Break Me Open (14 page)

But this was the man I wanted. This was the body I needed. If there was a future for me, he was my way to it.

I shut my eyes and nestled into him.

My eyes were shut, but I could almost see her walking around the room. I could feel the swell and curves of her little body in the subtle shifts of the air as she tilted her head one way or the other. For the longest time, my enhanced senses had been a curse in civilian life, making me snap up at the slightest irritation. But Katie took my poisons and turned them into salves.

I could spike and almost taste her scent, let that taxpayer funded chemical delivery system flare my senses even further. I didn't need to anymore. I knew her form better than my own by now. I had sniffed and tasted and pinched every inch of that dream to convince myself that it was real.

That I had finally awoken into the world and found this perfect creature waiting for me.

Her breath escaped her in a soft sigh. It sounded like surrender. She could be feisty when needed, but she was just as at ease lying back and letting me take charge. She could whimper and clutch me and play the damsel in distress. As if I had been the one who rescued her.

But rescued her into what?

The Desert Wraiths had been the second tightest brotherhood I had ever known, but it was a long ass second next to my unit back in Special Ops. It was an ok place for me, but no place for a girl like her.

And yet, she had to go there. For the other option involved spilling blood. Blood of my brothers, cause there was no chance I could abide Katie parting with a single drop of hers.

Well, by violence in any case.

There was that grunt humor. The sort of dirty shit we filled the transport with to keep our fear from finding oxygen to bloom. My chest felt that same familiar tightness. Only difference was, now it wasn't for me, but for her. It was the sort of pain that brings you alive. That was the thing about leaving your shell. You find out that you built it up for a reason.

But Katie was more than worth taking a chance on.

To save her, I would have to drag her into the belly of the beast.

She sighed soft again, rubbed that plush skin. I knew she had the strength to handle the club. Endure it for as long as she had to. I'd just have to make sure it wasn't long.

Her feet shushed across the carpet. Her heat wafted around the bed. I almost gasped at the fresh scent of her. Like I was some animal in heat. Maybe I was, but this girl was more than just a flash in the pan. She was a campfire, an engine, a nuclear reactor. We were both broken, but deep down we both had amazing power. She was making me see that. Once this whole mess was sorted out, we would make each other whole again, and find a life worth living.

Her hand graced my leg, small and curious. Her breathing stalled, quickened. I couldn't help but smile. Her body glowed with heat, and she buried herself under the blanket with me.

She would have to come deeper into my world to stay safe.

I reached out and clasped one of her smooth legs. Her mouth gaped into my ear.

She would have to trust me more than she might have ever trusted anyone.

I grabbed her butt and yanked her flesh against my vast plains of muscle. She yipped and her body pulsed heat even harder.

She needed to become mine.

I pulled myself onto her, crushed my lips to hers and drove into her.

And me? I needed to prove myself worthy of her. This night, tomorrow and every moment that came after.

She deserved that. So did I.

The engine cut off under me. The silence that followed held the weight of the world. My world, at least.

We were parked in front of the club bar and it was my first time seeing it in the daylight. I’d been stressing about how I’d feel at the sight of it, but now that I was here, it didn’t amount to much. Maybe it was cause the place looked run down. It was a weathered brown building which looked like an over-enlarged shack. A square sign out front read The Oasis in cracked blue paint.

We stopped on the edge of the stamped dirt between the road and bar. Ghost parked his tan chopper right by the line of black choppers, gleaming under the mid-day sun. He tried to help me off but I hopped down on my own. No use making his job harder. I needed to show I could belong in this club.

The same club whose standing orders were to see me dead.

"Wait here," he said. He squeezed my shoulder, but a bit hard. Like he'd have preferred to pack me into a cube and carry me in his pocket.

As he started across, the front door peeked open. A stocky guy in a mustache brushed through and then leaned himself on the wall next to the door. Another guy joined him and took the other side. Ghost stopped. If he was nervous, he didn't look it, but his hand stayed by his waist. He could pull out his gun and send those two slumping on tracks of their own blood before they saw sunlight glint off his barrel.

Other faces joined them in the shaded windows. No one had a gun drawn yet. I took that to be a good sign.

The door flung open and a compact, chestnut-skinned man in club colors strode out. His eyes held no shades, just a stern look. His shaven face sat dipped in a frown. He stopped nose to nose with Ghost. Even though his only came to Ghost's shoulder, he peered up as if that were an irritation and not a disadvantage.

I remembered him. Nico, the club president. I could see why now. If even Ghost didn't quite impress him, what would he make of me?

He peeked around Ghost's massive frame and shot me a look that said I wasn't off to a great start.

"I take it she's not a gift," he said to Ghost.

"Letting you see her is gift enough."

Nico manage to chuckle without dropping the frown. "Christ, Ghost. I would never have guessed that a little pussy would be what came between us."

"It's not her pussy. It's her heart. I want it to keep beating."

"That's the condition for keeping you around?"

Ghost rolled his shoulders lazily as if they were negotiating a used car. “It’s the condition for keeping us all around."

Nico's eyes flared. Just for an instant, but I had seen that look plenty of times working at a clinic. That was fear.

"I know that wasn't a threat pendejo." His voice boomed louder. I wondered how much of this was show for the people watching.

"It's not a threat, boss," Ghost said. "I'm just telling you the situation."

"Well, let me tell you the situation we're looking at. I got all sorts of cops sniffing around here, asking about you. Asking about the guy you killed."

"The guy
you
had me kill."

"That's the one. And I don't care how tight that little pixie over there is. I don't care if you got your dick in her all day. She saw what happened and she's not one of us. "

"That's what we came here to fix."

Nico's frown deepened. I fidgeted and hoped I hadn't already ruined everything by standing here all meek. Maybe I should be up there swearing at him. I wasn't sure I swore at anybody though.

Though I had found a few reasons to swear to the walls and ceiling in that motel room the past couple days.

"She's a city girl," Nico said. "Look at her. No desert grit."

"I have looked. Much closer than you. She's solid as a mountain on the inside. She'll take what she has to. She's loyal even when she has no cause to be."

"That's a lot of words to say you two been at it like rabbits."

"I wouldn't be standing here if it weren't for her.

"No, you wouldn't." Nico jabbed a hand back at the bar. "You'd be in there with your brothers."

Through the anger, I could see a flash of pain. The man might prefer me not breathing, but he was no monster. I threatened his family. I'd already taken away the guy he relied on most.

"I would be with my brothers. But not there." Ghost spat at the earth. "That's the ones I'd be with."

"What?"

"I ain't what you think I am, Nico. I'm no god. I should have died with everyone else at the motel."

"You weren't shot," Nico said, looking him over again, unsure.

"I shot myself. Full of my chems. Too much. I would have fallen apart if I hadn't stumbled to Katie's house. If she hadn't dosed me with downers instead of calling the cops."

Nico's eyes fell on me for only the second time, narrowed again, but not in hatred. He was trying to see who I was. I nodded, hoping I was reassuring him and not confirming a flaw.

The president went back to Ghost. His eyes stopped on his jacket, right where that little patch that said "Vice-president," hung right above one of the ghostly arms of the club emblem. He nodded, as if believing what he read.

"She did you a solid. Now you're telling me she'll do one for us?"

"She's on my side. I'll be on yours. We'll both be there, keeping your secret, keeping the Wraiths riding."

Nico's head bobbed, but he wasn't looking at either of us. I didn't like that. It meant he was thinking. "Ok, then I’ve got terms. She joins right now."

It was just a twitch, but I saw Ghost's arms go more rigid. "Nico..."

"Nothing loco. I'm just respecting your wishes. You say she'll ride on our wind. Alright. Then she gets marked as one of us from now on." Nico looked at me. "She gets her ink, right now."

My ink?

Nico's eyes weren't augmented but they were keen in their own way. He saw right through to my mind. His hand absently scratched at the star tattoos running down his neck.

Ink.

"She doesn't need that." Ghost growled.

"Her word ain't worth shit to us yet. So how else do we make her ours? This way, she talks, she rots with us."

Ghost turned to join Nico's continued appraisal. His dark look softened, lifted in a question. It was my turn to read minds, but this was simple.

Should I start killing people?

"No," I came forward. "It's fine. It's fair. I'll get ink."

Ghost cupped my shoulders as I drew near. Those hands had the same soft strength that had assured me and thrilled me while we hid and planned and loved. But now I eased out of them. I walked right past the two men and toward the battered wooden door leading into The Oasis.

If this was my choice, then I was going to make it boldly. No more hands saving me.

"Who's got ink?" I said to the watching windows as I stepped in.

The inside hung dark and sticky like a tropical forest. It stank of beer and smoke, and the little sun that got in didn't make things much prettier. A sea of bearded and leathery faces studied me.

These are my people now,
I told myself. I have to believe these are my people.

I have to make them believe
.

I forced myself to drown my own emotions and meet their eyes. I wasn't really here. It was just my eyes taking in the scene. It was a technique I'd learned in the clinic, but it worked equally well here

A woman pushed through the crowd. She had blonde hair that hung in a bleached bun like shredded dough, a ripped white tee, tattered jeans and a tired look. But she was at least another woman in this cloud of testosterone and I loved her for it. Then I noticed she held something sharp, and froze. After the first burst of panic left me, I realized it must be for tattoos.