by Sara Crest
“You’ve been there for me during this frankly weird and uncertain time, I know things are about to get rough so I want to stand by you and see if we can be something real. I don’t want to be sheltered, it’s too late for me to be sheltered in all honesty… the things I’ve seen these past few…” she trailed off in thought for a few seconds before taking a deep breath and continuing.
“I’ve already seen the kind of things you guys do, yeah it’s hard to take in but I know that one day things might be a lot better. If the tradeoff for spending time with you is seeing some things that I’m not comfortable with then I’m willing to take that chance.”
She had a point, I really didn’t like it, but she had a point. If we were going to be together, and I fully intended on riding this thing out for as long as I could, she would eventually become a part of my life as I took on my role as president.
A girl like her deserves better than this.
No, get that thought out of your head, she’s the best thing that’s happened to you in fucking years.
You can’t fuck this up.
22
(Axel)
“Did you really bring the girl with you?” Mason said as I walked into the bar and say down.
“No offense of course” he quickly said to her. “It’s just that this is Desert Vulture business, it’s just not something that… well you know…”
“Clay brought Miranda with him tons of times, what’s a president without a first lady” I replied.
“He’s got you there Mason” Wyatt said grinning. “Although you still never told us how you two met, how do we know she’s not just a Scorched Satan that’s tricking you to get information.” He said it like a joke but I could tell that he was only half joking, can’t say I don’t blame him when I had the same convictions myself. Hell I tied her to the bed for it, I’m sure somewhere down the line she’ll never let me live that one down.
I grabbed her hand and held it tight “you can trust her, I’ll explain to you everything later. For now all you need to know is that she led me to that connection that got me the name to Zeke’s killer and that she’s gonna be around here for a while so you better get used to her.”
“You gonna follow up on that guy Donnelly?” Wyatt asked. “Not gonna lie now that we have a name I’m itching to go get that fucker for what he did to Zeke, and if I feel that way I can’t imagine how you feel.”
He was right, I wanted nothing more than to find Donnelly and put him in the ground, to let Zeke rest in peace. I just couldn’t right now, not with everything going on.
“I’m president now, I can’t go running around looking for this guy yet. Gotta sort shit out and hit the Scorched Satans hard before I can even thinking about avenging Zeke.”
“So how are we gonna do this thing, what do you have in mind?” Wyatt asked glancing over to Hannah out of suspicion before looking back at me.
“It’s simple, we gotta hit them fast. Nothing too big that’ll put a bunch of our guys in danger, just enough men to rile them up and start something. If it’s anything like last time they cops will intervene and come after us, that’s when we make our stand.”
“We gotta fucking figure out why the cops are helping them man” Mason said rubbing his arm in frustration. “Why are the cops protecting them? I mean for fucks sake they blocked Clay from going to the hospital, what’s in this for them?”
“Who knows, all I know is they messed with the wrong brotherhood.”
23
(Hannah)
He took the stone and skipped it across the parched desert sands out of frustration.
"So what happens now?" I asked, taking my t-shirt off and putting it on the sand before laying down, letting the sun beat down on my torso. Being in the basement so long had made me a little pale but the desert sun was quickly giving my skin some color back.
He looked down at me and smiled, I guess he was happy with how comfortable I was around him.
He ran his palm over my naked stomach and I touched his hand with my own before he answered my question.
"Well I called in the hit, four young guys who are more than willing to make a name for themselves. We know a bar about an hour away from town where at least a dozen of them hang out. As far as we know it's not their official get together spot but enough of them go there often enough. Our guys will ride up, let hell fly for a few seconds, then bail out of there and come back to town. If it's anything like the last time then the cops will be on our asses but for the first time we'd be meeting them on our own terms."
"When they hit the bar... will anybody die?" I asked as I pulled my t-shirt over my body like a blanket to shield myself from some of the heat.
Axel was silent for a few moments, looking off into the desert as we watched a desert rabbit bolt past us.
"I told them that tonight they didn't have to actually try to kill anyone, that it was more about the message than anything... but when that many bullets fly chances are someone's gonna end up getting hurt. In the end I just hope it's not our guys."
I felt my mood dip, I was conflicted. Yeah this was just a retaliation for what happened to Clay and his other club brothers but I still didn't want anyone to get hurt.
"Will anyone be killed tonight? After the cops come?" I asked as I sat up and looked at him, resting my head on my knees.
"If everything goes according to plan nobody will die tonight... but like any occasion when you put that many bikers and that many cops in one place who knows what'll go down. I'll just have to trust my ability to keep my men calm and also trust that those officers have no intention of dying tonight. If they see us taking a stand then maybe they'll go back to being their lazy selfs again. We've held onto this town for so many years, they never pushed their nose into our business until I got pinched."
"Maybe the people in town complained?"
"As far as I know the people in town don't really care what we do, we don't really bother them and they don't bother us. Besides they know that if we're gone the Satans will roll right in to take our place and from my understanding they're far more brutal than we ever were AND they somehow have police amnesty."
I thought about Donnelly, if he was corrupt enough to let Edgar keep owning me as his slave then who's to say that there aren't other police in the Arizona State PD who are just as corrupt as he was? Maybe the Scorched Satans were paying them under the table to operate. Although I would have no idea where they would get the money to pay off a whole state's police force.
Axel stood up and looked out onto the desert one more time.
"Makes you feel small doesn't it?" I asked him.
"What do you mean?"
"The desert, it goes on and on like the ocean, it's been here longer than we have and it'll be here long after we're gone... it's so harsh that it would kill us out here without a second thought. It's as harsh as a man but lasts so much longer..."
He looked down at me and extended his hand, I took it and he pulled me up to my feet.
"As long as I'm around I'll never let another person hurt you, after what happened to Zeke I usually hate making that promise, but for you I’d do anything.”
I was afraid. With what could happen after tonight who knows how long Axel would be around for. I guess I really did care about him, because I was really starting to worry about his safety, and although it was selfish I was also starting to worry how difficult it would be for me to survive elsewhere without his help.
I pulled him in for a hug, pressing my bare naked breasts against his thinly clothed chest.
I didn't want to let him go.
24
(Axel)
We all sat in the town square as the sun began to set, there must have been at least 40 Desert Vulture brothers there. We could have had so many more but I thought 40 would be the perfect number to show that we meant business and that we didn't have any intention of overwhelming them with force. As for now there was nothing we could do but wait and see what happened to the four men we sent out.
“I think I got something” Wyatt announced. He had a police radio with him and was listening in on a pair of headphones.
“What are they saying” I asked, putting my hand on his shoulder.
“They reported the shooting and…” he trailed off for a few seconds listening in as the brothers turned around to wait and see what he was going to say.
“And they confirmed we did it.”
“Did they say anything about our guys? Listing if they were caught or if they got away?”
“Nothing, just that the bar was hit and that they confirmed it was us vs the Satans. We’ll have to wait and see if the guys come back.”
I patted Wyatt on the back and stood up, walking towards Hannah as she stood nearby the group of men worried. I wanted her to go back to my apartment, I didn't want her to be here but she insisted on staying with me. I was starting to think she was afraid to physically let me go, that she was afraid I would be taken away from her and that there would be nothing she could do about it unless she was by my sides at all times. After what happened to her and all the attention and emotion that I've given her I really couldn't blame her.
"Maybe if the police see an innocent girl they'll be less likely to shoot" she told me, pleading her case to stay. I let her on one condition: that if bullets started flying she would leave me behind and run as fast as she could to cover, that if she was caught by the cops that she would deny all association with me so that they would let her go, and above all if she saw me fall to leave me behind. I knew that last part would be hard for her to agree to, but it was for her own safety, if I got shot and she was hurt trying to come to my aid I don't think I would even want to pull through.
We heard some motorcycles off in the distance and I stood up and looked out onto the road.
"Are those Scorched Satans?" one of the brothers said as he took a rifle off of his bike and aimed it down the road.
I squinted and made out one of the bikers, recognizing one of the men I had sent.
I put my hand on my brother's rifle and pushed the barrel down. "Don't shoot! It's our guys hold your fire!"
It felt odd yet natural to give orders. Yeah I had been vice president for a while, but I still always left the orders up to Clay. For me Vice President was nothing more than just a formal title, a sign that Clay appreciated my hard work. This was the first time I was ever really leading the brotherhood.
All four men rode in to our brothers cheering but one gripped his shoulder in pain, barely able to ride his bike.
As soon as they pulled over we rushed to him, taking him off the bike and trying to help him in any way we could.
“Those bastards fucking hit me” he grunted as he winced in pain.
I looked at his shoulder, thankfully it wasn’t anything serious.
“You’ll be alright if we get that bullet out and put some bandages on you” I said tapping his other shoulder for a job well done.
“I got the fucker that did it, had to turn around to do it but I got him” he said smiling as he began sweating from the pain.
I turned to see Hannah covering her mouth, she looked absolutely horrified. Part of me was actually annoyed, I didn’t want her to just jump into my world like this. I know we just met but if she trusted me enough to handle myself like I had before I had ever even met her then she wouldn’t have to see stuff like this. I knew I had to be patient with her but this was starting to go a little too far. To go from the passionate, absolutely insane sex we had this morning to seeing a bleeding man talk about someone he killed is too many emotions to go through in one day.
Some of my brothers took the man who was shot off to be treated as the other 3 received praise for going through their first job as Desert Vultures.
“So what happens now” Wyatt asked me as he gripped his hands out of nervousness.
“You heard it yourself, they know we did it. Now we just have to wait for them to get here.”
The silence while we waited was gut wrenching. Hannah and I kept making eye contact as my 40 brothers all stood around and waited for something that may or may not even happen.
“Maybe the cops wised up and decided to stay out of it?” Mason said, crossing his arms as we looked down the main street out of town. I mean the county police wised up a long time ago to let us do our business, maybe state police finally realized they can’t stop us.
“Doubt it” Wyatt replied. “We’ve hit the Satans harder than this and the cops came down on us with half of their damn force.”
I walked away from them and towards Hannah, taking her away from the group and behind a corner.
“Look I have a bad feeling in my gut about this, you should go back to my place. I can get one of my guys to drop you off.”
She ran her hand up and down my arm, unable to make eye contact with me “I’m not leaving you here, I just want to make sure you’ll be ok.”
“Look I know you just want to make sure I’m safe but I’ve done this kind of thing before. I’ll be fine, everything always turns out fine for me.”
“What about the last time you did a job for the Desert Vultures? You ended up shot and then thrown in jail” she said worriedly.
“I wasn’t on a job for them, Zeke and I just did something dumb and chased after a traitor on our own. Yeah it ended up with him dead and me in jail but that’s not going to happen to me today I promise you that.”
“It’s just that… well… you’re all I really have. You’ve treated me so well and I know it’s been a short time but if something happened to you I would go back to being the scared girl whose car ran out of gas on the side of the road. With you I feel something I’ve never felt in my life before and that’s hope. I don’t want the man who I gave myself to ending up hurt or even worse.”
“Does that mean you want me to leave the club?” I asked her, listening closely to her tone. I really liked this girl and I wanted her to stick around but I couldn’t have her undermining my club. Especially now that I was president.
“No, of course I don’t want you to leave” she said looking out at all of my brothers that were there. “This is your home, this is where you belong, this is where I want to see you thrive. I just don’t want you getting hurt again, I’ve lost everything in my life and I know that our relationship can be amazing I just want to make sure that you’re around for it.”
I could tell that she was sincere, that she really wanted me to do well as president of this club, and in all honesty that just made me want her more. I just wanted her to realize that if she was coming into my world and wanting to be my girl that she would have to recognize the danger that went with my lifestyle, it wasn’t a danger I wanted her to know about but not be fully exposed to.
She took my hand in hers and kissed it, looking up at me with a weary smile. “I just want you in my life for as long as possible…”
I opened my mouth to respond but off in the distance we heard the sound of sirens blaring.
I kissed her as deep as I could for good measure before letting go of her hand and running to my brothers as the sounds of the sirens got closer and closer. All my brothers held strong, standing their ground in the center of the city as they awaited to see what would happen to all of us once the cops got here.
Finally we saw them, at least two dozen police cruisers coming in from the south of the town, all with “Arizona State Trooper” proudly printed on the side of their cars.
They pulled up on the opposite side of the road as police started pouring out their cars, each car holding two officers each.
They all took cover behind their vehicles, pointing their pistols and rifles straight towards us as all of my brothers stood there not moving a muscle.
All the cars were lined up single file, creating a wall that shielded all of the officers. Finally one last car pulled up in front of the line, the door opened and out stepped the chief of police.
He looked at us then back to his men, chuckling. He was a slightly overweight man, although you co
uld barely tell from his uniform, you had to see it by the way he carried himself. He lumbered down the line of cars, looking each one of his men in the eye as they continued to park their cars and aim right at us.
Hannah walked up to me but immediately took cover behind me once she saw all those barrels pointed straight for us. I should have forced her to go back, I should have put my foot down, I let my emotions get to my head and let them get in the way of logic. I just had to hope that nobody had an itchy trigger finger.
Suddenly I began to hear her breathing become erratic as she grabbed my hand and began shaking.
“Axel, Axel he’s here. Oh god he’s going to see me, he’s going to see me and know that I escaped.” She sounded like she was on the verge of a mental breakdown, I quickly scanned all the cop faces trying to see what she was talking about.
“Who’s here? Who are you talking about?” I whispered to her as I locked eyes with their chief of police.
“D-D-Donnelly” she was able to sputter out in fear.
I immediately felt the blood rushing to my head as I looked and tried to find him. After a few seconds I saw him towards the end of the line of cars. I couldn’t believe it, there he was, stepping out of his police cruiser. That fucker Donnelly, did he really have the goddamn audacity to show his face around here? He must not have gotten the memo that I was released. I felt like a bull with blinders on, I wanted to tear through the crowd of my own brothers and jump on him, to beat him to inches of his life and make him regret ever taking my friend away from me. Even if they all opened fired on me I knew my adrenaline would carry my body until I saw the life leave his eyes, that fucker didn’t deserve to take a step in this town.
I made eye contact with him but he didn’t seem to recognize who I was, that just made me more angry. The fucker put a bullet in me and my brother and it was so insignificant to him that he didn’t even remember? That moment has played in my mind every day for two years, it’s tormented my thoughts and my dreams. Meanwhile this guy just goes on with his life like it was nothing, like he didn’t take my best friend from me, he went on to smile and laugh and enjoy life. He went on to torment Hannah, MY HANNAH, with his sick fuck of a friend Edgar. He didn’t have a shred of remorse in his body, and now that I saw him I was itching to put him down.