KICK

Two years ago

As the high wears off for the third time tonight, the truth of our situation settles in. I’ve been selfish. I mean, I’m always selfish, but I’ve been particularly selfish with her safety, and that’s not really a luxury I have with a clubhouse full of bikers gunnin’ for this chick’s head and dead Angels everywhere. It’ll be sunrise soon, and we need to get her out of here. Propelled by new fears for her safety, I pull her close and kiss her forehead and then I jump up from the mattress and tear around the room, gathering together her things.

“We need to get you out of here.”

“Jesus, Kick. You couldn’t at least wait until my heart rate slows before you kick me out?”

“If they find you here, they’ll kill you.”

“Not if I get to them first.”

“You’re not still going through with this crazy fuckin’ vengeance plan, are you?” I spit.

She snaps. I’ve never seen this kind of reaction from her. She motherfuckin’ snaps and lunges at me. “They raped me. They busted up my face and took things from me, and you can’t even imagine what that feels like.”

“I was there,” I grab onto her arm and yank her towards me. “I don’t have to fuckin’ imagine. I saw every goddamned second of it.”

“And yet you still expect me to let them live with what they’ve done?”

“I expect you to be smart,” I say. “Every single fuckin’ brother in this club can outwit, outshoot you and overpower you. Going in there half-cocked will only get you killed. Right now the only thing keeping you alive is that Slayer supposedly has you in hiding. That angle is gonna be shot to fucking shit if I can’t get to the security tapes before Prez does. Not to mention the line of bodies you’ve left in your wake. We need to get you out of the city. I may know of someone who can help, but the only way we’re gonna make it there is if we get you outta here before the rest of the club wakes.”

“I’m not leaving until I’ve looked that motherfucker in the face and put a bullet between his eyes.”

“No, you’re not. You shoot him, you’ll be dead within seconds. Silencer or not, princess, you got lucky, but that pile of bodies in the club lounge isn’t gonna go unnoticed for long. Every motherfucking brother in this club is gonna turn this house upside down to find the killer. And they’re gonna start with this fuckin’ room because my loyalties have already been called into question. You have to cut your losses. You gotta get the fuck outta here.”

“The only thing I’m going to be cutting is his balls off. I’m gonna start with your prez, and finish with the big guy.”

“Tank didn’t touch you,”

“He didn’t stop them either.”

“If he’d put his hands on you, I would have killed him myself.”

“Like you killed the rest of them?” she snaps. “How can you share a clubhouse with them, knowing what they did to me?”

“What fuckin’ choice do I have?”

“You could leave? You could have left when you helped me, and never came back.”

I laugh, but it’s a vile, empty sound. “You don’t get it. There’s no leaving the club.”

“People leave my father’s club all the time. When they want out, they hand in their patch.”

“Your father isn’t my fuckin’ prez, bitch. No Angel hands in their wings; they have ’em stripped, burned off, or blacked out, but no one ever fuckin’ walks away a free man. Betrayal comes at a price, princess: a body bag and a one-way ticket to hell. The best you and I can hope for is you making it out of here in one piece. So get fuckin’ dressed and let me get you out of here.”

“I’m not leaving until he’s begging for forgiveness on his knees.”

“Let’s get one thing fuckin’ straight. If that’s what you’re after then you’re never getting outta here. He is not gonna beg or apologise for ripping your life apart. He will destroy you, and there’s not a goddamned thing you can do about it. You got off lucky, princess. Plenty of girls been where you were, and they never got to leave because they never had someone to fuckin’ save them.” I pick up the short leather skirt and the crop top she had on that exposed half of her breasts, and I throw them at her. “Now, get dressed. Next time I have to tell you, I put you over my fuckin’ shoulder and carry you outta here, and that’s gonna draw a lot more attention than you strutting out in that skirt and wig and pretending like you’re someone else. You got me?”

She doesn’t say anything, but the tears runnin’ down her cheeks mean she doesn’t have to. I cross the room and attempt something I’ve never really done before; I comfort her. Or I try to. I don’t know, I probably just look like an insensitive fuckrod, but I take her in my arms, I grasp her chin in my hand and force her face up to mine.

“I don’t know how to do this shit,” I begin, and then try a different tact when I realise her expression has turned angry. “I never had a woman before.”

She gives me a disbelieving look, and I hurry to finish. “Oh, I had plenty of women,”

“You’re off to an awesome start, Daniel. No really, please, keep talking.”

 “I’ve had women, but none that were mine, you know?” I breathe out a heavy sigh. “I just, I wanna keep you. I’ve never had someone to depend on me ... until you.”

“I can’t let this go. I can’t—”

“Okay, don’t let it go. Just put it to bed for now. Let’s get you somewhere safe and come up with a better plan than strutting in there and blowing Prez’s head off.” I kiss her forehead, her cheek, her lips. “Let’s keep this pretty face intact. I’ve grown kinda used to it,” I grin. “And I still have a billion uses for it.”

“Fine,” she says, pouting like a fuckin’ child, though the blazing bloodlust in her eyes is anything but childlike. “We put it to rest for now, but we come back with a plan that still involves me blowing his goddamned head off.” She pulls away and slips into her skirt and top. She spends a couple of seconds arranging the wig back into place. Her underwear is a lost cause, but something about riding her on the back of my bike with her legs spread around mine and her bare cunt pressed up against my arse has my dick twitching again.

I ignore it, though, ’cause honestly? I could fuck that pussy all night and still never get tired of it, but I’m not gonna have a pussy left to fuck unless I get her the fuck outta here.

When she’s dressed, I lay one final kiss on her lips. It’s hard not to let it take over, this need to have her, to possess every inch of her body. To teach her who owns that pussy. Who’s always gonna own it.

She pushes me away from her and back towards the door. Before I can open it though she’s in my arms again, wrapping her body around me. I catch her up and slam her into the door. I undo my fly and prepare to bury myself in her for a fourth time, but she pulls away from my lips and shakes her head. “You bruised me. I’m gonna need a day or two to get the feeling back in my pussy, Kick.”

I groan in her ear and tuck my cock back inside my pants. I don’t miss what she said, and I’d find a way to see her, but I don’t know if she grasps the gravity of the situation here. I can’t fuckin’ play house with the bitch that escaped Prez’s grasp. I can’t shack up with the only one that ever slipped through his fingers, and we’ve already established the fact that I can’t just walk away from the club scot-free. That’s never gonna happen for us. Which means that this thing between us is never gonna happen. Not the way she really wants it to. Not the way I want it to.

“I hope you heal quickly then,” I say without thinking.

It’s as if we both just deflate after that. As if my words are a pin through the little fuckin’ bubble of happiness we’ve found in my room tonight. She wriggles out of my hold and slides down the door, shifting her skirt back into place, manoeuvring out from the space in front of me.

“We should go.”

“Yeah,” I say, and pull her back behind me as I open the door and peek out. There’s only an empty hallway, so I tug her out with me and make for the back entrance. It’s the longer route, but we’re less likely to be seen that way, and even if we are seen the lack of lighting in the lot, and that fuckin’ hideous wig she’s wearing combined with that outfit mean she probably wouldn’t be recognised anyway.

All the same, I hurry her out into the lot, through the door that I dragged her kicking and screaming through only a few short weeks ago, and now, for the second time in the month that I’ve known her, I’m sneaking her out of the compound, right under Angel noses.

When we round the building, my bike is lined up alongside the others, but the lot isn’t empty like I’d hoped. Tank comes storming towards me. I pause, not knowing what to do. Not knowing where we stand. It’s true he helped Lauren escape once before, but he took a bullet to the arm for it, and he almost got caught doing it. He’d almost lost his life because of it. I don’t know if he’d be willing to take that risk again.

He gets up in my face, stands toe to toe with me, his jaw set, shoulders strung tight with anger. “Need to fuckin’ talk to you, brother.”

I shove princess behind me, only she’s not so fuckin’ happy about being hidden. She pulls the piece I confiscated from her out from the back of my jeans and turns it on Tank.

Tank stands with his arms folded across his chest. He doesn’t flinch as she levels the gun on his face.

“Bitch, are you fuckin’ crazy?”

“He let this happen,” she screams, and Jesus fucking Christ I’ve never wanted to flatten a woman so bad in my life. She has no fuckin’ respect for her own self-preservation, yelling like a fucking banshee in the parking lot of an MC that wants to see her pretty insides on the outside.

“Then so did fuckin’ I,” I shout back, getting in her face and forcing her watery gaze up to mine. I wrestle the gun from her. “Trust me when I say Tank is the only reason you’re still standing here in this fuckin’ car park, yellin’ about shit you have no right to yell about.”

“He’s the one that took me,” she spits. All at once, my ears start to ring, and the hairs on my neck stand up all fuckin’ straight and tall.

“That true?” I ask Tank, weighing the gun in my hand.

His gaze narrows. “I was followin’ orders.”

God. I want so badly to beat his fucking head in right now. I wanna unload an entire clip into his chest because he knew. At the rally, he knew about her. He fucking had to for Prez to give the order before he got arrested. That was why Tank was nowhere to be seen when the shit hit the fan—he was laying in wait for her.

“What are you gonna do, brother?”

“I’m leaving,” I say, surprising myself. Tank’s not surprised, though. It’s as though he knew it before I did.

“Your bike’s been fitted with a tracker. Frogger’s been watchin’ the feeds, though it seems your girl took care of that.” He looks her up and down with an appreciative smile. “She pull on you too?”

“Yeah,” I admit.

“Let me guess—you fucked her into submission?”

“Somethin’ like that.” I raise the gun to his head. I don’t wanna shoot him. He’s the only fuckin’ friend I have left in this entire world, but I will if I have to. Sometimes decisions have to be made to ensure your self-preservation, and while I don’t think Tank would kill me over this, if I had to choose between him and me, there’s no question of who comes out on top.

“You really wanna do this? Where the fuck you gonna go, Kick? Prez is already jacked up on the idea of you betrayin’ the club. He’s had a tail on you for a month that you don’t even fuckin’ know about.”

“What the hell are you talkin’ about? You didn’t wanna tell me this shit?”

He laughs. “If I’d told you, they’d be stringing my guts up like Christmas lights. I like them where they are. I knew—” He shakes his head. “I thought you’d be smart enough to stay away from the bitch.”

“I stayed the fuck away. She came lookin’ for me.”

“And you couldn’t do what you had to.”

“Could you?” I ask, but I know that’s a stupid question, ’cause Tank never cared for anyone but himself. Tank feels nothing, and right about now, I’m starting to think it’s a pretty good way to be. “Hand over your keys, and get on the ground,” I command.

“You really wanna fuckin’ do this?”

“Not really,” I admit. “But I don’t have a choice, so get the fuck on the ground before I shoot you in the head.”

He tosses his keys to me and puts his hands behind his head, as he slowly sinks to his knees. “They’ll find you. Can’t go to Slayer; he’ll take your girl and boot you out on your arse, and then he’ll be callin’ Prez to tell him exactly where to come pick you up from.”

“Lay down,” I snap, and walk over to Lauren. “Princess, if I give you the gun, are you gonna shoot him?”

“Yes,” she says without hesitation.

Ask a stupid question ...

I sigh. “Wrong answer, baby.”

I keep the gun firmly trained on Tank’s head as I circle his huge form. The fucker knows he can take me, he knows it as well as I do, and though I’m the one holding the gun, he’s the one with the power.

“Weapons, where?” I bark out, half expecting him to tell me to go fuck myself.

“Piece in my leathers, knife in my left boot.”

I squat down and retrieve the gun, shoving it in the front of my jeans. I reach into his boot to retrieve the knife, but I come up empty-handed. Tank rears his foot back, throwing me off balance. He reaches into his right boot and pulls a knife, flinging out his arm and stopping its path a quarter inch from my skin at the same time as I press the barrel of my gun to his head. Behind him, in my periphery, Lauren stands stock-still.

“Sorry, brother, but I had to make it look believable. They watch the tape back and see me lying low without a fight, I’m as dead as Frogger is, and Red before him.”

I yank the blade from his hand, push the gun harder against his skull, forcing him to lay back down on the pavement.

“Better hide well, brother. If you don’t, you’re a dead man.” He calls to me as I back away with the gun still trained on his head, and I grab princess, pulling her over to the custom Harley Night Rod belonging to Tank. It’s a fuckin’ Cadillac when compared to my 1991 Fat Boy, but it’s nothing I can’t handle. I throw my leg over, the gun still in my hand, as I flip the kickstand, and turn the key, revving the throttle with one hand once princess slips on behind me.

I pull the helmet from the handlebars and hand it to her, shouting at her to put it on, over the roar of the engine. Then I pass her the gun with a warning as loaded as the chamber. “Shoot him, princess, and I throw you off this bike. You got me?”

“Yeah,” she snaps. “I got you.”

She wraps one arm around my waist. The other is pointed right at Tank, but as we drive past the corner and by the back entrance to the clubhouse, Juke, and Bear exit. It takes my dad all of two seconds to see the gun in Lauren’s hand and Tank on the ground. I don’t think he even registers who’s driving Tank’s bike, but that sure as hell doesn’t give him pause. He pulls his piece and aims at us. I twist the throttle, and we lurch forward around the clubhouse and towards the main gate. Someone hit the emergency lockdown switch from the inside. I push the bike faster and clear the gate before it closes, but the weight’s thrown off because I’m not used to driving such a massive bike. We skid out when we hit the street. It takes me a second to right the bike, and it’s seconds we didn’t have to lose because dear old Dad and Bear made it through the gate after us. I begin weaving all across the road in an attempt to dodge the bullets they’re shooting at us.

“Princess, if you want your revenge on those fuckers, now is the time,” I shout over the roar of the bike. She doesn’t hesitate, just holds me tighter with one arm while flinging the other out behind her and firing off several bullets.

“Fuck. I’m down,” she yells, and then throws the piece. She reaches around to pull the gun from the front of my jeans. Her hand on my cock is distracting, but not as distracting as the almighty explosion I hear seconds after she starts firing shots again. I glance behind us. Juke is still riding our tail, but Bear and his bike are scattered all over the road. “Jesus Christ, princess,” I shout, but inside I’m filled to bursting with pride and sexual fuckin’ frustration because fuck me, chicks with guns are hot.

Lauren lets out a triumphant growl that has all the blood in my body racing to my dick. The shots behind us make that pride short lived, and I switch my focus back to the road stretching out in front of me. It’s early morning—three or four, maybe? Apart from the occasional car parked at the curb, the streets are completely deserted.

I weave all over the road, taking a turn that leads to the freeway at high speed. My dad follows. This is one road that’s not deserted. It’s not exactly peak-hour traffic, but there’s a steady flow of cars, trucks, and the occasional bus. I have no desire to stay on the highway. Too many cameras, too many cops, too much at fucking stake to be a sitting duck. We fly across multiple lanes, weaving in and out of oncoming traffic. Lauren’s not shooting anymore, but Juke sure as hell is. If there’s one thing I know about my father, it’s that he can’t stand to lose. Even if it means getting flattened by an SUV. And that’s the only way he’ll give up, is if he’s dead. 

“Princess, when I say so, you’re gonna need to shoot the tyres on the tanker,” I shout, pushing the bike closer to the massive petrol tanker headed for us.

“What?”

“Shoot the fucking tanker.”

“I can’t!”

“Shoot the motherfucking truck, princess!” I roar.

The shot rings out beside my head, my eardrums squeal their protest, and I lose all equilibrium. I veer right, toward the shoulder and away from the tanker that’s sliding all across the road, collecting cars in front of it, when we’re sideswiped by a fuckin’ Hilux. I yank on the handlebars to correct our path, but the bike slides out from underneath us, and we’re thrown across the asphalt. I land with a bone-jarring crack, my teeth slam together, and my head whacks off of the road. My vision goes black.

***

I don’t know how long I’m out, but I wake with a start and a searing pain in my head. In the distance, I can hear sirens, but it’s overshadowed by the hiss and pop of flaming kerosene. I go to speak, and black smoke fills my lungs. I splutter and roll to my side, gasping for breath, searching for princess.

“Lauren,” I shout, but my throat isn’t working. Little bits of tooth crunch in my mouth when I set my jaw. I spit them out, and roll over on my stomach because it’s all my stupid fuckin’ abused body will let me do. Somewhere in the back of my hazy head, I realise the tanker is on fire. That wasn’t supposed to happen. This is real life, not fuckin’ Hollywood. Even if Lauren shot the tank, that wouldn’t happen unless there was a spark. Realisation slams into me the way my body slammed into the road. I glance over to the middle of the road, and I spot her, illuminated by the flames. She’s lying on the asphalt, Juke standing over her, his boot at her throat, and a smile on his god-forsaken fuckin’ face as he tries to crush the life out of her. Princess squirms beneath him. Her small hands dig into the leg of his jeans, clawing at him. The fucker leers as he tries to snuff out her existence. I stagger to my feet. The world spins, my vision goes dark, and then there’s only rage, red and thick as the blood in my veins.

 I don’t think. I just act.

 I barrel into him, throwing him off balance and slamming him back into the asphalt. I hold my father around the throat, and slam his head into the road, repeatedly. His hands grapple for purchase as I straddle his waist and choke the life out of him.

His gurgled cries don’t stop my assault, but the wail of sirens do, and we can’t be caught here, or we’ll both wind up in the slammer. I draw back my fist and slam it into the side of his head, and then I rise as quickly as my body, and my likely concussed head will allow. I stumble over to Lauren.

“You okay?”

She nods, but her eyes are wide with terror. It’s a look I’d become too accustomed to in the time that I’ve known her, but it isn’t one I fuckin’ like.

“We gotta get outta here before the cops arrive and start asking questions.” I hold out my hand, and she takes it, gingerly peeling herself off the road and standing on shaky legs. One of her boots is missing a heel. I motion for her to prop her foot up on my knee and it takes some work, but eventually I snap the spike off the other one. She might not be runnin’ anywhere anytime soon, but at least she won’t break her damn neck.

“That man,” she says, looking past me. “Is he dead?”

I glance back at the body of my father lying prone on the asphalt, and then turn back to her. I don’t tell her that I just beat the shit outta my dad to save us both. I don’t tell her he’s merely unconscious. What would it serve but to fill her with more hatred, and anger, and the desire for revenge?

“As a doornail, princess,” I say, and take her hand. I edge us as far from the burning trailer as possible, and double back to the scene, leading her across the road to a car whose occupants had stopped to help victims of the pile up. Tank’s bike is a write off, and even if it weren’t, they’d be looking for it.

We climb inside a beaten-up old Charade and take off while the owners are preoccupied with watching the tanker burn. When I check the rear-view mirror, they aren’t any closer to realising their car is gone, and the further we get from the sirens, the more my heart rate returns to normal. The sirens get further away the longer we drive. I glance over at Lauren and notice her shaking—no, not shaking. Her whole body is vibrating. She’s in shock. I take her hand in mine and bring it to my lips, nipping and biting her clammy flesh. “Hey, you still with me?”

“Yeah,” she mutters, but it’s an automatic response. She’s not here in this car with me.

“We got this, princess,” I say, and maybe I’m just lulling us both into a false sense of hope because I have no idea where to go from here. We’re both beaten up pretty bad. Grazes cover her upper thigh and arms, and we’re both bleeding from the head, but our injuries are the last of our problems right now because everything Tank said is true. They will find us, and they’ll kill us, so I’d better seek out the best motherfuckin’ hiding spot, or it’s gonna be so much worse than the shit-storm we just rode through.