by Amy Law
Pre sense
Tiffany huddled and shivered from shock in the thin blanket. Blue and red lights flashed over the dark asphalt and radio noise crackled through the night air. She was distant, disconnected, as if she were watching firm male hands steer someone else to the open door of an ambulance.
Questions rained down on her but they bounced off and faded away into the blur of noise and movement as her senses began to shut down.
They poked her mouth with spatulas. Took swabs. Shone lights in her eyes and turned her arms over.
Felt everywhere.
All over her body. Again.
Someone gave instructions. Drips, injections. Measurements.
“We’re going to get them,” a strong, male voice said. “There’s plenty to go on, Miss. Don’t you worry about a thing now.”
Them. One of them, she wanted that bastard caught. For what he did, she wanted him behind bars, his skin turning pale and gray while he waited on years of appeals against the death penalty. But the other one… not the other one…
All the voices, all the sounds of boots on shale, they all receded into the soft, soothing darkness.
The clocktower bell clanged and her eyes flicked open. She was back in the funk and gloom of that square, bare, windowless room.
Chapter 1
Tiffany spent the bright spring Saturday morning making use of Daddy’s credit cards at the mall. Her first weekend off from her med school internship roster at Mountain View Hospital and she meant to recreate.
Serious party plans were afoot with her gang of med students, and they knew how to rip the night wide open. She just hoped that nobody leaked any of the details to the notorious Doctor Mastermann. She didn’t need her slender skills in martial arts tested again.
She cruised the food court, picked out some Thai vegetarian snacks, and schlepped her big bags full of upscale grunge-wear and Urban Decay makeup—most of it in shades of black—over to a table.
Leaning on the balcony rail above were two bikers. They looked pretty hardcore, probably members of Blades MC. The local trouble, or the local heroes, depending on whether you took Daddy’s outlook or her sister Jesska’s.
Mean shades poked out between their unruly masses of wiry hair. One had a mess of light brown tangle; the other had a dirty blond thatch. The darker-haired one wore a thick, neat beard.
Cut-off leather jackets over cut-off hoodies left the hard cords of their arm muscles on show, and their jeans covered but did nothing to conceal two heart-stopping clenched asses. You could stack a row of textbooks on those asses. If books were what was on your mind, that is.
Tiffany didn’t see the bikers take any notice of her at all but, if they were around any longer than her samosa, she meant to make sure that they did. She had used up most of her morning plan for spending Daddy’s money, so she had nothing else in mind for the day.
Bikers. Bikers had always fascinated Jesska; fascinated to a point of obsession. She rode a motorcycle herself, and Tiff was sure that Jess had been hanging around some biker bar. She wondered why she was so sure.
It was a few weeks ago Tiff decided that was what happened. Why? Because Jess stopped talking about it. Duh! Obvious as soon as she thought about it. Was she having sex with bikers? Wow, you heard pretty wild things about bikers clubs. All exaggerated, Tiff was sure. But still.
She snuck another glance at the bikers. They were pretty hot, in a rough kind of a way, but definitely hot. They didn’t look like any of the boys in med school, that was for sure. She gave her attention to her veggie nibbles.
Tiffany casually noticed with satisfaction that the two Blades men were still in sight. In fact, they had hardly moved. They still didn’t seem to have registered her tiny faded denim skirt or her black stockings, torn across her thighs and laddered all the way into her short, patterned cowboy boots.
Not even the deep scoop of her t-shirt seemed to have caught their eyes yet. The tee, without too much study, revealed that she wasn’t wearing a bra. That was in case the pert, bouncing nipples under the soft white shirt hadn’t made that point—those points—already.
Tiffany dressed in black, mussed up her dyed-black hair, and wore black makeup so as not to be noticed. She said so all the time. Deep cover, as a smart-ass in med school called it. As she stepped onto the up escalator, she thought she saw another man in the bikers’ cut and jeans on the far side of the food court.
He slipped backwards behind the pillar with the clock. It was ten of two. The clock showed its happy face.
When the escalator let her off on the first floor, she saw only the blond biker, but that wasn’t so bad. He was the cuter of the two. Tiffany’s hips rolled slowly as she strutted nonchalantly by, and the heels of her boots snapped nicely on the polished floor.
As she passed him, his scent wound around her, and she felt it land deep in her stomach. It was a dark scent, unusual to her nose but definitely not cheap, patchouli and something exotic, as well as a light but unmistakable sweet-stale whiff of freshly burned weed. Behind all that was the kicker. The only word for that smell is ‘man.’
She slouched to shove open the door to the parking levels, and she just happened to peek back at him. A thrill beyond satisfaction fizzled up through her as she saw him pull up his hood and follow her. He was speeding up.
Tiffany let the heavy door swing closed behind her, and headed behind a partition for the pay station. She sensed that somebody was already there. Before she could look around, a huge gloved hand clamped over her nose and mouth. An arm across her stomach pinned her arms, and squeezed the breath out of her.
Struggling against the force that held her, Tiffany could hardly move her head. She shouted, but only the tiniest grunt escaped past the gloved hand. As her body shook, the restraining arm didn’t move, but the fingers of the hand on her stomach, her abdomen, and her hip pressed in, exploring.
She tried to kick backwards but she was held too tight, forced against the hot, hard body of her captor. She felt the taut ropes of his abs, the tough thighs pressed against the soft cheeks of her ass. Between them, a thick, uncoiling swelling pressed against her.
As she shook and tried to shout, she felt a quick, rhythmic pulsing in the body of her attacker. He was chuckling. It amused him to feel her desperate attempts to kick herself free.
He hasn’t made a move for the purse under my arm, but her phone, her money, her cards—well, Daddy’s cards—they were all in there. That must be what they’re after. Tiffany was sure that was where this was headed. She’d hand the purse over if they’d only let her.
Daddy will yell about it, and make it all out to be my fault, she thought. Give me endless lectures about being irresponsible and not taking enough care. Then the insurance would pay anyway. So what? No biggie.
Rapid footsteps thudded from behind and the blond biker stood in front of her. His hood was up and he had a red and black bandana over his nose and mouth. How much more perfect could it be? She is attacked in the car park and the biker is right there to rescue her.
Only he doesn’t rescue her. First he looks hard in her eyes and puts his gloved finger to his pursed lips. Her eyes are wide and afraid now, but she makes a rapid nod. She felt the hot breath of the biker who held her from behind.
He whispered into her ear, “No clever moves, baby. Just co-operate and you won’t get hurt.” When the hand came off her face, the blond biker strapped tape across her mouth.
She tried to shake her head, to tell him, It’s OK, I’ll do what you say, but he grabbed her by the jaw. His pale blue eyes burned over the top of his shades. His finger went to his lips again. A tear threatened to fall. He paused to brush it away with his thumb, giving her time to catch a slow breath through her nose.
He turned her by her shoulders. He took her shopping bags and she heard him put them down. As she was turning, she tilted her head to look for security cameras. Someone would see this. She’d be out of this in no time. These assholes were going down.
She loca
ted the camera. It was right above her head and there was no way it would have a view of what was happening here. They had chosen their spot. They knew what they were doing. Her hands were pulled behind her back and a tight plastic strap vibrated as it tightened around her wrists.
A dark van pulled up sharply by the pay station and another biker got out. It was the one from behind the pillar when she left the food court. A girl in denim and leather with big shades covering her face and a hoodie up appeared with her hand out.
The blond biker turned her again to face him.
His voice grated low, barely more than a scratchy whisper. She felt the strength and intensity when he said, “Car keys, parking ticket.” He pointed at the purse under her arm.
She nodded. She tried not to let show that she was shaking. He took the purse from her, didn’t yank the strap, and snapped the purse open, but held the opening towards her so she could see.
He found the pocket in the side where the ticket was, and her car key. He handed them to the girl. He snapped her bag closed, and put it back under Tiffany’s arm. His eyes were hard and cruel, but his movements were soft and kind.
The girl went to the pay station as Tiffany was bundled through the side door onto a bench in the back of the van. The bench looked like it came out of the back of a long-dead Chrysler sedan. Smelled like it, too. The partition between the front and the back of the van had a scratched, milky Plexiglas window.
The brown-haired biker, the one who had grabbed her from behind, slid in to drive and the blond biker sat up front with him. The other one climbed in the back after Tiffany.
He sat on a crate and watched her as she lay across the bench in the darkness. She couldn’t see his eyes behind the narrow black shades. Tiffany fought the rising beat of panic in her chest.
The engine started. At the same time, from the far side of the parking level, Tiffany heard her little turquoise Mini chirrup its cheery greeting to the key. The van moved, and Tiffany was wedged into the crook of the bench, her arms twisted and cramped under her.
When she struggled to get less painfully uncomfortable, the biker in back with her lunged forward. Her head jerked as he slapped her across the jaw, and he grabbed her thigh, hard. He held a big, balled fist up close to her eyes. She couldn’t see anything of his face, just the bandana and the shades. She couldn’t make out any expression or clue.
He was black-haired. He had straps on his biceps, fingerless leather gloves on his hands, and a black bandana over his face. Her first instinct was to just nod and comply, but she didn’t see how she could go any distance with her arm hurting so much.
She raised her eyebrows and twitched her head towards her shoulder, keeping her eyes on the featureless face in front of her, hoping that he would understand. He was still.
Then his hand jerked her thigh, pulling her legs apart. Her tiny skirt rode up. The tops of her torn hold-ups and the bottom of her sheer black knickers were exposed.
She was yanked onto her back. His grip on her thigh was rough, and his fist was still at her face. The head in front of her cocked to the left. It was a question. Better? Her arms were less painful now. She nodded, once. She tried to wriggle to get her skirt down. The fist held closer to her face, so she stopped.
As the van lurched through the barrier, out of the car park and into the sunshine,
Everybody’s wearing shades, she realized, Nobody talks. It gave her hope. They don’t want me to be able to identify them. That means they at least have a plan that involves not killing me.
Chapter 2
From where she was, lying on the bench, nobody would be able to see her if they looked into the truck. Through the misty window, she could hardly see anything but sky. Unrecognizable tops of buildings blurred by above.
Bumping on the bench, she could only breathe through her nose. The stale air and the old, male stench beneath it stifled Tiffany. The plastic tie chafed and made her wrists sore. Her arms began to ache. They became heavy and painful.
To distract herself, she thought about the direction of the light as the van moved. She thought she could get an idea at least of what direction they were traveling, but, this time of day, there weren’t enough shadows for any clue.
Fuck, I can't figure this out, she thought. Misery welled up inside her. I'm completely lost. These fuckers can do whatever they want with me and no one’s ever going to find me.
With the eyeless black sunglasses watching her, her despair rose like a smothering fog. She told herself that was a bad thing, and that she had to stay positive. Sadly, it didn’t do her much good.
They rattled and slewed along in silence. The one thing Tiffany thought she could detect was that the sounds outside, of people, horns, traffic, and general city noise, were fading. The air was becoming drier. They were leaving town, and heading out into the scrubland.
After a long time on a straight road, the van veered off to the left. The road became progressively bumpier until the wheels began to skip and the driver had to slow down. A couple of minutes of that and then they veered again, onto a smooth surface, and then, suddenly, into darkness.
Tiffany’s eyes couldn’t adjust. She guessed they must be inside a building. The van lurched to a stop. When the engine cut and the doors opened, she heard a big, dry echo. The two men got out of the front of the van and shut the doors behind them.
She lifted her head from the bench. Immediately the biker hit her with a slap. Her head snapped from side to side and her face stung. He rapped his knuckle once on the Plexiglas before seizing Tiffany by the throat with one hand, and held her down. With the other hand he pressed on her mound, through her panties.
He held her like that and Tiffany was alarmed at the rising tides of tingling sensation that welled up in her. She could smell her own juices. She knew that the biker must have been able to smell them, too.
She remembered from a lecture that women lubricate when they are about to be raped. The beady-eyed endocrinologist had relished his topic. “It’s evolutionary, like most of our body’s behavior. It’s believed to have been a means of self-preservation.”
She remembered his little snaky tongue flicking across his lips as he said, “It very likely goes all the way back to times when there was little or no verbal communication, before there was any discussion about consent.” Tiffany had wondered if that was the whole story.
A pair of boots clomped back the way the van had come in, twenty-eight paces. Then there was the sound of a heavy door sliding and a clang when it shut. Twenty-eight paces back. Tiffany felt better knowing that some skill had shown itself to her. She was a drummer. She could count.
Without even thinking about it, she listened to the footsteps go and come back, and then replayed the rhythm in her head. As it played, she counted the steps. She had a sense of the building being large and cavernous. It was some old warehouse or something.
The side door of the van opened from the outside, revealing the blond biker, reflective shades on and the bandana still over his mouth and nose. The black-haired biker let go of his grip on her throat. His hand dragged away from her panties, but much more slowly. Then he held a finger in front of her nose. The finger pointed to say, Don’t move, but she was more aware of it carrying her own scent.
The biker that was molesting her climbed out. The blond climbed in and slid onto the bench opposite. She couldn’t see his eyes behind the shades, but she saw his jaw muscles work under the bandana.
He reached across for her purse. She shoved her shoulder towards him to indicate that he could take it. Really, what choice did she have? When he took the purse and reached in for her iPhone, he showed her what he was doing. Then he snapped the purse shut and slipped it back under her arm.