Okay, last night was just a fluke, Xander swore to himself as he woke up the next morning, rubbing his shoulders. They were still sore from sleeping on the wooden ground of the loft apartment. Olivia must have snuck out before dawn. She probably had something better to do elsewhere, helping somebody who actually wanted it. I don’t want her here except to fuck, Xander said to himself. I don’t. I don’t. I really don’t.
He figured if he repeated it enough times it’d become true.
Xander rushed his way through an ice-cold shower, trying to shake off the fog from the previous night. He felt sluggish and clogged-up, and everything felt like a struggle, even shampooing his hair. This was the way things had been since Marta…left.
He quickly toweled off and pushed his body into some clothes before heading downstairs. He needed to eat, badly. His stomach felt like it was clawing itself apart from the inside. There was a little noise from the bar below, some low voices chattering and muffled music, but when he got to the bottom of the stairs there was a loud cackling sound. Xander rounded the corner to see Olivia sitting on the nearest bar stool, a glass of some dark liquid in her hand. Eric, one of the younger recruits to the club, was on the other side of the bar with a wet dishrag.
“Xander, you didn’t tell me this chick was hilarious,” Eric said, causing Olivia to swivel in her seat to face him, a small smile on her face.
“What are you doing here?” Xander said. His voice came out rougher than he’d intended, but he decided to just go with it. Act tough. That’s what big bad bikers are supposed to do, right?
Olivia shrugged and waited for him to approach her more closely before answering. “Just doin’ my job,” she said, her face still alight with laughter. She looked beautiful, all aglow like that, like she did right after they finished fucking.
Xander leaned in closer to her, close enough to smell the beer on her lips. “Listen, don’t you have other jobs to go do?” he whispered to her as softly as possible. He didn’t want the other boys to figure out she was a parole officer. Not only would it make them act unfriendly, at best, toward her, but it would hurt his reputation for the other guys to know he had been willingly carting around somebody who was essentially a watered-down cop. He’d never hear the end of it. It was better if the guys thought she was just a persistent hook-up who wouldn’t stop bothering him.
Olivia just smiled and shook her head. “I cleared out my week. I’m all yours, bub.”
Xander sighed loudly. “Didn’t you get enough information from yesterday?
Olivia shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. I need to see more than one sample to be sure. You might have done a good job hiding stuff from me yesterday. The more I see, the more I can help you.”
Xander had to forcibly keep himself from growling, his teeth were clenched so tight just listening to her. “When will you get this? I really, really don’t need the help. I’m fine, okay? You saw that yesterday, right? Everything’s going fine. There were no disasters, nothing went wrong. What the fuck is it going to take for you to see that there’s nothing you can do here?”
Again, Olivia looked unbothered, taking a long sip of her morning beer. Xander wondered if she had ever been a day drinker before coming here. “Nothing. There’s nothing you can do. I have a job to do, and you’re not going to talk me out of doing it. Besides, if you’re really convinced I’m just wasting my time, that’s my problem. Let me waste my time, then. I’ll figure it out soon enough if you’re a hopeless case.”
Xander felt his frustration grow and grow and grow. If he weren’t careful he was going to yell at her in front of everybody in the bar and get yet another long, pointless lecture from Jerry about his ‘ridiculous behavior.’ “The problem is that you’re getting in my fucking way. I have shit to do and I can’t be babysitting you day and night.”
Olivia’s expression changed then and she put her glass down on the bar, turning to fully face him head-on. “You don’t have to ‘babysit’ me,” she said in a lower, meaner voice than before. “I can take care of myself. I did yesterday.”
“Yesterday wasn’t…” Xander trailed off, frustrated. How could he communicate that yesterday was a boring day, like most days were here, but it didn’t show everything that would ever happen on the road? “You didn’t see shit. Really. You don’t know what it’s like. What today will be like. You need to stay where you are and just drink all day. You’ll have more fun that way, anyway,” he said, attempting to soften up his tone.
But Olivia clearly wasn’t having it. “I’m not here as your fucking pet. You don’t have to look after me, you don’t have to babysit me, or keep me safe, or yell at losers who catcall me in bars. I can handle myself. Your business isn’t some big bad mean thing. It doesn’t fucking scare me,” she said before downing the rest of her beer.
That set him off. She wasn’t scared? Well, you should be, Xander thought. If you have any brains at all. “You don’t know thing one about this business,” Xander hissed to Olivia. “Not a goddamned thing. So don’t go around acting like you do just because you spent one day riding my coattails. Do us both a favor and fuck off.”
“Oh, is that right? You don’t want me around you today? That’s fine with me,” Olivia shot back. “Ezra!” she called over to the other side of the club.
Ezra perked up, turning around with a big goofy grin on his face as he looked at Olivia. Does he…like her? Xander wondered. He felt something burning in his chest at the thought, but he decided to ignore it. Not relevant. Not right now.
“How do you feel about taking me along with you today on all your missions? I’ll stay out of the way, I promise.”
For a brief moment, Ezra’s face lit up like a lightbulb, only to fall a moment later. He glanced over at Xander, fear evident in his eyes. “I, um, I’d love to, but I don’t know if it’s okay with the boss man. You know,” he said, gesturing over to Xander.
“It’s not,” Xander said in a hard, flat tone.
“Oh, fuck that, forget him,” Olivia said, waving a hand to dismiss Xander. “He’s not the boss of you. Jerry is.” She turned her head to face the others sitting at the bar. “Uncle Jerry, can I ride on the back of Ezra’s bike today?” she yelled out so her voice would carry across the bar.
“Uh, sure, sweetie,” Uncle Jerry said back without turning his back to address her.
Olivia smirked smugly and turned to Xander. “See? The boss doesn’t care.”
Xander muttered curses under his breath, but he plastered an exaggerated smirk on his own face to mock Olivia. “Whatever. Try not to fall off the back of the bike since you’re riding with Hot Wheels over here.”
Olivia turned to face Ezra, and Xander heard her whisper under her breath. “What does that mean?”
“Oh, just that I go a little too fast sometimes, that’s all. I’m the newest one in Xander’s group,” he said. Ezra was trying for a casual tone in his response, but Xander could hear his insecurity poke through, and for a second Xander felt a little guilty for mocking him. But just a little bit.
Ten minutes later, when all the boys had gathered outside by their bikes, Xander walked back over to Olivia and pulled her away from Ezra. “Hold on tight to him, okay? He slips sometimes.”
“What, you care?” she scoffed, though the effect of it was a bit diluted by how ridiculous she looked in Ezra’s big helmet.
For some reason her attitude rankled him. Xander didn’t know why he was goddamned irritable this morning, but he didn’t have the time to stop himself. “I just don’t want to have to clean your body off the road,” Xander spat, marching away from Olivia and jumping onto his bike. “Come on, guys. Saddle the fuck up.”
She wanted to ride with them, wanted to see the life? He’d show her the life, then, what it was really like. He’d hold nothing back.
***
Olivia felt her stomach swoop in fear as Ezra started up the engine and started practically flying over the road. She looked down to see the pavement whipping past them, but she had to stop a few seconds later or she was going to be sick.
“Where are we going first?” she yelled into Ezra’s ear, trying to sound as relaxed as possible. As nice as Ezra seemed to be—too nice, actually, way too nice to fit any kind of stereotype she had in her mind about MC members—she still wanted to seem tough and in-control in front of him. As far as he knew she was just a random girl, some non-biker chick Xander had picked up somewhere, but there was that pride of hers that she just couldn’t let go of. The idea that anybody here thought she was weak set her spine on fire, and not in a good way. She had something to prove, and she was going to do it if she had to kill herself (not literally, she hoped) to do it.
All her effort to sound secure on the bike was apparently wasted, however, because Ezra didn’t respond. He must not have heard her. Olivia repeated herself, basically shouting directly into his ear.
“What?” Ezra yelled back.
Olivia groaned to herself. It wasn’t worth the effort. “Never mind!” she shouted to her rider. She clutched onto Ezra harder as he sped up again, shooting ahead of all the other bikers and taking a corner so sharply that Olivia gasped like a scared little girl. She inwardly berated herself, relieved the engines were howling so loudly that nobody could hear. Xander would have mocked her for sure. She couldn’t believe he was so fucking rude to her earlier. She told him last night she wasn’t going to give up on him. What did he think that meant? She wasn’t just there to fuck him. She was going to reshape his life, like she did everybody else’s, and to do that she couldn’t be afraid of any part of him, no matter how ugly.
In the back of her mind, another voice argued back. But maybe he doesn’t know what it’s like to have somebody really care about him. Maybe it feels like an invasion to him instead of somebody actually giving a fuck. Olivia shook her head, dislodging the thoughts as quickly as they came. Fuck that. She wasn’t going to make excuses for him when he wouldn’t even have the nerve to apologize for himself. He was an asshole, plain and simple. Olivia could work with that. Just because he was a dick didn’t mean she couldn’t help him.
Finally, they rolled to a stop in front of a dive bar, old-looking with several broken windows on the front side right above the entrance. Olivia wondered what happened there, if it was the result of drunken bar-fights or gun violence or something else entirely. In any case, she was happy to be off Ezra’s bike.
Xander jumped off his bike and strode toward the entrance of the bar without looking at her or addressing any of the men. So she guessed his brighter, authoritative attitude from yesterday was out the window. Goddammit. Olivia supposed it had been too good to be true as a starting point.
She was probably supposed to stay outside, even though there was nobody around to entertain her, but she went ahead and followed the men into the bar, staying near the back of the pack in case it was a major faux pas.
“Where’s the stuff?” Xander asked as soon as Olivia walked in through the threshold of the bar. There was a huge group of bikers waiting for them. It immediately felt less casual than the interactions from the day before. Nobody was drinking. Everybody was just staring at each other with frowns on. There was no music in the background to cut the tension. Olivia immediately felt the hairs on her neck and back stand at attention, and some part of her wondered if it wouldn’t have been better for her to wait outside.
No. Fuck that. Dan’t retreat into yourself. You can do this. Just sit and watch, she coached herself.
“The stuff is with us,” one of the older bikers, a guy with a long grey beard, said to Xander.
“Yeah? I know that. Where the fuck is it?” Xander demanded. Olivia wondered why he was being so aggressive. Weren’t they doing a deal with these guys? Didn’t that mean they were a friendly club? Why did everybody seem so uncomfortable?
One of the other men in Xander’s group, a guy who looked to be in his mid-thirties with huge muscles, stepped forward, but he didn’t say anything. Olivia figured he must have been there to look intimidating.
“Where’s the money?” the old biker from the other gang said before turning to the side and spitting on the ground. Gross.
“Money’s with us,” Xander said in a mocking tone of voice. “Oh, that’s not a satisfactory answer, huh? Gee, I wonder how that feels.”
“You got a big fucking mouth, boy,” the guy said, stepping forward until there was only about a foot separating him and Xander.
But Xander didn’t shrink back. Instead he squared his shoulders up and lifted his head to stare into the taller man’s eyes. “Yeah, I do,” Xander agreed. “You gonna show us the stuff or are we taking our business elsewhere?”
The older man clicked his teeth but nodded his head back to one of his boys, who stepped forward holding a long skinny cardboard box. “Shit’s in here,” he announced.
“Open it,” Xander demanded.
“Show us the money first,” the older man insisted.
“Open the fucking box first,” Xander said back.
Why the fuck won’t he just show a little bit of the money, Olivia wondered. Was this a power play or were they worried the guys were aiming to steal their cash and kick them out of the bar?
The circle of other bikers started getting off their seats and walking forward, slowly but surely toward the Souls. Olivia instinctively sunk back into the nearest corner, feeling fear climb up her chest until her face heated up. She probably went beet red, but luckily no one was looking at her. All the bikers were locked in an apparent staring contest with each other, jaws set hard and feet slowly moving forward. Even Xander’s men started walking ahead, closing the space between the two gangs.
“We doing this?” the big muscular guy standing next to Xander asked.
The answer came almost immediately, with one of the other bikers running forward and yelling loudly as his fist crashed into Xander’s face. Olivia’s hand flew up to her mouth to stop the scream that threatened to ring out from her throat.
A second later, Xander’s boys launched forward as one, all crashing into each other at the same time, legs and arms flying out in every direction. Olivia slinked back farther, trying to disappear into the shadows while the smashing of wood and the crunch of human bodies got louder and louder, the men’s panting filling up any empty spaces in between the cacophony of their physical attacks. She tried to strain her eyes to see what was going on, who was winning, but it was all one huge blur, just an amorphous blob of limbs pushing and pulling each other to and from the ground. There was no way to tell who anybody was. For all Olivia knew, it turned into a free-for-all where all the men were fighting every other individual in the bar, regardless of their affiliation. How could they even tell which side everybody was on in this mess?
And for that matter, what the fuck was going on? There was barely a verbal argument before it erupted. Olivia had no idea why the hell this was happening. She felt like an anthropologist furiously scribbling down mental notes about the behavior of some foreign culture, some entirely different group that operated according to their own specific rules and customs.
Olivia saw an opening between the bodies that would lead to the exit and ran into it quickly, rushing to the opposite side of the bar. In the far corner, just inside the entrance, stood a few boys Olivia recognized from Xander’s group. One of them was the guy who disrespected Xander the previous evening, Roger. He was just standing in the corner, an unlit cigarette hanging from his lips. One of the other Souls, Dan or Danny or something like that, was huddled up next to him in the shadows, making a mean face. Olivia wondered why they weren’t in the fight, backing up their brothers. They noticed her, but made no move to say anything or acknowledge her presence in any way.
Looking at them watching and smoking, Olivia got the sense there were two types of bikers. There were the ones who knew they were tough, and therefore didn’t have to act like it, and then there were the ones who went around swaggering like criminals. Roger and Dan were the second type. She didn’t feel intimidated by them, even if they did snarl at her and try to make her feel uncomfortable. She wasn’t willing to give them the privilege of making her shrink up.
Within a few minutes, the fight seemed to slow down. Some of the men were lying on the floor, while others from both gangs were draped over the barstools like wrung-out towels. There were maybe a half dozen men still fighting, but their blows were coming more and more slowly, and their long panting breaths and squeaking shoes filled the room instead of the crashing noises from before. Xander was still up fighting, his fists coming faster and harder than the other men, but when he turned around, Olivia saw half of his face was covered with blood. Panic struck her right in the stomach, and she couldn’t stop her legs from moving her back across the bar. She stepped in between the huge men still fighting, pulling Xander away from the fray. “All right, all right, enough, boys!” she yelled out. “That’s enough.”
She didn’t know if it were shock, or exhaustion, or if her voice really sounded like an authority figure worth listening to, but the men stopped moving and froze where they stood, staring at her holding Xander back. Xander squirmed in her arms, trying to break free, but he must have been worn out from the fight because he couldn’t seem to struggle out of her arms.
“Did you have fun, guys?” she asked the room.
It was meant to be a bit sarcastic, but one of the other gang’s bikers, a young guy with blood dripping out his nose, piped up and said, “Yeah!” with a bright smile across his face. Olivia couldn’t keep herself from returning the grin.
In fact, she started laughing, right in Xander’s ear, and before long it caught on, all the old men starting with low titters and finally progressing to full-body laughter, some of the men cradling their ribcages as they chortled and turned to their brothers to bump fists or give friendly shoulder pats.
Somehow, as if her old parole officer magic had taken control of the room, she felt like she held the reigns in this situation. She cleared her throat, causing the men to stop laughing immediately and turn to look at her. “Can we do business now, gentlemen? I mean, really. You have the drugs, they have the cash, you both came here today looking to make a deal— So let’s make a fucking deal. Blood’s already been spilled over this. Let’s make it worth it.”
She could see some of the younger boys look at each other skeptically, and for a second she was terrified another fight was going to break out and this time she wouldn’t be able to slink away effectively. But the old guy, the leader of the other gang, walked over to her and spoke up, his voice hoarse from all the panting he’d been doing while clobbering Xander’s face.
“Lady’s got a point, fellas.” He reached into his pocket and revealed a medicine bottle. It looked like any regular bottle of standard-issue pain capsules, but he screwed open the top and emptied its contents into his palm.
Olivia was shocked to see plain, boring old marijuana in his hand. All of that for pot? Fucking pot? She thought for sure they were fighting each other over something more serious, like cocaine or heroin.
“You got it all?” Xander asked, his voice still hard and combative, like he was prepared at any second to break out of Olivia’s grasp and beat the old man to an even bloodier pulp.
The old guy nodded. “You have my word. You got all the cash?”
Xander spat blood onto the floor before struggling in Olivia’s embrace to reach into his pocket and toss a pile of hundred-dollar bills to the ground. “It’s all there,” he said, his voice now a normal tone.
The leader of the other gang whistled, high and sharp, and two of the boys opened the cardboard box from before to reveal bushel after bushel of weed. Then two other guys came forward with another box, then a third. “We got a deal here?” the old man asked.
Xander nodded shortly, turning to his boys and directing them to pick up the boxes. “Go ahead and take them to the club, okay?” he said, and the men hobbled out of the bar with their precious cargo.
“I guess we’re done here,” Xander said, finally pushing Olivia’s arms off his body.
She stepped back into the shadows, letting him step forward to shake the old man’s proffered hand.
“You put up a good fight, son,” the guy said, gesturing to the large bruise that was beginning to purple on his face.
“Not so bad yourself,” Xander returned.
Olivia had to stifle some laughter into her fist, but luckily nobody noticed. All this macho post-fight stuff was so ridiculous. It sounded like they were trading pillow talk. But at the same time, she could respect it. The men got out their aggression, wherever the hell it came from, and then afterwards left those negative feelings behind. It was like a really therapeutic session of counseling. You get out your crying, you get out your yelling, and then afterwards you’re able to hug it out and move on with your life, free of the bad stuff that had been holding you back. Olivia felt closer to of the boys, like she finally understood how they ticked, at least a little bit.
The boys filed back out of the bar, much more slowly than how they’d marched in. Some of them were heavily bruised, some were limping a little, but most were okay, just tired and sweaty. Olivia was heading back over to Ezra’s bike when Xander cornered her and pulled her aside. Oh, great. Here it comes.
“Why the hell did you do that?” he said in a harsh whisper.
“What? Break up the fight?” Olivia asked innocently.
“Yeah, getting in the middle like that. I told you to stay out of my shit. Why couldn’t you just listen to me?” Xander wasn’t raising his voice, but Olivia wasn’t sure she’d ever seen him this pissed-off before. His face was deep red. Was he…embarrassed?
Okay, time for a mea culpa, even if I don’t mean it, Olivia figured. “I’m sorry I interfered with your authority. I know you would have stopped it eventually, but I figured I’d speed up the process…you know, save everybody some unnecessary bruises.”
“It was really fucking stupid,” Xander said. “Really, really fucking stupid.”
“Hey, everything turned out okay,” she reasoned, gesturing to the front of the bar as if it was evidence. “See, no more broken windows. You got the drugs. Why are you so upset?”
“Because!” Xander said, raising his voice a little higher than before. “Because you walked right in the middle of a goddamned biker brawl and you could have gotten seriously hurt. You think those fuckers care that you have a vagina? No! They’ll gladly fuck you up if you get in the way. You were lucky as shit.”
For a second, Olivia felt her anger rise to his level, and she opened her mouth, ready to yell back at him before realization hit her right in the head. Oh. Oh, that’s what this is about, she thought. “You didn’t want me to get hurt,” she said. It was a statement rather than a question.
“Well, yeah, duh!” Xander responded. “It wouldn’t exactly make my day any easier if you got fucked up by a couple of huge bikers, Olivia.”
She both loved and hated hearing her name come out of his mouth. It felt a little bit like she was in elementary school again, being scolded by a pissed-off teacher. But at the same time, there was this closeness to it, like he’d known her for longer than a week. She felt closer to him than all her other clients, and it wasn’t just because of the fucking. “I’m sorry, okay?” she repeated, this time much more sincerely. “I didn’t mean to worry you. But, look, I’m not just some girl your uncle picked up off the street here, okay? I know a little bit about how people work, how your kind of people work. Not a lot, but some. And I used what I know today to get the best results. That’s basically my job description. I’m sorry if I scared you, but it worked, right? It worked.”
There was a long pause where Xander didn’t say anything, his foot kicking up a little dirt on the ground like a little boy does when he’s nervous. “You handled it okay,” Xander finally said begrudgingly.
“Okay?” Olivia parroted incredulously. “I fucking dominated in there.”
A small smile spread across Xander’s lips, and Olivia felt like cheering. “You did pretty good,” he conceded.
It wasn’t exactly glowing praise, but Olivia would take it, knowing it meant a lot coming from him. “Thank you,” she said, her voice coming out lower and softer than intended.
Xander reached in and pushed a strand of hair away from Olivia’s face. “Come on. We got places to be.”
“Should I ride with Ezra?” she asked quietly, fearing the sting of rejection.
Xander shook his head and offered Olivia his hand. “No. You’re riding with me.”
***
It went like that for weeks. Xander would take Olivia into more and more hostile territory, and Olivia would have to sit through the verbal squabbles and the physical fights. Sometimes she’d hold back to the corners, and sometimes she’d step in and try to break it up, all depending on her mood. After she meddled in club affairs, Xander would always say to her, “You’re gettin’ a little big for your britches there, missy,” but he couldn’t ever seem to keep the teasing tone out of his voice no matter how hard he tried. Every time he took her on a particularly serious mission, she found a way to make it lighter, to make him even have fun at it. He was starting to run out of ideas to scare her off.
But then one day, about three weeks in, it hit him. The women. Olivia would have a problem with it, maybe a big enough problem that she would finally see the club for what it was. She’d finally see Xander for who he was, and she’d be so disgusted he’d never see her again. His chest hurt a little at the idea, but it was what he wanted, right? Olivia out of his life. That was the goal, even if he had to keep reminding himself.
“We’re going to the ladies’ club today,” he announced to the boys once he stepped outside that afternoon, Olivia following in his footsteps.
Xander could see Eric’s confused face even out of the corner of his eye. “Really? What for? Aren’t they all there already?”
“We’re doing a check-up,” Xander said back, hardening his voice so the boys would get the message to shut up already. He didn’t want to warn Olivia at all of what she was about to see. She needed to be shocked. She needed to be scared.
At the same time, Xander felt a sick tightening in the bottom of his stomach, like a snake had coiled up around his intestines. What was Olivia going to say? What was she going to do? Will she even be able to look at me after? He shook the thoughts out of his head as Olivia slipped on the bike behind him and he revved the engine into action.
They pulled up to the place about a half an hour later, rolling into the parking lot of the broken-down shack on the edge of the desert road. There was nothing around for miles. That was intentional. To the outside world, it looked like an abandoned building.
“What are we—?” Olivia whispered behind him as Xander shut the engine off and climbed off the bike.
“You’ll see,” he said shortly, offering her his hand so she could swing off the bike with ease. He figured he’d do one nice thing for her before destroying everything. Xander could feel her heart pounding through the skin of her wrist. She was nervous. He wanted to squeeze her hand reassuringly, do something to get her to calm down a little, but what was the point? She had a right to be nervous. She had no idea what she was about to witness.
Xander knocked on the rickety front door of the shack, tapping in a pattern he had to memorize years ago. Three knocks, two knocks, four knocks, then one. “Code?” the guard inside demanded in a gruff voice on the other side of the door.
“Cucumber sandwich,” Xander said in a flat tone.
Olivia giggled behind him, probably at the ridiculousness of the phrase. He thought, with a shot of pain to his chest, that it might be the last time he would ever hear that noise from her.
The door swung open, and the stuffy smell of the inside immediately hit Xander’s nostrils. It didn’t stink, exactly, but it was apparent the door was only ever opened for a few seconds at a time, and there were no windows here.
Xander gathered up his courage, as much of it as he could muster, and stepped inside. He nodded in salutation to the guard, the big guy holding the huge gun, and kept walking, opening the door just inside the entrance. Olivia was still right behind him. He felt her hand come up to touch his shoulder, fingers digging into his skin. He felt the nervousness coming off her. He wished he could comfort her, but it would only get worse from here.
As soon as they stepped through the inner door, Xander saw three girls get up from their beds, turning their backs to him to ruffle up the blankets into some semblance of order. The other girls were still under the blankets, lifting their heads as they heard the boys filter into the room.
Xander heard Olivia quickly inhale, then deeply exhale in realization.
There were twenty, maybe twenty-five girls squished into the room, each of them assigned a single cot, with a communal bathroom in the far corner and a single set of dressers in the center of the room.
One by one, the remaining girls sat up in their beds, rubbing their eyes and blinking to adjust to the light from outside. “They sleep during the day, you know,” Xander murmured. “Because they’re working at night.” Xander knew he wouldn’t have to specify the type of work.
“For you?” Olivia asked in a soft voice.
“For the club,” Xander answered.
“For you,” Olivia said. This time her voice was far from soft. “It’s the same thing. You’re a part of the club. One of the leaders of the club. So they work for you.” She was silent a moment. Xander turned to look at her, seeing her staring down at the girls who just looked across the room to stare back at her. “Do they get paid?” Olivia finally asked after the long pause.
“Yeah, they get paid,” Xander said. “But not much.”
“Did they…are they here willingly?” Olivia asked. She wasn’t looking at him, still.
Xander nodded before he realized she couldn’t see him. She probably didn’t even want to see him right now. He wouldn’t blame her for running out. “Yeah. They can leave whenever they want.”
“Do they know that? Do they even speak English?”
Xander felt weirdly defensive, even though the club had no excuse for this. He still felt like explaining himself. “They have a translator. And they came over knowing what they would have to do.”
“So they have to do it?” Olivia shot back, finally turning to look at him.
He had never seen her look so angry. Somehow, even when he pictured this confrontation in his head, he never thought what she would look like, the disappointment and the fury and the sadness all wrapped up in her eyes. “No, no, I didn’t mean it like that, but…They’re not here legally. There are only so many ways to make money.”
Olivia nodded and turned back to the girls. “So they’re fucked. You say they have a choice, but what other option do they have, really? Starve on the side of the road?”
Xander felt himself nodding, like his brain and his body were completely detached from each other. “You’re right. You’re right. They don’t have a choice. Not really.”
“Right. So they basically get up and go to get raped every night, because what other choice do they have?”
Xander didn’t say anything. One of the girls, a short brunette with bruises on her arms, was staring up at him with fear in her wide dark eyes. Olivia was right. They didn’t have a choice.
Olivia cleared her throat and spoke out so the whole room could hear her. “Who here speaks English?”
One of the girls on the far side of the room raised her hand slowly, like she was afraid of what the consequences would be.
“You deserve better,” Olivia said before turning and walking out of the room.
Xander quickly pulled Eric aside and told him to talk to the guard and to the girl who responded to Olivia, see what they had to say about the state of affairs for the girls, before following Olivia outside.
“Take me back to the club,” Olivia ordered him as soon as he exited the building.
“Yeah,” Xander said, a little surprised she didn’t insist on being dropped off at her apartment, or place of work, or anywhere unrelated to the Immortal Souls.
They rode back to the club in silence. When they rolled to a stop, Olivia got off the bike, marched through the bar, and climbed the steps up to Xander’s apartment. Xander didn’t know what else to do except follow her.
“So do they fuck the Souls or other guys or both?” she asked as soon as he shut the door of the apartment behind them. Olivia was pacing around the couch, her hands tangled together and pressing against her mouth.
“Both,” Xander said, feeling the hot sensation of shame crawl up his neck.
“And the Souls, do you guys just come and go and fuck whoever you want, whenever you want? Is that why they looked so scared when we walked in today?”
“The guys have to call ahead of time. The guard keeps records of everything so it’s not…They get paid for everything they do.”
“But not much, right?” Olivia asked.
Xander just nodded.
“Say it. Admit it,” she ordered, the volume of her voice climbing.
“Not much, no,” Xander said.
Olivia stopped her pacing. “Whose idea was this? The girls? Have they just always been here since the inception of the club, or what?”
Xander shook his head. “No. Just a few years. It was Old Man Jack’s idea. He’s one of the senior members here. Been here forever.”
“And Jerry let him do it?” Olivia asked.
“They voted on it, and it passed. That’s how the big missions work these days.”
“Oh, so it was a democratic decision,” Olivia said sarcastically.
Not for the first time since he met Olivia, he felt judged. But he knew he deserved it this time. He wouldn’t have brought her to the den in the first place if he hadn’t known it would end like this. He knew she would react this way. This was what he wanted, right?
For over a full minute, they stood in silence.
“We gotta do something to fix this shit,” Olivia said. “We gotta get them into a better place, a cleaner place, and we got to lay down some precautions to make sure they don’t get hurt. I don’t care how. But we’ve gotta do it.”
“We?” Xander asked, but Olivia didn’t seem to hear him.
She just started pacing again, this time circling the whole living room area. “We can’t just send them back home, obviously. They left for a reason. There’s the whole big American Dream thing, you know. They came here for a better life. And we’ve got to give it to them. We gotta teach them English, we gotta give them access to occupational training, you know, stuff to help them transition out of the work if they want to. We’ve got to give them a way to defend themselves if the tricks get violent, or else make sure the guard is always present. That reminds me—we’ve got to check with the girls to make sure the guard is behaving himself. He can’t be trusted to protect them if he’s hurting them when no one is there.”
“He’s not. He’s a good guy. I know him personally,” Xander said, following Olivia’s path with his eyes.
“We’re checking, Xander,” she said in a forceful tone, picking up the pace as she crossed the room back and forth, over and over again.
Xander felt himself smile a little, ducking his head so she wouldn’t see, even though she looked like she was barely paying attention to him. But it felt nice, seeing her in action like this. This had to be the way she was when she was in counselor mode, he realized. This was Olivia the Officer, Olivia the Leader, at work. And he liked it. He actually liked it. It no longer felt like he was being condemned by her mighty authority. Instead it felt like he was being handed a way out, like he had been stranded in the middle of the ocean spitting out water and she was offering him a lifeline.
“We gotta organize resources. We gotta allocate some of the boys to help the women and we probably should bring in some of the working girls at the other clubs, like Hannah and her friends, to help out, if they’re available. I can look into resources to help them learn the language. That’ll be the first hurdle,” Olivia continued, though she finally stopped in her tracks and turned to look at him with determination in her eyes.
“I, um, kind of thought you’d want to call the cops on us,” Xander said. Honestly, it didn’t sound like a terrible idea to him. In a just universe, it would probably happen next. But Olivia scoffed like the idea was preposterous. “Why don’t you?” Xander asked.
Olivia shrugged. “They’d get deported,” she said simply. “I’m assuming you didn’t kidnap them, right?”
Xander shook his head furiously. “No, no, they came over. They wanted to get out and come here,” he rushed to say. At least, he was pretty sure that was true for most of them.
Olivia nodded. “Right. So we’re not deporting them. We’re helping them. That’s what we’re doing. And you’re gonna help me do it.”
Xander felt the corners of his mouth itch, like he wanted to smile again, but he fought it off this time. “Okay. Okay, I’ll figure it out.”
“I mean it, Xander,” Olivia said, walking toward him until she stood directly in front of him. “I’m not gonna let you get out of this.”
“I know,” he rushed to say, stepping forward a little. Only about a foot separated them now.
Olivia nodded again, probably to herself. “I think you showed me that today because you wanted my help. You didn’t know how to do it yourself, but you don’t have to. I’m here.”
Xander felt his heart start pounding in his chest. “Do you—Do you still…?” Xander trailed off, and he ducked his head again, not wanting to look Olivia directly in the eyes.
“Do I still like you?” she suggested.
Xander nodded, barely moving his head enough to qualify as an affirmative answer, but she must have interpreted it correctly because she kept talking. “Look, I’m not going to lie to you: it was pretty fucking gross, what I saw today. I’m not happy about it. But…”
Xander looked up to see her staring right at him. God, she was so fucking beautiful, her hair framing her face and her glasses bringing out the green in her eyes. He wanted to kiss her so badly. Dan’t do it. Control yourself. Be a man.
“But it’s something we can change. I get it, okay, it’s a part of the biker culture. But I don’t think it has to be. We can treat the women better; at the very least, make sure they’re comfortable and safe. We owe it to them, Xander.”
“We?” Xander asked again. She hadn’t acknowledged it last time, and he needed to hear it out loud.
“Yeah, we,” Olivia repeated. “I’m not going anywhere. I know you thought it’d be easy to shake me off, but I’m a goddamned fighter, Xander, and you can’t make me leave. I promise that.”
Xander felt some ridiculous fluttering in his stomach, nervous and excited at once. “That’s…too bad,” he said honestly. “You should be able to move on from this.” From me, he added to himself.
“When are you going to learn?” Olivia said. “I want to help you, Xander, but it’s not just about you anymore. I have to help things get better around here, and I know I can do it, even if you don’t. Even if you don’t believe in me at all, I’m still going to stick around and annoy the shit out of you until things get better. I know you expected me to run away from this shit after showing me the girls, but it’s exactly the opposite. I’m more determined than ever to stick around until I see results.”
Xander thought about it, chewing onto his lip until he tasted blood. “I— What—” He groaned, frustrated with himself for being such a nervous stuttering mess. Why did he always seem to fall apart around her? “Do you really think we can fix it?”
“Fix it? No,” Olivia said, shaking her head. “We can’t ever undo what happened to those women. But we can make things better for them now. We can give them a home. We can make them a part of the family.”
The family. That word used to make Xander feel so bitter, so fucking angry. How could the club think of itself as a family when it got people killed, when it hurt people, when it tore people apart? But coming from Olivia, it sounded almost sweet. “We could make it into a family worth having,” he murmured, his voice low. He was somehow afraid of being heard, like his idea was stupid, like Olivia was going to laugh at him.
But instead, she smiled. “Right. Right, Xander. That’s what I want. And I think we can do it. Together.”
He didn’t know what to say, so instead he just walked over and kissed her, pressing their lips together lightly. “I still don’t know if it’s going to work,” he admitted.
“I know,” Olivia said. “But that’s okay. You can let me be the believer. I can believe enough for the both of us.”
Xander’s heart was pounding in his ears even though he was standing still. He’d never felt this scared and this safe at the same time before. What could he do with this feeling, this huge feeling in his chest that Olivia had built inside of him? It felt so big that he wasn’t strong enough to push it away, but he wasn’t large enough to hold it inside, either.
“I have another idea, unrelated to club business, if you’re interested,” Olivia said, interrupting his inner panic attack.
“A psychobabble idea or a sex idea?” Xander asked, rolling his eyes because he felt like he already knew the answer.
“A sex idea,” she said, and he had to harden his face to hide his surprise.
“Go on,” he prompted her.
“What if you and I go to the clinic, the one across town, and get tested? We’ll see if…if we can lose the condoms,” Olivia said, her eyes falling to the floor next to Xander.
“But, um, what about the other thing? I don’t wanna knock you up,” Xander said, wincing a little at his tone. He didn’t want to sound like a dick, but it was just the truth. A kid would be a fucking terrible idea, honestly.
“No, no, I’m on the pill. It’s okay,” she rushed to say. “Trust me, I don’t want that either.”
“Oh,” Xander said, realization dawning on him. “I’ve never…I’ve never actually done that.”
“Sex without a condom?” Olivia asked, her hand coming up to rub his shoulder.
“Um, yeah,” Xander said, feeling stupidly young and immature. How did he get to twenty-nine without doing it raw? Even with Marta, they’d never gotten to that point. She was too busy self-medicating with other shit to bother getting on the pill, so they’d never gone without a rubber. “I never got the opportunity, I guess.”
“That’s good,” Olivia said. “Smart. Really smart. I, um, really want you to try it with me, though, if that’s okay?”
“Yeah, fuck yeah,” Xander rushed to say. “Believe me, I want that.” He smiled at Olivia, and she smiled back, and it was only afterward that the full implications of the agreement dawned on him. If they got rid of condoms, what did that mean? What did that say about them? Were they together? Like together-together?
Olivia must have sensed his anxiety, because she said in a low voice: “It doesn’t have to mean anything.”
Xander found himself nodding, not even remotely prepared to start a conversation about it. If she was offering him an out, he was going to gladly take it. Maybe that made him a coward, but he could live with it, at least for the moment. “Yeah,” he finally said. “It sounds like a good plan.”