Thrash
Authors: Kaylee Song
Thrash
Kaylee Song
Copyright © 2015
Copyright © 2015 by Kaylee Song
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Pittsburghese Dictionary
Pittsburghese used in Wrath
Fire and Steel is set in Pittsburgh, Kaylee’s hometown, and the home of the Pittsburghese dialect. It’s a rich dialect created due to the large number of immigrants who found their home in Pittsburgh in the early 20
th
century. The mix of accents and languages created some interesting words! Note: Dialogue and personal thoughts will not be in proper English, and will use Pittsburghese
Yinz – You guys, or Y’all
Red up- Clean up
Slippy- Slippery
Jag/Jagoff- Jerk
Nebby - Nosey
N’at – And that.
Kaylee is proud to be from Da ‘Burgh!
Fire and Steel: Members
Fire and Steel Members
President
: Rage - Cullen
Vice President
: Thrash - DeMarcus
Sergeant at Arms
: Wrath – Aidan
Full Patched Members
Crow
Junker
Mick
Jackal - Mike
Nyx - Brandon
The Fire and Steel Series, Book 3
Copyright © 2015 by Kaylee Song
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Thank you so much for your help as readers.
We had chosen our side carefully, testing the waters. Checking trust and needs. Now our choice men were in hiding, and we were blind in one eye. Strike was clever as ever, but his situation left the MC in an interesting predicament. The big questions were how to help? And should we?
With Bones gaining strength and our greatest ally crippled, we were in a bind.
I was Rage’s right-hand man. We had a meeting in an hour. I should have been there, at the club.
Instead, I was staring at a beautiful woman. And her art. Because those were the important things in life, right?
Her work was beautiful, unique and out of place among the minimal surrounding work, but I had noticed the artist first. Her soft, vaguely sultry voice caught my ear, then the golden halo of her hair caught my eye.
I’d met a lot of women in my life. Seen a lot of different types of beauty. I didn’t believe there was just one way to go, one “look.” Like the best paintings, every woman had something that made her stand out from the rest. For this woman, it was her hair.
That thick mane of curls reached out into the air around her, framing her face in a glorious sunburst. It was alive. Warmed the blood. She looked almost angelic.
Almost.
I grinned. There was something in the way she walked, an unconscious flair that told me ‘obedience’ wasn’t high on her list of accomplishments. Loyalty, maybe, but this was the sort of woman who broke the rules without trying. I’d bet good money she didn’t even do it on purpose.
She caught sight of my grin, and I nodded, letting my amusement show before turning back to her work.
She was talking to a customer about the piece in front of her, explaining the inspiration. She had to be one of the new artists the studio had brought in for the night. Both lithe and curvy, she had one of those unusual bodies. Her face was delicate, but her bright blue eyes seemed so serious. Both face and eyes were surprisingly difficult to read.
She seemed soft-spoken and self-contained, but as she spoke, she became animated and excited. Obviously, her work was still new and exciting to her.
The pleasure of sharing her ideas lit her eyes. It laced a husky note of enthusiasm into her soft voice. It was a subtle thing, the kind of sound that wrapped a man’s imagination in silk, teased at the edges of his thoughts, made his blood simmer and suggest. I wasn’t the only one who noticed it, either. The buyer she was speaking with seemed more interested in the swell of her breasts and hips than in what she had to say.
Hell, I was too. But I still probably heard more than he did. She had been telling him about her trips to the West End, about reading and sketching at the Outlook. Tourists loved the Outlook. I somehow doubted she had looked much like a tourist there.
She seemed like the kind of person who could make her way anywhere. At the same time, she would never fit in. Not among the blondes, not among the rich or poor.
Ignorant or cultured, people would notice her.
As someone who knew that feeling well, was it any wonder then that I liked her?
She kept glancing at me, but she didn’t drop everything to come speak with me. No coquettish tricks. No batting lashes or head-to-toe visual cues. She took note of me, then she went back to what she was doing.
She was a focused woman. I liked that.
Catching sight of my watch, I winced. I’d lingered longer than I should have. Wanting to speak to her, I had enjoyed circling, listening, watching. But I’d left her alone. I didn’t want to make her uncomfortable.
The longer I stayed, the more I had realized: I wanted her to be a painting, one that I could stare at for hours without anyone giving me a second look. As it was, if I eyed her any longer I might get escorted out for leering.
So I turned to a piece her artwork. The canvas was just as captivating. Her work showed versatility: she seemed as comfortable with thick swatching as she was with the delicate flow of softer brushes.
In the piece before me, a lone woman had been captured in elegant whorls of purple and peach. She was framed by the burning oranges and reds of a sunset bathed river – “The Monongahela,” the plaque read.
The painted woman’s face was tilted downward as she looked out over the water. She had the same blond hair as the artist. The same blonde lashes and the same hands. Her build was different, though, as if the artist admired women with stronger frames.
It was always interesting to see what artists favored in their work. Some preferred to paint themselves. Others showed respect to lives that were different from their own. This woman seemed to be the latter type of painter.
But she had painted her own hair onto the woman. It was flying up into the light, caught in a moment, rippling like heat rising off blacktop by the light of a bloody sun.
The feeling the image brought in me was intense. I wanted to reach out and grab it. Name it. Claim it if I could. And that was the thrill. Because, of course, I could never claim an emotion. Grabbing for it wouldn’t help me get it.
To understand what the painting made me feel – to keep it in any way shape or form – I had to just
feel
it.
Freedom, struggle, and loneliness had been captured in those purple and peaches and reds. The elegant brushwork added to the effect.
And that’s when I realized that I understood her.
I couldn’t see the woman’s face in the painting, but I knew if I could there would’ve been a sadness there deeper than I’d ever experienced. She was so beautiful, and so mournful.
“What do you think?”
That soft voice pulled me out of my trance and back into reality. Her strange blue eyes almost paralyzed me. Beautiful. They were beautiful, she was beautiful. Something…
Jesus. My head went stupid just looking at her. But I wasn’t about to let it show.
“It’s good.” I said it as if I knew what the hell I was saying. There were a few safe lines I spouted off when I felt uneasy – words that when said together could shake me out of any mood. But I didn’t say “It’s good” in this sort of situation often.
“Yeah?” she said. She seemed almost amused as she looked me over, her arms crossed loosely over her chest, her posture relaxed and curious.
We’d been trading glances for almost an hour. I’d been staring at her paintings for two. Was it any wonder I felt like I knew her before we even spoke?
“You come to places like this often?” she asked, that expressive voice still tinged with that subtle humor. Fuck, that voice. This close, I was grateful my pants were not tight.
Those eyes were dancing.
“Yeah,” I came here often. In fact, I was the regular, and she was new.
A faint pink flushed her cheeks, but she recovered well. “I’m sorry. How rude of me. I’m Nora. Nora Bonnet.” She held out her hand to me.
“Thrash.”
We shook. She had a steady grip. “Just Thrash?” she asked.
“Yeah.” I shrugged.
“Are you interested in purchasing something?” She sucked gently on her lower lip, more out of habit than worry, and I swear to god it took everything in me to keep my mouth shut. The honest part of me wanted to lean closer, tell her just how much I wanted to taste that lip.
I wanted to be in this woman’s space, feel her warmth. But she didn’t know me. Hell, I didn’t know her. I knew her work. Observation was great, but a welcome mat it did not make.
Part of me wished the world was as simple as its surface. But life had taught me just how complex people and their needs could be.
I was a direct man who had learned to negotiate and maneuver out of necessity. I kept my drive caged up, especially around women. I could channel it into business. I could channel it into a lot of things.
Drive. Ha. Damn if I wasn’t feeling it, blunt as hell, just then. I would have liked nothing better than to drive myself into her. But it wouldn’t have gotten me what I really wanted. In the face of my desire, I was amazed by how much I wanted to get to know this woman.
Business. Business was a better option right now.
“Actually, I
was
thinking about buying. I don’t see this kind of talent often.” I nodded to her work. I tried not compare her too much to other people. An insult to others was no compliment to real skill. So I tried to just focus on her skill. “You practice, sure, but this – this is natural talent. What’s your price?”
“Two-fifty.” She appraised me, her eyebrow raised. I could tell by the look in her eyes that she doubted I would put my money where my mouth was. But that tongue rattled off her price, sure and a bit taunting.
I had been circling this gallery for years. Two hundred and fifty was a bit low for original work. But she was new. She still measured her work by the effort she put into it instead of the impression it inspired.
I pulled out my checkbook and began filling it out calmly.
“It isn’t often I see a piece I want. That beauty mixed with this… air of sadness. It’s what I want.”
“Really?”
I watched as the slow smile spread across her face. Definitely a new artist. I hesitated a moment, wondering if I was taking advantage of her.
No. If she wanted to be taken seriously, she would need to discover the worth of her own work. I wished I could think of a way to help her see it, but simply handing her more money wouldn’t do it.
“I’ll pick it up at the end of the showing. Don’t want to deny anyone else the chance to see it.” The delay had nothing to do with anyone else though. I wanted to see her again. She could have mailed the painting, but I suspected she wouldn’t. She cared too much.
That I knew that – and that she didn’t – worried me. Who else might see her enthusiasm? Who might try to manipulate her with it?
Hell, why was I so worried about her?
My mouth shot off before I could think twice. “Just a tip. The big wigs don’t meet with customers outside the gallery.”
A funny grin slid across her mouth then, wry and self-depreciating. “No one else has even looked at my paintings unless I directed them.” A little bit of that same sadness, the one from the painting, eked out in her voice when she said it. “I’ve been told my work is too traditional to make any real money.”
I grinned in spite of myself then and shook my head. “You see a great deal. I can tell that.” I indicated her work. “But you haven’t figured out yet what makes this place tick.”
When she looked mystified, I went on. “Money. Too often the effort people put into painting the illusion of being important outweighs the quality of their work. People come here for the experience, to be a part of the show.”
I nodded to a couple across the room. The wife was blatantly flirting with the artist, who was working hard to simultaneously flatter her and avoid the husband’s ire. Or was the husband flirting, too? Was the artist trying to keep the wife off, get her money, and appeal to the husband at the same time?
I wasn’t great at reading that shit, but just looking at it made me feel tired. I didn’t come here to feel important. The games of sex and money and power seemed like a hell of a lot of trouble.
“Look around. This was an old Catholic school who specifically chose it so they could turn it into a gallery for self-professed ‘freaks.’ Both the owners and the artists want the spectacle.”
She had followed my gaze. To my surprise, her eyes suddenly looked more tired than I felt.
“This,” I gestured to her painting. “This is not the experience they are looking for.” Her work was picturesque, haunting, its message discordant with that of pieces around it. The modern sculptures and paintings were all on the darker side, cynical and minimalist, reflections on the barren and bleak.
These artists were striving so hard to make an impression by pointing out the worst in humanity.
What everyone missed was that, in a strange way, this woman’s work was darker – and more powerful – than them all. To truly capture the potency of horror required a keen eye and a fierce longing for hope and wonder. The others had depicted the worst in isolation. Nora had given it contrast.
I nodded to the pieces around her own. “These other pieces… I am not saying they aren’t good. They are. But they don’t captivate me.”
She nodded, a slight crinkle in her brow. “I realize it’s not usually done, but there’s a reception area. Maybe you would like to go for a coffee?” That beautiful voice shook, just slightly, and my blood leapt.
I wanted to say yes, but I had to meet up with the rest of the MC in twenty minutes. Hell, I should have walked on by, but I hadn’t expected to like anything – or anyone – this much.
I looked down at Nora and I wanted to blow everything off. But I wouldn’t like myself much tomorrow if I did. People were depending on me.
Reality felt awkward in the face of what I wanted, but the dream could fade. Reality wouldn’t. So I’d deal with that first.
“Nah, kid.” I grinned at her and winked. “But I’ll see you around. Be back to pick up that painting in a couple of days.” And with that, I turned and walked out of the gallery.