21. Blake
21
BLAKE
“Look what we’ve got here, Stricklin,” drawls the pot-bellied officer that’s serving as his sidekick for the night. “Didn’t you say one of those bikers took your wife? This was the one, right?”
Stricklin gives nothing away. He’s got a neutral expression and giant shades concealing his eyes despite the fact that it’s pitch-black outside. He might even still be sporting a cut or two from my beatdown. I’d fucked him up bad enough.
He strides up on my left and clicks on a flashlight he shines into my retinas. Ignoring his partner’s question, he speaks to me in a matter-of-fact tone as if he doesn’t hate my guts.
As if this stop ain’t by design.
“This a nice bike you’ve got there,” he says slowly. He drags the flashlight along the length of my FXDB Street Bob, then returns the bright light to my face. “This bike wouldn’t be stolen, would it?”
I grit my teeth. “You know it’s not fucking stolen?—”
“Language,” he interrupts sharply. “It would do you well to show some respect. License and registration.”
“What kind of game are you playing? I haven’t broken any fucking laws!”
“License and registration,” he repeats in a calm tone that’s of warning. “You would do well to follow instructions… or things might not end well for you. But, trust me, it would be deserved.”
His partner on my other side draws my attention. His hand grips his belt where his arsenal of weapons is readily available—his baton, his pepper spray, and his taser. The Glock 17 that rests against his hip.
One thing’s clear.
I’m fucked.
They’re looking for a reason. We’re out in the middle of the night on a dead road. They’ve got all the power; they hold all the cards.
Whatever happens is whatever they want to happen.
Revenge for Kori leaving him. Revenge against me for being her sanctuary.
For what happened weeks ago when I broke in and beat the shit out of him.
I half rise up over my seat to pull out my wallet and produce the requested items. Stricklin snatches them out of my hands and drops his bright light onto them. You’d think I’d produced counterfeits the way he studies them, clearly searching for some gotcha .
“Where were you headed?”
The corner of my mouth lifts up. “I don’t have to answer that.”
“Where were you coming from?”
“I don’t have to answer that either.”
Stricklin looks up at his partner, whose name is Coates according to his badge. They give each other a nod, confirming they’re on the same page.
“I’m going to have to ask you to step off the bike.”
“I’m not getting off my bike,” I say, defiance dripping off me. In my tone. In the challenging look I give them and my relaxed posture as I sit on the bike.
“You have been instructed to get off your motorcycle. Failure to comply will be met with necessary force.” Stricklin unhooks his baton, holding the long stick at his side. He thrusts his boot out and kicks at my bike. “If you knew what was good for you, Mr. Cash, you’d recognize my authority.”
“Don’t fucking touch my bike!”
Stricklin glances over to Coates, who grins wide and takes his turn. He punts his boot into the side of my bike as if daring me to react.
I rise off my seat with fury in my glare. “I said don’t fucking touch my bike—and give me back my license and registration!”
As I swipe at Stricklin to snatch it back, he reacts with a defensive block and then submission hold. I go from hovering over my bike trying to grab my things back to being dragged halfway off, locked into the grip of him.
“GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME!” I roar. My temper snaps. My control vanishes. All the fury I’ve been holding in unleashes at once.
I maneuver out of Stricklin’s hold and throw my fist at him. My knuckles collide with his jaw. Coates comes up from behind, wrapping his arms around my front and squeezing his baton into my throat. My air’s immediately cut off, the hard stick digging right into my esophagus. I scrabble at his hands and the baton, but it’s no use. He’s got the jump on me and he’s out of reach, choking me out from behind.
Stricklin’s straightened from the right hook he took to the face. He stretches open his jaw, his tongue poking around inside his mouth as if checking for loose teeth. Then he steps up to where Coates has me grunting and sputtering for air and he slams a fist into my stomach.
Things only tumble more out of control from there.
Stricklin drives his knee into me next. All while Coates still has me choking from the baton. I’m grabbed by a fistful of my hair and tossed to the wet asphalt. Before I can even think of getting up—I’m coughing, trying to catch my breath and shake the dizziness away—the two start kicking the shit out of me.
Both of them at the same time. Coates from one side. Stricklin from the other. The baton rains down on me. The hard plastic stick cracks over my head in a burst of pain. I howl into the cold night air as my body twists and jerks on the ground. Coates lands a combination of punishing kicks to my ribs with the steel-toe end of his boot, showing no signs of slowing down.
“We tried to warn you! This is what happens when you disobey authority,” Stricklin pants, slamming down his baton again. He’s lost his shades. There’s a manic gleam in his eyes, a thirst to do harm. Wreck something. That something being me in this moment. Was this how he looked when he lost control and put his hands on Kori?
I spit out blood and grunt out my defiance. “Fuck you! ARGH !”
Coates drives his steel-toe boot into me that much harder.
“Get up, get the fuck up!” Stricklin barks. He’s fisted his hand in my hair again as he forces me up and then forcefully walks me toward their squad car.
I’m all kinds of fucked up—blood leaks from my mouth and my vision’s blurred. I’m limping and my side throbs, begging for medical attention. But I don’t go down without a fight. I jerk against him and attempt to throw a punch or two.
My arms are subdued and my head’s slammed down onto the hood of the car. Inside my skull, it feels like my brain rattles. If I wasn’t able to see straight before, I sure as hell can’t now. The ground beneath my feet feels like it’s giving out, and I’m barely lucid.
Stricklin twists my arms behind my back and slaps cuffs on me. “You are under arrest, Blake Cash. For driving eighty in a forty-five zone. For driving without a license and registration. For assaulting a police officer.”
The grunts that tear from my throat sound like gibberish even to my ears. Muffled from my swollen jaw and inability to think straight. But what I mean to do is yell at the fucker that he’s a lying piece of shit. I handed him my license and registration and I wasn’t going eighty.
I did assault him, but the piece of shit deserved it.
Even as they’re placing me under arrest, I’m jerking against them. I’m putting up a fight.
“Add resisting arrest,” Coates says.
“Still not good enough. I know. Driving under the influence,” Stricklin says. A sick glee poisons his voice. He grips me tight by my cuffed wrists, then leans closer to growl in my ear. “I know it was you who attacked me. Imagine my surprise when we saw you earlier. You were at the gas station—you bought some whiskey and chugged the whole bottle.”
“MOTHERFUCKER!” I scream. It’s all I can manage.
“Coates. Hold him down.”
Coates takes over as Stricklin goes to retrieve something from the inside of the patrol car. He returns holding a bottle of whiskey. The same exact brand, the same exact type I’d bought just an hour ago.
Suddenly, even through the throbbing pain and fogginess in my brain, I understand what’s about to happen. How they’re going to fuck up everything.
Coates pins me against the car as Stricklin grabs my jaw and pours the whiskey down my throat.
I scream.
I scream so fucking loud, so fucking hard, my vocal cords strain and ache and eventually give out. The gut-wrenching sound of horror that matches the black void of the night. Nobody’s around to hear the tortuous sound except for me.
Nobody’ll ever know. They damn sure won’t believe me.
Stricklin’s panting in excitement by the time he’s emptied the bottle. Half of it washed over me. The other half slid down my throat.
“I warned you,” he says with a dark laugh. “I told you to stay the fuck away from my wife. But you refused to listen. I’m going to make sure you go away for a long, long time, Mr. Cash. Then I’m going to bring Kor back home—and I’m going to make her pay. I’m going to make every moment of hers a living hell and you won’t be around to do anything about it. I can already hear her cries. Makes me hard just thinking about it.”
“MOTHERFUC—”
Coates smashes me over the head with the baton and ushers in a fresh wave of dizziness. Stars dance in front my eyes as I grunt and then finally give into the torment.
My body loses all fight and everything around me wipes out.