Page 15 of Savage

Guilt consumes me, twisting my guts like a slab of rotten meat full of hungry maggots. I close my eyes, but I see the two of them burned into the inside of my lids: Prez on top of her, holding her down, his dick slick with blood and spit as he thrusts inside her, again and again, while the woman kicks and bucks her hips, trying to unseat him.

I’ve seen violence. I’ve lived and breathed it since I was a baby. I’ve been shrouded in hurt, and pain, and other people’s anguish for the longest time that I dared to think I was immune.

I’d thought I was safe from it. But no one in the club is ever safe; no one ever would be. Because the second you let your guard down, some motherfucker’s gonna seize the opportunity to fuck you over. Especially those closest to you. Especially those you trusted.

Prez gives one final thrust, groaning as he rides out his orgasm, and sags on top of her. Beneath his bulky frame, the girl trembles. Her breathing is too shallow, too stunted. Prez rolls off her and stands, zipping up his leathers. He pulls a pack of smokes from his pocket and lights up. The acrid stench of tar and nicotine burns my nostrils. The contents of my stomach threaten to make a reappearance.

Prez takes the few short steps towards me and glances down at my unsheathed knife that had fallen on the floor during the scuffle with Tank. He bends down and scoops it up, turning it over in his palm, testing its weight. He thrusts it towards me, just missing my arm. I don’t flinch; of course I don’t. Flinching would make me a pussy, and I am a lot of things, but a pussy isn’t one of them.

“You got some geriatric condition I don’t know about, kid?” he asks.

I don’t respond because I know there’s more coming, and truth be told I don’t know if I can speak without losing my shit altogether.

“’Cause I can’t figure how your knife came to be on the floor, at my back.”

He holds the blade out, and I gingerly take it from his outstretched hand. It would be so easy just to flip it around in my hand and drive it into his stomach, but with Tank here I’d be dead within seconds. You don’t betray your brotherhood, and you sure as shit don’t fucking drive a knife through the belly of your prez for a bitch you hardly know. I sheath the knife and glare at him. He pulls the cigarette from his lips, and a long cylinder of ash falls away to nothing, dispersing into the air around us. Prez grabs hold of my arm, yanking me towards him and pinning my elbow in a lock that could see him breaking it if I were to try and twist free. He watches my face, grinning like a madman as he pushes the lit cigarette into my flesh at the crook of my elbow and drags it upward. White-hot pain sluices up my arm. I grit my teeth, my rage rising, building inside me like a tsunami tide, begging to be unleashed on this motherfucker. I suck in a deep breath through my nostrils, my hands clenched tightly into fists and my skin on fire as Prez draws the lit cigarette up my arm, leaving perfect circular little weals of burnt skin behind before finally stubbing it out in the centre of my bicep, destroying the thick black shading of my eight-ball tat.

Prez releases me. I’m filled with fury and hate and hot, searing pain. Inside, there’s a beast raging in its cage, beating its fists against my meat and bones, demanding to be unleashed, but I stand stock-still, arms fisted loosely at my sides.

“Pull a knife on me again, and I will fuck up every inch of that pretty-boy face of yours,” Prez says. “I won’t leave so much as a centimetre unscarred, you got me, kid?”

“Yeah,” I say through gritted teeth.

“Yeah fuckin’ what?”

“Yeah, Prez. I fuckin’ got you.”

“Good boy.” He slaps my arm in a brotherly gesture, applying pressure over the burning flesh he just mutilated. It hurts like a motherfucker, but I won’t give him the satisfaction of seeing that pain reflected on my face. “Now get this bitch cleaned up for round fuckin’ two. It’s time you showed me where your loyalties lie.”

He brushes past me, out through the door, followed closely by Tank. The door slams closed. The sound echoes through the small unfurnished room, and I stare at the trembling girl my prez left broken on the concrete floor, wondering how the hell I’m supposed to pick up the fucking pieces, knowing all the while that I’d prefer her broken down and bleeding before me, because that’s who I am, the harbinger of torment. Just like my president, just like every other worthless piece-of-shit motherfucker in the world. I am no different from them; I’m just better at playing pretend.

CHAPTER EIGHT

KICK

Istare at the woman. She hasn’t moved since we left the en suite. She stares back, still covering her bruised body with her skinny arms.

“What’s your name?” I ask again, and then pause, giving her a sideways glare. “Your real name?”

“Kayla.”

“You got a last name?”

“Kennedy.”

Fuck. This bitch has been missing for three weeks straight.

“Not anymore. From now on, you’re Indie.”

“My name is Kayla,” she says through gritted teeth.

“Your name is whatever I say it is, you got that?” I snap. “Kayla is dead; I knew there was a reason you looked familiar.”Besides being the spitting image of Lauren, that is. “Your face has been splashed across every paper in the country. You’ve been missing for three weeks. Your family is looking for you.”

She sucks in a sharp, sobbing breath and crouches down on the shitty carpet, collapsing into a ball of shaking limbs and more fucking tears than either of us know what to do with.Christ, even Ivy doesn’t cry this fucking much.

“I just wanna go home, please? I won’t say anything to anyone. I’ll … I’ll pretend I didn’t know where I was. I won’t say a thing about the others. I’ll keep my mouth shut—”

“What. Others?” I demand, stalking over to her side and yanking her up from the floor. I shake her, hard. “What others?”

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