Chapter Three
There was a whirring in my ears. A throbbing in my head.
And darkness everywhere. I lay still. Thinking.
Remembering. I’d got free. I was running.
Running into something. The back of my head ached, and I tried to touch it.
But when I moved, my arms moved together.
As one. Tied. My hands clasped tightly, barely able to move independently.
Just enough movement to reach over my head.
I felt with my fingers, sliding across a sore patch, and wincing at the sudden sting.
I squeezed my eyes shut, and my head throbbed again.
My eyes. I’d opened them, but still, I couldn’t see.
My fingertips wandered further over the patch of goo and sticky hair.
Feeling down the back of my head and stopping over the fabric tied at the back.
A blindfold. They’d fucking blindfolded me.
And tied me up. Fucking twats. They’d pay.
My brother would make sure of it. And if I didn’t survive this.
I stopped at that thought. At the unspoken words that sent my heart pounding into my chest and the blood pumping to the spot on the back of my head.
Swallowing, I took a breath. Forcing down the panic rising in my chest, breathing carefully through my nose and thinking of something else than the vomit threatening at the back of my throat.
I was moving. The whirring noise in my ears was the sound of an engine.
The fuzziness in my head was a sense of movement.
That was good. Now I could concentrate. I reached over my head again, feeling for the back of the blindfold.
The knot was pulled tight, forcing the material to my face, and with my hands tightly clamped together, I couldn’t move my fingers enough to unpick it.
Nudging the material at my face, I pushed my knuckles against the fabric.
But the blindfold didn’t budge. Whoever had put it on had tied it so tight it was wedged into my eye sockets.
Fucker. So, I couldn’t see and had no way of finding a way to escape.
Not with my eyes anyway. I wriggled, trying to sit up.
But my legs didn’t move either, tied together at the ankles.
I screamed. A frustrated roar filled the space I travelled in.
Fucking Rats. I knew who they were. The minute their VP spoke from unmarked leathers, I recognised the Smoggie accent.
Diluted tones of Yorkshire mixing with the distinct harshness of the North of England.
Unmistakable. And the only Teesside bike club with the balls to even consider coming after the Kings.
Whatever I was travelling in rattled noisily over a bump in the road.
The impact lifting me off my back and dumping me hard onto my side.
My hands scuffed the floor. Cold, bare metal.
The back of a van or a pickup truck. I could feel the waves of the floor jutting into my side, jostling me back onto my back as the vehicle went over another bump.
Speed humps. It had to be. It was even, like a perfect wave, not the sideways lurch that makes the vehicle rattle.
This was smoother. More consistent. But there were speed bumps in any town or city. Nothing different about these.
Town or city. People. This wasn’t the rolling countryside of southeast Durham anymore.
We had to be somewhere more populated or there wouldn’t be a need for the speed humps.
From the sounds around me, I was probably closer to the front of the vehicle.
The engine noise was louder above my head, the slight drone of music, a soft steady bass beating over the purr.
I wriggled, moving like a seahorse out of water, pushing from my bound hands to my bound feet.
Sliding over the bare metal underneath me until I couldn’t move any further.
Whatever was now at my feet was either the cab of the van or the back doors.
With a few kicks, I’d soon find out which.
Pivoting on my shoulder, I moved to my back, shrinking down further on the barrier until my legs were bent.
And then I kicked. Both legs connecting with metal.
The sound dull but resonating. I kicked again, feeling something give a little this time.
Doors. It had to be doors. I kicked again.
And again. If it were doors, I could force them open.
At best, someone would see me. At worst, I could escape.
And run blindly into oncoming traffic. Fuck’s sake.
Oncoming traffic would have to do. I kicked. Again and again.
The van slowed, a movement to the left, knocking me onto my right shoulder.
We were pulling up. I took a deep breath, bracing myself.
I might be able to fight back, kick out, catch them as they opened the doors.
Because that was what I was sure was happening next.
But those back doors didn’t open. No clunk of metal. Nothing.
The engine noise above my head stopped. A fuzzy silence surrounding me. Nothing moved. Not the doors. Not the van. Nothing.
I don’t know how long I lay there. Listening.
Waiting. Fearing what was coming next. I counted my breaths, listened to my heart.
Strained my ears to work out where I was.
There were voices somewhere. Low, barely audible.
People, maybe? A radio? I could go back to kicking, try to get someone’s attention.
But I didn’t know whose attention I would be getting.
The whirring in my head doubled. Pain pulsed behind my bound eyes.
Gingerly, I felt around my head again, waiting for the bite of the sting.
As I lowered my bound hands down over my crown, I felt it.
Fiery pain. It was sticky, not wet. The blood had clotted but wasn’t yet dry.
Tacky and rough around the edges of the wound.
Every brief glance of my fingertips made the wound smart, but no fresh blood wet the ends.
An hour. We had to have been travelling for at least an hour. Time for the blood to have stopped spilling. Time for the blood to clot. And now it was a sticky, sore mess on the back of my head, the pain made worse by bumping around on the unpadded floor of the van.
In the distance, there was a noise. A familiar rumble.
An engine. It wasn’t a car. It was too loud.
And it wasn’t a Harley. With the exposed steel base of this vehicle, I would have felt the vibrations as the noise grew louder.
This was a sports bike. The engine noise a warrior cry.
Strong. Resilient. Formidable. I held my breath, focusing on the sound.
Listening to the notes of the bike’s voice.
Each make had its own accent, each model its own dialect.
This was a Yamaha. Its voice was raw, powerful.
It didn’t boast. It didn’t need to. This was a big engine.
More than an 850cc. I could tell by the tone.
It was well torqued. Full of power. Not as much as my Hayabusa.
My stomach lurched. Where the fuck was my bike?
I’d dropped it. I’d felt the fairing scratching and buckling, heard the scraping of metal on the lumpy road surface.
And now I had no clue where she lay. Whether she’d been left on the road or whether one of these bastards had claimed her as their own.
The noise of the bike cut off. The air vibrated in my ears for a few seconds, but when it cleared, it wasn’t silent.
There were voices now. Low. Rumbling. Not quite intelligible.
Men’s voices. How many? I tried to count.
Tried to sort through the distinct tones.
But they weren’t close enough. Conversational.
At least two. But the rumble was persistent. So probably more.
I strained my ears, holding my breath. I knew they would come, these men.
I just didn’t know when. And with my hands and legs bound, the blindfold wedged so tightly into my face I couldn’t work the fabric over my eyes, I had no defence.
There was a click. A lock unlocking. Something moved in my vision.
A swirl of blackness, the darkness from my blindfold disturbed, and cold air rushed at my face.
The doors. Someone had opened the doors of the vehicle.
The floor underneath me creaked with weight.
Someone moving closer. Coming to get me.
I pulled my legs back, listening. The swish of fabric on metal.
And then again. Closer. I kicked out, withdrawing my legs and kicking out with both of them again. Changing direction and repeating.
Pressure wrapped around an ankle. A hand. I kicked again, putting my whole weight behind it.
“Get the fuck off me! Take your stinking, fucking hands off me! I’ll fucking kill you!” I shouted with each thrust of my legs, my voice echoing in the metal box.
“Fuck,” someone groaned loudly. “She got me in the bollocks. Fucking bitch.”
The vehicle creaked, the suspension underneath complaining.
The force across my face took me by surprise.
A sudden sharp pain in my mouth, and then a pulsing heat.
Darkness swarmed around me. Thick and suffocating, my head spinning.
Then I felt it, the dribble of something down my chin.
I wiped at it with bound hands, smearing warm wetness across them.
“Fucking ugly cunt!” I growled. “Cut me free. See what happens, cunt!”
Hands grasped my legs again, pulling hard, knocking me backwards and sending the back of my head crashing into the floor.
A hand grabbed my thigh, and I kicked out, dislodging it.
But it grabbed again at my wrist and then another on the other side, pressure curling round my biceps.
Closer to my face. To my teeth. I snapped my head sideways, sinking my teeth hard into flesh.
A man screamed beside my ear. Good. Hope that hurt the fucker.
And then maybe it was lighter. The blackness covering my eyes faltered. Greyer. Hands gripped my arms tightly, lifting me off the ground and moving me forwards. I tried to keep up, but my legs couldn’t move, and the toes of my leather bike boots scraped off the floor.
Now I heard the men’s voices. Lots of them. Sneering and leering, shouting and laughing.
“Look at the fucking arse on that,” someone said to the side of me.
“I never thought I’d get to fuck a King,” another voice beside him.
Around him, a chorus of deep laughs erupted.
“We gonna get to see what’s under all that leather, boss?”
Not too far away, a Scottish rumble answered. “Not just yet, boys. The Kings need to know we’ve got her. Then you can have your fun.”
Bile rose in my throat. My heart hammered in my chest. And for the first time ever in my life. I was truly frightened.