Gang Up: A Bikerland Novel (10 page)

“Carthage? Your Carthage?”

“Yeah. Shot down. Right there.” He pointed to the road leading into Temple.

“By who?”

“Who the hell do you think?” He shook his head. “I ought to string you up and leave you to dust out in the wastes. He was worth a thousand of you.”

She had expected a response. Her plan was, all along, to make Case so incensed that he would force himself on her—perhaps even in
public
, mmph!—just like Abigail had wanted all along. And in the meantime, she got to hurt Robin, who would spread the message around to anyone who would listen: Case was Abigail’s man, and hell was waiting for anyone who danced with a contrary idea for even a moment.

Robin had hurt Abigail from the second she hadn’t virulently rejected Case’s offer of marriage. The hurt only doubled when Abigail had revealed to Robin the affair between herself and Case.

But this response was more than she expected. It didn’t seem like Case to act so quickly. So rash.

“Case did this? My Case?”

It didn’t seem possible. Case was a cautious player of the game, examining all the angles. He would act with vast speed when he had to, but at the same time, suddenly attacking one of Brall’s men was an enormous gamble. Sure to start a war.

“Who else would have ordered it? The men rode through here and killed Carthage like some dog in the street.”

“But you’re sure it was Case?”

“It doesn’t matter if it was that sumbitch or some other. Your Family’s all together, aren’t they? They told me over and over. An attack of one was an attack on all. Well, they attacked me, and that’s an attack by all.”

But who would want a war with a man like Brall
?

“Yeah,” said Brall, “you think about it until it all makes sense. Tell me if you come up with something. Meantime, you and me are going underground until nightfall.”

“Underground?”

“We got a sort of bunker. Little secret of ours. Found it underneath one of the shanties when we cleared them away. Ain’t you people ever do any salvaging of your own damn town?”

Despite Brall’s teasing, the bunker was in fact new—built by his men. It descended through an opening in the false bottom of a shack, and was wide enough for three bikes to ride side by side.

Some minutes later, Brall pushed Abigail down the ramp into the bunker. There were other women and men down there already. The women performing their functions—gathering ammunition and preparing vehicles for riding.

The floor was solid dirt. The only surfaces to rest on had been brought in from above, but there was no stone or steel to support the sides or the people inside. Wood planks held up the earth, sometimes reinforced with a pole here and there, but mostly wood. More of a mine shaft than a bunker—nothing like what the Compound boasted. In the Compound, the lights were pure electric, run by a generator deep inside the bunker; one of the most heavily guarded places in the entirety of Temple.

Here, all the lights were gas or oil. Lamps and open flames were common, even around the weapons and ammunition.

Abigail couldn’t be here. She couldn’t be stuck in a bunker with Brall. How was she supposed to go to Case—to gauge his reaction, to make her see how badly he needed to be with her? To know the
jealousy
she had caused, wasn’t that what this was all about?

There was nothing Abigail wanted more than for Case to burn for her the way she burned for him. She might have been gang banged, “indoctrinated,” but every cock she took in her was only ever Case's. Every single hot, throbbing, huge meaty rod was his to her. Entering her mouth. Spraying in her throat. Layering her pussy with white hot loads. Emptying into her asshole. It was all Case. All him. She didn't care about the reality—she made her own reality. Everyone did.

Once she returned to him, she knew that his jealousy would be raging. He'd be taken over with possessive needs. She had little doubt that Case would take her on the spot. No matter who was watching. Bend her over, slap her ass, tug at her hair in that perfect way he did, calling her name and making her call his. He would shove his huge cock
right
inside her tight needy cunt, where so many other men had now been, but only he truly belonged.

“
Who the fuck owns you?” he growled in her ear.

“
You do!”

“
Who is your mate?”

“
You are! Oh, my love! My love! Only you! Only you...”

The thought left as unbidden and as sudden as it had arrived. There an instant and then gone again. The things he’d made her promise when they'd fucked in the past—what he had made her
say
...she would make him live up to all of it. That was certain. She would make sure he never, ever forgot what he had wanted from her. What she had promised that only he would ever hear, ever know, ever own.

There wasn't a bone in her body that could consider Case ever doing anything else but taking her again. He was
made
for her, and she for him.

Brall led her through several areas, having to duck through most of them. He was too big for the bunker and it showed. He was too big for any enclosed space, a titan among men. As much as Abigail absolutely adored Case, and loved being with him, even she had to admit that Brall’s prowess as a lover was rather...pronounced.

They arrived in a small room—again, far too small for Brall—with a table. Papers lined the walls; contracts and maps, pinned with small metal stakes into the wood.

“Sit,” he said.

She did. Planning all the while.

“You and I need to come to some sort of understanding,” he said. “You’re crazy as a bat and I know it. I don’t care if nobody else does. And I know that my man wouldn’t be dead right now if it weren’t for you. But I can’t
kill
you, like you deserve for that, because you’re our property now. Precedent.” He sniffed. “There ain't no discipline without precedent, and as such you can't have good discipline by setting bad precedents. So. We're gonna to talk about how to unfuck your head as best as possible.”

This wasn’t really the conversation Abigail wanted to have.

“There’s probably a whole lot of men out there hoping to kill you,” she said idly. One finger came up underneath her lovely chin. “A real man would go out and meet the enemy head on, don’t you think?”

He laughed. “Time enough for that later. There’s no worse strategy than an abandoned one. Now, listen. I’ve got a few jobs for you. Things to keep you busy, all right? I’ll even let you choose which one is best for your temperament.”

Maybe she could seduce him, she thought. Promise him herself, and Robin too. That was one thing she had over him—she knew all about his dirty secret with Robin.

“You can’t keep me here.”

Brall laughed. He stopped, realizing that she wasn’t laughing, and then he laughed again.

“Of course I can. You serious?” He leaned back in his chair. Even sitting, his head was only a foot or so from the ceiling. “Of course I can.”

“You can’t keep me down here like this. You can’t.”

“I can do anything I like, girl.”

“I’ll fucking rip your guts out. I want you to know that. I’ll tie you up by them and see how you like it.”

He shrugged. “Guts are slippery. Easy for a man to slip from. I’d use rope if I were you. There’s better ways to torture somebody. Our man Carbunkle knows them. You want me to get him? You two could have a talk. Hey!” he shouted out the door.

“Stop it.”

He would do it, Abigail knew. All she needed to give him was the excuse.

“I can get him.” Brall pointed. “That guard there? He’ll get him in no time.”

“You made your point. Stop it.”

“You still gonna kill me?”

“Of course I am. Are you serious?” She tilted her head. “Of course I am. The second you let your guard down.”

“My guard’s been up my whole life, sister. How do you think I run this place?”

“Is it through fucking my best friend?”

“What?”

Abigail smiled indulgently. Now she had him surprised.

“You’re fucking Robin. I know it and you know it.”

She spread her legs now, sliding her tight jean-clad limbs on his desk, rolling her head back. “Did you enjoy it, last night? Fucking me? You took so many turns on my body. In my mouth, and then my pussy, then my mouth again...” She licked her lips, moaning just slightly. “You’re a real beast, Brall. Even I didn’t think you would last so long. But you came in me more than anyone else. You didn’t need to, though, did you? Not to prove you were on board. You could have walked away after one.”

“I was...I wanted to teach you a lesson.”

“About what a good fuck you are?” She giggled. Legs spreading wider now. “Message received. Lesson learned. Do you think you could own Robin and me both? We could each be on our knees, slobbering over that thick knob of yours, taking it in like it was God. What would that be like for you? Were you trying to fuck me into submission?” A hand came down to her nipple, tweaking it. She was exciting herself, being this way. “Do you want to find out if it worked, Brall? Sir?”

He wasn’t flustered. That was the wrong word for it. But his face had reddened with desire, and those sexy muscles in his neck and shoulders were bulging. He clearly wanted her.

“You are crazy. You’re so crazy I might even think you mean all that.”

“Come find out, why don’t you?”

She spread her legs out all the way, practically doing the splits on her chair, dipping her fingers inside her slit through her pants.

“Come on, Brall. Come fuck me again. Robin will never have to know. I know you want to.”

He stood up, approaching her slow.

“How many women have you broken entirely? How many became just plain, boring, predictable little tarts after you had them a few times? I bet they fell all over themselves trying to be complacent and good for you. But that’s not what you
really
want, is it? Is it
truly
? Robin’s a good girl, and sooo pretty, but she’ll need to learn to be a little more crazy to be the kind you want, won’t she?”

His hands were on her now. Sliding over her throat, her breasts. She would fuck him to exhaustion. She didn’t care. She could last longer than him—she had proven that just the night before.

And then she would kill him.

“I could
teach
her what you really need.” She stared at him soulfully. “Wouldn’t that be so good for you? I bet you’d
love
that. Two hot babes on their knees...I could hold her head, teach her
really
how to suck a cock right.”

His smile in response was cold, cruel.

And she knew suddenly that any desire he’d seen on his face—while absolutely real—was completely under his control.

They were too much alike to ever really work as any sort of couple. Each wanted total control of the proceedings, even if Robin was perfectly content to top from the bottom.

“Know you why we’re called the Cauldron?” His hand squeezed slowly on her throat.

“No. I don’t care either.”

“You ought to. Considering that’s what you are, now. A Cauldron girl.”

“I am not. It was a game for me. It means nothing. Your indoctrination. It’s nothing. I wanted to get fucked and I got fucked.”

“Really? Is that what your people believe, too? Because they know about it.”

She stayed silent. Thinking perhaps about the same truth that he knew, that the difference between perception and truth was thin indeed, and if a person wanted to stay on one edge of it then they had to be careful never to obfuscate the slightest detail of their lives.

“You tell me. If I can send you out there and you stay alive, if you can not get strung up like the crazy whore you are, I’ll do it. I don’t want your blood on my hands, though. Got enough blood for today. Don’t need a woman’s on it.”

“You don’t kill women?”

He let his hand off her throat now. Point proven.

“I don’t. No. Some of my men do. But only when I tell them.”

“So you do kill women.”

“If that’s how you want to see it.”

“There’s no how to it. That’s how it is.”

“I won’t kill you. ‘Less’n of course you make me. Which you may yet. You’re not all there in the head.”

“Maybe you fucked something out of it.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? To blame me. But it started before me. Before I even wanted you. I wanted you because of how damn crazy you were. I thought maybe if the crazy was turned for me, it could be something. But it’s not for me. It’s for someone else. You, maybe. Though I doubt it.”

“Why?”

“I don’t think you’re the type to get fucked by eight men straight just because you wanted to start a gang war for yourself. There’s something else happening there.”

It was for Case, she knew. All for Case. But she couldn't tell him that. She didn't want anyone new holding that power over her.

“Why, then.”

“Why what?”

“Why are you called the Cauldron?”

He considered baiting her, not telling her. But there had been enough arguing.

“It’s an old sort of pot. Black and iron.”

“I know what it is.”

“It was for cooking, but for big meals. The old ones, you couldn’t break them. They were made to last for centuries. Every type of thing could go inside it, and it’d make one meal. It would cook for the longest time, and hold up under any sort of temperature. Any sort of stress. And in some stories it was made for witches and the like. Magic spells brewing inside. Potions. Black arts. Demon souls mixing with water and fire. All of it held within, and served at the leisure of the maker.”

Her laugh was soft, sort of disbelieving. “And you’re the maker?”

“Girl, if I ain’t him, he better get the fuck out of my way.”

––––––––

T
hough Robin didn’t know it, her own situation was much like Abigail’s across the boundaries of Temple and across again the boundaries of the Compound, in the bunker reserved solely for the Family and its most closely regarded Kin.

Earlier in the day, outside the Compound walls, a crowd had gathered demanding entrance. They wouldn’t disperse until the guards turned their guns on them and told them to get on home before they opened fire. Anybody that was allowed to come into the Compound would be notified, they said, and the best way to be notified was to stay in their homes where they could be found easy.