But Jordan is stubbornly oblivious to the gravity of their situation. “He helped take care of you while you was sleeping. And he came back, June. With food!” Jordan makes his case with the fervent conviction of a child. “He don’t look it or talk it, but he’s a good guy. You’ll see!”
For a moment, June can only stare at Jordan, feeling sorrier for him than she’s ever felt for herself. She knows how easily he falls into hero worship: Razo, the other Hijos—when any of them showed him even a sliver of kindness, he’d attach to them like a puppy. How many times did they have to kick him before he could see them for who and what they really were?
June is going to have to work hard to convince him not to trust this latest man in their lives.
“Jordan…” she begins.
The door crashes open with a huge bang.
June jumps, only to freeze in terror when she sees the biker standing there, arms loaded with two large pizza boxes and some plastic bags. He’s swapped his long sleeved t-shirt for a Henley, but other than that, he looks exactly the same. Big. Angry. Dangerous as hell.
He stops short when he sees her upright on the side of the bed. His jaw ticks once or twice, before he growls, “You’re up. Good.”
The man’s voice is low and gravelly. As if his vocal chords are located deep in his gut rather than his neck like everybody else. He stares at her. The same as last night.
June casts her gaze away. From him and from his patch-laden vest. Unable to form an answer, because it seems like his crystal blue gaze is eating her alive.
She hears him grunt irritably. Then there’s the sound of pizza boxes landing on the table, and his feet stomping over to a window. She dares to peep up at him. Watches as he stalks around the room, yanking curtains apart and shoving windows open, until cool, tree-scented air fills the space.
It’s actually not a new day at all, she belatedly realizes. It’s late afternoon, early evening. Crickets, not birds, chirp in the background, warning of the soon-to-be-setting sun.
Again she curses silently. Not morning…. too late to run, unless they want to get stuck in the backwoods overnight.
“Told you to keep those windows open,” the biker growls at Jordan, who’s now at the table opening the two pizza boxes. The room is suddenly filled with the smell of warm bread, meat, and cheese.
“It got too cold,” Jordan explains with a shrug as he grabs an entire box of pizza and brings it over to June.
He hands it to her. “Lookit, he got you sausage and pepperoni! Your favorite.” Jordan stresses the last two words, as if they prove his point that the white supremacist biker who bought her from Razo, is really a good guy.
For a moment, June is completely overwhelmed with a desire to scream and cry.
“Eat,” a voice says, as if offering her a third option.
She looks up and sees that the biker has seated himself at the table. He seems calmer now that every window and door in the room is open. “But go slow with that food,” he warns. “Eat too fast, and it might come back up.”
June’s eyes widen, surprised at his gruff but thoughtful warning. But then he turns his back to her and grabs a slice. Leaving her with nothing to look at but the huge patch on his back, the one that declares him a member of the SOUTHERN FREEDOM KNIGHTS MC
She quickly looks away, shivering. And not because of the cool summer breeze drifting through the room.
As if by mutual agreement, Jordan and the man settle into chairs on opposite sides of the small wooden table, the other pizza box between them. Jordan is back to his usual non-stop conversational stream about soccer. He’s telling the biker about the soccer game he watched while June was asleep. Out of the corner of her downcast eyes, June watches the biker—what had Jordan called him? Mason? Yes, that was it. Mason folds a large slice of the pizza in half right down the middle, neatly ensuring the generous pile of toppings and melted cheese stay put as he raises the warm triangle to his mouth. It disappears in four bites, before Jordan has even figured out how to eat his slice without his toppings sliding off onto his paper plate.
“Eat,” the biker growls at June again, shooting her a quick angry glance before he reaches into the box for another piece.
So she does. Because he told her to, because she needs to keep up her strength, because she knows she can’t afford to be hungry and weak again. If he tries anything…if he pulls a gun on Jordan like he did last night, or tries to hurt him in any way …she has to be ready.
So she eats the pizza, even though it tastes like warm cardboard in her mouth. For Jordan, she eats—even if his response, when he catches her worried gaze, is to roll his eyes with a look that clearly says “stop acting so scared!”
Jordan has seen many things he shouldn’t have. So many things, thanks to Razo. But in spite of that, his worldview is impossibly small. He doesn’t understand. Can’t understand what they’re dealing with.
Yeah, they’ve escaped Razo who sometimes beat her in front of Jordan, and occasionally starved them while he was off fucking other young women. But she can’t help but feel like they’ve gone from the proverbial frying pan and into the fire with this white supremacist biker who could very literally be fattening them up to…
Well…truthfully she has no idea why he’s going through the trouble of feeding them. Or what he plans to do next.
Which is why she ignores her queasy stomach and eats slowly. Exactly like he told her. She has to stay alive. For Jordan, she has to stay alive.
Chapter 4
June stays braced for anything. But after they’re done eating, Jordan simply picks up her half-empty pizza box, closes it over the leftover slices, and takes it to the little kitchenette on the other side of the room.
“Me and Mason going to watch some TV. Want your paper?” he asks as he puts the box into the fridge.
June thinks about it, then nods. Drawing will help her think. Maybe even calm her mind enough so she can figure out a decent exit strategy.
“Here you go,” Jordan says, handing her the backpack that she now realizes was on the kitchenette counter the whole time.
She unzips it and looks inside. Razo hadn’t allowed them to take anything that couldn’t fit into the backpack, so this backpack is all she and Jordan have in life right now. Relief fills her when she sees everything’s still there, including her ink and tattoo gun, plus a few changes of clothes for Jordan. She pulls out her drawing pad and a black Sharpie.
June expects Jordan to settle back into the chair beside her bed, but instead, he climbs into the other bed with the remote control and says to Mason, “Soccer’s done, but So You Think You’d Survive is on. Want to watch that?”
“That’ll work,” the biker answers.
June starts when he suddenly drops into the chair beside her bed with a tall Shiner Bock in one meaty hand.
She’s terrified to have him this close. But he doesn’t so much as glance her way. Just leans back in the chair to watch crazy people doing crazy stuff in some crazy reality show competition.
Eventually, she somehow manages to pull her attention away from him and settle against the headboard, folding her legs up underneath her drawing pad. Usually she gives a little thought to what she wants to draw before putting her Sharpie to a precious piece of sketch paper. But tonight, there’s no advanced planning. She just starts drawing. Black birds with thick wings. Ravens in mid-flight. Her Sharpie skitters frantically across the paper as the show drones on in the background. She’s thinking…thinking…but can’t come up with anything that doesn’t end with her and Jordan lost in the woods.
After an hour or so of this, June has to stop. She’s filled up one whole side of the paper with ravens and she’s rapidly losing the light to the setting sun. She could turn on the bedside lamp, she supposes, but that would mean moving an inch closer to him. She thinks about doing it anyway but finds she can’t so much as move a finger in his direction.
That’s okay, she decides. It’s not like she’s getting anywhere with her
escape plans. Also, the sketch pad Jordan stole for her the last time the Hijos took him on a Cal-Mart run is down to its last few sheets. She’d only been letting herself draw on half pages for weeks now, and she has no idea when she’ll get another pad.
Or if.
Yeah, June thinks, her full stomach churning, drawing definitely isn’t helping me out tonight. So she starts to set the pad aside, only to notice something. Something about the birds she’s sketched…a pattern or—
She stops, frowns, turns the pad sideways. No, she’s not imagining it. The ravens form a familiar shape…a motorcycle. A dangerous-looking motorcycle made of black, ominous, wickedly intelligent birds. June notices that her stomach is mimicking the wheeling, circling, twisting of those birds.
She quickly flips the pad shut and puts it next to her on the bed, turning her attention to the program on the room’s ancient 20” Emerson TV. It’s something about custom cars, a topic she couldn’t care less about. But she watches anyway. And then another show comes on, one where two brothers go around the country finding old cars, which they haul back to their shop in Long Beach to restore. June watches without really watching, faking interest while trying hard to ignore the increasingly piercing call of her very full bladder.
Night eventually shrouds the room in darkness, and after a few more episodes of the car restoration show, Jordan drops off to sleep in the other bed.
Meanwhile, June’s bladder is screaming at her. But she doesn’t move. Can’t move. Due to fear of the man sitting in the chair beside her bed. She’s sure he’s staring at her, even though each time she’s dared glance his way, his eyes are planted on the TV. Face stony in the screen’s flickering light.
But the feeling won’t go away, hasn’t gone away since he entered the cabin. There’s something about him.
Even when he’s not looking at her, it feels like he is.
And even though his eyes remain intent on the 1959 El Camino currently being restored on screen, it feels to June like he’s waiting. Waiting to pounce. And now Jordan’s asleep.
How is this going to work? she wonders, glancing over at the boy now sleeping peacefully in the other bed. Jordan used to be so well-trained. He’d leave any room she was in as soon Razo entered their house. But their cabin only has one room. Would he really fall on top of her here? Right in front of Jordan?
Her stomach twists at the thought, making the matter of her bladder that much more urgent. She can’t ignore it any longer, she realizes with a sinking heart. She has to pee. She glances forlornly at the room’s only bathroom. The one that feels impossibly far away on the other side of the kitchenette.
Carefully sliding out of bed, she creeps through the darkness. Past Jordan’s bed, through the kitchenette area, making as quick and quiet a beeline toward the bathroom as possible. But before closing the door behind her, she risks a quick glance over her shoulder.
He’s still in the chair. Eyes so glued to the TV, there’s a good chance he hasn’t noticed her departure. But it still feels like he’s watching her, even after she closes the door and turns the lock.
After relieving herself, she looks forlornly at the threadbare hand towels stacked on the cracked green sink. She wouldn’t mind a shower after everything that’s happened. Too bad she doesn’t have anything to change into.
Yet, she still can’t regret her decision to use the allotted space for Jordan’s clothes and not any of the outfits Razo had bought for her. They were ugly clothes. Tasteless and totally without any purpose other than cheap titillation. A waste of opportunity to sew beauty into an art-starved world, her mother would have said… back in that other lifetime when they did normal mother-daughter things together like back-to-school shopping.
June settles for washing her face. The faded make up comes off with a towel and water, but her sadness is a lot harder to get rid of. And the woman staring back at her from the oval mirror above the sink looks about a thousand times older than her twenty-three years. So weary, June can’t help but wonder if she’ll find gray hairs when she finally gets around to taking out her old weave—
The door opens behind her, as easily as if she’d never locked it in the first place. And just like that, she’s no longer alone in the bathroom.
The biker’s there. And he’s got a knife in his hand. Bigger than a switch blade, but smaller than a sword, it sports jagged teeth on its blade. And it puts her in mind of those horror movies where villains hunt and kill humans like animals.
June freezes, her hands tightly clasped on the rim of the sink, too afraid to turn and acknowledge him face-to-face. He slips the knife inside his leather vest, and shuts the door behind him with a definitive click. Then he studies her reflection, his eyes brighter than anything else in the small room.
He’s terrifying. She clings to the sink, more afraid of him than she’s ever been of anything or anyone else in her life.
“Turn around,” he says, his mouth barely moving beneath the large beard.
June squeezes her eyes shut, fighting back tears she didn’t know she still had. How’s this going to work? she’d asked herself earlier.
Now she has her answer. In the bathroom, where Jordan won’t see.
I guess I should at least be grateful for that, she thinks as she grips the sink one last time before turning to face him.
She’s immediately overwhelmed. The bathroom is on the small side and now that he’s in there with her, it feels impossibly cramped. Like he’s taken over every inch of space, his scent—leather and motor oil—overpowering every molecule of air. She can’t move. She can’t breathe.
“Hey, hey,” he says, bending at the knees into an almost-crouch.
Then his face is level with hers. “Hey, don’t do that.”
Don’t do what? June wonders, trying to look anywhere but at him.
But his head follows her eyes, his blue gaze chasing her darting brown one. Steady but insistent, until she finally gives up and meets his stare.
“You actin’ so scared of me. That’s got to stop.” His voice is gruff but hushed in the small space.
I’m not acting, she thinks back at him.
“You’re with me now, and that means you got to stay where I tell you to,” he continues. “But that don’t mean you have to be scared of me. I came in here to tell you that.”
Her eyes drop to his disgusting patches.
“Yeah, I know…” He draws himself all the way up. And for some reason, this makes him seem like he’s the one on the defensive, even though he’s towering over her like a leather clad skyscraper. “But I’m telling you, I’m not going to hurt you or the kid. And I won’t be forcing anything on you. It won’t be like that...”
Bullshit. She doesn’t believe him.
“I’m telling you the truth,” he insists. “I mean, I ain’t no monk. When you get the itch, come find me. But until then…I won’t touch you unless you ask me to.”
“Then you won’t ever be touching me.”
The sentence slips out. Somehow pushing past the air-tight seal she keeps on her words before she has a chance to stop them.
Oh no she didn’t. Appalled at herself for challenging him, June holds her breath, waiting to see what he’ll do next.
He visibly stiffens, shoulders going tight in a way that lets her know the animal standing in front of her is barely keeping himself in check. And for a moment, his expression slips. The careful curtain coming down so suddenly, she doesn’t have to guess at the emotion in his eyes. It’s hunger. Naked and raw…and on full display.
This time, she doesn’t think first. Can’t think first. She takes an involuntary step back, only to be stopped short when her butt hits the unyielding sink behind her. A not so friendly reminder that she’s trapped in here with him.
He knows it, and she knows it. But in the end, he’s the one who finally steps away—from her and the tension between them. “Like I said, when you get that itch, come find me. Only me. That’s the one rule I got as far as relations between us ar
e concerned.”
June can only blink in response. She can’t even imagine having the kind of itch he means—actually wanting, and not just enduring, sex. Much less seeking him out to scratch it. That will never, ever happen. Not in a million years, and especially not with him.
“Picked you up a few things while I was getting the pizza,” he says, interrupting her thoughts.
He lifts a Cal-Mart bag she hadn’t even noticed until now, and hangs it on the door knob. “In case you wanted to shower and change. Bugs will eat you alive you go outside wearing that.”
June looks down at her current outfit, an unexpected burst of shame souring her stomach. Even though the clothes are pretty much standard wear back in the Cul, and probably what led the biker to buy her off Razo in the first place. Still, she folds her arms over her chest, unable to mask how self-conscious she feels in the skimpy outfit. Or say thank you for the clothes he bought her.
The seal’s back on, and all she can do now is wait, silently broadcasting the Please go! she can’t say aloud.
He must hear it, because after an awkward beat, he dips his head and grunts, “Okay, leaving you to it.”
The door opens and closes and just like, that he’s gone.
Leaving her with a lot of questions. Mostly for herself.
When June emerges from the bathroom, freshly showered and dressed in a Beaver Lake t-shirt and sweatpants, the room feels much different.
He’s gone. She knows this even before she notices that the doors and windows are closed, and the curtains drawn. Or that the palm tree coverlet on the other bed has been pulled over Jordan’s sleeping form.
And there’s another surprise: her drawing pad isn’t where she left it. But before she can descend into a full-fledged panic, she spots it across the room, on the table where Jordan and the biker ate pizza—no, where Jordan and Mason ate pizza. His name is Mason, she reminds herself. After the shared moment in the bathroom, it just feels weird to keep referring to him as “the biker”—or worse.
His to Own: 50 Loving States, Arkansas Page 4