by K. J. Dahlen
It was horrible. I didn’t have time for questions because I couldn’t control anything around me anymore. All I could do was listen, watch, and pray.
I don’t pray anymore.
I realized that back home when I was safe, I was always so pent up, so uptight. I felt like I was waiting for something or that I needed to start something. Whatever it was, I didn’t have it, so I filled my mind and heart with questions to distract myself from this... lingering emptiness I carried around. What time was my next shift? How the fuck was I going to make it through Accounting this semester? What was I at today for calories?
Looking back, it was all so meaningless. I can’t relate to that girl anymore. I used to know her-me-whatever, but now... I’m not even sure if I like the person I became, but becoming so hard makes more sense in his world.
The world I’m a prisoner in now.
I’m pretty sure before all this is over I’m going to die. But there’s something comforting in knowing that if I do, he’ll be with me, and we’ll die together. So much had happened in these past few days. There were so many things I didn’t know, like where the hell we were going to go now or even if I could fully trust him.
But now, he was all I had. My only lifeline in this dark, dirty, and dangerous biker world.
And that was fucking terrifying.
We rode away from Muse’s place at a faster speed than I’d ever experienced. His bike’s engine roared like Death’s hot laughter reminding us of the decisions we made tonight and how they would further change our lives forever.
But as hopeless as everything seemed in this one fleeting moment, I had exactly what I’d always been searching for. The one thing I couldn’t ever even put into words….
His name is Remy Daniels of the Steel Veins Motorcycle Club. He’s a cold, heartless, and cunning murderer. He’s the worst person I’ve ever known.
My name is Star, and I can’t stop thinking about him.
God help me…I think I’m in love.
1
Star
“Star!” My aunt pushed open the door that separated the small gas station’s store from the living room of the attached house her and her husband lived in. She waddled into the room, booming melodramatic music from a soap opera’s end of an episode cliffhanger did nothing to dull the shrillness in her voice.
It was bad enough hearing the muffled exploits of Doctor Clive’s back-from-the-dead twin brother throughout the day when I was trying to study without her harassing me for menial bullshit.
Maybe, if I stay really still, she won’t see me.
“Star! Dammit, girl!”
Guess not. Jurassic Park, you have failed me.
“I don’t know where your TV remote is.” I slammed my textbook shut which caused the cash register it was propped up against to clatter and ring. I looked up at my aunt over my glasses. “I haven’t been in there all day.”
“Uncle has been yelling for you to take out the trash.” Breathing heavily from the short trip from the couch, she eyed me expectantly.
“I just checked them, neither are even half full. We haven’t had anyone pull up in an hour.” I stood up to look out the room’s window. The one, lonely pump stood stoically waiting for cars that rarely ever came. Uncle rocked slowly in his chair beside it, reading a newspaper. Squinting past him, I could actually make out a tumbleweed rolling across the sun-dulled greens and dusty browns of the endless Oklahoma farmland in the distance.
I was from the east coast where cities existed. The longer I stayed here the more I could actually feel myself getting older.
“I don’t care how full they are! Uncle wants them changed, so get up off your lazy ass and change them.” She wrenched my chair away from me to better prop herself up. Was she really just looking to steal my seat?
It wouldn’t be the first time.
“He’s sitting within arm’s reach of them, look! Why can’t he do it? Aunt Gina, I really have to study for this test tomorrow. All these distractions are killing me,” I begged. “Please?”
“I’m only going to tell you once more, girl. Go.” She frowned, shaking her head which sent her jowls rippling.
“Fine, Master.” I exhaled hard, setting my jaw. I didn’t mind working the cash register because of how few customers we actually got, but all these stupid little errands and chores were extremely distracting.
One semester. It’s only one semester. I reminded myself so often that it was quickly becoming a mantra. Of all places, why did Oklahoma City University have to have the course I needed?
“Don’t you dare sass me!” she shouted after me. I walked out before she could begin her usual tirade of how they let me stay here for free and how they only ask me to pull my weight in return.
I thought back on how often my Aunt tried to guilt me. There was a joke in there somewhere about pulling one’s own weight, but I would never be bold enough to say it out loud.
I walked over to each can. They were placed at the far end of both sets of pumps. My uncle typically sat on a stool right in the middle. The only new item that had been added to either of these less than half full cans in the forty-five minutes since I’d checked it last was a coffee cup—his coffee cup.
“Uncle,” I asked. Why was I doing this again?
“Mmm.” He didn’t bother tearing himself away from what was probably a riveting article about the ins and outs of harvesting or whatever.
I hate Oklahoma.
“Seriously, there’s nothing in these,” I said, glancing back through the store window to where Aunt Gina was contentedly reading. The natural light was better at the register than by her couch.
Did she really kick me out from studying just so she could steal my seat and read? She had the entire house!
“That dirty, sonofabitch is running for mayor again?! Reynolds is an ex-con for Christ’s sake!” Uncle shouted, snapping me out of focused irritation.
“Uncle?” I needed to ask him what he wanted me to do now. I learned from experience that I’d get yelled at if he looked up and I wasn’t at the register.
“Goddammit. Gerry was right, after all. I can’t believe it. Can you believe this shit?”
Uncle had a way of abruptly blurting out while he read the news. It had caught me off guard more than I’d like to admit.
I sighed heavily. He wasn’t listening. Maybe if I found a stick to poke him with...
I should be studying right now!
“What are you sighing about?” he barked, finally noticing me. “You’re ruinin’ the damn paper!”
What? How’s that even possible? “The trash—”
“What about it?” He immediately cut me off now that he’d finally turned his attention to me. “Did you empty it?” He stood up and craned his neck to look in both cans without actually moving toward either. “Don’t bother, they’re not even half full.”
My expression darkened at the futility of these people. All I wanted to do was study for my damn test.
He looked at me with defensive confusion, having no idea for the life of him why I might be irritated. “Take them tires around back and throw them on the pile.” Uncle pointed to the two tires that leaned up against the entrance of the store. He wasn’t the inquisitive type and decided he’d rather send me away than figure out what was wrong.
Staying here, I’d learned that some things weren’t worth fighting for. The faster they ran out of stupid time-wasting busy work for me to do the faster I could get back to what really mattered. So off I went.
The ratty pickup truck, modified to have an extra loud exhaust, raced into the parking lot unnecessarily fast. I didn’t need to turn around to know it was Todd and he was on his way to see me.
Ugh. Todd was the biggest mistake I’d made since coming here, one I just couldn’t get rid of. I hustled as fast as I could, but the damn tires were so unwieldy that Todd saw me before I could reach the corner and pretend to not be here.
Uncle had gone back to his newspaper but spared Todd a dist
racted hand wave. Of course, those two had gotten along famously since Todd started coming by.
“Hey, Sweet Ass, you miss me?” Todd rolled up next to me in his truck. He hung out the driver’s side window smiling smugly as his piece-of-shit truck backfired.
“Yeah, but I’m working on my aim.” I glowered at him. How many times did I have to turn this guy down before he got it through his Cro-Magnon skull?
“You got a smart mouth, city girl. I like that.” Todd Habberon aggressively coached the boys’ football team at the high school he barely graduated from. Clean shaven with short cropped blond hair. Todd wasn’t anything special to look at, but he wasn’t hideous either. “Lemme do that for you. You don’t wanna get dirty.”
“Nope, I got this.” I laboriously dragged both tires around the side of the building, having to shift positions a few times. “And that’s funny because I don’t really give a shit what you like, Todd.”
“Ain’t up for debate, Babe.” He threw his truck in park then hopped out and grabbed them from me. “Let a real man take care of that for ya.”
“Let me know when you find one.” I adjusted my glasses from the physical exertion and crossed my arms. His alpha male persona was just about the most tone-deaf bravado I’d ever seen. Why did he think anyone liked to be patronized like that? “I’d love an actual conversation for a change.”
He was in decent enough shape and threw the tires on the unsightly pile behind the building much faster than I would’ve, but he was far from the manly man persona he was trying to portray. He was the type of guy who told people at the bar how he was an Army Ranger but just came off as full of shit.
“You didn’t care about conversation at Rosco bar and grill a few weeks ago.” He brushed some of the grime off on his pants and reached out to grab my shoulders with tire greased hands. “You were all about Todd’s big D.”
“The most lackluster two-and-a-half minutes of my life.” I pulled away before his grubby hands could touch me. “There’s not enough alcohol in the world for me to make that mistake again.” That hook up was such a mistake. I was drunk and lonely with homesickness. He was kind enough and wasn’t terrible to look at. I’ve been blowing him off ever since, but he just couldn’t take the hint.
“You say whatever you want, but I know you loved riding the big buck.” Todd humped the air with a disgusting smile he probably thought was endearing. “Hey, I got us tickets to this concert up in Norman this Saturday. Vertical Horizon. They’re a little faggy for me but I figured you’d be into them.”
“I’m not interested Todd. Leave me alone.” This shit had to stop.
“C’mon, Babe.” He used what he probably thought was his sweet voice.
I hate it when people call me pet names. Babe is my new least favorite. Sweet Ass wasn’t great either, but at least it wasn’t as generic.
“The fuck am I gonna do with these tickets? It was like, fifty bucks!”
“I don’t know. Sell them on eBay or something. I don’t care. I have to get back to work.” I brushed past him and the fucker had the gall to grab my ass. “Hey!”
He threw his hands up and smiled like he was just joking around, and I shouldn’t make a big deal out of it.
There was a rumbling sound off in the distance, like rolling thunder, but I was too heated to take my eyes off Todd. How many more ways could I possibly tell him NO?
“How bout a little kiss?” he asked. “I drove all the way up there to get them for you. A kiss is the least you can do. We’ve gone way farther than that before.”
“You’re not cute. Fuck off!” I wiped that shitty smile off his face. I could tell he wasn’t used to that coming from a little girl.
“Don’t be such a bitch!” Todd’s tone shifted. He’d lost the mock goofy, trying-to-hard-to-be-sexy bravado and settled into a stern, antagonized look.
Holy shit, did I finally break through to him?
“It’s not my fucking fault that you bought tickets and just assumed I’d go with you. Next time ask first, you fucking asshole.”
I heard a motorcycle pull into the station, then another. Soon they started flooding in. Thank God! I had an excuse to get away from Todd.
“Nobody turns their back on me, Star! Get back here.” He growled behind me.
I flipped him the bird.
I paused when I rounded the corner of the building and saw more bikers than I’d expected. Around twenty burly men flooded into our tiny station. Funny, they were certainly intimidating with their beards, tattoos, and muscles, but my first thought was that of logistics. Aunty and Uncle’s gas station was small comparatively, and out of the way. We could only fill up two of them at a time.
They were going to be here for a half hour at least.
We’ve had bikers here before, but never this many!
We had a few tough-looking ones here and there, but it was mostly a handful of middle-aged guys riding those ridiculous luxury model bikes that looked like they had more steel surrounding them than an actual car. I remembered this one guy who pulled up on a bike had three wheels. It looked ridiculous, like the adult version of a tricycle.
About a week ago, I saw about fifty guys on bikes. They must’ve been on an organized ride or on their way to some event because they didn’t stop in. Just seeing this many bikers ride by was intimidating and now to have them actually slow to a stop and fill the parking lot…
My heart started racing.
I assumed these men were all part of the same group because they all wore black vests with more or less the same patches on them. I couldn’t make out the words on the top patch but the symbol in the middle looked like two downward crossed fists with black wings behind them. The insignia looked familiar somehow, but I didn’t know much about organized bikers.
I startled, feeling Todd’s hand wrap around my arm and pull me back behind the store. I turned to him with a clenched fist, not exactly sure what to expect from him now since I made my feelings about him crystal clear.
“Oh, man. This ain’t good!” Fear had drained the man of all his color.
I immediately knew I had nothing to worry about. Well, nothing to worry about from him at least.
He peeked around the corner at the bikers. The concern plastered across his face was disconcerting.
“What’s wrong, tin soldier?” He was supposed to be this tough Army guy and here he was pissing himself. I couldn’t help but rib him a little.
The look he shot me was all daggers.
I loved it! “You afraid of real men?” I pushed harder and to my surprise, he actually went to slap me, but stopped himself.
“Shut your fucking mouth.”
Wow, I honestly didn’t think he had it in him. He was a mess and a shitty person, but I never pegged him as a man who hit women. He began to say something else, but couldn’t find the words, then stormed off to his truck.
When Todd came back, he had a gun in his hand.
“Woah, what the fuck, Todd?” This is going way too far! I started backing away. What was he going to do with that?
“Do you have any idea who the fuck that is?” He hissed at me, keeping his voice down. He was obviously still terrified. “It’s the Steel Veins MC. I think it’s a robbery.”
“The Steel what? Are you talking about the bikers?” I scoffed. My aunt and uncle weren’t exactly the Rockefellers. What could they possibly take from them? Their invaluable stack of old tires? “Who would want to rob this place?”
“Your uncle probably owes them money,” Todd mumbled.
“What? That’s crazy!” Although, now that he said that, I remembered seeing a pair of bikers with that same symbol come by and talk to him the end of last month. Uncle wasn’t too pleased with the conversation, not that he’d felt the need to fill me in on the details.
“Yeah, they’re roughing him up,” Todd said, shaking his head slightly. His brows furrowed and his eyes became more focused, even Todd’s breathing patterns changed. It seemed like he was building his courage
for something.
“Roughing him up…” My words drifted off as real worry started setting in. Like hitting him?
That couldn’t be right.
I couldn’t hear anything besides a small army of engines idling. I needed to see what was happening with my own eyes, so I pulled Todd to the side and leaned around the corner.
It was horrible!
Beneath the wall of leather and boots, I saw Uncle curled up, bloody and screaming.
Aunt Gina had come waddling out to them faster than I’d ever seen her move. It was like watching a water balloon rolling over uneven gravel. She pleaded for them to stop and was backhanded off her feet for the effort. Seeing her hit the ground so hard made me worried she might pop.
The bald man who’d hit her was a giant and he looked like he was in charge. He had a full head of hair hanging from his chin to his belly button, and he was angry. If a mean, biker version of Santa existed then I was looking at him.
My aunt and uncle were petty and annoying, but they didn’t deserve this! Especially not uncle. He was an idiot, but after he had a few cups of coffee, he wasn’t that bad.
I’d heard about things like this happening on the news and seen it on TV shows, but never in person. To watch it actually happen to someone you know...my weakness forced me to look away.
And that’s when I saw him.
In the back of the pack, casually resting on his bike and smoking a cigarette, was a man who embodied disinterest and disdain. He had the look of a man who was only there because he had to be. He looked so out of place that it felt like someone changed the channel on me. One minute it was a documentary on “The Horrors of Gang Warfare” the next it was “High Plains Drifter.”
He had shaggy, mid length, rusty brown hair, and the dark eyes of Jason Momoa. He also wore a light beard that was less hipster and more criminal. He wore the apparently obligatory black vest with patches, but over a dusty, grey, button-up collared shirt that was open enough to reveal a light shock of chest hair on road-weathered skin. His thick, faded jeans covered the top of battered, metal-armored, black leather boots.