Page 81 of Savage

“Get back here, you fuckin’ bitch!”

I don’t bother looking back. Only forward. I know he’s likely losing a lot of blood as he gives chase again, and for a half-second, I think of throwing him the keys to his bike so he can drive himself to a hospital, but I can’t have him follow me. I need away from that house, away from Tank.

Maybe I’ll find another club that will take me in. Maybe I’ll just wind up on the street turning tricks for drug money, or maybe my father will find me and finally slit my throat the way he threatened to the last time I ran. It doesn’t matter. All that does matter is not bringing them down with me. What matters right now is the teeny, tiny bag of junk clutched firmly in my grasp. I thrust my hand deep into my pocket, so I won’t lose it as I move.

I run until my legs give out. I run long after Killer has stopped chasing me. It’s dark now, and adrenaline is making me raw and exposed. The trees have cleared a little, giving way to dense underbrush that crunches beneath my bare feet. Night has set in thick and fast, and even though I’m sweating, the cold wraps itself around me and seeps into my bones. I sit down on a log and take stock of where I am. Nearby, a stream runs through the bush. I’m dying for a drink, but I’m so exhausted I don’t have the energy to walk there. I really should have planned this better. I should have taken my jacket that I’d shed when I woke earlier, and a couple of Tank’s shitty power bars. Not to mention shoes. I’ve been running through the cold July woods barefoot in only a singlet top, and a pair of jeans for God only knows how long.

I shiver and cast my gaze around in the darkness. The chances of me finding someone else wandering the woods are pretty slim, especially at this hour, but my ears still prick at every tiny sound that echoes through the forest. I don’t really want to spend the night here, but what other choice do I have? I have a set of keys and … the coke. In all the adrenaline-induced fear I forgot the thing I was running for.

The thing I was running towards.

I shift on the log and shove my hand in my pocket, yanking out the keys and closing my fist around the tiny bag. I can’t snort it, I know that much—not unless I want it contaminated with moss and shit from the forest floor. I open the bag and dump it into my mouth. I wince at the sharp chemical taste but delight in it all the same because it’s so familiar. Pushing the powder around as much as I can, I run my coke-covered tongue over my gums and around my mouth. When I can hold it in my mouth no more, I swallow, thrust my tongue into the bag and lick it clean. My whole mouth goes numb.

Moments later, I taste nothing, I see everything, and I feel fucking incredible.

CHAPTER FIVE

TANK

Jesus Christ. I’ve seen some fucked up shit in my time, I’ve done some fucked up shit, but nothing has nor will ever stay with me like witnessing what was on those tapes. I wish I’d fought harder when Kick tried to save his new bitch from my gun. I wish I’d ignored him and riddled her brain with bullets, because anyone who has been through that much torture shouldn’t be left alive to remember it. I know I sure as hell wouldn’t want to be.

I’d taken the videos, pictures, the collection of teeth and everything else we found in that little shrine of fucked up goodness back to the clubhouse for Prez to deal with, and I’d doused every square centimetre of that room of horrors in petrol and thrown the match, torching the place. But I hadn’t left it there, because I couldn’t get the vision of those sick fucks sliding a knife between the ribs of a girl no older than thirteen. Her hair hung limp in front of her face. Her body was covered in shit and blood, but I still saw the nothingness in her gaze when she’d lifted her head to the camera. She hadn’t begged, she hadn’t cried—she wasn’t even fucking there anymore, even though she’d been very much alive. They wanted her to beg, and she wouldn’t. She didn’t say or do anything at all, she just hung there from the Saint Andrew’s cross.

I watched the life slip out of her eyes as the fucking cop jacked off and rubbed his cum into her body, and I thought about Ivy’s past and wondered whether her father had been this kind of monster, or whether he’d played nice. The concerned parent, the man who only wanted her to feel good. Had he pretended that he loved her?Pretendbeing the operative fuckin’ word, because you didn’t love anyone you could hurt that badly. You didn’t destroy what you loved.

I’d been overwhelmed with fucking feelings as I watched that tape, because I knew that though he might not have stuck a knife between the junkie bitch’s ribs, Ivy’s father was every bit as evil as these sick fucks, and no one had been there to save her. When I first met her, I’d thought it was a fuckin’ miracle that she’d survived even one night on the streets all alone. I remember thinkin’ it was mighty fuckin’ stupid of her to be turnin’ tricks out there on her own, but after witnessing the work of yet another sadist bastard, it makes sense to me now. She’d rather take her chances being raped or even fucking offed on the streets than stay with the man who fathered her. I knew one thing—I had to find that motherfucker and put a bullet through his skull. And I would. If I couldn’t do anything else for her, I’d at least do that. When I got back to the house, I’d make her tell me his name, and I’d find him.

I slow as I crest the hill and my headlights bounce off of something in the middle of the road. It’s black and white, some kind of animal, maybe a dead calf. I rev the throttle, prepared to just drive right past, only it moves, and I wind up slowing because animal or not, I can’t let it suffer when it could be put out of its misery.

The closer I get, the more I have trouble comprehending just what the fuck I’m seeing. It isn’t that it’s moving that’s the problem. It’s that it’s a woman lying in the middle of the road. And not just that, but a familiar woman, if the raven hair, the pale white skin and the strung-out expression on her face is anything to go by.

“Motherfucker,” I shout into the darkness around us. It seems to mock me with its silence. I don’t know who I expect to answer. There’s nothing here but a stupid fuckin’ junkie and the arsehole who keeps trying to save her when the bitch won’t save her fuckin’ self.

I pull the bike to a stop and toe the kickstand down. I swing my leg over and crouch down beside her. Tapping her face, I say, “Wake up, you stupid fucking bitch.”

She rolls over, lazily swatting at my hands as I grasp her jaw and punctuate each sentence by tightening my hold on her just a little more. Anger burns through me like acid. “How the fuck did you get out here all alone? Where is Killer? I’m gonna rip that fucker’s head off.”

She moans. Her hair falls away from her face, revealing several scratches over her cheeks and forehead. I slap her, perhaps a little bit harder than I need to. “Ow.”

“Jesus Christ.” I’m half tempted to leave her here in the middle of the road. I must be some sorry-arsed pussy-whipped bastard, because all I want to do is walk away and leave her here—the dumb bitch might finally get what she deserves—but I can’t. “What did you take?”

“Kick?”

“No, it’s not fuckin’ Kick. That bastard helped get you into this, and surprise, sur-fucking-prise, here I am cleaning up more of his fuckin’ mess.”

“You’re not Kick,” she says, as she opens her eyes and tries to focus her gaze. She frowns when she finally sees whose ugly mug she’s staring up at. “You’re the fun police.”

“Yep, that’s me. Sergeant Fucking-No-Fun. Now get the fuck up. I gotta get you home so I can kill that dumb-arsed motherfucker who was supposed to be watchin’ you.”

“He wouldn’t have sex with me.” She complains. The muscles in my jaw twitch and my fists ball at my sides. At least I don’t have to cut off his dick for touching my woman, though I may just do it anyway for giving her drugs. “He told me what you did. You can’t claim me. I’m not your fuckin’ old lady.”

“Shut the fuck up and sit on the bike.”

“I don’t love you,” she whispers. “You make it hurt in ways it doesn’t have to. You make me remember when all I want is to forget. I could never love you.”

“I know.” I clench my teeth so tight my jaw aches. “And I don’t give a shit. Someone has to save you from yourself ’cause you’re too fuckin’ stupid to do it.”

“He’s looking for me. He’s always looking for me, and he’ll find me, and he’ll kill you because you were in the way.”

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