KICK

I shrug off the frosty fuckin’ reception I receive from Prez and my brothers as I walk into church, and I flop down in my chair beside Tank, a dude with short dark hair, bright blue eyes and a frame a hell of a lot bigger than any other I’ve ever seen, way bigger than Moose ever dreamed of being. I’m late because after fucking all night, Ivy had decided she wanted to snort coke off the end of my cock at the arse crack of dawn. It took forever to come.

            Prez glares at me, his no-nonsense stare pinning me to the back of my seat. I sniff and feel a wet trickle of what I think is snot dripping from my nose, but after wiping it away with my sleeve I quickly realise I’m bleeding. Tank smacks me upside the head.

            “You fuckin’ high, Kick?”

“It’s a party isn’t it?” I shrug, but know I’ve said the wrong shit as soon as Crazy, Tank and Killer shake their heads.

“No, arsehole, it ain’t a fucking party,” Prez roars. “Last night was a fucking party, today we got business. And I don’t need your spoiled little newbie arse fucking my shit up. So you’d better sober up real goddamned fast. Or do you need me to beat that shit outta your bloodstream?”

I hate when he refers to me as a goddamned newbie. Prez is ten years my senior. He’s a bad-arse motherfucker—don’t get me wrong. But he wasn’t indoctrinated into the life. He stumbled upon it after a stint in a Sydney jail fifteen years ago. He built this club from the ground up, and I gotta give him props for turning it into one of the most notorious clubs in Australia in such a short amount of time, but I was born into the club life. My father was an Angel, and my grandfather before him. I was birthed by a club whore, suckled at the breast before the bitch ODed. I was chewed up as a sweet, blue-eyed baby boy and spat out a man. I took down every bad-arse motherfucker in my chapter when they turned against me. I did my time as a prospect for both the Angels and the Saints, and I patched into both early by doing the really fucking dirty-arsed shit no one else wanted to do. I was not a fucking newbie. I never had been, because I’d never had another choice.

“I’m sober, Prez,” I say quickly.

“Good, then go clean your shit up before you ride out. You and Tank are going to pay our friendly neighbourhood dentist a visit. Bastard fucked with Raphe’s old lady. Been putting the moves on bitches while they’re under sedation. This time he picked the wrong bitch to fuck with.”

“Raphe doesn’t want a go at him?”

“Why the fuck do you think he isn’t at church? He already had a go, landed his dumb arse in jail because of it. Told him we’d have a little Kinder Sur-fucking-prise for him to play with when he got out.”

There’s a timid little knock on the door, and Prez leans back in his seat, scrubbing his hands over his face in agitation.

“What?” he yells, and then his eyes widen a fraction when the door swings open and he sees Raine, a pretty blonde with a bangin’ body and an even sweeter disposition, standing on the other side. “Come on in, darlin’.”

“Sorry, I’m interrupting,” she says, staring nervously between Prez and the rest of us sorry sons of bitches. She’s carrying a steaming cardboard cup of coffee and one of those little white bakery bags. She sets them down on the table in front of him. “I stopped by the bakery near my house this morning. It’s a warm crème brûlée muffin. They’re really good.”

“She wants you to eat her warm, sweet muffin, Prez,” Trigger says, waggling his eyebrows like a fuckin’ geriatric douche. His boyish good looks are mis-fucking-leading, because the dude is motherfuckin’ crazy. He’s like a kid with ADHD. On speed.

Prez glares, and Trigger quickly shuts up.

Prez took Raine on as a bar wench and occasional cook after she lost her job a few months ago at the local café we frequent. Most of the brothers take care of their own meals, and some of the lucky bastards head home to a cooked meal at the end of a long day and the same familiar pussy in their beds at night. And some of us eat take-out twenty-four fuckin’ seven. But food doesn’t prepare itself for club meets, and that’s where Raine comes in.

Far as I know, she’s alone in the world; no family and no friends, except a club full of criminals. Raine tiptoes around this place as if at any moment she’s afraid Prez is gonna turn her out on her arse, but he wants up inside that pussy bad; I’d seen it the first time I tagged along to the coffee shop with him, and I still see it every damn day. Prez is hard up for the vanilla bitch who makes his coffee and cleans his office. And I’d bet my last dollar that he’s wishin’ and hopin’ she could start cleaning his pipes, too.

“Well, I’ll just …” She points to the door, and scurries away like a little mouse.

“Sweetheart,” Prez calls to her, and she turns. He grins like the fuckin’ Cheshire cat. “I’ll savour every morsel.”

Raine’s eyes light up like a fuckin’ Christmas tree. She blushes and then leaves the room as silently as she entered, closing the door behind her. My brothers and I practically bust our nuts laughing. All except Grim. Dude needs his fuckin’ head checked ’cause Prez is gonna rip it off his shoulders if he catches Grim starin’ at Raine the way he does.

 “Shut the fuck up,” Prez hollers, as pissed off as a fuckin’ cut snake. “Tank, don’t come back without that dentist.”

Tank nods. He’s a douche of few words.

“The rest of you,” Prez says, “we’ve got Bandits to meet with.” He bangs the gavel against the table and the room is filled with the sound of shuffling feet and shifting leather. I sit in my seat long after the others have piled out.

“You got somethin’ else you need to be discussing with me, Newbie?” Prez is standing in the door way, looking back at me with a pissed off expression on his face.

“No, Prez,” I say, and rise from my chair.

“Then get the fuck outta here,” he says, but before I can pass, his arm shoots out and stops me in my tracks. “Wait.”

“What’s up?”

“You been with Ivy?”

“Yeah.”

“I know why she’s a coke whore—the whole fucking club knows that kid is messed up—but you’re the only one that’ll let her whiny arse stay the night. Why is that?”

“’Cause I don’t care if she cries. She gets what she needs, and I get what I need. It works.”

“You gonna put her on the back of your bike?”

“Hell fucking no.”

“I like fucking her as much as the next brother, but that bitch is damaged goods, and not even you can tape that shit back together.”

“I’m not looking for an old lady, Prez. Made that mistake once before.”

He shakes his head, running a hand through his greased-back blond hair. “Life’s too fucking short for the same old pussy day in and day out, kid. Thank fuck for club whores or else my dick would have fallen off years ago. My old lady hasn’t let me inside since she found me in this very room, eatin’ out two pussies at once.”

“Can’t say I blame her, Prez.”

“Shut up, arsehole,” he says and whacks me on the back of the head as I walk towards the door. “Kick? Do the blow on your time, yeah? I don’t need you falling off your bike and getting your stupid arse arrested while you’re wearing my patch.”

“Yeah, Prez.”

I stalk through the door to find Tank leaning against the wall outside church. He slaps me upside the head too, but this time I’m quicker with my retaliation. I punch him in the side and shake out my fist when he doesn’t even flinch. He’s one hundred per cent muscle mass. Fucking giant cunt.

“Clean up your face, fuck-stick. You look like you’ve been eating clam with red sauce.”

“Makes sense.” I shrug with a wicked grin. “I about punched a hole through that perfect cunt into her stomach, and then I kissed it better, but what’s a little blood between brothers?”

***

The warehouse sits empty, save for Dr Calder. No surprise there. It’s 2:00pm on a Sunday in a quiet part of Erskineville. We sit in an unmarked van with blackout windows and fake plates. We sit, and we watch. When it looks as though no one’s coming or going, Tank revs the engine, and we pull up to the back entrance and slip from the van in plain, dark clothing, hoodies covering our faces.

Tank kicks in the door. It takes him all of three seconds for the thing to splinter off its hinges. We’re under instructions to collect the Dentist, deliver him to the club, and keep him safe until Raphe is out of lock-up.

Easy enough. Right?

Wrong.

The music hits me first, some fucking classical shit played way too loud. I can’t hear fucking jack over the noise, but it’s the scent of blood—a lot of blood—that sets off my twitchy trigger finger. When I see him, bent over a rusty surgical chair, a flash of long chestnut hair behind him, and I feel more so than hear the screams coming from the woman that’s strapped to the seat, I explode. The coke high wore off about two hours ago. I feel a little like shit warmed up, but I have all my faculties about me. I’m thinking one hundred per cent clearly when I raise my gun and shoot him point blank in the back of the head. The dentist lands in a heap, a pair of shiny, blood-drenched dental pliers falling from his hand and onto the putrid concrete floor. The tooth he’s extracted skitters across the ground. It reminds me of the games of Knuckles that Ethan and I would play with the other MC brats at clubhouse parties.

The naked woman beyond him had gone completely still when she watched the dentist fall, but now her screams start up again.

“What the fuck? You still fuckin’ high, motherfucker?” Tank says, shaking his head. “Prez is gonna bust your balls in a fuckin’ vice, brother.”

He raises his gun and aims it at the brunette’s head.

“No!” I shout and throw myself in front of her, knocking over a tripod with a video camera attached. The camera comes loose and slides across the floor. The brunette continues to scream like a fucking banshee.

“Jesus Christ, what the hell is wrong with you?” Tank lowers the gun. I turn and face the woman, who begins thrashing against her restraints.

“I’m not gonna hurt you,” I whisper, but the fact that I just shot a man in cold blood three inches from her face might imply otherwise—she is covered in his brain matter, after all. A gob of something white and globular slides over her collarbone and off her nipple, landing in her lap. Her body quakes with fear, her tits jiggle with the jagged, panic-filled rush of air into her lungs. I close my eyes, trying to get my cock to sit the fuck down. I’m all kinds of fucked up; I know this, but there’s a scent to a woman’s fear, and my dick is all too keenly aware of and enamoured with it. It’s fucked up, but it is what it is.

“Snuff it out, Kick,” Tank says behind me. The motherfucker sounds bored shitless, as if he can’t wait to be done here so he can go and grab a fucking Big Mac. “She’s seen too much.”

“I got it. Shut up, man,” I say. “Do something useful and wrap that sick fucker in that plastic tarp.”

“Do I look like your bitch, Kick?”

“Just fuckin’ do it.”

He holsters his piece and pulls the tarp closer. I turn back to the girl. Her face is a fucking mess, and she’s yanking on her restraints and staring at me with wide, terrified eyes. Her cheeks are swollen and bloody.

“I’m gonna untie you. Okay? I’m just here to help you. I’m not gonna hurt you.” She thrashes against the stirrups, trying to free herself. “If you scream, I’ll be forced to put a bullet between your eyes. You don’t want that. I don’t want that.”

She shakes her head.

“Jesus H. Christ,” Tank moans. “Don’t fucking untie the bitch.”

I lean over and unfasten the buckle strapping her head to the chair. She lets me, and then she lurches as far forward as her restraints will allow, and head-butts me.

“Fucking bitch,” I shout. Backing away, I press a hand to my bleeding lip.

“Oh, I like this one.” Tank chuckles. “Shame we gotta put her out of her misery.”

“Shut the fuck up,” I say, and then press my gun against her temple. “Do that again, and I will put a bullet in you. Understand?”

She nods, carefully. Not so fucking brave now that she has a gun aimed at her brain, though I have to admit, her fight has me rock-fucking-hard in my jeans.

“Kick,” Tank warns. “Put her down, or I will.”

“You think she’s gonna talk? That fucker was ripping her teeth out. Bitch ain’t gonna talk.”

I close my eyes and remember a scene only a few short years ago in a cane field in the arsehole of nowhere town. The dude I’d loved my whole life like a brother, standing before a bitch who’d seen too much and begging me to spare her life.

How the mighty have fallen and become fucking pussies.

I can’t believe I’m begging to save her life the way Ethan did with that whore. “We’re taking her with us.”

“The hell we are.” Tank says. “Prez is gonna grind your balls for his bread over this shit.” He waves his gun at the plastic-wrapped body of the dentist. “You can’t bring a civilian into the club.”

The woman takes that opportunity to scream. I clamp my hand down over her mouth, wincing when I touch the cracked and swollen flesh beneath my fingers. She bites down. I yank my fist away, the pain in my hand acute and searing. “Fuck me, bitch! I’m trying to save your goddamned life here, and you’re doing a hell of a job trying to fuck that shit up.”

“Kill me,” she growls. “I’d rather die than be passed around between filthy fucking bikers.”

“Oh, that can be very easily arranged, sweetheart,” Tank says, lifting his gun and aiming it at her head. I hold up my arms and ease in front of the rabid bitch, protecting her. Who the fuck knows why? Certainly not me, that’s for sure. I just can’t walk away. I can’t look at her face, all beaten and bruised, and put her down like a dog.

“Do it,” she screeches. “Fucking do it! Do it! Do it!”

Tank looks as if he’s about to put a bullet through me to stop this bitch’s screaming. I’ve had enough. I snap. I lash out and strike her on the temple with the butt of my gun, rendering her unconscious.

 I stare at her face for a long time. Swollen and bloodied as she is, there’s no telling if she’s beautiful, or is she’s as ugly as a hat full of arseholes. Her hair is filthy, her body is covered in crusted blood, and shit, she smells like shit too. How fucking long has she been here? Locked away in an empty warehouse, the plaything for a sick, twisted fuck. Hooked up to an IV that I’m guessing fed her sedatives and other more potent drugs, instead of nutrients. I rip off the tape and yank the needle from her arm, then shove away his tray of torture devices. All gleaming, shiny dentist tools or they would have been gleaming and shiny, if they weren’t covered in the fucker’s brain tissue and tiny fragments of his skull.

Lifting a syringe and a small vial labelled morphine from the tray—which I’m sure he uses to knock her out rather than ease her pain—I push out the air from the needle and tap the crook of her elbow, finding a vein to drive into.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Tank asks, but I ignore him as I place the needle back on the tray, and run my fingertips across her shoulder. I lift a strand of matted hair to my nose. It’s sweat and blood, fear, and general human filth. My gaze rolls over her from head to toe. There are bruises everywhere, but it seems as though he only liked to really mess up her face and mouth.

“She’s not Lauren.” 

I close my eyes. “Don’t say her name. Not here.”

“End it, Kick.”

“Fuck you.”

Tank lifts his gun and aims it at her head. I move on autopilot. I don’t even think about what I’m doing. I just do. Like in all the important decisions I’ve made in life, it’s as if my brain flips a switch and someone else takes over. Someone who isn’t me, but cares as much for self-preservation as I do. Cares for life. Cares for others who can’t muster a shit of care for themselves. I pull on him, gun aimed and at the ready, my finger hovering over the trigger.

“You fucking pulling on a brother?” Tank demands with seething, narrowed eyes. His jaw ticks.

“We’re not killing her,” I say, though the words feel as if they’re being pulled from me, wrenched from some alien place in the pit of my gut. “Not today.”

“What the fuck’s gotten into you, man?” Tank says. He hasn’t lowered his gun yet, so I don’t lower mine either. I can feel the fury radiating off of him. If another brother had pulled on Tank this way, he’d already be laid out on the floor, a bullet between the eyes, blood oozing out from the hole in his skull. I don’t know why he hasn’t put me down already like the rabid dog I am. A part of me wishes he’d quit fuckin’ holdin’ back.

“She’s not her.”

“I know,” I whisper. I don’t know why I’m fighting for this. Bitch is probably crazy—not that I’d blame her—and I’m the last person who should be attempting an act of decency. I’m not the hero in this story; I’m the motherfucking villain.

Tank shakes his head as he lowers his gun and tucks it into the waistband of his jeans. He may have decided not to shoot me today, but there’s venom in his tone when he says, “You pull a piece on a brother again, and I’ll put you to fuckin’ ground.”

I nod.

Tank crouches down and hefts the dentist’s body over his shoulder. He might be wrapped in plastic, but blood still pours out from the tarp and leaves a trail across the floor. Once Tank has cleared the room, I bend and pick up her tooth from the floor. I take a moment to roll it across my palm and then pocket it before I turn back to the woman in the chair and unbuckle her restraints. I lift her in a groom’s hold and carry her out into the sombre grey Sydney day. I climb into the back of the van, and Tank shoots me a questioning look from the driver’s seat.

“I wanna be close if she wakes up.”

He glares at me.

“Can’t have her busting open the doors and streaking around town like a madwoman.”

“If we’d shot her in the head, we wouldn’t need to worry,” he says without preamble and throws me an “I’m not fucking buying your bullshit excuses” glower over his shoulder. He shifts the van into reverse, forcing me to clench my body tight to keep from toppling onto my ripe-scented new plaything. I glance down at the woman in my arms. She’s sleeping soundly, probably for the first time in a long time. Her body is covered in bruises. Yellow, purple, blue-black, head to toe—there isn’t a single part of her thin frame that hasn’t seen some form of torture. It makes me wonder—if this is what she looks like on the outside, what the fuck kind of damage did he do to her insides?

 I don’t know what the hell I was thinking.

This bitch needs a hospital or a mental institution. Not a fucking bikey.

I stare at the plastic-wrapped body of the dentist. I wish I’d made him suffer a little more. I wish I’d made him pay, not just for this woman in my arms, but for all of them. I wish it were me wrapped in that tarp, because the things I’ve done, the things I want to do make me no better than him. Just smarter, because I was the one holding the gun instead of a pair of fucking dental pliers.