by Rye Hart
Chapter Twenty
I felt as if I’d slipped into a deep sleep. I was floating, warm and safe. I sighed softly and as I allowed my eyes to flutter open I looked around and saw that I was on a beach. How the hell was I on the beach? Had the whole ordeal just been a vivid nightmare?
As I turned my head I saw Dylan wading in the clear water, his arms outstretched for me. I stood, enjoying the feel of the warm sand between my toes as I ran towards him, wanting to feel his embrace. I wanted to feel the safety of his arms around me.
I stumbled into the water, nearly falling flat on my face as I threw myself into his arms. He held me close, pulling me to his chest and kissing the top of my head. Tears were streaming down my face and I looked up at him, reaching up to touch his tanned cheeks.
“Oh God, Dylan, I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” I whispered, staring into his handsome face.
“I’m right here darling,” he said tenderly, pulling me close.
I could hear his heart beating and it made me sob with joy. “You’re here, you’re really here. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for before. I didn’t mean to yell at you. I’m sorry I walked away and went with them, but I was so scared! I couldn’t let you die!” my words were spilling out in a stream.
He stroked my hair and kissed me tenderly. “Shhh, it’s okay, Alex. I know why you did it. I don’t blame you,” he whispered, pushing me gently away.
I looked up at him, my lips trembling. There was so much I wanted to say to him, but I couldn’t get it out. He stroked my hair out of my face. “I need you to promise me one thing,” he said.
“What is it?”
“Promise me you won’t give up.”
I was confused by his words and gasped as he grabbed me and pushed me under the water. Darkness enveloped me and confusion clouded my mind. I drifted into the dark abyss, wondering if this was death.
Suddenly my eyes flew open and I was staring up at the bright morning sky. I was in the bed of a pickup truck, though I could hear motorcycles roaring on either side of me. My throat hurt and the pain brought back the memory of being lifted off the ground, an impossibly strong hand wrapped around my neck. I groaned and rolled over onto my side, looking around.
The land was green and the hills stretched out as far as I could see. I figured we were still in Tennessee, but I had no idea where. I forced myself to sit up, groaning at the effort it took. I managed to steady myself as the truck bounced on the road, looking around to see bikers surrounding the truck as if they were protecting it.
I frowned, starting to feel a surge of hopelessness all over again. I didn’t think I was going to get out of this one. As I started to lose myself in thought, the truck jolted forward and I gasped, grabbing the side to keep myself upright.
The truck rolled to a stop and so did the bikes. Coyote hopped out of the truck, cursing loudly and kicking the flat tire. He leaned down to inspect it and the moment he ducked down, bullets started flying. Within moments, most of the gang lie dead beside their bikes, perfectly placed shots between their eyes.
Coyote jumped into action, his eyes wide as he tried to figure out what was going on. A stray bullet hit the back window of the truck and the glass shattered into pieces. I quickly grabbed one of the larger pieces, hiding it in my sleeve, easily ignoring the way it cut into my skin. That was nothing compared to what I’d been through.
I was thinking about making a run for it when Coyote grabbed me and pulled me out of the bed of the truck, a gun held to my temple. “COME OUT! SHOW YOURSELVES RIGHT NOW!” he screamed.
Dylan and the rest of the gang rose from the valley between two hills, wearing camouflage and ghillie suits. My eyes widened and my breath hitched. He’d come for me. Dylan grinned and threw his hands out.
“Did you think you were going to get rid of us that easily?” he asked, starting to close the distance between himself and Coyote.
“You stay back!” Coyote’s voice was starting to shake and despite the fact that he had a gun at my temple, I found it oddly satisfying that he was so shaken.
“Put the gun down, Coyote. You’re out numbered. I have three snipers trained on you. They had the command to shoot at will and if you harm a hair on her head, you’ll be full of holes. If you hand her over now, we’ll let you live.”
I realized I was in a very precarious situation and the last thing I wanted to do was put myself or Dylan in any more danger. I stayed dead still, my eyes trained on Dylan.
“You’re lying. If you really had snipers, I’d be dead already,” Coyote growled, starting to walk me back towards the cab of the truck.
Dylan’s eyes were trained on me. He was watching me closely, trying to comfort me with his gaze. “Give it up, Coyote. You lost this round. Give her to me and you have my word, I’ll let you live,” Dylan said dangerously.
“Like hell I will. You just gave me more incentive to get her to the meeting place. You took down all my men. That just means I don’t need to share the money.”
I felt my desperation grow as I realized Coyote had nothing left to lose. As we got closer and closer to the truck, I felt my heart beating faster and faster. Dylan knew he was playing with fire and I could see the desperation in his eyes. He just wanted to pull the trigger and take Coyote out, but that would risk my life.
The shard of glass in my sleeve cut into my hand, reminding me it was there. I swallowed, remembering Dylan’s words from my dream.
‘Promise me you won’t give up.’
I closed my eyes, preparing myself for the worst. Finally, I pulled away and jabbed the shard of glass between Coyote’s legs, managing to hit him in the crotch. He let out an animalistic scream of pain and I twisted out of his grip and grabbed his gun.
Everything became a blur. I brought the gun down on his head hard, using it as a makeshift club. He hit the ground, clearly having lost consciousness. I stared down at his still body, shaking and wide-eyed.
Dylan ran over to me and threw his arms around me, pulling me close and tucking me against his chest. I shook and dropped the gun in favor of wrapping my arms around him.
“You came.” I whispered.
“Of course I did. Jesus, you were so amazing, Alex!”
I laughed shakily and shook my head. “I just had to see you again. There’s something I knew I had to tell you and I wasn’t going to die before I got to say it.”
“What is it?” he panted, looking down at me.
Tears welled in my eyes and I cupped his face with shaking hands. “I love you, Dylan.”
His eyes widened but he pulled me closer, pressing his lips to mine in a show of passion. When he finally broke away, he smiled down at me and whispered the words I so desperately wanted to hear.
“I love you more than you could ever know.”
Epilogue
We ended up leaving Coyote there. Dylan’s men quickly captured him and zip tied his ankles and wrists before putting in an anonymous call to the cops. It wasn’t like they were going to wholeheartedly investigate the slaughter of a violent biker gang. They ended up ruling that it had been caused by a dispute over drugs or money and closed the case without much event.
Dylan took me home after that and I was rather thankful that he didn’t lecture or ask too many questions. I didn’t want to tell him the things Coyote had told me. They were awful and I didn’t even want to repeat them and I was afraid that Dylan would commit murder the next time he saw Coyote.
After that incident we were happy. I experienced what true happiness was like. We lived together in Nashville and I eventually introduced Dylan to my mother. She fell in love with him instantly and I couldn’t have been happier. I grew closer to my mother as an adult. She asked me about dad on occasion, but I just told her I didn’t know and that was the truth. I had no idea what happened to my dad. After everything he’d put me through, I wasn’t really interested in maintaining a relationship with him.
Soon after the kidnapping incident, I decided to go to school for social work. The
threat of being sold into human trafficking had woken something up inside of me. I never wanted anyone to face the horrors that had been described to me, so I made it my life goal to help others in that situation. I hoped to eliminate human trafficking completely. It might have been a lofty goal, but it was what I wanted and I wasn’t going to stop.
Even though I decided to go back to school to help people, the gang was a part of who I was now. I told him I wanted to be a part of it and I meant it. The day after Coyote was arrested I went to Dylan’s tattoo artist and I got the scales tattooed on my shoulder. I was marked as his for the rest of my life and I’d never regret it.
Dylan and I are expecting our first child. We were married the previous spring and life couldn’t be better. If anyone had told me a year ago that my happily ever after would include the leader of an outlaw biker gang, I’d have told them they were nuts. But here I was. Dylan was my world and I was his. I finally had my fairy tale ending.
The End
Mystique
Chapter One
Marie Stevens was a good woman in a bad situation. That was always her story. She’d grown up in a small Southern town, and had a certain charm about her. Men fell for her left and right but she’d always been the type of girl who believed in “the one”.
She lived on a small farm with her parents in the mountains of Tennessee. The farm was never meant to be a source of income but she loved taking care of the animals. Marie had a special place in her heart for animals. She almost liked them better than she liked people.
Marie was always a quiet, studious girl who was dedicated to her schooling. She wanted to leave the small town and become a veterinarian. She’d always dreamed of spending her life helping animals.
Her dreams were big and she knew that she could achieve them if she put her mind to it. She could move mountains if she believed she could. People told her that she was meant for great things and she believed them.
While all the girls in her school were busy with boys and prom, she was studying and keeping her GPA near perfect. People made fun of her and the boys she turned down would accuse her of being a lesbian or some other claim that made the blow to their manhood more palatable. It was a ridiculous game, in her opinion, and so she refused to play.
The boys were drawn to her ethereal beauty. All the boys wanted her and the girls wanted to be her, even if Marie didn’t know it. She had long, curly blonde hair that glistened in the light and always seemed to lay across her shoulders perfectly without any effort. Her eyes were as big and blue as the ocean and when she smiled they shined brighter than stars. Her pale skin was never marred with blemishes and her round face gave her an innocent charm that drew people in.
Despite her beauty, Marie’s focus was never pulled away from school. She stayed the course and managed to ignore the advances of potential boyfriends and the pressure to go to parties. Her parents couldn’t have been more proud of her, but that was all going to change her senior year.
Robert had been so damn charming when they first met. His eyes were almost a golden amber color. The closest thing she could compare them to was honey. They were deep and rich and seemed to look right into her soul. She fell for him the moment they met.
Marie enjoyed fairy tales growing up and so she’d bought into the idea of love at first sight. It was how she’d wanted to meet the love of her life. She wanted the storybook romance that she’d read about for so many years.
She was inherently feminine and had denied herself the things that girls looked forward to for her entire life. Marie never went to school dances and she never put herself into the dating pool. She’d focused on more practical things, and as a result she was hungry for the very things she’d avoided.
Robert paid attention to every one of those desires. He made Marie feel like a princess and it was intoxicating to her. It was enough to drag her away from her books and away from her goals. He promised that he would take care of her for the rest of her life. She’d never have to work a day in her life. She’d just stay at home and take care of their babies.
The first time he’d told her that, she’d questioned if it was what she really wanted. She’d had her heart set on being a veterinarian for so long that she couldn’t imagine anything else. Robert convinced her that it wasn’t something worth pursuing. He convinced her that the only way they could build a life together was if she depended on him completely.
Those red flags should have been enough to wake her up. Marie should have run away from that fate as fast as she could, but she was too caught up in her own fairy tale to listen to reason. She jumped right off the cliff, expecting Robert to catch her. She would realize later in her life just how stupid of a decision that was.
Marie gave Robert something that she’d been told was precious. Her virginity. It was another thing she would look back on and scoff at. Her virginity meant nothing. It was something that society had put on a pedestal to keep girls from exploring their own sexualities.
At the time, however, it was a big deal. The first time they laid together she was expecting something wonderful. She expected her world to be changed forever, but it was much duller than that. A few sloppy thrusts and grunts and he came, leaving her unsatisfied and confused. She wasn’t even sure if it felt good, to be honest. It had happened so fast.
All of their encounters following that were pretty much the same. She wouldn’t have her first orgasm until a friend bought her a vibrator as a joke. She had been embarrassed at first, but it became a staple in her and Robert’s relationship. She kept it by the bed for all of those disappointing sexual exploits.
Their intercourse wasn’t completely unproductive. Right after graduation she found out she was pregnant with her first and only child. There was pressure for her and Robert to marry thanks to the old world views of their small town.
That pressure was more than enough to convince them to get married. It was a quiet affair that was put together quickly. Her parents wanted to preserve her dignity and so it needed to be done before she started to show.
It was the first of many disappointments that she would experience in her marriage. Her pregnancy left her unable to go to school and so Robert got the housewife he'd always wanted.
Robert went to work every day and left Marie at home, pregnant and terrified. She hadn't planned on having children for years. Some part of her still wanted to get out of her small town and see the country, and maybe even the world.
She would have to come to terms with the fact that she was a mother and a wife now and that would define her for years to come.
Chapter Two
The birth of Richard was one of the happiest days of Marie's life, but it was promptly followed by weeks of soul crushing depression. No one ever talked about postpartum depression and so Marie didn't know to expect it.
Her husband was present for the birth of their son but that was where his involvement stopped. Men were expected to work and women were expected to care for the children. There was little cross over.
Thanks to this archaic view, Marie was left at home with a screaming infant and no one to look to for help. Her mother would shake her head in disappointment if Marie admitted to being terrified of the baby or unsure of what she should do.
The gruff, aging woman would tell her to follow her 'maternal instincts'. As a nineteen-year-old woman and new mother, she wasn't sure she had the instincts her mother was talking about.
She felt like a failure as a mother and a wife, not realizing that there were other women around her suffering from the same affliction. They wouldn't talk about it for the same reasons that Marie did not. They were all too afraid of being judged.
Those first few weeks were hell but Marie pulled through and gained confidence as a mother. She felt she was a good mother, though her husband would tell her otherwise on many occasions.
She did her best to cook and clean despite the fact that she hated every second of it. She went to every PTA meeting and every hockey practice. She decorated
the house for every holiday and gave out plenty of hugs and kisses.
It wasn’t an act. Marie loved her son. She loved him more than anything on the planet and she was thankful for his happy face every day. He looked so much like his father. He had his golden eyes and Marie’s thick blonde hair. His nose turned up when he smiled and Marie took all the credit for that one. He was a beautiful boy and she adored him to no end.
Her husband, on the other hand, was a completely different story. She’d hoped for a fairy tale life but it didn’t seem like she was meant to live happily ever after. Her relationship with Robert fell apart soon after Richard was born.
The man was never around. He preferred the company of his coworkers at the bar to that of his wife and his son. No one batted an eye at it either. This was normal. There were few women in this small town who were in happy marriages. Everyone said they were happy but Marie knew it was a lie. She saw the same sad look in every woman’s eye that she had in her own. No one was happy, but you couldn’t admit it.
Divorce rates would have been through the roof if divorce had been acceptable. There were no legalities that kept women from divorcing their husbands, but sometimes social pressure held more power than law.
Like every other woman in town, Marie played with roll of the happy wife. She smiled at the other women in the grocery store and made small talk with them. She laughed at bad jokes and cleaned up after her drunken husband stumbled in from a long night at the bar.
Drinking wasn’t an uncommon hobby in these parts but Robert’s drinking habits got out of control, even by the lax standards of this small Tennessee town. He was soon known as the town drunk and their family was cast out from the social circles.
Richard went through high school without any friends, and the few women that Marie enjoyed talking to abandoned her. She was more alone than ever and so was her husband. Robert hadn’t ever been held accountable for his actions, so when he lost his job, his friends and the respect of everyone in the town, he took his anger out on his wife.