her informant? She was right: it had been stupid and foolish and it was now going to get Falcon killed.
How many times had she told him it was a bad idea? Well, she had been right about that. Falcon and Grace together were bad, nothing good had come from it. At that moment, it was decided – if Falcon ever saw the outside of this cage, he was never going to see Grace again. She could find some other biker to fuck. He wished her well on her search for a man who could give her three orgasms in one night like he could.
“Hey, traitor,” Marco said.
Falcon opened his bleary eyes and stared at Marco on the other side of the bars. Falcon was slumped against the back wall of his cell. There were no beds or blankets in the cell, just a hole in the ground to be used as a toilet.
“You look like shit,” Marco continued. “The crowd really gave it to you.” He then pulled up a bottle of water and brought it to his lips and took a deep, grateful sip. The water was cold and there was sweat running down the side of the bottle and dripping onto the floor.
“Water,” Falcon said. He could barely open his mouth. His lips were chapped and dry and his mouth felt stuffed with cotton. The water made his thirst suddenly unbearable.
“Oh, you want water?” Marco asked. He held the bottle out and then tipped it over, spilling the cold liquid onto the floor. “You want water? You can lap it up off the floor like the dog you are, you fucking traitor.”
He watched as the water splashed onto the cement and Falcon was sure he could see every drop of the life giving liquid as it slipped over the cracks in the cement and wove its way towards the hole in the ground. He was too weak to even try and get some of it. Instead, Falcon just watched as it made it’s way out of his reach forever.
“This ain’t the UN, bro.” Marco said. “No prisoner’s rights in here. Good news is, you’ll only last a couple of days without water. Maybe longer if you drink your own piss. Good luck, motherfucker.” And then he was gone walking away and up the stairs and past the locked door that led to freedom.
“Grace,” Falcon whispered into his cell. He wanted to cry, he wanted to sob, but he was too weak for even that. He slumped farther down until he was lying on his back. He closed his eyes and tried to ignore the pain as he called out her name. “Grace.” But there was nothing. She wasn’t coming for him. He thought they had a connection, he thought he might have loved her. So where was she now, how had she allowed this to happen?
What was going to happen to him? Were they going to beat him more? Did they have worse tortures that they were at that moment preparing? Were they going to hurt Sophie or Kelly? What would he do if he couldn’t protect them?
Chapter Thirty-Three
I’ve wasted my life, Falcon thought. He was exhausted and defeated; he had managed to sleep fitfully for a few minutes, hours, days? There was still no way to know how much time had passed. He guessed a day, maybe two. Either way, it had been too long. Too long for him to trapped in this dungeon. No one had come for him; no one was going to come for him. Maybe Ernie was right, maybe Falcon would be reduced to begging his boss to kill him. He couldn’t live like this much longer.
He was in so much pain. The swelling and bruising on his face had only grown worse. He still couldn’t open his left eye and he could barely open his right. The mottled black, blue, and yellow bruises that covered his body were ugly and painful. Every part of him hurt at every moment. He had no moments of peace or relaxation, he had been reduced to nothing but an unending throbbing pain. Dried blood clung to his skin, making any sort of movement sharply painful. Falcon
had broken down and cried more than once over the last however long it had been. He had sobbed openly and prayed to God, things he hadn’t done in a long time.
He had been granted a bottle of water which he had greedily gulped down some time ago. He hadn’t eaten since he had been put down here. He hadn’t been given any way to clear the hard, dried blood that covered his face and body. His split lip had swollen and if he had anyone to talk to, he was doubtful they would have understood him.
But the waiting was the worst part. He had no concept of time. He had tried counting in his head to remind himself how long a minute was, but then he couldn’t stop counting; there was just a constant stream of numbers pulsing through his brain. It drove him crazy to try and figure out how long an hour actually was. He finally fell asleep and in his dreams he dreamt of numbers passing overhead like clouds.
Where was Sophie right now? Had the Screaming Eagles hurt her? Had Grace managed to get Kelly and Sophie to safety? Was she fine? Had she got up like any other morning? Maybe she had just woken up, eaten breakfast, and gone to school. Did she miss him? Was she worried about him?