Wild: Dark Riders Motorcycle Club

Frontmatter

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Table of Contents

Frontmatter

Wild: Dark Riders Motorcycle Club

Chapter 1

Chapter
2

Chapter
3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter
12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Enjoyed this Book?

Letter from the Author

Other Books by Elsa Day

Copyright

T
HIS
WASN
'
T
WHAT
I was supposed to be doing.

I folded the shirt again. Carefully. Left shoulder. Right shoulder. Crease in the middle.

Still, every time it came out wrong.

What would mom have said? I know. She wouldn't have said anything. She would have taken the shirt, folded it herself, and placed it gently in my suitcase.
 

I looked at the crooked shirt again.

But mom wasn't here to fold my stuff for me, was she? I picked up the shirt, crumpled it into a ball, and threw it across the room. My legs melted underneath me and I slumped to the floor.

This was not what I was supposed to be doing.

The college catalogs advertised shiny happy people. The students in them smiled. They went to classes and studied. They wore fashionable clothes, and went to graduation with both parents smiling in the audience.

They weren't in the catalogues, but I knew the other things that college students were supposed to be doing. They were supposed to be getting drunk off of cheap beer. They were supposed to be having wild parties, falling in love, and having sex.
I
was supposed to be doing that. Right? Isn't that what college kids do?

I didn't even realize I was crying until I tasted the salt on my tongue. I wiped my face with my old, ratty sweatshirt.

The paper was still on my desk.

Name: Olivia Clarkfeld

Date of Birth: 02/19/1953

Weight: …

It came with a card, just like all of her letters. This one had a little bear on the cover. He was holding a heart-shaped balloon and smiling.

Sending you a BEAR-Y big hug!

I didn't see her chart until it fell out of the card. Just like that. As light as air.

Prognosis:….

The doctors sent her home. They could operate, but it was almost pointless. They couldn't guarantee anything. Better for her to be with family, they said. Enjoy her time. What she had left.

So I got this card. With this little bear. Mom didn't say to come home, but she didn't have to. I knew.

So instead of studying, instead of partying, instead of sneaking into some guy's bed while his roommate sleeps, I was there. Folding t-shirts over and over again. Alone.

I walked over to my desk and picked up a picture frame. The top was covered in dust, and I gently pushed it off with my finger. How long had I had this?

We were at the park. The flowers from trees hung low, and I tried to grab a bud with one hand. Dad was wearing that nautical shirt that he liked so much and sitting on a wooden bench. His arm was around mom, and the wind was blowing her sundress wide-open so that she had to hold her hem down with her hands. They looked so young then.

I was in my overalls phase, and looked like a little boy. My face was even covered in smudges of dirt. But I wasn't the only one.

He was holding my other hand. Even then, he was taller than me and pulled the flowers down towards my face. After such a long summer, the sun had almost bleached his hair stark white.

I put the photo frame in the growing pile of unfolded clothes that rose out of my suitcase. Asher. As if I needed to be thinking about
him
now. He probably forgot me a long time ago.

I
SLAMMED
THE
SUITCASE
shut and dragged it out of my dorm. It thumped along as I pulled it down the ancient staircase. There were no elevators when this building was built, so every year the suitcases of students moving in and out clattered over the stairs.

I was already exhausted by the time I made it to my car. The alarm beeped off as I approached, and the trunk lifted when I paused before it. Every time it did that, the little sedan made me smile.
 

Thanks dad, for
this
at least.

The only thing the car
didn't
do for me was actually get the suitcase inside the trunk. I swung it inside, scratching the paint a little. Whatever. I knew dad would fix it. Gotta have his little girl driving a nice car, right? Or else what would people say?

My fists curled into balls before I stepped into the car. I took a deep breath and turned the ignition. An eight and a half hour drive down south. Could I do it?

Ever since I received mom's letter, my hands
couldn't stop shaking
. I clenched the steering wheel to still them. Yeah. I
had
to do it.

At first, it seemed like everything was going fine. I left behind the big city lights and soon I was on my own. The highway stretched through miles of nothingness. Just trees, rest stops, some truckers, and me.

I passed strange signs for diners. There were neon billboards where happy pigs invited me to come eat some pork. Or sexy chickens who were stocking and advertised cheap fried drumstick dinners. I drove past them without stopping.

If things were going the way they were supposed to, this would be a road trip. It would be exciting and fun, and I would take pictures to post online of the strange things I encountered on the way to Virginia.
 

But this wasn't a road trip. I was alone. Driving to take care of my mother. My mother who had cancer.

Cancer
.

Even after my classes. Even after doing the rounds in the wards. Even after reading all the case studies, it still bothered me. It suffocated me.

I rolled down my window and let the cool air hit my face. It felt good to let my hair whip in the breeze. Maybe for a couple of hours, I didn't have to think of anything. I could let the gentle humming of my safe little car rock me all the way back to Virginia.

After a while, it wasn't so bad. Driving down a straight stretch of road wasn't exactly the most difficult thing in the world. The air became heavier, more humid as I kept driving. Soon, the sky grew dark and street lamps flickered on along the side of the road.

There were only a few more hours left. My head nodded a little, and when I opened my eyes there was something large in the middle-of-the-road. Shining eyes blinked at me and it took me a while to understand what was staring me down.

A possum. A big mama possum and a whole litter of kids. They were stuck in my headlights, unable to move.

I jerked the steering wheel to the right. It should've been fine, I should've just curved around them and continued on my way. But the tires skid. Maybe I was late on my maintenance?

I slammed against the door. My seat belt tightened up just before I hit my head on the side of the window. It wasn't until I crashed into one of those big lampposts that the airbag blew up in my face. You know, they are a lot harder than you would expect for bunches of fabric filled with air.

By the time I came to again, it was pitch dark. The possums were gone, the lamppost was flickering, and my car was wrecked. It was silly, but I tried to start up the engine. Of course, no matter how much I turned it, it didn't make a sound.

I looked around, and I realized that there probably couldn't have been a worse place for me to crash. There was nothing on either side of the road for miles. Not even those silly diner signs. I had crashed into the only light, so I was almost in complete darkness.
 

I listened for the sound of a car, a truck,
anything
really. But there was nothing. It didn't even make sense to stick out my thumb because it was clear that no one was coming.

After a while of walking around, I slumped against my car. Then an idea hit me. What about my phone? I slapped my head because it seemed so obvious. There must be a 24 hour tow truck service
somewhere
around here.

I opened the car door and rifled around, looking for the little rectangular screen. But as soon as I found it, I started to cry. The glass front was shattered. The case was dented, and no matter how many times I swiped across the screen it wouldn't come to life.

So that was it, my last try. My other options were to hope that someone else was coming down this desolate road, or that my car would magically start up again. Frankly, the second option was most likely.

I hopped on top of my car hood and sat down. I curled my legs into my chest and started to sob. Not just about the car, or the phone, but about everything. About my mom. About going back to this place I had been away from for so long.

I
DON
'
T
KNOW
HOW
long it took before I fell asleep.

It wasn't until a loud noise woke me up that I even realized I had dozed off. I jerked my head up. The noise became louder. It was coming near me, a huge rumbling sound. Was someone
actually
coming?

I jumped off my car and ran to the side of the road. That's when I saw it. It wasn't a truck, or a car.
Whatever
it was, there was a ton of it. The lights came towards me, arranged in some kind of formation. Soon they were close enough that I could feel the rumbling shaking the earth underneath my feet.

Motorcycles
?

It was a huge group of guys on motorcycles. Not just guys, but girls who sat on their laps or hugged them from behind. The girls wore almost nothing, and a few times I thought I saw hands slipping underneath shirts and below skirts.

These weren't small guys. Their muscular arms gripped the handle of the motorcycles forcefully. Tattoos covered their arms like dark sleeves of ink, marred here and there by deep scars. Shit, these were not the kind of guys I wanted to meet up with all alone in the middle of the night.

As they approached, I retreated back to my car, hoping they wouldn't notice me. As the lights shone in my direction, I got a look at the guys in front. The three of them rode side-by-side, with everyone else behind them. Their bikes were larger too. I couldn't really tell the difference, but they seemed more powerful somehow.

As they passed by, one of the guys in the front locked eyes with me. His eyes pierced through the darkness, and struck me so that I had to hold my breath. Why was he looking at
me
?

I crossed my fingers, hoping that this group of
whatever they were
would just continue on down the road. But this wasn't exactly my lucky day.

The guy who noticed me put his hand in the air. He made some kind of hand movement and the whole parade of bikers slowed down. Then it got worse.

He broke away from the pack, driving right up to me. He stopped the motorcycle only inches from my body, and it kicked up dirt as it slid on the path.
 

At first, we only looked at one another. In the darkness I could hardly see his face, but something about it seemed familiar. And again, those piercing eyes swept across my face and body.

What did he
want
with me?

"Get on," he said.

I looked at the motorcycle. It was huge. I couldn't even imagine how to get
on
one, let alone how to
ride
one. Never mind that agreeing to ride with a pack of tatted up bikers would definitely be on the list of things my mom would warn me about. It seemed like the kind of situation you would see on the evening news.