“He’s killing him.”
“No. Not yet,” he replies with such bluntness I gulp.
He gets up and disappears without further interaction. I’m left alone in the room, which has been my home for so many years. Something has shifted in the last few minutes though. Despite what has occurred within these four walls, it has always felt like my sanctuary. The place where I can lose myself in thoughts of an imaginary life where I’m a princess in a massive castle with a husband – my knight in shining armor. He worships me, he cares for me, and he rescues me from dragons and all the evil within the world. But it’s a dream I know will never come true because I’m too dead inside to be worthy of love.
Heavy footsteps draw me out of my brief daydream, and I see Caim coming toward me with what looks like giant scissors. I cock my head.
“Bolt cutters?” I ask.
"Yes. I need you to come into the light a bit more." My eyes go wide and look to where the light from outside the room shines in and creates a beam of angelic brilliance. "It's dark where you are, and I don't want to hurt you."
I push myself up, and with stiff movements, I lock my knees into position and make my feet move forward one step at a time until I reach the light.
“You won’t hurt me with them, will you?” I ask nervously.
"No"–He reaches down and tugs on the chains, which are joined to a bolt on the wall at one end and to the cuffs around my wrists on the other–"I can't get the cuffs off here. I'll need to do it at the compound, but I'm going to cut these chains."
“Not my flesh?” I question, and a growl fills the room again.
“Never.”
I nod at him to proceed. In seconds, the age-old barrier to my movement is gone. My legs wobble, and dropping the wire cutters, Caim wraps his arms around me. I don't have the energy to fight him. The significance of being free is sending me into a spiral of emotions I'm not sure I can handle. I want to scream, cry, lash out, but I don't have the strength. He tucks me under his arm, grabs the t-shirt from where he left it, and then holding me steady, he slips it over my head. I instantly feel constricted. The material claws at my skin, and I make to pull it off.
“No,”–he orders– “wait a minute. It’ll feel strange at first because you aren’t used to it.”
"I'm scared," I whisper.
“It’s ok. I’m not going to leave you.”
He pulls me into his chest, and I allow him to do so. I can hear the steady beat of his heart, and I let the tears finally fall. These ones aren't for my daddy, they are for me, for all I've suffered. I weep for the victim I've become and allow the salty water to start healing the wounds of my fragile mind.
Eventually, Caim swoops me up into his arms, and effortlessly strides out of the room where I've been captive for nearly half of my life. I’d thought the moment would be more significant with a choir of angels singing hallelujah, but there is nothing. I feel nothing. There are men everywhere in the house, all of them wearing cuts with green eyed skulls displayed on them. A memory from my childhood slams into my head of men standing around wearing the same logo, but not here – a different place, a black room with women and noises – sex. My temple pulses, and I feel as though my head is going to explode. Caim shifts me in his arms.
"You ok?" he asks, but I've got my eyes screwed tightly shut against the memories. "Layla?" He shakes me.
“Memories,” I gulp out before the pain overwhelms me, and I slip into oblivion.
Chapter Three
CAIM
I rub my hand over my face as weariness sets in. Layla is still unconsciousness when we start back for the compound. Heat and the others have brought a couple of vehicles with them, and I place her in the back of the truck that is the more comfortable of the two. Snake is riding in the other with Prez, Heat, and a couple of the prospects. Iron, my VP, offers to join me on the trip back and drive, which I am grateful for because I don’t want to leave Layla's side. When we get back Ebony, Prez’s eighteen-year-old daughter, sets about organizing a couple of the more genteel club girls to bathe Layla and bandage some of her wounds. She still doesn’t wake, so the Doc is called who says it is just shock keeping her unconscious, and it’s better if we let her sleep. Everyone files out of the room, and I’m left alone by her bedside. Iron tries to order me to come out, and the ever-present urge I’ve buried deep inside myself to punch someone, anyone, in the face, manifests itself in a fist that narrowly misses its target. Thankfully it did because punching out my VP would have led to a punishment I don’t really want to have to deal with today, not when I want to be there when the girl lying in the bed in front of me wakes up, so I know she’s ok.
Damn, I need a drink! Quietly pushing back my chair, I get to my feet and place my hand on hers.
"I'll be back in a minute. Just going to get a beer. I'll bring one back for you." I snort a laugh because I must sound stupid talking to someone who is away with the fairies in a deep sleep.
I open the door to the bedroom, hoping it doesn’t creak, and breathe a sigh of relief when I get out of the room without creating a racket. With size twelve feet, I’m not exactly the most graceful of people.
“Caim.” Prez appears out of nowhere with a beer in hand. “Thought you’d want this.”
“You a mind reader all of a sudden, Prez?”
“Nah.” He laughs. “I just know my boys well.”
“Thanks.” I neck most of the bottle in one long chug. “Damn, I needed that.”
“She awake?” Prez nods toward the door.
“No. Doc says it could be a few days. She’s been through a lot.”
“Yeah”–the alpha of our group of bikers runs his fingers through his long beard– “Ebony was upset at the state of her. Said she’s pretty bruised and scarred.”
"They had to cut her hair to shoulder length because it was straggly and matted. I don't think it's been brushed in ten years let alone washed. She was covered in stuff no woman should have on them." I drink the rest of the beer, hoping it’ll wash away the sight of her thin body covered with grime and blood.
“I can’t even begin to imagine what she’s been through”–Prez takes my empty beer and whistles toward Penny, a club girl hovering nearby– “take this and get Caim another one." She scurries off with the beer bottle in hand and a massive smile on her face because she's being helpful in a time of crisis, which she hopes will be noticed by Prez.
"Where's Snake? The Dungeon?" My mood darkens, my tone terse with a need to inflict agonizing pain on the man responsible for this. I start to head downstairs, but Prez places his arm out in front of me.
“No.”
“What? Where is he, then?” I ask in confusion.
"He's in the dungeon, but you aren't going in there at the moment."
“What the fuck?”
An eyebrow is raised at me warning me to rein it in. “Caim, you nearly knocked Iron out today. You need to start thinking straight. You aren’t going in the dungeon for the same reason as I'm not going in there either. We’re both too worked up over the condition we found the girl in. The others didn't see it. Heat purposely stayed out of the room and avoided looking at the girl. He knows we need information out of Snake first, and if we go in with our heads full of the visions of her suffering, he'll be dead before we even get to the end of the first question.
“I want a piece of him,” I hiss and slam my fist into the wall.
"You'll get it. It might not be the last say, but you will get your turn at him."
"You going to be the one to send the message? Take his life?" I ask, and Prez shuts his eyes. He looks older than his thirty-six years, today. A father at seventeen, club president at twenty-five, and a widower at thirty. He's seen a lot, but there’s something about the woman in the bedroom behind me that scares him.
“No. I won’t be the one to end him.” He shakes his head.
“Who?”
Penny runs back up to us with another beer.
“Here you are, Caim. Is th
ere anything else I can get for you? If you wanna go back to your room, I'm sure I can relieve some of the tension you’re experiencing." She bats her fake eyelashes at me and then turns them on Prez. "Unless you need me, of course." The words are spoken with such desperate hope it's almost comical. She bites her lip. "Or I could take you both, if that's what you want?"
“It’s ok, Penny. We need to talk a bit more. Why don’t you run downstairs? I'm sure some of the other brothers could use a bit of a release after the nasty shit we all saw today." The desperate woman smiles brightly and teeters off on heels I've no idea how she even stays upright on.
“Who’s ending him?” I repeat.
The president looks up and down the corridor to ensure nobody else is around. It’s silent as most of the brothers and club girls are in the bar area.
“There are things you don’t know. What did she say to you when you were alone?”
I shrug my shoulders. “Nothing much. She was terrified. I just worked on removing the chains from her. She hinted at things her father may have done to her.”
Prez leans against the wall.
“Did she call him her father?” he questions me with a tone, which indicates he’s fearful of the answer.
“She didn’t call him father, but she did call him Daddy. It's sick."
“It’s not as sick as you think.”
"Not sure how that's possible. He's her father, and it's pretty obvious he's been sexually abusing her for years."
“He’s not her father.”
“What?”–I stammer out my answer– “But he said?......She thinks?”
"I'm not hundred percent certain, but I'll be surprised if she isn't who I think she is."
“Who?” This conversation is losing me. One minute ago I had Snake pegged for a sick incestuous pedophile, now I’m not sure what the fuck is going on.
“About ten years ago my father wanted me to learn about different clubs. I spent some time traveling around with Ebony and Siren. My wife wasn't overly impressed at being uprooted every few months. You didn't know Siren for long, but she liked her home here. We spent a bit of time in the Chicago chapter, which is run by a man called Gunner. He's a good man, and his wife, Ginger, became great friends with Siren." He pauses and swallows deeply. I can tell he's reliving a lot of shit with this story – it’s bringing up far too many bad memories, and some he's not ready to face, yet. But he needs to tell me what’s going on.
“Prez, I can ask one of the others to tell me,” I offer.
"No. Iron's aware of what happened, but nobody else was there. I'll be ok, might take Penny up on her offer a bit later. That'll get me through."
I nod in approval.
“Gunner and Ginger had a little girl. A sweet little thing with big brown eyes.” He looks toward the room where Layla is sleeping, and it dawns on me who he thinks she is. "She and Ebony became really good friends. Then one day, she disappeared. The entire club went into lockdown. Ebony had been with her just before she disappeared. I think she's forgotten a lot of the bad memories, but she was pretty messed up for a while. We all were. All clues led to a rival group. We went in hard, and a lot of men died. Women and children were left with nothing. We didn't take any prisoners. They told us it wasn’t them, but we’d had issues with them before so didn’t believe them. The club was wiped out, but Gunner's daughter wasn't found. That was just over ten years ago. My family and I returned back here. Snake was Gunner's best friend and VP. He said it was his fault and asked for the transfer out here. It was granted, and the rest is history."
"You think Layla is Gunner's daughter? That Snake had her all along?" I'm struggling to keep up with where this tale is going. If it's true, then innocent members of a club died. Well, no member of a biker club is guiltless, but there’ll be consequences over what happened. Retribution will be demanded by the people who lost loved ones.
“I don’t think. I know. She’s the spitting image of Ginger. Fuck”–he buries his head in his hands– “The night we went into the rival club still haunts me. I’ve been strict with Ebony all her life as a result. She’s been restricted because I’ve been scared of losing her, and all along the man responsible has been here in my club and doing things to that poor girl nobody should ever experience.”
The door behind me creaks, and we both spin around to see Layla standing there. She’s paler than when we first saw her.
"Uncle Tank?" The words fall from her lips when she sees clearly, for the first time, who my president is and then stumbles backwards. I rush forward to hold her up. "I remember everything." Her legs are giving way as Prez and I both carry her back into her room and put her on the bed. She leans over the side and dry heaves. I rub her back while Prez leaves the room, and I hear him calling for a bottle of whiskey.
"He's not my father. He did all this, and he's not my father."
“No. He made you think he is because he’s a sick man.”
“I had to call him Daddy.”
“I know.”
She heaves again.
Prez comes back with Iron and Ebony in tow.
I jerk my head to tell him to get Ebony out of here. She doesn't need to see this. Our leader's daughter is a tough cookie, though, and only raises an eyebrow at me before striding into the room and coming to sit on the bed with Layla.
"Hey"–Ebony hands her the bottle of whiskey–"take a sip of this. It’ll burn your throat, but it’ll make you feel better."
"Ebony." Layla's eyes go wide as the bottle is pressed to her mouth, and she takes a swig of the amber liquid.
“Yes,” –Ebony turns to her father and asks– “she’s Aunt Ginger’s daughter, isn’t she?”
Her father nods.
“Willow?” Ebony smiles at her and helps her take another sip of whiskey. I’m beginning to feel helpless watching the two girls together. I stop stroking Layla’s, or is it Willow’s, back, but she turns and looks at me. She doesn’t need to say anything – I know from the look in her eyes she wants me to continue. My hand resumes stroking her.
“Is that my real name?” Layla asks.
"Yes. Willow Thomas," Ebony tells her.
“It doesn’t feel right.”–she looks to me– “Your name, Caim, you said it means a man with a sword. He told me Layla means dark beauty.”
"We'll call you whatever you prefer." Ebony takes her hand and squeezes it.
“Caim?” she asks for my opinion.
“I can’t, Layla.” The name is out of my mouth even before I have a chance to think about it.
“Layla it is then. For now…”
She appears to have calmed down, and her breaths have evened out.
"Your mother and father are on their way." Iron's prominent figure fills the doorway, and Layla looks up to him.
“My mother isn’t dead?”
“No. She and your father have missed you every day. It’ll take them a couple of hours to get here. It’s the first time I’ve ever known Gunner to get on a plane. They’re desperate to see you again.”
“I need to see them.”–Layla’s brows furrow when she speaks – “Dad...er...”
“Snake,” I offer her.
“Snake. Where is he?”
“He’s in our dungeon. My sergeant at arms is trying to find out what’s been going on with him.” Prez holds his arm out to Ebony when she stands, and she goes to her father. I can see by the young girl’s face that although she has grown up around the MC life, this is going to take a while to digest and will leave scars.
“Torturing him?”
"You don't need to worry about that," Prez reassures her.
“No,”–Layla takes my hand and turns her attention from the president to me– “I want to see him.”
“No women allowed in the dungeon. It’s not a place for ladies.”
Layla laughs, and the room goes silent.
“You think I’ll see anything worse than I’ve already experienced over the last ten years?”
I can’t argue with her on th
at score. But shit can get pretty real down there. We’ve painted the place red on more than one occasion, and I’m not sure she should see it. It’s not my decision anyway. I look towards my president.
“I’d want answers.” Ebony pats her father on the arm. He sighs heavily.
“Ok. I’m not good to go down there, yet. My emotions are too high, and I have to leave the kill to your father. I see Snake again, and that’s not going to happen. Iron go warn Heat. Caim, you good to take her?”
“Yeah.” Somehow I know, if I go down in the dungeon, I won’t kill Snake with Layla at my side. That doesn’t mean I won’t make him scream for mercy, though. I allow the darkness I carry within me to descend before taking Layla’s hand and leading her towards her retribution.
Chapter Four
LAYLA
‘He’s not my father’ keeps repeating in my head. He did all those things to me: he raped me, cut me, beat me, and degraded me until I was unrecognizable as the happy little girl I used to be. He told me he was doing it because he was my ‘Daddy’, but he was a demon, the sort who hid under children’s beds at night to scare them. When he was taken out of the room, I knew he’d be dead by the end of the day, and a part of me felt sorrow because, after all, he was the only family I had. But now, knowing the truth, I want to end him myself. I'm fucked up, and it's his fault. Caim holds me tightly. I can feel the need for blood radiating off him. I think everyone we walk past, as I’m led to the dungeon, can sense it. They look away from us – two devils stalking towards our prey. The door to the dungeon is open, and the smell is familiar. It wraps itself around me like a comfort blanket: fear, piss, blood. Everything I’ve lived with for ten years. I savor it. Caim leads me down some steps, and into the dungeon where I come face to face with my torturer. Iron has him on his knees, and another man, who must be Heat, is pulling rubber gloves from his hands. They’re covered in blood. I look at the man who made me call him ‘Daddy’ and see he has a number of injuries: he has several fingers missing with the stumps covered in crusted blood; his face is a mess, bruised, swollen, and covered in cuts; and he is holding his side as though his ribs have been broken.
Love is Strange: A Taboo Anthology Page 33