1
25 years ago
“Should we keep him or kill him?”
Someone kicked my calves, shoved at my back, and I sprawled on the cold floor. The hood was torn off my head, and I blinked in the bright light. A tall heavy set man stood before me, bulky tattooed arms crossed over his chest. Med, the famed President of the Kansas Smoking Guns, a man I’d heard about almost all my life.
The devil himself.
In the flesh.
“You know where you are?” his deep voice practically growled.
I shook my head, unsure of how to answer. The truth often got me in trouble in the past. Why should now be any different?
Med only sneered, or maybe that was just his way of smiling like Jack Nicholson’s Joker. “What do they call you?”
I pushed up on my arms, but my limbs were still numb from being held down in the van on the endless ride here. “I’m-I’m Kid.”
Laughter fizzed around me like a can of shaken beer going off. “Aww, ain’t that cute?” a voice behind me said.
“Prospect, eh?” Med asked, his eyes wandering over my cut.
“Yeah.”
“Perfect.” That Joker grin deepened, and the blood backed up in my veins.
“They probably won’t give too much of a shit about you.” He raised his chin at someone to my side and my cut was ripped off me. “More fun for us.”
“Hey!” I choked out.
They kicked me and ripped off my boots, socks, jeans. I was naked. Thick metal cuffs were attached to my wrists, my ankles, my neck and linked to heavy chains. My head swam, a cold sweat tracked over my skin, my heart plodded through mud.
“You know why we took you?” Med asked.
“‘Cause it’s the kinda shit you do?” A slap cracked across my face. A silvery haze shadowed my vision.
“It’s because the Flames of Hell think they can do whatever the fuck they want. Time to show your club how pissed off I am at catching them on my territory doing what I’d warned them not to ever do.”
My stomach dropped. Reich, our VP, had found a dealer in southern Kansas who used to be supplied by the Smoking Guns, but the Guns had recently iced him, not paying him what he felt they owed. Reich had stepped in and provided Flames of Hell made-product to find new buyers, new addicts along that guy’s route, a route we’d never had access to before. Money was money, and we wanted more of it, just like everybody else.
My dad, a club old-timer and former officer, had told him it was a bad idea. For decades now, our club constantly fought with the Guns over territory, over trade routes, over women, over you name it. All I heard growing up was “this shit’s gotta stop already!” but it never did. It had become part of our day to day, part of our fun. I didn’t think either club knew how not to shit on the other.
In front of everybody, my dad had told Reich his plan was fucking stupid and careless as all hell. Reich’s response? He chose me to make the delivery with another club member, and it got approved real quick.
I’d gotten the surprise of my life when I opened the door to the dealer’s house and saw him hanging from a hook in his ceiling. Me and Siggy ran straight out, got shot at, chased into the woods. Siggy got shot in the face as he climbed a tree. They’d pinned me down at gunpoint and dragged me here to their clubhouse. I was alive, but not so fucking lucky.
My pulse pounded in my ears, my heart muscle vaulting over never-ending hurdles in my chest.
Med made a hand gesture in the air, and kicks and punches rained down on me. I collapsed and went sailing up in someone’s tight hold. Blows and bashes cracked and smashed over my body, pain exploding through me. My head swung to the side, and I gasped for air, choking on my own saliva and blood.
His pinned eyes on me, Med admired my bloodied pulp. “Ah, welcome to the Smoking Guns, Kid.”
They let go, and I crumpled to the floor. Chained to hooks in a concrete post in the middle of a big room, I strained to keep my sore eyes open as they partied and argued around me. Men and women stared at me, laughing, talking, and I stared back. I was the new attraction at the zoo. The freak at the circus, their chained cyclops shuddering in a mangled heap, settling in a pool of his own piss, sweat, and blood.
I pressed back against the post, keeping still. I knew how to do that pretty good. All my life I’d been somebody’s afterthought, a gray part of the landscape, but that had just changed.
Now I was front and center.
I gotta keep it together. Keep it together.
Would they kill me? Ask for some kind of ransom? I was sure my dad and my club were working to bust me out. Working on some sort of plan, working hard. They had to be.
One figure, a slight one, stood motionless just beyond the men. A girl. Long bright red hair, and her eyes...the most mesmerizing eyes I’d ever seen. An odd combination of blue and green, like pictures of the Caribbean Sea that I’d seen in magazines. Was it ‘cause her eyes were so big? I held her serious gaze, and she didn’t look away. Her expression was somber, not teasing, not mocking. I wasn’t entertaining her. My vision was still fuzzy, and I blinked, but she was gone. She was probably a mirage. A mirage of hope and empathy in this crazy Roman fucking orgy in the middle of Buttfuck, Kansas.
I counted the lines in the cracked flooring, but I got lost. They were only quivering scratches, and I couldn’t keep track of them. My joints ached, my bare body cold against the hard floor. I lay in a ball on that floor through hours and hours and hours. Got kicked, got spit on. Finally, they brought me to a prison cell where I got some sleep. The next night they brought me back out to the main room and chained me back to that post again.
“Hey, Kid! Guess what?” shouted somebody. “It’s been two days, and your club’s playing hard ball. Told ya they wouldn’t care so much about some prospect of theirs.”
Laughs and whoops filled the room, pounding into my aching skull. A kick jabbed me in the leg. My tired eyes lifted.
Med stared down at me. “You’re Fuse’s son, huh? Ain’t that something. Known him a long time. Well, the bad news is, your daddy’s dead, and they’re too busy with his funeral to deal with your ass. How ‘bout that, huh?”
Dad dead? No, no, it can’t be. We’d just started to really hang out. I was a prospect now...not now…not…
Sour bile jerked up my insides and shot up my throat. I retched all over myself. Whatever was left of myself. The music roared again, and I shut my eyes, my body curling into a ball.
My hair got pushed over my arm, away from my face, and I flinched at the contact. A cool towel swept over my skin, scouring my flesh like sandpaper. Those blue green eyes were over me.
“Just cleaning you up,” she said.
I stared at her. Who was she? Why was she bothering? Maybe she’d pull a blade and play with me too. My aching muscles stayed tense as her towel, a thick faded red, stroked over me carefully.
“Why?” I asked. “They’re just gonna do it again.”
Her gaze met mine, and in it I saw a flicker of something, not cold or hard, like indifference or duty, but a split second of warmth that raced over my flesh like the sure strokes of her towel.
“I know,” she said quietly. “They will.” That deep voice was frank, resigned, and I leaned in closer to hear more of it. She dipped the towel in a small bowl of water and soap.
“Did they kill him?” my voice croaked. “My dad? Do you know?”
“No, they didn’t kill him. He was at your club, had a heart attack.”
A heart attack. He’d had a heart attack once before when he’d been in jail years ago. A heart attack induced by something else Reich had done. Now Dad was gone, and I wouldn’t see him again. Wouldn’t ride with him again. He wouldn’t be there when I got patched in.
If I patched in.
If I ever made it out of here alive.
The girl wiped at my leg and down the other. Her attention was some sort of seduction. She was just prepping me for more torture, wasn’t she?
“Get the fuck off me,” I said through gritted teeth.
She stopped and sat back on her heels, her lips pressed together. She took her towel and bowl and slid back into the crowd. I choked down the tears, the ache. I was nothing but pain.
Nothing but alone.