CHAPTER TWO
Grace
Do you ever wish you could change the channel on your past? Give yourself a whole new identity, and lay down the unfortunate baggage you were assigned to carry into your future?
You do your best to leave it behind, but the memories stay with you. Indelible. Unforgettable. Unforgivable.
The best thing you can do is carry on and figure out how to cope when the memories sneak up on you unexpectedly. I should know. I’ve tried everything to forget. I’ve turned my back on the places, the people, the pain. But it’s always there. Lingering, like a disease.
You can’t pick where you came from.
But, eventually, when you get old enough, you can choose where you’re headed.
And that’s what I did. As soon as I could, I left all the dysfunction of my family behind, and I ran towards my future.
Unfortunately, it stays with you, and you quickly learn you can’t forget it, no matter how much you try. If I couldn't forget, as much as I wanted to, I could use the past and everything I survived to make a new life of my own, and hopefully save some others in the process.
My name is Grace. Grace Evans. I used to be Grace Faith Taylor. But I escaped that life, and changed my name. Unlike a lot of people with similar histories, I was able to get out alive.
The key to surviving was simply leaving. As long as I wasn’t around my family, I was safe. It was the opposite of how it was supposed to be. I didn’t have a normal home.
Now that I was out, now that I was an adult, I set out to turn it around.
I survived hell, and I knew there were others still living in it, and a lot of them had it even worse than what I went through.
My goal became to get them all out, one by one, if that’s what it took. No matter how long, or how hard or dangerous it became, it was worth it if I saved just one girl from one more day of suffering.
I grew up, I told my story, and I put my abusers away. The trial was torture, but I got what I wanted. Ten years each. I did my best to put it all behind me after that.
I changed my name to give myself a little distance, a little autonomy.
Then, I worked my ass off until I got into the exact position I needed to be in to do what I had decided I was put here on this Earth to do.
Stop the madness. Stop the abuse of women and children by predatory monsters that wanted only to use them up and spit them out. To do so, I became a monster myself. A one woman army fighting day and night, living and breathing my mission until I was the mission.
There was no personal life. There was just my life. And all the others I planned on saving along the way.
I was determined to let nothing get in my way, and so far, nothing had.
Not until now. Now, I had a problem. An obstacle.
And it was standing over me, watching the blood stream out of my mouth with a joy so evil that it was oozing from him. The thick, heavy strike of his leather boot on my ribs pushed me back six inches in the dirt and my eyes began to blur as the flesh around them began to swell from the impact from his fists moments ago.
One by one, the stars in the sky disappeared, as did his voice, and I lay there motionless, staring into the immense blackness as it engulfed me completely.
From far away, I could hear his evil laughter echoing in my mind until it slowly morphed into a loud, overwhelming vibration that rang throughout my entire body. The trees towering over me, the rocks that lay on the ground beside my lifeless body - the very sky itself - began to vibrate violently and for so long that I finally melted into it, drifting off with the sensation, becoming one with the shaking, until all the pain was gone and I slept the most peaceful sleep I had ever slept in my entire life.
CHAPTER THREE
Ryder
I awoke to the sounds of crickets chirping outside my window, and a tongue twirling warmly around the shaft of my hard cock. Groaning, I reached down and sank my fingers into Cherry’s copper curls and sank my cock deeper into her skillful mouth. Tiff’s perky breasts pressed into my side as she squirmed against me, her soft body wrapping itself around me in the darkness.
After hours of sinking myself into both of them after returning to the clubhouse, I had drifted off to sleep. But, as usual, the girls were insatiable, only allowing me a brief time to rest before they were begging for more. And by begging, I mean taking. Asleep or not, you’d be hard-pressed to find any man that could resist the hardening of his cock in the presence of these two.
They knew exactly what I liked, and how I liked it. They also knew what I didn’t like. And that was the most important skill of all.
I was all business. Don’t get me wrong, I was more than happy to get serious between the sheets, or against the wall, or up against a tree in the middle of the woods, but once it was over, I had no time for messy feelings or clingy women. I wasn’t old man material. I never had been, and I never would be.
Cherry and Tiff knew that, even if Cherry tried to get a little possessive sometimes. Every now and then, I’d have to remind her of the limits of our interactions. And sure, Tiff was technically our prospect Thorn’s occasional squeeze, but as the President of the Gods of Chaos MC, I had earned the right to be with any of the club girls I wanted. Unless she was someone’s old lady, and there was only one of those around these days. Most of the brothers weren’t too interested in making these girls a permanent part of their lives. Sure, they might take a liking to one or two, but they were rarely attached to anyone in particular. So, I borrowed Tiff every now and then.
I liked the way she tasted. And she reminded me just how much by climbing up and straddling my face at the same time that Cherry smoothly mounted my cock. They rode me simultaneously, deliciously rocking their beautiful pussies against me, their lips and tongues melting together above me. The sound of their moans filled the clubhouse as we worked with a triple goal in mind. Tiff’s pussy was like velvet against my tongue, as I fucked into both of them over and over, our bodies meeting in the space between, slamming into each other again and again, harder and faster with every sweet, debaucherous thrust.
Cherry tightened around my cock, her spasming pussy rhythmically pulling me over the edge as I reached up, and grabbing Tiff’s hips, I pulled her down towards me and pressed my tongue into her deeper and deeper until she was thrashing above me, the three of us coming together in a symphony of moans and soft screams, our voices echoing into the darkness of the still black night.
We collapsed in a pile of naked limbs on my bed, the girls cooing on either side of me as I caught my breath, our chests rising and falling in the quiet room. This time, the girls drifted off to sleep, and I gently untangled myself, leaving them cuddled together as I snuck off to the shower.
I cherished times like these. Rarely was there anything quiet about the clubhouse. The sounds of the party had faded long ago, and I knew all too well the scene that would greet me when I opened the door that led out of the peaceful privacy of my room and into the chaos of the clubhouse. But every now and then, I was blessed with being awake during those moments in between the chaos.
The peace was comforting.
I showered and dressed quietly, pulling my jeans over my hips, buckling my heavy silver skull belt-buckle, and placing my piece in the gun pocket of my cut. My knife slid smoothly into its leather case on my left hip, and my second knife fit snugly into my black leather harnessed biker boots. I stretched a clean, white t-shirt over my tattooed torso, and shrugged my cut on over my shoulders. I never felt quite right until I had my cut on.
Like I said before, chaos was my life. This vest was a badge of honor, a symbol of respect for everything I chose to do, the very person I chose to be.
It was a part of me just as much as my skin was.
I took one last look at the girls in my bed, looking like angels sleeping with nothing covering them but the pale moonlight streaming in from the window.
Any normal man would not be leaving. Any normal man would not be about to wind his way thro
ugh the remnants of last night’s party, straddle a dangerous machine, and roar straight into the pitch black danger of the night to meet up with a fellow criminal to plan their weekly agenda of crimes. No. Any normal man wouldn’t have done any of that.
But, like I said before, there’s nothing normal about me.
I walked through spilled beer, side-stepped naked bodies strewn all around, picked up some broken glass, and turned down the stereo behind the bar. When I stepped outside, it felt like only minutes had passed since I had walked in. In truth, it had been several hours, but the night felt young, and as I took a deep breath, letting the cold air fill my lungs, I felt invigorated. Strong.
I pulled on my helmet, started up my bike, and drove slowly, peacefully, down the winding road that would lead me to the main highway that would eventually lead me to the coast, where I was expected in an hour. Plenty of time to go slow and enjoy the stillness of the night.
Unfortunately, that peace was short-lived. As soon as I spotted the headlights, I knew something was wrong. Nobody ever came this far down our road, and if they did, they were on a bike and I knew them well.
At first, I could only make out the shadow of the man. His long, sleek El Camino shimmered in the moonlight like a snake lying behind him, lighting him up. When he turned towards me, I saw the glint of gold in his mouth. Then, I saw the silhouette of his cock in one hand, and a pistol in the other. He froze like a deer in my headlight, to my advantage. Before he could think to take one step towards me, I was on him. As I jumped off my bike, I saw the woman lying at his feet. I saw her bloody face, her skirt hiked up around her hips, her bare legs and feet covered in scratches, and I attacked without any further thought or debate.
Whoever this guy was, he was no good.
I barreled into his chest, knocking him off his feet, his gun skidding through the dirt and resting in the grass ten feet away. Stunned, he stared up at me, locking eyes with me as I grabbed him by the lapels of his filthy white suit jacket. A crumpled pink carnation clung to his front pocket like a dying wish.
“Who the fuck are you?” I asked.
“Fuck you!” A sickly, evil grin spread across his gaunt face.
Sweet anticipation spread through my veins as I asked one more question before pummeling him.
“Who is she?” I asked, my chin jutting in the direction of the still motionless, bloody woman.
“Just a cunt who deserves what she got.” The sick sneer remained on his face until the first contact of my fist. The rest was a blur. I don’t know how long I hit him. At least until he stopped moving. A shot in his leg, just in case he decided to come back to while I went to check on the girl.
She had a pulse. Gently, I pulled her long blonde hair away from her face. Her eyes were closed and the swelling was already beginning. My eyes trailed up and down her battered body, and rage swelled inside of me again.
My eyes darted over to the man, and he began moaning softly, barely moving, like a dying piece of roadkill. I rose, my stride unflinching, with more purpose than I had ever felt in my life. My gun was heavy in my hand. My bicep twitched as it went off, my hand holding onto my weapon steadily, with ease, with confident intention.
And then he stopped moving. Suddenly. Easily.
And just like that, the stillness returned. But, while the peacefulness I loved had only been interrupted by a few moments, now, everything was different.
That stillness now came with a price.
I stood over her, staring down at this strange woman, and wondering what the hell I had stumbled upon. Who was she? A hooker? His lover?
I rifled through the El Camino, and found nothing but a bottle of lube in the glove compartment and a few condoms under the front seat. Two joints were in the ash tray, which I pocketed. No purse, though. I walked over to the dead guy, taking him in briefly before looking through his pockets. I wasn’t much on fashion, but even I could tell his suit was cheap by the thin, rough fabric and his shoes, while very shiny, weren’t even real leather. His stringy black hair was slicked back away from his ugly, pock-marked face.
I found his wallet, with an ID that said he was Franco Javier Corona and had an address in Gresham. Three hundred and fifty-seven dollars in small bills, and two hotel card keys, and not much else. I pocketed the cash, and tucked his wallet back inside his suit jacket.
I looked at the girl again, and shook my head. Something wasn’t right. She was too healthy, too pretty to be a hooker. Way too fucking pretty to be the dead guy’s girlfriend. Her skin, while bruised and scratched, was smooth and toned, with a perfect bronze sheen to it. Her curvy hips swelled away from a taut, strong core of perfect ab muscles that I could see a flash of because her black tank top was pushed up against the swell of her full breasts. Every hooker I had ever seen was emaciated and ravaged from drugs and other various abuses, and the girl laying in front of me looked as healthy as a prized horse.
A prized, knocked-out, completely unconscious horse.
I realized then I needed to work fast. She would just have to tell me who she was when she woke up. But for now, I needed to get her out of here, and clean up this mess.
I took a step towards her, and my eye caught a slight movement to my left. I looked over in the shadows, and couldn’t believe my eyes.
An owl. The owl. No, it couldn’t be, I thought. But he was a dead ringer for the damned owl that had appeared only twice in my past. And just like before, he sat there, staring at me, his huge eyes blinking, calm and noble, looking as if he owned the fucking forest. Could it really be the same one?
If it was, then I knew this was a terrible omen.
The first time he appeared was so long ago, it almost felt like a dream. Twenty years ago and it was the last and only time I had ever loved a woman. I was a naive twenty year old, and I couldn’t wait to marry Julie. Young or not, naive or not, I knew she was the one I needed to spend the rest of my life with. We got married on the Oregon coast, both of us wearing black leather and huge smiles. After a year of love-drenched bliss, she died in a senseless car crash coming home from work. The night I lost her, this damn owl showed up as I stampeded through the forest, screaming at the moon in a drunken rage and grief-filled bout of insanity. He sat perched on a rock, his huge golden eyes blinking at me, his eyes filled with what I perceived at the time to be understanding.
The second time was ten years later when my dad died, leaving behind an empty seat at the head of the table at the clubhouse. There was nobody else qualified to fill it, so there I sat, the middle of the night, all alone, listening to my old man’s favorite Waylon Jennings record. It was a hot summer night, and the windows were open, the blackness of the forest quiet and inky beyond the window. The owl appeared out of nowhere, landing on the windowsill in a soft, sweeping flap of his feathery wings, scaring the ever-loving shit out of me. We sat there for several long moments, staring each other down in the quiet stillness of the night. Again, he blinked over and over, and my blood went cold when it dawned on me the last time I had seen him was when Julie had died.
And now here he was again. Only this time, he was sitting in the grass, the moonlight falling over his body as he gazed up at me. Something about him was different, but that didn’t dawn on me right away. Later, I would realize he looked friendlier, curious almost. Not so serious, perhaps. But tonight, just like before, he filled me with terror just by appearing. So much so that it abruptly jarred me out of my daze and I quickly set into motion.
Gently, I lifted up the girl and placed her in the El Camino. She didn’t budge even slightly, worrying me even more. I threw the man’s body in the back of the El Camino, thanking him out loud when I saw the tarp already back there, just waiting for the perfect dead body to come along and wrap itself up in it.
“What a thoughtful piece of shit you are,” I said to him as I closed the tailgate.
After parking my bike on the side of the road, I hopped in the driver’s seat, turning on the ignition. My eyes locked with the owl’s once aga
in, who had been silently watching my every move.
“Shit,” I muttered to myself.
I started the car and headed down the road back to the clubhouse, watching the owl grow smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror behind me.
CHAPTER FOUR
Grace
The fog wouldn’t lift. As much as I tried to swim through it, as hard as I tried to muster every ounce of strength in my brain, I couldn’t break the surface.
The searing pain was gone, but the darkness remained. Foggy, black, heavy, like a storm cloud that never broke open. It was as if I carried it, far in the back of my mind, while it continuously threatened to spill itself. The promise of light remained merely inches away, a constant nagging anticipation, a longing that I could see but couldn’t touch.
Where was I? What was I supposed to be doing? The limbo of uncertainty haunted every second, every breath that managed to scrape its way out of my lungs was a question. But there were no answers. The light never came.
I floated, aimlessly searching the corners of my mind for some tidbit of knowledge that might give me even a tiny twinge of insight as to who I was, where I was, why I was.
And still, the light never came. Only the promise of it, like a word on the tip of my tongue that I never remembered, that I couldn’t even remember if I used to know.
Everything was just gone. My past. My future. My present.
All of it. Wiped clean.
Empty.
CHAPTER FIVE
Ryder
I sat at the edge of the bed, my gaze trailing back and forth between her closed eyelids, her lips and her chest. I rubbed my swollen, tired eyes, my body begging me to go to sleep. But I couldn’t. Even when I had forced myself to lay down, I was haunted by thoughts of her. It was no use. I had spent three days now searching for any sign of her waking up, but nothing had changed. It was the middle of the night, the clubhouse partying having died down once again. Stillness fell over the room, nothing but the faint sounds of country music playing in the background and her breath dancing with mine as I watched her, remembering, waiting, waiting, waiting.
Hope Against Hope: The Hope Brothers Series Page 14