Seven (Angels of Death MC)

by Hilary Storm

  “Looks like everything is set to go. Here are your follow up instructions and the scheduled times for your upcoming appointments.” The nurse continues to talk and I watch in silence as Tori interacts with her. I look out the window and get lost in my head again.

  “I’ll make sure she gets all of this information down. Thank you so much for your help. Piper, your ride is here.” Tori’s voice pulls me from my thoughts and I look over to see a wheelchair waiting for me. She’s holding the bag and my purse that she brought for me.

  “I can walk.” I quickly deny the ride, only to be told otherwise.

  “It’s protocol. I have to escort you to a vehicle in this chair. It’s the only way out of here.” The nurse laughs and I want to challenge her on that statement, but decide the battle isn’t worth the effort. I give in and sit in the chair and wait to be pushed. When the door opens, I see Beast standing like he’s ready to kill anyone who looks at us and I can’t even offer him a teasing smile like I usually do. Sarge peers over at me with a sad expression and I quickly look down at my hands and ask Beast to go.

  He begins to lead the way down the hall and we all follow in a line. It’s like a damn parade until a female nurse tries to stop us for something. Tori and Sarge fall back to handle whatever is going on as I take a deep breath of fresh air the second we exit the doors.

  Beast moves fast to get me into his truck and the second he closes the door I do what I know I have to do. “You remember that time you told me you’d do anything for me?” He nods as he climbs into the driver’s seat.

  “I need you to drive the fuck away right now and take me somewhere safe.”

  He grumbles as I practically beg. I can’t go back to the club and the last thing I want to do is see how everyone looks at me now. “You’re safe with me.”

  “No. I want to leave here and find a small town that I can go to until I can face everyone. Please don’t make me watch what this does to everyone around me. At least you didn’t look at me like I’m damaged.” He looks forward as he starts the engine. It takes him a few seconds to put it in drive and actually pull away from the hospital, but he does it.

  “Thank you.” My words are soft and pathetic, but it’s all I have in me right now. I know this will get him in deep shit with my brother and Switch, but I need to do this. I see him grab his phone and begin to text before we roll out of the parking lot completely. “Please text Sarge and make sure he stays with Tori.”

  “Already did.” And with that he drives away.

  He drives for hours without saying a word. It’s the calm silence that I needed desperately. I watch the road pass for miles as I look out the window and try to make sense of what I’m going to do now. This is going to be tough on me, but I know I can’t go back to the club. I have to decide where I want to move and try to start a new life away from all of the insanity that comes with being associated with all of that. My brother warned me about the dangers and I should’ve listened, but I didn’t.

  I hear him clear his throat, so I turn to look at him for the first time in a few hours. His dark hair is blowing from the window being cracked and his tattooed arms are bulging from his grip on the steering wheel. Beast reminds me so much of my brother and I think that’s why I can relax with him. He’s close enough to want to make sure I’m safe, but not close enough to be devastated about what happened. He doesn’t ache just looking at me and that’s something I need right now.

  “You hungry?” His deep voice echoes throughout the truck and I just reply with a simple nod. There’s not a chance in hell I could eat anything right now. My stomach is tied up in knots as I think about everything.

  He stops for gas and I don’t get out of the truck. The thought of moving isn’t something I’m looking forward to. Glancing at the clock on the dash, I can tell we’ve been gone for over seven hours. Seven.

  Just the thought of the number makes me nauseous all over again. Is it even possible that many men… “No. I can’t do this.” I kick open the door to get some fresh air while Beast finishes putting in the gas. My chest heaves as I try to act like I didn’t just almost scream in hysterics because of a memory that is destined to haunt me for the rest of my life.

  “You alright?” Beast steps up next to my open door when the sound of the nozzle clicks, showing the tank is full. He doesn’t move to pull the hose from the truck, instead stepping closer to me.

  “I’ll be fine. Just give me a second.” He watches me closely as I try to make the hot flash of hell pass. His patience is running out and I can feel it.

  “I’m taking you to an old friend’s house. She can help you through this shit and then I’m calling Blade and Switch.”

  “You can’t.” I immediately try to resist what he’s saying only to be stopped.

  “I have to tell them you’re safe. After the shit that just went down, they’ll be losing their minds when they find out you’re not there anymore. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, those two are fucking crazy when it comes to protecting what they love.” Love. Even hearing him say it only makes me think he’s just saying what he thinks I want to hear. I choose to ignore the ‘L’ word and try to get more information about where he plans to take me. It might just be time I make a clean break from anything to do with the club, and that may mean I have to somehow lose Beast on this journey. The sun’s reflection off the hood of the truck catches my eye and I zone in on the light while I contemplate my response. There’s no doubt that he’ll be watching me closely. It’ll take some creative maneuvering to get away from him and it’s not like I’m prepared to go off on my own at this point. I need to think.

  “Give me til’ tonight. Then I’ll call them myself.” He nods and it seems he doesn’t see through my intentions, but if he’s anything like my brother, he’ll pick up on it as we drive. I guess the fact that I’m still going through my own internal hell will help deflect anything he may pick up on.

  I slide back against the seat of the truck and take in the pain across my back. I’m flooded with a memory of them cutting my back and it just dawns on me that I haven’t looked at how bad the cuts are. I suddenly have the overwhelming desire to shower and scrub my skin clean again. “How far is your friend from here?”

  He slides in again and starts the engine before he responds. “About an hour.”

  An hour feels like eternity as I fight the chaos in my mind. I want to cry and scream until I can’t move from the exhaustion of releasing all of this. The feel of the chains. The feel of their rough hands. The smell of their breath. The burn as the knife cuts my skin… “Stop the truck!” I scream at Beast as I reach for the handle. We aren’t at a complete stop when I throw the door open and throw up all down the seat of his truck.

  The second we aren’t moving, I take off running. It’s an open field of knee high weeds and nothing else in close vicinity.

  I start off frantic and then become focused on a single tree in the distance. It gets further away as I run, but I try like hell to get to it. It’s just too far. I run until I collapse.

  I lie in the weeds and look up into a bright blue sky. I’m not even sure how far I travelled, but for a few minutes I didn’t feel the pain all over my body. I didn’t feel the ache inside my chest and deep within my soul. I was simply running from the everything in the world with no purpose or plan. And for one second that felt fucking amazing.

  Chapter Twelve

  Switch

  We’ve beaten Snipe bloody at this point; the stench of dry blood and burnt skin fills the air. Every time he tries to pass out, Blade shoots him up with the crank he took out of Snipe’s bag. Apparently he’d been using for a while from the looks of what he was carrying. Snipe never really showed signs of abuse or Blade would’ve kept his ass in check. He can tolerate pretty much everything with the exceptions of drugs and lying.

  “Snipe, you little drug addicted bastard. How many fucking times have I pulled your ass out of this shit in the past? You told me this shit was over!” Blade roars out as he co
ntinues to beat Snipe unmercifully like a he’s a human punching bag. “I gave you so many chances, I let you wallow in your own self-pity, I took care of you every time you came off a bender, and for what? For you to fall back into this shit years later and betray me and my fucking club?”

  Blade’s words hold so much disgust it only fuels my anger more, as if everything between us was in sync. I grab Snipe by the hair and hold his head up to look Blade in the eyes. I want him to see everything I see. Speaking through the lump in my throat, I growl my words into his ear. “You knew this would happen. You helped destroy the only thing I’ve ever loved and now she doesn’t even want to look at me.” I feel more anger rising from the words leaving my mouth. A new wave of hurt flows through me, almost as if me saying it aloud makes it more real. “But here, right here. I am judge, jury, and executioner. Here I am the giver of life and distributor of death and you,” I pause only to subdue the rage for a moment, “will suffer worse than you could ever imagine.” I grip tight onto Snipe’s hair as I strike his face again and again, feeling the destruction with every blow.

  “That’s enough!” Blade grips tightly onto my shoulder. “We still need him to talk.” This time he wants to let the fucker talk. Blade is fucking bipolar with this shit and yet again I disagree with how he wants to handle this. It’s just the first time I’m on the more destructive side of the fence.

  “It’s Jynx MC.”

  “What?” I barely hear Snipe speak through the moaning that comes out of his mouth.

  “Jynx, they promised me the club when they ran you off. I owed them. The crank; my debt would have been my life. I gave them insight on the club, told them who we were dealing guns to, and told them whatever they wanted to know. They promised they weren’t going to harm any of you. Just that they wanted the information, so they knew who had stock with us. I knew they were getting their guns from the cartel so I didn’t think they were trying to deal. I promise, I never meant for any of this to happen.”

  “That’s a fucking lie and you know it. You piece of shit. When that prospect called you and said boss, you knew exactly what he was talking about.” I dig my thumb into the open wound on his shoulder. “Tell me the fucking truth or I’m taking one of your eyes next.” I’m overcome with rage as I place my thumb against his eye. “Tell me right fucking now before I dig it out.”

  “What do you want? For me to tell you I wanted you all gone so I could have the club to myself?” Snipe laughs and spits blood at my boots. “There’s nothing you can do to stop him now. He has everything he needs to end you both or land you in jail. That shit with Clutch that went down, if you think that wasn’t all a part of this, you’re fucking crazy. That was nothing.” He continues to laugh to himself before Blade’s fist connects with his stomach and leaves him gasping for air.

  “Then who the fuck was it? Otherwise this torture will continue to drag on,” Blade says with the taste of blood already in his mouth, hungry like a shark that’s already taken the first bite of its victim.

  “Why don’t you ask him yourself?” Snipe grins as if he has a chance in hell of surviving this. “You think he isn’t on his way here with me missing?”

  “I think he’s not concerned with you being gone one bit; if you’re out of the picture he has everything for himself. At least if it were me I wouldn’t give a shit about some piece of shit like you.” Blade’s words seem to make reality hit Snipe right in the chest; his face turns sour as he spews the next few words.

  “At least this club won’t belong to an outsider.” Blade stands back and widens his stance. It’s as if he’s trying to stay sturdy on his feet while he takes in everything he’s saying.

  “So, it’s been him all along? Tex’s bastard son, huh? Let me guess. Devils of Eden promised your own MC under their protection and all the crank your petty heart desires right?”

  “Fuck you! You think you could just take the club after everything Tex did for us? Yeah, he thought of you as his son and always praised you over all of us. You were the fucking golden boy; always fucking perfect in his eyes. Switch, Beast, Sarge… everyone thought you were some kind of god. You’re not. You’re just another fucking loser like the rest of them and then you began ruining everything that was perfect.”

  The fury that’s rumbling deep inside me can’t be contained. Piper was ruined because of the petty bullshit that mother fucker believes. This was never going to be his club. Tex removed him from it for a reason and it never even occurred to me that after Tex’s death, James would try to get it back. My mind snaps and the world goes black. All I can feel is the burn on my fists as I continue to smash the remnants of what was once Snipe’s face.

  My own heavy breathing is all I hear when I stop to look at him as the warm blood splatters on my face. The world is cold and I have only one thought as I begin to come back to reality. James will die tonight.

  “Switch let it go. We need to get the guys. It’s time to find James.” Blade’s voice echoes for a moment until I snap back to reality.

  “Tell them to meet us at the clubhouse we need to roll in loaded, wipe every one of those fuckers off the map.” My eyes glance over the room as I look for anything giving evidence that I was the one who ended his life. Without any other reason to stay, I turn to continue this rage.

  “Agreed, I already sent out the text. Let’s ride.”

  We ride fast to the club; the wind seems to bring my senses back to life, making me crave destroying these fuckers more by the second. When we arrive at the club, everyone is already inside. We both rush in with more determination than we’ve ever had. They fucked up when they touched Piper.

  “Grab every weapon you can get your hands on. Snipe is gone. All of this shit is on him and I’m ending this tonight.” Silence falls over the officers. I get it. They’ve lost someone they thought was a brother, but the hate fueling my body at the moment doesn’t give a shit about him for letting all this happen to everyone. To the one woman I… I can’t think that way right now. I can’t let anything into my mind that will weaken me. Every single Devil will die tonight by our hands, whether they were responsible or not. I refuse to leave a loose end that can come back to haunt me after this night.

  Sarge throws the door open and Tori follows him through it. My heart sinks as I wait for Piper to follow even though the last thing I want her to do is be around anyone in this club until we get to the bottom of everything.

  “Where’s Beast?” I yell out in frustration when he doesn’t walk in either.

  “He’s with Piper, they left town. I just got off the phone with him,” Blade says as he walks around the corner tossing me a semi-automatic rifle. “I’m having Sarge take Tori to meet them and they can both keep the girls safe until we can clean this up.”

  “What the fuck?” I scream in frustration as I kick the coffee table across the room. She left town without a call? “When did she get out of the hospital?” I have a shit ton of questions and no damn answers. I swear this night only gets worse as the minutes pass.

  Why in the fuck did this happen to Piper? Why did they think they could use her to take over the club? They had to know we’d lose our shit with what they did. You’d think they’d come in under the radar to get shit done, but no these fuckers aren’t the slightest sane.

  I want to stop and talk to Tori as I walk outside, but I don’t. I’d love more than anything to ask about Piper and for Tori to tell me that she’s completely healed and everything will go back to normal right after this run, but I know it won’t.

  It’ll never be like it was before, when for once I felt like I had actually found someone.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Piper

  “You fuckin’ done running?” Beast walks up slowly and continues to look at the horizon as he talks to me and smokes a cigarette. “You do realize that I’m not going to run your ass down. If you want to stay safe, you keep your sassy fucking ass with me.” He paces back and forth at my feet. “I know this is all fucked up and you’ve bee
n through a lot, but don’t make me regret getting you out of there to get yourself together.” I roll my eyes and stare into the sky even longer. He has no idea what I’ve been through.

  “You know what I’ve been through? You know what it feels like? I don’t know if I had one or seven men rape me. Seven. Do you fucking hear me? Seven.” I sit up as hatred begins to boil in my throat as I scream the number over and over.

  “I went black. My mind shut off to protect me and now all I’m doing is wondering what really happened.” He looks down at me when a tear falls down my cheek. He sits beside me in the only awkward way a giant tattooed man would and remains quiet while he waits for me to continue.

  “How am I supposed to get past this?” My words are barely a whisper as I try like hell to talk over the lump in my throat.

  “I’m not sure. But I know you’re the strongest woman I know and you have one hell of a club behind you.” He moves the dirt below his hand and watches over the horizon, protecting me the entire time.

  “I can’t go back there. It’s because of the club that this happened.” I stop talking as a flash of memory rushes over me. The way he wanted to talk to Blade confirms that. Fucking hell. Just knowing they all heard what they did is enough reason to never show my face again.

  “If you think you have a choice, you’re more insane that I thought. You’re tied to the club and there’s a few of us that won’t rest without you being taken care of.” I want to remind him I was at the club when I was kidnapped and that it was the club yard that I was tortured in, but I don’t. There’s no reason to blame this on the club. I went against everything my brother tried to get me to do. He didn’t want me near the club, but I demanded it.