And that burning, stinging sensation. It’s different than a normal wound. The feeling…almost seems to be spreading. Like radiating down my arm and into my chest—
Must be the mirror warping the reflection, I think, shrugging. No way a bite mark could really be that big. No way.
My head’s pounding. I dig through the medicine cabinet, find an old bottle of prescription painkillers, pop a few and wash them down with tap water cupped in my hand. That should straighten me out.
I give myself a quick once-over and head downstairs. Sorry, Nash and Mia are waiting in the kitchen. The men are sitting around the kitchen table, doing shooters and passing an oversized joint. Mia’s leaning against the far wall, casting me that cool-eyed glare. I know I’m the new girl on the block, but damn. The way she looks at me. Sneering and scornful, like I’m less than zero. Like I’m meat. I suppose one day Mia and I will have it out. Probably sooner than later, if that look is any indication.
Sorry and Nash hurry to stand up as I walk into the kitchen like I’m some sort of queen. It’s a very odd feeling.
“Uh, hi y’all,” I say.
Y’all? What the fuck, Lily? Not one of my most eloquent moments. I feel my cheeks flush and yes, it’s starting to piss me off, how uncomfortable I’m feeling. Because who fucking cares what these idiots think, right? Outlaw bikers. I’ll never see them again anyway.
“So you won’t be needing my clothes,” Mia says, sounding like the judgmental bitch she is.
Sorry steps between us, using his bulk to block my view of Mia. I decide to ignore her. Take the high road.
“You hungry?” Sorry says.
Truth is I’m famished, and I tell him so. I’m curious to see how a biker gang stocks a pantry. Sorry pulls out a pack of beef jerky way past its expiry date, some stale tortilla chips and a bottle of beer. Damn. I was half expecting one of them to be a secret gourmand. I settle onto a seat beside Nash and bite into the beef jerky. It’s so tough I have to saw my teeth across it just to get through.
“Well, at least she eats meat,” Mia mutters.
Oh I eat meat, sister, I think, remembering Aaron’s fine cock.
Sorry settles on my other side. Being surrounded by these men feels…right in a way I can’t quite put my finger on. Sorry is heavy and thick-muscled, like a young football defenseman. He’s handsome in an uncomplicated and forgettable way. There’s nothing brooding or mysterious about him. Nothing to really make a girl go ‘hmm’. The most remarkable thing about him is his shaved head and the long, ragged scar running from his forehead nearly across his entire skull. The scar clashes with his frat-boy jock good looks. I wonder why he doesn’t grow his hair out and hide it, and I almost ask him about it before I realize what he’ll say: motorcycle accident.
Nash is a different story. He’s wearing a black wife-beater. His lean arms are laced with black-ink tattoos. He has quick blue-black eyes that could easily become cruel. He looks smart in a cunning, dog-eat-dog kind of way. His face is thin, almost gaunt, except for his jaw, which is wide and powerful. He fidgets in his chair, stretches, rolls his head on his thick neck. Dude can’t sit still. Occasionally he lets loose with a quiet barking laugh for no apparent reason. He’s an odd duck, and I find I’m grateful I’m not alone with him.
Nash looks at Mia, then at me, and says, “So what’s it like? Being a cop?”
I chew a mouthful of suddenly very dry beef jerky and wash it down with a swig of beer while Nash draws deep on the joint. I motion for him to pass it to me, and when he does I say, “Being a cop? Paychecks and donuts.”
“You like it though.”
“What?”
“Hunting bad guys. Makes you feel good.”
“Most of the time they don’t need to be hunted. Most bad guys aren’t that smart.”
I smile and pop a tortilla chip in my mouth. It’s so stale it doesn’t even crunch, just kind of folds up in my teeth.
“The law,” Nash says in a way that makes it clear he thinks it’s all bullshit.
“Yeah,” I say, not sure what he’s getting at.
“Us and them,” he says. Then he places his index finger on the table and drags it across the surface very slowly. His fingernail bites into the tabletop with an unnerving screech. “A line in the sand,” Nash says, watching his finger. “Good versus evil.”
“It’s a little more complicated—”
“You know who’s responsible for the most death in the world? The most suffering? The fucking wars? The poison gases that melt the skin off your face and all the other brutal, unnatural shit?”
“Let me guess. The law.”
“Fucking right.”
Nash looks at the scratch on the table’s surface and says, “Law and outlaw. Good and bad. Black and white. According to who?”
I wave a dismissive hand in Nash’s direction. “So you’re a highway philosopher? A wandering freedom fighter?”
He gives me a look that says: that all you got?
“What about the girl I found the other day?” I say, pausing to hit the joint again. “Down by the ocean? Young girl. Just a kid. Beat to death. Eyes burned out of her head. Was that the law’s doing?”
Nash shrugs. “You kill one person you’re a murderer and sent to prison. You kill a million you’re a head of state and they build you a fucking monument.”
“You tell that to that girl,” I say. “You tell that to her parents.”
Nash smiles. He has sharp-looking teeth.
My mouth is pasty and dry; from the jerky or the dope or the weird vibe coming from Nash I can’t tell. Maybe all three. I feel warm. Much too warm, and when I reach my hand to my brow I realize I’m slick with sweat, and the burning sensation radiating from Aaron’s bite is getting worse, making me think I’m coming down with something, the flu maybe—
“Never had a cop in the MC safe house before,” Nash says, wrinkling his brow as if trying to remember. “Well…never a cop that lived to tell about it.”
“She’s gunna live,” Sorry says with an edge in his voice I don’t like at all.
“Sure she is,” Nash says, still smiling.
I glance up from my beer and catch a glimpse of something awful. It’s Nash…but not Nash. Sitting in his place is a nightmare half-man half-beast covered in black-spotted orange fur with a huge neck roped in sinewy muscle and a massive jaw and fangs that hang down over his lips. The beast’s beady eyes glow red-yellow, and a long line of spittle leaks from his lips onto the kitchen table.
He’s hungry as well. Famished.
I jerk my head away and choke on my beer, spraying it halfway across the table, and when I glance up it’s only sly-looking Nash, sitting there laughing and banging his hands on the table so hard it cracks.
“What’s a matter, copper?” Nash says, “You see a monster?”
“Maybe she did,” Mia says quietly.
Nash fires her an odd glare, then turns and stares at me in way that makes me feel like he’s reading my mind. “Did you? See something? A big scary monster?”
“Where’s Aaron?” I manage to croak. The kitchen feels tiny and too hot. Claustrophobic. I can only get quick half-breaths that don’t fill my lungs, and then my head lightens and the room shudders and I realize I might have to throw up—
“Prez is out back. Communing with nature,” Nash says. “Dude looks hard, but he’s a fucking softy inside. A closet hippy-dippy treehugger. Likes to speak with the tree spirits after he bangs a bitch. Make’s him feel…y’know…at one with the world.”
Sorry lays his thick fists on the table right beside me.
Nash’s gaze flicks down to Sorry’s fists, then back to me.
He looses a chuffing laugh.
“Is that right?” I ask while trying to swallow the foul taste in my mouth. “Well, thanks for the beer and the…uh…”
I pass the joint to Nash just to show him I can. He grins and takes it between his fingers. A dark crescent of dry blood is caked under his nails.
Nash
looks at Mia and says, “Must be nice, huh? Not having a fucking clue?”
“Must be,” Mia says with a nasty hiss.
Suddenly I’m pissed. Who the fuck are these people? Bringing me here and treating me like a piece of shit? Like I’m less than nothing, and my face flushes and my heart beats fast and from right beside me Sorry draws a long inhale through his nose, then leans in close and does it again.
Like he’s sniffing me.
Fucking creep. I thought maybe he was the decent one. Nope. They’re all assholes and creeps. Typical trash bikers. What did I expect?
“You scent that?” Sorry says to Nash, his voice low and raspy.
I try and stand but my knees are weak and rubbery and something real weird is happening to the room; it’s kind of…throbbing in time with my heart.
Nash lifts his nose to the air and inhales. His eyes widen, and suddenly he stops twitching and shifting in his seat.
Then Mia’s standing behind me, hovering like a threatening cloud, and I feel her cold thin hands on my neck.
“What the f—” I say, but before I can finish Mia tears my t-shirt down below my shoulder, revealing Aaron’s bite mark.
The room goes dead quiet.
I decide I’m getting the fuck out of here. Now.
Then Mia shrieks, flings herself across the kitchen, leans over the counter and buries her face in her hands.
“Yeah, your man did that, sweetheart,” I say as I muster the strength to stand and step away from the table. “Right before he came in me.”
Mia lifts her head and casts me a murderous glance, and her eyes narrow to yellow-green slits and holy hell I’ve really got to see a shrink, because in that instant Mia has eyes with vertical pupils like a reptile’s.
Like a snake’s.
“Get her the fuck out of here,” Mia says to Sorry. “I can’t…keep it in much longer. Get her the fuck out!”
“I’m already gone,” I say,” heading for the door. “Thanks for your hospitality.”
“Get that Skin bitch right the fuck out of this house, or—”
“Or what?” someone growls.
It’s Aaron. He’s standing in the front door, silhouetted by the porch light, his face hidden in shadow. I walk to him, slip an arm around his waist, but he doesn’t respond.
He’s focused on staring down Mia.
“Or I’ll fucking tear her wide open,” Mia says with so much hatred and bile that I know she means it.
“No you won’t, Mia,” Aaron says, and I feel his muscles tense and bulge beneath my hands…but also something else. It’s almost like a ripple passes through him, like there’s something buried inside trying to burst free.
“You scent it on her. You know what I asked her to be. I don’t know how or why it happened. But it did. And I’m glad it did.”
“It can’t be like this, Prez,” Nash says. “She’s just a fucking Sk—”
“You’re gunna stop calling her that, Nash,” Aaron says. “And both of you—all of you—you’re gunna treat Lily with the respect she deserves. Because she’s mine. Got it? And you’re fucking mine as well.”
So I’m his? Huh. That’s news to me. I’m about to interrupt when I think better of it. Not that I necessarily like having this dude speak for me. It’s just…this is his turf…and for once in my life I decide to keep my mouth shut. That, and the fact I’m not sure I can open my mouth without throwing up all over his boots.
“It’s that easy for you, isn’t it?” Mia says.
“Yeah. It is. It’s real fucking easy, and it’s real fucking clear. And if you can’t deal with that—”
Aaron motions at the door.
Mia looks at Aaron, then at me, then at Nash, and although she doesn’t make a move I know this isn’t over.
Not by a long shot.
“Now me and my girl are gunna ride. You insurrecting assholes are to remain here until I get back. We clear?”
“We got a whole lot a hurt to lay down, brother,” Nash says. “A whole lot of hurt—”
“And we will,” Aaron growls.
“We’re gunna need muscle.”
Aaron sighs and his shoulders slump a little. “Right. So who’s it gunna be? That L.A. princess Soren?”
“Soren’s been gunning for a shot at you for a long while.”
“Happy days for him. Arrange it. Here. Tomorrow night.”
Aaron says the words through clenched teeth. A shiver of fear makes the hair on my spine rise.
“What’s happening, Aaron?” I ask. “Who’s this—”
“Why don’t you tell her, Prez?” Nash says with that wide, wicked grin. “Tell the new girl what’s going down tomorrow night.”
Mia says, “Tell you what…sweetheart…it’s not a tupperware party, and none of your piglet buddies are invited.”
Aaron looks me right in the eye and says, “Club business.”
Mia cackles.
I feel like smacking her and kneeing him in the balls. But I don’t. Nash’s right. I’m the new girl, and I’ve already stirred up enough shit.
“Anything else?” Aaron asks.
Nash shakes his head no.
“Good. Shit’s all fucked up right now. I know we’re…at risk. I’ll handle it. Trust me on that. But first you gotta give me tonight. I need it.” There’s a questioning note in Aaron’s voice that’s very different from the commanding tone he used moments ago. “Will my crew give me this one thing I need?”
“Sure,” Sorry says.
“Nash?”
Nash glowers at me, then lowers his gaze. “Yeah, Prez. We’ll give you that.”
“Mia?”
“Just get her the fuck out of here.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
Aaron wraps his arm around me and we step outside into the damp night air and the sound of the wind rustling through cedar boughs. The burning pain from Aaron’s bite is fading. A hundred questions hang on the tip of my tongue. Why are they at risk? What’s happening tomorrow night? Why does his crew keep calling me a ‘skin’? But I don’t ask, and as Aaron throws me a leather bomber jacket and kicks his bike into roaring life I realize some questions are better left unanswered.
***
It’s a beautiful night. Stars peak out from behind breaking blue-grey cloud, and the moon sends an occasional ray of silvery light across the road as we rip through the last farms and into the mountains. I take deep gulps of crisp night air and eventually the nausea and pain in my head relents. We pass a car or two heading the opposite direction, then roar past a slow-moving pick-up truck like it’s standing still. I glance inside the cab as we pass. The driver, a hick-looking farmer guy, scowls and gives us the finger.
I flash him a smile.
Aaron keeps the bike redlined, not even slowing when the road narrows to two thin lanes and the pavement becomes potholed and slick with evening dew. The road’s deserted. We wind through a shadowy mountain canyon, dark stone walls looming overhead like sentinels. A river rushes through the boulders in the canyon below us; a flicker of white in the moonlight. The night smells of cedar and hemlock, and there’s something in the air that almost feels like spring might not be that far off.
I hold tight to Aaron’s waist, leaning into the curves, my hair whipping around my face as we twist higher into the mountains. Traces of snow appear in the ditches and north-facing slopes. The speed and sound of the bike growling and the feel of it rumbling between my legs clears my mind, makes all the shit that’s gone down in the last few days feel distant, like a dream you wake from and can’t quite recall the specifics.
I’ve never understood the romance of the open road. To me a drive has always been just a drive; a chore to finish as quickly as possible so I can get on with my day. But now I understand. The road has a kind of potential. It’s the possibility that you might keep on riding and not look back. The chance to leave it all behind. The hope you might begin again, start over somewhere new. And the brief freedom of not knowing where the road
will take you.
Maybe tonight we’ll ride clear across the Cascades and end up in a nameless town on the other side. Find a run-down motel that doesn’t take credit cards. Order a cheap beer in a shitty bar with shitty music playing on a dying juke box. Get drunk, then head back to our room and fuck like strangers.
Wake up the next day and do it again.
I wonder if we’re like sharks. Do we die when we stop moving? Are we meant to roam, nomads on the prairie, figures on a landscape hunting our next meal? And if you drive fast enough to outrun your old life, can you outrun death as well? Do you leave him coughing in your dust, sweeping his reaper’s blade down on the ghost of what you once were?
It’s a nice thought.
My breath is tight in my throat. My eyes are streaming tears. Aaron’s punching into the corners so hard I could reach out and graze my fingers across the pavement. Only g-forces, constant gravitational pull, keep us from flying off the bike. Sometimes it feels like our lives come together like that. Like there’s something locking us in place, a force we can’t see that feels like blind chance because we don’t have a mind large enough to comprehend it.
I think about that girl on the shore. About the moment her killer spotted her. Chose her. Their lives were locked together as surely as two lovers. Death and love. Forces of nature. Two kinds of gravity pushing and pulling against one another.
This man I’m holding. What is he? Death or love?
Dirty snow is piled high against the sides of the road now. We speed through wet runnels of snowmelt with a whooshing hiss. It’s cold. Damn cold. I should be freezing, but I’m not. It’s like we’re caught in a little bubble of heat. Aaron banks hard left and I feel the rear tire kick out and for a moment we’re airborne, sailing through space.
What do they say? Flying’s easy. Landing’s the hard part.
There might be a warning in there about love.
About loving the wrong man.
Good thing this isn’t love.
We come in hard and the bike’s suspension compresses and for a moment I’m certain we’re going to die. The bike’s front end jerks dangerously, threatening to spit us off, and as I freeze and yelp Aaron lays on the gas and hunches forward, squeezing the handlebars tight as all hell and riding us out of it. He could’ve braked and killed us. But he bent his head down and gave her throttle.
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