Watcher

by MariaLisa deMora

  Words flowed from the man’s lips like water, and Watcher found himself nodding in agreement, because as if he were going down a list, Morgan had acknowledged every misgiving Watcher was feeling. Watcher didn’t know high protocol, not at all. Of course, he knew a little of the day-to-day things because you had to learn fast as a prospect. Pure self-preservation, so you didn’t fuck up every time you turned around, but Watcher had no knowledge of the deeper points, the things which touched the core of the outlaw biker life. No idea what to do if he found himself in another club’s territory. No idea what went on in church, those closed-door meetings the officers held in the room behind the bar. No idea what some of the roles in the club were supposed to be as opposed to what their little chapter used them for. Felt like he didn’t have any idea, and he seriously wanted to buy a fucking clue. He would settle for a damn vowel at this point. Any fucking thing.

  Morgan promised someone to help him along, a mentor, was offering up his own son in fact. John, a man who had made a study of clubs and the differences in them, having observed several organizations from the inside. Temporarily patching in with approval from his old man and the receiving club’s officers, getting a feel for what made a good club, as well as what made a good officer. John had a few years on Watcher but seemed to be decent, and levelheaded, someone he could learn from. Especially if he was anything like his old man. Watcher found he liked what he was learning about Morgan. Liked the man nearly as much as he had Killer.

  At the thought, a wave of sadness washed over him, and he twisted to see the picture tacked to the wall next to the office door. Taken at a recent hog roast, it showed Killer with his arms slung around Watcher and Painter’s shoulders, their inside arms crossed over his back, outside ones linking the three men to the line of club members standing and staring at the camera.

  Killer was grinning, his smile splitting his beard, white teeth shining through, eyes crinkled with laughter just trailing off. Watcher couldn’t remember what Painter had said, but Killer had found it hilarious, as he often did, and had cackled like a madman for so long the bitch taking the picture got impatient, snapping the shutter before his features had settled down into the scowl he typically affected for the camera.

  Lifting the beer in his hand, Watcher tilted the top of the bottle towards the picture, thinking, Never met a better man.

  “He was a good brother.” Morgan’s voice came from beside him, and Watcher jolted, not having seen him walk up. “Good dad. Good man.” Leaning back so his shoulders rested against the wall beside Watcher, Morgan sighed. “You can tell the measure of a man by how he treats his kids, don’t you think?”

  That was a loaded question if he ever heard one. Everyone knew John, Morgan’s son, hadn’t done right by his families for a long time. Families, as in plural, because he had an official old lady and a daughter, then had taken on a side piece, who wound up pregnant with his son. The man had fucked up so bad his old lady took a runner, had been gone for months now with his girl, Eddie.

  All John could do was sit and spin, because she’d hid so well no one could find her. It had gotten to the point few people even believed the two were still alive. Meant Morgan hadn’t seen his granddaughter for any of those months, and you could see the lines of anger and pain struck into his skin when he talked about Eddie. The side piece had given up her boy to John, and Luke was living with Morgan for now.

  Knowing all this, instead of responding to Morgan’s question, Watcher grunted, lifting his beer to conclude his silent toast to his friend.

  Loyal to a fault

  Fuck, Watcher thought, eyeing the now-closed door leading from his office into the main room of the clubhouse. Not twenty minutes ago, there had been a crying, screaming woman cowering on the floor, and he had watched in fascination as a man had visibly restrained himself from dealing out a well-deserved and entirely justified retribution. Davy Mason, one of his best friends growing up. The man had gotten out of the holler and made his own way in the world, and they’d both settled into the life. Different clubs, but same love of bikes and brotherhood. Mason had been dealt blow after blow all his life, had become a master at locking his shit down, and today Watcher had seen him force control back into place piece by bloody piece. “Fuck.”

  Tipping the desk chair back, Watcher leaned to grab his beer. Not giving that first shit it was warm. The motherfucker was wet, and after what he had witnessed, each sip would be the start of his own lockdown, building a wall between the pain he had observed and what he needed to do next. Three beers later, he felt close enough to normal he was ready to pick up the phone, preparing to pull the trigger on what would be another life-altering change. Pausing for a moment, he dialed a number from memory, not the one he originally intended, but this one needed to be first.

  “Darrie.” He greeted his brother when the call connected. He gave the usual pleasantries a minute, then cut off his big brother’s questions with a brusque, “I’ve made a decision.”

  Two years as president of this chapter had pulled the shades from his eyes. The Outriders. Watcher now knew he’d been coddled as a prospect and new member, shown a picture far from the reality of what the club actually was. He had known about the drug and gun trade, of course he had, a blind man couldn’t miss it. The shit was everywhere in Kentucky. Seemed like every sixth driveway led to a lab, and few people were walking the streets without some kind of monkey on their back.

  Dealers had gotten smart, setting up what amounted to drive-through clinics treating chronic pain. Using doctors who worshiped greenbacks as gods, oath be damned; ones who didn’t give their own first shit about what they did to the people or the families behind the addicts. Morgan’s talk about how the family was most important was thin, and when push came to shove, every promise broke in pieces the first time the club had gotten wind of how much money could be made. Runners brought the shit in from Canada or from Mexico, depending on which direction proved most profitable. This meant bringing in people to work, covering shipments, storage, and distribution—the entire dirty business. A lot of men, none of whom had loyalty to anything, most certainly not the Outrider patch.

  What Watcher hadn’t known about were the other trade routes they ran, all of them bloody. Flesh trade, transporting girls in from foreign countries and parking them in a stable, branding each of them on the face with the club’s mark. Making it so these girls, some of them only just out of childhood, could never go home. People would take one look at the scar, much more permanent than a fucking letter on their chest, and know what the girls had been forced to do to survive. It only took one exposure to that and Watcher had flat refused to have the shit run through his territory, and Morgan agreed, knowing the history, and rightly judging that it would be a breaking point for Watcher.

  Protection and enforcement were another path the club walked. This one bloody, too, with enforcement sometimes stretching thin to include elimination. Bodies stacked like cordwood in the back of a pickup, territory cleared for one of their other trades on an as-needed basis. Mine shafts reopened, lined with lime and death.

  This last bit of shit that had landed in his lap tonight was the final straw. Mason—a man he had always trusted to be at his back, someone he knew without a doubt would take his six—had been royally fucked over, and hard. By family, of all the shit. Over time, Watcher found out Morgan knew the county so well because he had dipped in and out of here for years. Heard through the grapevine Morgan had fucked Mason’s mother. They had one child together, but Morgan had, in essence, gained three kids from that unhappy union. John, now called Shooter, and Mason were half brothers, raised apart…and Shooter hated Mason with a passion which was uncomfortable to witness.

  Since being voted in as chapter president, Watcher had necessarily spent a lot of time with Shooter, learning the lay of the land and how to handle dozens of situations in the way Morgan wanted. They had gotten friendly but would likely never be friends because the more comfortable the man became in their association,
the more open Shooter got and let down his guard. And what Watcher had found behind the wall was not pretty.

  The story told by folks who had known Shooter a long time was that before his old lady left, he was good. Or at least better than he was these days. He worked hard to keep the club out of trouble, tried to find ways to mitigate damage caused by Morgan’s orders. However, since he lost his old lady he had gone sideways in a bad way, using club product of any kind, services too, and the man did not get off easy. His kinks were so fucking twisted Watcher would see the Cynthiana party dolls flinch at the sound of Shooter’s voice. When he stayed a while at a chapter where they ran flesh, more than one woman had to be permanently retired after he was done with her.

  It was entirely fucked up, and knowing he was part of this in even a small way turned Watcher’s stomach.

  So, two months ago when Darrie called and said he had started a club out west, Watcher listened. The Southern Soldiers sounded very different from the Outriders—a club designed around the idea of honor and populated with combat vets who all had the same mindset. Ones who believed the oath to serve and protect didn’t end with separation from the military, but only upon death. When Darrie called and explained what he was doing, he turned around and asked the impossible, wanting Watcher to jump ship and wade up the creek to where his brother would be waiting. Watcher had asked for some time. He knew he would have to make his play carefully because it wasn’t a done deal Morgan would be cool with him leaving the club, and Watcher didn’t want to bring heat down on Darrie or his men. He also kinda wanted to stay breathing, and knew that wasn’t a done deal, either.

  “And?” his brother prompted, and Watcher recognized the tone of tense anticipation in his voice.

  Watcher took a moment, his mind racing back over the scene he just witnessed, where a woman had been forced to serve a man she hated, possibly tying herself to another one who now detested her. Forced because if she didn’t, then—the man she hated, one who was crazy and not like a fox—would kill her without any hesitation. None. Shooter would take his fists to her, or if he weren't in a mood to go slow, he’d use his knife. Watcher knew this because it had happened before. When it happened again—and it would happen again—Watcher knew he would be the one finding a shaft deep enough to bury the stench of betrayal. Because that was what the Outriders demanded, so it was what he gave.

  Loyal, to a fault.

  Time to dig out from under, to try and find some way to peel off the shit which had become buried so deeply in his skin. Get away from the weight of pain and blood, and knowing his part in it all. Time to atone, regardless of the cost.

  “I’m in.”

  My grave

  Jarred from sleep when rough hands clamped tight around her upper arms, Juanita was disoriented for a second, and after a frozen moment of reaction, she tried to pull away. Utter darkness shrouded her room, the lack of any light was confusing and frightening. Dazed, she twisted, struggling to break free from her unseen attacker, legs snarled in the quilt her abuela had given her. Hauled from the bed, she fell to her hands and knees, tangled hair around her head. Clawing futilely at the floorboards, pain ripped through her fingers as nail heads and splinters tore at her skin.

  Thinking of nothing except escape from whatever nightmare monster was in her room, she’d made it halfway underneath the bed when one of her ankles was seized in an iron grip, dragging her backwards. A weight landed on her spine, the pain from impact paralyzing. All the air was knocked from her body, leaving her unable to take a single breath. Damp fabric slapped across her nose and mouth, and as she fell into a bottomless tunnel, she belatedly realized she should have screamed.

  Consciousness returned in stages. First was pain. Unbearable and overwhelming, it pierced Juanita’s skull as if it were a pickax, like the one her father used to carve the family garden from the mountainside. Second was sound, loud and echoing through her head. Men bellowed nearby, and she flinched. Their unfamiliar voices overrode any other noise, the weight of anger carried in their shouts terrifying. In time, the pain in her head subsided, and she became aware of her body. That was the third stage, awareness. Every inch ached. It felt like her bones had been crushed, the sharp edges slicing through her skin. “Mama,” she whispered, feeling a sharp stinging as her dry lips cracked with the movement, blood a welcome liquid pooling in her parched mouth. “Papa.” Her eyes felt too large, sore and swollen in their sockets, and with the desiccated membranes in her mouth, she knew dehydration was part of what she needed to fear.

  Legs splayed wide apart, her hips ached from the unfamiliar angle. Her feet were weighted down somehow, made so she could only move them an inch or two in any direction, a tight constriction around her ankles. It hurt when she tugged, and the ache made her remember the tight hold of the hand around her leg.

  Carefully, she opened her eyelids a slit, shocked when she was unable to see anything. Darkness surrounded her. A darkness so total, she lifted her hand in front of her face and could still see nothing. I’m blind, she thought, heart tripping over itself in her chest, the swirl of bile in her belly threatening to wash up her numb throat. She was bending forwards to explore the restraints on her legs when footsteps sounded near her, but not anything she’d expected. Instead of on the floor where she lay, they were above her head. Not far, but not close either. Scuffing across a wooden floor, each footfall was followed by the jingle of a spur rowel, dragging across the boards in a slow but somehow threatening manner.

  The surface on which she sat was damp, and she pressed her palm to it, finding it wasn’t a floor at all, but dirt. The wall she leaned on, also soil. A grave. Ropes around her ankles led to anchors out of reach, crusted liquids sticking the fibers together, making them impossible to untie by feel. With her dry tongue to her drier lips, Juanita tried to make a sound, but couldn’t. Absolute fear had stolen her voice. The footsteps began retreating, and she was suddenly more terrified of being alone than she was of whoever wore those boots. “Hola. Hola! Hay alguien ahi?”

  The footsteps stopped retreating and instead, returned in a rush to directly over her head, boot soles slapping against the wood, spurs jingling brightly. She turned her face up, eyes stretched as wide as she could make them, hoping to see something, anything.

  Nothing.

  A stomp, then another, as particles of dirt and dust disturbed and drifted down to lodge in her eyes. Blinking the pain away, she saw a sliver of light appear about eight feet away. It grew and grew, and then a head appeared. Not blind. Haloed by the light, features cast in darkness, she couldn’t determine anything other than it was a man. Then the trap door over her head was flung open fully, thudding as it landed and she saw him. It was then she knew this was indeed a grave, and as he leaped the three feet from the floor to land on the dirt between her shackled legs, she hoped she would die quickly.

  Lost and found in Mexico

  Watcher rested against the fence running the length of his brother’s backyard, elbows to the wooden rails. Beer in hand, he idly watched as Darrie’s latest girlfriend swam to the edge of the pool closest to where he stood. His mind wasn’t on the woman. Hell, Watcher couldn’t even remember this one’s name, Darrie churned through them so fast. He wasn’t thinking about the pool, an in-ground luxury which would have been unthinkable in eastern Kentucky but a seeming necessity in the arid and dry New Mexico desert.

  No, he was thinking of the upcoming run the Southern Soldiers had on tap. Club business took precedence, as always. Still, his gaze tracked her as the woman stood on the shallow lip ringing the pool, one hand gripping the edge of the cement. She reached behind her with the other, and he saw the fabric of her top relax and loosen. She lifted it over her head and then carried it with her hand into the water where she wiggled, that hand coming back out in a moment and dropping a sodden pile of fabric to the walkway around the pool. Both parts of her two-piece bikini, no doubt. Shit.

  Leaning back into the water, she pushed off the outer wall with both feet, glidi
ng smoothly to the center of the pool on her back. Legs opening and closing in lazy motion, each swing of her thighs revealing dark flashes of her pussy. Pebbled nipples on her breasts proudly breaking the surface of the water, each breath offering more of a show. She lifted her head and looked straight at him, winked wickedly and licked her lips with an open-mouthed smile before relaxing back into the water, floating effortlessly.

  “Fuck, Caroline, get your goddamned suit back on,” Darrie yelled as he walked out of the barn where they stored their bikes and tools. “That’s my goddamned baby brother.”

  “Relax, bro,” Watcher muttered. “Ain’t like there’s anything there I ain’t seen before.”

  “Might be so, but she don’t have to put herself out there like that. Fuck. Shit. What if one of the other members was here?” Darrie leaned on the other side of the rail fence and shook his head, watching as she swam to the edge of the pool. His face tightened as she hefted herself out of the water, sitting naked on the edge before she rose to her feet, gathering up the wet swimsuit as she straightened. Reaching up, she twisted her long hair into a dark rope, tugging it over her shoulder so the ends lay alongside one breast. “Fuck. Shit, Caroline—”

  That was all he got out before she twisted and snapped, “I know my own name, Darren.” She dropped the suit and bent, giving them both a clear shot of her pussy before knifing through the water of the pool in a shallow dive.

  The sound of an approaching bike interrupted whatever Darrie was about to say, and both men turned to look up the long drive, seeing a distinctive bike approaching. “Spider,” Watcher said and twisted to look at the pool, seeing Caroline backing towards the end by the steps, more of her body exposed with each stride. Eager eyes fixed on the approaching man and bike, her dark skin looked sleek and soft, drops of water trailing down her body. “See to your woman, brother.”