by Dixon, Ruby
Maybe I’m home alone after all, and the guys had it pegged wrong.
I quickly stick my head into the kitchen, then pace down the narrow hall of our trailer. No brother. No one at all. “Is anyone home?”
No response.
I head into my room to see if he’s destroyed it like he did my car. But no, everything’s put away like it normally is, my bed neatly made. For some reason, this makes me feel weirder than if he had destroyed things. I’m not sure if he’s expecting me to come back, or what. I pull open my drawers of clothing. Still folded. I tug aside a few shirts, looking for the gun I keep hidden. No one knows about it but me. It’s my safety for whenever Taco has rowdy friends over, in case things get out of hand. Now, I tuck it into an overnight bag and then begin to stuff clothes on top. I can pick up some of my stuff, at least.
Maybe it’s because I’m distracted that I don’t hear Stuart come up behind me. All I know is that a moment later, a hand is on my throat, choking the air out of me, and then I’m thrown backward, onto my bed.
I land with a crash and roll off the other side, onto the floor. The wind gets knocked out of me, but I still struggle to my feet.
“Did they finally kick your sorry ass out, Cheyenne? What’s the matter? Couldn’t suck enough dick to keep them happy so you had to come crawling home?”
I might have known that Stuart’d be waiting to take me off guard. Lurking like the thug he was. I crawl back to my feet and glare at him. “Fuck you.” I’m glad there’s no stutter this time, just pure hatred.
“I have to say, though, I’m glad to see your scrawny butt,” he tells me with an ugly smile. “I know someone that’s willing to trade decently for some pussy, even if it is slightly used. He likes his girls tiny like you, and unwilling.” He gives me an awful look. “And I’m just betting you’ll be unwilling for what he wants to do.”
I force myself not to show any emotion. Strangely enough, I’m not scared. Not of Stuart. Not anymore. I feel like all the cards are out on the table now, and it’s a relief instead of a worry. I stand up straight. “You can’t do anything to me.”
His mouth twists. “What, you finally found a backbone? Fucking a few ugly mugs do that to you?”
I roll my eyes. “Just fuck off, Stuart. Quit being a prick and get out of my face.” Not that I plan on staying here, but it sounds like something the old me would say.
“I have to say, I’m not fond of the new you, Cheyenne,” Stuart says, striding toward me. “It’s a good thing my new friends are willing to take you off my hands.”
“The Eighty-Eight?” I sneer. “Some friends. I thought you already had friends, but even your own club doesn’t like you.”
In the next moment, his hand wallops my cheek and I fly backward onto the bed again. “Shut your fucking face, you stupid cunt.” Then, his hand is on my throat again and his weight is pinning me to the bed. I push at his hands, but I can’t get him to budge. “What exactly did you tell them?” I beat my hands against his, but my brother’s twice my size and solid, and I can’t move him. Stars dance at the edges of my vision, until he finally lets his grip up a little so I can speak, and he repeats his question. “What did you tell them?”
“Everything,” I rasp. “I told them everything.”
His hands flex tight on my throat, and for a moment, I think he’s going to kill me for sure. Then, he loosens up again. “Liar. We’d both be dead if that was the case.”
“It’s true,” I maintain, then lead into what I came to find out. “I told them all about you and Lock working with the Eighty-Eight.”
He stares at me hard, and then Stuart laughs and bounces off of me. “You told them Lock was with me? That Boy Scout? That’s gonna be a surprise for him when they come for his ass, then.”
“So...he’s not with you?” I choke out. My throat’s killing me but I want the truth.
“Never heard of this Lock jackass,” a new voice says, and I look over to see a skinny, ugly man with a swastika tattoo on his neck. He’s playing with a knife, and as I stare, he gives me a wicked look. “You been spreading rumors again, Taco boy?”
“Lock’s my ride partner, and no, he ain’t involved. No one knows about this shit but me and you.” His gaze lands on me. “And this big-mouth bitch.”
“She’s your sister.” The Eighty-Eighter says with a leering grin at me. “Ain’t you gonna be upset if something happens to her?”
“Blood runs cold in this family,” Stuart says, watching me as I wriggle my way to the back of the bed and roll off the other side. “I don’t give a fuck if she dies, just as long as she doesn’t talk.”
“That’s easy enough to do,” says the Eighty-Eighter, stepping forward. He runs his tongue along his knife-blade and grins at me wickedly. “No tongue, no talk.”
My gaze darts between the two men. “You’re too late,” I tell them, feigning bravery. “The Butchers already know about everything. Stuart can’t ever show his face again or they’ll kill him.”
Stuart looks uncomfortable, his narrow-eyed gaze on me.
“Bullshit,” the Eighty-Eighter says. “If that was the case, you think they’d let her free? They’d hold her as collateral against you.”
“They know he doesn’t care about me,” I say, edging toward the bag I’ve packed. It lies on the floor, discarded, and along with it, the gun I keep in there for emergencies. This qualifies as an emergency if anything ever did. But the bag is a few feet away. I need to get closer.
Taco just rubs his unshaven jaw, clearly undecided. “Most pussy gets discarded after a panty raid.” He gives me a speculative look. “She’s been gone a week, shacking up with Beast and Muscle.”
“Those the ones that killed my boys in the desert the other night?” The Eighty-Eighter asks.
“Yeah. They’re club enforcers.”
I grow cold. I think of the night they both came in from the desert, sandy and exhausted, and Jason had bad dreams. So that was what happened. It changes nothing, though.
But for the Eighty-Eighter, his grin gets uglier and he looks over at me again. “Then I’ve a mind to send her back in pieces. Just to say hello.”
They’re talking about me as if I’m not here. As if I don’t exist. It’s arrogant as fuck, but maybe I can use it. I curl up against the wall and whimper, pretending to be beside myself with fear. Even as I do, I try to inch closer to my bag, and to my gun.
Stuart just gives a snort of disgust. “She’s pathetic. Do what you want with her.”
The other man grins. “I will. You got some rope?”
“Back shed. What you want it for?”
He winks at my brother. “Little fun first.” He looks over at me and licks the corner of his mouth in a gross gesture. “I like my girls a bit broken before I dispose of them.” He points at Stuart. “Watch her for me and I’ll be back.”
The man disappears into the hall of the trailer, whistling.
“Don’t do this,” I say to Stuart. “Just d-d-don’t.”
“Shut the fuck up, retard,” Stuart says, not even looking over at me. “I should have gotten rid of you years ago.”
My eyes prick, because my brother is so casual about destroying his sister. It’s like he says—blood runs cold in our family. Never was that more true than now.
A shot cracks through the silence of the trailer, followed by the shatter of glass.
That’d be the boys. Stuart’s eyes widen and he jumps forward, rushing down the hall. As he does, I grab for the gun in my bag and flip the switch to unlock the trigger.
“Goddamn it,” Stuart yells down the hall. “You brought them fucking here? You cunt!”
“T-t-t-that’s me,” I agree, stepping out into the hall with the gun raised and ready to shoot. Stuart is at the end of the hall, pressed against the wall toward the kitchen. There’s a huge, serrated knife in his hand. Stuart always did prefer knives.
Ahead of him, I can see a pool of blood spreading on the linoleum, where I’m guessing the Eighty-Eighter i
s bleeding out...if he’s not already dead.
My brother looks over at me, disbelief on his face as he realizes my weapon’s better than his. “You know what they say,” I begin calmly. “Never t-t-take a knife to a g-g-gun fight.”
“Now, Cheyenne,” he says in a placating tone, his eyes on my gun. I know my brother. I know his tells, and he’s going to try and take this gun from me. Just let him try.
“I sh-should have gotten rid of you years ago,” I say, parroting his words back to him.
His eyes narrow, and then he springs for me.
I fire, mostly because I know he doesn’t expect me to.
The bullet hits him in the throat. There’s an awful spray of blood, and then my brother slumps to the floor, nearly decapitated. What’s left of his throat is a bloody mess, and I’m wearing half of it. The urge to vomit rises in my throat, along with panic.
I’ve killed a man.
The front door breaks in, and a moment later, Beast is inside, holding his gun and scanning the room, wild eyed. From the kitchen, Muscle busts in with his gun, and then they both stare at me.
“Well, damn,” Muscle says, a small laugh escaping him. “Guess we should send Shy-girl after all our snitches.”
The gun slips from my fingers and clatters to the floor, and I sink to my knees, feeling weak. Then, Beast is there, holding me and wiping gore from my face with his t-shirt. “Secure the house,” he tells Muscle. “I’ve got her.”
I burrow against Beast’s big, safe body. It’s true. He’s got me. And in his own brash way, Muscle has me, too. They’re my family now.
And Lock. “Lock is innocent,” I tell Beast as he wipes my face.
“I know,” he says. “We heard everything through the wire.”
Oh. I’d forgotten I was wearing it. So they heard all the awful things Stuart said to me. For some reason, tears pool up in my eyes at that. “I s-s-s-stuttered,” I tell him, and start to sob. “I didn’t w-w-want to st-stutter but I did.”
“I know, baby girl,” Beast tells me, voice soothing. “It doesn’t mean you were any less badass.” And he holds me tight and murmurs words of encouragement and affection as he holds me and cleans my brother’s blood from my face.
Chapter Nine
We don’t get back to the men’s house until late that night. Instead, we go to the Meat Locker, a big, brutish looking gym a few towns over. There, I shower off the blood and switch into some of Lucky’s gym clothes, which hang off me like I’m a kid. While I’m cleaning up, my boys are meeting with the presidents and the VPs to go over what happened. I’m not invited because I’m not club, but it still rankles a bit to be considered a second class citizen after I killed the bad guy.
Then, I start shaking like a leaf because I killed someone. My own damn brother. I tell myself that he was going to kill me first, that he was going to sell me for drugs to someone that wanted to cut me up in pieces and teach me a lesson. But it doesn’t mean I can stop trembling. I don’t stop until Muscle wraps his arms around me and murmurs comforting words in my ears. He knows what I’ve gone through, he tells me. That I need to be strong in public and I can collapse in private, later, with him.
And somehow, that gets me through the day.
A couple of patches are sent out to the trailer to ‘make it disappear’. There’s two bodies to dump and a lot of evidence to clean up, and if I know my brother, a lot of meth and crack rock to get rid of. Beast and Muscle ask if I want anything from the house, but I don’t.
I want a clean slate. That’s what I want.
Exhausted, I nap in one of the back rooms while the men discuss business, and I wake up when Beast rouses me long enough for me to park behind him on his bike. Then, we pack double back to the house.
Back home. At least, I suppose it’s my home for now. Again. My other one’s probably being torched by gasoline so no one can tell what happened there. Just another freak wiring issue in an old, run-down trailer. Apparently one of the Butchers works for an insurance company, so the details will be smoothed over.
I gaze at the now mostly-clean house as we walk in. The kitchen’s clean and sparkling, the sink free of dishes. There’s even a batch of breakfast muffins on the counter, because I know Muscle likes to wake up super early and eat something.
I’m here for now, but...what next? I hesitate in the kitchen, putting my hands on the counter and feeling the comforting cool granite under my fingers.
“You need a drink?” Beast asks, ever concerned for my welfare. He tilts my head back and examines my face. “You look wiped.”
I give him a wan smile. “It’s not every d-day you k-kill your b-brother.” I try to joke about the situation, but then my bravado just sort of crumples in on itself, and the next thing I know, I’m sobbing. Big arms pick me up and carry me to the couch, and Beast holds me as I weep.
“Make her drink this,” says Muscle, and then a tumbler of something dark is pushed into my hand.
I lift my head and sniff the drink, then wince. “What is this?”
“A little soda and a lot of Southern Comfort. Drink it. You need to relax.” Muscle takes a swig himself from a matching glass, then winks at me.
I take a tentative sip, then cough as it burns my throat. “God, that’s awful,” I choke out.
“It is,” Muscle agrees with a grin. “Drink it anyway.”
I do, even though it feels like fire on my sore throat. It hurts worse than anything, and I know from my quick glimpse in the shower mirrors earlier that I have finger-print purple bruises around my neck, bruises that made Muscle furious earlier. He seems to have mostly calmed down now, though as I sip my drink and he gazes at me, I wonder if the drink is intended to calm me or if he needed one and didn’t want to drink alone.
When it’s all done, I hand the glass back, and I’m feeling warm and a little floaty. Exhausted, yes, but not as frantic.
“Still sad?” Beast asks, rubbing a big hand down my back.
“It’s not sadness as much as it is...fear, I guess,” I say, surprised I’m able to get it all out without a single trip of a syllable. Maybe the liquor’s loosened me up more than I thought. “I don’t know what happens to me now.”
The men share a look. Muscle leaves the room.
I blink, watching him go. Did I say something that upset him? I give Beast a questioning look.
“You’re ours,” Beast says simply.
“Oh, but,” I begin, my mind racing. “You don’t have to do that. If Stuart’s gone, I don’t need protection any longer.”
“No, you misunderstand,” Muscle says, returning to the room a moment later. He’s holding his leather cut, the vest with his club patches that every Bedlam Butcher—heck, every biker—wears. He approaches and holds it out to me.
My brows draw together and I take the vest from him.
“We said we were keeping you until we were tired of you,” Muscle says. “Don’t see that happening anytime soon.”
“N-no?” I hold the vest against my chest, and give Beast a hopeful look.
“Don’t know that I’ll ever get tired of you,” Beast says, voice low and serious and so warm that my skin prickles in response.
Muscle nudges the vest and flips it over so I can see the patches on the back. It’s the Bedlam Butchers logo—the joker with the crossed blades, but instead of the club name, it says PROPERTY OF at the top and BEAST & MUSCLE at the bottom.
I’ve been claimed. For keeps.
Hot tears blur my eyes. “Really?”
“Really,” says Muscle. “But that means we’re taking this all the way. No more pussy-footing around because you’re a virgin.”
I blink up at him. “What do you mean?”
“We both want to claim you,” Beast says. “Same time. Together.”
Oh. I mentally picture that and I can feel the blush scalding my cheeks. “Together?”
“Cocks stuffed in every hole, Shy-girl,” Muscle says, coming up to where I’m cradled against Beast and he runs his thumb alon
g my lower lip. “You got objections, speak now or forever hold your peace.”
I shake my head. “I want to belong to both of you. I want it more than anything.” I do—even though the scenario is an odd one, I’ve felt more at home and more welcome with these two men than I ever have in my own home. “But what about...today?”
“What about today?” Beast asks, and Muscle shrugs, puzzled.
“Prison,” I whisper. “I killed a man.”
“So did I,” Muscle says in that confident voice of his. “And I ain’t going to prison. It’s taken care of.”
“But—”
“Taken care of,” Muscle repeats, the stern look on his face brooking no discussion.
Okay then.
“But now your first loyalty is to us, and the club,” Beast says. “You hear something, you come to us. We’ll protect you because you’re ours.”
I nod slowly. “I-I’m going to need to get a job again. My c-car—”
“Shit, this ain’t a prison,” Muscle says with a laugh. “It’s a relationship. You can get a job. You can do whatever you want. We aren’t your keepers, Shy-girl. We’re your lovers.”
Beast just grins. “We can take it slow. One step at a time. The main thing is that you’re comfortable and happy with us.”
I nod. “One c-condition.”
“Name it,” Beast says.
“You guys have to pick up your socks.”
Muscle tilts his head, as if he didn’t hear me quite right.
Beast snorts, probably because he’s the worst culprit of the sock-discarding.
And I can’t help it. I burst into a fit of giggles.
“I think that is what’s called ‘yanking our chain’, Cal,” Muscle says.
“She can do that,” Beast says, eyes narrowed at me. “I know where all her ticklish spots are.”
I squeal and try to bolt away, but two sets of arms grab me and hold me down, and then I’m being tickled endlessly and I’m laughing and screaming at their maddening touches. All the while, Beast pins my arms and shows Muscle just where to tickle me to get the most effect, until I’m breathless and aching and so, so happy I can’t stand it.