Finding Rhiannon

by Ker Dukey

  I’m glad she’s come. It means I can get her off my dick and through the door quicker.

  Do men even fake orgasms?

  I’m not sure, but it doesn’t stop me from trying.

  “Fuck!” I grunt, pushing my hips upwards and clenching my jaw.

  I seem to have gotten away with it. She sighs and flops forwards, resting her forehead in the dip of my throat.

  “Jesus, Scorch. Thank you.”

  Thank you?

  Thank fucking you?

  Who the fuck thanks you for an orgasm? Maybe I’ve fallen short on the sex etiquette.

  I nod and give her a short smile. “Yeah. Thanks too.”

  She seems upset, but I can’t think why. Did she not thank me seconds ago? Is it okay for women to say thanks, but not men? Do I need lessons? I snort at that. No, I definitely DO NOT need lessons.

  I’d love to teach Rhi a thing or two.

  Fuck. Here I go again.

  The redhead slides off my cock and I’m brought back to reality.

  “You’re being strange tonight. You okay?” she asks.

  I’m not sure what she’s referring to. Strange? “Yeah,” I answer, although I’m not even sure what I’m answering.

  Everything in my head is fucked up. I shouldn’t have drunk so much tonight. My brain is fried.

  Her eyes narrow on me and she plonks her hands on her hips. “Scorch. Come on. You know you can talk to me, don’t you?”

  Huh? I stare at her like she’s suddenly grown several heads. I barely know her. We fuck occasionally, but that’s all. How come all of a sudden, she thinks she’s my shrink?

  “I’m in love, Ginger.” I have absolutely no idea where that came from. Why would I talk to her?

  “Thought so,” she remarks as she sits on the bed beside me. “Come on, talk to Sheila.”

  Sheila? Is that her name? I always called her Ginger cos she has the reddest hair I have ever seen! How old is the bitch? Sheila is a gramma’s name!

  “I’ve loved her since she was twelve years old.” What the fuck? Why the hell am I even speaking?

  “Frost’s sister?”

  My eyes widen so much I’m worried they’re going to pop out and roll across the bed and plop onto the floor beside her feet. “How the fuck did you know that?”

  She scoffs. “Come on. Every fucker that breathes can see how you look at her.”

  Every fucker who breathes? Does that mean Frost can see how much I’m in love with her too? Does my tongue unroll like a red carpet on Oscars night?

  I nod.

  “Babe. Don’t be scared.” She pats my leg like she’s an placating a child. “You know they say a problem shared is a problem halved.”

  Is it?

  “Frost would take me to ground if he ever found out.”

  What the hell am I doing? I need to zip my mouth up and shut the fuck up. But she doesn’t let up!

  “Why would he? I think he’d be happy that his best friend and sister are an item.”

  “Ya’ think?”

  She nods, giving me a soft smile. “Sure thing, sugar.”

  I watch quietly as she dresses, and as she sits on the edge of the bed to pull her boots on, she turns to me. “Oh, and by the way. Men can’t fake orgasms. Remember that for next time.” Giving me a wink, she blows me a kiss and leaves.

  I can’t help but laugh out loud. Reaching over the bed, I pick up the half-smoked joint in the ashtray and light it.

  Resting my head back on the pillow, I blow out and watch the smoke curl up towards the ceiling. There has to be something we’ve missed. Buzz can’t just disappear without a trace. Dice tracked any family members he might have but they all live in other states. None of them even know he exists.

  I think back to the first time Rhi ever got on the back of my bike. She belongs there, like the saddle was designed for the both of us. Her small arms slid around my sides, and I swear my heart stopped for a moment. Everything about her invaded my sense all at once, the effect so incredible I thought I was going to pass out.

  “Scorch, can you run Rhi to school?” Frost asks me when I step into the club.

  Frowning, I nod but ask, “Sure but how come she’s in the club so early?”

  “Prez had some shit to deal with earlier on. He was supposed to drop her at school after but Dice’s having a meltdown over some intel that the Cutters want to target our shipment next week. I’d take her, but I’m needed here.”

  Shrugging my shoulders, I nod again. My trucks being serviced so I only have my bike. I’m not sure Rhiannon being on the back of my bike is a good thing for either of us, but I swallow it and turn towards her when she skips up to us and grins. “Hey, Scorch.”

  I have to stick my hands in my jeans pockets to stop myself reaching out and tucking a runaway strand of hair behind her ear. I purposely don’t look down. I know she’s wearing that short fucking school skirt. I feel like a pedophile. She’s eighteen but she’s still at school and it just feels wrong gawping at schoolgirl’s legs.

  But fuck, they’re so long and creamy, and they’re going to part and…

  “You ready?” she asks brightly, bouncing on the heels of her feet.

  “Only got the bike though,” I tell her.

  Her eyes light up like that news excites her. Shit, I’m in serious trouble.

  She follows me out and thanks me when I pass her the spare helmet. She tucks her hair back and slips it over her head.

  Coughing to clear away the lump in my throat, I get a hold of myself and climb on the saddle. I feel her slide on behind me. Every fiber of my body becomes alert to her. Her scent, her touch, each wrap around me like a warm blanket.

  Starting the engine, she taps me on the shoulder and shouts, “Aren’t you going to put your helmet on?”

  Shit.

  Not even realizing I am still holding the fucking thing, I lift it up and shove it on. My hands are shaking and I’m not even sure it’s wise to ride but I don’t have a choice now.

  She clings to me, squashing her front into my back. She leans with every corner like she’s been riding on the back of bikes her whole life. She has really. I bite my lip when my thoughts go to whose bike she’ll be on when she becomes someone’s old lady.

  Over too soon, I pull up in front of her school. As if mirroring my reluctance to let her go, she still holds onto me for another few moments before she slowly lifts her leg and climbs off.

  “Thanks,” she says as she pulls off the helmet and hands it back to me.

  She’s staring at me, and by God, I want nothing more than to grab her by the hair and kiss her. The feeling is uncontrollable, and just as I lean forwards, she grins, turns and runs up the steps, disappearing inside too quickly.

  Growling to myself at my spinning thoughts, I stub out my smoke and jump off the bed. Time to hit the gym. The punching bags are the only release for my fury right now, and I picture it being Buzz. It’s good practice for when I actually get my hands on him. He hasn’t replied to any of our texts or phone calls. Nothing. I’m out every night checking every fucking lead, every corner and dark ally in hopes of a crumb that will lead me to him… to her, but he’s like a fucking ghost.

  18

  Avery

  He smells of mint and pipe tobacco. My senses focus on each distinctive scent. It’s an odd combination, aromas I’d mainly associate with old people, although I suspect the peppermint is from the gum he was noisily chewing on earlier.

  There’s a crack in the plaster to the wall on my left. Squinting, I center my gaze on it, following its route as it winds and snakes its way down to the floor. The skirting board is missing here, the wood torn away from where it should sit. I wonder if something substantial has been smashed against this specific part of the wall, and if so, why? The carpet, or rather what’s left of it, is familiar, like a motel carpet.

  My ears catch his animalistic grunts and my stomach revolts at the sound. I can’t vomit. I’ll suffocate. I bite down on the dirty rag he’s force
d so far into my mouth that a section of it tickles my tonsils. I need to concentrate on something else or I’ll puke.

  I think of burgers, dripping with red sauce, and how I would run the tip of my fry around the edge, scooping it up before it drips onto my lap. I can almost taste it, the tang of sweet onion and gherkin, the juicy beef patty and the richness of the brioche as I take another phantom bite.

  His rutting intensifies, my back sliding along the rough floorboards and barely-there carpet. The splinters that are already embedded in the groove of my spine from the last time tingle as new ones slip under my skin. Each sharp spike becomes the spotlight for my attention and I count each of the stinging sites, starting over when I reach twenty-three.

  Saliva drips from his mouth and lands on my cold cheek. I turn my face the other way and nestle it into the floor, praying the dirt and dust will wipe it from me. It burns, branding my skin as if it’s lava spit from a bubbling volcano.

  A tightness around my throat has me silently pleading it will grow ever more stricter. Its threat to my lungs is the only hope of peace I have now and finding a fiber of energy, I force my throat harder into his hand.

  I can hardly hear his cold, bitter laugh, but I feel the rush of air in my lungs when the constriction on my esophagus vanishes and I’m once again plummeted back into the depths of this hell.

  A thought races through my head, and I grab onto it. In the quiet of my mind, I beg to an entity I’m not even sure exists, but it’s the only shred of hope I have now.

  “I’ll sell you my soul. You can have it and do what you wish with it, because whatever you do, Satan, it can’t ever be as evil as what he is doing to me now.”

  Slade’s face filters into my mind. I want to smile at him, but I can’t. He looks cross with me, angry even. He’s begging me to hold on, to suck air through my nose and keep breathing. But I’m not strong. Not like him.

  “Stay strong, Princess.”

  I want to lift my arm up and slap him. I want to dig my nails into his face. I want to rip out his tongue, so he can’t say those words to me. I’m not strong, I’m weak. So very weak. I’m a coward because I want to die, so I don’t have to suffer this anymore.

  His smile is full now and the adoration in the swirl of his eyes makes my heart beat harder. I feel his hand slide into mine.

  “Stay strong, Princess.”

  I nod. The action is faint, but he sees it.

  “Stay safe, Slade. Don’t let him find you.”

  “I’ll find you,” he whispers in return. “I’ll find you.”

  ‘But he didn’t,’ the dark, foreboding voice in the back of mind says. ‘He never did.’

  “Avery?”

  I frown at the new intruder in my mind. I recognize his voice, but I can’t quite place it.

  Brenner sneers at me when I risk taking a look at him. He’s finished now, but he’s still inside me. Spent.

  “Avery?”

  My head shakes from side to side. Nothing is making sense. Smells are muffled. Every sound is muted and my eyes can’t focus on anything. The world spins, but the air is pulsating around me.

  “Avery!”

  I’m on a rollercoaster, traveling at speed, everything rushing past me like the world is in a hurry to be somewhere.

  “Avery, wake up!”

  “Huh?”

  I cling to my throat with broken hands, trying to pull at my skin as I fight for air.

  “It’s okay. It’s okay. You’re safe,” he coaxes as he carefully guides my hands from my throat and holds them cautiously. Even his gentle hold fires pain through each fractured bone.

  My heart is stampeding so hard I swear if I looked down I’d see it pumping through my chest.

  “It’s okay. It was just a dream.”

  “Just a dream,” I echo, the air in my mouth feeling weird. “Just a dream.”

  Finally, I look at him and my brain comprehends I’m awake. “Dean?”

  “Hey, Avery.” His smile is just how I remembered it, full and toothy. His gaze on me is soft and brimming with warmth, and his blonde hair is slicked back like he always wore it. He looks tired, pale, but real.

  I frown. “You…You don’t hate me?” It wasn’t a question, but he answers it anyway.

  “No, of course.”

  “You should.”

  Tipping his head to the side, his gaze becomes troubled. “Why?”

  “Because I went back and now look at me. They all look at me with…”

  “With what? Who?”

  “Everyone. They all show it, horror. They think I don’t see it in their eyes, but I do. I see so much more now. They think it’s my fault I look like a horror movie.”

  Sighing slowly, he doesn’t remark on my strange statement but smiles. “You’ll always be beautiful to me, Avery.”

  Beautiful. At one time I would have believed him. Not now. Now, I was ugly. Inside and out.

  I expect to wake up but the overhead light buzzes and hurts my eyes, and noise from the corridor is so present that I have to pinch myself.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Dean.” I choke. “It’s really you?”

  He smiles, his head nodding a yes.

  He’s really here. Awake, alive, and in my room.

  “You wanna take a walk in the fresh air?” he asks, catching me by surprise. Glancing at my legs, he shrugs. “Well, they can walk us. You and me can sit in a chair and allow them to wheel us around. We can pretend we’re royalty and they’re our lowly servants.”

  For the first time in a long while, I smile. Looking to the window, the sight of the sun shining has me pining to feel its winter rays on my face.

  “You’re okay?” I sob. It’s a gentle cry but it still aches my ribs. I’m so sick of crying.

  “I will be. We both will be.”

  “Okay,” I whisper as if taking a mere walk outside is a challenge I never thought I’d dare to make. In a way, I suppose it is.

  “Good girl.”

  I watch his back when he goes to find a nurse to help us. He’s on his feet but walks with a slight limp but other than that you wouldn’t ever know that he’d been shot. I think it was the beating that did the most damage. I want to ask him where he got shot but bringing up that animal only brings with it a world of anger and pain.

  I gawk at my own body and hatred uncurls in the pit of my belly. I know my wounds will never heal as well as Dean’s. The scars my body bears will forever be there to taunt and mock me. But it’s not those wounds that terrify me. It’s the damage to my soul that will one day take me from this living hell.

  The day I asked the devil to trade my soul, I couldn’t ever have imagined that he would answer my prayers. But he did. The nightmare I lived in then was nothing on the torment I merely existed in now. And there would only ever be one way out.

  19

  Rhiannon

  The room is dark, the pounding rain that batters the window a welcome distraction from the usual mind-numbing quiet. The wind that’s been strengthening throughout the morning is shaking each pane of glass in its crumbling frame and I’m unsure as to whether they’ll hold out. The weather matches my mood today. I’ve been here so long I literally know the number of dust webs that hang from every corner in the house.

  “You ever think how different our lives would be if they hadn’t left us?”

  Buzz’s voice makes me jump and I snap my head round to face him. “Who?”

  “Our moms.”

  I’m not sure I understand him, his question a rather strange one. “I don’t think they left us, Buzz, more that they were taken from us.”

  He scoffs and stares straight at me. “Your mom actually chose to leave you, though, didn’t she?”

  His truth hurts, even after all this time, and I swallow back the ache that’s formed in my throat. “Yes. Yes, she did.”

  Shrugging, he takes a large gulp of the bottle of beer he’s holding. It’s his eighth one and I’m more than aware he’s starting to slur hi
s words. Makes a change from the drugs, I suppose. “Not being insensitive, Princess, just calling a spade a spade.”

  I nod and snort. “I know.”

  “Although if I had a son like Brenner, I’d put myself in the ground too.”

  “He wasn’t always bad, you know,” I state quietly, picking at a loose thread in the sofa cushion. “He loves me, I know that much.”

  “There are so many things Bren is capable of, but I ain’t sure love is one of them. It’s not natural how he is for you.”

  I didn’t expect Buzz to understand. He was just bitter over his brother’s death. Once, he’d been good friends with Brenner. How things can change so quickly.

  “Tats loved me,” he states as he reaches for another beer and pops the lid. He downs half of the bottle before continuing. “School was a shitter. I didn’t have many friends. Tats did though. Lots.”

  “What was his real name?” I ask, realizing I know nothing about the two brothers.

  He chuckles. “Franklin.”

  My eyes widen, and I laugh with him. “Bet he loved that.”

  Snorting he laughs harder.

  “And yours?”

  Looking at me, he smiles. “Brent.”

  “Suits you.” Returning his smile, I take the bottle from him and drink a large mouthful before saying, “So why does everyone call you Buzz?”

  “Tats gave me the nickname. When we were little, I cut my own hair with my mom’s electric razor. But I only managed to do half of it before the batteries ran out. Looked like a cunt. Tats kept making fun of me, constantly mimicking buzz sounds.”

  We’re both laughing hard. And it feels good. Tears roll down his cheeks, but this time they aren’t of grief, but hilarity. I am surprised by how much his face lights up when he’s rolling with laughter, his handsome features more stunning when he forgot to hate.

  “Did it ever grow back?”

  “Nah. Mom beat my ass so much. But she also bought new batteries and cut the rest for me.”