by Deja Voss
“Can’t do what, Esther? Don’t you love me?”
She begins bawling loudly. “I can’t let you see me weak. I need to be alone.” She looks up at me with tear-streaked cheeks before quickly turning away. “This is not what you signed up for.”
“You’re not weak,” I tell her, hugging her tight to my chest. “And this is exactly what I signed up for. I’m going to take care of you, Esther. I’m going to protect you and love the hell out of you. When you break down, I’m going to fix you, and you’re allowed to break down.”
“Come on,” I say, grabbing her hand and leading her up the steps.
I sit her on the edge of the bathtub and begin to run the water.
“I don’t need this,” she says, staring off into space. “You don’t have to do this.”
I slide her shirt off over her head and stare at those freckles on her shoulders, the ones I love so much.
“You’re a good man, Brooks. You shouldn’t have to fix anyone. You deserve so much better.” I press my lips to her collarbone, breathing in the sweet smell of her hair, her skin, it’s all so perfect to me.
“You can’t save me,” she whispers. “I’m my father’s child. I only know how to hurt.”
I stand her up, sliding her shorts down and helping her step out of them. I feel the bathwater, making sure it’s not too hot, and I help her in.
“I’m a whore,” she says, as if she’s challenging me, searching for some last-ditch effort to push me away. Instead, I grab a washcloth and begin to dab away at the scratches on her face. She winces in pain.
“Sorry,” I say, holding her chin in my hand. “I’m not trying to hurt you.” She looks off into the distance, trying to stay as still as possible.
“Do you feel better now that you got that out of your system?” I ask. “I guess after all you’ve been through today, you’re entitled to a temper tantrum.”
“I’m not throwing a tantrum. I’m just speaking the truth.”
“Esther, I’ve known you my whole life. I’ve loved you my whole life. There is nothing you can do or say to scare me away.”
“You just feel guilty, Brooks. That’s why you’re doing this. You think you let me down, but you didn’t. I chose this life.” She pushes my hand away from her face.
“You’re absolutely right I feel guilty. I feel guilty I didn’t tell you how much I love you sooner. I’m not here to save you. You don’t need saved. You’re a good person. You’re strong. You’re perfect. I’m only here to support you and love you, no matter what decisions you make, as long as they’re your decisions. Not your father’s.”
“I don’t want to be a whore anymore, Brooks. I’m trying so hard. I’m just scared. I’m scared of what will happen to the club.”
“You’re not a whore. You used your assets to protect the people you love the only way anyone ever taught you how to. That’s loyalty. That’s the Misfit way. You don’t have to do that anymore, though. Everything is changing, Esther.”
She reaches for my face, running her fingers through my beard, and I gently kiss her lips, trying not to agitate her bruises.
“Is it bad that I still love my father?” she asks, looking me in the eyes.
“Babe, I still love your father, in some fucked-up unhealthy way. He might have killed my dad, but he also made me into the man I am today. And without him, there would be no you.”
She pulls my face to hers with a fury, her tongue exploring my mouth with an intense hunger, bathwater splashing all over the floor.
“Are you going to get in here with me?” she asks.
“That bathtub is barely big enough for you, and you’re half my size. Why don’t you get out and get dried off and I’ll go get your comforter out of storage.”
“Fuck that comforter,” she says, smiling as she stands up. “I’ll just use you if I get cold.”
“I’ll never let you get cold.” I wrap her up in a fluffy towel, carefully drying every inch of her body, pretending like I don’t notice the bruises all over her. Those can wait until tomorrow. Sorting out all this mess can wait until tomorrow. Tonight it’s just me and her.
She reaches for the bottom of my shirt, tugging it off over my head.
“We don’t have to do this, you know,” I tell her calmly, not wanting her to feel obligated after such a stressful day, even though being inside her right now is the only thing that I want. Feeling her here with me, showing her how much I worship her body. I crave the closeness more than anything else.
“I know, but I want to be near you,” she says, pulling at the button on my jeans.
“You are, Esther. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Shhh,” she says, helping me out of my jeans. “Make love to me, Brooks.”
42
Esther:
He scoops me up in his arms without another word, and I’m certain he can feel my heart pounding through my chest, pressed up against his, filled with this burning desire to be as close to him as I possibly can be and never let him go. The reality of tomorrow can wait. The rest of our lives can wait. Right now, the only man I see is him, and the only thing I feel is his flesh pressed up against mine, his muscles flexing as he lays me down on the bed.
He drags his beard down my neck, down my breasts, taking my nipple in his mouth, and my back arches. I reach for his hard cock, lining it up with my mound, greedy with desire, using my hips to take him in.
He growls in my ear, driving into me harder and harder, taking my body with reckless abandon, grazing my throbbing clit as he pulls in and out. My whole body shudders, my core contracting around him. I cry out loudly as I cum, digging my fingernails into his corded back, holding him inside me until he grunts, smashing his lips into mine, filling my mouth with his tongue as his seed fills my womb.
His eyes look over my face lovingly, and tears of joy roll down my face, knowing that this man that I’m looking up at is my one and only. It’s time to take my own advice. The past doesn’t matter.
It’s time to take my own advice. We can worry about the future tomorrow.
Right now we are good. We are free. We are perfect. He rolls me on top of his chest and pulls the sheet up over us, our hearts beating together as we catch our breath.
Not a word needs to be said.
I press my ear to his chest and drift off.
I don’t know how I’m supposed to be acting right now. The only thing I know is that I’m glad I have Brooks by my side to keep me steady. The entire crew is gathered in the clubhouse, and Trixie and I are just nervously twittering around, filling up coffee cups for the guys and trying to avoid any sort of conversation about the looming situation.
“Esther, sit down,” Gavin says to me, watching my hands shake as I pace back and forth. “You’re giving me anxiety. Why don’t you just go home?”
I know my dad is locked up in the butcher shed. I know exactly what fate he’s going to suffer. It’s in the laws, it’s in the book; it’s the Misfit way.
“Let her alone,” Brooks says to him. “She’s not hurting anybody.” He knows it’s important for me to be here today. I need to face down my demons just as much as anyone else in this room does, and who is my brother to take that away from me?
Heat stands in the doorway, not moving, his eyes bloodshot, and his hand over his mouth.
“Come here,” Trixie says to him, and she wraps him in a warm embrace while he starts to cry. He’s always been a sensitive but fair man, which is what makes him such a great chaplain of the club. Him and my father go way back. They were both around when the Misfits was first established by my grandfather, and their relationship has always been special, even if it was just because they were thrown together by the club. “You smell like death,” she says to him.
Everyone shoots her a glare.
“Shit,” she mutters. “I mean, you smell like farts and cigars.”
Nobody wants to say out loud what the possible outcome of today could be. We are holding our first official “court” against another
member of the club in Mountain Misfits history, and the bylaws don’t dance around the fact that crimes against your fellow brothers could result in blood, violence, and even death, depending on the severity of one’s actions.
“Did you talk to him?” I ask Heat. “Did you see him?”
He nods.
“I’m so sorry, Esther,” he says, his voice wavering. “This should’ve never happened to you.”
“I’m fine, really.” Sure, the bruises on my face hurt, and the fact that I still have no idea why my father kidnapped me or what he planned on doing with me makes my stomach turn, but these guys aren’t responsible for any of that. Just like they weren’t responsible for my fate before. “This day is not about me and my father. This is about a man who deceived our patch and stole from our club. The club that we’ve dedicated our entire lives to protecting. He put you all in danger for his own gain.”
Brooks squeezes my hand. I squeeze his back, partly in appreciation, partly because I can’t keep down my nervous energy. I know that what I’m saying is what I believe is best for the club, but in my heart, I still feel more. More anger, more rage, more sadness. I just don’t want to show that, especially not when it comes down to a fair trial for my father.
“Anyone else want to go talk to him before we get started?” Gavin asks. “Goob?”
My youngest brother shakes his head, his face stoic. He spent so many years looking up to my father, doing anything in his power to impress him, even after he was sent off to a fate worse than mine when he was just a child, but now that he’s sober, it’s obvious he knows the hell that Moses put him through.
“Do we need to try and call Micah?” I ask. My oldest brother hasn’t been around in nearly ten years. He left for the Marines and never looked back. Occasionally, I get a letter from him, but I don’t even know if I could find him if I tried.
“I think he’ll be ok,” Gavin says sadly. “You want to go have one last one-on-one with him, Esther?”
I’m mad at myself because I feel like I should. I can scream until my face turns blue about how this is just a man who hurt the club, this is a man who has spent his whole life hurting me, but he has my eyes. He has my complexion. He probably has a lot more in common with me than I’d like to admit, that side of me I try to suppress because I know it’s nothing but evil.
“I’ll talk to him in front of you all. I have no secrets to hide,” I say. It’ll be easier that way. I might not have any secrets to hide, but hiding behind my club is much easier than trying to face that man alone and all the possible emotions that could come up.
“Then let the records show I will be acting as president today, and Brooks as vice president, unless there are any objections,” Gavin says. “All decisions made today in terms of life or death must be a unanimous vote. All judgements made against Moses Boden are for the crime of theft of club property and embezzlement, and not based on any personal interactions or issues. Keep your feelings in check, guys.”
“You sure you want to go in with us?” Brooks whispers in my ear. “You don’t have to. No one will judge you.” A chill runs down my spine, thinking about the violence I could be about to witness, especially by the hands of these men that I love. I know they are killers, I know they are cold and ruthless when it comes to protecting our club, and that’s what they’ll be doing today.
I pull him in for a quick kiss. I just need to feel him close to me. “Do you not want me to?” I ask, thinking maybe he won’t want me to see him this way, in warrior mode.
“No secrets to hide,” he says to me, running his fingers through my hair.
“Alright,” Gavin says, taking in a deep sigh, closing his eyes, and shaking his fist. “Let’s do this.”
43
It’s startling to see him sitting there, duct taped to a chair. It looks like the guys have already worked him over pretty good, his eyes blackened and swollen. He doesn’t even look at me when I walk into the room behind the guys; he just stares at the ceiling like he’s bored. This is not the first time he’s been tied up and interrogated, but never by the hands of his own men. I assumed he would be a little softer when it came to us, a little bit more willing to cooperate, but he’s half smiling. Even bound and helpless, he’s still playing games with us.
The butcher shed is a creepy place, with stainless steel countertops, tile floors with a drain in the middle, and standing freezers everywhere. The things these walls have seen have been atrocities, but it’s one of those places that feed our reputation as those crazy fuckers up on the mountain. No rival gang member wants to find themselves here, let alone one of our own. Yet here we are, my father in the center of the room, completely at our mercy, and acting like he doesn’t care about what this situation implies.
“You want to plead your case?” Gavin asks as the men gather around him in a circle.
“You guys already have your minds made up. I can tell by the way you’re hovering around Esther like she’s some sort of innocent little victim in this whole situation.”
“Don’t bring me into this, Dad. This has nothing to do with me.”
“It has everything to do with you, Esther. If you would’ve just shut your whore legs for a minute and listened to me, I would’ve never had to do this.”
Goob punches him in the stomach, and he gasps for air.
“Sorry,” he mutters to everyone in the room. “Just had to get that out of my system.”
“You’re not listening to me, Father,” I say, my face as close to his as I can possibly stand, the tinny smell of blood coming from his every breath. “This isn’t about you kidnapping me. I don’t need to know your rationale, because I assume you were acting in good faith of the club. I assume you did it for the greater good, no matter how twisted of a reason.”
He laughs, a little bit of blood spraying from the edge of his mouth, grinning through his yellowed teeth.
“There she goes, always the martyr. You got that from your mother, you know.”
“I forgive you, Dad,” I say, as the memories of that time he sent me away wash over me. The memories of how he strung me along all these years, making me think that if I didn’t perform, I would hurt my club. “And mom might have been a martyr, but you made me a loyal Misfit. It’s not about me. It’s never about me. It’s about this mountain, it’s about our freedom, and it’s always about the club.”
“You don’t want to know why I kidnapped you?”
“I have a hunch, mostly because of the note you left for Brooks. You were trying to hurt him. Just like way back when you killed Tanner. Isn’t that right?”
“He’s an outsider. He’s not one of us, and neither was Tanner. They aren’t true legacy. He was poisoning you. He needed to go.” I look into Brooks’s eyes and shake my head, hoping he can feel how strongly I disagree with my dad. His face looks blank. Mean, rough, but emotionless.
“And what about me? If your plan really did work, what were you going to do? Just let me out and think I wouldn’t say a word, that I’d just be ok with it? You obviously didn’t kill me for a reason, even though you had every chance to.”
“I’d never kill my own child. If someone else wanted to, though, for the right price? That’s a different story.” A cold chill runs down my spine. For the second time in twenty-four hours, I’m thankful that Morgan is such a shady loudmouth. “That’s all you’ve ever been good for, child. Buying and selling. I figured I’d get one more big squeeze out of you at least.”
I want to be angry. I want to feel sadness. I want to feel anything other than stoic right now, but I don’t even have an ounce of emotion left to give to him. I step back into the crowd, grabbing Brooks’s hand and holding it tight.
“How ’bout them Tigers, Esther?” he asks, laughing maniacally. He’s trying to get a rise out of me, trying to make me hate him, trying to make me react, and I have nothing. “You’re a lucky man, Brooks. She’s good and brainwashed.”
Brooks just squeezes my hand tighter, and I’m impressed with his sil
ent strength, his ability to keep his mouth shut and let the situation play out like it’s supposed to, without indulging in emotion.
“That’s enough,” Gavin says. “How do you plead to the charges of embezzlement and theft of club property, old man?”
“Fuck you all,” he says. “Just kill me now.”
“I’ll take that as a guilty.” Gavin shrugs. “According to club bylaws, this crime is punishable by death if the vote is unanimous.”
I look around at the men, hanging their heads, holding their breaths, and the silence in the room makes my ears ring. I don’t get a vote, being as I’m not a patched officer, and I’m thankful for that, because I have no idea what mine would be.
“Nay,” Brooks says, before anyone can even speak a word.
Gavin looks at him curiously from across the room. “We’re not going to kill him,” Brooks says. “We’re going to do him one worse. Movement to strip Moses Boden of his patch and excommunicate him from the mountain for all time.”
“You don’t owe me any favors, boy,” my father says to him. “I killed your dad after all, but you know that; you’re just too big of a pussy to call me out. We could’ve been sitting here years ago.”
“Exactly,” Brooks says. “You killed my dad. You tried to kill my old lady. You tried to get me to kill myself. You put no value on life. But power? That’s a totally different story, Moses. I don’t want to take your life. That’s too easy. I want you to have to live powerless. I want to take away the only thing that’s important to you. I want to know that you’re spending every day of the rest of your life doing whatever you possibly can to get your power back, and every time you think you’re on to something, every time you think you’re going to make a move, I’ll be right there, waiting to chop you down.”
“All in favor?” Gavin asks.
Nobody opposes.
Nobody really says much else either. Sure, we’re a violent bunch, but Moses was the one who taught us everything we know. Now the teacher is about to be schooled.