by Ora Wilde
But the puddle was still expanding.
They were still bleeding.
Their deaths were fresh.
“Stay back!” I reminded Samantha as I readied my gun. “Nicker, get up! Get up, now!” I tried to yank him out of his ill-timed torpor.
I surveyed the entire room. The area was spacious and uncluttered. A bar, a billiard table, some tables, some chairs, a few stools and nothing else. No one could possibly hide there. A lone door was at the right side of the hall. I didn’t have to guess where it led to. A clubhouse isn’t complete without a chapel.
Panting with rage and sniffing in despair, Nicker joined me in looking for the animals who wiped out his entire crew.
“I... I was gone for only... only four hours...” he said with a lot of difficulty, still stunned, still in disbelief that the massacre happened within that short a period.
“Get yourself back in the game, kid,” I said. I completely disregarded the hierarchy I was supposed to respect. Fuck the fact that he was a patched member and I was just a prospect. That didn’t matter. What was important is that we would survive the shit hole we were in.
I pointed at the unopened door.
“You think the fuckers are there?” he asked as he stepped ahead of me.
“Where else can they be?” I replied, sure that our enemies were hiding in the chapel.
Then I remembered something that completely escaped my mind... something that would prove itself to be a very costly mistake.
The knob when Nicker touched it... it was smeared with blood.
Whoever slaughtered his brothers left the hall and closed the fucking door.
Shit!
They weren’t in the chapel. They were outside the damn chamber!
I quickly turned towards Samantha, to see if she was still safe, to make sure that no harm was coming her way.
“Lenny!” she yelled in panic before my eyes could even meet her.
I was too late.
A gunshot.
A wringing, paralyzing pain in my neck.
I fell on the floor, a heap of inanimate mass incapable of anything.
Blood - my own blood - flooded my nostrils. My vision was consumed by a cascade of black until all I could see was total darkness.
My breathing escalated to a rapid pace before settling to infrequent and labored wheezes... until I couldn’t feel any more air in my lungs.
My consciousness was quickly slipping away... and I knew that I made a big, fucking mistake and that I wouldn’t be alive long enough to wallow in the anguish of my failure.
I knew I was dying. I should’ve died as soon as the bullet struck me. But I tried to resist it. I tried to fight it.
I heard footsteps running towards the hall. I heard voices and jubilant laughs of triumph. I heard expletives hurled at me.
And I heard her screams of utter dread.
I didn’t want to surrender. I had to protect her.
My last thought was that of the heavy, gnawing weight that crushed my heart when I realized that I couldn’t.
8
SAMANTHA
I could’ve been crying for hours. Half a day, even, judging from how dry my throat was and how I have started to ache all over. The cloth that covered my eyes has become drenched with tears, so much so that it kept falling. My captor, one of them at least, kept tightening the blindfold whenever it dropped, never failing to threaten me with lascivious acts if I kept sobbing. I tried to stop, but then, the blisters on my wrists caused by the rope that bound my hands would begin to sting and I would be reminded of how helpless I truly was. And I hate feeling helpless, so tears would fall from my eyes once more and the cycle would repeat itself.
Every time that the cloth fell, however, I managed to look around the area where I was being held. It was a small room, no bigger than the space in an RV. And it was dark, too. The only illumination, as far as I could tell, came from the slither beneath the door and the vents above it. All sorts of junk filled the area - boxes which may or may not be empty, rusty metal sheets of uneven shapes, and bones from the decayed meat of whatever food they just threw here. A couple of tumbledown pipes, huge and long, lining up the corners of the tiny space. It would be safe to guess that it was a stockroom for the house or the building where they took us. Their clubhouse, perhaps? Or a warehouse like ours in San Carlos where they carried out the dirty work?
The last thought didn’t help me calm down.
Nicker was at the other corner of the room, blindfolded and tied up like I was. I didn’t have to see him there, though. I could hear him the whole time, muttering curses and threats of what he’d do if he manages to free himself from his restraints.
Lowlife... Lenny... he wasn’t with us, and remembering what happened to him made the ordeal so much worse. They shot him. I saw the bullet penetrate the back of his neck. I saw blood sprouting from behind his skull as he collapsed on the floor. I saw him fidget and squirm for a few seconds... and then he stopped moving.
He’s dead. They killed him. And then they laughed at his lifeless body.
And I realized that the reason I’ve been crying since then was not because I was afraid of the fate that would befall me. It was because he was gone.
I was terrified. I was sad. But most of all, I was mad.
I was mad at the bikers who gunned him down and spat on his corpse. I was mad at our failure to anticipate that they were there, waiting to ambush us as soon as we arrived. I was mad at the circumstances that led us to Essex... circumstances that only made things worse than how they should’ve been if I was just allowed to stay in San Mateo or return to LA.
And I was mad at him. Him! He didn’t have the right to die. He was supposed to protect me. He was supposed to keep me safe. He swore to that, last night after we made love. And he broke his damn promise.
I started to cry so much that my sobs turned to wails.
“Girl, hush up,” Nicker said. The blindfold prevented me from seeing anything, but I could hear no one else in the room. We were alone at that time. “They’ll keep you alive, if that’s what you’re afraid of. They’ll use you as some fucking collateral to make your father give in to their demands.”
I wanted to tell him that I wasn’t even thinking about that, but my throat has become dry because of all the crying. I only coughed when I tried to speak.
“But that ain’t gonna be good,” Nicker continued. “If the mother chapter goes down, that other chapters will have to follow suit... and we’ll all be answering to those motherfucking Godlesses.”
Even if I was able to talk, I wouldn’t know how to reply to what he said. So I just sniffed and cleared my throat, hoping that my weeping would eventually cease.
It didn’t, though. The harder I tried, the more I remembered Lenny, and tears fell even harder than before.
“Damn it, girl, I told you to stop,” Nicker repeated in a firm but muzzled tone that didn’t hide how frustrated he was with the situation. “If this is about the prospect, he’s gone. People die in this line of work. It’s what we signed up for. We mourn a bit, but we have to move on. You’ve done your mourning. Now, move the fuck on!”
If he was expecting that those words would make me feel better, he’s an idiot. I cried even louder, mainly because he just made me feel more miserable, but also as protest because he was being very rude and insensitive.
“Jesus Christ!” he yelled in vexation. “Girl, shut the fuck up!”
He let out a booming sigh immediately after saying that, which made me think that he probably felt bad about his insistence to quiet me down.
“Look... I think I get it now,” he added with a mellower and kinder tone. “You and the prospect... you had a thing going, didn’t you?”
“What?!” I suddenly managed to muster enough vocal strength to speak. “No... it’s not like that...”
“It’s not like that? Then why does it seem that you care for him so much?”
“He’s just a...” I paused as I found it diffic
ult to come up with anything to say. “He’s just a... a... someone who... who my father ordered to bring me to your club...”
“A friend, then?”
“Not even,” I replied. I didn’t know if that was a lie or the truth.
Nicker chuckled, which left me dumbfounded. How could he snigger at a time like this?
“I knew it!” he exclaimed with a semblance of gratification that, again, I found very misplaced. “Fuck! I knew it! You guys are... were... in love! Damn it! I should’ve known. To think that I actually found you hot and perfectly doable... I was even planning on making the move on you, you know?”
“I’m not in love with him!” I strongly denied. I didn’t even bother to acknowledge the other things he said.
“Yeah, yeah,” he dismissed my refutation. “Heard that, before. But love... alas... this stupid, fucking thing we call love... the more you deny it, the more it becomes obvious...”
“Bad time to wax poetic, don’t you think?” I shot back with irate sardonicism.
“Hey... I told you... you’ll live. Me? I mean nothing to them. They’ll kill me too. I know that. If that’s my fate, so be it. No fucking use spending my last moments of life wallowing in fear and despair and CRYING LIKE A FUCKING BABY!” He emphasized the latter part of his statement with blaring intonation, his way of reminding me that I should stop sobbing.
A few minutes of silence followed. I didn’t know how I’d react to what he said, and he didn’t know what else to add to what he has already expressed.
But there was something about what he shared that rang true.
Was it really that obvious?
Shit! How could anyone even have the slightest clue about something that I have constantly scrambled to renounce?
“What makes you an expert on love?” I asked to break the silence. Our short conversation was quite a welcome relief from the gloom and horror that hounded us since we were captured. I guessed I’d rather have us talking than silently lolling about in fearful uncertainties.
And again, he gave me a half-laugh.
“I don’t look the type, huh?” he asked. I was inclined to answer in the affirmative. I pictured how he looked like - with his topknot, his half-beard, and a couple of missing teeth - he’s practically a long, lost relative of that family from Texas Chainsaw Massacre. So yeah, I didn’t think he was the type who’d spew out romantic outbursts here and there. “But hey... I’m a guy... I’ve been in love once... or twice... or thrice before,” he continued as he began to reminisce. “When I came back from Iraq three years ago, I met this amazing broad from -”
He was interrupted by the sound of the door violently opening, followed by heavy footsteps - from what seemed like a group of people - entering the storage area. My blindfold was then yanked out of my eyes. I squinted a bit to help my sight adjust to the sudden deluge of light. The once dingy room was filled with blinding gleam from fluorescent lamps that were scattered all over the ceiling. I looked around and saw six men - tall and stocky and revoltingly hideous, all of whom were wearing kuttes with red and gray colors on their markings - who flooded the small space that served as our prison. A few feet in front of me sat Nicker, whose blindfold was likewise removed.
“Sorry ‘fer the less than stellar accom’dations, folks,” one of the thugs said with a menacing smirk. He looked at me and his grin got wider. “Need ‘ta pee? I can accomp’ny you, darlin’.”
I robustly shook my head. I did need to empty my bladder, but the sight of that man and the dastardly intent he obviously had made me forget about it.
“Yeah, whatever suits ‘yer sweet ass,” he responded as he made a shooing gesture with his hands.
He walked towards Nicker. Nicker looked at him straight in the eyes and the goon didn’t like it. He slapped Nicker’s face so hard that the thunk echoed all over the room. The other Godlesses laughed.
“‘Ya got some att’tude there, asswipe!” he screamed in rage at Nicker.
Nicker just smiled at him.
“My cat hits harder than you,” he mocked his assailant.
“Well, ah bet ‘yer cat won’t be able ‘ta do the other things we gonna do to ‘yer ass, punk,” the burly man shot back. He turned to face his companions. “Take ‘im to Prez,” he ordered them.
“What about the bitch?” one of them asked.
“Take ‘er, too. She gonna wanna watch this,” he answered.
Two men grabbed my arms and pulled me up. They dragged me and Nicker towards the exit.
I was surprised to see what was outside the storage room. It was an expansive but empty-looking facility, around five hundred square feet in size. The distance from the floor to the roof was equally enormous. The building could’ve easily housed three of four floors instead of the single story that it was. I saw rows upon rows of empty shelves and I was able to deduce that we were in, what once was, a grocery store.
They continued to haul us towards the other end of the property where a huge door was located. Men with similar kuttes lined up both sides of the path we took. There were many of them, more than ten by my estimate. They all gave us excited looks, pumping their fists and yelling words too vile to repeat. One by one, they converged behind us, forming a flock that followed us wherever we were being taken to.
It didn’t take long to find out where that was.
Outside the building was another big group of hooligans, gathered around a campfire like a pack of hyenas over the remains of a deer. They all turned to face us as we approached. And then they flashed the most atrocious grins I’ve ever seen.
From their cluster emerged a man who stood out from the rest of their assembly. He was of medium height, thickset but not muscular, unusually clean-shaven, and wearing a pompadour hairstyle. He wore his leather kutte like it was a tux - buttoned and unwrinkled. He walked forward to meet us as we marched towards the gathering.
“Ms. Cross,” he greeted me with a smile that didn’t look as frightening as those displayed by the rest, though it was more forbidding with its divergence. “I trust that my men have been treating you well?”
His words made it clear that he was leading this band of criminals.
I just gave him a scornful glower.
Nicker, however, wasn’t as friendly.
“Fuck you, Oliver!” he screamed at him. “You killed my brothers! You wiped out my entire chapter!”
“Isn’t that the goal of a war?” this Oliver guy answered without losing his leer. “To eliminate one’s enemies? Anyway, let’s not begin this... soiree... the wrong way.” He cleared his throat as if he wanted to change his tone. He did, with artificial elation that made him sound like a gameshow host. “Welcome to Tulare! The Godless’ pride and joy in the sunny state of California! Home to the Land O’ Lakes, Kevin Costner and, well, of course, yours truly!”
As if on cue, the rest of his flock clapped and cheered in unison.
“Lemme guess what your favorite pastime is,” Nicker was quick to retort. “Dick sucking, right? You prefer them long, stout and black?”
Oliver just laughed at him.
“Why don’t you just kill me now and get this over with?” Nicker continued with his doomed rebellion.
“You’re an impatient little bugger, huh?” Oliver said. “Don’t worry, kid... we’ll get there soon enough. But for now, you still got a part to play, so why don’t you be a good Dog and shut the fuck up?”
Oliver raised his left hand and one of the bikers went to Nicker and punched him on the face. It was a savage blow that sent Nicker to his knees until the men who were restraining him pulled him back up.
Oliver chuckled, then he went to where I was being held, walking around me, his eyes never leaving my body.
“My oh my... never did I imagine that Jonas could produce something as pretty as you,” he salaciously declared as he rubbed his chin.
“Im probably adopted,” I snapped back with contempt. Somehow, Nicker’s defiant stance filled me up with bravado, ill-advised as it may be.
/>
“Oh, ho ho ho... and she’s got spunk, too! And a sense of humor! My type of gal!” The other bikers snickered with their leader. He whacked his forehead with his palm as if he suddenly remembered something. “Oh shit! How can I forget? I haven’t introduced myself to the lovely lass! How ungentlemanly of me! Please forgive my negligence, ma’am. My name is Oliver Tusk, president of the Godless MC, Tulare County chapter.”
It was then when a huge monster of a man stepped out of the throng and joined his leader. He stood behind the president, towering over him - and the rest of the outlaws - with his imposing size. Bald, heinously ugly, and with the lower half of his face blackened by what looked like burn marks, the other bikers made way for him until he reached his position near Oliver Tusk. It was clear that he commanded respect amongst his fellow fiends.