ONE MORE RIDE

by Sophia Gray

  Nick, TJ, and Kyle were all hanging out at the bar, sipping beer and playing pool. Nick and TJ were some of my oldest friends, guys I’d trust with my life. Nick and I had been palling around since we’d been in high school together, but they both understood the deep inner workings of an MC. Nick especially understood the deep mechanics of our politics, of everything at play, and how hard we all had to work to keep this thing running and on the ground. Part of belonging to an MC meant playing by the rules, and our rules were pretty fucking different than the rules for civilians.

  “Hey,” Nick greeted me when I sat down and grabbed a drink. “You look like shit. What happened?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Long fuckin’ story,” I said. “We’re in a whole mess of trouble, though,” I added. “What’s new with you?”

  Nick stretched, exposing his hairy flat stomach. “Nothin’,” he said with a shrug. “Just tryin’ to get by, you know how life is.”

  I laughed and poured some of the beer down my throat. “Don’t I fuckin’ know it,” I grumbled. “We gotta have us a club meeting before too much longer.”

  “I know,” Nick said. He leaned closer. “You know, there are some problems going on in the middle of the club,” he added. “TJ and Kyle are beefin’ over something.” He rolled his eyes. “They’re such pussies. They don’t know how to take it out back like real men and settle it.”

  “Fuckin’ tell me about it,” I said, exhaling loudly. “I’ve been fighting with Kyle since he patched in.”

  Kyle was one of our youngest members. He’d come highly recommended from a charter up the coast, and I trusted him, although sometimes that trust wavered. I didn’t know if he was the kind of guy who was in it for the benefit of the group or for the benefit of himself—either way, seemed like something he'd have trouble with in certain situations. He'd been on probation for two years and after I'd patched him in, he and TJ had gotten in a hell of a fight that had lasted for weeks. The tension had been through the roof, and none of us had been happy. It wasn’t good for an MC’s morale when two of the members were beefing like TJ and Kyle had been, and now I wondered whether or not they’d ever get back to normal.

  “He’s a good dude, but his heart isn’t always in the right place,” Nick said. He lit a cigarette and took a deep drag. “And now he and TJ are fighting about some kind of boundary shit. Kyle don’t think he should be required to keep the details of the club from his girlfriend, and TJ thinks he’s being a reckless motherfucker.”

  My head snapped up. This was news. Most of the guys in the MC didn’t have an old lady, and as far as I was concerned, that was for the best. Women tended to fuck things up when they hung around for too long, and even though Kyle had a good head on his shoulders, I knew that was no exception. Nothing made a man crazy like pussy, and a man who was going to turn on his men could easily be tempted by a whiff of a woman’s musk.

  “I’ll talk to him,” I said darkly. “He around?”

  Nick shook his head. “TJ and him and I went to some party at the Succubi’ clubhouse a couple of weeks back,” he said with a dry laugh. “Those cunts are real bitches! Some of ’em, at least. Real man-haters! They all must be dykes.”

  My mouth went dry. “You went to a fuckin’ MC clubhouse for a party that wasn’t for us?”

  “Yeah,” Nick snorted. “It was a real fuckin’ hoot, man. I got punched out by the biggest dyke I’ve ever seen. She was real ornery,” he added, opening his eyes wide. “She didn’t want us menfolk hanging around with our dicks hanging out.”

  I laughed. "I'm surprised she didn't shoot your dicks clean off," I said with a smirk. "That group is full of bitches."

  “Real young ones, too,” Nick agreed. “And yeah, I thought for sure she was gonna clean my clock just for daring to walk my cock into a woman’s space.”

  I finished the bottle of beer, tossed it on the floor, then reached for another one. All this talk of women was making me think about Candace again, and I knew that was a dangerous path to go down. The dream I’d had the other night was disturbing. I couldn’t keep thinking about her. Not now, not when everything I’d worked for was finally starting to pay off. And especially not now that I was dealing with this mysterious woman bullshit. It was too much to handle.

  “Where’s Kyle?”

  Nick shrugged. “I saw him earlier, moving some boxes in the back,” he said. “You might wanna go check there.”

  I hopped up from the bar stool and sauntered into the warehouse portion of the bar. This was where we kept all of our booze and smokes, and the guns that we hadn’t unloaded or managed to sell yet. Sure enough, Kyle was shirtless and hunched down, pulling something out of a carton. Straw had spilled all over the floor and he was rooting through the box with a determined expression on his broad face.

  “Hey,” I said shortly. “We need to talk.”

  Kyle poked his head up from behind the box. “What’s up?”

  “What’s this about a girlfriend?” I sat down on the floor of the warehouse and stared at him in the eyes. Kyle was a pretty handsome guy, he never had trouble keeping the girls away. When we had parties with strippers and other girls for entertainment, Kyle always had three on his lap and two curled up on the ground in front of him. He had a babyish face with big brown eyes and wide lips. He kept his hair closely trimmed and he always looked like a soldier out on leave. Maybe that was one of the reasons why he couldn’t keep the girls away.

  Kyle grinned. “It ain’t nothin’,” he said with a wolfish smile. “Why you askin’?”

  I snorted. “Because you’re a member of my MC,” I said. “And it’s my fuckin’ business. I gotta make sure you’re not spilling trade secrets to some broad.”

  Kyle actually had the nerve to laugh. I wanted to punch him in the gut and wipe that smug smirk right off his face. Even though I respected him most of the time, I didn't like this back talking shit. He was going to have to learn who his elders were, and how to respect them.

  “She’s not gonna steal any secrets,” Kyle said. He held his hands up like he was jokingly admitting defeat. “She’s in an MC, she knows how things go.”

  “Oh yeah?” I glared at him. “This woulda been the information to tell me before you wanted to actually date her,” I said. “We scout these girls. We gotta make sure they’re clean, and we gotta make sure they’re not out to harm our club. Here, we look out for each other first, you got that?”

  Kyle rolled his eyes. “She’s a hot piece of snatch,” he said. “You wouldn’t be saying that if you knew how this girl fucked.”

  Before I knew what I was doing, I got to my feet and strode over to him, kicking him in the ribs. Kyle went flailing on his back, groaning and rolling around with his hands clutching his sides. He retched and a string of vomit came out, covering the concrete floor with iridescent slime.

  “What the hell, man,” Kyle sputtered. “What the fuck!”

  I got down on my knees and gazed into his brown eyes, hardening my face and making sure I looked like a real asshole. “You know exactly what that was for,” I muttered. “And you knew! You knew going into this that you weren’t going to shack up with some bitch and tell her all about Jungle’s Thorns!”

  Now I was really angry. I strode away, leaving Kyle rolling around on the floor like a pathetic, whimpering little scamp. I couldn’t believe his nerve! The way he’d be willing to fuck his club just for a piece of ass! Men nowadays weren’t like the guys I’d known growing up, they were different. Selfish, myopic. Just real assholes when it came down to it.

  As I was leaving the warehouse, it occurred to me that I hadn’t asked Kyle if he knew the woman who had attacked me the night before. Nick and TJ were still at the bar, chasing shots of whiskey with beer. I swallowed and coughed, trying to make my voice sound as normal as possible.

  “Hey, you guys ever seen a woman hanging around with black hair and blue eyes?” I looked around, trying to seem casual. “I mean, not that I care.”

  TJ snorted. “You ask
in’ about a chick, boy, I think you care a lot.”

  Nick laughed. “Yeah, man, I have to believe you’re wanting that pussy if you saw some girl and you’re asking around for her now.”

  Thinking of my dream about Candace from the previous night, I almost denied it. Then I realized that it would be a great way to act like it wasn’t a big deal.

  “Yeah,” I said, smiling a little. “That’s it, I want to fuck her. She was here last night, drinking at the bar. When the band was playing, I stumbled in and sat down next to her and bought her a drink. She was really game, but when I went to the bathroom and came back, she’d wandered off.”

  Nick rubbed his fingers together. “She probably just wanted some money, brother,” he said, laughing. “Those greedy bitches know we’re loaded.”

  That wasn’t what she wanted, I thought sourly. But what did she want?

  “Maybe, but she didn’t seem like that kind of girl,” I replied. “TJ, you seen her?”

  TJ shook his head. “Sounds like a hot little number, you know I like those black-haired girls. But no, I haven’t seen her. At least not anyone with blue eyes.”

  Her blue eyes. I couldn’t get those eyes out of my head. They were exactly like Candace’s eyes, exactly like the eyes I used to spend hours staring into and planning my future.

  “I’ll wait around until tonight,” I grumbled. I knew the bartenders who had worked yesterday were coming back for another round tonight. “And then I can see who remembers her.”

  Between my hangover and the after-effects of the drug I’d been given, the hours crept by. I spent time at the bar, helping Nick and TJ clean up. And then I walked around with my hands shoved in my pockets, killing time until sundown. A miraculous thing happened as soon as the sun disappeared below the horizon: the club became our zone again. It didn’t belong to the attendants, or to the women who came looking for a piece of biker ass. It belonged to us, the Jungle’s Thorns. This was our place, our little slice of heaven that we’d managed to forge in this fucked up world. This was more than just a bar, it was like a second home to me. And for some of the guys, it was their first home. Nick and TJ would never have dreamed of forsaking their club just for the sake of a piece of ass. But Kyle on the other hand…

  By the time night had fallen, I was pretty sick with worry. I still hadn’t been able to remember what I’d told the woman from the night before, and my body was aching like I’d been thrown down a well. All I wanted was to go home and curl up in bed with a glass of bourbon, but that wasn’t exactly an option right now. Not when my club and my life were potentially at stake.

  The first bartender who came in was a thin, reedy man with a handlebar mustache. Despite his lean build, he'd served time in the Marines and I knew that he was more than capable of defending himself and the rest of the bar. Tom wasn't the friendliest guy around, but he was there for a reason.

  “Yo,” I said as I swaggered up to the bar. “Need to ask you somethin’. Did you see a woman hanging around here last night, about this tall,” I added, holding my hand to my chin in an approximation of the mystery woman. “She had black hair and bright blue eyes.”

  Tom grinned. “No,” he said. “But now I feel pretty fuckin’ bad that I missed out.” He winked at me. “New girlfriend?”

  I snorted. “Not hardly,” I said. “I just need to find her. She was…well, I need to find her again. I talked to her for a bit last night, over there.” I pointed towards the back bar, closer to the stage.

  Tom nodded. “Minnie was tending bar back there,” he said. “Why don’t you ask her?”

  Frowning, I walked over to the back bar. Minnie was a bigger woman who always wore low-cut tops, exposing her massive cleavage. She had a smile for everyone but I’d seen her knock a few assholes out in her day—like Tom, she was stronger than she looked.

  “Hey, sugar,” Minnie greeted me. “What can I do you for?”

  I grinned and slid into a stool. “A beer,” I said. “And I need to know if you remember this woman from last night. She was talking to me for a little while, and she had black hair and blue eyes.” I held up my hand. “About this tall.”

  Minnie pursed her wide lips. “Yeah,” she said after a moment. “I remember her. Real nondescript, black clothes.”

  “Did she have anything that stood out?” I pressed. “Any jewelry, any tattoos?”

  Minnie crossed her arms over her bosom. “No,” she said softly. “Not really. Not that I can think of.” She frowned, her forehead creasing right down the center. “You know, actually, yeah, there was one little thing.” She gestured towards her shoulder. “When that girl took off her jacket, she had a Succubi tattoo right here. She tapped her bare skin that was wrinkled and saggy with age. “That’s it, though. I don’t even think she was wearing any earrings.”

  I swallowed hard. Of course. The Succubi.

  Chapter Eight

  Stephanie

  I sulked about the result of the meeting all day. After the girls voted to call the cops on the weapons dealer for Jungle’s Thorns, I felt my will begin to leave my body. It was like we were being sabotaged from the inside out, and I no longer knew how to act. I couldn’t believe Val, of all people. Val, who was supposed to support my decisions and be smart about what was good for the club.

  Val hadn’t exactly apologized for her little rousing outburst. After the meeting, I strode outside and lit a cigarette, letting it dangle from my lip as I stared moodily at the black asphalt. It was streaked with grime, grease, and oil, and I watched as the fading light of day made the oil sheen look like a rainbow. It smelled harsh, but I welcomed that smell: it was the smell of comfort, the smell of familiarity. It was the smell of home.

  “Hey,” Val’s voice punctured my silence. “What’re you doing?”

  I scowled. “What the fuck does it look like I’m doing?” I twisted my neck to the side and glared up at her. “Seriously, Val, you threw me to the fucking wolves in there!”

  Val shook her head and puffed her cheeks out. “Girl, like I’d do that to my oldest friend,” she said as she wrapped her arm around me and pulled me close. “You know I just gotta look out for the girls, you know what that feels like.”

  I pushed her arm away from me and stood up, throwing my cigarette to the ground and crushing it under my toe. “You don’t understand,” I said softly. “You really don’t get it, do you?”

  Val looked at me with a pained expression on her wide face. “We’ll always be best friends,” she said. “I mean, you can trust me, can’t you?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t feel like I can trust you right now,” I told her truthfully. “I can barely stand to be around you; you go against everything I say and make me look like a bad leader.”

  Val frowned again. “You ain’t getting it. I’m doing this for the club, I’m doing this to help you be a good president. I’m doing this for the girls, for Jessica,” she added.

  Exasperation filled my lungs and I had to take a deep breath. “It doesn’t fucking work like that,” I snapped. “Either you stand with me or you make me look like an asshole in front of everyone, what about that don’t you understand?”

  “Jessica was raped,” Val said. She crossed her arms over her chest and looked at me with sass. “Why don’t you want to help her?”

  “Because if we go to the police, they’re not going to help at all!” The volume of my voice was rising and I could barely keep my anger contained. “They’re going to fucking ruin us, Val! They’re going to tear this club apart before we even know what’s happening!”

  Val looked at me. “You really don’t care, do you?”

  “Of course I care!” I roared. “I was the one who wanted Jessica in this club! I was the one who persuaded you!” All of a sudden, I knew that I had to get away. I had to get out. If I stayed around for any longer, I was going to start feeling like I’d begun taking crazy pills. This was more than I could handle and I didn’t want to let Val influence me anymore. I didn’t even know why I was fi
ghting anymore—it felt like a betrayal of the utmost kind.

  Val blew out a sharp breath. “Fuck you,” she said quietly. "You ain't a good president, Stephanie." With that, she turned on her heel and strode back inside the clubhouse.

  Anger filled my body and before I knew what I was doing, I ran after her and put my hand on her shoulder. Val turned around and looked into my eyes—her dark eyes looked like pools of black—and I saw her flared nostrils, registered how angry she was. I made my hand into a fist and swung back before making contact with her broad nose and punching her hard. Val cried out and blood spurted from her nose. She staggered backward but didn't fall, her feet tangled and stumbled and eventually, she regained her balance. She put a hand up to her face and held her nose, glaring at me with her dark brown eyes.

  “Fuckin’ bitch,” Val spat, making a little puddle of blood on the ground. “You can’t just beat everyone you disagree with.”