Three
T he woman was crying, and wouldn’t stop, and when I peeked through the gap in the door to the bar, I could see three of dad’s bikers holding her down, but my dad? He was doing something awful to her. He was fucking her, I knew what that was because it happened here a lot, but she’d been begging him to stop, and she sounded like he was hurting her. It made me feel weird, because as a teenage boy, yeah, I was aware of sex, and aware of my growing urges, but this wasn’t a pleasant feeling.
My dad was hurting a woman, and something in me made me want to stop him. Would I be brave enough though? Would stopping him be possible, and even if I did try, wouldn’t he turn nasty on me instead? She screamed and started begging again, and my dad yelled something to one of his men, something about shutting her mouth, by stuffing it with something.
As Skull started to laugh, and unzipped his jeans, the woman lifted her head, and her brown eyes met mine, her terror and pain evident in her cries, and struggles, and that haunted look in her eyes.
“NO!” I yelled, suddenly running into the room and grabbing Razor’s arm, as he reached for her hair, and dragged her head down.
“Boy, get the hell out of here!” Dad yelled, thrusting into the woman again, and making her scream.
“Dad, no, please! You’re hurting her!” Razor turned, and grabbed my face in a tight grip, as they all started to laugh.
“Aw, look at that, Pres, we’re ‘hurting her’,” Skull said, like my concern was a joke to him.
“We’re fucking, kid, this is just how it looks.”
“But… but she’s sad. She’s crying. I don’t think she wants-”
“Doesn’t matter. Bitches exist for one reason. For us to fuck their slutty holes,” Razor hissed, shoving my face roughly away, as he reached down, tore the woman’s shirt open, and fisted one of her boobs.
“Come on, please. She keeps saying she wants you to stop. Please!”
My dad shot me a look then, one that sent icy fingers down my spine. That was a look that I’d seen before, and I’d taken such a beating, I’d passed out. Oh god no. I backed up a step, and straight into a hard body. Dad’s men seemed to appear from the shadows, where they’d clearly been standing, to watch them hurting the crying woman.
A hand locked around my throat, and I was walked forward again, right up to the woman.
“Squeeze her tit, kid.” I gasped, and tried to pull away from their grip, but it was too tight, painfully stopping me from breathing at all.
“Squeeze her fucking tit, or I’ll let him end you right here,” my dad hissed at me, and the grip around my throat tightened, making my legs shake, as I choked for air.
“It’s… it’s okay, please, don’t hurt him,” the woman choked out, between sobs, “Lowell, it’s okay, you can touch me.”
“I knew she was a fucking whore. She’ll let anyone touch her fucking tits, even him ,” Skull murmured, slapping her face, and making her cry harder.
“Touch. Her. Fucking. Tit, boy, or I swear to god, I’ll break both your fucking arms, and cut out your tongue.”
It was only when my hand started to move, that the monster holding my throat let me breathe, and I choked on the air, as I tried to breathe it in.
“He hesitates again, put his lights out for him,” dad hissed, as he started fucking the poor woman again and, against my will, I was nudged closer to her, and my fingers settled over that plump, jiggling part of her body, that my dad seemed to want me touching. Tears were rolling down her cheeks, and I felt like I wanted to join her, but the beating I knew I’d get already would be far worse if I cried too.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered to her, as Skull started thrusting himself into her mouth, and her struggles grew more frantic. I tried to pull away, but dad yelled at me to keep my hand on her tit, and smacked the side of my head, making my ear ring loudly, as the woman’s gagging sounds filled the other.
“Keep going, man, she doesn’t need air.”
The woman slowly stopped struggling, her arms sagging at her sides, and dad laughed.
“Guess she’s gonna wake up with an ass full of my cum.” Her… her ass?
Skull still hadn’t pulled back from her throat, and I wondered how long she could last, without being able to breathe. I found out, mere minutes later, that she hadn’t lasted at all. She’d died. She died while my dad and Skull brutalised her, and I helped them. I was touching her. I went in there to save her and, instead, I helped them kill her.
Sophie
I could hear him yelling out in his sleep, and ran to his room, to find him flailing, as he was caught in the midst of some horrors he couldn’t seem to wake up from.
“Mike,” I whispered, moving cautiously, because the first time I tried to wake him from a nightmare, I got in the way of his fist, and he’d never forgiven himself for that.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry… I tried to save you!”
Mike suddenly sat up straight in his bed, and his eyes were wild, when they finally landed on me. He had tattoos over his chest, many small, interwoven images, that didn’t make any sense to me, but clearly had meaning to him. There was a motorbike, and there were other hints that he was a biker, but there was only mention of a club called Godless Warriors , and I couldn’t find any sign that they existed, locally at least. If a club had a name like that, the chances were that they weren’t nice guys, which was so at odds with the man in front of me right now.
“Soph? Jesus, are you okay?” He reached out for me, and I caught his hand in mid-air, squeezing it, as I watched his painted chest heaving with ragged breaths.
“Me? You were the one yelling out in his sleep again. Are you okay?”
“You know what I mean, woman. Did I hit you again? Jesus fuck, I’m just like him.” I don’t think I was supposed to hear that last part, but I questioned it anyway.
“Him who? Mike, you never intentionally hit me before, you know that.” I sat on the bed, keeping his hand cradled between mine.
“Never mind him. I can’t hurt you again, please don’t let me hurt you again.” He looked as sincere as I’d ever seen a man looking, and while I wasn’t the best judge of character, particularly where men were involved, I couldn’t help but feel I was seeing something real.
“Soph, please.”
“I promise I’ll stay out of the way when you’re flailing around, how’s that?”
His grin was brief, but it was a relief to see something other than fear, or pain, or panic, or whatever else he felt most of the time. He was never anything other than heavily burdened, by something from his past. I still had so many questions about how he’d ended up, broken and bleeding, halfway down that hill that day, but I’d never had the courage to ask about any of it. All I knew was his first name, Mike, and that was about as normal a name as any other. If it had been something unusual, I might have been inclined to look him up, and try to figure it out for myself.
“Sorry I woke you, Soph, please get some rest. I’m… I’ll read or something for a bit. I’m feeling a little wired right now.” He was pushing me away again, and I hated that he wouldn’t just talk to me. I knew we weren’t anything to each other, not even friends really, but I liked him. I felt safe with him, and I liked the way he acted with me, even when he was frustrated by his own limitations. I could tell he’d been strong before, so it was perfectly understandable, wasn’t it? Even though I'd worked out by now that he'd used testosterone, and some form of steroids, to build that bulk. It had all been in his blood when I saved him. Could he get his strength back now without those?
I headed for the door, but I wasn’t letting him push me away this time. Whether or not it was fair to him, I was going to insist on keeping him company for a bit, so I made two cups of tea, adding sugar to suit his preference, and headed back to his bedroom. He was still sitting up, staring straight ahead, and his eyes blinked into focus, as I appeared.
“Soph? Jesus, don’t let me fuck up your sleep too.”
I handed him his mug of tea, and walked around to sit on the bed on the other side. It didn’t seem weird to sit on his bed with him, up against the headboard, because we’d spent a lot of time together at this point, even if he’d been unconscious for a lot of the early times.
“Seriously, I’m not worth you losing sleep, woman. Get some rest, and I’ll be fine.”
I tucked my legs under me, and turned in his direction a little more, not feeling at all uncomfortable with our proximity, even though I was wearing just some light pyjamas.
“You don’t have to deal with all this stuff on your own, Mike. I promise, I can be here for you, I can listen, and help you heal your mind too.”
He tilted his head at me, resting his mug on his blanket covered knee.
“Like in an official capacity? You’re a therapist or something?” He wasn’t asking in a snarky way, like he was throwing my offer back in my face, so I simply shook my head.
“Friends have ears too, Mike. I think we’re friends at this point, don’t you?”
He chuffed a soft laugh, pushing his ragged hair out of his face. It was a very dark blonde, almost light brown, and adorably unruly, while his eyes were dark brown, and so expressive, that I sometimes literally felt his pain with him.
“Friends? Woman, I owe you my life, and if that just makes us friends, then that seems like you’re not getting enough out of this. Not that I’m someone you should get too close to. Jesus, did I just come on to you? That’s not what I meant to do. I used to be good at this shit.”
Well, ouch. Clearly he didn’t mean to show me the wrong kind of attention, as in, wrong in his eyes, but I think it wasn’t just surprise I felt at his words. It was hurt too. I felt like we’d been through a lot together at this point, so why wouldn’t he feel closer to me than this?
“If you’d rather I stay away, and not try to befriend you, I can do that, Mike. I… I live a rather lonely existence here, and it’s been nice to have you around, but I don’t want to overstep any boundaries you might have.”
Mike reached out and caught my arm, but his words weren’t what I expected at all.
“My name’s not Mike.”
Micro
H ow could I keep lying to her, when she was putting every piece of herself right out there for me? I didn’t mean that she was hitting on me, but she clearly wanted and needed a friend, and wasn’t that the least I could do? Didn’t I enjoy her company, even though I kept trying to keep her at arm’s length, because I didn’t want her to become collateral damage, when my life inevitably imploded, and killed me.
“It isn’t? I suppose you were out of it the day you told me that.” If anything, she looked intrigued, rather than worried, or hurt, or angry at me. Maybe she saw me as some kind of project to occupy her time. Fix the broken man, and kill some time doing it.
“I was struggling to speak that day. Hell, I could barely fucking breathe, or move. My real name is… is Lowell, and-”
“Wait, that doesn’t sound remotely like Mike? How could you have accidentally said Mike, when you meant Lowell?” Okay, now she looked suspicious. Was it time to tell her my real identity? Was it time to admit to my brutal birthright, and risk her turning on me? Could I survive without her right now? Was it selfish, to balance the need to be honest with her, against how much I needed her right now?
“Jesus, I won’t tell you everything about me, because it’s not stuff you need to know, or stuff that’ll benefit either of us. Fuck… you’ve heard of motorcycle clubs, right?”
Her face relaxed a little, and she nodded, smiling softly.
“Of course. I’ve known MC members before.” Shit, what if she knew the club I’d hidden away from, after trying to fucking destroy it? I didn’t even know exactly where we were right now. She had a large farm-type property, with outbuildings, and I had no idea if it was near where I’d lived, or a hundred miles away. Her accent didn’t differ too much from mine, so it was highly possible she might know them.
“Which club?”
She laughed then. “Not yours. I’ve never even heard of the Godless Warriors.” Those two words were like a fucking gut punch, and I physically recoiled, realising too late that I’d just intrigued her again.
She had a fucking quick mind, just like that asshole Has-Been. I’d always had to watch myself around him, because he saw more than anyone, just because his brain seemed to operate on another fucking level. I mean, clearly she’d also looked at my ink for longer than I’d realised, while she was treating me, so thank fuck I hadn’t kept the Phoenix ink. I’d covered that shit up the first chance I had, because it didn’t belong on my damn skin.
“Are you okay?”
I lifted a hand, and she raised her eyebrows, waiting for me to speak, but what the fuck should I say at this point?
“I need to know what club you’re familiar with, so I know if it’s safe to tell you more. Sounds like you might know how the clubs run, and there’s often bad blood between them.”
Sophie smiled again, sipping at her tea.
“Of course, that makes sense. I know the Rogue Riders, here in Hampshire.” Rogue Riders, Jesus . They weren’t exactly good guys, but then most clubs had bad elements, and it just so happened that I was that element in Phoenix MC, right?
“How the hell do you know them?” I couldn’t help asking, because no decent woman should be affiliated with those assholes. While they weren’t like my dad, they were nasty enough pieces of work. I’d briefly been affiliated with a club they fucking decimated, for control of their drug trade, and I’d missed dying with them, only because I’d been scoping out Phoenix at the time.
“I uh… I went to school with a few of the members, that’s all. So where are the Godless Warriors based?” Jesus fuck, I wished she’d stop saying their name. It felt wrong on her lips, because the club were definitely not friends of women.
“Can you uh… can you not mention their name again? I’m… the club was killed off, so I’m kinda…”
She lifted a delicate hand to her mouth, and her eyes filled with sorrow, but if it was for them, I wasn’t sure they deserved it. I knew for certain that I didn’t.
“I’m so sorry! This is how you were injured? I was passing through town, and enjoying the sights, when I saw you crawling across the ground after your accident. You begged me not to call anyone, so I brought you back here, but you’re very close to the Rogues’ territory. Will that be a problem?”
I swallowed hard, because yeah, probably, but I was curious to know just how tight she was with them, because her ‘I went to school with them’ was just a little too polished for my liking.