by Dark, Raven
I close my eyes, letting my head fall back, desperation twisting my gut into a tight knot. “Did you find anything that proves what I said? Do you believe me?”
He doesn’t answer.
“Spider, please untie me.” I hate that I’m begging him, and that my voice cracks.
Still nothing. He crosses the room to me, and for a second, my heart leaps with hope again. Until he pulls out a package of wet naps from the inside of his cut and rips the package open with his teeth.
“What are you doing?”
Silence.
With his blue eyes focused on my chest, he gently wipes away the blood from the cuts he left there. The faint smell of disinfectant makes my nose twitch. Whatever’s on the wipe makes the cuts sting. I wince, and he ignores it, doing the same with the cuts on my stomach and then my hip.
He cleans my cuts with an almost gentle hand, and yet his eyes are cold and unfeeling, his silence huge and crushing. I’m a favorite toy again, being cared for by a man who sees me as an object for his pleasure.
I dance on the balls of my feet, squeezing my thighs together.
“Oh, come on! Give me a break, Spider. Untie me,” I growl at him.
He finishes cleaning my cuts and pockets the wet naps, then backs up looking me over.
“Not yet.” His voice is a low whisper, almost inaudible, and impossible to read.
“Do you believe me, or not?”
“Don’t know yet.” It’s a cool, emotionless reply, and again, almost inaudible.
No. There is an emotion in it, but I can’t place it. Resignation, maybe? Regret? I can’t figure out of those are good signs or not.
“I still have two more questions,” he says. “You will answer them now.” His eyes are locked on me, but they’re blank, as if he’s looking through instead of at me.
Helplessness wraps around my throat, squeezing tight. Tears leak out of my eyes. The man I’d begun to fall for is gone. There’s nothing inside him for me to hold onto. He’s going to kill me, isn’t he?
“Fine, but if you’re going to interrogate me again, at least let me use a bathroom.”
“No.”
“Seriously? Look, unless you want me to let loose all over the floor, you have to let me go.”
At this, a sparkle flashes in his eyes and his lips quirk. It’s the first real emotion I’ve seen in him since he came back. The sight of it is both annoying and reassuring, somehow.
“Consider that motivation to cooperate. Unless you want to let loose all over the floor, you’ll tell me what I want to know.”
Uh!
With nothing left to do, I drop my head and wait him out.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
I snap my head up. “What do you mean?”
He clasps his hands behind his back. “When I asked you why you took the money that first day, you said you had to get out of town.”
“Yes. To get away from Deacon Jacob.”
“I asked you who you were running from. Why didn’t you tell me then what kind of trouble you were in?”
I blink at him, stunned that he would even ask that.
“If you had told me about the cult then, I could have helped you. The club could have helped you out.”
“And what makes you think I could have trusted you?” I snap. “You don’t get it, do you?” I shake my head at the ceiling. “You, this club. You embody the very thing the cult warned us about. This club mirrors the exact kind of criminal, outlaw element they told us the entire world was overrun with. And—”
“All right, I’ll buy that. But when you realized you weren’t getting away, you must have known you had nothing to lose by telling me the truth. At least then, I would have known you weren’t just a thief.”
“Would it have changed anything? I still went against your club.”
“It might have, yes.” He shrugs. “We are not monsters, Emma—”
“Oh, no?”
He doesn’t react to the dig. “If what you told me about the cult is true, you were desperate. In danger and out of options. People like you, people in trouble, people the authorities can’t or won’t do anything for, are exactly the kind of people we help. The MC is built for this.”
“But I didn’t know that at the time.”
“Maybe not, but telling us the truth would have been better than letting us think you were a thief.”
“No! That’s just it, It wouldn’t have been better. Oh, you so don’t get it. From the minute you took me into that party room, I was terrified that if I said anything about the Colony, I’d be putting them in danger.”
“Why?” He spreads his hands. “What would we want with a bunch of backward, brainwashed farmers?”
“Because. That’s the thing with these people, Spider. I spent my entire life being told that the outside world is filled with criminals and cutthroats like you, that anyone on the outside who learns about us would try to take advantage of us. Take away what we have, destroy our way of life.”
“And you believed them.”
“We didn’t know any different! David went into a long, drawn out story about some gang that found out about us and tried to force the church leaders to give them protection money.”
Spider’s eyes narrow as he visibly takes my words in. I can’t tell if he believes it or not.
“What happened with this gang? Who were they? How did he stop them?”
“He didn’t tell us who they were. He only told us that God helped him stop them.”
“God helped him?” Spider’s face cracks into a sudden grin. “Seriously?
“Yes!”
“And you believed him.”
Embarrassment and humiliation burn my cheeks for letting myself be sucked in by something that, at the time, had seemed so real and now seems so ridiculous.
“Yes, okay? We’re all gullible, stupid fools. You have to understand, David knows how to make people believe things. He’s very convincing. He says God speaks to him. He made us believe him.”
Spider lets out a long whistle. “Wow.”
I can see it all over his face, he thinks David is a total wackadoo. It took months for me to realize the same thing. Unfortunately, he’d peppered his crazy us versus them rhetoric with just enough truth that, even after I realized most of what we’d been told were lies, it was impossible to know what was real and what wasn’t. I didn’t know who to trust, and I knew, without a doubt, that I couldn’t trust guys like Spider.
“Okay. So he had you all drinking the same Kooliad. Let’s say I buy that. There’s still one more thing I don’t understand. If you were born into the Colony, then that’s all you knew. To you, marrying this Seth jackwad would have seemed right. There would have been nothing in your brainwashed head to tell you that it was wrong. So why did you leave? What made you decide to run when you knew that if they caught you, they’d kill you?”
I blow out a breath, but before I can respond, there’s a loud thumping on the door. Spider growls under his breath, unlocks the door, and opens it.
Dragon sticks his head in and whispers something I can’t make out.
“Shit,” Spider says. “Okay. Give me five minutes.”
Dragon disappears down the hall.
“Time to go.” Without shutting the door, Spider strides over to me, his face a cold, hard mask. A game face. He’s taking this stupid chain off, finally.
Relief sweeps over me. “Oh, thank the Lord.”
“God has nothing to do with it.” He unwinds the chains from my wrists with a surprising care. The blood rushes back to my wrists and arms, and I wince at the sting left behind by the chain.
Once my wrists are free, he lowers my arms slowly down, settling them around his neck. I groan in relief, the pressure taken off my arms and legs. My knees threaten to fold, and Spider presses himself against me, letting me lean on him.
The heat of his powerful frame seeps into me, chasing away the chill I hadn’t even realized had set into my bones. With a will of its
own, my body presses into him, seeking comfort I know isn’t there to be had.
“We’ll have to move fast.” He scoops me into his arms, and I hate how warm and strong they feel, holding me against him.
“What’s wrong? Has something happened?”
“We’re about to have company.” He carries me easily into the hall, leaving the tray of uneaten food, the first meal I would have had in hours, in the room.
Upstairs, Spider carries me through the main bar toward the hallway that leads to his room. Embarrassment heats my face when we pass more than a dozen men and women in the barroom, but I needn’t have worried about my nudity. Then men are all too preoccupied to notice my state of undress.
Cap is behind the bar pulling pistols out from under the counter and handing them out like candy to the other men. Dragon’s shouting orders. Dee is herding the women toward the hall that leads to the chapel. No one even glances at me.
“Hurry your ass up, Spider,” Dragon snaps. “Ten minutes, and they’ll be knocking down the doors to this place.”
They?
Spider carries me to his room, and then to his bathroom. “Hurry up,” he orders. “Two minutes.”
Instead of watching me from the door like he did the other day, he disappears and I hear dresser drawers open. He’s moving around in a hurry.
Worry nibbles at me. The last time he’d said we had company, we were almost killed and Cap got shot. “Is it the Satan’s Bastards again?”
“Nope. Cops.” He comes back and I step out of the bathroom. He hands me a pile of clothes—a shirt, skimpy skirt, and my sneakers.
“Cops?” I roll my eyes. Bad timing if ever there was such a thing.
I know that most of what the pastors told us about the authorities is lies, but all my life, it had been drilled into me that there are two different kinds of people, cops, and criminals, and that the police are as dangerous as the criminals they are supposed to take down.
David ranted at length about how the cops would arrest you for every little thing, and if they didn’t have a legitimate charge to place on you, they’d make one up. They’d throw you in a cell, and if they fed you, it would be barely enough to survive on. Incarceration made the isolation chamber seem like a pleasant stay.
The idea of being faced with officers of the law fills me with dread.
Old habits die hard, as Deacon Harmon always says.
“Great,” I mutter throwing on the jeans and shirt, the same ones he’d given me when I’d first come here. “What did you do?”
Ordinarily, the question would have produced one of those heart-stopping smirks from him, but Spider says nothing. His silence serves to remind me of the painful truth. He still doesn’t believe me. I’m still in his bad books. I’m not about to see the man I fell for days ago anytime soon.
Spider barely waits until I’ve pulled my shoes on before he grabs my hand and yanks me from the room. At the back door to the clubhouse, he grabs my shoulders.
“Let’s get one thing straight,” he tells me, cupping my nape hard enough that his fingers pinch. “If the cops happen to catch us, you keep your mouth shut. You say a word to them, and I’ll bury you.”
I swallow. “I won’t.”
He gives a curt nod and stalks outside with me in tow.
Dozens of motorcycles are parked at the back of Casper’s now, and men are bringing more around. Engines idle and more roar to life, men mounting up, women hopping on behind them.
Hot sun bakes the sand from on high. My shift had finished at seven in the morning. It must be early afternoon now. Heat scorches my face. Sweat is already beading on my forehead.
Ahead of Spider and me, a large black van, like the one we transported Cap in after the shooting but bigger, is parked with the back doors open. Four men carry two large crates over to the van. They look like the crates I saw Spider and the others cart into Casper’s the second day I was here. They stow the crates in the back of the van. Cap climbs in and I see him sit on the crates. Right, it’s only been a week since he was shot. He still wouldn’t be able to ride well.
The men shut the doors.
Dragon marches over as Spider puts his helmet on my head and jerks the chinstrap snug. The president speaks to Spider and doesn’t even look at me.
“Dex will be waiting for you when you get there,” Dragon says, leaning in and shout-whispering to be heard over the roar of engines. “He’s got that bunker ready. The guns should be picked up in a couple of days.”
Spider nods.
“Make sure she behaves herself.” Dragon gives a curt jerk of his head toward me. Mistrust burns in his eyes.
“Oh, she’ll behave herself.” Spider squeezes my thigh, his fingers digging in. “She’ll toe the line, or I’ll have to teach her another lesson.”
The two men clasp each other on the shoulders. Dragon leaves, going over to his bike way up in front and swinging on.
Spider’s threat sends a shiver down my spine. If I was hoping that his learning the truth would garner compassion from him, I was wrong. All hope that there was anything between us is officially gone. The monster is out in full force. I hate him for what he’s done to me in these last few hours, and yet the thought that I’ve lost something crushes me.
“Where are we going?” I shout in Spider’s ear.
Spider reaches behind him and grabs my hands, yanking my arms around his waist. He starts his engine without a word.
* * *
We drive for what must about two hours. The temperature grows hotter, the sun beating down. At least there are no cops following us.
A warm wind whips around us. I press my cheek to Spider’s cut. His wide, muscled back shields me from the worst of the wind, and yet his body offers no comfort. He’s all steel and stone and hardness.
He tears down the road at a familiar breakneck speed. Hatred for him still burns hot in my blood, and yet, here I am clinging to the man as if he’s a lifeline.
Uncertainty gnaws in the pit of my stomach. We’ve stopped a few times, but no one has said anything that suggests where we’re going, why the cops were paying us a visit, or when we’ll reach our destination.
Yeah, I know, this is that cursed club business. I don’t need to be told anything more than what I already heard about the situation to know that much. Dragon mentioned guns. We’re transporting weapons, so I assume that’s what’s in those crates. I know I’m supposed to be kept in the dark about these things, but somehow, I feel more excluded than usual, as if Spider hasn’t just closed the door on official club affairs, but as if he’s closed it on his whole life. On him.
I peek around Spider’s side, up the road. Dragon rides at the front of the line, everyone else in a long procession behind him. The handsome biker with the blond hair is right behind Dragon, along with the guy with the shaved head who was fighting with Striker the night of the party. Behind them, Spider follows with me. I look over my shoulder. Snake is behind Spider, and Dee has her arms around his waist. In the middle of the procession, the van is surrounded by bikers, a guard no one would likely dare get close to.
I keep looking back for any sign of cops, but don’t see them or anyone else, and yet the procession has doubled back several times. The same signs appear on the roads. Are the men just being careful, or do they know something I don’t?
We ride through a small town here and there. Vehicles follow in our wake, but never get too close and never stick around for long. Passersby are clearly avoiding us.
We pull up at a gas station off a road with a sign whose words I don’t catch. Trucks sit parked in a row along the large lot. A few other vehicles, cars and a couple of vans are parked near the station.
A truck stop. A busy one, with plenty of people making their way in and out of the station.
Spider pulls in behind the trucks with the other men.
I sit up slowly as he cuts his engine. One of the trucks has its back bed open. I lick my lips, my fists tightening on his cut. I still don’t know tha
t he believes any of what I said, or what he plans to do with me. He still might kill me.
An image of Sarah flashes in my mind. The truck driver walks around the back of his vehicle and checks something inside. There’s more than enough room there to hide. He looks like he might be leaving soon.
Waiting for Dragon and the others to fuel up, Spider dismounts and then lifts me off. He sets me down.
My eyes veer to the truck bed. So do his, and when he jerks my chin up, I don’t like the icy look on his face.
“How fast can you run, Wildcat?” he rasps, jerking the chinstrap of the helmet open.
“You don’t believe a word I said back at the clubhouse do you?” It annoys me how lost and sad my voice sounds.
“Don’t know yet.” He takes off the helmet and sets it on the seat, his hand never leaving my arm.
Same answer as before. I sigh.
“You gotta piss?”
“Yes.”
His fingers pinch my elbow. “Then walk with me as if I’m the love of your life.”
“Uh. I hate you.”
“And remember.” He yanks me to him, his lips brushing my ear. “I still have the gun.”
“You’d shoot me in front of everyone here?” I hiss.
“I do what I have to in order to keep this club and its secrets safe. Force me to, and I will do what needs to be done.”
My eyes widen. The bond I once thought I had with this man cuts like glass. My eyes sting and I look away, waiting for him to take the lead.
Spider walks toward the building off to the side of the station, a squat grey one. Striker calls to him and throws him the key, which he must have got from inside the station.
Spider catches the key and throws his arm around my shoulder, pulling me close in a parody of affection. I resist the urge to shove him away, instead laying my hand on his big chest and grinding my teeth.
As if he’s heard them grinding, he grins down at me, grabs my chin and lays a long, hard kiss on my mouth. The single possessive sweep of his lips sends heat zinging all the way to my toes.
Lord, the man tortured me for hours. I may despise him, but my body still sings for him.