Chapter Two #2
“No.” I half smiled. “But this isn’t about male bravado, Miss…” I glanced down at her badge. “Garside. This is about survival. Not all of us have a metal cage around us to keep us safe. For some, pain is the only way.”
“Did you really sleep with his wife?”
“Probably. At some point.” I shrugged. “I get around.”
I didn’t miss the heaving of her chest and the way her mouth parted in wonder as she stared back up at me, completely clueless as to what to say. Dropping my feet back onto the floor, I let go of the ledge, slapping both hands down on it once before bouncing back and pointing to the side.
“I’ll be over there, waiting for my things.” I grinned.
“I…”
“Will be five minutes? Good work.”
I took off slowly, not particularly eager to make my way to a chair or bench or anything that required me to sit down and wait patiently. My moment of being virtuous was over before it ever really began.
The game was beginning all over again and the thought of winning was providing me with so much adrenaline, I already felt like I was flying higher than I had done in years.
Drew Tucker was back.
Huntsville Prison of the great state of Texas already felt a million miles away as the heavy soles of my boots crunched along the gravel pathway that led me out between two cross-wired fences.
At the end of the small walkway, I knew who and what would be waiting for me.
I could already see the elbow of one of the fat fuckers as it stuck out from the metal pole, and I swear I could practically smell The Hut on him from where I was.
It was my favorite scent of all time—the only home I'd ever really known.
Slinging my black hoodie over my shoulder, one finger keeping a hook on it as it slid down my back, I dropped my chin to my chest and shook my head.
The swollen smile was there, but I didn't want them to see me walking out and showing emotion.
They'd all have changed since I left them—all grown older, experienced more shit, drank more and gained more scars—but I'd changed, too.
That was an inevitability of prison life for you.
Scuffing my boots across the surface beneath me, I rounded the corner and took one look at the first of my brothers.
Harry Rogers. The Hound of Babylon’s road captain and all round living legend.
Fat, bald and shorter than a fucking field mouse, Harry had tattoos that crept up all the tires and creases of his neck before they spread out into the shape of a claw up the back of his head. His eyes were like piss holes in the snow and he had the facial hair of a teenage boy.
But man was he loyal as hell.
And that's all that mattered to me. To him, it didn't matter that he was twelve years my senior or that I was just a twenty-nine year old kid with ideals in his heart and plans in his mind. To him, my badge was enough.
“Well, I guess I know who's been eating all my food portions since I've been gone.” I grinned, my eyes lifting up to meet his, watching as he kept his cool, hiding behind his heavy, black shades.
Pushing himself off the wall, Harry stepped forward and did a quick assessment of my body from head to foot and back again. “Yeah, and I can tell someone's been skipping leg day in the prison gym for far too long.”
“Still lifting over twice my body weight,” I answered roughly, watching him as he reached out to pinch my bicep between two of his fingers.
“And what's that? Fifty pounds, tops?”
“Fuck you.” I laughed out loud, the hand that wasn't securing my hoodie over my shoulder reaching out to jab him.
“Damn, it's good to see you, brother.” He launched at me, both his arms flying around my back as much as they could, considering his build up against mine. I was six-foot dead, stocky by nature rather than much effort and, according to some of the women I’d been with, pretty fucking ripped.
My smile grew wider as I returned his back pats and briefly dropped my cheek to rest on his head.
Affection wasn’t something we, as a group, showed to the other people around us.
We were to look a certain way and walk a certain way while always remaining polite enough to the residents of Babylon.
But with each other, we celebrated our bond and we clung onto it as much as we could.
There was no shame in showing unity and love.
Without it, there was no way we would be able to make it through the darkest moments that inevitably ran through the seconds, minutes, and hours of club life. The words didn’t need to be said.
Pulling back, I raised both brows and inhaled sharply, looking all around me as I did.
“Where are the others?” I croaked, seeing no one else here but Harry. “And where the fuck is my bike?”
He pointed behind me, forcing my head to swivel around until I was looking over my shoulder. “It’s just the van today, Tucker.”
“You gotta be kidding me?”
“Nope.” He laughed roughly, digging in his pocket for the keys.
My hand swept out to the side. “Lead the way.”
Harry began to walk past me, pointing casually at the red swelling on the left side of my face and the slight crack in my lip. “Parting gift?”
“Something like that.”
“Glad to see you’re still good at making friends.”
His raspy laugh was soon followed by a coughing fit. Harry's cigarette habit was pretty damn bad when I left him, but I was guessing from the tight wheezing of his chest that it had gotten even worse. “Still doing thirty a day, old man?”
“More like forty since you’ve been inside.”
“Lay the guilt on, why don’t you?” I smirked, kicking a stone that was in my path out of the way. “And here I was expecting balloons and shit when I got out.”
“We’ve almost five years of abuse stored up, just for you.
Now hop in the front and quit whining before we get back to The Hut.
I’m the nice guy, remember that.” His smile disappeared around his end of the van as I went to the passenger side, clipped open the handle and threw my hoodie across my seat.
With one hand positioned on the door and the other on the frame of the van, I lifted a leg onto the ledge and took one last look over my shoulder at the place I’d lived in for longer than I’d hoped to.
It didn’t look as fucked up out here. Just a red and gray box with wire all around it and towers that stood high as though they saw and owned the entire world.
But I knew better. I felt the cold in my bones as I stared at it before I gave it a wink—a silent promise to never return before I groaned low in the depths of my throat and hopped up into the front seat.
Simple things like this were what I couldn’t wrap my head around.
For so long, my feet had been the only thing to transport me anywhere.
Now I was back on wheels again, in the hands of someone and something else, doing something the others took for granted.
I couldn’t tell Harry that it made me feel weird for even a second, so I shuffled in my seat, running my thumb under my nose and leaning forward until my elbows were resting on my knees and my face was in my hands.
“Feel good to be out, Tucker?” he asked quietly as he shoved the key in the ignition and kept his voice traveling forward. He’d known more than anyone that I just needed a moment. He’d done time as a young man himself.
My head began to nod slowly before I dragged both rough palms down my face and over my lips until my mouth was held open by the tips of my fingers. “You could say that.”
“The air feels cleaner, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“The sky brighter, the silence louder…”
“Yeah.”
“Muscles stronger.”
I nodded again, not turning to face him as I stared out at the open road in front of us. “Warmer…”
He twisted his wrist and the judder of the engine brought the van to life around me. The hood rattled and the vibrations ran through my body quickly. “I remember that feeling.”
“I’ll be good in a minute.”
“I wish I had a minute to spare you, Drew.”
“Just tell the men we got stuck in traffic.”
“Don't make me lie to the family so soon out of the joint.”
“Fine, I'll tell them myself.”
“Think you already did.”
I turned to stare up at him, both my brows raised as I tried to assess that dodgy look he was wearing. The only disadvantage Harry had with being loyal was that he couldn't hide anything or lie for shit. When I saw his eyes flicker nervously behind him, I knew.
The last thing I remembered doing with any kind of conscious thought was tensing my body ready for an attack while shouting out the word 'bastards' as loudly as I could.
Then everything went dark when a fucking burlap sack was thrown over my head in one swift motion, the string pulled tight enough around my neck so it would stay in place, but not stop me breathing. It stank like rotten shit.
My body jumped forward in the seat, scrambling away to fight off the attack as best I could, but I was as useful as a limp dick in a brothel.
Within seconds, there were more pairs of thick hands grabbing at my skin, my T-shirt and my hair.
Before I knew it, my armpits were hooked and I was being dragged over the seat until my body was dumped hard on the empty floor space behind me.
All the air in my lungs came out in a heavy grunt as I tried to find my bearings and not lash out.
It was only when the rocking of the van started to abate that I allowed myself to just lay there and try catch my breath.
That's when I felt the boot on my chest and heard the creaking of a knee as someone crouched down over me. I was waiting for them to speak, but the sound of Harry's raspy laughter in the front caught me off guard and had me frowning hard.
“Let me hear it, Tucks,” the gravelly voice of the man holding me in place ordered quietly.
“Is this really fucking necessary?” I growled from beneath the open weave material.
“You know the rules.”
“Fuck the rules.”
He didn't answer right away. I knew my response had made him pause for thought and look back at the other guys around him. I could feel the shift in his body weight as he did, the idiot.
Knowing his concentration had slipped so quickly and so easily, I swiped my arm across the floor where he was resting his one good leg and knocked his balance out from beneath him.
The second the fucker crashed to the van’s floor beneath me, I swung my legs up and twisted my body around until I was the one on top of him.
Then I yanked that fucking burlap sack off my head and tossed it to the side quicker than the five of them had put it on.
The others didn't react to the shift in power.
They didn't even react when I leaned over the person who had led them for the last five years and curled my fingers around his neck.
My overgrown hair fell over my face as the slow, sadistic, one-sided smile started to creep up into one cheek.
“If you wanted to hear my call, Jedd, all you had to do was ask.”
Then I raised my chin up to the sky and made that one sound I hadn't been able to make since I walked into prison all that time ago.
I howled.
Because I was back with my brothers again. I was with my pack.
And it didn't take long for the slaps of my family to land on my back before I was tugged and pulled around that van like I was Santa fucking Claus himself.
That was where I belonged. That was what had made it all worthwhile inside.