Twenty-Four
T orch being called away, before he could end me, was something he was probably more relieved about than me, because I could see that being left to my torture was fucking him up. I didn’t want to keep causing him pain, because I hadn’t lied before, or any time I’d told him that I cared about him. He was the closest thing I’d ever had to a real brother, and the night I stabbed him would always fucking haunt me.
If it could have gone down any other way… I never meant it to happen. I still didn’t really understand how it had. Was I so far gone at that point that my only option was to stick a knife in the person most important to me? Had the fucking steroids fucked my brain up that much over the years? Or was I just the monster they all knew me to be?
That damn night
I t had all gone to plan, and I had her, and terrorising her would fuck up Stitch and Has, so it was a twofer in my fucked up head, right?
I loaded her unconscious ass into the van, and listened as the fire alarm cut out, and I knew my time was nearly up. I headed back over to close up and hide the damage to the fence, which was just one of many ways I could come and go right under those fuckers’ noses, and that’s when I saw Torch. He was running towards the spray bay, and that’s when he saw me loitering.
“Hey man, whatcha doing over there? Did you hear the alarm?” Well, duh. I didn’t technically live at the clubhouse. I kinda roomed there now and then, but I had a few places I liked to crash, because a guy with no fucking family, or possessions, can crash anywhere, right?
“Just taking a walk,” I said, leaning against the segment of fence I didn’t want him to see, thanking my fucking forethought in locking the van, even though it was right at the alley, and would be found if I didn’t hurry.
“Taking a walk while the alarm’s going? I fell asleep on one of the sofas in the bar, and it scared the shit out of me.” He cast his eyes around us, looking confused.
“Why did the alarm go off though? And where the fuck is everyone? Nobody’s coming outside. Jesus, what’s going on?” He started running back to the clubhouse, and I grabbed his arm,
“What are you doing? There could be a fire in there!” Obviously there wasn’t, but I didn’t want him to see what I’d done. Would he work it out anyway? He was smarter than people gave him credit for, I mean many of us were, but a cut means you always get underestimated, or misjudged.
“They could be trapped, man, why aren’t you going in?” He suddenly paused and frowned at me, his mind getting there too fast for my liking.
“You should have been rushing in there to save them, and instead you’re out here watching? Why the fuck aren’t you doing something?”
I shrugged, wondering how the fuck to undo this now, because he’d realise what I was up to, and I wouldn’t get away with it. He’d almost found Has, for fuck’s sake, and I was hoping that head injury had been fatal. The longer the fucker lay there like that, the better the chance he wouldn’t wake up.
“It’s a false alarm, man, that’s all. That’s why nobody rushed out here. It’s all cool.”
He lifted an eyebrow at me, looking me up and down.
“But you just pulled me back in case there was a fire, so you’re bullshitting me.” Fuck .
“Micro, what’s going on, are you… Jesus, did you do this?” Fuck fuck and double fuck.
He punched me, and I staggered back a few paces.
“What the fuck?”
“Did you do something to them, fuckhead? Answer me? No, fuck that, I’m going in there, and you’re going to answer to the Pres.” He turned, and I saw everything crashing down around me, the loss of my retribution, yet another failure in my father’s eyes, the loss of my home, even though I’d been attacking it, the loss of my best friend.
The knife was in my hand before I even realised it, and as I grabbed him and pulled him back, I felt it slam into his back. He groaned before he tried to stagger away as I released him, and I backed up in a panic. What the fuck did I just do? Did I kill him? Did I kill the only fucker who mattered in this fucking place?
I watched him land face first on the tarmac, and felt bile creeping up my throat as I stared at the body of my best friend. My fucking brother! I just killed him. My only option was to get the hell out of there.
Now
O ne of the worst things about this whole mess was facing the guys I’d fucked over, and the horrific memories of the things I did to them, to their old ladies. How the fuck did I end up like that? Was it the shit I’d pumped into my veins for years, to keep me strong? How the hell did it feel like a different guy did those things now? Maybe the worst part was knowing now that I regretted those things, that I shouldn’t have turned on those who’d accepted me as one of their own, and having reached that realisation too late to do the right thing.
Maybe it was being who I am now, and knowing that I wouldn’t do those things now, but it was too late, and I would still die for them. Like a killer with amnesia, I’d pay for my crimes regardless of the memory of them, or the intent to commit them. Do the crime, do the time, right? Only ‘the time’ would be an agonising death. Club justice.
My chest was still burning and throbbing, where Torch had started to sear away my tattoo, but honestly, the amount of pain was a surprise when I saw how little he’d actually burned me. A couple of inches of melted flesh hurt like a bitch. It was pain I knew I deserved, but I wished I’d had my fucking epiphany before I earned it. Too little too late, like Reacher said. It was too late to feel remorse, because none of my actions could be undone.
The door crashed open and Stitch stepped inside, his eyes dropping to my chest, and a grimace in response.
“Hey, VP.”
“I’m not your VP, you bag of shit.” I nodded, wondering why I didn’t even feel that same hate for him or Reacher now. It was all gone. Finally it was where it belonged, on my fucking father, and on me. I’m the bad guy here, and clearly I always was.
“You had me almost feeling sorry for you, which is impressive, considering all the fucked up shit you did to us.” He practically stalked me, circling behind me, and stopping moving for long enough that I waited for that death blow with a thundering heart, but then he reappeared again, pacing once more.
“You come back here, acting like a fucking human, and getting up in our heads. Is that your play? Pretend to be a good guy, like you think it’ll get you out of this? Is that the crazy idea you have? So that then you can fuck with us all over again?”
“Not trying anything, Stitch. I know I’m done here, dead , but she’s important, and she needs to be saved. Her sister too. She’s an innocent fucking kid.”
Stitch grimaced again, dragging his fingers through his hair with his usual agitation around me.
“She arrived safely at school this morning,” he said, and I sighed with relief. Maybe they hadn’t come for her after all. Thank fuck.
“Good.”
“She went missing sometime after school let out, and before we could get anyone there.” Fuck .
I started straining against the bonds holding me to this chair for the first time since my capture, and Stitch fixed with a bemused smirk.
“The fuck are you doing?”
I struggled again, hissing with pain as the burn on my chest stretched, and set off new ripples of searing agony.
“I gotta get out of here, VP, I gotta save that kid. They’ll fucking brutalise her.”
Stitch shook his head at me. “You’re going nowhere. This is the place where you die, remember?”
I’d promised myself I’d just let them kill me, but now all bets were off. I couldn’t let Sophie and her sister be further casualties of my fucking actions.
“Fucking untie me, asshole. I gotta get Soph, and we need to go find the kid! Do you get what I’m saying here? They’ll fucking rape her, man. They’ll rape a teenage fucking girl!”
Stitch’s eyebrows twitched, like he was completely unaffected by my words, and that surprised the hell out of me, because he was protective as fuck of women. Maybe that didn’t matter if it wasn’t one of their fucking women though.
“You’re seriously gonna let that happen? You’re gonna let some poor teenager get gang raped by a fucking biker club? These guys are pissed, and their Pres is-”
“ Dead . We took out all the ones at Sophie’s house before we retrieved you both. They’re rudderless right now, so they could just be regrouping.”
He just didn’t fucking get it, did he? Of course he didn’t get how a real fucking biker club would behave. This was the trouble with trying to run a clean fucking club, he’d forgotten how so many others were, how this kind of brutality was just a fucking good day to them.
“Regroup? Get your head out of your fucking ass! They’ll use her to let out some of their fucking aggression, and to send a message to Sophie, to me, that they don’t fuck around. That they mean business. They’ll use her to hurt Soph, and she doesn’t deserve that. Neither of them do. They’re innocents, man! HELP THEM!”
Stitch sighed, leaning against the wall, like he had all the time in the fucking world, when that poor girl was in the clutches of a bunch of guys as bad as my dad and Skull. Why wasn’t he fucking doing something? Was he not the man he pretended to be after all? Just when I’d come around to thinking he wasn’t the asshole I thought he was, had he been deluding me this whole time?
Finally he nodded at me. “Already got a team enroute to them, and they’ll retrieve her. All you need to do is sit here and wait to die. That’s the only thing left on your fucking bucket list.”
Sophie
L issa found me some fresh clothes and let me get cleaned up, but the Doc didn’t want me moving around too much, while my head still throbbed, and made me feel so dizzy. The trouble was, I had to move, and I had to get out of here, because I had to try and save my sister, but also I had to try and save Micro. Even though the things they’d told me were horrific, and led me to wonder if he’d been playing me this whole time. Could I believe that the man I’d known was who he truly was now? Was it enough?
“Reacher has an update, and he’s on his way up,” the guy with the shaved head was back, and still looked agitated.
“Are you okay?” I asked him, sitting up and gasping as the room shifted again, and I grabbed my head.
“You’re asking me if I’m okay? You’re the one who got attacked.”
“But not by Micro, you get that, right? He’s been protecting me, he’s been trying to save me. Whatever he did in the past, he’s not that person anymore. He… I…”
Torch, who looked scary as hell, but had darted in my direction to try and catch me when I wobbled, clenched his fists, looking down at them, like they held the answers for him. He seemed to be really struggling with everything going on right now, and I suddenly figured out why.
“You and he were close?” His breath left him in a rush, and he slumped a little.
“Thought we were. Thought we were literally like brothers, but a knife in my back told me otherwise.” Oh my god.
“A knife?”
Torch offered me a sad smile. “Guessing there’s a lot he never told you, darlin’, but it’ll all come out now. He-”
Reacher ran in then, and cut him off mid-sentence. “Is there anywhere your sister would go after school, if not straight home?” What? I sat up again, and groaned, as my stomach roiled angrily.
“Wait, you’re saying she’s missing? Oh my god, this is all my fault!”
Torch caught me as I tried to jump out of bed, and nearly toppled sideways instead.
“Whoa, love, you can’t do that, you’ll hit the floor.”
“I need to save her, and I need Micro to help me, because he knows how they operate. He’ll distract them like-”
“I know you say he helped you, but it sounds to me like he caused all this shit. You were cooking for them? How was that going before he got involved? Did he escalate this shit?”
I was shaking my head, FYI, also a bad move with concussion, but they had to understand, and I was struggling to get any of them to listen to me.
“STOP! Please, you have to stop!” They all fell silent and stared at me, and I realised there were now four bikers in the room with me, and I only recognised Reacher and Torch. One of the other two had a beanie hat on, so I couldn’t see his hair, and the last one was a movie star looking brunette man.
“We’re listening, love,” he said, waving at the others to stay quiet, but I had no idea how long that would last, so I had to do this fast.
“Micro is my boyfriend. He didn’t escalate anything. He was trying to help me get out from under the thumb of the Rogues. He could tell they were going to hurt me, or my sister, or both of us. He’s the only reason I’m still alive right now.”
The dark haired guy lifted a hand, and I waited for him to speak.
“Actually, you’re alive because we came to your rescue. Me, the VP, Has, and Rocket. You were unconscious, and your boy down there was out cold, with a bullet in his shoulder.” He looked at Reacher then. “Bet that’s hurting him like a bitch right now.”
Oh my god . “You didn’t treat him, or let someone help him?”
The beanie hat wearing man stepped forward, a fierce look on his boyish face.
“He deserves pain, and terror, for what he did. He took my old lady twice, and terrorised her. Where was his mercy then? He nearly killed me, nearly killed Torch, nearly killed the Pres’ old lady, attacked several others, oh , and killed one of our brothers, and a woman we knew. You keep talking like he’s redeemed, but let me be very clear here. He can’t be redeemed, because none of that can ever be excused, or made better. Sometimes my old lady wakes me up screaming, because she’s back there, trapped with him, while he abuses her. Tell me how that’s redeemable?”
I had no words, because how could you excuse any of that? You couldn’t, and shouldn’t. Nobody should. Nobody should accept cruelty or violence from anyone they know, or don’t know, but life wasn’t that straightforward, and there were grey areas everywhere.
“What if he died on that hill? What if the man I rescued, and nursed back to health, isn’t the same man who did those things? All I’ve seen from him is kindness, and protectiveness. He looked after me, when I had nobody to do that. He acted like my own personal nurse when I got injured. He has put himself in danger, and risked his own life over and over, just to keep me safe.”
“What’s your point?” The same guy asked gruffly, while the others stayed silent. I’d thought them to be decent men, from what I’d seen and heard about them, but now I was realising they were too intent on their revenge to see anything else. Their hearts were as filled with hate as the Rogues, and wouldn’t be our saviours at all.
“My point is that I think we’re talking about two different men, and the one I know deserves to be saved too. And he will help me find Trish. Just let the two of us go, and we’ll go and rescue her ourselves. I’m not expecting anything from you people, since you’re so caught up in all your hate, and revenge, that you can’t see past that. I need help now, and Micro is who I need.”
Reacher cursed, pulling the guys into a huddle in the doorway, and then moments later, they all dispersed, and he sat down in the chair beside me.
“Tell me about the Micro you think you know.”