Talon

by Savannah Rylan

I walked up to the porch and stepped up. The floorboards creaked as I walked towards the door. The mesh door swung open with a screechy metallic sound and then slammed shut in the breeze. I could hear my heart beating. Besides the whistling of the breeze and the swing creaking; there was no other sound.

  “Hi! I work with Noelle. It’s okay, you’re safe,” I called out in a strained whisper, hoping that wherever the girl was hiding, she could hear me.

  Nobody moved anywhere inside the house or said a word. I creaked open the mesh door and pushed the decaying wooden door with my shoulder.

  The house smelled damp and like mold when I stepped in. It was a small wooden shack of a house, with piles and mountains of discarded stuff everywhere. Nobody had lived here for years, as it appeared.

  “Hi, I’m here to help you. Hello! You can come out now,” I called out again, in a louder voice this time.

  I was walking through the rooms, and there was no sign of life. Wherever the girl had hidden, she had hidden well.

  “Hello?” I said and pushed against another door which was seemingly going to lead me into the kitchen.

  “Hello?” I could hear my voice shaking as the door creaked open, just when a hand wrapped around my shoulder and clamped down on my mouth. I shrieked, just as I realized it was happening. It was a man’s hand, and he was pressing me to his chest. I shrieked and shrieked, but my voice was muffled.

  I’d walked right into a trap.

  ***

  I struggled to get the hand off my mouth, but the man was strong and was pulling me back into the dark hallway. My voice was muffled, and I elbowed him, which didn’t work. My only hope was to bite, and I did, drawing blood, and the man growled and let go of my mouth.

  I screamed and leaped from him, running straight towards the door I had walked in through, but a different pair of hands caught my arms now and pulled me back.

  “Where do you think, you’re going, sweetheart?” the voice said and dragged me back down the hallway.

  The man whose hand I’d bitten was the same monster from the alleyway. He was shaking his wrist now. I struggled against the grip of the man who was holding me back, and the girl appeared.

  It was the girl who I tried to rescue from him. She was dressed in the same clothes and once again, tears were streaming down her cheeks.

  “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she whimpered when she saw me, and I knew exactly what had happened. These guys had forced her to make that call to Noelle and the others. They were trying to lure someone from the Bad Disciples to turn up, and like a fool, I just had.

  “Who is this one?” the voice said. I still hadn’t managed to turn and see this guy’s face.

  “She’s the same one from the other night, tried to get a hold of this bitch,” the man growled, peering at me. I screamed again, and a hand wrapped around my mouth.

  “Shut up, sweetheart. Nobody can hear you. You should save your energy,” he said and then released his hand from my mouth again.

  “Let me go! Glock is going to come looking for me. He knows where I am!” I shrieked, trying to use the same tactic as before. I knew instantly that it wasn’t going to work this time because the two men just laughed.

  “That’s cute. Is Glock your hero, sweetheart?” the man said, whipping me around to him. I gasped as he clutched my arms. I could feel his rough fingers digging into my skin. I was breathing hard, trying to control the tears. There was no use crying now or showing weakness.

  “He’s going to kill you if you lay a hand on me,” I hissed at him, and his slap came out of nowhere. I wasn’t expecting it, and it landed on my cheek. I stumbled sideways and screamed, feeling the sting and the force of his slap on my face. My cheek throbbed, and a few fat tears rolled down my face.

  The men laughed again, and the girl who had been whimpering before came rushing towards me.

  “I’m so sorry. They made me do it. They made me call!” she cried and wrapped her arms around me. I held on to her, just so that we could be close together.

  “Is he fucking you?” the man asked the one who had slapped me. He had taken a few steps towards us, and I could feel the girl cowering. She stepped behind me, and I straightened myself to meet his eyes.

  “He’s going to find you and then kill you,” I hissed at him and clenched my jaws. I was expecting him to slap me again, and this time I was ready. They could slap me around as much as they wanted, but they weren’t going to break me.

  “He’s going to find me and then kill me,” the man repeated, in a mocking tone and turned to his buddy who laughed too.

  “We were hoping that he would show up, or one of the other BD losers. But a girl will do. A girl will do very well,” he said, looking at me again with a sly smile on his face. I knew exactly what he meant, and it sent chills down my spine. I was starkly aware, based on the bruises I had already seen on the other girl’s body; that a few slaps were only the beginning.

  “Let us go, and I’ll tell them what you want me to tell them. Do you have a message for them?” I asked, trying to keep my voice firm.

  The men were laughing again. All this was hilarious to them.

  “Yeah sure, we have a message for the Bad Disciples. That they’re fucking going down and there is nothing they can do to stop us,” he growled, and I gulped. The girl was hiding behind me now, I could feel her body shaking.

  “Okay, I’ll tell them,” I said, and the man stepped up close to me. I had to crane my neck to look up at him, and he was glaring down at me.

  “But don’t worry sweetheart. You don’t have to deliver the message, we’ll do it ourselves,” he said, with that smile forming on his face again.

  “Yeah, you just sit back and relax and try and enjoy the ride,” the man whose hand I’d bitten came up towards me now, and he was reaching for my shoulders.

  “No! No!” I screamed as he pulled me, yanking me away from the girl. He was lifting me up, and then he threw me over his shoulder. I struggled to get off, but I could feel a rope being tied around my ankles. The other guy walked around to where I was hanging over his shoulder, and he clasped my hands together and tied another piece of rope around my wrists.

  “You’re too noisy, sweetheart. You should have just kept your mouth shut,” he hissed before I saw him pulling a rag out of the pocket of his pants. He was tying it around my mouth, and I was shrieking as loud as I could. I could feel the back of my throat chaffing, and then once he was done, my voice was muffled and my throat was hoarse.

  I watched as he pulled the other girl by her hair. They were taking us into the basement.

  Chapter 15

  Glock

  We were staking out a warehouse where I’d got news that Brick and his men were hiding out. Tank, Gunner, Hunter, and Sniper were with me, and we’d been waiting and watching for what felt like a few hours at least.

  The plan was to keep an eye on Brick. Axel hadn’t given us the green signal for the hit, so we weren’t under orders to take him out. What we first needed to do was figure out what his routine was, where he was hiding and then formulate a plan to find him alone and get him. The idea was to avoid a shootout so that we weren’t risking our brothers’ lives.

  I could sense that my brothers were anxious around me. None of them had expected me to make the suggestion about taking out Brick.

  “Is this about that redhead?” Hunter asked me, while we waited in the dark. I’d got good information that this warehouse was where Brick liked to hold up. He avoided the usual Dark Knights’ haunts and bars because clearly, he was a pussy and was afraid for his life.

  I was definitely not the first one to make the suggestion of killing him.

  “What is?” I said, without looking Hunter in the eye. I kept my focus on the warehouse in the distance. The night was strangely quiet, and even though we could sense that there were people inside it, nobody had emerged out of it yet.

  “Your big plan to execute Brick,” Hunter replied, and I could hear the rage in his voice. I knew what my brot
hers were thinking. They were wary of a bloodbath. I knew, just as well as they did; that killing Brick could spiral a series of events that could go out of our control. The Dragon Knights weren’t just going to take the execution of their president sitting down. A series of vengeance was going to begin, and it was highly likely that Axel’s life could be in danger, along with ours.

  Besides, Tank, Hunter, and Gunner were all in relationships with women they were madly in love with. Hunter and Tank had, even more, to lose with kids. I knew the men were thinking about them too. I was thinking about Sage.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, man. I made the most logical suggestion, and Axel agreed with me,” I said, and I could sense Hunter glaring at me even though I wasn’t looking at him.

  “No, this is about the redhead putting crazy thoughts in your head. She wants to fucking make a case against the Dragon Knights! Is she insane?” Hunter said, and I whipped my head around to him.

  “Fuck you!” I barked, and I sensed Gunner and Tank looking over at us, getting ready to break up a fight.

  I felt my cellphone vibrate in the pocket of my jeans and I pulled it out, glad for the distraction. I didn’t want to fight Hunter, he was my brother. We never fought over women, especially since I knew that he was making a very valid point. Sage was insane.

  When I pulled my phone out, I discovered multiple missed calls on the screen. I hadn’t looked at my phone for several hours. There were calls I had missed from Noelle, Kylie, and Brooklyn.

  “The girls have been trying to reach us,” I said when my brothers gathered around me. I dialed Noelle’s number.

  “What’s going on?” Tank was worried, and his eyes kept darting over to the warehouse.

  “Glock! Thank God! Where are you guys?” I heard Noelle’s voice. She sounded panicked. There was definitely something going on.

  “We’re working. Why have you all been trying to call me?” I asked her and I could sense the heavy breathing in her voice.

  “We’ve been trying to call all of you for hours!” she snapped.

  “Why? We’ve been at work. What’s happening? Are you all safe?” I asked, and I looked at the faces of my brothers, all of whom were waiting for me to report back to them.

  “Yes, we are safe, but we don’t know where Sage is. She hasn’t been answering her phone,” she said, and I gripped the phone tighter to my ears.

  “Sage? What has she got to do with anything? Why have you been trying to call her?” I growled. What had she gotten herself into now? I wanted to snap my phone in two.

  Noelle sounded nervous, too nervous to say anything.

  “Noelle? What the fuck is going on?” I barked into the phone. Tank shot me a look of warning.

  “I called her, okay? It was me. We were trying to get a hold of you guys, but none of you were available. A girl had escaped from the Dragon Knights. She’s hiding out in an abandoned house near one of their holding cells,” Noelle replied, and I ran a hand through my hair.

  “What has this got to do with Sage?” I asked, pressing my eyes closed. I pretty much knew what this had to do with Sage. She tried to help, and now she’d gotten herself into trouble.

  “I called her, looking for you and told her what was going on. She offered to help, to go pick up the girl from the location,” Noelle said, and I could have kicked my bike. I could feel the rage coursing through my body.

  “You sent Sage alone to an abandoned house near the holding cells of the Dragon Knights?” I asked her through gritted teeth. Noelle had broken down in tears now, and my brothers were staring at each other in shock and anger and confusion.

  “Glock, I’m so sorry. She was supposed to meet the girl, pick her up and bring her to our warehouse directly. It’s been three hours, and she’s not answering her phone,” Noelle said, through her sobs.

  “Fuck! Fuck!” I growled, and Tank took the phone away from me, speaking quickly to Noelle and asking her for directions.

  It was Hunter’s hand that was on my shoulder now. He was patting me.

  “We’re going to go get her back, brother. She’s going to be fine,” I heard him say, but I didn’t believe him.

  I knew Sage. I knew what she was capable of. I was convinced that she had pissed the Dark Knights off and gotten herself into more trouble than she could have handled.

  Chapter 16

  Sage

  When I came to, I realized that my hands were still tied, but the gag was off. I blinked in the dark, and I could feel a throbbing ache at the back of my head. I moaned, feeling my lips drying up.

  “Hey, hey…” I heard a girl’s voice. I could sense someone sliding over to me, along with the sound of the drip drip of water from the ceiling. I realized that it was the girl from before.

  “I was scared they’d knocked you out,” I heard her say. It was taking my eyes longer than usual to adjust to the dark.

  “I’m fine…I think. Where are we?” I asked her, and now I could see her crouched down in front of me. Her hands were tied too, and she had brought her face close to mine.

  “In the basement of the house. They kicked me down the stairs and carried you down,” she said, and I heard her wince.

  “That man hit me!” I hissed, remembering the moment when that asshole’s knock came out of the blue. I was struggling in his arms, screeching while my mouth was still gagged. I shouldn’t have fought it so hard, maybe then I wouldn’t have got punched. But I couldn’t just comply. I wasn’t going down without a fight.

  “They’re up there, I think. Keep your voice down. Shhh,…we don’t want them to know that you’re conscious again. They might come back down and hit us again,” she was looking up at the ceiling of the dark, cold basement, almost afraid that they could see us here.

  “What’s your name?” I asked her, and she looked back at me. Her fishnet stockings were torn now, her clothes were ragged. Someone had apparently tried to force her clothes off her at some point.

  “Casey. Yours?” she asked and settled down on the floor beside me.

  “Sage,” I replied, and she smiled weakly at me.

  “Do you really know Glock? You know the Bad Disciples?” she asked, in a small voice and I nodded my head.

  “Yes, Glock is an old friend. I’ve known him for years,” I replied, and she nodded her head with her eyes widened.

  “Sage…I’m so sorry, I really didn’t think a girl would have turned up. Not that I could have done anything about it. They had a knife on my stomach while I made the call,” she said, and her tears were welling up again.

  “I know, Casey, I don’t blame you for this. We’ll just have to find a way out of this together,” I said to her, and she nodded her head, then tried to brush her tears away with her shoulder, which wasn’t helpful.

  “Do you really think that the Bad Disciples will come for us?” she asked me and I forced a smile on my face.

  “I know Glock will, as soon as he finds out, but until then we have to stay strong and put up a fight,” I told her and Casey suddenly looked afraid.

  “Put up a fight? Against them? But we can’t, it’s not possible. They’ll kill us,” she whimpered, and I edged closer to her.

  “Casey, look at me. Have they killed any of the girls? Tell me, have they murdered anyone?” I asked her, and she tried to avoid my eyes.

  “Casey! Please, tell me,” I pleaded with her, and she gulped.

  “I haven’t seen it happen, but I’ve heard rumors. They’ve killed a few girls who tried to escape, or who resisted and refused to do what they were told,” she said with a shiver, and a few more tears rolled down her cheeks. I could feel my mouth going dry.

  This did not surprise me. I was sure now that these men were capable of killing women. They would do anything for power and money.

  “Okay, let’s forget about that,” I said.

  “How? How can we forget about that? We can’t put up a fight, Sage. I don’t want to die!” she shrieked and then clamped her mouth shut when she remembe
red that she couldn’t be too loud.

  “Okay, hush, listen to me, we can try and escape. My car is outside. If we can get out of the basement, we can go to my car,” I said, and Casey was shaking her head.

  “We need to get these binds off and then find a window. There has to be a window or a door in this room,” I said, and she started sliding herself away from me. It seemed like she was afraid of me now.

  “Casey, I want to help you, but I can’t do this alone,” I begged her, but she shook her head wildly.

  “We can chew through these binds, come on, let’s do it,” I exclaimed and lifted my wrists up to my mouth. I sunk my teeth into the thick chords and realized it wasn’t going to work, but I was damn well going to try.

  “No, Sage! Please don’t do it. If they find you doing it they will punish you, and me for not stopping you! I don’t want to die!” Casey was crying again, while I gnawed unsuccessfully at my binds.

  The thick metal door at the top of the basement stairs creaked. Someone was coming down.

  ***

  The man standing in front of me now had a long thick scar that ran down the front of his face.

  He had a large frame and had to be over six feet tall. He was older than the other Dragon Knights. His eyes had a harsh edge to them. They were grey and dangerous, and he had a way of undressing me without even touching me. The harder he looked at me, the more I was convinced that he could see right through me.

  He didn’t have to say it. I already knew he was their president. With the way he carried himself, he couldn’t be anyone else.

  Now, in the dark, cold basement of this abandoned house, with my hands still tied; I was face-to-face with the leader of the Dragon Knights.

  “I didn’t believe it when they described you to me. You are stunning, sweetheart,” he had a slithering voice that sent chills down my spine. He was smiling at me as he looked. Casey had slunk back into the corner of the room, trying to stay out of this man’s vision.