by M. N. Forgy
Shaking his head, he walks out of the room, slamming my door behind him. My shoulders tense from the loud echo of the door.
Sometimes I cannot believe he agrees with the rest of the club, or should I say my fucking father. That’s something that makes me question him. He’s always pushing for more between us, yet when push comes to shove, he takes my father’s words as his bond.
“No woman will ever be patched in.” I hear my father’s voice echo through my brain. I have more balls then the crew my father has behind him.
My loyalty runs blood deep, and the fact I have a pussy is blinding anyone from seeing that. This club is who I am, it’s who I’ve always been.
I just need to prove myself I have what it takes to stand with the rest of them. Then they will all see a woman is just as worthy to sit at the club table as a man. Raising my hand, my fingers fumble with my bottom lip in thought.
I stall, my eyes widening with a brilliant idea.
That’s just it, I need to prove I’m strong. A chance to show them that I can be trusted to do what is needed to be my dad’s right hand. It’s 2018, times of change. Why can’t a woman sit at the table, ride a motorcycle, and be a patched-in member? Especially if she proves she has what it takes just as much as any other man at the table?
I jerk the door open, and quickly head down the stairs, determined to make my dad give me a job. The doors to the chapel are closed, meaning church is already in session. Church as in, this where they hold their meetings and daily business. I’d do anything to be at the table, to hear where they’re going, who they’re hurting, and what is to come at the hands of the Shadow Keepers. I want to see who falls to their knees at the mercy of my family, to see the fear seep from someone who crossed us. I can’t sit idle a moment longer, I need excitement. I need … to find my place in this world.
We’re all sinners here, yet I’m the only one everyone walks around like a sacred angel that might break at any moment. I’m no fucking angel.
I carefully press my ear to the metal door to listen in. These doors were crafted from old boat docks nearby, and are thick. Making it hard to hear anything. Still. This might be the closest I’ve been to that table in a long time. My heart pounds so loudly I gently place my hand on the swell of my chest trying to calm myself so I can hear what’s being said.
“Governor Timothy hasn’t paid us back. He still owes us ten grand for making that leader protesting the rebuild on the Animosity Community, disappear,” my dad informs the table. My mouth parts hearing we killed a protestor to help a governor. There has been a lot of speculation on the television about his backroad ways, and if he’s in with our club then he’s definitely messed up.
“That build wiped out a lot of wildlife.” Viper’s tone grim, and I frown thinking about all the animals losing homes. Viper is one of the younger men at the table and has a fascination with snakes. I hear he has a poisonous viper in his room, but that’s not why they call him Viper. One time last year he walked through the club with a bottle of half-filled Jack Daniels bottle in one hand and was completely naked. I caught a glimpse of a snake tattoo winding up the side of his hard body. A viper to be exact. My spoon fell into my bowl of Fruit Loops as I’ve never seen a naked man look so beautiful before, the clinking sound caught his attention and he winked at me as he continued his way through the clubhouse as if his erect cock wasn’t swinging freely. It was so long, it could be a snake. So it begs the question. Do they call him Viper because of his lengthy cock, or is it because of the tattoo?
He’s the Sergeant at Arms. You need a weapon, he has it. I hear his room has guns of all sorts on the walls. I’ve tried to pick the lock to see for myself, but it’s impenetrable.
“Aw, look. Viper grew a vagina,” Roadie teases Viper for caring about the demolition of nature. Roadie is our road captain and just happens to be Benji’s dad. I’ve known him a long time. He’s getting older in age though, I don’t think he will be able to lead many more rides due to his sore hands and back. I head the last ride they went on they had to keep stopping to give Roadie’s hands a break.
“Are you wanting to fuck me now, Roadie? I knew you were fucking gay,” Viper strikes back.
“Only if there’s a tight pussy in between those ass cheeks,” Roadie replies seriously.
“Enough,” Dad orders the banter to stop. “He has threatened to burn down our club, and turn us over to the police if we retaliate in any way,” my father informs his men. This news makes my nostrils flare. This is my home, my life. Surely my father won’t just sit back and let this man breathe after such grave threats.
I bite my bottom lip as I listen in, my ear nearly suction-cupped to the door.
“We should send a warning,” Bridge states. Bridge is one of those men that look like they just got out of prison. Hairy, tattooed, and built. He’s quiet, and mysterious too. Only thing that breaks that outlaw look is the fact he hates driving his bike over bridges. Benji told me Bridge has driven an hour out of the way from the rest of the men just to avoid a fucking bridge. Nobody knows why he hates bridges, and if you ask, all you get is a serious, intense stare. Like he might snap your neck.
So, nobody asks anymore.
“Whatever we do, it has to be a smart move. Bold and quick so he can’t follow through with his threats,” Dad clarifies.
“You can’t trust politicians,” Viper sneers, and I roll my eyes. Viper doesn’t know shit about politics, so his statement is vague as shit.
“Babe, what are you doing?” I snap upright, my spine stiff. I’ve been caught listening in to club business, which is a big lawbreaker of the Shadow Keepers. We don’t have a lot of rules, but the ones we do have are firm and the law we live by. It’s not like the laws normal citizens follow, those are trivial compared to ours if you disobey them. There is no hope for you here; you’re fucked. I remember one time Benji and I sat on the stairs as we watched Roadie and my father take a blow torch to one of the member’s backs burning off his club colors for underselling some of our top pot and keeping the profit. I’ll never forget the smell. Benji tried to cover my eyes, but I wanted to watch. Something drew me to the violence and excited me.
The sound of Tickles clearing her throat makes me tense, and my head snaps in her direction. She’s a club bitch and thinks she belongs here more than I because she sleeps with everyone. The men call her a club cunt, but I hate that fucking term just about as much as I hate her. She’s got cherry red hair with blue streaks, and fake eyelashes so big they touch her thin eyebrows.
She’s not fat, but not skinny. She has curves, and big breasts to match. I’ve seen her naked more than I’d like as she has no shame walking around without any clothes on.
I know I’m no good for Benji, but when Tickles gets around him and bats those lashes, it’s like all the butterflies in my stomach die off one by one. I want to kill her.
Seeing Tickles stare at me as she waits for my response on why I am listening in to a chapter meeting has my hands rolling into fists. I want to hurt her, but even if she is just a club slut… she’s one of ours and I can’t touch her without repercussions.
“I was just seeing if they had started their meeting, I needed to ask my father something and didn’t want to interrupt,” I lie with a fake smile. She rolls her eyes and tucks herself behind the bar for a morning drink. Vodka with a splash of orange juice.
“Daddies little psycho path,” she mocks with an ugly face.
My nails dig into my palms as I glare in her direction. I hate being called that, and she always does it. I know it was her that scratched it into my bedroom door.
“You think those men are capable of savage acts?’ I ask. “I will murder your whole family if you talk to Benji again.” I threaten with a blank stare. She blinks slowly, her brain trying to process if I’m fucking with her or not.
Keeping chin up, I make quick of my footwork, and I head back upstairs to our house. I grab my leather bag from the corner and start stuffing it full of clothes as quickly
as I can. If my dad isn’t going to protect this club with guns blazing, and won’t trust me behind the table with him, then I will fucking do a job by myself. Without his consent.
I have to find my place in this world, and if breaking club law and going behind his and Benji’s back is the only way… then so be it. They won’t kill me for disobeying, I’m the club princess after all.
Pulling open my top drawer full of panties, I dump them on the floor, grabbing the pistol just before it clanks to the carpeted ground. Pulling the chamber open, I make sure it’s loaded and shut it again. Dad doesn’t know I have it, nobody does. I snatched it from Roadies’ holster one night when he was so drunk he passed in the middle of taking a piss by the back door. He thinks a hang-around stole it. Which is something that is very likely to happen. A hang-around comes around when parties are going on, someone who wants in the club but hasn’t shown their full worth yet. To have a gun from a Shadow Keeper, that is show and tell at its fucking finest.
Stepping out of my room I tiptoe down the stairs, look at the church door one last time, before running out the back of the club.
Bud stands just outside, making me skid to a stop.
“Bud,” I say in surprise. Hat lowered, Bud looks up, eyes meeting mine before falling to my leather bag. Bud looks down before going inside and slamming the door. Bud knows I’m running and is letting me go.
I strengthen my hold on my bag. “We can do this,” I encourage myself. Pumping myself up for the journey ahead. I’m not going to lie, I’m scared as shit. I’ve never been outside these walls by myself.
The bus station is only a mile from here, I can make it on foot. Tossing my bag over my shoulder, I run. The night air is crisp and fills my lungs as I sprint away from the only thing I’ve ever known.
I’ll prove them all wrong. I’ll prove that I belong here. There is no other choice.
Running across the beach and the main highway I head to the bus station, looking over my shoulder the whole time. I’m so scared I’ll get caught it’s taking everything I have to hold down my dinner.
It’s raining, thunder cracking in the sky as my clothes stick to my skin making it harder for me to run. Huffing out of breath, and freezing despite the heat, I finally make it. Trying to catch my breath I sit under the small awning and look the governor up on my phone, getting all the details I need to make him my target. A family picture of him, his wife, and who looks like maybe his daughter and her husband grab my attention.
The young man’s hand is interlocked in the daughter’s, as she smiles and waves as if she’s fucking running for Miss America. The husband looks scared, miserable even.
I run my finger over my screen. Their clothes are so nice, their faces smooth and unknown of hardship.
They’re privileged and that alone sparks a burning jealousy in my chest. The hardships of my life are badges of honor I wear proudly. It’s proof I’m stronger than those who stick their nose up as they walk by.
The husband’s shirt catches my attention as my finger slides over him. He’s wearing a typical Arizona college shirt. You see young kids wearing them all the time, but this man looks to be in his thirties and doesn’t look to be a college student in the least bit. I click a new browser open and Google the college and the professors. Finding his profile picture at the very top. I open it.
Professor Michael Prescott teaches American literature. Volunteering in the horticulture department as a passion on the weekends. He’s married to June Prescott, the governor’s daughter—
I stop there, tapping my foot in thought. Dad said we needed to be smart, but bold in our strike against the governor. Maybe instead of going at the governor directly, I should take what matters most to him. His family.
A family walks past me, and I fake a smile. A mother and father pass carrying a little girl. She has bouncy blonde pigtails and an old teddy bear hanging from one of her hands. The little girl looks over her dad’s shoulder at me when they pass. Her eyes locked on mine.
“Hi!” The little girl waves at me, her bravery to talk to me taking me aback. The father looks over his shoulder and frowns when he sees me. “Don’t talk to her, Lizzy,” the father scolds, but that doesn’t stop the girl from smiling at me. The mother and father quickly pick up their pace, as the father hugs his daughter tighter in pursuit of escaping the lone biker chick.
I cross my boot-clad feet, the shoelaces sticking to the wet concrete and look the other way. I’m used to it, but the way the father tried to protect his daughter makes me think twice about going after the governor’s daughter. She’ll be too protected by guards or something I’m sure. But what about the son in law? He’s a man of no stature, and possibly too proud to lug around men to protect him.
I know shit about literature though unless you include the Harley manual in the garage that our mechanic Hairy had me read as a book report.
Turning my phone off, I go up to the window, with trembling hands I hand over a fifty. I’m scared, excited, and out of my mind being out here by myself, and doing what I’m about to do.
“I need a bus to the local college,” I inform the old lady behind a scratched -up plexiglass window, a cigarette hanging out of her mouth. She doesn’t even look up from her Hollywood gossip magazine as she punches something into a machine before sliding me a ticket from under the window and taking my money. Grabbing the ticket, I turn where I stand, and look up at the big blue and white bus pulling up next to the station. I feel high with adrenaline, my teeth chattering with fear.
I should turn around. No, I’m going.
I can do this. I am doing this.
2
Harley
A couple hours later my clothes are still damp from the rainwater. Stepping off the main bus, I clutch my bag and look the campus over. I swallow hard, I’ve never been to school. Dad had Peachy and Big Hairy homeschool me, two older members of the club. When Big Hairy got to talking about politics, it got interesting to say the least. He’s southern to the bone, and if you don’t believe what he says, you better act like you do. However, my dad used what he had to educate me. Putting me in school was a risk he didn’t want to play with. Having a split personality disorder, and though I have had it under control with medication for years… my father still thinks I’m a risk in public. Hence why I’m here to prove myself. I may not be able to walk down the sidewalk with society, grab a latte at the local Starbucks, or sit amongst a crowd of strangers in a theater, but that just means I’m meant to be on the back of a bike with a gun in my hand, slamming bullets into our enemies. Wearing the club colors proudly on my leather jacket is where my place is.
Chewing on my Double Bubble, I sink my teeth into the gum that presses through my lips.
The image of me riding my own motorcycle, and running from the police with the rest of the crew makes my brows curve with inspiration. A smile slips across my face as I become giddy. I’ve come thus far so I’m already in deep shit with my dad. I better pull this off to save my ass. Pulling the hood of my jacket over my head, I keep my head down and head inside the main office of the college.
Other people my age pass me, some staring at me, and one even runs into me, our shoulders bumping. Unease causes my spine to stiffen, and that sudden giddy feeling I had flees into tense defense.
“Watch it,” flies out of my mouth before I can think twice, reminding me how far out of my element I truly am. I look at the ground, breathing deeply, trying to get a handle on my anger before I chase after the asshole who just bumped into me. If I was with the club, people wouldn’t come within feet of us, the club colors on the brothers’ cuts warning them off. Citizens not knowing who I am, or who I’m affiliated with makes me feel vulnerable. I have no protection, no one to keep me safe but myself.
My stomach knots and my breathing is forced as I try and stay focused on the task at hand. Getting enrolled under the radar and as smoothly as possible. If Dad or Benji know I’m here… they’ll come for me. I have to keep my temper under control, keep
my episodes of Farrah at bay. My alter personality.
I glance up from staring at the ground and see girls wearing barely nothing, even in the rain. Bright colors of clothing, and fancy shoes I couldn’t afford in my lifetime all flash by me. I’m out of place here, and I can’t help but feel like everyone is staring at me.
Once inside, my wet boots slop along the clean marble floor leaving behind muddy boot prints. Pulling my hood down off my head, I look at the mess I’ve created, a young girl with her tits hanging out of her sorority top looks at me in disgust as she sashays past.
“Shit,” I mumble under my breath, taking a step back, I wipe my feet on the welcome mat. We don’t have one of these at the club. Everyone just kicks the wall outside if we get too much crud on our boots, and if that doesn’t help then a prospect mops the floors.
Sighing heavily, I lift my head from my feet, finding a young man with half his head shaved and a blue lip ring in this bottom lip, sitting behind the front desk. His eyes are bloodshot, and pupils dilated. He’s a stoner, I can tell.
Stepping off the mat, my feet echo in the empty space.
The whole building is quiet, and it unnerves me. The clubhouse is rarely quiet. Men hollering, girls laughing, and the all-night parties of the club ensures a constant ruckus.
“Can I help you, angel?” the guy behind the desk asks with a devilish smirk. He looks me up and down as if I’m his next flavor and I laugh silently. If he thinks he can fuck me, he better think again. This devil wears heels so sharp they’ll impale what’s left of his brain cells.
“Wrong side of heaven.” I tilt my head to the side, as I step up to him. Declaring I’m more of the dark angel rather.
As if he’s shocked his charm didn’t work, he stumbles on what he should say next. “I’d like to enroll.” I don’t give him a chance to recover.