Page 13 of Kick

I don’t know why he’s doing this alone, unless they’re not planning on telling the club anything. Unless he wants my death to be as quick and unmemorable as taking out the fucking garbage. A part of me doesn’t blame him. If I were in his shoes, I’d annihilate me too.

“Quit fuckin’ around and open the door, Kick,” Prez says. Despite the pounding in my head and heart, despite the synapses firing a warning to every single cell in my damn body, I reach for the handle and turn it. Unsurprisingly the door is unlocked, and I’m met with no resistance. I push into the space, with fear and hatred and so much loathing for myself; for my dad being the one to indoctrinate me into this fucked-up family; for Ethan for getting me into this mess; and even for my prez, for getting to be the fucker to end my life with a single bullet to the back of the head and then go home to his loving wife and children.

My life doesn’t so much flash before my eyes as it becomes a slowly spinning cycle of images—my dad’s disappointment, the whore who birthed me lying dead in a pool of her own vomit after ODing, my six-year-old self not giving enough of a crap about her to even pick up the phone and try calling my father. When he’d come to see us three days later I was passed out on the lounge room floor, the remnants of a box of Cocoa Pops littered all around and cartoons blaring. My mother had never liked the TV; not because she thought it would rot my brain, like most other mums, but because she was never sober long enough to understand that what was playing out before her wasn’t real. The first time I’d met Ethan and given him shit about his mum’s prim and proper outfit, I’d copped a blow to the face for that one, and a broken nose. The truth was, I was jealous. I saw how his dad doted on him, how his whole family was this perfect well put-together—albeit mostly outlaw—package that I had never had, and I hated him for it. I’d been looking to stir shit, and stir shit I had. He’d smacked me out in front of everyone at an Angels’ barbeque; I’d repaid the favour. Our fathers had thought it was fucking hilarious, and after the rest of the families had gone home Ethan and I were pulled aside and pitted against one another time after time, the promise of Harley’s and the brotherhood dangled before us like bait on a hook. After that it was flashes of various club whores, stealing shit with Ethan, crashing cars and running riot on a town that held endless possibilities for two wannabe outlaw teenage thugs.

Prez pushes me forward into the room and I’m met with the wall of muscle that is Tank, my brother, the only brother who knows me the way Ethan once did. The only friend I have left in the world, and the only man Prez calls in to do the shit that others won’t. I guess if it has to be anyone, it should be him. Him or Moose. Maybe even both.

Tank stares down at me sympathetically, pressing his lips together, his huge arms folded in front of his chest, he looks hesitant, and goddamn it, this may just be the only time I’ve ever seen him show remorse.

Beyond Tank, I can hear a muffled cry, and I glare up at him then behind me at Prez, trying to figure out what the hell is going on. Both glare back, stone-faced, unrelenting in their fucking crypticness. For a half second I fear the noises might be coming from Ethan. Perhaps they’ve captured him and have him tied up down here too, ready to dish out as much pain to him as to me.

At least I can say assuredly that my dear old dad’s loyalty would never waver. For him it’s always been the club; he could give two fucks about his bastard son. I give a smug nod of satisfaction when I realise this is the one thing my father has wanted since the day I was born—to snuff out the life of his arsehole, good-for-nothing son, to erase all trace of me and his ties to the stupid junkie whore I called a mother. I smile up at Tank because I know that as much as my father has always wanted this, he’ll never be the one to get to do it. And that fills me with a sense of joy and courage that I’ve never felt in my twenty-seven years.

“Well, move out of the fuckin’ way and let the kid into the room, arsehole,” Prez barks, and Tank steps aside to let me see the room beyond him.

In the corner is a girl, definitely not Ethan, but not unfamiliar either. Her long legs are wrapped in leather, she’s barefoot and gagged, and her face is a little banged up, but she still looks every bit as fuckable as she did when I was handcuffed and beaten with a baton by police at her feet last night.

She glares up at me and screams a long line of profanities—at least, I think that’s what she’s shouting behind her gag.

I spin around and glare at Prez. “What the fuck is she doing here? Are you insane?”

My heart is racing now for a different reason. What in the fuck is he thinking, abducting the fuckin’ princess of the Severed Sons and stowing her on Angel property?

Prez shoots me a hard glare and steps out around me, heading for the girl. She shakes her head and yanks on the restraints binding her arms behind her back. Prez pulls his blade from the sheath on his buckle as he approaches her. The girl whimpers.

“Your daddy’s been fuckin’ shit up for me for a long time, sweetheart. Think it’s time I pay back the favour.”

“Prez,” I venture. “She’s got nothin’ to do with it.”

“But she does, Kick. See, Slayer’s been fuckin’ my shit up for too long.”

“She’s innocent.”

Prez stands and whirls around to face me. “This is why I wanted you here, boy, because you’re too fuckin’ innocent. You wanna be worthy of that patch I gave you, then you gotta be willin’ to do whatever it takes to prove you’re an Angel. And Angels don’t let the scourge of the fuckin’ earth dictate what deals they can and can’t make. Angels rise above all those other fuckers.” He smiles at me, and dread creeps its way up my spine. “It’s time to spread your wings, kid. Time to show Slayer what happens when you fuck with Angels. This pretty little bitch is gonna be my plaything, and you and Tank here are gonna watch her for me. Make sure she doesn’t fly the fuckin’ coop.”

Prez hooks two fingers in around her gag and yanks it out of her mouth. She screams, and the bitch has to have the biggest set of lungs on her I’ve ever heard, but it won’t do her any good, not down here.

“Scream all you want, little darlin’. Ain’t no one gonna hear you down here. Except Kick and Tank, that is. Hell, if he’s a good dog, I might even let little lover boy over there have a piece of this fine, sweet arse.” Prez shoves his hand under her arse and squeezes hard. She tries jerking free, but he’s not letting her go far.

“My father’s going to find me and then he’s going to come fuck you up,” she says, and fuck me if I’m not fucking rock-hard by the determined look in her eyes already.

“Hear that, boys? Slayer’s gonna fuck our shit up for hurtin’ his little girl.” Prez grins, and then turns back to the woman. “I’m counting on it, sweet girl.”

He leans in, getting up in her face. I can’t hear what he’s whispering, but I know it’s not good. The girl rears back and head-butts the president of the Angels. The blow makes them both sway. Her eyes gleam with tears. Prez reels back, shaking his head free of the pain, I imagine. For a half-second he just blinks at her, eyes wide, mouth slackened with surprise, and then the tension in the room explodes as he comes up on his knees and backhands her across the cheek. Her head rocks back into the wall so hard that the sound of her skull hitting the brick is audible.

I don’t think; just act.

I lurch forward, but I’m stopped by a wall of muscle.Tank.Tank is standing between me and my prez, between him and the blade in my hand that I have no recollection of pulling. Beyond him I hear her. The sound of a struggle, muffled grunts, the sick sound of flesh pounding flesh, and the terrified shrieks that follow as he lays into her with his fists. The scuffle as she fights to get away from him, and the sobbing that bores through my head like a fucking drill.

Tank eyes the knife in my hand. “You gonna use that thing, brother?” He doesn’t bother to whisper. Prez is otherwise occupied, and her cries prove it.

“Get out of the way,” I whisper, trying to sum up in my head all the ways I could take down the man in front of me. Truth is, if it were anyone else I probably could, but not Tank. No one takes down Tank.

“Think about this, man,” he whispers. “You gonna go up against the prez over some bitch you don’t know?”

I don’t answer, I lunge instead, but Tank is a better fighter than me—he always has been. He’s bigger and better in every way, and I’m caught up in his huge arms as he holds me back and forces me to watch my prez, the man who is supposed to lead us, the man who has been a better father to me than my own, shoving himself inside an innocent girl. A girl I wanted, a girl I had—no, a girl Ihaveto have.

Struggling in Tank’s hold, I scream, and I fight, but I’m as useless as tits on a fucking bull, just like my father told me I was all these years.

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