Victoria
This was the last place in the world Victoria was expecting Darren to take her to, but when she thought about it, there was really no reason for her to be surprised. She hadn’t been to the bar in a while, and she was worried that her boss wasn’t going to be happy to see her. Even though it hadn’t really been so long since she’d been here, so much had happened since her last shift that she’d almost forgotten the bar’s name.
That didn’t mean she didn’t recognize the sign and the lights popping up all over the bar front, though. It felt like it had been months since her last visit, but the fact of the matter was that it had been only a week or so. It was the longest amount of time since she’d started working there that Victoria Parker had been away from this bar. Seeing it reminded her of everything that had happened, and of the fact that she had no job.
Her arms tightened around Darren's waist. She was behind him on the motorcycle again. She didn’t want to get up and run away, this time – but she was curious about what her old boss would have to say about it, and what her co-workers would think of her. Then she remembered that she didn’t have any co-workers, and that her boss had thrown her to the dogs to deal with all of this herself. If anything, it was primarily her boss’s fault that she even got stuck in this mess in the first place.
She squeezed Darren tight, trying to hug him before having to deal with this. She felt close to him, more attached. It probably had to do with the fact that he came back for her, and that he risked death doing it. She wasn’t mad anymore, and even the way the breeze tickled her hair as she rode on the back of the bike couldn’t faze her. Normally, it would bother her and she would struggle to force her hair to stay still. Now she didn’t really care; she felt close to Darren, and being so near to him was keeping her from being anxious.
If anything, the situation was kind of funny, in a really screwed up way. She didn’t think she would be able to deal with anything like this if it weren’t for Darren. And even though she was standing with Darren through this, this whole experience was only going to end up going one of two ways. Either she’d never be able to stomach anything like this ever again, and she’d become some type of sheltered woman. (She couldn’t picture this happening, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a possibility.) Or she would stop caring about pretty much anything, and just be able to go with the flow of things – like Darren did. This was probably what was going to happen, and she wasn’t sure how to feel about it.
Darren hopped off of the bike first. Extending a hand to her in a show of overly dramatic gentlemanly manners, he pulled her up off of the bike without demanding that she make too much effort herself. She nudged at him playfully, hitting him in the side with her hip.
“I can do things myself, you know,” she said.
He retorted, “And here I thought I was the one going to save you like some kind of princess.”
“I could’ve gotten myself out of it,” she countered, taking his hand in hers after throwing her elbow out at him. “I just let you do it so it could help fuel your massive ego.”
He turned and shot her a look, one that was a combination of mock horror and pain mixed with one of complete arrogance – that is, the look he always wore. Then his face changed to something cornier, with the promise that he was about to say something lewd. No words escaped his mouth, although he did raise both of his eyebrows in an expression mimicking something that was maybe supposed to be sexual.
Pulling his hand away from hers, he stuck it on her back and pushed her forward a little.
“What was that for?”
“It was to get you to walk faster. You’re taking forever.”
Unsurprisingly, since it hadn’t really been as long as it felt, the inside of the bar was exactly the same as it had always been when she’d worked there.
While not as chaotic as when Darren got involved with things, there were still chairs strewn about. She spotted one overturned table in a corner of the room, several men around it. It didn’t look like the table had fallen due to a fight, though. One man sat casually with his legs up on another chair that had been put on his side, and the other three were continuing with business as usual. Beers were being chugged back. There was a faint smoky fog drifting through the air, one of an overdone bacon smoker and not of a cigarette; a half-eaten plate left at the bar told Victoria that some poor soul had gone ahead and ordered food from the bar without thinking about just what that could mean for the state of their insides.
Her eyes ventured to behind the bar, trying to think about what could’ve happened there since she left. There was one girl she’d seen a few times when she was leaving work after a shorter shift, but that girl wasn’t there, and Victoria wasn't expecting that woman to have been her replacement anyway. It didn’t look like there was actually a replacement for her at all. Nope – instead, she saw the sight of her old boss standing there behind the bar.
Marcus.
She’d only seen him a handful of times since he’d hired her. He hadn’t noticed her yet, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t see her eventually. While the bar was somewhat crowded, there were still gaps in the room as people made to move around. Her eyes followed the hazy tell-tale motions of some of the drunks. It wasn’t that late, but already people were gathering in here. She made a point to notice that while some of Darren’s friends were in here, very few of his club were. She suspected that had to do with the rescue mission they’d just gone and dealt with – her rescue mission.
“Darren,” she hissed.
He looked to her with a grin on his face. “What, babe?”
She didn’t bother with correcting him on the use of that particular affection. Besides, it wasn’t like that bothered her. If anything, she liked it.
She nodded over to where her boss stood behind the bar. While she wasn’t even that worried about him saying something to her – he probably would, but it wasn’t like she would care if he did – she wasn’t in the mood to be dealing with something like that right now. She was coming down from her fear and anxiety and settling into something that could vaguely represent comfort, if she went ahead and framed it a certain way.
Darren looked to what she was staring at. He probably didn’t get what was going on, since she hadn’t exactly told him – but he looked at her again. And then he looked back to Marcus, and he connected the dots in his head. He was great at reading people, and it just brought out his smirk even more when he knew he was right. He was always right.
“So,” he wrapped an arm around her shoulder and squeezed. He was completely sober and he was already getting touchy-feely. “How did you quit?”
“You kidnapped me.”
He laughed. “Oh. That.”
Then he looked around the room again. She did the same. She wasn’t sure what they were supposed to be looking for, but there was nothing in this room that she thought was particularly great to look at. The bar was totally different to her now, though. Although it looked the same as it had when she first walked in, there was something about the air of it that was different.
Darren hadn’t been the only one to go looking for her when she meant missing. And sure, maybe he had told them that they had to go looking for her, but they could’ve just as easily said no as they had said yes. They didn’t need to go save her. And that meant that the people who frequented this bar cared enough about her to go rescue her; it would bother them if she died, even though she was just the ex-bartender who had served here for a few months. And she had been so terribly bitchy to all of them, viewing them as lesser than her just because they were bikers. A hot blush of shame went through her body, and she made her way to a table with Darren trailing alongside her.
She was getting ready to go ahead and take a seat there when Darren elbowed her. He wanted to move somewhere else.
“You're really indecisive today,” she said, rubbing her arm and feigning a wince. “And touchy.”'
“I have reasons to be touchy.” His voice lowered.
What was he even trying to get at? It wasn’t like this was going to get any worse. They’d already made a point by rescuing her and doing God knows what else. Sure, they didn’t know if anyone was in legal trouble – which was bad – and they didn’t know if any of his friends had been hurt, which was even worse. But there was nothing they could do about it right now. If they went and tried to go poking at it, things would probably get worse, and they might even have to deal with law enforcement. Victoria wasn’t even sure how to go about thinking about that, because every time her mind wandered there the endings just got worse and worse:
Being an accomplice in murder. Having to explain to police officers in an interrogation room just how she’d gotten involved with Darren, and having them see on her face that she’d been having sex with him. Life in prison.
Getting locked in solitary confinement.
Getting sentenced to death. She wasn’t sure if their state still allowed that, but it was a very real possibility. And even if it took years for her to be put to death (or even if she never was), that would still be terrifying and horrible to go through.
She shivered.
Pushing those thoughts away, she descended from them and went back to the room. Everything was the same as it had been a few seconds ago, and Darren was still looking at her. Like he was expecting an answer. Like he was waiting for her to move.
She didn’t want to follow him. She started to lead the way, but he caught her arm with his hand again and they started drifting in the direction he wanted them to go. To her horror, she realized that they were going to a table dangerously close to the bar.
It was set up so it was almost against the wood on the far end. They were on the opposite side of where the storage room ran, so if Marcus went from there he probably wouldn’t notice them. They were right next to the shelf of liquors hanging from one end of the bar, though, so if anyone asked for a drink of that, she was done for.
She didn’t recognize anyone at the table. Well, she did, but not by names. There was the one guy who was always loud, except for when he was drunk, at which point he would become weirdly hushed; there was the guy who was always dancing around, and there was... No. Those were the only two she recognized, and she had no idea what to call either of them. In total, there were five people at the table. Those two, Darren, herself, and someone else.
Darren gestured to Dancing Guy. “Benny.”
He nodded to the other two in turn, grunting out names: Jack and Bean, which had to have been some kind of weird pun about that folk tale. Then he returned to what was more important. His gaze moved to Dancing Guy, and Victoria sat between Darren and Jack as they mumbled out some words. Their heads were so close together that she wouldn’t have been able to hear them, even if there wasn’t the din of noise circulating through the bar.
Dancing Guy – Benny – turned to look at something across the bar, and that was when Victoria noticed the fresh, ragged cut on his left cheek. It had been hastily stitched together, and Victoria felt a pang of guilt as she realized that he was probably one of the many that had worked together to go save her.
Not that she had needed to be saved.
But still.
Darren’s head turned back to Benny for a second, after making eye contact with Victoria. “Tell them.”
Jack and Bean both turned their heads to look at Darren and Benny. They’d been bent with their foreheads to their beers, but now they were entirely focused.
Her eyes looked at the table. Half-empty bottles and drained bottles filled the entire surface of the wood there, and it was clear to her that the three men had been there for a while. Someone who was definitely not a waiter – Victoria knew the place well enough to know that – walked past them. Darren raised two fingers, signaling that he wanted a couple beers.
There was no way anyone was going to listen to that.
The guys were talking, though, and Victoria realized she hadn’t been paying any attention at all to what they were saying. She tuned back into the conversation.
“…no one was hurt seriously.” Someone had been shot in the knee.
“...they weren’t there, they got out in time.”
Someone was staying at a house, with a bunch of the other guys; a couple were in the hospital with some injuries, including the guy who was shot in the knee, even though he really hated it. A few were hiding out somewhere that the guys didn’t mention; one guy hadn’t been contacted yet, but the consensus was that he was “probably just hiding out in the woods somewhere.”
None of them had answered what she wanted to know, though, so she butted in. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t technically been involved in the fight. She had been at the center of it, and she was going to say whatever she wanted to about it.
“No arrests?”
Benny looked at her with a hint of bemusement in his eyes. “Are you the one Darren wanted us to go in guns a-blazing for?”
“Like it’d be anyone else,” she muttered under her breath. It was a joke, but the thought of him even looking at another girl made her blood run cold. “Obviously.”
This got a chuckle out of Benny, and the other two men soon followed. “That makes sense. You seem clever.” The compliment rolled off of her. It was a compliment to compliment, to see how she responded in conversation, or some other stupid thing like that. She didn’t really care too much for social standards just then, so she just nodded her head back. She could deal with being polite later, even if this was one of Darren’s closest friends.
Benny continued speaking. “Some people got arrested,” he started out sounding like he was trying to seem sad, but then that morphed into a smirk, “but we didn’t.”
“So you’re saying the Skulls got arrested?” She still wasn’t sure why exactly these people hated each other. Darren had given her a reason involving drug busts, but it sounded like the Broken Skulls and the Bloody Saints had always hated each other, just because they could.
No one had time to comment anything before Marcus came by the table, dirty apron askew with whatever it was he had been cooking with. A lot of people had been ordering food the past while when Victoria was gone, and that wasn’t working out for Marcus very well. The food splattered all over him didn’t suit him, and neither did the grumpy look on his face. Victoria prepared herself to have to snap at him for saying something really freaking rude.
He was holding two beers in his hands, just like Darren had asked for. The caps were tight-fitted and it looked like they were struggling to stay in the grips of his palms, but Marcus managed.
She had to get the first word in before he could say anything uncouth. His eyes were already on her.
“Matt,” she said.
“Vick.” She hated being called Vick. Marcus was the only one to do that, and she didn’t really worry about it much because she never saw him. But she guessed it made sense that he wasn’t going to like her now; she had pretty much just abandoned her post at this job, but she had had good reason. Someone had wanted to murder her. It wasn’t like she’d quit the job just because she decided the working conditions sucked or something. “It’s you.”
She raised her arms up above her shoulders, shrugging them and making as silly a face as she could manage. She knew she should probably be mad, but it wasn’t like she even cared. She was so past all of this. “It’s me!”
Marcus looked like he was about to say something, but the words that were at his lips dissolved into one of the most judgmental sighs she’d ever heard. He huffed, and his mouth parted just a bit as he –
Darren took the beers from Marcus without him even noticing. Setting the bottles down on the table, he rose a little from his seat and put his hand on Marcus's back. It was a small pat, and it looked like it was friendly – with the exception of the fact that it most certainly meant nothing good. “Relax. She’s with me.”
The other guys at the table shot the two of them a look. It was obvious that Victoria didn’t work here anymore, and the timing of how she’d quit working there overlapped too well with just about everything else that was going on. They didn’t ask. Actually, they all burst out laughing.
Rolling his eyes, Darren asked if they would excuse him and shot Victoria a look.
She wasn’t sure where he was going.
She came with.