OUR SURPRISE BABY

by Paula Cox

  At once, my legs go weak. I look into his eyes, his bright, startling blue eyes: eyes which are almost the color of smooth clean bone. He has a skeletal look about him, the look of death, and I fully believe that he will carry out his threat. He keeps staring at me. I gather he is looking for an answer. I nod numbly. “Yes,” I mutter. “Yes, I understand.”

  “Good,” he says, but he does not return to the front of the car. Instead, he just continues to stare at me. We stay like this for a long time. I think back to when he first tried to intimidate me, the day I met Rust, the day my life changed forever. I think back to how strong I was able to be, how self-assured I was able to present myself. All of that is gone now, as he stares at my face, as the tip of his tongue moves over his lips and then his teeth. He grins at me, a mad grin, and then says, “Do you take it from behind, Allison?” My name, my name—did he know my name before? I can’t remember. When I don’t answer, he grunts out a guttural laugh and shakes his head. “I guess we’ll have plenty of time to answer those sorts of questions, eh? Anyway, I hope you won’t mind, but I’ve got to gag and tie you up before we go on. That means I’ve got to step from this here seat and come around the back. So I should give you a warning, you pregnant fucking whore.” He says this almost gleefully, as though feeding from my fear. “If you try anything—if those legs of yours start kicking again—I am going to cut off your finger and make you eat it, okay?”

  Without waiting for a response, he climbs from the front seat and walks around to the door closest to my feet. I tell myself to kick him in the face the second he opens the door: kick him in the face as hard as I can and then make a run for it. We’re in an alleyway, so the street cannot be that far away, and with the street there will be people. But the alleyway hasn’t been cleared of snow for some time. It’s thick on the floor, perhaps ankle-height. I wonder how far a four-months pregnant woman can run through ankle-height snow. A four-months pregnant woman whose hands are trembling, whose head is pounding, whose heart is smashing into her ribcage. And then I know I’ve spent too long wondering. Trent is opening the door.

  I despise myself as he reaches into his jacket pocket and takes out the black bag. I despise myself as he tugs on my arm, gripping my wrists tightly, and yanks me to an upright position. I despise myself as he secures the bag over my head and ties a rope loosely around my neck, holding it in place. I despite myself as he sits me up, crosses my hands, and ties them together. I keep telling myself to do something, but what am I to do? Fear cripples me, making it so I just sit here and let my captor handle me like butcher’s meat.

  When he’s done, I hear him close the door, walk around the car, and climb into the front seat. I am in a world of darkness now. The material of the black bag is thick, closing out what little sunlight manages to beam through the shielded winter clouds. My hands are bound with what feel like zip-ties, biting into my skin. I sit upright, jostling in the car, and then wince as a loud zzzzzzz sounds close to my ear.

  From the front, Trent laughs. “This is a modified car,” he says, a note of pride in his voice. “I’m just raising the tinted windows. Wouldn’t want anybody seeing you as we make our merry way, would we?”

  I bite down on my lip, the same place I bite when Rust and I are in a particularly passionate situation, only now fear prompts me to bite it. The fear is absolute. The way my wrists are tied, I am able to place my hand on Bump, if at an awkward angle which makes the zip-ties bite into my skin with more sharpness. I stroke Bump, ignoring the pain, and tell myself that I will stay safe for my child. Rust will find me; Rust has to find me. I have to stay safe for Bump. I have to make sure my child survives. If not—but I can’t think about the alternative. I can’t let my mind stray there.

  I sit silently, jostling from side to side, completely disoriented. My fear remains, but I manage to push it down, so that it grows quiet and dim. I try and picture the woman who remained calm and in control the first time Trent tried to intimidate me. I try and retain her coldness, her calm. But she was different than me, much different. She did not have a child to worry about. She was not in love—I gasp at the word. Love, yes, because I am sure I am in love with Rust. I am in love with him, and perhaps I will never get a chance to tell him—

  “Stop it,” I mutter.

  “Huh?” Trent snaps, bringing the SUV to a stop and climbing from the seat.

  My body seizes. Has he stopped because I spoke? Is he going to hit me? Is he going to make good on his threats? When he opens the door, I lean away instinctively.

  “Oh, come on,” he says, and then his hand wraps around my bound wrists, a hand with no give in it at all, solid and imperative. “Don’t make me hurt you. You wouldn’t want me to enjoy myself too much, would you?”

  He tugs at me again, this time with more force, and I fly from the car into what feels like a large warehouse: the noises of cars and horns are muffled, and when I land on the floor echoes sound all around us, multiplying above my head. He pulls on my wrists, not caring when the zip-ties cut into my skin so harshly I’m sure I feel blood blooming around them. Then he drags me across the warehouse floor, our shoes clicking and echoing. I’m wearing small heels, professional heels, and their click-click follows us all the way to the staircase, and then up and up, down a narrow hallway, and into what feels like a smaller room. The echoes die when Trent closes the door.

  He returns to me, handling me as though he has handled many bound women before; he does it expertly, quickly and efficiently, moving me here and there and giving me a pinch if I do not move quickly enough. Eventually he pushes me into a chair, ties me around the waist just under Bump with a length of rope, and takes the black bag from my head. I wince, squinting as light darts into my eyes, into my head, making it ache and pound. For a long time, the light blinds me, and then, slowly, my eyes begin to adjust.

  I am sitting in what looks like the office of some factory: a large window off to one side which once might have overlooked the factory floor but is now covered with boards of wood and nails; a corner desk with a swivel chair; boxes spilling out notepads and staplers and hole-punches and packets of pens and rulers and pencils and erasers. I sit in the direct center of the room on a wooden chair, and Trent sits opposite me, back to me, cellphone beside him on the table, gun resting near his cellphone, and a dozen computer monitors laid out before him. The monitors show CCTV footage of hallways and rooms, all of which are full of leather-wearing men holding heavy rifles and pistols.

  Trent turns to me, a gleeful smile on his face. “Look,” he says, waving at the monitors. “Do you see what I have done? Oh, I am clever, aren’t I? I used to mess around with electronics when I was a kid, you know. All sorts of things, circuit boards, the insides of digital watches, light fuses, computers, anything I could get my hands on. And then my father said I should be a football player or a wrestler or something cool and manly and he decided the best way to make me understand this was to beat me every night with a knuckle-duster he kept hanging on the coat hook in the living room. But I never forgot, oh no.” With his forefinger, he taps the shaved side of his head. “It all stayed up here—and so this is my fortress, my labyrinth. We have toilets and beds: barracks, you could call them. We have men to make food runs. We have it all. No way your Rust knight saves you here, pregnant slut.”

  When he jumps to his feet, I flinch back and let out a small moan. He moves quickly, like a predator moving in on its prey. I think of Rust, how he will move just the same in the lustful moments before we fuck. But this movement is deadlier, tinged with the scent of violence, and I lean as far back in the creaky wooden chair as I can. It whines beneath me, the legs wobbling. If it breaks…I swallow, leaning forward. The baby, the baby: Bump is all I can worry about right now.

  Trent leans down, face close to mine. His eyes are wide and crazed. He has a cokehead look about him. I’ve seen it countless times in my office. The manic, wide-eyed, overly energetic aspect to his twitching movements confirms this. “I want a kiss,” he says quie
tly, almost shyly. I feel vomit slide up my throat as his blue eyes glance at the floor, a sickening caricature of a boy nervous to ask a girl to a school dance. “I wanted a kiss the first time I saw you, cunt, but that big Neanderthal ruined it.”

  You’re wrong, I want to say. I tried to tell myself he was a Neanderthal, but I was wrong. He’s so much more than that. He’s a lover, a protector, a friend and the father of my child.

  But all I can do is swallow bile.

  He leans in closer, and his eyes flit to mine, a nervous-boy smile on his lips. He thinks this is a romantic moment, I realize. Drugs, madness, twisted perception…something in his fucked-up head is making him see this as a romantic moment. Perhaps he doesn’t see the zip-ties, the rope, the chair. Perhaps in his mind we are sitting in a candlelit restaurant, not a bulb-lit abandoned office.

  “I am the President of a new club, pregnant whore. The patches are being sewn as we speak. The Crooked Edge. You are talking to the President of a club, not just a lowly enforcer. I know, I know …” He holds his hands up as though we are having a friendly debate over dinner. “Your Rust has a fair amount of pull in The Damned. A tough man, a respected man. A man who can do a great deal of harm to a newfound club…but not when we have his little slit-slut, no, no, no.” He whips his hair, flashes his teeth. I feel like I am inches from a wolf. “So,” he whispers, leaning even closer to me, “how about that kiss?”

  When he pouts his lips, something inside of me snaps. I feel the social worker Allison rising up inside of me, almost as though I have a split personality. One side of me is the frightened pregnant woman, driven by fear and the need to protect Bump; the other side is disgusted that this sickening man would presume to lean into me like this, to threaten me with a kiss. Time slows as he leans closer and closer. I try and tell myself to just kiss him, peck him, just do what is necessary to get out of this alive. Just do what I have to do. But the social worker side of me—the side which changed her major in college, which left home and came to Motor City—will not accept this. This side of me is outraged, haughty, proud, and furious.

  And before I even know what I am doing, this side of me has leaned back in the chair, hawked, aimed, and spit at his face. The spit lands on his cheek, a big globule of it. For a moment, both of us stare at each other.

  And then Trent goes tut-tut and stands up. He wipes his face with the sleeve of his leather, and then leans back down. “That was a stupid fucking thing to do,” he says. He pulls his hand back, clenches his fist. “That was a very stupid fucking thing to do.”

  “No, wait, no!” I scream, but it’s too late.

  Trent punches Bump savagely, so hard that my belly cramps up and I puke all down my shirt.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Rust

  Zeke and Joseph are shooting pool when I stumble into the bar. Shackle and a couple of his lieutenants sit at the bar, sipping whisky and watching football on the wall-mounted TV. A pledge sweeps the floor. It’s a slow February day. Maybe it’s the pain in my head, or maybe it’s the fact that Trent and the unpatched are out there with my woman and The Damned are in here doin’ fuck all, but I get angery the second I set eyes on the scene.

  “Shackle!” I snarl, pacing to the middle of the room. “Trent—the unpatched fuck—has kidnapped Allison. He’s fuckin’ taken my woman. So we need to gather every single one of our men and do a sweep of all his known hideouts. No more playin’ it safe waiting for him to show himself. No more careful stakeouts. He’s taken us for fools and it’s time to change that.”

  Joseph, a bit more meat on his bones since he joined the club, his head shaved, wearing a black bandana and looking all in all like a different person from the strung-out druggie I met a few months ago, lays his pool cue down and walks toward me. Zeke picks up his leather from the back of a chair and does the same.

  The lieutenant sitting beside Shackle is a tall, thin man with a sharp nose and bowl-cut brown hair. He snorts. “You don’t give the orders,” he says. “Shackle is the boss—”

  “Keep talkin’,” I snarl, “and I’m going to shove a knife so far down your fucking throat you’ll be shitting blood for weeks. He has my woman, so right fuckin’ now I don’t care who’s in charge.”

  “Calm.” Shackle rises to his feet, waving a hand at his lieutenant. “When did he take her?”

  “Just now—fifteen minutes ago. You all need to learn to answer your fucking phones.”

  Joseph looks at me uncertainly. “I think you need to go to the hospital, Rust.”

  “Hospital? Fuckin’ hospital?” I wheel, feeling crazed, anger infusing me. “Shackle, mobilize the men. I’m takin’ Zeke to the warehouse—you know the one, the one we think he’s using as his main base of operations. If any of the men find him somewhere else, call me on my cell.” I turn to Zeke. “You with me?”

  “’Course,” Zeke says without hesitation. “Let’s go.”

  “Still trying to give orders,” the lieutenant mutters.

  I don’t think. I just pace across the bar and stand over him, fists hanging at my sides. “Listen,” I growl. “I don’t give a fuck about the command structure or any of that shit. All I care about is getting the mother of my child away from that psychotic fuck. So if you think I’m tryin’ to step on your toes or I’m gunnin’ for your job, you’re wrong. I just want to stop a woman from being hurt. Do you fucking understand? Not everything is about the club. But if you’ve got a problem, fucking come at me now. Come on!” I slam my hand down on the bar, causing his glass of whiskey to lurch into the air. Spit slides down my chin, blood weeps down my neck from where the bat struck me.

  The lieutenant shakes his head. “No,” he says, voice becoming hoarse. I must look pretty damn crazy to make a Damned lieutenant’s voice go like that. He turns to Shackle. “Are we looking for her?”

  “We are,” Shackle says. “Selling drugs is one thing; kidnapping one of our enforcer’s women is another. You taking the warehouse, you said?”

  I nod. “Yeah.”

  “Alright. Go—I’ll rally the men.”

  I turn at once and make for the door, Zeke at my shoulder. As we push out into the snow, Joseph jogs after us. “I’m coming, too,” he says.

  “No,” Zeke says. “You’re not ready.”

  I don’t stop as they can have this talk. I just keep walking toward the pickup. I’m about to climb in when I realize I’ve forgotten something.

  “You can come, kid,” I say, ignoring Zeke’s look of surprise. “But first, back inside, fast. Ask Shackle where the guns are. Bring some rifles. Don’t take longer than three minutes. Go, now!”

  At once, Joseph wheels one-eighty and sprints for the clubhouse.

  I sit in the passenger seat and Zeke takes the driver’s seat. We do this without discussing it. Zeke doesn’t need to ask to see that I’m in no state to drive; it’s a miracle I wasn’t killed on the way here.

  “Are you sure about this?” Zeke says. “Taking the kid, I mean.”

  “I don’t care about anything but Allison,” I say, meeting his gaze. He winces. Looking past him, I can vaguely see my reflection in the car window. The sky is darkening, the winter afternoon cloudy, so the windows are partially reflective. My nose has swollen to twice its original size, one of my eyes is bruised and purple from where I slammed into the snow, my heard is soaked and dripping from melted snow. I look back to Zeke. “You once told me there was more to family than the club. You used to talk about having a woman, kids. And I never believed you. I never thought it was meant for men like us. Well, I was wrong. You were right. I’ve found that, Zeke, and I’m not letting it go. So if the kid wants to go, if he wants to make our two guns three, I’m not going to stand in his way.”

  “You love this girl,” Zeke says quietly.

  It’s not a question, so I don’t offer an answer.

  A couple of minutes later, Joseph comes running out of the clubhouse with a duffle bag over his shoulder. I’m still shocked each time I look at the kid; it’s l
ike looking at a different person. And all ’cause of Allison, I reckon: all thanks to kindness, her willingness to check in on him, keep him motivated, all ’cause the mother of my child is the kindest woman I’ve ever met. Joseph climbs into the back seat and places the duffle bag between us.

  “Drive, Zeke.” I grip the handhold. “Drive fuckin’ fast.”

  “How do we know he’s at the warehouse?” Joseph asks, raising his voice to be heard over the noise of Zeke screeching out of the parking lot, the snow kicking into the air.

  “We don’t,” I reply. “But it’s the best place to look first.”

  Zeke slams the pedal down and sends us hurtling through the city. The kid’s question stabs at me as we drive. He’s right, I know. Trent could’ve just taken her to some field somewhere and killed her…or he could be doing other things to her, to the goddamn mother of my child. Perhaps he’s driving her out of the state. But no, I can’t think on that. I have to believe he still wants his petty club, even if he is a psychopath; I have to believe there’s some logic in his lunacy. Zeke drives with skill and speed, getting us to the warehouse in about fifteen minutes. He parks just across the street, under a broken streetlamp, and the three of us step out into the semi darkness.