by Evelyn Glass
The man opposite me was wide, and burly, and looked like he knew how to handle himself. His nose was flat from where it had been broken in a dozen places, and his lips were cracked and creviced from lack of water. I wondered if I looked as fucked as him.
“Fight!”
He charged at me, and instinct kicked in. I don’t reckon I’ll ever know how the hell I fought this man so quickly, so efficiently. He was bigger than me and he didn’t have two wounds dragging him down, and yet as he came at me, I ducked the blow, spun around, and elbowed him in the back of the head. Survival urged me on, and I launched myself at his back as he staggered, gripping his neck and tackling him to the floor before smashing his face repeatedly into the concrete.
“Wow!” the Masked Man called. “What a hero!”
I stood up, panting. My back had started to bleed again. I began to limp toward my team’s side of the cavern, grateful for a rest. But then the Masked Man roared: “Get that one back in the fight! I want to see how long he can go before he falls!”
I had no choice but to return to the bloodshed, the violence. I had no choice but to fight the next man. It started as a joke for the Flaming Skulls and the Masked Man. They thought that I’d fight a couple of men and then my wounds would take me. I thought the same thing; I didn’t think I could go for as long as I did. But at some point, I switched off my mind and I ignored the pain and I let my body take over. I just fought: biting, punching, spitting, hissing, growling, bloody, dirty fighting. I fought and I killed. I lost myself in an ocean of blood. Each time I beat a man, more blood was added to my face, until I was completely covered in it, head to toe, slick with it. My mind distanced itself, and my wounds screamed in agony, and yet I fought on. At first, the Skulls laughed in the way a bully will laugh at his victim putting on a bit of a show. Then the laughter stopped and was replaced with eerie curiosity. Finally, grim fascination came over them.
Toward the end, after I had killed all but two of the other team, the men limping out were scared to face me, despite how I wobbled on the spot, despite how exhausted I was. They would say things like, “I have children.” But it was them or me. I knew that just by looking around. I knew that just from the barrels of the guns, staring me down.
And—and—
“No, no, no,” I mumble, bolting upright, the image of the poor fucker’s face still cemented in my mind. He was just some guy, just some normal goddamn guy from a normal goddamn life, and I beat his face into the ground and they shot him right in the head. “No.” I shake my head, climbing out of bed, and begin to pace up and down my bedroom.
This apartment is small, not much good for pacing, but I have to keep moving. If I stop, if I let the dreams catch up, they’ll haunt me for the rest of the life. The clock tells me that it’s three in the morning. I sit on the edge of the bed, foot tapping. A few apartments over, somebody is having sex. Out in the street, a cat screeches. My room is dark except for the light of the digital clock and a pale shadow of moonlight on my drawn blinds. The memory returns to me, of how I punched that man’s face into pulp. And then . . .
I had no choice but to ride with them. It was ride with them, or die. They called me the Beast, and they said they wouldn’t put the Beast back in a cage, but neither would they allow the Beast to go free. So I rode with them, and I did the fucking Skulls’ bidding, and I wore their patch. I clench my fists, hating myself, hating the memories. And when Grizzly came up, they’d put me back in the cage, all for show, all for goddamn show.
I was powerless. Powerless. Weak. Alone. Afraid. Before the imprisonment, the pain, the death, I thought I was invincible. It’s a violent reckoning for a man to find out just how wrong he is about that.
“I will never be powerless again,” I mutter, lying back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. “I will never be a pawn again, for the rest of my fuckin’ life. I will become VP. I will climb the fuckin’ ranks.”
I often do this after I wake from the nightmares: reassure myself by repeating what I will do, repeating it just as I did every night when I was under the Skulls’ watch. I was allowed to sleep in a bed, eat food, build myself up, but at all times there were three men guarding me, and I was never allowed to hold a gun.
“No,” I mutter bitterly, wishing that I could wipe my memory of all the awful shit I did, and knowing that I’ll never find forgiveness for it, not even with Brat, despite what she might say. “No, they wanted the Beast to use his hands, didn’t they? Like a fuckin’ animal.”
I take my cell from the nightstand. Bri still hasn’t returned any of my calls or texts. Guess she’s pissed.
“Maybe it’s for the best,” I whisper, sitting up and staring down at my hands.
I know it’s the darkness, but for a moment I’m sure they’re dripping with blood.
Chapter Ten
Slick
I try and go back to sleep for a while, but I know it’s no good. The memories are too much to handle alone at night; when I’m just lying there, it’s hard to think of anything else. So I go into the kitchen—through the bare apartment, without even a TV or a couch—and make myself some coffee. I try not to think about Seattle, and so instinctively my mind turns to Brat, as it always does. It’s been a week since the parking lot, a week in which she’s avoided me at every turn. I guess she’s angry, I reflect as I sit on the one stool I own, drinking my coffee, thinking. Angry at the way I left . . . But she doesn’t know what having a kid means for a man like me. How can I, the Beast, the blood-covered animal, have a kid? How can somethin’ as precious as a child belong to me?
The coffee swirls around my head, waking me up, as I wonder what the hell Bri was thinking not telling me the kid was mine right away. I had my suspicions, sure, but why wouldn’t she just come out with it? Why would she let it linger like that for so long? How can she be so damn pissed with me when she sprung it on me like that, out of the fuckin’ blue? I know one thing for certain: if she says the kid is mine, the kid is mine. Brat would never lie about a thing like that.
After my coffee, I start working out with my free weights. Bench-press, dumbbell-press, bicep-curl, sit-ups, triceps-extensions, pull-ups, over and over, until it’s six in the morning and the sun is beginning to rise, people in the apartments around me stirring into action, opening and closing doors, whistling kettles, turning on radios and TVs. I take a shower, focusing on Bri, just Bri, and thrusting aside any thoughts of blood and the Beast, the Masked Man and the Flaming Skulls’ leather I was forced to wear.
I need to speak with Bri, ’cause she’s the only one, when you get right down to it, who I can count on. There’s Spike, and a couple of the fellas Grizzly gave to me, but Brat has been with me for decades, my friend, and then my admirer, and then my lover. I need her. Without her, I reckon these nightmares will take me over; I reckon that, if I had to go on without Brat, I might be nothin’ more than the Beast they made me.
I return to my bedroom, get dressed, and then look down at my Road Rage leather. I was a damn fool to leave it at the bar, but Spike’s a good kid. He brought it to me the next day, and Clint and Grizzly were none the wiser. Still, as I stare down at it, laid on my bed ready for me to put on, I get the sense that I shouldn’t even be allowed to wear it anymore. I’ve thought this a few times since I returned. Whereas when I was a kid I never doubted that I’d one day join the MC, now, after everything I’ve done, I feel dirty as I pull the jacket on. I tell myself I was forced to do those things, tell myself there were three guns to my head when I rode with the Skulls, tell myself there were dozens of guns on me when I bathed in blood. But petty self-told words ain’t much use when you’ve got an aching in your chest like your heart is trying to kill you.
Pushing all my feelings down—’cause in the end, that’s all a man like me can really do—I pull on the jacket, and then pull on my boots. I need to see Brat; I need to talk with her. I shouldn’t have left her like that, just up and rode away like I’m some sort of monster . . . but that’s the point, I reflect wit
h a bitter laugh. Brat is precious, beautiful, funny, untouched by the bad shit that lurks in the dark. How can a man like me, a Beast, ever truly be with a woman like that—
“Stop it,” I growl, making for the door. “Just fuckin’ stop it.”
By the time I leave, it’s around seven in the morning. I go to a diner and eat a small breakfast with a side of black coffee, tossing it back, letting the caffeine do its work. Drinkin’ too much coffee, lately, but it’s all I can do to fight off the tiredness, the never-ending tiredness because those damn nightmares never leave me be. When I leave the diner, the sun has fully risen, bathing Denver in light, and as I ride toward the clubhouse, I begin to feel a little less dark. The nights are always the worst; the nights drag me back into the past. The days, I can deal with.
I haven’t checked for Bri at the clubhouse this past week, though it’s obviously the best place to check for her. Clint still has it out for me, and I prefer the Irishman to handle my business. But I can’t go another week, hell, another day, without seeing Brat. We need to hash this shit out. I need to let her know that, if she’ll have me, I’ll try and do right by her and the kid. I don’t know how good I’ll be at it, but I’ll give it a go. Maybe I won’t be the hands-on type, but I can provide for the kid, at least, make sure she never wants for anything. That’s gotta count for something, hasn’t it? And when I’m VP, I’ll be able to provide for her all the more. I’m going over all of this, trying to get it straight in my head, when I pull into the clubhouse parking lot. The lot is almost empty except for the bikes of the men who stay in the dormitory. I step off my bike, nicely sore from my workout, and make my way across the lot to the garage.
When I see Brat, my breath catches. I’m not really the breath-catching sort of guy, and anyway I thought all that sentimental stuff was taken from me in Seattle, but when I see her, back turned to me, hair all mussy around her head, I can’t help it. It’s still a shock to see her like this, a proper woman, with her long hair and her curvy body. But that’s not the only thing that shocks me; she has her back to me, hunched over, cradling something which is either a tool or a baby. And the last I checked, tools don’t make cooing noises. I take a step forward, quietly, not wanting to disturb the scene. For a while, I just watch.
“Who’s my little angel?” Bri says, giggling.
The little angel in her arms giggles right back.
“Who’s my little angel?” Bri brings her face close to the baby’s, and the baby giggles even louder. It’s a sweet sound—and a terrifying one. Sweet ’cause I know that the angel making it is mine, came from me, and terrifying for the exact same reason. She can’t be giggling so sweetly, not something that came from me. Something that came from has to be bad, surely, has to be fucked just like I’m fucked.
“Brat,” I whisper.
Bri starts, and then turns with the child in her arms. The girl is wearing a pink onesie and a cape of some kind made out of soft-looking fabric. Her hair is thin, and the same coppery-ginger colors as Brat’s, but her eyes are what capture me the most. They are wide, and blue: sky-blue, just like mine. I stare at those eyes for what feels like minutes, but is truly only seconds, and the girl stares right back. There is something tragic about the way the child stares at me, as though she can almost comprehend who I am, as though somewhere in there is an instinct calling out to me. Or maybe that’s only my imagination. Maybe that’s only wishful thinking.
“Momma—”
“Look, Charlotte,” Bri says, pointing at me. “Dadda.”
Charlotte stares at me, but of course there’s no recognition in her gaze. She doesn’t reach out for me or try to go to me. I try not to let that hurt me, but it does, that’s the truth, because it gets me thinking about all that could’ve been, had I not gone to Seattle and had the humanity beaten and shot and cut out of me.
“She knows you,” Bri says, stroking Charlotte’s hair.
“She doesn’t,” I say. “She just sees another man—a man like any other.”
I swallow. Damn, this hurts. This really fuckin’ hurts way more than I ever could’ve anticipated.
“She does,” Bri insists. “Just give her time and—”
She stops talking, eyes going wide, looking not at me but over my shoulder. Instinct causes me to spin on my heels, reach for my gun in my jacket holster. In my experience, people sneaking up on you never wish you good. I pull out my pistol, spin, and wind up aiming it straight at Clint and his two cronies. None of them are wearing masks this time, but I only vaguely recognize the men. Road Rage is a sizeable club and for the past couple of weeks I’ve been at the Irishman with my own coterie. The men behind Clint are dangerous-looking, one of them with a scar across his neck, the other with two of his fingers missing, but still somehow managing to grip a knuckle-duster.
“Are you going to shoot me, Skylar?” Clint says.
From behind me, Bri gasps; that’s how rare it is for any club member to use my given name. It’s disrespectful. Worse than that, it’s purposefully disrespectful. It’s the sort of thing I’ve seen men tear chunks out of each other for, just so word doesn’t get around that he can be disrespected with no consequences. But I can’t tear chunks out of Clint or his men. It’d give him the reason he needs to get me kicked out of the club, and plus, my goddamn daughter is behind me, making a small confused cooing noise. “Mamma? Mamma?” she babbles.
I lower the gun. “What do you want?” I ask, keeping my voice level.
“I don’t want anything,” Clint says. “But Grizzly does. He wants to talk to you.” The men behind him shift restlessly, as though wanting me to refuse so they can prove their worth. “At home,” Clint adds.
“At his house?” I mutter, confused. Grizzly never has the men at his house unless the business is really serious. “What for?”
“I don’t make a habit of questioning—” Clint begins, but Brat interrupts.
“What does Dad want with Slick?” she says. She stands beside me, holding Charlotte, which makes the tough men glance at each other awkwardly. Only the meanest bastards in the world would still be willing to go in on a man when he’s standing next to a kid, and whatever Clint may be, I doubt he’s been able to warp any Rager into a bastard that mean.
“He didn’t say, precisely,” Clint mutters, waving a hand as though he can wave Bri out of the conversation. “And frankly, Brianna, I don’t see how that is any of your business—”
“It is my business!” Bri snaps, overriding him. “It is my business because Slick is my friend, Grizzly is my father, and I work for the club! So it is absolutely my business! In fact, if you’re taking Slick to the house, I’m coming with him.”
Clint makes to laugh, but Bri doesn’t look or sound like she’s joking. “I mean it!” she goes on, as Charlotte babbles Mamma-Mamma-Mamma. “What are you thinking, Clint, coming here like this, with two men, acting all tough? So you followed Slick, I’m guessing, but when he came here, did you really need to walk in like this, when I had my kid with me? I wonder how Dad would feel to learn his second-in-command brought two of his thugs into contact with his granddaughter.”
That seals it. I see the moment on Clint’s face, a twitching of his features. “Fine,” he says. “If you’re going to be like that, then come on. But all of us better get going. He’s waiting.”
I watch, impressed, as Brat stands up to Clint. I watch as she stares down three violent bikers, and once again I’ve got to do a double-take to check this is truly Brat. Soon, the five of us are walking across the parking lot, Bri to her car and me to my bike, but not before I offer her a tight smile, hoping to communicate, “Are we good, now?”
Either she doesn’t see, or she can’t bring herself to answer. One thing’s clear, though. I’ve found someone who hates Clint’s bullshit just as much as me.
Chapter Eleven
Slick
Grizzly’s house has been in his family for generations. It’s a large, colonial style mansion with an American flag fluttering in the bre
eze, tall and proud, with a triangular roof and a huge, dominating porch. It’s one of those houses you see in historical movies about the Civil War, and wouldn’t think twice about: might even think the set guys built the house especially. I stop my bike behind Clint’s and Brat’s cars, in the long, wide stone driveway, and then the five of us approach Grizzly. He sits on the porch, in a rocking chair, rolling a cigarette. By the time we reach him, since the walk across his garden is so long, he’s finished rolling and is smoking, flicking the ash into an ashtray not as old as the house, but still pretty old. It’s shaped like a skull, and was a present to Grizzly from my father.
Finally, the five of us are standing on the porch around Grizzly. We wait as he leisurely smokes his cigarette. He’s taking his sweet time, trying to make me nervous. Well, if that’s the case, he’s succeeding, but only a little. I’m curious more than anything. I’ve been making the club more money since Grizzly gave me my own team, been increasing everybody’s pay, and here he is playing the tension game. Brat takes Charlotte to the other side of the porch, waiting for Grizzly to finish his cigarette, and returns only when he’s stubbed it out in the skull ashtray. All through this, Clint gives me looks like a brother who’s about to see his sibling get a good telling-off, a pathetic, wormy look.