He nodded.
The entire booth was starting to stink like piss, and, angered by this, I kicked him in the ribs. I wanted it to hurt. I heard something crack; he cried out around it. I was not disappointed.
“You’re going to be so gone by tomorrow,” I went on, “that I won’t even remember to come looking for you. Because you don’t want me to remember to come looking for you, do you?”
Tears were rolling down his face; he was biting his lip to keep from making any noise. He shook his head.
“Good. That’s very good. Because if I do remember to come looking for you—and if I do find you—then it’s going to be with a bunch of my friends. We’re gonna load up on some very heavy, very hard things. I’m sure you can think of a few things like that; smart guy like you. Nothing sharp, though, and nothing that goes ‘bang,’ either. No, no, buddy,” I leaned as close as I could stomach to lean, which, surprisingly enough, was nearly close enough to kiss him. “‘Cause if and when I find you, my boys and I are gonna do you ugly. We’re gonna drag you back by your dick to the Medieval times and show those savages how shit gets done, you hear me? I will start at your back and not stop digging with my teeth—my fucking teeth, asshole!—until I’m taking meat from the back of your ribcage!”
Though I wasn’t about to go checking, I think he messed himself further at that moment. He was sobbing, and his face had shifted to something almost childish in its fear.
Scoffing at the display, I stood to my full height and shook my head. Then, deciding there was still a lesson to be learned, I took the cash—leaving the phlegm-coated fifty face-down on his paperback—and started to leave.
“H-hey!” he began to protest, seeing me make off with almost all of his ill begotten earnings. Obviously he’d thought the threat was the worst of it; that he’d get to run off with the wad of cash and actually enjoy it.
I didn’t bother to turn around as I threw my leather-clad elbow back and into his face.
I was sure he’d be skipping town with a broken nose and missing teeth, but I didn’t care to look.
“Shoulda stuck to the devil you knew, kid,” I muttered, heading back to my chopper.
Don’t worry, Mia. I’m coming. Just wait for me.
****
Despite the rain, I was back at the shop in record time.
My mind was still a blur, hardly remembering even leaving the apartment. All I could remember was the sight of my empty apartment, the syringe, and Mia’s phone.
Oh, and scaring the shit out of the guard.
That had helped some.
But nothing would be right until I had Mia back. My mind kept tugging back to the last time I’d been riding around while the fate of my lover was in the hands of another, but I fought to tug it back again and again.
This time would be different. I wouldn’t let it not be.
Slipping off my chopper, I made my way towards Danny. I’d gotten hold of him on the road—putting the already risky process of riding through the rain to the ultimate test by doing it one-handed while using my phone—and gotten him caught-up to what had happened. He was waiting, rain-drenched and looking pissed, outside the shop even before I’d pulled in. Now, giving me a professional nod, I saw that he was on his phone. As I approached, he barked a few curt words into the receiver, pounded a thick, sausage-link finger against the screen, and moved to hold the door open for me.
“Any leads?” I asked, stepping through.
“Nothin’ yet,” he answered.
We’d both slipped into business-mode. There was no sad-eyes, no sympathetic looks, and no hugs. Not now. We slipped into the office like an oil spill, both of us moving towards the weapons closet.
“I want every possible man on this,” I said, knowing it was probably already the case. “If they got a pulse wear our colors, I want them out there and hunting.”
“What do ya think I’ve been doin’?” Danny challenged, already pocketing ammo.
Perks of having such big fucking pants, I thought, watching. Then I gave him an appreciative nod and started to fill an empty duffle bag that was waiting nearby with anything that would fit.
“Don’t suppose ya scoped the security footage before ya sodomized the guard, did ya?” Danny asked.
I gave him a look. “Didn’t have time to sodomize him, Mercury,” I clarified, doing nothing to disregard the thought. “And I’d say it’s safe to say that there is no footage, wouldn’t you? Either the guard or Mack, himself, would’ve thought to kill the feed before all that went down.”
“I’m lookin’ more and more forward to gettin’ my hands on this Mack,” Danny told me.
I shook my head. “He’s mine,” I said flatly. Then, groaning, I added, “I am so stupid!”
“Ya have the capacity, but I’d say ya aren’t exactly on the line fer this one. How the fuck could ya have known?” Danny asked.
“I should have known,” I growled, slamming the contents of the duffle bag in an effort to buy a little more room, “because it’s what happened before!”
“Not yet, it ain’t,” Danny said gruffly.
I nodded at this and, managing to get one last forty-five in with the rest of the death-gear, zipped up the bag, tossed it over my shoulder, and started for the door.
“An’ where do ya think ye’re goin’?” Danny demanded.
“Out there,” I said matter-of-factly, as if the words actually meant something.
“An’ do what?” Danny called after. “Ride ‘round in the rain, burning fuel an’ time, all while totin’ a bag full o’ guns? How well ya see that plan runnin’ its course?”
“What would you have me do?” I asked, running my hand across my face.
“Candy,” Danny said.
“What? What the fuck, Merc?” I growled, narrowing my eyes. “This ain’t the fuckin’ time for dirty jokes.”
“I ain’t sayin’ ya should fuck Candy, ya twit!” Danny said, rolling his eyes. “I’m sayin’ ya should get her on the line—tell her what’s happened—an’ maybe she can help narrow down the search.”
I frowned at that. “How would she know any better than us?” I asked.
I winced as he lifted his hand, swatting my across the head. “Dumbass!” he accused, “‘Cuz she worked for the motherfuckers who likely got Mia! Who better to ask for Crew hidin’ places than a former Crew whore?”
I scowled, moved my hand to my head where he’d smacked me, and glared at him. I couldn’t argue with the logic, but it didn’t change that a swat from the man hurt like hell.
“Don’t fucking hit me,” I grumbled at him.
“Don’t be a fuckin’ dumbass, an’ I won’t have to hit ya,” he countered.
I muttered a halfhearted “Fuck you” to him, but was already in the process of dialing Candy’s cell.
She answered on the first ring.
“Jace?” she answered, sounding frantic. “I think something’s wrong.”
I blinked at this, not expecting her to be on the same chaotic page so quickly. “Huh?” was all I could manage to say.
“I’m at your place,” she answered, sounding out-of-breath. “Well, the garage-part, anyway. Usually this is the part where Mia buzzes me up—can’t take the elevator to your floor otherwise—but she’s not answering. I’ve tried both the intercom and her cell, but—”
“Mack took her,” I interrupted her. “The fucking security guy let him up and… Candy, the Crew has her.”
There was a long, baited silence on her end of the line. Then she screamed “FUCK!”
Good, I thought. At least we’re on the same page.
****
“I might have something,” Candy explained.
“Oh? Tell me,” I said, hoping I didn’t come off too demanding.
“Look, it’s gonna take a lotta finagling and you aren’t gonna like it,” she said, her tone filled with a warning.
“I don’t care, if it is even the slightest chance, we need to take it,” I said, pushing her to continue.<
br />
“Alright, so I still know a few of the girls we’d worked with,” she began. “I actually reached out to them recently with the news of the bordello, a few were interested but… well, you know, they’re still scared shitless. Anyway, one of the girls got moved up. Didn’t even know that was a thing with them, but she said if things didn’t work out, she’d have a spot for me.”
“What’s this got to do with anything, Nancy?” I asked, unsure where she was going.
Was she about to say she was done with us? My heart sank at the thought.
“Well, it’s like this: she don’t know that I’m not interested. I didn’t wanna tell her to go fuck herself with her offer; I’m trying to win these girls over, after all. So’s if I get her on the horn, if I tell her that I’m interested, then I’ll at least have my toe in the door.”
Her words brought me back to my episode in the guard’s booth.
“Anyway,” she went on, “she knows that Mia and me is tight, so it probably shouldn’t be too tough to get her to tell me what she knows if I make it sound like I’m nervous for her.”
“And what if she suspects something?” I asked.
“Look, Jace,” Candy said, sounding almost hurt, “these girls like me; they trust me. I was with the Crew for longer than I’d like to think about, and in that time I held a lot of crying whore’s hands and helped wipe a lot of blood and cum off a lot of chins. Trust me, if I say I’m interested in going back and tell her I’m worried about Mia, there’s no chance she’s going to suspect me of lying.”
I felt my stomach tighten as I realized what she was telling me. Those girls wouldn’t suspect her of lying because, under any other circumstance, she wouldn’t have. This situation was officially forcing her to betray the trust of her own.
“Candy,” I started, “I’m sor—”
“Save it, pretty boy,” she cut me off. “If it helps my girl then I’d do worse. Wouldn’t do it happy, but I’d do it. So just keep the mushy bullshit to yourself unless you’re up for paying for a full hour, got it?”
“Got it,” was all I could bring myself to say to all that.
“You’re a good guy, Jace,” Nancy said then, the compliment catching me off guard. “Keep close to your phone. I’m not sure how long this’ll take, but I don’t wanna have to wait on you when I get the goods.”
“You’re the best, Candy,” I said.
“Yeah, I know,” she said, “all the guys tell me so.”
She hung up before I could even think of a way to respond to that.
PART 4
Whore
(No More)
FIFTEEN
~MIA~
I’d been here before.
I wasn’t sure how or where—I thought I would remember being trapped in a hell like this!—but it was too familiar to not be the first time. Not that it being familiar made it any better. In fact, it made it much, much worse.
I was trapped. It was dark, uncomfortably warm, and there was a smell. The smell, like me, was trapped. It hung somewhere between sweet and sour; reminding me all at once of thawing meat, fresh mulch under a hot sun, and something earthy, ancient. A deep part of my brain chanted that it was the oldest smell in existence, and another part, deeper still, assured me that I’d one day come to contribute to it.
I knew that smell. I knew it the same way I knew I was on the first step of a twelve-step staircase that led down into deeper darkness; the same way I knew that the surface my hands pounded against was a door that should lead to freedom. And I knew that that door—that freedom—was closed and that it would never be opened; that freedom had been stolen from me. And my brother, Mack—though he was only Malcolm in that moment—was the thief.
I knew all of these things with such a startling certainty that I also knew I must have been here before. But, for the life of me, I didn’t know how that was possible.
Trapped. I was trapped in a dark, horrible, smelly place.
Whimpering, knowing what awaited me down in those warm, smelly depths but also knowing it was all my life amounted to, I turned away from the door and started down the steps.
One…
Two…
Three…
I counted to myself, talking me down the steps like an instructor working me through the motions of some horrible cycle.
Four…
Five…
Six…
Only halfway down the stairs to my new world and the voice had gone and summed it all up perfectly. A horrible, nearly precognitive fear took hold of me and I had to take hold of the rough, splintery railing to keep from toppling down the rest of the steps.
Seven…
Eight…
My hand traveled along the railing. As the eighth step became the ninth, it went from rough and splintery to smooth and tacky. It was unnerving, and while my eyes had come to adjust enough for me to investigate the spot where my hand lay I knew not to. Keeping my gaze trained on the darkness ahead, I removed my hand from the surface. I knew it would be better to fall the rest of the way into that black abyss than to let my hand spend one more second on that railing a moment longer.
I thought of my father’s paint cans. I thought of old Band-Aids. And then I thought I might turn around and try for the door again; thought that maybe Malcolm had let go and I might escape from this place he’d trapped me inside.
Then something at the bottom of the stairs, something waiting in the darkness, said, “You a whore or not?”
And suddenly, just like I knew everything else, I knew there was no turning back. There was no escape from this place.
I cursed Malcolm’s name—curiously calling him “Mack”—and continued down the stairs.
Nine…
Ten…
Eleven…
The hot, reeking stench seemed to reach out like a living thing and grab me as my foot fell on the second-to-last step.
Getting it, I took another step—Twelve—and finally dared to take another step into the darkness, away from the stairs.
Here it was dark. Here I had to look with my hands looking for something or somebody that might help me get out of this place.
“You got me?” the voice called out, seeming to offer itself to me.
And then my hands fell upon the soft, stinking mass of a long-forgotten corpse. Gasping at the fresh wave of rot that assaulted my nostrils, I blinked at a sudden wave of clarity—light!—that illuminated my freshly discovered treasure.
And there, before me, I saw myself. I stared back, naked and dead and rotting—my legs splayed and my body showing signs of recent use—and I held my arms open as a lover might when awaiting an embrace.
“You found me, Mia!” Dead-Mia moaned up at me, triumphant and elated. “You fou-ou-ou-ound me!”
Then, seeming ecstatic to answer the question, Dead-Mia leapt at me, grinning wide and exposing a length of latex still occupying the corner of her mouth. “AND I FOUND YOU!” she bellowed, taking hold of me and pulling me into her.
I nearly cried out then, feeling an urge to call out for help. I wanted to get away, not sure if I was in the now or the then; not sure when “now” or “then” were or where the line between them existed. I fought to pull away from myself, fought to get away, fought to…
I paused, and the sudden slack in my muscles made Dead-Mia overcompensate on her next tug, pulling me down on top of her.
I kept fighting to get away…
But why should I be the one who was afraid?
Why was I always the one who should be afraid?
Glaring down at Dead-Mia, she seemed to sense the change that was going through my mind. Her face, all awful and drippy and dead, went even moreso with rising concern.
Howling in a cumulative rage, I balled my fists.
“NO!” I roared down at her.
And I swung.
Dead-Mia’s face squelched like old, rotten food beneath the blow, and suddenly I was looking at T-Built.
I swung again.
More
squelching, and suddenly the face was that of my very first John.
Another swing, another squelch, another face.
Again…
Again…
AGAIN!
And then, finally, I was staring down at my brother; staring down at Mack. He looked back up at me, squinting through blackening eyes and muttering through a swelling lip—he wore every sign of the beatings I’d been dishing out…
And that was when the real beating began.
****
I woke up, ironically enough, feeling stronger than ever. Despite everything I was waking up to, there was a strange vitality thrumming inside of me. The nightmare that had plagued me so long, I had fought through it. As my eyes began to focus, I frowned, noticing just how dark the room I was in was.
Now… I thought, not feeling as afraid as I thought I would under these circumstances, Where am I?
I looked around, waiting for my eyesight to adjust to the darkness. The lack of light, after the episode in Jace’s condo and the setting of the nightmare, were both enough to have me royally hating not being able to see. Eventually, however, I started to get an idea of where Mack had brought me, and I found myself wishing I was back in darkness; back to not knowing.
After finally having a breakthrough, it seemed like cruel irony that I was waking up back in the nightmare.
I was in a basement. Again. The stone walls surrounding me seemed to mock any of the progress I had just made. I winced, sitting up and looked down, seeing that my wrists were shackled to the floor; a set of chains rattling as I moved to pull against them.
Riding On Fumes: Bad Boy Motorcycle Club Romance (The Crow's MC Book 2) Page 25