by Cat Porter
“I wanted to get you out first thing, but all eyes were on us, Kid. They were gonna play with us, play with you, get their licks in, make their point, and in the end give it up. Give you up. Coop thought it was best to wait it out, give them the opportunity to shoot themselves in the foot.”
I was collateral damage. A calculated expense in the throes of political maneuvers and battle strategies.
My dad had argued with Reich over how negotiations were going or not going with the Smoking Guns over my release. Had Reich killed him or just got him angry enough to set off a heart attack? Dad had been denying his bad health for a while. Blood pressure, cholesterol, you name it, he had it. Whatever happened that night, my father had stood up for what was right. For me.
“Hey, Fuse fixed your Panhead before he—” Chaz’s voice brought my attention back to my gloomy room, the stench of french fries and burger grease still hanging in the air.
“He did?”
“Yeah. It’s waiting on you.”
At least there was that, my bike, the one he’d help me choose, the one he’d shown me how to ride, keep clean, keep in tune. My sore eyes fell on his urn.
Chaz let out a huff of air. “You gonna get outta this bed and outta this room or what?”
“I will. I have to.” I’d also have to learn how to hold a fork, use a pen again, and grip my handlebars. And I would.
“We gotta just put this shit behind us,” muttered Chaz. “We gotta move on from this. The FBI and the ATF are breathing down our necks just waiting for us to blow, to get crazy. We’ve got too much at stake right now, and business has been real tight for too long. We got to play it cool for a while, gain some ground back.”
He crushed his empty beer can and stuffed the oily food wrappers in the take out bag. This was him making sure that I didn’t get crazy and towed the party line. Laying down the law for me, while expressing empathy for my situation.
Real kind of him.
He lit the cigarette he had stashed behind his ear and leaned back in the chair once more. He needed to confirm that I was on board with the plan, that I wouldn’t make trouble for Reich.
Chaz let out a short, loud laugh. “The pain getting any better? We got plenty of shit for that.”
Med’s frenzied crystal fog-filled eyes flashed before me, and I winced.
“Nah, I’m good. Don’t need anything,” I lied.
After Chaz left, taking his fast food debris and pointed words with him, I leaned over and opened the top desk drawer and got out my compass. The sight of it within my bandaged mutilated hand made my breath catch in my throat and burn there. This was my new reality.
What would my grandad say if he could see me? Dad? My eyes filled with water, and I wiped at them with my other hand. I carefully propped the compass up on the dresser and dropped back against the mattress, staring at the antique. I didn’t know what was ahead for me, but I would handle it, just like my grandad and my dad, head on.
The nightmares would be back again tonight, just like every night. Those hands holding me down. Holding me down while the cuts blazed into me. But at least this time, when I did wake up, I’d have the compass in front of me, to remind me that I was made of sterner stuff, that I too was a survivor. I would probably face even greater hells in time, but for now, for right now, I could handle this, because I had good, strong men behind me who had handled just as much crazy as any man.
I wiped the cold sweat from my face and throat. I gulped in air. No more feeling helpless, no more feeling powerless, weak, vulnerable. Exposed. I would obliterate all that shit, commanding a force from within me any way I could. I had choices. I could change course.
North. South. East. West.
Staring at my compass, my eyes finally drifted shut.
I was patched in the moment I could stand without wobbling.
I put on the new leather vest Chaz presented to me. Flames colors. My club. I was following in my grandad and my dad’s footsteps. Chaz smacked me once on the back. Reich did the same and pushed me toward Lyon, the club secretary, who squeezed my shoulder.
“Congrats, Kid. Your father would be real proud if he could see you now.”
Chaz whistled sharply, and we all turned our attention to Coop, the president.
“Fuck ‘em,” my president’s voice rumbled through the meeting room. “They took your fingers, but they didn’t take your pride, your will to survive. You’re a man. Now, a brother. They took and tortured, but you held on. You wear your scars with pride just like your colors. You battled, and you won. Your soul, your heart, your mind got nothing to do with the scratches on your face and a missing finger or two.”
And so I was named.
Finger. Reminding me of what I’d lost. How I’d paid for my club loyalty in flesh and blood and bone. Yet also reminding me of my tenacity, my determination.
I’d gotten what I’d wanted for so long—to be a full-fledged brother of the Flames of Hell. I was in. This was it. And I’d earned it
But my dad wasn’t here to congratulate me. To beam a proud smile, to lift that sharp edged and dimpled chin of his at me like he had a few memorable times before.
“A dimple in the chin means the devil within,” he’d told me when as a boy I’d first poked my finger into that indentation of his flesh and he’d poked his finger into mine and we’d laughed.
The party to celebrate my membership played like a puppet show on the stage of my whirling emotions. I was the audience of one, sitting alone in the theater, strapped to the seat.
I’d survived, but with Dad gone, I had no one to come home to. My thoughts went to Serena, as they usually did. Hell, I wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for her. Her kindness, understanding with a word, a look, her touch. But she was still there, suffering at the hands of that maniac.
“I like being alive.”
Rena wanted to live, and the sheer force of that quiet yet iron will of hers humbled me. I wanted to help her make that dream of a real life come true.
Did she miss me like I missed her? It was more than just missing somebody. A power supply had been cut off, unplugged. Suddenly, I was disconnected from something necessary that I hadn’t been aware of ever before. Not like this.
Had things gotten worse for her? Med enjoyed ratcheting up the intensity of his games once he got started. He’d punished her for some unknown sin that last night and maybe he was continuing that punishment. She’d probably lost her old lady status. Maybe he would ditch her. Fuck, we both knew what that meant. I wanted her alive and living a real life, be that with me or without me. Not suffering a prisoner’s nightmare.
“Finger.” My VP stood in front of me.
I blinked at Chaz.
He slanted his head. “Man, you good?”
“Yeah, sure. Yeah.” I shrugged and scanned the crowded room once again, trying to look interested in the doings. Trying not to feel sick.
“Join the party. It’s your party. Got bitches here who want a piece of you.” Chaz put an arm around my shoulder, and I stiffened, my throat closed. I unstuck myself from his arm.
“Sorry,” he mumbled.
I didn’t like anyone touching me. Not anymore. In the short time that I’d been home they’d all figured that out. My sullenness, my unwillingness to talk, kept most of them at a distance anyhow.
“Dude, you pissing on your own party?” Reich asked, swigging a beer from a long neck. “Get out there and blow off that steam, motherfucker.”
I ground my jaw and shot him a glare. His face soured, and he turned away, slinging his arm over some girl.
“Come on, brother. Let it go. Time to celebrate,” said Chaz, his voice softer than usual. Concern laced with impatience. I’d been crowned tonight. I had a new life now. I needed to play the part.
I did my best to crack a grin. A flash of stinging pain raced over my tight skin, and I swallo
wed it back down like a balloon of cocaine. “You’re right.”
I drank, I smoked, I danced. I got high. I got drunk. I threw up the tequila I’d downed at the sight of sliced white bread in the piles of sandwiches the girls had made. I looked for Serena’s face in the crowd. Hoping. Hoping.
I threw myself on a sofa, too dizzy to stand. A woman straddled me and kissed my chest, my throat, my face. My scars stung under her lips. My lungs squeezed. I was hard as a rock.
I can’t. I can’t.
It was her warm skin against mine. The scent of her sweat and perfume in my nostrils. Yeah, I’d be with her, my body flaring to life under her, and then...then...
The flickers shivered through me, the torment simmered. I focused on the face inches from mine. Not Serena’s mouth, not Serena’s eyes.
“Get off me!” I grabbed the girl’s arms and shoved her away.
She slid down on the floor between my legs on a laugh, tugged down the zipper of my jeans and swallowed my dick.
I twisted away from her. “I said fucking stop!”
“Yeah, that’s what he needs, give it to him!” Reich’s voice jumped out at me. He shoved the girl back on me, keeping her head down over me, and she took me in deeper.
Images of her eyes, the feel of her mouth, her body against mine assaulted me. I chased them all.
Serena.
I raised my hips, jamming my dick in her throat, and it scraped past her teeth. Something behind my eyes exploded, and I grunted at the flash of pain. Yes, the pain. That was real, that was familiar.
That was me and Serena.
My blood rushed into my skull as the orgasm crushed my insides. I moaned out loud, but not in pleasure. That phantom pain raced like electricity over my hands to where my middle fingers once were, across the skin of my face. My heart twisted tight as I waited for the knives...the roar of pain...that fuck’s laughter. Serena’s mouth was on me, wasn’t it? Her hands gripped my shattered body. The ghost of her caresses prickled over my skin.
I waited, but she wasn’t there, she wasn’t there. Not the lazy flick of her tongue, the nuzzling of her soft lips, the deep press of her fingertips in my flesh signaling I’m here for you, we got this, we can.
I’d never associated coming with a specific girl. Getting off was getting off. But not now. Now I needed Serena. She was inside my orgasms. I wanted her. I needed her.
Where the fuck are you, Serena?
The girl released me and, pushing down on my thighs, lifted up from the floor. She strolled off in her high-heeled boots.
I had to get out of here.
Staggering toward my room, my forehead slammed against the wall. This wasn’t what I wanted. This wasn’t enough.
Not anymore.
I’d never known what expectations felt like, never known any way better than the way I’d grown up. Never put a label on my situation, my feelings. My shoulders slumped, my insides ached. I wasn’t the club’s kid anymore.
All those years I’d burned for something I’d never known, and now I knew what that was. It was stronger than me. It was grinding and crushing and exhilarating, and I was nothing but dust before it. My throat thickened, my vision got hazy. I allowed that dark shadowy sensation to seep through and sink me to the bottom of my murky ocean. For the first time ever in my scrap of a fucking life I could name it, and I had to face it.
Loneliness.
So much goddamn loneliness.
I slid to the floor. Good enough was no longer enough.
Nothing is enough.
Still, deep, deep in the pit of my soul, a sad but clear pair of blue green eyes smoldered through the blur. Her long fingers beckoned me, her deep, steady voice promised me, her touch embraced me, and the pressure lifted off my chest. No, there was no escaping her. There would never be any escape.
I took in a long, deep breath and exhaled slowly. I had to make her escape happen.
For the first time in what felt like forever, that dead weight in my chest lifted.
And I smiled.
8
Days rolled by.
One week connected to the next.
I got assignments, and I got them done. I spoke when spoken to. I hung out with the bros as often I could bear it. I hated calling attention to myself anymore than I had to, I was already enough of a freak with my fucked up hands and facial scars. Not to mention those looks of pity.
Spring was finally sticking around, and we were on a run to Austin, Texas. It felt so damned good to be back on my bike and riding for a long stretch on the open road. No ice, no snow, no rain. All of us in our tight formation, Flames before and behind me on the highway, Flames as far as the eye could see. We had stopped at a big bar on the outskirts of town. My eyes followed Reich, who as usual was the center of attention, the life of the party. He had a new girlfriend he’d brought with him, and was parading her around the crowded parking lot, shaking hands with men from another friendly club, not a care in the world.
I still couldn’t shake the bitterness inside me over the part Reich had played in my dad’s demise. I fanned those flames inside me every chance I got. It was my addiction.
“Man, you okay?”
I tore my focus away from Reich and steadied my gaze on Gyp, who’d been a fellow prospect and was now a junior member like me.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m great.”
“Have another beer.”
I was wasted already, but I took the icy bottle from him and drank deep.
“You two oversee the prospects guarding our bikes,” said a familiar cutting voice.
“Us?” blurted out Gyp.
You didn’t talk back like that to an order. I raised my head. Reich stood in front of us, his bitch on his arm. “You want to rethink your question, fuckhead? You gotta show ‘em how it’s done, Gyp. Lotta clubs out here from all over. Ain’t taking any chances.”
“Yeah, ‘course. We’ll make sure everything’s good out here,” Gyp replied, his teeth dragging along his thick lip, his left leg shaking. His nervous tic. He had to cut that shit out.
Reich laughed, his attention shifting to me. “Yeah. How about you, cowboy? You been keeping mighty quiet these days. You got anything to say?”
“Nope.”
“Huh,” his eyes narrowed at me. He strode off.
Gyp and I stayed outside with the two prospects and made sure no one touched or breathed on our brothers’ bikes. There were plenty of people out here, everyone talking shit, sharing weed, buying and selling almost everything else, checking out each other’s rides. After a few hours the party inside had emptied out to the parking lot and the open area was banging with music and liquor and food service.
Reich was talking with Demon Seeds from Montana and One-Eyed Jacks from Colorado. Making cocktail party talk, slapping hands on shoulders, laughing at stupid jokes, flirting with different women, while he flirted with someone else.
A fight broke out just past where our last bike was parked.
“Stay here!” I shouted at Gyp over the roar of the crowd in the lot. I loved a good fight and was sick of standing around playing classroom monitor. Anyhow, Gyp was messing around with some girl he’d met, and he wasn’t about to go nowhere. He already had his tongue down her throat and his hand up her skirt.
One of our guys was involved in the fight, and I dove in to take his back. I got shoved and shoved back. People slammed into me, and I slammed right back. The booze, the wild jungle vibe, the driving metal music of the band playing only took me higher and deeper into the crush. I punched, I slugged, I bashed.
A hand grabbed me by the jacket collar and pulled. Reich.
“Get the fuck off me!” I yelled, twisting in his grip.
He sneered. “You nuts or something? You got five guys on you!”
That ages old hatred and resentment blistered inside me. I didn’t car
e about the five or five hundred men hitting me, I only cared that Reich was in my face. “Get off me, asshole!”
“Such a shit! Just like your ol’ man.”
“Fuck you! He’d still be here if it wasn’t for you. You—You killed him! You killed my dad, I know you did!”
He grabbed me by the throat and pulled me out of the throng like a school principal dragging a misbehaving boy out of the playground. He shoved me up against the high fence. “Listen and listen good. Your old man was a pain in my ass. Wouldn’t shut the fuck up, always arguing, butting in, contradicting just to hear himself blow air in the room.”
“My dad lived and breathed this club. It was literally in his fucking blood. He stood up for what he thought was right.” I ground my heels into the asphalt, my head twisting.
Reich’s eyebrows arched high and tight. “What he thought was wrong. You gonna tell me different now?”
“My dad was fighting for me. For the dignity of the Flames.”
“Dignity?” He let out a dry laugh, his eyes piercing mine. “There’s a fine word. Bet you don’t even know the meaning of it.”
I knew what Reich thought of me. I was the club puppy, the junkyard mutt. I was there to do his bidding only, not be a true brother, not to have a voice.
“You got to learn your place.” His tone seethed.
“My place? All my life I’ve been tucked into a place and stayed there, head down, out of people’s way, convenient for everybody else. Not anymore!” I pushed against him, and he head-butted me.
I reeled backwards, pain exploding through my skull.
“There’s plenty more if you don’t watch your mouth. You have no idea what it takes to run a club, make tough decisions.”
I steadied myself on my feet. “Yeah, you’re really impressing me now.”
His hands flew in my face, his arms snapping my head flat against the ground. He pushed himself on me, his beer breath filling my nostrils. “Don’t you ever fucking open your mouth to me again. I swear I’m gonna finish what the Smoking Guns started by slicing off that tongue and feeding it to my dog. You’re here to obey orders and do as you’re told. Not to question, not to make waves.”