Damaged & Dangerous: The Sacred Hearts MC Book VI (9 page)

Dani…

Things went from bad to worse over the next
week. Neo, a young member of the club around my age that was so named for his
resemblance to Keanu Reeves, got himself arrested dealing and had enough drugs
on him that he would be spending a really long time in prison if convicted,
which he would be because the club was flat broke. Neo would be stuck with a
public defender and this was absolutely
not
Neo’s first offense.

So not only was the club out yet another
member, they were out most all of their drugs as well. Griz ordered Ace and
Deuce to go on a run to the supplier after shaking down just about all of the
club members for enough money to make another purchase. The Sacred Hearts
blowing up the local meth lab had hurt Griz’s operation badly and I couldn’t
help it… the thought made me smile every time.

What didn’t make me smile was when Griz and
Pig-Pen got into it over how much of the profits from the club’s drug trade Pig
had smoked. He was officially cut off and hurting, which made him extremely
temperamental and dangerous, a level of crazy I’d never before seen. I did what
Thirteen told me to do. I stayed sharp, but staying sharp was only half the
equation where Pig-Pen was concerned. In order to deal with him you had to have
your crystal ball in perfect working order and unfortunately, I wasn’t a mind
reader. Not at all.

The twins, Ace and Deuce, were leaving on
their run and both were intense and nervous. They were both tall and lanky,
with brightly colored mo-hawks. They always did their hair in two or more tones
and opposite each other so you could tell them apart, this time around Ace’s
mo-hawk was red toward his scalp and yellow at its spikey end while Deuce’s was
red at its ends and yellow towards his closely shaven scalp. I never understood
how anyone mixed the two up when they had their cuts on near constantly with
their name flashes prominently displayed, but I guess it was a testament to the
level of some of these biker’s intelligence that it still happened all the
time.

“Okay we’re out of here. See you, Rac,” Deuce
said, I forced a smile and nodded.

“Ride safe,” I told them quietly, but silently
I cursed them to death by road rash.

Ace winked at me and I forced my smile just a
little bit more. I turned back to mopping the floor, biting my lips together,
trying to forget. Ace and Deuce were unbelievably cruel. Just unlike Pig-Pen,
they were quiet about it. Well, not exactly
quiet
. They just seemed to be
more selective about it, didn’t indulge in a constant trickle of small acts of
cruelty like Pig but rather saved it up and when they finally tapped it… I was
grateful I had never been on the receiving end. There had once been this girl,
Marissa, a club slut who was pretty much in to anything once you got her high
enough. She’d gotten high with the twins and they’d raped her half to death.
Cut her face up so bad that no one would ever be able to call her pretty
anymore.

I wrung out the string mop and dropped it with
a wet splat to the floor, swiping it across the dried beer spills that had gone
tacky on the club room floor, and tried not to look at the Sacred Hearts cut
nailed to the wall above the air hockey table. Those two had had their heads
together for days, talking in murmured and low, reserved tones. Stopping cold
their conversation anytime anyone drew near. Finally, a couple of nights later,
they’d come in laughing and boasting and had presented Griz with their trophy,
which reeked of their urine.

Pig-Pen had praised them, Griz had nodded and
quietly rewarded them with a new girl, who’d spent the rest of the night
screaming. I closed my eyes, bile rising in a stinging acid wash in my throat.
It had been Pig’s idea to nail the cut up on the wall. His idea too, to take a
can of black spray paint and add three hash marks down and to the right of it.
One for every dead Sacred Heart.

I’d heard one of those hashtags was for an Ol’
Lady of theirs that had died when Joker, Rowdy, Snake, Danimal, Nord, and
Reefer had gone to the Sacred Hearts clubhouse, guns blazing, expecting to find
just one or two men and all of their women. I’d been frightened after I’d heard
Gordy and Pipes talking about it. Fearful that The Sacred Hearts would come
looking for an eye for an eye.

Griz had seen the look on my face and had
started howling with laughter and told me I didn’t have shit to worry about
from the Sacred Hearts, then called them pussy-whipped and a myriad of other
names implying that it was their women who really ran the show over there. I
didn’t know what to make of that then, and I didn’t know what to make of it
now. I’d pretty much kept to myself at the lake run, didn’t stray far from Pig
for fear of what he’d do to me if I did.

I finished cleaning the clubhouse, all the
while trapped in memory. I didn’t realize that I’d had company as I’d worked. As
usual, he was there, parked on the end of the couch, boots propped on the old,
scarred, garage sale coffee table, only this early in the day he’d forgone the
beer in favor of a bottle of water. Another thing that set him apart as
‘other’, to the rest of the guys beer
was
bottled water.

I secreted a small smile in his direction and
he secreted one back but we didn’t speak, we didn’t need to. Soon, Skid came
around and our little private moment was in the wind, but that was okay. I knew
that I could or would never be with Thirteen, but having him around had become
a little ray of light in an otherwise darkened room. Maybe it was foolish to
hope or to dream at this stage, but I couldn’t help but believe that with a guy
like Thirteen around the club, maybe, just
maybe,
things could get
better.

“What you smiling about?” Skid asked me as he
bellied up to the bar. I startled, had I been smiling? I glanced at the older
biker and he raised an eyebrow under his faded black do-rag.

“I don’t know…” I frowned and flailed
helplessly inside my head for a convincing lie, “I was just thinking about a
piece I was going to try and create. I think I have all the pieces now.”

Skid chuckled, “It’s good to see you smile,
Rac. How ‘bout you get me a beer? One of them ones with the orange dude on the
label.” He turned on his stool and started talking to Thirteen, who had been
grinning like an idiot behind his back but who quickly schooled his features
into neutrality before Skid turned.

I rolled my eyes at Thirteen behind Skid’s
back and got Skid the bottle he asked for, popping the top. I set it on the bar
by his hand and he picked it up and drank, never breaking his stride as the two
of them spoke bike. I was simply nothing more than furniture again, which I
didn’t like, but at the same time it was definitely the lesser of two evils.

Pretty soon Gordy, Pipes, and Cooter came in
from the front of the club and I was serving them up drinks when Pig-Pen and
Griz made their arrival. The rest of the guys started to trickle in from the
front or the back lot and girls started coming intermixed with the guy’s
arrival. The party was in full swing, the sky dark outside when Gordy swore and
pounded his fist on the bar.

“God damn, fucking son of a bitch!” he
bellowed, looking at the lighted screen on his phone. Griz shoved down on the
head of the strung out broad sucking him off and she choked, struggling.

“What is it now?” he demanded and let her up.
She stood up, disgusted, and stumbled towards the bathrooms.

“Trouble!” Gordy declared, “But if we all go
now we might make it. Ace and Deuce are holed up at the North West safe house,
says Sacred Hearts have ‘em pinned down, four of ‘em.” Griz stood up and tucked
himself back in his pants, doing up his jeans.

“Boys! We’re goin’ huntin’!” he yelled. A
cheer went up and I swallowed hard. Thirteen stood.

“Not you!” Gordy stabbed a finger at him. “Take
Coon to your place and keep her locked down. She’s our last bet on making any
goddamned money.”

Thirteen raised an eyebrow. “I live in a cabin
with no electricity!” he declared.

“So fucking what!?” Pig-Pen called, “Don’t
care if she’s comfortable so long as she can produce, you goddamned pussy!”

Thirteen gave a shrug and I gathered my purse.
The guys were all going out the back door to the parking lot where they kept
their bikes; I could already hear some of them firing up. Dredd and Flyer were
chasing out the club sluts, which truthfully there weren’t many left hanging
around since the club’s drug supply started drying up. I came around the bar
and Pig grabbed me by the elbow, hard.

“You’re
my
bitch, so don’t be getting
any ideas about spreading those whore legs of yers for Pretty-boy over there,”
he muttered savagely in my ear, his breath washing over me, a fetid mixture of
whiskey and cigarettes with an overlay of just plain rot.

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” I plastered on a
fake-as-hell sincere smile, “I know who takes care of me,” I said.

“Damn right.” And as if to prove his point, he
shoved his mouth against mine and his tongue in my mouth, all the while looking
daggers at Thirteen. I gave little resistance. I didn’t want or need any
bruises except the ones that were likely imprinted on my arm from where he
gripped me. Besides that, I’d learned a long, long time ago that resistance was
futile and only hurt more in the end. Pig-Pen finally broke the kiss and thrust
me in Thirteen’s direction before going out the door.

“You good to ride?” he asked. I nodded grimly.
I just wanted outside so I could spit. Thirteen grabbed my coat off the hook in
the wall behind the bar and handed it to me, and I shrugged into it.

“C’mon.” he put a hand on my shoulder and made
like he was shoving me in front of him out the door, though his grip on my
shoulder was light, not painful. He put on his helmet and glasses, sitting
astride his bike. I put on the spare, and with one final brave smile at Pig,
who was glaring at me and standing with Griz and Gordy, I got on behind Thirteen.

I actually loved to ride. Didn’t matter who I
was behind, the wind whipping my hair, the fresh air, the thrum of the bike up
my spine and the feeling like I was just
flying.
It was the only
thing that made me feel free anymore, the last illusion as delicate as a soap
bubble but so full of vibrancy until the ride stops and the bubble pops and it
was as if those rainbow colors had never existed.

I spit the taste of Pig-Pen’s mouth out as soon as we were
clear of the club and I felt the vibration of Thirteen’s laugh through his
back, which I was quite snug against. It was still cold at night, the wind
crisp and biting. As we went through town he pulled off into a fast food place’s
parking lot as soon as, I think, he was sure we wouldn’t be seen. He tapped my
hands, which were firmly on his stomach, in the classic signal for
get off
,
and I did. He got up and dug in one of his saddle bags and, with a wink, handed
me a bottle of mouthwash. I bit my lower lip and grinned and, laughing, took it
from him. The burn and bite of the minty alcohol mixture was welcome and
efficiently scrubbed the lingering bitterness of sour whiskey and ashtray off
my tongue.

I think I more than liked Thirteen in that moment, for
knowing exactly what was in my heart and mind but mostly, for not judging me
for it. For just… seeing me, the real me, and understanding. There was no pity
from him, no derision, nothing to make me feel two inches tall… If anything, I
got the impression of silent admiration from him. Thirteen, the prospect, made
me feel human again.

“Ready to go?” he asked.

“Yeah, thanks.” I handed back the mouthwash and we resumed
our journey, only this time when I got back on his bike, he gently tucked my
hands in his pockets to keep them warm.

I was surprised at how long the ride was, at least
forty-five minutes to an hour, if not more. We were winding along a lakeside
road when he slowed and turned on to a pitted gravel track that led towards the
water. I tipped my head and peered into the dark over his shoulder.

“Your people, they welcome you!” he joked and I laughed
lightly, two raccoons sat up on their haunches in the sweep of Thirteen’s
headlight before dropping to all fours and trundling into the underbrush at the
side of the narrow lane. I pulled my hand from his pocket and playfully slapped
his shoulder. He laughed and hit the throttle just enough to throw me back a
bit, I eeped and hung onto him.  He laughed again and I found myself laughing,
too.

The narrow gravel lane spilled out into a drive in front of
a small cabin that was built out over the water. The little front wrap-around
porch clinging to land, a dock stretching out further past the building from
the back.

“You live here?” I asked.

He shut off the bike and tapped my arm. I jumped down,
careful of the hot pipes even though I wore jeans. I immediately went for the
catch beneath my chin, unbuckling the helmet from my head. Truthfully, I sort
of swam in it, so it was really more for appearances than any actual useful
protection.

“Yeah, I like the quiet. Wait here a minute, I’ll get some
lights on and make sure it’s not a total sty.” I hung the spare helmet from his
sissy bar and blinked at him.

“You don’t have to do all that for me,” I said softly.

“I want to, just hang tight.” He unlocked the front door and
disappeared inside and I stood patiently, gripping the strap of my purse
beneath my coat. A few seconds later the golden glow of firelight, warm and
inviting, filled the dirty windowpanes on either side of the door.