Vulnerable (Barons of Sodom) (17 page)

Bridie made sounds as if she couldn't help it—a whole peal
of frantic cries mingled with laughter. Tuck reached forward and pushed a hand
into the thicket of her wild hair. The girl's head jerked backward at the pull,
and she almost screamed with pleasure. Once more, Bridie clamped a hand over
her mouth.

“Don't make me have to gag you,” Tuck grunted into the space
below her left ear. Then, overtaken, he rocked his body forward and began to
kiss the nape of her long, lovely neck.

They rocked back and forth for a long while, their motions
growing faster and faster. After what felt like a full hour, Bridie fell
forward, so her hands were touching the cool ground.

“I'm gonna come,” she croaked, her voice hoarse from
screaming. Her pussy was slick with heat and desire. Tuck reached a hand
around, and pressed his index finger into the swollen pad of her clit. He
rubbed her in small, expert circles, until Bridie came with a shudder. Her
whole body seemed to spasm and then release.

In a matter of seconds, Tuck felt himself also reaching a
long-suspended second climax. He gripped his lover, grinding her hips harder
and faster against his member. His cock was getting tired from the effort. But
again, Tuck watched Bridie's face—beatific, peaceful, sweet—and with a shudder,
he came hard inside of her. Their juices comingled, then ran down his legs. He
collapsed against her shoulders, and felt her sweat snake down his body. He
felt her heartbeat through his own chest.

“You sure know how to set the mood,” Bridie purred, taking
one languid hand and piling her hair on top of her head. “Wounded soldier,
indeed.” But still she kissed him sweetly, over her shoulder. Tuck realized
then that the pain had returned to his legs. He hadn't noticed it during any of
their coitus.

Bridie registered the wound in her lover's eyes. Slowly, she
pulled herself up and stood shivering for a moment in the damp air of the cave.
She crept back toward the bandage kit and began to rummage among the vials for
something.

Tuck—wincing, but joyous—moved to button up his pants. He
smiled sleepily.

“This isn't exactly morphine, but it should help with the
pain,” Bridie said. She'd also discovered a scratchy blanket (emblazoned with
bad embroidery: “Property of the Barons of Sodom, MC”) which she threw around
both of their bodies. She brought a glass of water and two white pills to her
lover's lips. “This will help you fall asleep, at least.”

The Rider let himself be cared for. The events of the past
twenty-four hours felt so surreal that the idea of sleeping an untroubled sleep
in Bridie's arms was easily the best option on the docket, even if he was
wounded, endangered, and trapped in some cave. He took the pills without
question and felt himself drifting away a few blinks later. The candlelight
grew dimmer.

“Zuzu told me a funny thing, while I was tied up during the
race. You wanna hear it?”

“Sure thing, doll,” Tuck nodded sleepily. He nestled into
his lover, grasping for the itchy blanket.

“She said that the best part of love is the very beginning.
That the beginning's the big adventure, then the rest is all noise. That it's
all downhill after the first kiss, when you find out your mouths fit together.
What do you think about that?” Bridie turned to her Rider. But the big, strong
doofus had fallen fast asleep.

* * *

 “Get him up!” It was Athena. Her wild, frizzy hair looked
especially wild and frizzy after a sleepless night spent watching the grass grow.
Dawn had broken and the cave floor was quickly filling up with streaks of pale
light. Tucker had snored through a solid eight hours.

“Is there something wrong?”

“Not sure of anything yet, but I think I heard sirens. No, I
know I heard sirens.” Sark looked rattled. A single thought danced between the
women, one of the many things they hadn't thought of while beating their hasty
retreat from the camp: there was only one working bike between the three of
them. For all their efforts, escape would be rough.

“We're probably safest here, don't you think?” Bridie tried.

“Not half a mile from the highway we're not. I'm pretty sure
the area around the course is one of the first places they'll go looking for a
body. Would've tried to camp further away, but I thought Tuck was too weak to
travel.” Her eyes were wet with worry. For a moment, Bridie felt a deep
compassion for Athena. She was unable to have this man she loved, the man with
whom she'd already shared a whole life. If they were all to get out of this
alive, what would happen to Athena? Would she even want to stay close to the
pair of them, given everything that had happened?

Then came the absolute and unmistakable sound of many
sirens. The cops were getting closer. They were, in fact, closing in.

“Wake him up. NOW.”

Bridie nudged Tuck, but he didn't stir.

“What did you give him?”

“Something to help him sleep! Two Valium! I didn't realize
that—”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Athena rolled her eyes and then ran
at her fallen companion. With a yelp, she launched herself into Tuck's lap and
slapped him smartly across the face. The Rider awoke with a start, and made the
frantic motion of someone reaching for a gun.

“What in EVERLOVING FUCK—”

“Tucker, the cops are here. They've found your bike. They're
going to find us. Can you stand up?”

His face darkening, Tucker cast off the blanket and placed
his heavy hands on the cave floor. He tried to rock himself up onto his good
leg, but the weight of his body brought him down. Pain was etched across his
handsome face.

“Bridie! Bring me that splint! We need something to keep the
bones in place, they’re not staying set.”

“Well, I absolutely hate the sound of
that
,” Tuck
grumbled. But by now, the sirens were so loud that they might've been a city
block away. Suddenly they cut out. The police were parking their cars. They'd
found the spot, all right.

“BRIDIE!”

Still only halfway into her dress, Bridie clamored across
the floor to the appropriated mechanic's bag and began tossing the contents
around in frantic search for the splint. Athena continued to bark instructions.
The trio heard the bark of a bloodhound.

“They're looking for us. Jesus, fuck!”

Athena's fingers quivered as they laced the stays of a
splint around Tucker's broken shin. The Rider put on a brave face, but his eyes
revealed wells of pain. He clutched Bridie's hand.

“Try now,” Athena said at last, blowing strands of curling
hair out of her face.

With his lover's help, Tuck rocked forward onto his leg
again. The wave of dizzying, nauseous pain that swept across his body was
nearly unbearable—
nearly
—but he managed to stand. It felt like all the
blood was rushing to his wounds, creating throbbing pain centers all over his
body. Tuck stifled a cry.

“Hush, now. You have to be really tough if we're all going
to survive this.” Athena was running around the cave now, tossing neglected
items back into her medical bag. Once the case was packed, she kicked it with
her steel-toed boot, sending all their supplies deep into the darkness. Bridie
felt helpless. Tuck was leaning most of his weight against her to distract
himself from the pain.

“Okay. Okay. Okay,” Athena chanted, a vein in her temple
visibly pulsing as she thought fast. “So my next question is: Bridie, do you
think you could drive a motorcycle?”

The bloodhound yelped from somewhere close by. It had found
something. It was going to find them.

“Okay, it's not a question anymore. Bridie, here are the
keys to the motorcycle. You both need to get out of here, and as fast as you
fucking can.”

“But—”

“You know Yoda, right?
Do, or do not. There is no try.
Now,
go!” Athena all but shoved the pair out of the cave and into the harsh
daylight. It was suddenly clear that she planned to stay behind.

“Athena!” Tuck stage-whispered through the bushes. “What the
hell are you doing?! Come out here!”

“That dog's going to feel awfully silly if he doesn't catch
a body,” Athena said, and for a second, they all might have been back in the
garage. It could have been two days before—before any miserable, terrible shit
had gone down. In one direction, Tuck glimpsed the rest of a life he'd never
get to lead—days spent idling around a dull campsite, evenings lost to the
plains. The women of Dixie's. Garage banters with Athena. And in the opposite,
mysterious direction he glimpsed the other fork in the road: Bridie. Bridie—a
dangerous continent unto herself—and all the mysterious adventures being with
her would involve. Tuck shot his best friend a sad, long look.

“You're the greatest, A. Stay cool, alright?”

“Get the fuck out of here, dumbshit,” Athena fired back. But
her eyes were moist. The bloodhound brayed again, and Bridie steered her Rider
in the direction of their ride.

The Triumph had not been triumphant, but the mustard-yellow
Honda looked all right. Somewhere in the morning's hubbub Athena had found time
to replace the severed brake line. Bridie looked the bike up and down. She'd
ridden this bike. She'd technically been ridden, while
on
this bike. But
driving a motorcycle was a completely different beast, made more difficult by
the fact that it would be carrying two.

“You have the keys, sweetness?”

Bridie cut her eyes at Tuck before flicking the ignition
into life. The bloodhound in the distance began barking up a storm. Its human
companions were so close that Bridie thought she could hear the sound of dry
leaves crunching under their feet.

“It's now or never, lover,” Tuck whispered.

“I could do without the condescending terms of endearment,”

“That's a lot of big words for a biker. Now, just like a
car: give it some gas. Go slow at first. The bike follows your body, alright?
Your whole body is steering.”

Bridie bent low, and Tuck pressed into her sides. She could
feel his body humming with a nervous energy. She imagined the police finding
Athena alone in the cave and doing God knew what to her. The bloodhound took up
again, sounding giddy with discovery.

“Now. While there's a little noise cover. Now, Bridie.
Go.
”

She gave the motorcycle gas. They went.

Tuck tried not to think about Athena, now long gone in the
dust. To her credit, Bridie's loopy driving made it difficult to focus on
anything except the road.

“Have you driven ANYTHING before?” Tuck called into the
wind, after the pair had pulled out of one particularly heart-stopping pin-curl
turn.

“Don't be a jackass!” the girl cried. But he saw the whites
of her knuckles on the handlebars, and felt all the clenched muscles in her
back. It wasn't so crazy, her being afraid. This was as outlaw as she'd ever
been, easy.

They stuck to the side streets. Thankfully, the racecourse
had moved in the opposite direction of the campground—so it was possible that
all the crooked police would keep looking for the fallen Rider (and with luck,
the missing girl...) in the wrong part of town. It had crossed Bridie's mind
that she could as easily drive away from everything—the MC, the cops, even
Athena—if only Tuck wasn't so weak. Then again, they also had no food, no
money, no water, and the gas tank was emptying fast.

By noon they'd circled the city a few times over. The tank
had reached a perilous low, and the thick silence hanging between the lovers
echoed with regret. The only thing that had really improved was Bridie's
driving.

“You could possibly,
possibly
, be a Rider someday,”
Tuck joked into the soft crook of Bridie's left ear, after she'd executed a
turn especially well. But he instantly regretted his word choice: probably, no
one would be a Rider “someday.” The club, as he knew it, was defunct. It was a
strange feeling. Despite all the corruption and lies, the old MC had
constituted the only family he'd ever had. Now, he was a true outlaw. He had no
country and no king.

“We have to stop somewhere,” Bridie said finally. The heat
was blazing, and Tuck's face was wan with pain. They needed to get a doctor to
look at that bum leg.

“Alright. Go to Dixie's. We'll take the back streets.”

“You think we can trust her?”

“She's the third person I trust in this godforsaken world,”
Tuck said. As soon as he said this, he realized it sounded a tad dramatic—yet
it felt true. The rest of Waco seemed a nest of enemies. All these poor
suckers, they'd probably throw the two miscreants on the fire for petty change.
For drugs, even.

The parking lot at Dixie's was empty, which was a nice
surprise. (Penny's was an up-and-at-the-bar-by-8:00am crowd.) With minimal
clanging, Bridie nosed the Honda behind a pair of pungent dumpsters. Then,
taking a moment to get her land legs, she reached for Tuck. Despite the heat,
his skin was clammy and cool.

“You don't look so good, partner.”

“That can't be true. I'm looking at you, aren't I?” He
grinned dopily, but his head lolled on frail-seeming shoulders. With all of her
might, Bridie pushed her body into the crook of Tuck's arm. The Rider hobbled
towards the bar's entrance, taking slow steps.

At first glance, Dixie's seemed vacant. There was no sound
on the jukebox, and no old-timers snoozing along the bar.

“Hello?” Bridie called. “Penny? Penny! We need you!”

After a few interminable-feeling heartbeats, the swinging
doors to the back room pushed open. Miss Penny appeared, looking gaunt and
harried, as if she too hadn't slept through the night.

“Oh my stars,” drawled the bartender. “What happened here?”

“Tuck's been in an accident, and we can't go to the
hospital. Is there a place where we can...?” Bridie gestured around, helpless
for a moment. She suddenly felt weak. In all the frenzy, she'd managed to
forget that neither she nor Tuck had eaten anything in over a day. Her body
shuddered below their combined weight, threatening to collapse.

“Christ on a cross...come sit down,” Penny said. She went to
the bar, and pulled out three rocks glasses.

“Is now really the time for that?!”

“Honey, this is
especially
the time for that.” With a
grimace, Penny set three shots of Jameson in front of the pair. She watched
while Bridie tossed back half a shot, and Tucker fumbled with his own glass.

“Let me see this leg, now,” Penny said, with a surprising
efficiency. She dragged a small stool along the grimy floor of the bar, and
propped it up before Tuck like an ottoman. Wincing, the Rider lifted his leg.
Both women instantly noted the damp blood spreading through his jeans.

“These wounds weren't dressed properly at all,” Penny said,
sucking on her teeth.

“Well, we didn't have a lot of time,” Bridie scowled. The
bartender cut her eyes in the girl's direction. She cast a quick look towards
the parking lot outside, then stood up.

“Stay here. I'll be back with some rubbing alcohol. Take
napkins—here—and apply pressure... I'll be right back.” With that, the
bartender retreated into the gloom.

“There's no people,” Tuck croaked. He seemed to be slightly
more at ease in the gloomy bar than on the quaking bike, and soon started
making eyes at his whiskey glass.

“It's the middle of the day!”

“That's still pretty weird for Dixie's.”

The back doors clattered open again to reveal Penny, hauling
a heavy black case. The bartender resumed her spot on the stool and set to work
moving things around in her bag. She extracted a fat wad of medical tape,
cotton, and rubbing alcohol.

“Penny, why do you have all of this?!” Bridie cried.

“I used to be a nurse, darling. Probably way before
you
were born.” The bartender spoke through her teeth as she set about threading a
needle. “He's going to need a stitch or two.”

“You were a nurse here, in Waco?”

“Nope. I was stationed in Guam. T, drink your medicine,” the
older woman danced the Jameson just below Tucker's nose. A thankful Rider
tossed it back.

After they'd fallen asleep in a moldy banquette (which was
after Penny had presented the pair with hastily-made peanut butter sandwiches
and fresh water, which was after she'd finished cleaning and dressing Tucker's
wound...), Bridie woke from her deep sleep and gazed at Tuck in the empty bar.
His eyes were flickering, slightly open—he was probably dreaming. It was dusk,
but there were still no customers at Dixie's. Before this could be contemplated
much further, Bridie slid back into a peaceful doze. Perhaps, just perhaps, she
thought,
everything would be alright.

Then again, maybe not.

Tuck woke up to the feel of high beams in his eyes;
many
high
beams. He flailed in the light, taking a moment to remember where he was. The
memories returned in a mish-mashed flood, a montage of images: the crushed body
of his leader. Flying above a crowd of Barons. Sipping whiskey in a dark bar,
the dark cave. The beautiful woman riding him into sweet oblivion...

“Oh, it's him, alright. Smug son of a bitch.” Gruff hands
grabbed him by the shoulders and drew him into a standing position. “Looks like
he's a bit worse for wear, though. Heh-heh-heh.” Then Tuck heard the sound of
something crunching and felt a flood of incredible pain. His assailant had
kicked his steel-toed boot straight into the fresh dressings along his shin. It
was then that the face that matched this voice appeared to him, from some
recent memory: Spivey. Ye olde tub-o-lard incarnate.

“And this is the girl? This is definitely the girl?”

A few of the high beams (or flashlights, as the Rider now
realized) swiveled back toward the banquette. Bridie was coming to in their
gaze, shielding her pretty eyes against the light.

“That's the bitch, alright.”

“Why don't we just shoot them right here? Make it look like
a lover's quarrel, all nice and tidy?”

Spivey ground his teeth for a thoughtful moment before
responding to his unseen companion.

“No. I think the Officer would like to pass judgment, as
God
cannot. You take the girl. This jackass is for me. And don't forget to
thank our
tip-off
.” Spivey leered in the lieutenant's face. His breath
was sour. Tuck cast around for Penny, but the bartender was nowhere to be seen.
Bridie had woken all the way up, and her voice became a long wail of protests.

“Are you going to shut your girlfriend up, or should I?”
Spivey cooed into his captive's ear. Tuck resisted the urge to spit in the big
man's miserable face—but one look into the beady little eyes assured him that
Spy meant business.

“Bridie! It's alright! We're going to be fine, just go with
the men!”

“Tuck!”

“Do you hear me? It's going to be okay!” The pain in his
shin was beginning to subside again—it seemed that whatever potions Penny had
given him had remained strong as he slept. Going slack in Spivey's arms out of
pure spite, Tuck attempted to nudge his mind into high gear: who was
responsible for throwing them under the bus? Only two women could have ratted
them out here—Athena or Penny.

Bridie was whimpering. Tuck overheard the other scout—who he
surmised was a member of the local police force—whispering disgusting things
into his lover's ear. His body went cold with fear all over again. He could
imagine surviving the grand inquisition Cannon surely had prepared for
runaways, but Bridie? What would they do with Bridie when they found her?

Spivey bound his captor's hands in front of him, and then
looped these shackles over the bottom of the bike seat. There was no chance of escape.

“Bet you're thinking long and hard about your choice in
friends
,”
Spy laughed. “It's like I always say: never trust women.”

For some reason, the first woman that came to his mind at
this remark was Sark, the fountain-haired best friend. Had she really managed
to outsmart the police? Were they holding her somewhere? Perhaps she'd cracked
under torture, told the PD about all of his usual haunts.

Tuck shook his head. But Athena Sark? She was tough as
nails! She'd never rat out her best friend, never, not in a blue moon. But as
if reading his thoughts, Spivey carried on.

“Hell, I'd be jealous, too. Hot piece of ass like yourself.
A so-called
lieutenant.
Imagine I'm nursing a love, then some ho-bag
meth-head comes a knocking and your pants drop like a beat—I'd probably flip,
too. Heh-heh-heh.”

Athena. Had to be.

Gil Cannon, shirt crisp and white as moonlight, was pacing
the MC campground like a king. The coup had taken mere hours. Once the Barons
had seen their precious God's guts splayed along the highway like road kill,
every last one of the doubters had flipped. So what if they were going to be
drug dealers? So what if they'd watched a man of the law kill one of their
brethren in cold blood? Tucker, the only viable alternative to the leadership,
was no better—a cold-blooded killer himself. It hadn't taken long to convince
every dullard in a leather vest that LaRouche had cheated in the race in an attempt
to murder the man in charge. And none of the dummies even asked how he did it.

Meanwhile, every man in a uniform had been sent out to find
the body; Cannon wanted to hold it up to the men, to demonstrate exactly what
happened to a traitor. He required absolute and unquestioning loyalty, and
luckily, a group of lost, bored guns for hire were ripe for the picking. And so
they'd all come back to camp after the race, every last Rider, shouting the
praises of the Waco P.D. Some of the buffoons were already out on the city
corners, zooming around the East Side looking for trouble.

Though, of course, the little wench had presented a problem.

When the police tracked and captured Athena Sark—who'd
conveniently claimed to be “camping” alone in the woods, just by the leg of
track where Cannon had watched LaRouche spin out—she'd refused to bite. The
boys had already beaten her so bad her face was unrecognizable, but still the
tough mechanic played dumb. Her and the older wench, Zuzu, who'd been in charge
of watching the ward. In all the chaos, few of the men seemed to have noticed
that there was no longer a “prize” to be had at the end of the race, but Cannon
was still getting nervous. Though he had no doubt that the coyotes or harsh
terrain would kill the Calyer girl long before she figured out how to be a
savvy runaway, he couldn't chance it. Bridie couldn't be allowed to walk free,
knowing everything she knew. There was a thirty thousand dollar reward on her
pretty little head by now, and all the papers had been alerted. If Tucker
LaRouche managed to escape and blab to the police, he would never be found
credible. But a ripe little doe-eyed eighteen year-old in a ripped dress? Hers
would be a harder story for the Feds to ignore.

“Any word?” the Officer bellowed toward his detail, a group
of squat, pimply men who'd been enlisted special, from the pawn shop division.
Few of them had even seen this sort of action before.

“Waiting on a radio signal from one of your motorcycle
boys,” chirped one chickenshit, his blonde hair looking waxy in the camp gloom.
“Small city, I'm sure we'll know by morning.”