Julie kept trying to wake her friend, with no luck.
With each tick of the old clock on the wall I felt my blood beginning to boil. As the second hand approached click number ten it was like thunder in my ears.
I picked up a heavy glass ashtray from the side table and launched it against the wall, creating a basketball size hole in the sheetrock and a sound that exploded through the silent space like a tornado had crashed through the window. Ashes billowed from the hole in the wall, clouding the small space with the stench of stale cigarettes.
Clarissa leapt from the bed, alert and awake like she’d been up for hours. She grabbed her purse, and her sad excuse for a dress from the floor on her way out—leaving her shoes behind, and the door open. Julie was close on her heels as they both ran naked out into the daylight, which was so fucking blindingly bright that all I could see was white.
I guess that answers my question about it being night or day.
Swaying on my feet I got up from the bed, shielding my eyes from the light I stumbled over to the door and slammed it shut before turning back around and falling onto the hard mattress.
I ashed my cigarette onto the floor, and from state of the holes in the carpet I could tell I wasn’t the first one. The half empty bottle of JD beckoned me from the side of the bed. Grabbing it by the neck I tilted my head back and poured the amber liquid directly into my mouth. I didn’t bother to wrap my lips around the bottle in fear of slowing the flow of whiskey. I swallowed it down in huge gulps until my throat burned like it was on fire, and the bottle was empty. I let my head drop again, this time onto a pillow that smelled like pussy. I threw it to the floor and pressed my face into the bare mattress.
Well, you’re handling this shit real fucking well, Care Bear. My dead best friend said in my head. Preppy was as clear in my mind as he would’ve been if he were sitting on the edge of the bed. I’m one for a party but this isn’t a fucking party. This is where parties go to die. This motherfucker is about to need one of those Pulp Fiction shots to the heart.
“Shut the fuck up, Prep. Aren’t dead people supposed to be quiet? Because if so, you, my nonliving friend, are failing at this whole dead thing,” I said out loud.
Awe, it’s so cute you think that being dead could get me to shut the fuck up. And I’m not fucking done yet, Care Bear. You were really mean to those whores and whores are like my favoritest people ever. Not cool, man. Not cool at all.”
“I’ll make a note of that,” I said, as the room began to spin. I closed my eyes in an effort to make the spinning stop, but it didn’t work. I kicked one of my legs off the bed and anchored my foot to the floor but my level of sobriety was way past that old trick working.
When I opened my eyes again not only was the room spinning even faster, but I could almost swear that I saw Preppy standing over me, looking down with a frown on his usually happy face, his bow tie swirling around and around growing darker and darker as black halos filled my vision.
I was seeing my dead best friend.
I was right.
A whole new level of wasted.
This wallowing in your own shit is starting to fucking depress me and I’m fucking dead!
It was the last thing I heard, or thought, or however this odd communication between my fucked up brain worked, before my vision became completely black and the darkness swept me under.
But even copious amounts of whiskey couldn’t save me from the dreams.
I feel heat against my side so close it burns. I hear the fire crackle and when I open my eyes I can see the embers from the fire pop into the air. I feel the singe of my skin when one lands on the back of my neck.
I try to get up, but I can’t. I can’t move my arms either.
I’m on my stomach, laying across a set of cheap plastic lawn chairs.
I’m tied down.
Men, several of them surround me. They’re laughing. Poking at me. Punching me in the face. Kicking me in the sides. At one point the chairs fall to the side and I go with them, positive I cracked a rib against the brick of the bonfire in the process. There is an order to set me upright, and it’s done immediately.
When they set the chairs back up I lift my head and I see Eli, the man responsible for my current state, sitting with his legs crossed and a cigar in his mouth. When the smoke clears from around his face it reveals his amused smile.
The one I was going to cut from his face.
My pants are tugged down. I try to scream, to protest, but there is a gag in my mouth. One of the men puts his fucking hands on the cheeks of my ass and spreads them apart. They are poking at my asshole with the end of something and I scream through the pain as they penetrate me over and over again. I concentrate on the things I am going to do to them when I’m free to avoid passing out from the pain.
Because I will be free.
This was not the way I was meant to go out.
I think of revenge. Removing all of their teeth one by one with pliers. A guy in the club knows how to do it in a way that maximizes blood loss. The victim dies a slow painful death by tooth loss. That’s of course only after I remove their intestines through their assholes with a wrench.
They think what they are doing to me is torture.
These fuckers have no fucking idea what torture is.
I’m so still that one of them asks another if I’ve passed out. My eyes are closed when I feel the presence of someone in front of me. He pokes his finger into my eye and I don’t react. I’m in the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my life, but I’ve found my place of calm and I’m not leaving it until I can kill every single one of these motherfuckers. I’m saving my energy for when I can actually use it.
I’m a fucking Beach Bastard.
Bitches have been gunning for me since the ink was still wet on my birth certificate.
This isn’t my first time being bound and tortured.
Chances are it wouldn’t be my last.
Never is there a doubt in my mind that I’m going to die there.
Never.
My gag is removed and I hear the unmistakable sound of a zipper being lowered. I almost laugh to myself because I know what’s about to come.
But he doesn’t.
He laughs to his friends when he shoves his fat little cock in my mouth. I fight the bile rising in my throat. My reflex to fight. I stay perfectly still for one, two, three seconds.
The longest three seconds of my life.
I close my teeth around his cock until they meet in the middle. When he screams and tries to pull away I hold on tighter and jerk my head to the side.
Warm copper fills my mouth and I can’t help but laugh as the man hops around in pain.
My laughter is out of control as his blood pours down the sides of my mouth and I spit out what’s left of his little cock onto the ground.
The sound of gunfire erupts and bodies around me start to fall. There is an explosion and the bonfire sends me sailing into the air. I land with a dull thud on the grass and wait to be untied.
Because I know it’s King.
I know he’s come for me.
And I know it’s just killing time now.
In a flash King is dragging a tied up and half conscious Eli into his truck and I’m putting a bullet in the last of Eli’s men on the dock when I hear a voice. And then suddenly I’m not covered in blood and ending a life. I’m sitting next to the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen in my life.
My best friend’s girl.
King’s girl.
“I would have been a good biker whore for you,” she says, and my cock practically leaps to attention inside my pants. Her large blue eyes are unfocused. Her pupils the size of the fucking moon, but somehow the way she’s staring up at me makes me believe that she is looking past me. Past my bullshit. Past the biker and to the man inside. At that moment she’s the only person in the world who can see past the cut and I must be suicidal because I’m willing to suffer the wrath of King to be with her.
I don’t
even care that she’s drunk, it will make what I have to tell her easier. But right now I don’t care about anything but putting my lips to hers. Pink, plump, beautiful. I imagine them wrapped around my cock and my jeans get tighter when my cock decides that he likes the idea as much as I do. When I hear the click of a gun behind me I know it’s King. The click is a courtesy because I’m a friend. I know first hand that most who find themselves at the end of his gun aren’t extended the same courtesy of a warning. I look back at the girl they call Doe and I want her so bad I can almost taste her on my tongue.
I contemplate ignoring my friend and taking the bullet.
I think she could be worth it.
She’s angry at King, and has every right to be. She just walked in on him and some bitch. I almost want to deck the motherfucker myself for making her so upset. But oh the fuck well.
I’m going to tell King to fuck off. Tell him to shoot me if that’s what he really wants. As I see it, I’m about to right a wrong. I should have never sent her up to King at that party. I should have taken her to my bed and kept her there the second I laid eyes on her.
Instead my dumb ass sent her up to King to put a smile on his face.
Like that fucker ever smiled.
Doe turns and looks up at King and even through all the hurt and anger on her face I can see clearly how she feels about him. I’ve never seen real love before, but I know that this is it and it makes my stomach turn because I know right then what I am seeing is the real thing. Shit, I can feel it. Like static electricity zapping the air between them.
It physically pains me to unwrap my arms from around her because I know it’s the last time I’d ever touch her because she didn’t belong to me. Never did.
Never could.
I walk past King and barrel into him with my shoulder, giving him a polite ‘fuck you’ shove. When I get back up to the house I almost keel over when I feel the sting in the very center of my chest. It hurts so bad I think for a second that the motherfucker changed his mind and shot me after all. Either that or I’m having a heart attack.
But when I open my eyes and look down I’m staring at my best friend Preppy, blood pours from his chest and he’s dying in front of me all over again. The life drains from his eyes and the pain in my chest intensifies. I look down and the blood stain on my chest matches Preppy’s. The pain becomes unbearable.
But the pain isn’t because of any bullet.
It’s because I couldn’t save him.
And then a swarm of bees attacked.
BZZZZZ BZZZZZZ BZZZZZZZ
Bees?
Bzzzzzzz. Bzzzzzzz. Bzzzzzzzz.
My burner phone vibrated on the end table, jumping around and playing the same cheesy ringtone all the burners I’d ever had played. Some fucking happy tune that never seemed to match my less than happy mood.
I was thankful when it stopped dancing. I smashed my face back into the mattress.
Three seconds later it started again, and again I ignored it.
Three seconds after that it started yet again.
Only one person had my number and when I first left Logan’s Beach he called me every day.
I never answered.
The calls slowed to once a week.
I never answered.
When the calls stopped completely I felt a mixture of both hurt and relief.
The phone buzzed for the fourth time and I couldn’t take it anymore. I reached over and pressed the green button, holding it to my ear without saying a word. “Bear? Bear is that you?” a female voice asked.
Doe.
“I’m so glad you answered. You don’t have to say anything, but you need to come home. Something’s happened,” she said, the worry in her voice cutting through my fog.
I sat up on the bed quickly. Too quickly, and saw stars.
“I don’t know where to start. It’s just that…” she paused and it sounded as if she’d covered the receiver with her hand. “You’re so pushy,” she said, but not to me. There was a commotion on the line like the phone was being passed and I knew exactly who it was being passed to, even before I heard him murmur, “I’m going to make you regret that smart mouth of yours after the kids go to bed.”
I didn’t need to hear that shit. It was hard work sustaining the constant headache that pounded between my ears and I needed to get back to it.
“You there?” King asked. I responded with a grunt and the sound of my lighter as I lit a cigarette. The smoke opened up my lungs and sending just enough nicotine to my brain to make the rusted wheels in my head start turning again. “I’m here,” I said in case he didn’t hear my grunt, my voice dry and scratchy. I reached over for my bottle of Jack Daniels but it was empty.
I tilted it back and opened my mouth, the remnants dripped into my mouth.
One, two, three, done.
“You sound like fucking shit,” King said.
“Well hello to you fucking too,” I sang.
“We have a situation here more important than the sound of your fucking voice and as much as I’d like to take care of it for you, I wouldn’t know where to start.”
“What?”
“Gus was here…”
Holy shit.
I leapt off the bed, and again it was too fast because I fell to the floor with a thud. The phone slid across the carpet. Turning over onto my back I grabbed the phone and again held it up to my ear.
At least I didn’t lose my smoke I thought, crossing my eyes to look at the cigarette still dangling from my lips.
“What the fuck is going on over there?” King asked.
I looked over at the clock on the nightstand. “Don’t worry about it. What you should worry about is why a brother is at your fucking door at three o’clock in the morning.” The MC was after me. As much as they’d love to take out King, killing civilians brought too much heat, but I still couldn’t think of a single reason why Gus would be there, other than taking out my closest friend to get to me.
“He’s not here anymore. He had a girl with him.”
“Gus has a girl? He’s an awkward motherfucker, but good for him, I guess,” I said.
“No, shut the fuck up and listen…”
“I’ve got a headache the size of the fucking Grand Canyon so cut the vague shit and tell me what the fuck is so important in the middle of the night that a text wouldn’t have been sufficient,” I said. The popcorn ceiling above me had blackish mold growing in the corners and if I closed one eye I could practically see the patch of fuzzy spores slowly growing into long-term lung issues.
“It’s one in the afternoon,” King corrected. “And I just sent you a picture. Check it,” King said.
Clicking over to the messages a little red number one appeared over the green bubble. I clicked on the icon and when the picture popped up I sucked in a breath. It was a girl. Naked, bruised and bloodied. Her hair was a weird shade between red and blonde.
Pink maybe? Or maybe that was the blood in her hair.
“You get it?” King asked.
“Looking at it now, but why the fuck are you sending me a picture of a dead girl?” I clicked the speaker button so I could talk to King and look at the picture at the same time. She looked familiar. Her eyes were closed and her crazy colored hair was covering most of her face. “I’m not Preppy, this kind of shit doesn’t get my dick hard.”
“It’s not a dead girl, asshole. She’s alive, but she’s here and she’s pretty banged up.”
“So take her to the fucking hospital…” I began, ready to end the conversation and bribe one of the maids to make a liquor store run for me.
“Bear!” King snapped. “She’s here, in the garage apartment. Gus saved her before the MC could work her over worse than they already did, but he’d heard your old man say he was gonna dump her here, for you.”
Why the fuck would the MC do this?
I didn’t have to think about it too hard. Knowing my old man and how he operated, I knew there was only one reason why he’d beat up a def
enseless girl. Well, actually there was a few. But there was only one reason why he’d beat up on one and dump her somewhere he knew I would be told about it.
To send a message.
The realization set in as King kept talking, although I couldn’t hear what he was saying. It was the pink hair. I hadn’t seen it in a long time. Not since…
“Look at her fucking hand, asshole,” King barked, bringing me back to the present. I could practically see through the phone the vein in his neck that always pulsed when he was angry.
I used my fingers to zoom in on her hand and my breath caught in my throat when I saw what she was clutching between her fingers.
A ring. A Bastard skull ring.
My Bastard Skull Ring.
“I’m on my way.”
Chapter Six
Bear
The numbness that had been good to me over the last several months had been replaced with the familiar anger that drove me my entire life. The anger that allowed me to take lives. The anger that allowed me to hate enemies I’d never met. However, this new kind of anger bubbling inside me was for one man and one man only.
Chop.
I was still half drunk. It was hard not to be. If I wanted to be completely sober it would take months to clean my system out. Maybe years.
The broken lines of the highway blended into one long streak of white and yellow as I pressed down on the gas pedal, the engine shrieked and groaned in protest. The red line of the speedometer pulsed with hesitation, climbing higher and higher as I pushed the old bread truck to its limit.
I’d given the ring to the little girl as a fucking joke. A way to placate her, make her feel good for not calling the fucking law. I never expected her to show up to the damn MC. What could she have needed my help with anyway? I honestly thought she’d forget all about the ring and the fake story behind it.
I was so fucking wrong.
Just because it was that same girl in the picture King sent me didn’t mean it all wasn’t an elaborate trap set up by Chop to get me back to Logan’s Beach.
King Series Firsts Box Set: King, Lawless & Preppy Part One Page 29