Five
JENNA
Fuck, my head hurts. Sharp stones hidden amongst the grass press through the thin soles of my shoes as I sprint across the field.
The heavy thud of boots belonging to one solid son-of-a-bitch thunder behind me.
And much to my frustration, he closes in with each stride I take, the lack of proper nutrition over the past week quickly draining my energy reserves.
There’s fuck all on the horizon apart from more shadowy houses in the night, yet I can make out the distant glow of streetlights, which must mean a main road.
People.
A chance to get somewhere protected.
The asshole behind me latches on to my shirt, and his arm wraps around my middle mid-flight, a veritable log bending to encompass my burning ribcage as he uses his weight to take us to the ground. I land roughly half on him and immediately claw the grass to pull away, dirt pushing beneath my nails.
“No! I’m not fucking going back!” I shift tactics when his mass prevents me from going anywhere and gouge my nails into his arm, bucking in his hold. “Let me go.”
“I’m not taking you back.” Like the way he growled that doesn’t promise something equally as bad.
He rolls to his back, using both arms to restrain me as I continue to fight. “Sure, buddy.” Gaze fixed on the inked skin banded across my collarbone, I duck my chin, open my mouth, and use the weapons God gave me.
“The hell?” He exclaims as I sink my teeth in. Asshole pulls his arms toward himself, forcing it deeper into my jaw and weakening my bite force. “Just fuckin’ listen for a second, would you?”
“Ligh-en?” I argue around the meat pinned against my tongue and teeth. “Ah oo er reel?”
“We’re not from the same club as the one who probably brought you here, okay?” He manhandles me so that we’re seated together, me pinned sideways over his legs to presumably look me in the eye while we bicker.
I hate that I immediately find his gaze reassuring. That there’s some unnamable quality about his eyes that promises only the truth. “We’re here to get you home.”
Home. What a concept. I’d say half of us in that goddamn basement would rather take our chances elsewhere than go home again.
Squeals and men’s shouts echo from the house.
My gaze falls to the worn patches of leather on the toes of his boots, showing glimpses of the steel caps beneath.
“I don’t have a home to go back to.” I have a house.
And a father. A lack of autonomy, and the kind of dark existence where hopes and dreams go to die, transformed into nightmares that keep me from finding adequate sleep.
“What?” His brow furrows, as though the concept that we’re not all naive good girls from well-to-do families confuses him.
“Neither do most of those girls.” I nod toward the house, noting how we’ve both relaxed somewhat. “That’s why we’re here. Because we had no other option.”
“To sell yourself into slavery?”
Of course. Because we chose to be exploited and deceived.
Such a man’s response. “Fucks sake. We’re not that stupid.
” I roll my head back and search the star-dusted sky for how to make this simple enough to explain in a few words.
“They told us we’d have work in a bar. Waitressing.
Or, if we wanted the big bucks, stripping. ”
They made those women think they’d found a friend. Convinced them they were just like them—misunderstood and disadvantaged, fighting back against society to afford themselves a second chance at life.
He sighs, loosening his arm a little. “When did you realize?”
“That this was something else?” I chuckle. “When they stripped us naked and took photos of our bodies.” Bit of a red flag.
“Either way,” he grumbles, “you’re not staying here.”
The screams and protests have morphed to muffled arguments as he moves his grip on me and gets to his feet, bringing me up with him. Yeah, he seems genuinely curious about our situation, but what he hasn’t done yet is explain who he is or why the fuck they’d care enough to save us.
If I’ve learned anything about biker clubs, it’s that you can’t judge the vibe of the group from the first impression of one member.
He glances toward the house and yard, focus slipping enough that I manage to slide my wrist free of his large hand. Ankle screaming, I pivot fast and lean into a sprint.
Then kiss the ground when his boot tangles between my legs. Fuck. Grass sticks to my lip, dirt on the tip of my tongue.
“Quit it.”
“You quit it.” Palms to the soil, I press as hard as I can and launch.
His solid boot presses between my shoulder blades, pinning me to the ground like a bug spiked to a board. “You want to go back in that cellar?”
“I already said I don’t.”
“Then why you makin’ this so damn difficult?”
“You try having your independence taken away by a man and then see how amenable you are to taking instruction from one.”
He sighs. “At least go calm the others down.”
Fucker plucks at the thin thread of guilt I have for leaving them behind. But there was a better chance of me getting away alone to raise the alarm than there was of me ushering a junkie, a nervous wreck, a head injury, and a child through the countryside with Darla’s help.
I open my mouth to give this brute an insight into our conditions when the grass glows bright green with yellow undertones. Shit. I trace the source of the light to the road.
To the car that jumps and jostles down the track with its speed.
“You’ve got two seconds to decide,” the guy growls above me. “Run for the bikes, or take your fucking chances in that cellar again.”
I twist my head to look up at him. His hair makes a wild mane around his head, those reassuring eyes now firm and demanding an answer. I relax my arms a little and slowly blink. Okay. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result.
I’m not insane. Not yet. And I’d like a chance at a different result.
With the new crew, it is, then.
He lifts his boot off my back and promptly offers a hand to help me up.
The car nears the driveway when we break into a sprint, his brothers in crime wrestling my sisters in strife toward their waiting motorbikes.
The guy helps me over the fence that damn near killed me earlier, and shouts, “Far right!”
What the fuck does he mean, far—? Oh. It twigs as I watch the other men each claim a ride. The bike on the far right.
Pain is the least of my worries as I push my lungs to the limit and sprint for his ride. The goddamn car roars past the last field before the house as I launch myself onto the rear of the long seat, foot pegs be damned.
“You’re gonna need to hold on tight.” He lifts a leg to get on without kicking me as best he can.
“Be good if you could hurry the fuck up.” The car that skids to a halt at the end of the driveway is probably the younger of the two guys tasked with keeping watch over us, but he’s no less violent than the other fucker. If anything, he’s probably worse.
Hands shaking, I get a grip of the maned guy’s vest and shirt, mentally doing the math on whether we’re going to fucking make it or not.
I didn’t get myself this deep only to goddamn die on the way out the door.
I lean with my host, his bike struggling for purchase on the dirt road as we turn toward his brothers, the pop of a gun disturbing the night behind us. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Face buried against his back, I squeeze my eyes tight and pray. Please let them miss me.
Not that Jesus ever loved me.
Seconds pass without the telltale sting of a shot in my flesh.
Holy fuck. Maybe it worked. Maybe today I’m somebody’s special child.
Eyes cracked open, I struggle to make out the shadowy shapes in the fields that tear past us.
Something warm touches my nose. Which is weird, considering the rider blocks the wind from my eyes.
I touch fingers to the sensation to wipe away the tears anyway, and pause at the thicker constitution of it.
The hell? My fingertips walk up the biker’s back, tracing the damp trail in the dark, until it stops, an inch or so below the cap of his shoulder.
“Hey!” I slap the guy on the opposite side. “You’re bleeding!”
Maybe I should have prayed for the bullet to miss us.