Hard Limit

by Sybil Bartel

  “Biker friends?” Daddy narrowed his eyes at me. “What do you think has put a roof over your and your mother’s heads for all these years?” He didn’t wait for me to respond. “It’s not you.” He jerked his chin toward my mama in disdain. “It sure as hell isn’t her.” His nostrils flared. “I do. My club does. My money pays for all of this.” He spread his arm wide like we lived in the lap of luxury. “You had a privileged upbringing. Now you’re going to pay it back. Look nice in two weeks.” He flicked my wet hair and scoffed at my clothes. “Not like a drowned hick.” Pivoting, he walked to the door. “In the meantime, take care of your mother.” He left.

  Mama exhaled. “He’s such a good man.”

  My hackles went up, and I turned on her. “Good man?” Was she crazy? “He’s as good as selling me to the highest bidder. That’s not a good man. That’s sick, Mama.” I was done holding back for her sake. “He’s selling his daughter’s virginity, and you know it. What’s wrong with you?” With every word, my voice climbed higher and my anger burned hotter.

  Mama waved her hand through the air. “Oh, sweetheart, it was going to happen sometime. You might as well have a man who keeps you safe.”

  “Safe?” Was she insane? “How many bodies do you think are buried out here?” I wasn’t no hick. I knew exactly why he kept this land. “You think being in an MC is a safe life? You think those barbeques where Daddy brings all the bikers out here with all their drinkin’ and druggin’ is safe? Name one legal thing Daddy’s into, Mama. Go ahead, I dare you.” Daddy ain’t never held a real job a single day in his life. She knew it and I knew it.

  A smile floated across her face. “But he’s so handsome.”

  “Oh my God.” I stormed over to her and grabbed her wrists. Pushing her sleeves up, I fought rage. “What’d he give you?” I demanded, checking her arms for the telltale marks. “What in the hell are you on? Answer me!”

  She pulled her arms back and shooed me away. “Calm down, dear. He just gave a little pill, like he always does.”

  “What? Since when?” It’d taken years, years of hell to get Mama off the junk she’d gotten addicted to. It’s why Daddy put her out here in the middle of nowhere. She couldn’t be around the club. She couldn’t handle the temptation. “You’re not supposed to take anything!” She knew that. That was the deal.

  “Oh relax.” She pushed past me, heading back to her bedroom. “No harm ever came from a little pill. And I only ever take one at a time. Now, if you’re done scolding me, I’m going to bed.” She slammed her door shut.

  A second later, I heard her bedside drawer creak open, and the flick of a lighter sounded.

  I stood there until the scent of pot wafted into the living room. Then I inhaled the sickly pungent smell to remind myself.

  I was never going to wind up like her.

  My body jerked.

  Sucking in breath, I came awake, and my teeth instantly started chattering. Blondish hair dragged across my shoulder, and the smell of something sweet filled my head.

  “Gee, nice of you to join us,” a female voice grunted from behind me.

  My body jerked back a foot.

  Dull pain spread across my ribs and I blinked.

  “Nothing to say, huh?” she asked.

  I fell to my back as the female, all legs and arms and reddish-blonde hair, scrambled out from behind me.

  My throat burning, my head landed on a pillow, and my gaze settled on the female from the swamp. I narrowed my eyes.

  Pushing one of my limp arms to my side, she squatted next to me. “Well, that’s not a very nice thank-you. Especially since I even practiced my sewin’ and stitched you up.”

  I forced a word out. “Water.”

  She smirked. “I shoulda known you’d be all demanding.” Reaching behind her, she grabbed a bottle of water and brought it to my lips. “Not that I probably wouldn’t be askin’ for water after being passed out for two days.”

  Ice-cold wet slid down my throat and I groaned.

  She took the bottle away and set it back down. “Easy, now.”

  I went to grab for it, but my arm, sluggish and heavy, made a slow arc instead of a calculated swing. “Water.”

  “No, not yet. Give that a little bit of time to settle.” Catching my arm, she laid it back at my side. “You’re just gonna make yourself sick.” She looked me in the eye. “I read that on the internet. I read plenty. So don’t worry, I know what I’m doin’.” She tucked a blanket around my body.

  Following the graceful movement of her hands, I noticed I wasn’t lying on the ground anymore. A mattress, filled with air, lay under me. My feet stuck out from the blanket she was fitting around me, and they were in socks I did not recognize. “Where am I?”

  “In my garage.” She adjusted the pillow under my head. “You were in bad shape. I couldn’t very well leave you out there in the swamp to fend for yourself.” She scoffed. “Lord knows how that would’ve ended.”

  I was not grateful. I did not say thank you. “Where are my pants?” With no material covering my legs, I felt my thighs sticking to the plastic.

  “What’s left of them needed a bath.” She lifted the edge of a bandage on my jaw, nodded to herself, then removed the bandage. “But if I’m being truthful and all that, you need a new pair of jeans.” Her gaze moved to my ribs, where she fingered a stiff white tape going around my torso. “You got broken ribs, you know.” Her green-eyed gaze cut back to me. “Pretty sure I could feel them broken. Maybe just cracked.” She frowned. “Okay, maybe just really, really bruised. Like you got kicked… a lot.” Crossing her arms over her knees, she squatted next to me and lifted one eyebrow.

  I stared at her.

  “You don’t got nothin’ to say about that either?”

  I remained silent, but I took note that my eye was no longer swollen shut and my lip seemed healed.

  “Huh.” Inhaling, she narrowed her eyes. “Well, how about the stab wounds on your thigh and side? What about those? You gonna tell me how you got cut up?”

  “No.”

  She made a snorting sound. “Fine. See if I care.” She reached behind her to a bag and pulled an envelope out. “I bought these off Rooney. He sells anything. Well, anything you can take, snort or swallow. You’d think he could get real medicine easily enough, but it turns out, antibiotics are harder to come by. Took two days to get these.” She shrugged. “Who knew?” Pushing out two pills from the folded envelope with writing all over it, she read the label. “You gotta take two today and one every day thereafter for four days.” She handed me the two pills.

  Cold, shaking, the blanket wrapped around me, I did not move. “I am not taking that.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Then how you gonna get better?” She nodded toward my leg. “You’re shakin’ because you got an infection in one of the knife wounds. Antibiotics fix infection. Everyone knows that.”

  I did not know that. “I have never taken them,” I admitted.

  “Well, now’s as good a time as any to start.” She raised a perfect eyebrow. “Unless you wanna die?”

  I took the pills, swallowed, and choked.

  Shoving me up to a sitting position, swatting my back hard, she made a derisive sound. “Now that was just plain dumb.” She shook her head. “Men.” Holding the water to my mouth, she cupped the back of my neck. “Drink.”

  My eyes watering, my ribs hurting, I gulped the water.

  Satisfied that I had done what she said, she sat back on her haunches again and smiled. “There, was that so hard?”

  I swiped a hand that was no longer covered in swamp mud across my mouth and lay back down. “What do you know about men?”

  Her cheeks reddened. “Plenty.”

  Remembering her on top of me, my teeth ground. “Like?”

  She dropped her gaze. “They’re all stubborn and pigheaded.”

  My nostrils flared. “Do you speak to all men like that?”

  “You always get beat up like that?” she countered, nodding at m
y body.

  Rolling over in my makeshift bed, I issued an order. “Leave.”

  “Make me.”

  I had only been awake a few minutes, but in the meager light from the one overhead bulb, I had noticed every inch of her. The way her hips curved out from her waist. How her thighs were fuller than those of any woman on the compound. How her hair was shinier. How she spoke. How she made eye contact. How she smiled without reservation.

  I had noticed it all.

  And despite my ribs, side, and leg, I thought about holding her down and entering her from behind until the sun rose.

  Looking over my shoulder, I gave her one warning. “Watch your mouth.”

  Ignoring me, she rolled her eyes. “You got a car?”

  “Would I be here if I did?” I turned away again.

  “Okay, good point.” I heard her rummage in her bag. “You need to eat a little somethin’, or those antibiotics will go right through you. And you ain’t got a bathroom out here in the garage.” She pulled on my shoulder.

  Forced to roll to my back or use what little strength I had to stay turned away from her, I chose to face her. But when my gaze landed on her, I said what I needed to say with one look.

  Unfazed, she held a sandwich out to me. “It’s Spam. It’s fresh. I just made it an hour ago, you don’t need to give me stink eye about it.” She picked up another sandwich for herself.

  What the hell was Spam?

  “Come on.” She wiggled the food in front of me. “It don’t bite.” She smiled. “At least, not anymore.”

  Sudden hunger roared through my stomach. I did not know when the last time I ate was, and food was food, so I took the sandwich. Leaning up on the arm that hurt least, I inhaled a bite. Gagging, I almost spit it out. “Salt,” I choked.

  “Well, yeah, that’s the best part. Spam bein’ salty is about one of the last things you can rely on in life.” She took a bite of her sandwich.

  “Water.”

  Sighing, she reached behind her and handed me the water. “Fine, but drink it slow.”

  I gulped the whole bottle.

  “Sweet Jesus.” She shook her head. “If you vomit, I ain’t cleanin’ it up.”

  Ignoring her, I took another bite of the horrible sandwich. Two bites later, I had finished it and my stomach was not churning as badly.

  With a knowing look, she reached in her bag and handed me another sandwich.

  I ate it.

  Watching me, she finished her first sandwich and set a new bottle of water in front of me.

  Opening it, I drank half. Then I lay back down, pulled the blanket up, and closed my eyes.

  She was quiet for half a second. “That’s it? You don’t got nothin’ to say to me?”

  “No.”

  “Didn’t your mama ever teach you manners?”

  “No.”

  “What’s your name?”

  I considered lying, but every part of my body was sore, and I was too tired to fabricate a name. “Tarquin.”

  “Tarquin?” she asked with surprise. “What kinda name is that?”

  The kind a sick, ruthless, violent cult leader assigned. “My kind of name.”

  “Huh.” I heard her slowly chewing. “What’s your last name?”

  No one went by last names on the compound because we all had the same one—his last name. But it suddenly occurred to me that I would never have to go by that surname again. I could have any last name I wanted. I could have had any first name I had wanted as well, but I had already given her mine.

  I made up a new last name. “Scott.” I had overheard one of the compound elders mention once that it was his name before he came to River Ranch. He had never done me wrong.

  “Tarquin Scott,” she repeated, slow and drawn out. “Well, nice to meet you, Tarquin. I’m—”

  “Shaila,” a female yelled from outside the building we were in.

  I went on alert and my muscles stiffened. “Who is that?”

  “My mama.” Her eyes darted toward the door. “Be quiet. I’ll be back.” She jumped up and ran toward the door. “Coming, Mama!”

  I ran toward the house.

  Mama was waiting on the front porch. Decidedly sober, she eyed the garage. “What’s going on in there? You’ve been acting strange for two days.”

  I shrugged like it was no big deal. “Daddy told me to clean it up. I’m just doin’ what I’m told.”

  She glanced back at the garage again. “Why do you have to do it at night?”

  “What else am I gonna do? We live in the middle of nowhere.”

  She frowned. “Homestead isn’t nowhere.”

  “We’re not even in Homestead proper, Mama. You know that.” I refrained from telling her she was the reason we were on the edge of civilization.

  Avoiding confrontation, she opened the front door. “Come inside.”

  I hadn’t seen it before two days ago, but I was seeing it now. Daddy had been giving her something for months, and now she was either out, or trying to stay off whatever he was pushing on her. Her hands fidgeting, her eyes darting around, she wasn’t herself. Then again, if I’d been a better daughter, I would’ve noticed her glazed eyes and lack of any kind of fidgeting for the past few months.

  But I hadn’t.

  Ever since I’d heard Daddy tell her again how he was gonna trade me up a few months ago, I’d been taking extra shifts at the gas station, stealing supplies and stocking the shack. All that busy work didn’t go hand in hand with babysitting my junkie mother.

  And now I had an even bigger distraction.

  “I left the light on in the garage.” I stepped back off the porch. “I have a few more things to pick up, then I’ll be in.”

  Mama eyed me, then the garage. Then she said the first real thing she’d said to me in months. “I know you don’t want to go with the man your father has in mind for you.”

  Shocked she was talking out of turn about Daddy, I didn’t say a thing.

  Inhaling, she stood in the open front door and met my gaze. “But your father has been taking care of me since I was your age, and I don’t have any complaints.”

  Faster than a bobcat going after a rabbit, anger flooded me from head to toe. “No complaints?” Taking care of her? “You call a couple bags of groceries a few times a month takin’ care of you?” I was incredulous. “Daddy doesn’t take care of you, Mama.” He never did. Not when she got addicted to the needle. Not when she was boozing her way through the club members. Not when she was half dead, getting ridden by two bikers at once on the pool table at the old clubhouse while she OD’d.

  “You watch your tone, Shaila Victoria Hawkins.” Just as quick as me, anger flared in her eyes. “Your father is a good man.”

  I went red hot. “A good man who doesn’t take you to a proper facility to dry out, but hauls you out to the middle of nowhere with your underage daughter? Then leaves you with no car and no money, and dumps you here so you can dry out while my ten-year-old self stood by helpless to do anything but watch you almost die from withdrawal?”

  “You do not speak about your father that way,” she chided, her voice rising. “He got me away from all that!”

  “He put you there in the first place!” I yelled back. “And now you want to condemn me to the same damn shit-for-nothing life you have!” I spun and stormed back toward the garage.

  “Shaila Victoria, shame on you! You come back here right now!”

  “Oh go smoke some pot,” I snapped, yanking the garage door open.

  “Shaila.”

  “Leave me alone!” I slammed the garage door shut after me and locked it from the inside. Stomping my foot, I growled. “She is some kinda piece of work.”

  From across the room, blue eyes in a haunted face stared at me.

  “Go ahead,” I dared. “Judge me too.”

  His voice, all gravelly and rusty, came out of his chest sounding deeper than he looked capable of. “I am in no position to judge.”

  I smirked. “If I didn’
t know better, I’d think you were being sweet to me.”

  “I am not sweet.”

  I rolled my eyes. “No kiddin’. You’re probably as bad as Rush.” I couldn’t even say the stupid biker name with dignity. And I especially couldn’t say it after having a name like Tarquin roll around in my mouth and float across my lips.

  “Who is Rush?”

  “Some biker my daddy’s gonna sell me to.” Not literally, but I knew the score. Money may as well exchange hands. That was, if Rush ever got his hands on me, which I had no intention of letting happen.

  Tarquin’s brow furrowed. “Sell?”

  “Yeah.” I crossed my arms and kicked at a crack in the old concrete floor. “Well, not for real money. More like for favors or alliances or something like that. My daddy doesn’t ever do anything for free. Including lettin’ the opportunity of his daughter’s virginity go to waste.”

  Tarquin went very still except for the swallow of his throat. “You are not a woman?”

  I laughed. “Oh, I’m all woman.”

  His frown deepened. “But you have not been taken?”

  “Taken? This isn’t kidnappers-R-us. Nobody’s takin’ me.” Unless you wanted to get technical about Daddy giving me away to some dirty biker, then yeah, I would be getting taken against my will, but I wasn’t gonna let that happen.

  “How many turns around the sun are you?”

  Wait. What? “How many what?”

  “Turns around the sun,” he repeated angrily.

  “Okay, wait.” My hands went to my hips. “Where you from? Cuz no one ’round here talks like that. I ain’t ignorant, I know you mean to ask me how old I am, but you asked the question in about the strangest way I ever did hear.”

  “There is nothing strange about it,” he snapped. “The earth revolves around the sun.”

  I stared at him a moment. “How many turns have you taken?”

  He didn’t hesitate. “Fifteen.”

  I burst out laughing and nodded at his well-over six-foot frame. “Mister, if you’re fifteen years old, then I’m the Queen of England.”

  “You are not a queen.”