The Bare Bones (The Bare Bones MC) (19 page)

I fumed that the hangar was rife with sweetbutts who would have gladly done all of these things for them, and more. Cropper had singled me out because I had successfully escaped from him when I was seventeen. That was it, plain and simple. No one had ever escaped from him before. He was probably feeling old, and watching young studs like Ford, Turk, and Ziggy outperform and outscore him probably made him feel even older. Once the chlamydia results came back and they were on forced leave, almost all sweetbutts left for a while.

I kept telling myself that it was only a week.
Only a few more days and Speed can fly his colors.
Speed had never had anything. No father and a mother who was worse than an absent one. In my eyes, if the Bare Bones were a good enough family for Ford, they’d be good enough for Speed. Speed needed a family. Cropper—and his lieutenant Riker—weren’t indicative of the sort of guy who enlisted with the club. Most were hard-working only barely marginal outlaws.

The worst was the dining room, where they forced me to cook for them and serve them. I’m saying “them” now because Riker had joined Cropper’s club. I was standing at the stove browning some ground beef when Riker came up behind me, opened my knees with his knees, and inserted something thick and cold inside me.

I was getting accustomed to being manhandled. I knew how to take a deep breath and hold it. Thinning out my lips, narrowing my eyes, and just staring daggers at something helped.

Protesting physically would only get me walloped. Cropper usually had that buck knife he liked to threaten me with, and now was no different. He sure liked to sharpen it a lot, and now he leaned against the stove doing just that as Riker fucked me with whatever the object was.

“Goes in easy,” said Riker. “She’s all wet and ready.”

Saying anything, protesting or making sarcastic, stinging remarks only seemed to amuse them even more. I’d been able to keep my mouth shut so far.

Scrape
. Cropper methodically dragged the knife across the whetstone as he smirked. “She’s
always
wet, brother. Why do you think Ford likes to bang her? She’s been dying for my more experienced meat this whole time.”

Riker dry humped my leg while fucking me with the object. His cigarette and whiskey infused breath practically coated my bare shoulder. “Oo, oo. She’s just a regular little slut. Juicier than most sweetbutts.”

When he reached in front and pinched my clitoris, I jumped and hissed in air. Of course Riker misinterpreted this in his own ego-driven way. “See that? I’m making her hot. She’s just dying for it.” When he shoved the object into the hilt, I realized with a nauseating cringe that it was one of those old artillery shells I’d seen lying around the hangar.

Now my protest was wrenched from me. I’d had various and sundry objects shoved inside me in my time, but unexploded ordnance wasn’t one of them.

“You assmuncher!” I twirled around so violently the shell went clanging to the floor, and all three of us froze, gasping.

Only our eyes moved. Three pairs of giant bowling ball eyes fixed on the shell, which rolled harmlessly toward the fridge.

Only,
I
didn’t know how shells explode. Do vibrations in the air set them off? I stayed absolutely still, but Riker couldn’t contain himself any longer.

“That’s fucking it!” Lunging at me, he gripped my upper arms and pinned me against the kitchen counter. The hamburger meat was burning, but no one moved to turn it off. The spatula I held in my hand sprayed tiny globules of fat onto Riker’s face. He was an inhuman monster, so he didn’t feel a thing.

“I’m taking this cunt right now. A man can only take so much fucking teasing.”

Teasing?
It was no use to ask what sort of twisted world Riker and Cropper lived in. The answer was unfathomable. Riker had ripped asunder his belt buckle before Cropper stepped in to tear him from my body.

“Hands off, you fucking mongoloid! No one gets to take this cunt but me!”

I lost it, too. “Take? No one’s taking me at
all
, Cropper! This wasn’t part of the fucking deal! You’ve already reneged about a thousand times on our original fucking agreement, and letting Riker maul me to death wasn’t on the table!”

A vein bulged on Riker’s forehead. I’d seen him in this manic state many times, usually when carrying an extra large, realistic dildo in his hand. “Oh, fuck
this
fucking noise! We’ve never argued over a twat before, Cropper. Let’s not start now.”

And he hit me.

He
punched
me, straight in the face, with his fucking fist.

I don’t know what he was expecting would be the outcome, but I fell like a bag of bare bones.

“Fuck you, dirtbag!” I heard Cropper yell. “If anyone’s going to do her, it’s going to fucking be me.” He kicked me in the stomach.

I was doubled over into the fetal position like a snail. I knew that this was too, too much. Even helping Speed regain his life and everything he’d worked for, that wasn’t worth this. If Speed knew what I was doing for him, he’d go apeshit. It wouldn’t be Ford I’d have to worry about killing Cropper, it’d be Speed. This was wrong. This wasn’t what Speed wanted, in any way, shape, or form.

I was going to have to get out. Even without my own vehicle—one of the first things Cropper had done was take my car keys—I could escape the Citadel.

I could walk down the hill. No, wait, I’d be caught. They had security cameras on all access roads to the mesa. I could catch a ride with some unsuspecting teamster. Plenty of people who were not Bare Bones brothers came to the hangar to rent equipment. I could ask the dispatcher who was going down the hill next.

I was going back on my promise to get Speed his justly deserved cut, because this wasn’t worth it.

Even as the two guys above me started to brawl, all sorts of blowback entered my mind.

How would I explain to Ford what I’d been doing there and why I left? What if one of the sweetbutts told him I’d been walking around with my boobs showing? Would I be responsible for Speed’s life now that I’d ruined it?

And, most importantly,
did I really care whether or not Ford killed Cropper?

As Cropper crashed into the picnic-style dining table in a flurry of paper plates and plastic dinnerware, I dragged myself to a sitting position and seriously wondered.

Do I seriously care if Ford kills Cropper?

It was bad and wrong to take a human life no matter how odious the victim was, I knew. If ever anyone deserved to be killed in the worst way possible, it was Cropper. He didn’t do one shred of good in the world. He had even been making stupid business mistakes, Ford had told me. He’d been running some arms vehicles in the same pack as contracted civilian trucks, basically sending AK-47s in the same convoy as a batch of office supplies or eggs. Cropper wanted the illegal trucks to blend in, but his exposure was unacceptable.

Then it hit me.
Ford would be in jail if he killed Cropper.

Cropper regained his momentum and slammed Riker into the fridge. A box of Cheerios toppled over and spilled little round donuts of oats over Riker’s head.

I saw my chance and took it.

There was a smartphone lying on one of the tables that was still standing. I made a sudden dash for it, snatching it up. As I sprinted for the door that led to the inner hallway, I crashed into someone who was a solid pillar of cement.

Faux Pas took me by the arms. “What the fuck, Madison?”

I pointed with my free hand at the brawling men while shoving the flat phone into the underwire of my worthless bra. “Fighting! Can you stop them?”

Faux Pas let me go and grinned at the men. “Why? They’re doing just fine on their own.”

I watched as Riker picked up the frying pan full of browned meat and slammed Cropper over the head with it. Needless to say, meat went flying everywhere. Standing next to the dominant, safe presence of Faux Pas somehow relaxed me. I almost laughed when Cropper’s eyes seemed to turn into little
X
s like in the cartoons, and he slithered to the ground like a snake without a skin.

“I’m more worried about
you
.” Faux Pas looked down at me with what seemed like concern in his eyes. I wasn’t that familiar with concern, not having seen much of it in my life. As a kid, and now as a nurse, I was always the one concerned about others. “Why do you stay here without Ford and let that idiot kick you?”

He’d seen Cropper kick me.
My first thought was,
this is going directly back to Ford.
Another few days and I—and Speed—were home free. I couldn’t let Faux Pas fuck that up now.

Later, I reflected. My version of “let him fuck things up” was, well, sort of fucked. Fuck up
what?
As though I had a real good thing going? See, my idea of what was normal, what was correct and righteous, was completely skewed back then. I’d never been treated decently, so I didn’t know what to expect.

Jake was all right. He treated me just fine, I supposed. I had told him last week that I was breaking up with him and going back to Cottonwood. There was no need to tell him about Ford, that I was really moving to P&E. He’d been hearing about Ford for nine months and already had seemed exasperated by my attachment to my former stepbrother. He had no idea Ford was the guy eating my pussy on the security tape, I don’t think. That wasn’t on a need to know basis.

All I could think to tell Faux Pas now was, “Please don’t tell Ford.” Before I ran off, I added, “It’s for Speed. I’m doing this for Speed.”

Faux Pas looked perplexed, but he seemed to shrug, and went back to observing the fight.

No one cared about much around there.

I sidestepped into the first room off the main hallway, which turned out to be Ford’s office. I’d never had a reason to go in here before, and lately I’d been afraid to.

My eyes went first to a framed photo on the credenza behind his desk. It’s odd that I first noticed that photo, since it was only a five by seven or so, and faded with that sort of old suntanned shade. But it was
me
. Me! I was standing next to Ford out back by our old swimming pool. Ford was bare-chested under his cut and I smiled to see how little chest hair he had back then.

Then smiling hurt, so I stopped, but I lingered on the photo. Ford’s smile was so innocent, so free of malice or plots. I could see now what I couldn’t see then—that he was thrilled to have his arm around me, that it was the highlight of his entire year, if not life.

I loved him more fully now, I realized. Our love encompassed so much more than just the shallow puppy love crush of our teens. We touched each other in so many aspects now, and we’d seen a lot more of each other’s vulnerabilities, quirks, and kinks. But we still loved. Maybe even more so.

And why the hell was I calling Ford to come and save me? That would ruin all the work I’d done so far, all the work to redeem Speed, to spring him from his unjust prison cell.

I dialed Dominique.

She was Duji’s old lady, and Duji was one of the hardened, questionable Bare Bones charter members. Ford had told me to ring her, to rely on her for information and support.

She picked up.

“Yeah, Dominique? It’s Madison, Ford’s…old lady.” How weird that sounded, “old lady.” But what else was I?

She didn’t seem to recognize who I was, so I barreled on. “He told me to give you a call if I needed anything. That I could depend on you.”

Hearing me talk, maybe that’s what it took to trigger her memory. “Oh! Yes, Madison. Of course. Anything you need. What’s up?”

Those words were music to my ears.

FORD

“O
kay. So we’ll take possession of the
suministros
on May eleventh.”

“
Si.
You take possession May eleventh after you’ve left the money with me.” Mr. Lyle Bloodgood actually fit his name perfectly. He literally looked like a snake as he sat in his chair with his head coiled back, about to strike. His eyes were mere dashes in a doglike skull that was carried on a long neck, and his body seemed to move independently of his head.

“What I want to ensure is,” said Slushy, making a tent out of his fingers, “I want to know that Mrs. Jonas’ land has been under absolutely no fucking surveillance whatsoever, not now, not ever.”

“I can’t guarantee that,” said Mr. Bloodgood thinly. “How can I guarantee something that’s completely metaphysically absurd? I don’t have eyes in the back of my head or eyes on top of Mrs. Jonas’ roof.”

Slushy struck his tent and held his one good hand up in surrender. “All right, that’s it, then. Sorry to have wasted your time, Mr. Bloodgood.”

He even started to stand, but Ford grabbed the sling he’d made for Slushy and yanked him painfully back into his chair. “No. Wait. He’s just being realistic, Slushy.” To the lizard lawyer, Ford said, “I feel you. But we need some kind of honorable word that the ATF or Immigration doesn’t have eyes on Hardscrabble Ranch.”

Bloodgood nodded. “What I
can
guarantee you is that we’re not on the ATF’s radar. On no one’s radar, as far as we know. As Mr. McGill here knows, this tunnel hasn’t been used for over a year, since before Mr. Jonas passed. At that time we moved
suministros
into America with absolutely zero hindrance, zero surveillance. We did sweeps on the area once a month or so.”