by Ker Dukey
“Mr. Walker!” the nurse repeats more desperately. “Please!”
“Avery.”
“Get out, get out, get out.” The monitors bleep and the agony in her scream destroys me.
Defeated, I turn and walk away. The blade she wounded me with, with every word spewed, has won in its war to butcher me. She has shredded my heart, my soul sinking under the weight of the blood that flows from each slice.
My lungs are shocked frozen, each draw of breath an exertion. Horror has taken my mind, and I can’t think straight.
The corridor is hectic, the bustle of visitors racing to see their loved ones making it difficult to hurry to the exit.
I need air. I can’t breathe. Her hatred is stuck in my throat and I can’t swallow it.
I can’t see. Everything is distorted as my brain replays Avery’s hate-filled screams.
“I hate you for this, Slade. I HATE YOU!”
“You did this! You and your fucking family.”
“I HATE YOU!”
My lungs soak up the air when I burst through the double doors and out into the chill of the December night.
There’s a choir to one side of the main doors singing ‘Silent Night’, each harmonic lyric sang disputing the carol’s title as their voices cut through the silence of the night.
Finding a wall, I place my palms on it and use it for support as I strive to regulate my breathing. Panic has me gulping like a fish out of water. Desperation and terror blind me, and I punch the wall in frustration. Blood oozes over each knuckle when I release every ounce of pain that guts me from the inside out. I don’t feel the soreness from each thump, the agony in my soul engulfing it in its intensity.
Was I to blame, like Avery said? Perhaps I was. If it weren’t for my brother’s cuntish behavior, Avery would never have been forced to abandon the Cutters, her family, and the arranged marriage her father had forced on her to the club VP. She would have been married off to Axe, and although he’d have been a cunt, he wouldn’t have ever done this!
Avery is right. There’s so much blame on me for this. Although I never physically hurt her, I ruined her life from the moment she said, ‘I Do.’
The engine of my bike roars to life, it’s howl in the night akin to the scream in my soul. I tear out of the parking lot, desperate to find a bar and submerge this hell in a bottle of Patron. Flood every emotion in a haze of alcohol and white lines.
It only takes Scorch six hours to find me, and it’s only when I feel his arm around my middle to hoist me up out of the booth I’d drunkenly passed out in, that I’m even aware I’m still breathing.
I don’t want to breathe. I don’t want my mind to taunt me with the echo of Avery’s pain and suffering. I don’t want to think of facing this life without her. But I know I have to. I know I have to fill my lungs every day just so I can find my Rhi.
I won’t give up on Avery. I love her, I always will. But I have to give her the space she needs right now. She deserves everything she wishes for.
Even if one of those wishes is to never see me again.
14
Avery
Numb, everywhere is numb. My insides churn as images replay in my mind, punishing me with the memory of what that monster did to me.
There’s a ruckus outside the hospital room before the door bursts open and my father fills the space between the frame.
He’s breathing heavy, panting like he’s running a race. His eyes drag over me, slow and accessing, before his brows crash down, darkening them.
And then he’s gone without a word.
I don’t need his words, I don’t need anything from any of them but to leave me alone. The sight of his cut, any cut makes me want to throw up.
Seeing Slade wearing his and calling me Princess was too much. My mind couldn’t distinguish what was befalling, and the clouds of a thunderstorm over the ocean crashed into me, drowning me too deep. I couldn’t see the surface. Couldn’t swim to gain air. The darkness pulled me under and warped my mind.
A nurse enters and adjusts my pillow. “Can I get you anything?”
“Some peace.” I croak. But I know I’ll never find peace again. My own mind is my tormentor, and I’m its prisoner.
I thought I knew about the world and about the demons lurking there but that was naïve of me.
Anxiety drums through my veins and the heart monitor goes crazy for a few seconds. The nurse re-adjusts the volume and checks where it’s placed on my finger.
“I’ll make sure no more visitors.”
And with that I’m alone again, visions of him running through my head, touching places that’s not for him. There’s nowhere I can hide from him, he’s all over me. My skin is tattooed with his bruises, my insides invaded by his intrusions, my mind haunted with his words, his scent, his eyes.
I’m going crazy and I can’t escape it. I just want to feel clean, feel safe, feel like me. I’m stranded on a broken road and the cracks are too big to overcome. I want to flee and find my way back, but the trees loom over me, shrouding me in their darkness. It creeps out from every turn and I’m losing.
I’m losing.
I lost.
* * *
Food is tasteless, they keep bringing it in here, but I can’t force it down my throat. I’m not hungry. I’m not thirsty. I’m not anything.
“Let me help you to the restroom,” The on duty nurse says, pulling my blankets down and taking the heart monitor from my finger. She adjusts the drip going into my arm, handing me the tube so it doesn’t snag when I get into the wheelchair.
Cold air rushes over my fevered skin when the sheets are removed from my legs and I just stare, they’re not mine, are they? Black and purple bruises decorate every inch of my flesh like I’ve been dipped in ink. Thick bandages cover my feet from the sole to above the ankle.
He pulls a blade from his boot and grabs hold of my foot as I attempt to scurry backwards and out of his reach. He’s so strong that it’s futile to fight him but I kick out and fight anyway. If he’s going to kill me I won’t die on my knees, or on my back, at his mercy, I’ll go out thrashing.
Pain slices across the back of my foot, setting a blaze racing up my leg. He’s already grabbing my other foot when I realize what the bastard has done. He slices my other Achilles heel with a quick swipe. I scream from the agony and shock. Dropping my foot, blood forms a puddle and I try to use my feet to push myself further away from him, but they’re useless and the cuts burn so bad that I feel weak and want to vomit.
“Good luck trying to run now, Princess,” he spits and a scream more suited to a wounded animal tears from me.
I won’t survive this.
“Come on.” The nurse instructs, and I flinch when she slides my legs to the edge and then takes my arm, urging me to stand. It aches when my feet touch the floor and all my weight pushes down. Almost buckling, I tip rather than sit into the wheelchair. Surgery to repair my injuries was successful but healing is going to be a long process.
The nurse gestures for me to drag along my drip as she moves me the few feet to the bathroom. Needing help to even sit on the toilet would usually be humiliating, except pride and modesty have been raped out of me. This body doesn’t even belong to me, it’s the devil’s, and he’s used it up and discarded it.
“I’ll just be here,” she informs me once she’s helped me onto the toilet. She wanted me to pee in some potty they have underneath the seat part of the wheelchair but why should they have to clear away my piss?
My knees shake, and it takes a while before my body untenses and allows the release of my bladder. The burn reminds me of the trauma inflicted upon me and what could have been stolen from me. Emotions collide with rationality and I find myself begin to sob and then laugh. This is all my own fault. I went back to Slade, to that life, when I should have taken the first opportunity to run and never look back. My heart aches for a brief second at the thought of Slade but then the anger returns. I want to scream all this pain into him, so he can f
eel a fraction of the damage done to my soul.
Rhiannon comes to mind and I wonder if she’s been found yet, or is she suffering like I am? Has she been put through the same agony and depravity? Is she even alive?
We were both used as pawns. I won’t ever go back to that life. I vow it. Once I’ve recovered from my injuries I’m gone from here to a place where bikers mean people on peddle bikes. I’ll become someone new and forget…them all. I’ll change my name, my looks, my identity. After. After he’s gone, after he has been put to ground. I need to see it with my own eyes. He needs to die. He’s killed me and now it’s his turn. I’m fucking owed his life. And I want it.
Once I’m back in bed, the nurse leaves the room briefly and then comes back with a refill of water. She smiles as she takes my vitals and jots them down on her file.
“I have a woman claiming she’s your sister out front. A Denise Steed?”
I nod my head. “Yeah, let her in, please.”
“Okay, if you’re sure. I’ll just be outside.” She holds up a gadget on my bed. “Press this if you want me. Don’t get yourself all upset and pull those wires out again,” she admonishes but not in a menacing way.
She leaves the room and a few minutes later Denise is standing at the door whispering something to herself before pushing the door open.
“Oh, God,” She weeps turning so I can’t see her face crumble.
“Denise.” I bark. The last thing I need is to comfort her. I’ve cried enough tears to fill an ocean and all it got me was dehydrated, a sore throat and red eyes.
“I’m so sorry. He would have killed me if I didn’t run, and I needed to alert Frost. Otherwise, no one would ever know what happened. I was going to try and come back for you, but my feet just wouldn’t stop, and before I knew it, I was miles from nowhere and couldn’t even remember the direction I ran in.” She waffles on, and I don’t care. I’m so numb that I can’t even force myself to care about anything she’s saying.
“I need a phone,” I tell her.
“Oh, oh, okay, well you can use mine. Keep mine. You can keep mine.”
“I need a burner phone.”
She nods her head and folds her arms, pushing her oversized implants out of the top of her shirt. “They have them in the shop downstairs, I’ll get you one. Do you need anything else? Food, drinks?”
“No.”
“Okay.” She nods her head and keeps looking down at her feet. She can’t look at me and that’s okay. She can get what I need and leave.
“Now, Denise.”
“Oh, sure.” Her heels click on the floor. Her ass is squeezed into jeans a size too small. She looks like a hood rat.
When she returns she hands me the device and puts magazines and snacks out on a bed table next to me. Her lips are moving and she’s talking a mile a minute. Her hands are animated, and she still hasn’t looked at me. It must be bad, she’s seen some hot messes at the club.
The pain lets me know that I’m black and blue. I still can’t see out of one of my eyes and my head feels too big for my shoulders.
“…And I told him he can’t keep coming here drunk. He’s going to end up in jail, but he just loves and misses you. It nearly killed him. I swear he’s aged ten years. They don’t know what to do when their women are going through hell. It’s not his fault and …”
“Denise!” I bark, sending my heart monitor crazy. “Just go!”
“But...”
“Stop! I just want to be left alone.”
“Okay,” she nods quickly. “But call me if you need anything and I’ll be right here. Okay? We’re family.” Why the fuck does she keep saying ‘okay’?
She smiles and finally looks at me. I see the flinch in her face, the twitch of her eye.
“I don’t have any family,” I say how I feel, and she once again drops her eyes to her feet.
When she’s finally gone, I open the cell phone and dial in the number.
“Hello?” Jenna’s dad answers. There’s hope in his voice. However, there’ll be no hope for him anymore.
“Jenna’s dead, she’s never coming home. She killed herself,” I tell him.
“Who is this?”
“I just wanted you to know so you can stop waiting for her to come home. She’s gone. I’m sorry.”
I end the call and close my eyes.
He took everything from me.
15
Slade/Frost
My head’s throbbing, and the road is blurring into three. I concentrate on the middle one and thrash the throttle. Avery’s words and the images of her injuries have left a pit in my stomach that’s expanding with every second I’m not with her. And that spineless cunt is out there. I’m going to take him apart, limb by limb, and then I’ll take a rat to his junk, trapped beneath a bucket. When rodents become trapped, they eat their way free. He was in for a world of pain, and I’m going to make it last days. Hell will be a relief for his black soul when I’m through with him.
I pull in to the club and dismount my bike, almost tipping it and falling on my ass. Alcohol dilutes my blood and helps wash away the constant screaming of hopelessness I feel inside my chest.
Kicking through the door, all eyes turn to me. They know without having to ask that it’s as bad as I’d feared and Avery’s not coming back to us…to me. I keep waiting at the hospital in hopes she will change her mind. But I don’t get in. Now security keeps watch for me and don’t let me even get through the entrance doors.
She was transferred to Rosie Steele’s because they have a specialist team who deal with sexual assault victims. God, she was a victim. I let her become a victim.
The mood is sober as fuck, everyone deflated with our fucked-up situation. We allowed two of our women to be taken.
There’s a weird atmosphere surrounding me, and no one is looking me in the eye.
Fuck ‘em! They probably blame me or pity me. I dunno which, is worse.
Marching up to the bar I order a whiskey straight from some new piece that’s appeared from nowhere. She’s timid looking and young, really fucking young. Before she’s even finished pouring the drink, Prez is summoning me to his office with a head jerk. I let her pour the liquor and then make my way inside.
“I want to do Cutters club tonight. Kill everyone in it and send a message!” I growl out, thinking about what weapons I’m going to arm myself with.
“Sit down.” Prez orders but I’m too fueled with the devil’s juice to sit there and listen to club business. My whole life is in the shitter, and if I sit and let the enormity of it settle in, I may never get up again.
“I want Axe and everyone wearing the same cut as him to burn for what he’s done. We can take their territory, their businesses, their property.”
“Axe is in the hospital,” Prez announces as if reading my mind.
An icy chill skitters down my spine at learning that knowledge.
“Been there a few days apparently,” he adds.
That doesn’t make any sense.
He continues without me having to ask any of the questions racing through my mind. “Gunshot wound. It wasn’t him, Slade.”
Thud. Thud. Thud.
“Brenner had her.” He almost whispers his name, like it’s a bad fucking omen to even speak it.
My knees buckle, and I collapse into a chair like the tendons in my legs have been severed.
My brother did that to her. Raped her. Tortured her. Left her for dead.
It shouldn’t shock me as much as it has. I know what a sick bastard he is. Brenner hurt her before, but this?
“Brig will know about Axe. I figure he’s kept this information to himself for a reason.”
“Revenge?” I laugh bitterly. It’s what I’d want. Retribution. We took his daughter and failed her drastically. How could we not see how far down the rabbit hole Brenner has spiraled?
“My informant says one of the Cutters prospects has taken the rap for most of the charges brought from the raid.”
“So Brig w
on’t be doing time?” I ask, already knowing the sneaky bastard would have a fall guy. We all do. Someone young with no family who can do a decade stretch and still be young enough when he gets out to start his life again. The respect and brotherhood that comes with that kind of loyalty will set a brother up for life.
“Any leads with Rhi?” I ask. The overload of information has started to sober me up and my skin itches so bad I want to tear it from my bones.
“We recovered Brenner’s cellphone. It was left in his old room, of all fucking places. There’s a message from Buzz. He wants a trade. Brenner for Rhiannon.”
The door bursts open and Scorch stands there breathing heavy. “We’ve found the bitch who lied to us about Brenner being up at that squat place.” He exhales.
I jump to my feet and follow him out to the forecourt.
“We’re taking my truck!” he bellows giving me a side eye. Disgust is written in his pinched features when I climb into the passenger seat.
“What the fuck’s your problem?” I grumble, rubbing a hand over my eyes and resting my head back on the seat.
“Your coping vice!” he spits.
Taking my hand away from my eyes I look over at him to gauge what the fuck he means, but he just stares ahead and pulls out the club. “Getting off your face on anything that will give you a high isn’t going to help anyone, Frost. We need you with your fucking head on straight.”
“Just drive, Scorch,” I warn, the silence deafening when he does just that.
* * *
We pull up at a rundown trailer park. There are only six trailers that I count, and there’s just two with lights on. Owl’s bike is parked next to one and a truck that I recognize as Miranda’s, his old lady.
The door opens, and Owl appears, wiping his hands on a rag and tossing it into the overflowing trashcan. “Bitch is a mess, she’s walked out of the hospital because of no insurance.”