In My Stepbrother's Hands

by Tara Lynn

  "We're out in the fucking open," he said.

  Earl looked around, realized the road, and nodded. "Good point. Come with me a moment, honey. Just till Jimmy’s done.”

  He grabbed me around the waist and pulled me around the car. I dug my claws into his skin, but it was like leather. He slapped me across the cheek and pulled me past Jimmy, who gave me another sneer.

  This could not be happening. I was supposed to be free of all this controlling shit. The fury gave me another burst of anger and I slapped out at Earl.

  “Stop fighting us, little girl,” he spat.

  Earl threw me hard onto the asphalt. I scrabbled back, feeling the world slowing around me and becoming high detail. I wanted to look anywhere but at those two. The empty wash of land just made me feel more desolate, though. I looked back in time to see Earl fish out my purse. The buttons shone like the light of an oncoming train.

  My eyes saw motion beyond Jimmy. Lucas was coming up behind him, in a slow deliberate pace, even for my already slowed vision. He laid an arm around Jimmy. Jimmy turned, but then suddenly, Lucas was pincering his neck, reaching across to meet his breath. Jimmy's eyes popped open and he struggled, but he seemed to have no breath already. His eyes lolled.

  Earl unzipped my purse and started poking through, just as Jimmy went down behind. Lucas started creeping forward. A branch crunched. Earl turned around and his eyebrows furrowed at the sight of Lucas, but then they popped right back up, as he noticed Jimmy's sleeping form on the side of the road. Lucas jumped at him, but Earl had turned and they wound up locked.

  They swayed back and forth like dancing partners, grunting and swearing. I watched like I was at a ballet, then some part of my brain told me that this might be a good chance for me to get away. I started edging around the back of my car, when I heard what sounded like the first grunt of a vomit. I peeked back and saw Lucas drive another vicious knee into Earl and drop on him.

  Earl's eyes flitted with pain, but Lucas laid on him even harder. It looked like he’d be out soon, but then Earl whipped to his pocket and came back out with a gun.

  “The fuck, Earl?” Lucas asked, backing up.

  “Fuck your VP badge," Earl said, rising to a seat. “Think you can just kick me around like that, you little shit?”

  “I’m fucking trying to save you, man. Save you from the cops. This is a public goddamn highway and we got hot meds right out here.”

  “Like hell-” Earl was saying, but then, Lucas kicked the gun out and stamped Earl’s arm down. I almost wanted to cheer, but then Earl’s other arm scooped Lucas by the knee and laid him down flat. He rolled over him and the situation switched.

  “Fucking club traitor,” I heard Earl say over and over as he battered Lucas with punches that Lucas was blocking with only his arms. They were mighty arms, but Earl had gravity on his side, which made his fat work as good as muscle. Lucas looked at me, and I could see no hate, no plea either. He didn't need loathing or love from me. He knew what he had done. Which was mostly, from what I could tell, save my life.

  Well, I wasn't ready to trade my life for anyone’s. I spotted a plastic tube rolling away from Earl's back jean pocket. I picked it up, and saw poison signs, right next to some medicine name. Why would a guy be carrying around a tube of poison? I noticed it also happened to have a picture of a horse. Unless horses were considered pests round these parts, I was holding horse tranquilizer.

  I heard something crunch as Earl landed another vicious blow on Lucas's defenses. His face flinched in defiant anger. Earl's big ass hung out in front of me, barely curtained by his boxers. Fuck Earl. I jabbed the syringe in and compressed it halfway. It was like shutting down a motor. Earl's punch slowed on its way down and landed as a tap. His head turned glacially and he drooled at me.

  "Ngh?" he asked.

  Lucas jumped to his feet and socked Earl in the face. The thick biker went starfish.

  "Quick," Lucas said, and he started rolling the snoring man into the dense countryside.

  I stared at his straining form for a while and then hustled over to help him move Earl. Then, we did Jimmy. Lucas jabbed him with the remaining tranq.

  "That'll keep them down for a couple hours," he said, before turning to me. "You gotta be outta here by then."

  "I want to," I said, then remembered and added. "Thanks, by the way."

  "Let's go.” He began jogging to the chopper.

  I ran up as he hopped on, then remembered. "Where we going?"

  “I know the chapter here pretty well. I got a buddy in a shop who will come fix up your car, but you can't be around. This town really ain't a place for you."

  I looked back at the little car with all my worldly gear. I remembered the Flyers slumbering nearby just hidden in the brush. Amazing how quickly shock lets you forget. Still, was the guy in front of me any better?

  "You gotta trust me," he said. “I’m not going to hold you here. I’ve got plenty of trouble already."

  It wasn't a great argument, but it was the only one on offer. I clambered up behind him, and wrapped my hands around his mid. His rippling, lean mid, I couldn't help but notice. The stress and shock and adrenaline was sloughing off me and without it, my body was becoming a jumble of tuning forks.

  I had almost been trapped by people who thought of me as nothing but property. Trapped but for the work of these muscles under my grip. I wrapped into them tighter, feeling exhausted and wanting nothing more than to surrender my fate to the whims of my step-brother. He might be the only trustworthy man I had left.

  The engine rumbled to life, a rattling thrum that swallowed up my jitters.

  "Hold on," Lucas shouted back, though I felt more than heard him. He had a deep voice that rattled through his muscle bound chest.

  We kicked off and scattered down the road. The wind began screaming at our speed and I turned away. My car and the two Harleys already looked miniature and soon we banked a curve and they were gone altogether. I shut my eyes, feeling exhaustion and the shake of the engine working on me like I was a fussy baby. I couldn't surrender completely. I couldn’t trust my stepbrother completely.

  “I was born in this chapter,” Lucas said suddenly.

  "You used to live here?" I asked.

  All I got was the wind and rumble for a bit, but then he added. "Closeby."

  "What were you guys doing out here?”

  “A job."

  I knew better than to ask but did anyway. ”What kind of job?”

  His head wagged against mine. “That’s club business and you’re leaving the club.”

  “I was never in the club.”

  “All the more reason not to tell you. It’s not anything you want to know.”

  Apparently it wasn’t just Tarmont that was crappy. No work, just jobs. No wonder this countryside was full of crime. No wonder bikers ruled the land. Bikers who apparently moonlighted as prescription drug traffickers. Or maybe it was the other way around.

  “And I don't need your thanks,” Lucas added. “They were just going to get us in trouble.”

  "Your brothers."

  Another rumbling moment of hesitation. "Yeah. They slammed some of the shit we stole before we left. Fucked up their sense of duty."

  Somehow I didn't think he was talking about the crime itself. “Well anyway, you saved my ass there, Lucas."

  “Glad you didn’t just call me brother."

  My mind smothered that word. Brother? No we didn’t know each other. “We’re just you and me.”

  “Yeah, that sounds fine.”

  The air shifted as the road wound into a grove of trees thick enough to almost be a tunnel. Trunks twisted out of the ground with thick flat branches that spread out above us like a green umbrella. It filtered the light like a kaleidoscope, and cooled the heat to a warm gust. It felt like we had gone back in time.

  “You’re a knight in shining armor.” I nestled my head on his neck and felt the light speckled me with heat. Lucas's aroma filled my nose, a rich musk that rose abov
e the metal smell of the machine and the gas and the sweet breeze through the trees.

  "They were wrong to force you to go back," he said. “The Flyers should be about protecting our towns not running them with an iron fist."

  "Oh yeah?" I said, too comfortable to care.

  “If you wanna leave that’s fine, but this should be a wakeup call to us, not something we stop.”

  "Uh- huh."

  “Anyway, I’ll let my dad know. I guess you said all the words to your mom that you wanted right? I don’t talk to her that much either.”

  “Yeah, she’s barely family either." I didn’t want to think about Tarmont at all. I just listened to the birds singing.

  "Like I said, the Flyers have plenty of other problems on their plate.” He broke off into swears for a few seconds and reached down at patted at a satchel on the side of the chopper. He missed though and rubbed along my calf. His finger traced my bare skin softly, perplexed, then jerked away.

  “You should wear more," he said. “Grim Flyers might want to take you back, but there’s a lot worse that folk could do to you.”

  "I see." The heat of his finger lingered though me and I was in no rush for it to leave. Apparently my memory of the moment was nothing compared to his. Something very hard was pressing up against the bottom edge of my hand, just above his waist. Something that hadn't been there before.

  I should be jumping off this bike, but I was too damn tired. The only thing my brain was blaring was that this guy was practically a stranger, and that we had no reason not to get closer.

  In some weird way, it was what society wanted us to do.

  We slowed and then curved onto a dirt path barely the width of a couple tree trunks. The engine cooled to a purr, but now the ground jostled us. I opened my eyes and saw us moving toward a rundown shack in a clearing ahead. After dark, that thing would probably look out of a horror movie. Striped with gentle sunlight as it stood now though, it looked way more Disney.

  We pulled out of the treeline and the tires ground to a stop.

  "This is my bro's place.”

  “An actual brother? You have a brother?”

  “An estranged half-brother. He runs stuff out here, but he’s outta town on club business."

  The house looked even worse close up, but I saw no sign of motion.

  "You stay here while you get fixed. My buddy will bring the car here, then you go."

  "Sounds fine to me." I got off the bike feeling wobbly and steady at the same time. My body still rattled but the shock had left it. I stretched and Lucas got off. He glanced at me, without turning. I remembered the erection he was sporting and smiled at him. He looked a little queasy and quickly walked through a door hanging off the hinge. I followed but stopped, when I seemed about to enter a dark cave.

  "How long will it take?" I asked.

  "Fuck if I know," his voice drifted out of the darkness. "Probably a coolant leak though. You check levels before you left?"

  "Uh, how do you do that?"

  A snort or maybe a laugh ran out. "Whatever. Come on in. You know I don’t bite.”

  A click rang and then the room lit up yellow under a single bulb sticking out of the ceiling. I stepped into what looked like a den. There was a dirt brown couch across from a large flatscreen, between which sat a squat black table littered with empty bud cans. The carpet was an olive green, dyed camo almost under a mess of stains that would at any other time horrify me. The rest of the room was empty, but for another loose looking folding table with liquor bottles, and doorways leading elsewhere.

  I’d thought our place looked messed up with a couple bikers passing through now and then, but this was what an actual club house looked like.

  Lucas patted down a corner of the couch, and I set myself down gingerly. If I was going to be murdered here, I didn’t need to die dirty. I looked up to see him watching me, but he looked away and wandered off grumbling. He pulled his phone and went out somewhere to place a call. His voice rang out loud enough that it didn't seem like he was pulling any stunts, and I studied the room some more. It could have been any college frat; nothing that indicated a biker gang ran the place.

  Lucas padded back in, and set a 2L of soda before me before sitting down on the couch . "Buddy thinks it's coolant too. He gonna go pick it up now. Shouldn't be a couple of hours.

  "Thanks," I said, "I don't have cash. I got a checkbook...back in the car."

  “Come on, I’m not charging you. Consider it a going away gift.”

  “Thanks.”

  He hovered above me a second, then plopped on the far end of the couch, dug up a remote and flicked on the TV. He churned through a couple stations of racing, wrestling sports, then offered me the remote.

  I shook my head. "It's your house."

  "My brother's," he said, but went back to surfing.

  Brother. What did that word even mean? His half-brother was estranged and they were connected by blood. Lucas was just a guy from my high school. I tried to reach out and feel a connection to him, but the part of me that reacted was not my heart, but further down. The idea felt wrong, but just thinking about it made it even hotter.

  He stopped for a moment on an MMA fight, but had a change of heart and switched to an action movie, some cheap made for TV thing with good looking guys sprouting cheesy lines. He spread out, but he wasn't really watching. He checked his phone a few times, tilted his head my way as if to say something, then held back. Apparently the station was for my benefit.

  "Hey," I said. "I'm ok with MMA."

  "Oh yeah?"

  "Watching two guys beat each other up might cheer me a little bit."

  Lucas grinned and flipped back. The same fight was on and under the sweat and blood, one of the fighters was a really cut white guy and the other was a scrappy looking Mexican or mixed dude. They grappled each other and Lucas leaned in. It all seemed vaguely erotic. I didn't point this out to Lucas. Didn't want to ruin the mood.

  One guy got the advantage and put the other in a choke. I remembered Lucas doing the same for Jimmy, his fierce look locked on me as his buddy went down. I peeked out at him now from the corner of my eye and confirmed what I had seen then, a long lean body, ripped sure, but still flexible, not caked with pointless weight. It was a body designed for action.

  The room felt uncomfortably warm, but then I remembered the logo of his jacket and my reverie dulled.

  Whatever our relation was, he was till the VP of a biker club.

  "Hey, if you got stuff to do, you don't need to babysit me," I said.

  "Na, I'm good right here."

  "You afraid I'm gonna steal something?"

  His eyes leveled on me, and he searched my body for a second. It was quick, but I felt it like a laser. “Just feel obligated to keep you safe," he concluded.

  The warm feeling stirred in me again “You don’t owe me anything."

  “I’d do it for anyone.”

  “Didn’t know bikers were so chivalrous."

  “It’s a damn shame that we aren’t.” The TV had gone to commercials and his voice boomed over it

  I remembered what he said about fixing the club. “You really think that those two guys you travel with could learn to be nice?”

  "Those two are idiots. They ain't good for nothing but moving around drugs, and they do so much of their supply they ain't even great at that."

  “You think it’s wrong of me to leave a place with people like that."

  “I’m helping you aren’t I? If you think you can do better elsewhere then you should go there.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know if I can do better. I just had to get away.”

  He seemed to shift a little closer. “I get that feeling sometimes, but a little ride is all I need to clear it up. You want to try it?”

  “No, thank you.” Those bikes symbolized everything I hated in this world. The ride with Lucas here had been ok enough, but I was glad to be off.

  “Anyway, you’ll be fine. You were always smart. I r
emember that from high school. ” He shut the TV, at ease.

  “Smart for Tarmont maybe. Who knows if I’m good enough for the outside world?” I asked.

  He didn’t utter any platitudes, but just shrugged. “Only way to find out is to try. There’s always a place for you if you decide to come back.”

  I looked at him. “Didn’t think I had any reason to before.”

  “You do now?”

  I stopped, looked at his form stretched out, just past me. He was part of the sofa itself, a tan glistening part. His eyes seemed to fall on me too, each of us evaluating the other.

  Where are you going with this, Mia? I asked. As if I didn't already know. I'd dated just a few guys in high school, but I always knew the moment when I fell into their arms. It wasn't ever the words they said, but the way they said them, some treble of conviction in their voice.

  The guy trafficked drugs. He rode in a 1% club. He wore gang tats. Apparently he could be running drugs too. Despite all that, he was still here helping me - a girl he barely knew. I believed him when he said he wanted the Flyers to be more than criminals. You’d think he’d be defending the club with all the history he had in them. But history seemed to be only a whisper to both of us now.

  "So what kind of town would Tarmont be under you?" I asked.

  “Oh there’s a ton to fix.” He waved me off. "You don’t want to hear it all."

  “Maybe I won’t leave.”

  His eyes popped open at that. “My dad’s gonna be in charge a while yet. I can’t go against him anytime soon.”

  “Our parents do a lot of things that we don't like,” I said.

  “Your mom too?”

  “Well, she married your dad.”

  He gave a low chuckle. “Yeah, I guess that’s got you chained up as much as it has me.”

  “Chained. That’s exactly the word. It chained the two of us together.”

  He studied me intensely and for the first time, his eyes flicked down my body. “That ain’t such a bad thing, is it? Thought you and I were getting along.”