Charlie
As Jack hit me again and again, I was aware that I was beginning to lose consciousness. The blows rained down upon my head like heavy bricks of lead and I felt my eyes rolling back towards my brain as a particularly brutal blow landed on my cheek.
“Fight me like a man,” Jack growled. He leaned down and grabbed me by the collar, pulling me up off the floor.
Air rushed into my lungs and I put both hands on Jack’s shoulders and pushed him away with all the power I had. Miraculously, it worked – his body flew across the room and slammed into the opposite wall with a sickening thud. I struggled to my feet and wiped my hands on my bare thighs. Jack groaned, his eyelids fluttering. I knew he wasn’t going to pass out, but I had to act quickly if I wanted to rescue Nicolette.
My head was pounding and there was so much blood in my mouth that I had to breathe through my nose, but I knew I was alive. My heart was pounding in my chest – a singular, desperate rhythm to the beat of Nicolette’s name. I winced when I remembered that she’d darted outside in nothing but the bed sheet. She hadn’t even taken her purse – it was still in the corner of the living room, slumped down to the side. Somehow, I felt even sicker when I realized that. Despite everything she’d been through, Nicolette was currently more fragile than ever. I knew, without even having to think about it, she couldn’t take much more. It would kill her – the pregnancy hormones had already been enough to make her paranoid and insecure. And now that Jack had invaded our cabin, the safe space I’d worked so damn hard to create for Nicolette, she wasn’t going to feel like she could sleep with both eyes closed for a long, long time.
“Charlie,” Jack growled. He stumbled to his feet, falling once, then righting himself on the thin carpet. “Charlie, you motherfucker. I gave you a life, and this is how you choose to repay me!” His voice faded in and out, and I watched carefully as he stumbled, bracing himself against the dirty wall with one hand.
“Jack, get the fuck out,” I growled. “This is my home, and you ain’t welcome here.”
Jack laughed. The sound almost scared me – it was deep and sonorous, like he was feeling just fine. He shook his head, spitting once on the floor. “I’m not leaving,” Jack growled. “I’m not leaving until you’re nothing but a puddle of blood and guts on the floor. Not until Nicolette’s back. And she’s coming with me, you asshole.” He grinned, showing two front teeth smeared with his own blood. “You’re a fuckin’ fool if you think you’ll make it back to Carlsbad. I have half a mind to kill you right here and string your dead ass up in front of this shitheap.” Jack burst into laughter and gestured around. “Jesus, Charlie! This is the kind of shit life you was lookin’ to get away from! Don’t you remember that?”
I felt myself shaking with rage as I stared him down. Jack curled his fingers into a fist and took a swing, but this time I managed to duck and Jack went stumbling forward. As he staggered past me, I kicked him square in the gut. Jack howled, clutching his stomach as he crashed into one of the bedroom walls. Plaster and dust rained down from the ceiling and the walls of the small cabin shook, threatening to collapse around us.
“I’ll tear this place apart!” Jack laughed bitterly, shaking his head from side to side. His skin was sweaty and pale and I could tell he wasn’t in the best shape of his life.
I hoped I looked better than I felt. My head was swimming and blood was draining into my stomach so fast that I knew I’d be puking before too much longer. Worst of all, my heart was beating a staccato rhythm in my chest, threatening to burst free of the skin and ribs that held it in. “Fuck you,” I mumbled under my breath. I stepped forward and swung back, landing a powerful blow at the back of Jack’s head. He rushed forward and I ducked out of the way just in time to see him crash into the old dresser Nicolette had found for me at Goodwill. The particleboard and wood crashed to the floor and Jack fell on top of the rubble, twisting an ankle and screaming in pain.
I knew that part of me, deep down, should have realized that what I was doing was wrong. Attacking my boss was a cardinal sin to the MC – something so bad it warranted death. Those were the rules, and had been since I patched into the Steel Gods. But instead of guilt, I felt nothing. At least, nothing but a cruel kind of satisfaction that I’d managed to fend off the toughest man I’d ever known.
Jack looked up at me, blood dripping into his eyes from a deep gash on his forehead. “Charlie, you’re a fuckin’ rotten traitor,” he said. His voice was steely and cold. “You oughta die for even thinkin’ about hitting me back.”
“I don’t give a shit,” I snarled, stepping closer and kicking Jack in the gut.
His body jerked and twitched into the air, but somehow he managed to right himself and stagger forward with his arm outstretched. The blow hit me in the jaw before I even saw it coming, and then I was reeling across the bedroom with my hand clutched to my face. “Oh? You don’t give a fuck?” Jack laughed again before kicking me hard in the thigh. The blow sent pain spreading through my lower body and suddenly I was on the floor, helpless in front of the man I’d formerly worshipped.
“No,” I managed to stutter. “I don’t give a shit, Jack. What you did was wrong. Beating and abusing Nicolette for all those years, just because she was smaller than you and you could land a punch?” I laughed, despite the horrific pain in my chest. “You’re a fucking bully, Jack. That’s all you fuckin’ are.”
Jack reached down and grabbed me by the shoulder, yanking me into the air. When we were eye to eye, he dropped me, then swung out and punched me hard in the gut. I gasped and choked as the air rushed out of my lungs. For a few seconds, everything around me went black and fuzzy. It was like I was seeing fireworks explode behind my eyes.
“I’m a fucking man,” Jack growled. “And if you were a good one, you’d realize that you’re nothing but scum, Charlie. I took you in! I took you in off the fuckin’ street and gave you a chance, even when you had nothing but that shitty chink bike!” He shook his head. “And this is what I get for trusting you?” He scowled and rubbed his forearms like he was rolling up his sleeves.
Dazed and bleeding, I stepped back. The thoughts swarming around in my brain were almost more intense than the fight my body had experienced. But now I knew something that I would never have realized before: joining the Steel Gods, an outlaw gang, hadn’t been the escape from all those goddamned abusive families. The Steel Gods had just been yet another abusive family wrapped in leather with tattoos and shiny chrome road hogs.
“Fuck you,” I mumbled as I stepped backwards, out of the bedroom and into the hallway. When Jack rushed at me again, I was ready for it. I kneed him square in the face as he lowered his head into my belly. At first, I was worried the blow wasn’t enough. But then Jack released his grip around my stomach and fell over, howling with his hands pressed to his nose. His face was covered in blood. The bedroom itself looked like the scene of a brutal crime: furniture destroyed, blood everywhere, the goddamned ceiling half caved in. It turned my stomach, almost as badly as the realization that I’d done all of this bad shit to myself.
Before Jack could come at me again, I ran outside. There was a strange car in the driveway. Alarm soared through my body until I realized the man in the driver’s seat had fallen asleep. His chin was tilted up and he was snoring so loudly I could hear him from six feet away. I blinked, rooted to the spot in terror.
Get moving, you fuck! The thought was enough to jolt me into action and as quickly as I could, I ran out to the street where my old truck was parked. I always kept a spare key tucked in the visor above the driver’s seat.
There was a loud slam behind me. I whirled around, only to see Jack darting out of the cabin and climbing into the car. There was a brief pause, then the loud sound of a smack. I watched in horror as the driver woke up. Jack shook him by the shoulders and yelled something I couldn’t hear from where I stood.
I launched myself into the old truck and fumbled around for the spare key. Come on, come on! Sweat poured down my face and I gritted my teeth as my fingers flopped around on top of the hot leatherette visor. Finally, my fingers made contact with a piece of hot metal. Crying out in triumph, I grabbed the key and jammed it into the ignition.
A quick glance behind me told me that Jack was still screaming at the driver of his car. They weren’t moving yet, and he had a hand pressed up to one of the massive cuts in his face. My stomach twisted and turned and threatened to empty its contents all over the dashboard of the truck as I desperately pumped the clutch and tried turning the engine over again and again.
“Come on!” I yelled, slamming my free hand into the plastic steering wheel. The horn honked but finally I heard the telltale roar that told me I’d managed to get the truck running. I yanked the gearshift with my right hand and groaned loudly as pain shot up my arm. My wrist was swollen and sore – I could tell it was probably broken – and I howled in agony as I shifted the truck into gear. My foot slammed down on the gas. As I shot down the street, away from the cabin, I could barely feel the pain over the adrenaline coursing through my body.
I’m doing it, I realized. I’m getting away from him. Now I just have to find Nicolette! Oh, god— Nicolette! Where is she?
My truck shot down the street and I had to slap myself in the face to stay conscious after I breezed through a stop sign without even slowing down. I was close to the highway, and I already doubted my ability to drive all the way to the hospital. I looked as closely as I could as I drove through the quiet streets, but there was no sign of Nicolette anywhere. I even looked for the discarded sheet as I skidded around the corners of the sleepy little Utah town. But each empty street was another blow to my hope and confidence. If I couldn’t find her, if she’d gotten hurt, I’d never be able to look at myself in the mirror again.
A sudden sharp pain in my head made me squint and moan in agony. As the familiar sensation of blood pounding through my veins washed over me, I realized that I had a bad concussion. Everything was swarming and the road doubled in front of me, twisting to the right and left with alarming serpentine curves.
“Gotta hang on,” I groaned as I tightened my grip on the steering wheel. The truck began to rock back and forth and I kept my foot on the gas pedal, pressed close to the floor. There was something big in front of me – something that looked a train. I squinted but the object didn’t move. A train, I realized. Maybe Nicolette’s on it! Maybe she saw the train!
I kept the truck moving forward, staring out of the windshield and praying for a miracle. The road kept twisting and snaking around but I managed to keep the truck righted, even as my vision blurred over.
When I felt the impact of the crash, Nicolette’s face flashed into my mind. Everything around me went black except for her radiant white smile, those big brown eyes. She was staring at me, all dressed in white. She kept reaching out and stroking me with her fingers.
“It’ll be okay,” Nicolette whispered soothingly. “Just hang on, Charlie. You can hang on for me.”