by Raven Dark
“Did you sleep with him?”
I roll my eyes. She knows I did, but she probably needs to hear me say it for it to sink in. She’s taking this remarkably well at the moment, but disapproval rolls off of her in waves. We’re so close when it comes to most things, it hurts to think she’ll hate me after this. I can’t stand to imagine the way she’ll look at me. My chest goes so tight I can barely breathe.
“Mom. Yes. Look—”
“Did he force you?”
“What? Mom, for God’s sake, no!”
Since she can’t be seeing anything about me that would imply anything like that, it’s clear she’s leaped to conclusions about Vicious that are even worse than I feared. She doesn’t just think he’s a criminal because he’s a Heathen or a biker. She thinks he’s a monster.
“Good grief, Mom, he’s not some kind of creepy rapist.” I stand up. “He’s a nice guy.”
“I can’t hear this.” She stands up and rubs her forehead with her fingers. “I knew I should have gotten us out of this damn town.”
I make an irritated sound. “Mom, stop freaking out. Vicious is—”
She spins around at the name as if she’s just now hearing it. “His name is Vicious?”
Yup. Here we go.
“Mom,” I draw out.
“Wow. Anne, this is crazy.” She laughs, but it’s a broken sound. I can see it in her eyes, the name evokes all the worst images and fears she—and the rest of this damn town—have about bikers. With his name alone, she’s sized him up, her preconceived notions solidifying into unshakable certainties that will never be undone.
“Look, I know this is a lot to accept,” I say slowly. “You think he’s nothing but an uneducated criminal who treats women like whores and shoots anyone who looks at him wrong. But he’s not like that at all.”
“Anne, you have to end this now.” There is no room for argument in that tone.
“Mom, no. You don’t know him. The least you could do is meet him before you make judgments.”
“Anne.” She drops her arms. “There is no way my daughter is dating a man like that.”
“I know there’s pretty much no way I can convince you he hasn’t corrupted me, but the reality is, you can’t stop me. I’m nineteen, and old enough to decide for myself who I can date.”
“This is a mistake,” she snaps.
“If it is, it’s mine to make!”
She clicks her teeth. “Can you imagine what this will do for business? With him hanging around and scaring off the customers?”
“He wouldn’t do that.”
“Anne, this thing between you ends now. There is no arguing about this.”
“I’m not breaking up with him just because you’re as prejudiced as the rest of this town!”
She heaves a sigh and puts up her hands. “Fine. If you want to throw your life away on this… degenerate, you go ahead. I can’t stop you. But as long as you’re with him, you won’t live under this roof. And you won’t be taking over the restaurant.”
And there it is. This is exactly what I was afraid of. Not only would she take away any chance I have to go to college, since I can’t live on my own in this town to pay rent, but she’d take away the one secure thing I did have—the restaurant I’ve been prepared to take over for the past few years.
Tears spring to my eyes, a feeling like I’ve just been set a drift sinking in.
This was why I went to Sandra’s that night and lied to Vicious. This was why I was so afraid she’d find out about us.
It occurs to me then. I could take Vicious up on his offer and move in with him. But I still don’t see how I could accept all that it would mean to be part of his club. I can’t help the gut-wrenching fear that it would only ruin our relationship.
How much more of this can I take? My heart feels like it’s going to shatter.
“Mom, please.” The words come out sharp as glass. “You can’t do that.”
“Watch me!” she snaps. “I’m doing this for your own good, Anne. Trust me. Right now, I know you can’t see that, but you—”
“No way,” I grit out. “You can’t make me choose between my future and the man I—”
I cut myself off just in time, my eyes widening at what I’d nearly said.
Her face goes even paler than before. “You’re in love with him.” The words come out flat.
Am I? I don’t know, but if I came that close to saying it, I must be. The thought should fill me with joy, but instead it feels hollow and empty.
“Look, I don’t know if I am or not. But he makes me feel things I’ve never felt before.”
She puts her head back. “He’s done a real number on you.”
Irritation pricks at me at the implications there. “Mom, Vicious didn’t do anything to me. I’m not some naïve idiot who’s been manipulated by a creepy older guy that knows how to—”
“Older?” Her brows go up. “How much older?”
Shit. Me and my big mouth.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say firmly.
“How. Much. Older?”
I roll my eyes. “Old enough.”
“Oh, Anne.” She turns her back to me, shoulders stiff. “Where the hell did I go wrong? I thought I raised you better than this. I thought you had more sense.”
Oh, God, I want to scream. “Mom, stop it! How about you try meeting Vicious for yourself before you start labeling him as—”
Mom spins around sharply. Her mouth opens as if she’s going to say something, then she closes it. “Wait…Vicious…” Her throat works on a swallow.
“Yes. I told you that already. It’s a biker name. It—”
“Do you know his real name?” Her voice is suddenly sharp.
I heave a sigh. That I don’t know it won’t make this any better. She’d only take that as another sign that I’m with him because I have some naïve, romanticized vision of him and his club that’s blinded me from all reason.
“It doesn’t matter. It has to be him.” She drops her shoulders, looking shell-shocked.
No, that’s wrong. Her eyes are too wide, and her knuckles are white. I’ve never seen Mom look like that. She looks scared. My heart plummets.
“Anne, there’s something I need to show you,” she says too calmly.
“What?”
“Just stay there. I’ll be back.”
She disappears into the living room for a second, and when she comes back, she’s carrying her laptop. She sets it down, takes her seat, and opens the computer.
Confusion sweeps through me as she boots up the system, along with mounting frustration. “Mom, what are you doing?”
She holds up her finger, and types a few keys, logging in. A moment later, she types some more. I roll my eyes.
“Anne, do you know anything about that club?”
“Not much, no.” I wince, feeling my insides squirm.
She nods. “Anne, sit down.”
For some reason, my hands are shaking. The earnest look on her face is making me panic, the calm somehow worse than if she was angry.
I take my seat. She holds my hand on the table. “Anne, the Hell’s Heathens MC are not good guys.”
“Mom—”
“No, listen to me. Please. Do you know what a one percenter is?”
I shake my head.
“No. You wouldn’t.” She heaves a breath. “Most people think that the majority of bikers are not a gang. They aren’t criminals, and their clubs don’t commit crimes.”
I can hear it in her voice, she doesn’t agree with that viewpoint.
“According to that belief, there’s only a small percentage who do. The ones who do, who run drugs, guns, who kill people—those are outlaw clubs…one percenters.”
She pauses and turns the computer around so that I can see the screen. “They wear this symbol.”
I look at the screen. The blood flees from my face. The symbol she’s brought up is a diamond with a one, and a percent sign. Vicious has one on his cut.
> “Shiiit…”
She clasps my wrist on the table, a silent command to wait. I can’t breathe. God, I can’t breathe.
She turns the screen around and types for a second. “I only saw…Vicious for a second, but if this is him, he’s a bad guy, Anne.” She turns the screen back to me one last time.
I draw a breath and make myself look.
She’s brought up a news article from almost ten years ago, from the Whiskey Daily News. I can’t even register what the heading says, except for one word—murder.
And under the heading, there is a man being led from a courtroom in an orange jumpsuit and chains. He’s turned to look over his shoulder at the camera, giving a clear view of his face.
The name mentioned in the article, the guy being led away, is named Charlie Braxton, but it doesn’t matter. The perfect, angelic face staring back at me is the man I just slept with.
It’s Vicious.
10
And it Just Keeps Coming
The next few days go by in a blur.
It’s like I’ve gone numb, confusion and sadness—and a bite of anger—at what I’ve learned about Vicious’ past replaced with an empty feeling that makes me feel as if I’m moving through a daze.
It’s one thing to think I’ve been dating a guy who doesn’t believe in social norms, who lives by his own code, or the code of a club that seems so strange and alien, so exciting as to seem almost surreal. It’s another thing entirely to think he’s a hardened criminal, one who’s done hard time.
Hard time, not for boosting cars or stealing, but for murder. He’s taken a human life, a real human life.
I sit alone at Lover’s Ridge as the day’s shadows grow longer, two days after the argument with Mom, trying desperately to accept the truth. I don’t think I can. The weight of my mistake is too huge, too much to fit inside my head.
Maybe I should be angry with my mom, but I can’t be. I want to think that, in showing me that article, she used it as ammunition to break Vicious and me up, but she hasn’t. It’s not like she could have fabricated the article and made him sound worse than he is.
No, I’m not mad at her. The anger boiling in me is all with him.
Why didn’t he tell me? Why didn’t he say something?
But the answer to that is simple. He didn’t want me to know because he knew as soon as I did, he’d never see me again.
Vicious is still on his “club business,” so he won’t be coming here, otherwise I wouldn’t be here alone as night comes on. Club business. The words sound so ominous now. Had he gone to Atlanta to hurt someone? To commit some crime out there?
I let my head drop back against the tree. Loneliness, betrayal, and hurt sink in so deep it’s almost like grief. I feel nearly as bad as when my father died.
After Mom showed me the article, she’d dropped another bomb. The Hell’s Heathens are no stranger to other crimes. Some of the guys have done hard time for bank robbery. When she’d said she thought they had robbed the Whiskey bank, I’d thought she was only being judgmental. Now I know she might have been right. They could have done it. Vicious might’ve even been in on it.
The thought makes me feel even more like puking than I already do.
I want to cry, but the tears won’t come. My eyes are already red and puffy from all the tears I’ve wasted over the last few days. My fists clench, the feelings I had for him burning like acid in my gut.
My mother had explained to me the reason why so many in this town view the Heathens the way they do. Years ago, shortly before we moved here, the Heathens apparently made trouble for Whiskey. It’s long since over now, but as a result, every influential member of the town has been made aware of any information regarding the Heathens. The symbols they wear and what they mean, significant tats, and any felonies the guys have committed. That’s how my mother knows so much about them.
After our talk, I’d gone off and done my own research. Into Vicious, into his club. Even in my anger, I’d had the sense not to immediately write him off. The murder might have been a false charge. Maybe he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, or he was framed. Except he hadn’t been.
According to the article, Vicious had shot some guy in the chest outside of a bar, over a girl. Witnesses said the two of them fought over her, and the other guy lost.
My mind rolls over what I’ve learned, and I wipe a single tear away, betrayal clawing across my heart. Why didn’t he tell me?
I’d looked into a lot of the symbols my mother mentioned the bikers wearing. I’d wondered what the words Sergeant at Arms meant. When I saw the description of it on Wikipedia, I’d blanched. A Sergeant at Arms was the man responsible for the club’s weapons. For purchasing them, for arming the men.
If there was any doubt he was a bad guy, or that what I learned was real, that doubt was now gone. And worse, now I knew what that spider’s web on his hand meant. A spider’s web meant time in prison. So not only had he done time, but he was proud of it.
His name is Charlie Braxton. He’s a criminal. A murderer. I’ve been sleeping with a murderer.
I let my forehead drop to my drawn-up knees. I swear, if he comes near me again, I’ll kill him.
My phone buzzes on the grass beside me. I sigh, assuming it’s my mother. She’s already called once a few minutes ago. I answer the call.
“Mom, I’ll be—”
“Hello, beautiful.”
His voice washes over me, a voice that, until now, filled me with excitement, need, and love but which now tears at my insides. It’s so perfect; I close my eyes, shutting out its effect on me.
I want to ask him, to hear him tell me his side of things, but I know that’s a bad idea. If I let him get into my head…
A sob escapes.
“Anne.” He draws the name out slow and quiet, filled with concern and what sounds like protective warmth. It’s all lies. I want to die. “Anne baby, what’s wrong? What happened?”
I take a deep, shaking breath. Then another, then I say the words it kills me to say, words I have to be mature and strong enough to say.
“I don’t want to talk to you anymore. Don’t ever call me again… Charlie.”
I hear him swear before I kill the call.
Early that evening, my mother and I are doing the same thing we do every week. We’ve gathered up all the money the restaurant has made this past week and put it into a money pouch, ready to be put in the bank before it closes at six. I’ve moved through the entire day in the same daze, as if I were a zombie. I’m almost tempted to tell my mother he called, but I don’t. I’m still too raw from everything that’s happened to deal with that.
I slip on a light hoodie and put my phone into the back pocket of my jeans, while my mom locks up The Eatery and then walks to the car with me.
She puts her arms around me, and I push down yet another urge to cry. These days, it seems like every little thing threatens to send me into tears.
“How about we go out for ice cream and curl up with some Netflix tonight, okay?” She rubs my shoulder.
If things were different, I’d likely have been going out on the town, riding with Vicious. My heart squeezes. I nod and lay my head on her shoulder.
“Love you, Mom.”
She kisses my forehead. “Men, huh?” she says warmly.
“Yeah.”
Mom puts the money pouch in the trunk, and then we head for the front of the car, opening our doors.
It happens so fast I hardly believe it’s real. As if he’s come out of the darkness itself, a man appears behind my mother. A man in a ski-mask and black leather. He also has a gun pointed at her head.
“Mom!” I croak out.
“Hands in the air, lady. Do exactly as you’re told, and no one gets hurt.”
Shit. I reach for my phone…and freeze as something metallic and cold presses to the back of my head. Something that, even without my ever having felt one, I know is a gun.
“Don’t even,” a man’s voice growls.
> Well, shit, this is turning into one hell of a shitty day, isn’t it?
11
Leaving
So much has happened in these last few days, and yet it seems the mess my life has become is far from over.
The gun against the back of my head presses harder, and I snatch my hand away from my pocket before I can touch the phone. My heart hammers against my ribs so hard it seems to be trying to pound its way out of my chest. Panic makes my skin feel numb. Fear for my mother sends my thoughts racing, jumbled and frantic.
What the hell do we do now? Obviously, I’ve never had anything like this happen before. I try to think over anything I’ve picked up about how to react when being held up by masked gunmen. Nothing comes to me; my mind is a panic-riddled blank.
“Anne.” My mom’s voice is a little shaken, but it’s also amazingly calm, drawing my attention across the top of the car to her. “Anne, look at me.”
I obey. She’s raised her hands to either side of her head. Her face is deathly pale, her eyes wide, but otherwise, I can see the protective, cool logic in her eyes.
“Do as they say,” she says, remarkably smooth. She moves her hands slightly, indicating for me to do the same.
I mimic her, raising my palms. Offering no resistance.
“Where’s the money, ladies?” the man holding the gun on me demands.
“It’s in the trunk,” Mom says. “We won’t fight you. My keys are in my pocket.”
It slips through my thoughts that her reaction is the right one. The one thing I do remember hearing—from somewhere, though I don’t know where—is that in a situation like this, you’re supposed to just give them what they’re after. Besides, there’s nothing I can do without risking my mom getting hurt. They could shoot her, or worse.
“Open the trunk,” the guy behind my mom orders. He gestures toward the back of the car, keeping the gun pointed at her head.
The guy behind me whips me around, and I nearly fall to the pavement. He grabs my wrists and puts them in flex cuffs, pulling tight. “You’re a pretty little thing. You’re coming with us. A nice little bonus.”