by Zoey Derrick
“He’s someplace you can’t get to him.”
“Try me, cunt.”
“What’s your deal with him? You guys butt buddies?” I sneer.
That earns me another yank on my nipple, but this time it’s the other one. I cry out in pain.
“You want answers?” I say. “Ask your fucking lackey, Opie, he was there. How the fuck you think he got shot?” I growl.
“Where’s Rooster?” Gunnar growls again.
I turn, spitting blood and saliva in his face. “Go to hell, motherfucker.”
The next thing I know, my head is being pushed back by my chin. Cold metal presses up hard against my jaw.
For the first time ever, my life flashes before my eyes. Loki, Kellen, Piper, Emily, Sticks, Pixie, Tucson, Boulder, school, you name it. The last picture I see before all hell breaks loose is Piper and Loki together.
I feel a sharp blow to my temple and blackness consumes me once again.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
LOKI
“There’s nothing here,” I say as we comb through all of Pixie Sticks property. “No one,” I say as I come out of the last room in the back. It was dark as night when we got here, no sign of life anywhere. No bikes, cars, nothing.
“Hang on,” Tryke says as he whips out his phone. I don’t know what he’s doing, but he moves out of the hallway and into the parking lot. Then he comes back in again. “There a basement here?” he asks.
“Not that I know of,” Cowboy adds. “There’s a storage area below the store, but we checked that.”
“Check it again. Look for any other doors down there. The phone is showing in this building,” Tryke says confidently.
“Come on,” I say to Cowboy and we go back into the store. We’re not inside the store three steps when my phone starts ringing. I look at it. “Hold up,” I tell Cowboy and I answer it.
“Yeah, Axel, what’s doin’?”
“I need an ambulance.” Tis voice is weak, shattered.
“What happened?” I growl.
“Shot…” Then I hear the phone crashing to the ground, it bounces off the pavement and I go tearing through the back of the store and down the hall.
“Axel’s down,” I scream as I launch through the back door. “Call the EMTs,” I shout as I kick over my bike, and take off toward the house.
Axel’s down.
This is not good.
I don’t bother to wait and see if anyone comes after me, I don’t give a shit. I blow every stop sign, stoplight and traffic law in Roswell and I make it back to my house in less than six minutes. The ambulance hasn’t arrived when I nearly lay my bike down. I notice my truck is gone from the driveway. Forgetting Axel, I tear into the house and go straight to the bedroom.
“Fuck,” I scream. The bed is empty, no sign of Kiwi. “Kiwi?” I holler. No response. “Fuck, fuck.”
There are sirens blaring and motorcycles roaring down the street when I bolt back out the door and find Axel.
He’s alive, breathing, but barely. “When?” I ask him.
“I don’t know…” His voice barely above a whisper. “Twenty, thirty minutes after you left,” he adds.
“Who?” I ask him.
“Gunnar,” he mouths.
“Fuck,” I growl. “Come on, Axe, say with me.” I smack the side of his face, firmly, but not to cause him more pain. His eyes flutter open again.
“Tryin,” he breathes. “I didn’t see…already in house…” His breathing is short and ragged. Finally, the ambulance pulls up and following behind them are bikes.
The paramedics take over and begin working on Axel. “Save him,” I growl before I return to my bike. Sticks is there. “She’s gone. He took her.”
“Who?” Sticks asks.
“Gunnar,” I breathe. “I’m going back to Tryke,” I tell him. “Find that fucking phone.”
Sticks nods. I notice Big Daddy talking to the paramedics who are loading Axel into the back of the ambulance.
I can’t seem to move. My mind fills with thoughts of Kiwi, Piper, Emily, us, them, her. Where the fuck is she? I ask myself, trying in vain to think of any place Gunnar may have taken her. “The phone’s a decoy,” I snarl.
“What?” Sticks says.
“The phone, it turned on, we went looking for it. Gunnar knew we were on to him. Hence the GPS on another bike. His phone turning on…” I pull my phone from my cut and pull up Tryke’s number.
He answers and I snarl, “Get out of there, now. It’s a trap!
I hear his bike fire up. “Location D.” he replies as he revs his engine and disconnects.
TRYKE
I’m barely on the street when the loudest noise I’ve ever heard explodes behind me. A massive blast of heat hits my back and I stop, turning my bike hard as Pixie Sticks goes up in a giant ball of flames shooting toward the sky. “Motherfucker,” I growl and take off before the cops show up. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I growl.
I call Loki back. “Code Red!” I scream.
LOKI
I answer the phone.
“Code Red!” comes across the line over the roar of Tryke’s engine.
“Fuck!” I shout as the ambulance fires up its sirens and takes off down the street.
“What the fuck?” Sticks asks.
“Tryke called a code red,” I say and every face glares at me.
“Why would he do that?”
That’s when something catches our eyes in the sky in the direction of Pixie Sticks. There’s a ball of flames flying into the air before dissipating. It takes a good fifteen seconds before we hear the resounding boom. “Shit,” Big Daddy growls.
“Call it,” Sticks orders.
I do exactly that, texting all members, Roswell, Tucson, Boulder, and the smaller charters – with three exceptions- Rooster, Gunnar and Opie. They were removed yesterday.
CODE RED! Building Down. Evacuate All Buildings. Location Delta.
I hear Pixie, Sticks, Big Daddy and Cowboy’s phones go off. The call has gone out. “Let’s move,” I order.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
KIWI
The building we’re in rattles loudly and shakes all the way down to the foundation. If it wasn’t for the massive explosion that followed, I’d have thought it was an earthquake.
“Aww, looks like your boyfriend went looking for you.” Gunnar snickers, “too bad he’s dead now.”
I spit in his face again, “fuck you,” I growl.
He slaps me again.
Adrenaline spiking through my veins again and the pain isn’t nearly as bad as it should be, “tie her to the bed. She needs a real lesson.” Gunnar orders the other man in the room with us. I haven’t been able to figure out who he is, and frankly, I don’t care, not anymore. Gunnar leaves the room through a door straight ahead of me. The space is mostly empty but there are a few filing cabinets and what looks like an old desk next to one of them, behind the man approaching me is a table line with instruments. From this angle, I can’t make them all out, but it doesn’t look pretty.
Now’s my chance to escape. I take a deep breath as the man comes into the light. I haven’t a clue who the man is, I’ve never seen him before. He’s not even wearing a Wicked Angels patch. I narrow my eyes at him as he comes close to me.
He squats down before me as if he’s going to try and undo my bindings and instead, he leans forward and runs a fat, wet tongue over my nipple. Disgust and fear creeps into every corner of my body. I watch the man’s pupils dilate as lust consumes him. Fuck.
He opens his mouth again and I try to squirm away from him and the next thing I know, I’m crying out as pain ignites in my right breast as he bites down so hard he breaks the skin.
Hissing and breathing hard through my teeth, trying to find a way to process the pain he’s inflicted on me. I need to find my head, I need to get out of here.
He looks up at me with the evilest smirk I’ve ever seen in my entire life, blood, my blood, dripping down his chin. Then his hands are at my th
igh, my breathing halts as I wait to see what he’s going to do next. I expect him to come north, to touch me down there, but instead, he traces his callused fingers down my leg. His touch makes my stomach roll.
Breathe, I tell myself over and over again. You can do this. I chant in my head. The pain in my breast a reminder of this vindictive asshole. A reminder that I need to get out of here. I need to get myself safe. I can do this.
His hand finally reaches my binding at my right ankle. I notice that he’s put himself in a vulnerable position, but I debate on whether or not connecting with his crotch is a good idea. Anyone this sadistic would probably be more turned on by a kick to the junk. But I have to do something. I test my wrists and I realize they aren’t bound to the chair. Good.
I need my other leg free. I can’t go anywhere if I don’t have that. He frees my leg and the blood rushes into my foot. It’s painful as it does.
The man before me stands and side steps to the other leg and squats again. He leans forward, repeating the process of licking my nipple. I don’t fight him. I let him do it. This time, he sucks it into his mouth and bites on it hard. I flinch but fight the urge to pull away from him. I don’t want him biting me again like he’s already done.
I don’t make a noise. No approval, no disapproval, nothing. I shut down. He continues licking and sucking while his hands trace patterns on my legs. His fingers coming awfully close to my sex and I try in vein to pull my legs together. He pinches the inside of my thigh, hard and I scream. Reflexively my legs fall open and his fingers brush the outside of my panties and I cringe. Oh god, this cannot be happening to me. I cry, but say nothing.
Growing bored with what he’s doing, his hands trace down my leg and I suck in a deep, relived breath. Bracing for what I’m about to do. He finally frees my nipple and my ankle. The blood rushes into my foot, the pain is almost unbearable this time, but I’ve got to do something if I’m going to get out of this. I lift my leg and connect the bottom of my foot with his crotch. He grunts. I push on him and he falls down. I lift my arms and stand up, pressing my foot hard and firmly into his crotch. He laughs.
I lift my foot and stomp down, hard once, twice, and finally a third time I connect and he doubles over in pain.
I move out of his reach and move toward his head. He’s squirming on the ground trying to reach me but he can’t, I stay out of reach and he’s fighting with cupping his balls or reaching for me. When he goes back to cup his shit again, I lift my foot and connect with his nose.
Blood spurts out and I both hear and feel the crunch that happens when I do. I lift my foot and bring it down again, but I miss. I dance forward and connect with him again. This time I catch him in his eye socket and he falls still. I throw down one more blow on the side of his face for good measure. My heel connecting with his temple.
Now that I’m not in the spotlight anymore, I can finally see some of what’s in the darkness and my eyes roam over to the table I saw, over by where this asshole was standing. I notice several tools on the table. I go to the table, hoping to find a knife or something. I look over the shit that’s there and some of it doesn’t make any sense. There’s a twisted piece of metal that’s at the end of a poker like you’d use in a fireplace. I shake my head and look down the line of shit and finally, at the end of everything is a knife. I turn around, grabbing it with my hand. It takes me a couple tries because I can’t see where my hands are behind my back and on the table, but I manage to grab the hilt of the knife and I do my best maneuver my hands enough to cut my bindings. It doesn’t work and I drop the knife.
I go back the chair. My eyes roaming over the idiot on the ground. He’s still passed out but I catch a glimpse of something under his shirt. Thank fucking god he’s got a gun.
When you watch movies, you see people get out of handcuffs by bringing them around their asses, then their legs coming through. I have to tell you that it’s not that simple to do. Especially when you’re cursed with a longer torso and out of time. I stand up, bending over, trying to hook my arms under my ass. It takes a couple tries and an enormous amount of pain in my wrists but I manage to do just that.
I sit down carefully, but I tweak my wrists in the process and I cry out. “Stop,” I scream, “no,” I add as I grunt and groan trying to move my hands down my thighs. My shoulders are burning like nothing I’ve ever felt before I can see blood dripping from my wrists.
I grit my teeth and push them forward before I’m able to move one of my legs enough to get it to fall back to the ground. Once that one is out, the other comes out quickly. I fall to my knees and knee crawl my way back to the knife. I pick it up and get it turned around and tucked under the cable ties wrapped around my wrists. Unable to get the leverage I start to panic. Gunnar is gonna come back in here any second. With the blade hooked under the tie, I lift my hands to the table, catching the hilt on it and pushing up. The knife pulls on my bindings and my wrists ignite in a warm rush of pain and blood, but the tie snaps. Freeing my hands.
The knife falls to the ground.
The door kicks open.
I have two choices, charge the asshole and hope for the best or dive for sicko’s gun. My eyes go from Gunnar to sicko and back to Gunnar. He’s staring at me dumbstruck. He can’t believe I managed to take down his number two.
I use his distraction to dive toward the sick bastard. Gunnar springs into action just as my hands land on the waist of the assholes jeans.
Then Gunnar is jumping on me, pinning me to the ground. My ribs explode in pain and I feel the crack of at least two ribs as I scream in pain. My air cut off by his heavy weight on my back.
I bring my foot up, trying to kick him, but I miss. Fuck.
His hand goes into my hair and he grabs it, hard, pulling so hard I see stars as he wretches my head back. I feel his hand come to my chin. Fuck.
I hear the grinding of bone in my neck. I cry as pain ignites every nerve in my body.
I don’t know how I do it exactly, but somehow, I manage to extract asshole’s gun from his waist and Gunnar’s hand comes away from my chin as he tries reaching for it. His hand still in my hair, pushes my head forward, giving me reprieve from the pain and allowing me to focus. He leans forward, further crushing my back, ribs and lungs beneath his weight. I squirm, throwing him off balance just enough to put him back on his knees. His hand in my hair pulling my head back up. “Fuck,” I cry out as I finally manage to pull some air into my lungs.
I get the gun in my right hand, his left reaching for it.
I tilt my right hand back, the barrel of the gun pointing backward toward him and he scurries off of me to my left to get away from the gun. I roll to my right, bringing the gun around. A shot rings out. Pain slices into my leg. “Fuck,” I growl and start firing the gun as I bring it around, I catch his shoulder, my focus returns and I fire three more shots. Each one into his chest as he jerks and slumps against the chair I started in.
Chapter Thirty
SKETCH
“I’m here now. There’s nothing left,” I tell Big Daddy on the phone. “It’s completely obliterated. The fire department is working to put out the fire. Are you sure there was no one in here?”
“No, I can’t say for certain. We swept through every room and there wasn’t anything, but we had Gunnar’s phone tracked to that location and Tryke thought it might have been in a basement that no one seems to know about.”
“Shit,” I say. “Alright, I’ll keep you po…” I stop when I hear a gunshot ring out behind me. “Shit,” I growl into the phone. Then I hear another one, followed by three in rapid succession. “There’s someone else here,” I mumble.
“On our way,” he snaps and the line goes dead.
“In there.” I point to a building about a hundred and fifty yards away from Pixie Sticks. Three of my guys and I go running toward the building. There are lights casting weird shadows on the building from fire trucks, flashing lights, cop cars, and it makes the building look ominous in a way I wouldn’t expect.
Then a door bursts open. A naked woman comes stumbling through the door. Some light swings around and catches her just right. She’s holding her arms around her chest, her breasts exposed, blood dripping from one of them and my stomach rolls. No pants on, blood running down her leg, no shirt, only a pair of barely visible panties. The light hits her again and I see her bright green hair. “Kiwi!” I roar.
Her head comes up; her eyes are wild in the light. Fear rips through her and she starts backing away. “Lily, it’s Sketch,” I tell her and she stops. I charge toward her, catching her just as she starts to collapse onto the ground.
I motion for my guys to go in the building, their guns drawn, tactical gear on.
Lily starts crying. “Loki,” she sobs.
“On his way,” I tell her.
“Oh, thank god,” she whispers before she falls weak in my arms.
“I need an ambulance, now,” I shout as loud as I can.
LOKI
“Where is she?” I scream as I climb off my bike. Sketch comes toward me. I see blood on his flak jacket. “Is that hers?” I growl.
“She’s alive,” he tells me and my whole world explodes in color of happiness and relief. “She’s hurt pretty bad.”
“What did they do to her?” Sticks interjects.
Sketch shake his heads and look at Sticks. I grab him by his vest and shake him. “What happened to her?”
He looks at me and braces before he says, “She’s alive. She’s been beaten up pretty bad. Her face is a mess, she has a couple cracked ribs and…” he pauses.
“And what?” I snap.
“She was naked,” he breathes and my world goes red.
“I’m gonna fucking kill them,” I growl.
Sketch’s lips twitch with a grin. “She already did,” he breathes. “Well, one of them. The other is in pretty bad shape.”