Thrash (2 page)

I made a point to not look back, but honestly, I didn’t have to. That woman was burned into my brain and I wasn’t going to be forgetting her any time soon.

One thing was certain, I wouldn’t be able say no a second time.

***

I held
my head up high as I looked around the table.  Church.  At least that was what we called it.  It was a meeting of the minds, and it was the one place we came to speak as equals before we voted.  

The MC had a leader, but we still had a voice.  

Faces, new and old, greeted me.  Rage, Wrath, Crowe, Mick, Nyx, Jackal, and the prospects.  Our numbers were starting to swell again.  We were rising, a healthy and strong motorcycle club.

“You finally decided to show?”  Rage asked.  The confident way he commanded the men put me at ease.  There would be no chaos here, no constant pissing contests and dumb shit.  Rage was arrogant, and he could be cocky, but he knew what he was about and he was smarter than you’d think.  Man didn’t know algebra from calculus, but he could outmaneuver a college graduate in the ride of life nine times out of ten.  And the floating life?  The one time he might miss?  Well, he knew we’d watch his back – if he’d listen.  That was why ‘church’ was so important.  It helped him – and all of us – get a good hard look at everything.  

No, since Rage had taken over, things had been good.  I trusted my president with my life.

The name of each man who was admitted into the club was carved into the table.  Even those who betrayed us.  We were – all of us – a part of the fabric of the club.  The ones who had betrayed us, though, they were why we were gathered tonight.

A few too many eyes turned to watch me walk in late.  I didn’t want to explain that I had been busy staring at a woman who was too damn stunning for words.  Besides, they’d give me shit about being at an art gallery at all.  So when Mick asked me where I’d been, I smirked and kicked my chair into place.  

“Figured the best thing I could do was keep you on your damn toes.”  It was bullshit, but it was the kind of bullshit every man got.  It meant, butt the hell out.  I’ve earned a bit of room.  

Mick muttered, “Asshole,” and I grinned.

“Ol’ shit.”

It was an old routine.  Throw shit at me, I’d smack it right back.  But there was logic to that method.  Truth was, there was no point in ducking.  Someone really wanted to hit you, they weren’t just going to stop because they missed the first time.  No, I had learned fast: you wanted to make another man back down, you came right back at them, and you made sure you meant it.  If cowards had one thing in common with the shrewd it was a snout for a bluffer.  

My cynicism wasn’t spineless.  I meant it, I fought hard with it, and it had served me well.  If I was starting to get a little tired of never backing down?  That was my problem.  Speaking of problems…

Wrath chuckled at our mouthing and crossed his arms.  Wrath was the new guy, but it was getting harder to remember that.  Rage had recruited him, made him Sergeant-at-Arms, the military man.  We hadn’t always seen eye to eye, but he’d turned out to be good blood.

He was a big man, very… focused.  He wasn’t dumb.  I’d seen him work out how to keep us alive under fire.  That took experience, talent, and loyalty: which pretty much summed the man up.

He was also about as subtle as a dump truck.  “Shut the fuck up and sit down.   I got a woman waiting for me, so let’s get this over with.”

He did, too.  Her name was Emma.  And Rage had Layla.  

Me?  I had an empty bed.  And I wasn’t thrilled with that.

I sat to the left of Rage and grinned like it didn’t bother me at all.

“You ready to shut up and listen?”  Mick barked as he ran his hand over his shoulder, massaging the scar tissue of a freshly healed gun-wound.

We were and did.

Rage stood, his back against the wall that held our mural, our old mural.  The one with a skull and crossbones above the word president.  

“Bones made himself a really fucking public appearance last night,” Rage said.  

Bones.  The old President.  The man who we should’ve been able to trust.  Just thinking about it made me want to spit.  He’d sold us out.  Used us.  We didn’t always walk the line, but trust was an unbreakable oath here.  Bones had gone too far.

“And what did our former leader do to make his presence known?”  I asked.  My disdain was palpable, painting my tongue like tar.  

Many of the men in the room were new.  They didn’t know much about him, except that he had betrayed us.  That he still worked to destroy what they were joining.  And that was enough for them to want a piece, too.  

Well, they’d have to get in line.  I wanted to crush Bones’ skull between my hands.

“He showed up in enemy turf and conducted a raid.  Has a whole new crew.  They’re not us, but they’ll be a problem.”  The vein on Rage’s forehead was practically throbbing.  He wanted the man’s head on a pike just like I did.  Maybe more.

“And where did we hear this information?”  I asked, already doubting the veracity of it.  Rage listened to everything.  He analyzed it, too.  And I provided that extra little bit of doubt he needed.  I was the voice inside that nagged at his mind, at all of their minds.

Rage was the leader.  Mick was gnarled old wisdom.  Wrath was the sledgehammer that passed out the artillery.  I was doubt.  I was skepticism.  I kept us from getting blindsided by bullshit.

We each had our strong suit, and mine was questioning the source.

Rage replied, “Strike.”  

Strike was a displaced mob leader, newly ascended.  I didn’t trust him yet, but Rage had gone with his gut.  He had put a few eggs in that basket and we weren’t ready to lose them yet.  So Rage moved the pieces and I watched the pattern.  If Strike intended to screw us, the only way we would spot it was by taking the risk.  

“He can’t give us much, but he contacted us as soon as he heard about it.”  

“You know his information is good?”  I was the only one who could ask that.  

Rage’s answer put the rest of our crew at ease.

“I trust him.”

Was I the only one who had noticed that wasn’t a straight answer?   Strike had put his life on the line for us on multiple occasions.  He was also our primary source of information.  That was a lot of weight.  

What I wanted to know was whether his information was good.  Strike had been underground for weeks, with barely any connection to the outside world.  His family had been torn apart by a recent bout of infighting.  The mob was fractured, caught up in the chaos.  

What Rage was telling me was that we were going to have to go out on a limb – again.  We were just going to have to trust Strike’s judgment on this one.  

Rage said he trusted the man?  Great.  We all got that.  

But trusting Strike this much?  That was the part I didn’t like.

“So, what do we do?”  Wrath asked, all about the action.  He was a steady guy.  He liked making plans and he did what he said he was going to do.  Rage leaned over the table.  “What we do is we watch.  We wait.  We get him, and his crew.”  He pounded his fist into the table, making a point with his flesh against the grooves of the carved names.

Our names.

We were the ones who remained.  And we would get our revenge.  It didn’t matter how long we had to wait.

Bones would pay.

I was hoping it would be sooner rather than later.

I hopped off the bus and started down the street, turning off 2nd onto Comrie and trying to be inconspicuous in spite of the backpack full of supplies over my shoulder.  The heavy weight of my portfolio dragged at my other arm.

This wasn’t a great neighborhood.  There had been a murder at the corner of 2nd and Comrie just last winter.  And a man had been shot down over a drug deal two weeks back.  Gang wars were common in the area.  For goodness sake, there had been a drive-by at the very address I was going to.

So why was I here?  Because I needed a job.  The call had offered honest work.  It wasn’t my usual thing, but I liked eating.

I’d sold exactly one painting at the gallery.  Granted, the buyer had been gorgeous.   But it was still only one sale.  One sale and a lovely memory.

He had been a smart, sexy fellow with dark, discerning eyes.  Who wouldn’t appreciate that?  

I’d wanted to appreciate it all a little too much, actually.  Wanted to run my fingers through the tight coils of his hair.  The old me would have done it, too, just because she wanted to.  Because she wanted to know how it felt – wanted to smell the spice of his skin.  

That girl had been a silly, spoiled child, though.  She wouldn’t have understood things like racial history or personal boundaries.  

I had been born with power and I had assumed that everyone who didn’t use it too was just lazy.  I had never had to see outside my own sphere of experience.  

Years ago, I would have just walked into that man’s space with a giggle and assumed I had the right – that he’d do what I wanted him to.  Because that was how it always went.  Power wasn’t always easy, and you didn’t always get what you wanted, but you usually got results that suited you.  There was something to be said for that.  

I had given up my right to it, but there were times when I missed bits and pieces.

Which was silly, actually.  That man would not have obeyed the girl I had been.  Maybe that was why I couldn’t forget him.  

He had spoken to me, person to person.  Those eyes had seen me.  He had searched my paintings for their meanings.  There had been something wonderful about it all.  The connection of it.  Even if it was fleeting…

I shivered, suddenly glad we had met under different circumstances.  He would have ignored me.  I still would have noticed him.  I knew it.  He had that aura about him.  Something I didn’t see often.  It would have hurt to be ignored and my mother would have found a way to punish him.  

I would have cried, telling myself that it was because he had deserved it.  But I had never been good at lying to myself for long.  I would know it was because he hadn’t deserved it.  That my mother wasn’t really mad at him.  That she was disappointed in me.  That she was angry at my dad for ignoring her.  Even if they did both have their affairs to distract them, they still reacted to each other by hurting others.

I looked around the street and realized I was finally at a point in my life where I really would rather be here than back in that pretty glass world.  That, even if I never saw him again, it was better that I hadn’t assumed ‘Thrash’ would do what I wanted.

Somewhere in the past two years, I had changed.  I wasn’t that girl anymore.  I understood a little better now that power was a fluid beast.  That it could strengthen or destroy, and that the difference lay in how well one shared it.  That was the difference between a conversation and a monologue.  One required manners.  The other was about as subtle – and enjoyable – as a ball of shit.  Whoever liked having to endure Hamlet’s rambling anyhow?  

No, I’d liked that buyer very much indeed.  But I’d wanted his respect, maybe even his admiration.  

And his money.  Definitely needed the money.  There was a stack of bills piled high on my counter at home.  

But it had been nice, getting to talk to him too.  He had been the only man in there that wasn’t either sneering or leering at me.  Some had dismissed me as “antiquated” – calling me “out of touch” to my face.  Others had objectified me, like that was an improvement.  

Ironic that a man named ‘Thrash’ had been the only one who looked at my art and found value in it.  Maybe that was what had struck me.  

I had been thinking about him all day, nearly missing my stop.

Handsome or not, his check wasn’t going to pay my bills.  And there was still rent to cover.  No, overall the gallery had been a bust.  An opportunity that fell through.  

I needed a real job, and on my current career path, that meant either going work down at the waterfront or take odd painting jobs around town.

I’d rather paint any way I could. It was better than not painting at all.  And the waterfront… It was prettier – a lot prettier – but it wasn’t as lucrative.

This job would pay.  It would pay…

So why couldn’t I breathe?

As I reached my destination, my stomach knotted.  The garage loomed over the street, a big sign with a car on one side and a motorcycle on the other.  

The place was in decent repair, and the lot was clear.  No leering men.  No drunks or half-naked ‘girls.’

The stereotypes of childhood were buried deep.  I took a steadying breath and stood up straighter, if only to ease the weight on my shoulders.

The lady on the phone had sounded nice, said she was the co-owner and secretary, that the project was a “fun” one.

I knew what this place was, though.  It was a garage, sure, but everyone knew that the local motorcycle club ran out of here.  I’d asked around.  They were called Fire and Steel.  I had nothing against motorcyclists in general.  I’d even contemplated buying one – until I saw a friend wipe out.  He nearly died.  It had scared me nearly to death.  

If these guys wanted to risk broken limbs and paraplegia, that was their business.

I’d heard stuff about the clubs, though.  Drugs, human trafficking, all the sensationalist stuff that would get around.  I might have chalked it up to stereotypes too, but I’d also learned that all it took was walking into the wrong place at the wrong time…

My vision blurred, and I focused on setting my portfolio down very slowly and carefully.  The task let me brace my weight on both legs, which in turn kept me from falling over.  

I wanted to trust that cheerful voice, the one that had gotten me down here, but that wasn’t the only voice in my head.

I’d been warned to stay away from this place the moment I got to Braddock.  They’d said the men down here would ‘like a pretty girl’ like me.  Funny, how they’d been after precisely the same thing they’d accused these men of trying to take.

Rich or poor, jackasses were boring.  They all played the game the same way and it was never particularly clever.  

The assholes who had been running their mouths weren’t the ones offering to buy my work – my
actual
work.  Fire and Steel was.

I straightened my shoulders and gripped my portfolio a little tighter, hoping it really was my painting skills they were intending to pay for.  

I also made sure to use some good sense.

I did exactly as the woman on the phone, Layla, told me.  I kept my gaze steady and left the brick building with the bikes alone.  Instead, I “went right on in” to the service area of the garage.  

The place was as busy as anything in Braddock was.  In other words, there were two little old ladies sitting there, waiting for their cars, gabbing on about their neighbors.

They glanced at me, those clever eyes more perceptive than movies ever captured, and I fought the urge to squirm.  I had no idea what to do.  

No one was at the counter, and while I’d storm into the garage if necessary, I was really hoping I wouldn’t have to.  

When there was a clatter of a mug hitting the floor around the corner, I nearly gasped with relief.  I hurried forward, my portfolio banging against my legs and making me awkward.  

As I peeked around the corner into the front desk, a woman with bright orange hair and a painted on smile greeted me.

Papers were spilled around her, and I knelt to pick them up before the spreading coffee.  

“Blast it, I told those boys not to leave their drinks lying around!  Put them on the copier dear.”  She nodded to the papers in my hand and I stacked them as neatly as I could.  

She had the mess mopped up before I could even put down my portfolio to help.  

“Need your vehicle fixed, sweetie?”  she asked, a snarl of paper towels wound tight in her hand, the mug looped through one finger.

“Um, no?  Layla?”  I asked, tentatively.

“Oh no.  That’s my niece.  What are you looking for her for?  Old friend?”  

Listening to her, I realized that, no, this definitely was
not
the woman from the phone.  Years of drinking and smoking had taken their toll on this woman’s vocal cords, leaving her with a warm but jarringly rough voice.

“I’m here for an interview.  I’m an artist.”

“Oh!  You must be Nora Bonnet!  She said you would be coming on by.  Sorry.  Senior moment, you know?”  She nebbed, her smile sudden and genuine enough to put me at ease.  “I’m Donna, honey.  Just let me ring out Mrs. O’Leery, and I’ll escort you back.”

I nodded.  Donna was a very efficient woman.  By the time I negotiated my bag and folio and settled into a chair, she had finished her copies, taken a call, and checked out ‘Mrs. O’Leery.’

“Come on, sweetie!”  she beckoned me cheerfully.

We went down a small corridor to a tiny room.  “Here she is, honey!”  She tapped on the door and headed to the front again, shooting me a tobacco stained but delighted grin.

I leaned in and was surprised to meet my employer.  The woman who greeted me was a natural redhead and much younger.

“Hi, Nora?”

“Yes!  Layla, right?”  

She smiled and cleared her throat softly.  “My aunt Donna told me you mistook her for me.  I don’t know if you realize this, but you just made her decade.”

“How?”

Her smile travelled into her eyes as it dawned on  me.  That call.  I had been too distracted to wonder why Donna had sounded so gleeful on the phone.

“Oh!  Ha!  I’m glad.  She seems nice.”

“She is.”  Layla nodded to my bag.  “Please, take a seat.”

When I talked to Layla on the phone she sounded so sweet, but with it being Fire and Steel, I had not expected her to actually
be
sweet.  I was surprised to find that her eyes were kind.  Observant, but kind.  Looking around, the place was comfortable.  In spite of the garage down the hall, I felt safe in Layla’s office.

It was all so different from the world I grew up in.  The books were battered and well used.  Everything on the desk had its own place, and none of those ‘places’ had been chosen for show.  The garbage can was plastic.  

I don’t know why, but that battered old beige can nearly made me cry.

This place made sense.  There was no bullshit here.  No stiff expressions, no vacant stares.  None of the boredom.  None of the chatter that was both meaningless and far too potent to ignore.  Just ‘honest work:’ record-books and accounts to tally, and I suspected they would balance too, if this was the woman doing checking the numbers.  “Did you bring your portfolio?”  Layla asked, those eyes studying me.

“I did.  I also brought some supplies – paint samples, brushes, I even brought some primer - in case you want me to get started.”  The two cans in my bag were heavy, but it was worth it, to have a few on hand.  The club would need to pay for the rest, but this way, I could get started, instead of sitting around.  

I handed her my portfolio.  I had slimmed it down to include my best pieces, including a photograph of the painting I sold earlier in the week.

Layla seemed pleased.  “You have drive. I like that.”  She flipped through the book, pausing here and there to look a piece over.  “Your work is very realistic.  When I looked through your resume, it said that you had a fellowship with the Braddock Art Initiative.  I expected a more modernist feel.”

I bit back whatever was struggling to come out of my mouth, and took a quiet but very deep breath.  

She didn’t sound disappointed – so when I did finally speak, I made a point address her at face value.  “Part of the reason that they brought me in at the Initiative was because I was so different from anything they had.”  

I did not mention the fact that the Initiative had also hoped that they might benefit financially by taking me in.  After all, wealthy parents tended to indulge their children’s whims liberally so long as everyone got what they wanted in the end.  

My parents had not felt particularly indulgent about that whim.  

Instead of humoring my interests, they had disowned me when they found out I had applied.  It would be hard to say which was worse: my father’s surprise or my mother’s disdain.  

Art had never been an idle interest.  Painting had always called to me.  My father had never paid much attention to it, but he had never hindered me, either.  In his eyes, it was just my neurotic little lady’s hobby.  

My mother had encouraged painting at first, but she had loathed my subjects.  She preferred abstract work – or at least, she liked how ‘enjoying abstract work’ made her look in front of others.