Chapter 22 Darla
Darla
Iwoke up face-down on what felt like a rubber mat, with my wrists tied so tight I half-expected to look down and see a couple of severed stumps where my hands used to be.
Instead, I got zip-tie welts and the special humiliation of having my church dress bunched up past my thighs like I’d just tripped over a communion table in front of the whole congregation.
It was pitch-black except for the slats of headlights that slithered through rust holes in the floorboards.
The air reeked of spilled gas, industrial solvent, and something sharp and biological—maybe me, maybe the last girl who rode in here.
The back of the van jerked and shuddered over potholes.
Every time it hit a bump, the plastic ties bit deeper.
Above the rattling engine, I could hear two voices: Bart the Hammer behind the wheel, and Sarge riding shotgun.
Their conversation was the kind of shit you expect from men who use “merchandise” and “girls” in the same sentence and don’t mean Barbie dolls.
“Rev wants all the product east of Evansville by Friday. He’s not fucking around, Sarge,” Bart said, voice all gravel and menthol.
Sarge’s reply was pure utility. “Long as we don’t have to babysit the special cargo more than necessary. Bitch tried to scratch my face off with her toenails last stop.”
“Next time, just drug her heavier,” Bart grumbled. “She’s worth more with a pulse, but Rev’ll make exceptions for attitude.”
The “bitch” was me. They’d tried to knock me out with some kind of bitter pill, but I was a pastor’s kid, and I’d watched enough CSI reruns to know how to spit, cough, and fake a blackout.
The pill was still hidden under my tongue, slowly dissolving a chemical burn into my gums. Every time the van hit a sharp left, I had to fight to keep from choking or just giving up and swallowing it.
But I needed my senses if I was ever gonna make a break for it, and if there was one thing I was good at, it was not letting men get the last word.
I listened and memorized. They’d been on Route 62 for at least an hour; I’d counted the mile markers through slivers of dirty window.
Sarge had called in a checkpoint just before we crossed into Posey County.
I could do math, even drugged out of my skull.
The Indiana state line was close. They didn’t bother hiding their plans because they figured I’d be dead or disappeared by Sunday.
Joke was on them, my father had spent twenty-three years telling me I was too dumb, too soft, too naive to survive outside his cage, so I’d trained for this my whole fucking life.
More from Bart. “Heard they’re moving the warehouse. Cops got spooked after the raid last month.”
“Let ‘em come,” Sarge said, and I could hear the smile in his voice. “Maple’s got the entire city council in his tithe book. Anyone with a badge gets a cut, and anyone without gets a bullet.”
I pressed my forehead to the rusty wall.
The metal vibrated in rhythm with the engine, but the inside of my skull was even louder.
I remembered my father’s hands on my shoulder, guiding me through the church foyer, introducing me to parishioners as his precious angel, all while feeding runaways and junkies through a pipeline of exploitation.
I used to think maybe the Lord didn’t care, that maybe this was just how things worked if you were born female and unlucky.
Sarge turned up the radio. Classic country, low and staticky. I could almost imagine him in a different life, bitching about weather and traffic like a normal person. Then he started talking again. “You think this one’s gonna last? Last girl didn’t even make it to Louisville.”
Bart’s laugh was dry as dust. “This one’s got fight. If she keeps her mouth shut, maybe she ends up in accounting or some shit. If not—well, she’s easier to bury than to train.”
I considered my options. There weren’t many. Maybe if I got my hands free, maybe if I could get to the cargo doors while the van slowed, maybe if—
The van swerved hard right, nearly tossing me into the wheel well. Bart cursed. I caught, through the window, the flash of a motorcycle headlight weaving in the darkness. And another. Then two more, tighter formation than any Highway Patrol I’d ever seen. The roar of engines was deafening.
“Motherfuckers!” Bart yelled and punched the accelerator. The van lurched forward, tires shrieking on old blacktop.
Sarge rolled the window down and fired a warning shot with his sidearm, but the bikes didn’t even flinch.
If anything, they closed in, boxing the van between steel and chrome.
A Harley on the left—custom paint, the words ROYAL BASTARDS MC hand-lettered under a spread-winged skull.
A woman might have called it a beautiful bike, but all I saw was purpose.
They started ramming, first gentle, then harder. Each hit sent shudders through my bound arms and made Bart scream new profanities.
“Fucking Axel!” Sarge hissed, ducking his head as a windshield spiderwebbed from a bullet or maybe a brick. “How the fuck did he find us?”
Bart took a hand off the wheel long enough to grab his own gun. “Doesn’t matter. Kill the lights. Hit the cutoff.”
We barreled into a patch of highway so dark I thought for a second I’d gone blind.
My teeth rattled from the impact as we hit a road divider, but Bart kept it straight enough to avoid flipping.
The bikes dropped back, then all surged at once—one in front, two to the sides, one tailgating so close I could see the rider’s bandana and sunglasses even in the night.
Someone outside started firing—real bullets this time.
I heard the ping and crunch of metal, the splatter of what could have been tire rubber or bone.
Sarge yelled, “Hit the ditch!” and for a brief, glorious second, I imagined they were planning to dump me and run.
Instead, Bart gunned it again, veering toward a gravel embankment at seventy miles an hour.
The van was never meant for this kind of abuse.
Time did that weird, syrupy thing it does when you’re about to die.
I saw the whole world in strobe: Sarge firing wildly, the side mirror shattered, a biker reaching with a gloved hand to smash the passenger window.
Inside, I wriggled until the skin of my wrists split, blood wet and slick.
If I could just get one knee up, maybe I could kick—
Gunfire exploded inside the van, so close it left my ears ringing.
The next thing I knew, the back tire blew out and the van did a three-sixty before tipping like a beached whale, crunching onto its side.
My head slammed into the wall. The bitter pill finally shot down my throat, but it didn’t matter because I was already choking on blood and adrenaline.
The last thing I saw before the lights went out was a biker’s helmet, painted with a crude halo and the words REBEL ANGEL, staring through the splintered rear window like some fucked-up Christmas miracle.
I passed out, but I did it smiling.
***
The sound that woke me was gunfire—a short, percussive rattle that vibrated through the van’s crumpled skeleton and into my ribs. For a second, I thought I was dead, and this was the soundtrack of Hell. If so, Hell smelled like brake fluid, piss, and the coppery tang of my own blood.
My right eye was swollen. My wrists were now a solid, raw circle of white-hot pain.
I was twisted sideways, bent over a wheel well, and when I inhaled, it came out as a wheeze, like someone had deflated my lungs for sport.
The van rested on its side, nose buried in a drainage ditch.
Every few seconds, a shadow crossed the cracked window, and I heard more gunshots—some distant, some so close the glass shivered.
I tried to move and screamed. Not out loud; I was way past wasting my voice. But inside, everything shrieked: my arms, my ribs, my scalp where a patch of hair had gotten yanked free. I kicked at the cargo doors with both feet. Once. Twice. My left shoe slipped off and clanged to the metal floor.
Outside, the night howled with the chaos of men killing each other.
A face appeared at the window, upside-down and ghost-white in the moonlight.
I thought it was the angel of death, but then the head ducked, and I recognized the chain-link tattoo curling around Vin’s throat.
Royal Bastards, President in the flesh. He shouted something I couldn’t hear, then ducked away as another round of bullets spattered the panel near my knees.
Through the side window, I caught the flicker of fire.
Not a literal flame, but the orange glare of motorcycle headlights, wheeling in a tight circle around the ditch.
A black-helmeted rider crouched behind the trunk of a downed tree, firing methodical shots toward the ruined nose of the van.
A second biker—Moab, by the silhouette—sprinted in a crouch, shotgun raised like he was going duck hunting instead of facing down two armed psychopaths.
Bart and Sarge hadn’t gone down easy. Even through the ringing in my ears, I could hear Sarge’s voice. “Come on, cowards! This is God’s work!” It was followed by a volley that left a neat row of bullet holes in the side of the van, each one shivering closer to my face.
I kicked again, this time with everything left in my system.
The pain was mind-erasing. I think I pissed myself, but I couldn’t be sure—the whole world was liquid now, red and brown and streaming down my thighs.
My heel caught the edge of the cargo latch and, with a crunch and a metallic shriek, the door buckled open a few inches.
Light flooded in, blinding after so much darkness. The smell changed: hot asphalt, oil, gunpowder, the clean sweat of hard men in motion. A gloved hand reached through the gap and wrenched the door wide.
Axel.