Break Me Open (4 page)

A roar of laughter went off in the bar, flared me with irritation. They wanted war, but they wanted pleasure too. You couldn't have both. They wanted discipline and they wanted to remove the only enemies they had left. Couldn't have those two either.

I tried to think of the girl, her big white amber eyes, lit in my vision not like a deer, not like prey. But in wonder.

Another roaring laugh set off. No sleep until that ended. I chucked on my jeans and stormed out across the desert.

I slammed open the club door and a dozen faces looked my way, half between a laugh.

"The fuck's so funny?" I asked.

"Just celebrating, man," Canyon said. "You should too. Twist and Stick are back."

"They're done cleaning?"

"Stick's heading back out to get the car. But Twist is uh...gonna deal with the trash."

They would have dumped trash. I narrowed my eyes at him. "Start making sense."

"There was a girl, watching. Can't leave witnesses right? So he brought her back to teach her some, uh, etiquette. Took her out back."

My hands went still. "Where?"

The room loomed around me empty and wooden like a coffin. If only I was alone in it.

The man called Twist was emptying his pockets out on a chair. His greasy face sneered at each item like it was a discovery. I watched numbly, clinically, as if this were happening far away and to someone else. That’s how I’d survived the tough practicals in veterinary school. Maybe I could survive this too by going somewhere far away.

The other gnarly biker had grinned and promised I was going to get educated. You didn’t educate someone you were going to kill. He’d dropped the body off to a couple guys who’d looked at me like I was a new toy. Twist had dragged me past a dark ranch house of a bar and dumped me in this shack off to the side.

I tried deep breaths, but a powder hung in the air. I couldn't help myself. I sneezed.

"Bless ya.”

"Ok," I said. The sound of our voices warped back into the room. I could feel my heart begin to bubble, and tried to stay cool. “Hey, can you take me back? I get it. You guys are tough. I won't say anything to anyone."

"We ain't that tough, sweetie," Twist said. "You might think we're hard after what you seen tonight, but we're all fluff and marshmallow deep inside. Well, most of us."

The panic loomed over me like an oncoming wave, but I fought it back. If I stayed busy there wouldn't be room for fear. I searched furiously for some connection. Empathy was the key to getting people to listen. I’d learned that from work, too. I needed a lot of it to convince people their little buddy was better off resting for good. 

Maybe it work the opposite way too. I just had to find what mattered.

"That guy," I said. "He was in your gang."

"Hell no." Twist reared up and spit right on the floor. "He ain't one of us. And we ain't no gang, neither."

"So he was in a rival...biker group?"

"Word's 'club', honey." He leaned in over me. "We'll get to that."

My heart pounded and I felt the panic tinged with the cotton mouth and headache of my hangover. I couldn't break down. If I broke down I was just meat to this guy.

"So he was a rival club. He messed with you."

"Fucked us over, yeah."

"He's not a good guy."

"No, definitely not."

"Alright, so he's dead." I made out a big shrug. "Why would I report it? What do I care?

Twist stood and nodded to himself a bit. "Yeah, who gives a shit if another biker dies."

"No, that's not-, " I started, before realizing he was just trying to throw me. "Ok, yeah, another biker dies. Who cares. Good people die all the time, and they didn't deserve it either."

His eyebrows came close. "Oh yeah, you know about death huh? You a doctor or something?"

The guy was not dumb. I wasn't going to tell him that I was an orphan. That the only person who'd look for me was probably passed out. I sank deeper into the lie. "Yeah."

"Well, let's take a look huh?" He dug into my purse, next to the chair with his stuff. My heart pounded in my chest, but with more purpose than fear. I realized I could just run up and knock him out right now. If I was 100 pounds heavier, not hung over and had my hands untied.

"Oh yeah, there we go." He held up my school ID. "Katie Phillips. That's a pretty name. They seem to have your job down wrong, honey. They think you fix dogs."

I flapped my mouth aimlessly. I was out of wit. The bright yellow bulb was killing my eyes. I could feel the panic taking over the vacuum my mind had left.

"What do you want?" I asked.

"Oh, are we done with the part where you're being brave?" My purse flopped limp on the floorboards. "Damn, I like my girls feisty."

He pulled up the chair and sat down before me. I peered up as defiantly as I could, but the panic grew as his sour breath sank onto me.

"We're going to have a little talk. See what you saw."

"Nothing."

"You know you talk too much to suddenly act dumb." 

He stroked my cheek. His hands felt like alligator skin.

"Then we figure out what's a fair exchange. We see how much you owe us."

"Money?"

He licked his cracked lips. "I accept all sorts of payment."

Rape. Rape was going to buy my silence? Or was it just going to come before a more permanent silence?

His hand cupped my face, and his eyes fell unashamed to my chest. I had always taken comfort in my ample body. Even when I had lingered, depressed at home it held its shape. But now it was fuel for even more sadness.

"Actually," he said, without lifting his eyes. "Maybe you should show me exactly what you have to offer."

"I have money in my purse."

"Oh we'll get to that." His hand cupped my breast. I closed my eyes. 

Focus on the headache. Focus on the pain. Don't cry. 

 My heart pounded in my skull. Twist's other hand found me and I focused even harder.

The door burst open.

"The fuck you doing?"

That thundering voice. I opened my eyes. The man who had killed filled the door, his dark jacket flapping over a bare, rippling chest. His eyes shone past Twist straight to his hands on my body.

"Just having a little discussion."

"Then use your mouth."

Twist stood, and the absence of that awful heat on my body had me shivering. "Fuck's your problem? You wanted me to clean up. I'm cleaning up, so leave me."

The killer moved into the room and the light seemed to dim, as if his body had been keeping it from leaving. He stood not much higher than Twist, but everything else marked him as something else. His hair was buzzed short. His body could pack in twice of Twist’s. His face glowed and showed history, but it wasn't the leather hide that Twist and his cleanup buddy had. The man standing before me had a rough life, but he was a different animal than Twist. What did they call him again?

"Ghost, just get out of here." Twist backed up almost on top of me.

Ghost. I remembered his eyes glowing against the darkness.

"Thanks for the help," Ghost said. "I'll take it from here."

"Like hell you will."

Twist's arm swung up like a piston, but where there had once been Ghost's face, there was simply air. No, that wasn't right. I had seen him step back, but it seemed so calm, so careless. It was like he had just drifted.

Twist stumbled forward and Ghost grabbed his arm. "Thanks for cleaning. We're even now," he said. Twist smacked the wall as Ghost spun him around. He was sent stumbling out the door.

Ghost shut it and looked down on me. His eyes were a rich ocean blue, but they were just that. No glow to them now. No cold, no warmth.

"Are you alright?" His voice was soft but rang within the wooden walls.

"Yes, thank you."  I shouldn’t be. Twist was a rat, but this guy was a murderer. He was a biker just the same and his jacket spelled it out in flame decals. His eyes though, regarded me blankly without any other motive. I felt at peace just looking in there.

He helped me up. My head came up barely to his shoulder. My blood drained from one part of me to another and I swayed. I nearly put my head down on that vast chest. Then, I remembered I'd seen those muscles help bury a knife in a man's throat an hour ago.

"Tell me what you know," he said.

I started telling him the same spiel I'd given that slimy brother of his, about how I didn't care about the dead guy. I was tired of games, and I was starting to believe my words even. 

Ghost listened until I ran out of words to say I wouldn't tell anyone what I saw.

"And what did you see?"

Up close, those eyes were luminous. No, I had actually seen them change just now, lit up by something inside. Not with that other world glow I'd seen before he killed, but something unnatural. It seemed like he could see through any lies.

"Everything." I hung my head. "I saw everything."

He was silent for a beat then nodded. "Did you record anything?"

My eyes dashed to my purse. Ghost pulled out my phone and we listened to Twist's tiny voice as he talked about cleaning up dead bodies. A dark exhaustion threatened to take me off my feet. All the strength I’d held spilled out, without anything to focus on. My whole body seemed to pound with pain, the hangover blooming. I didn't even care what happened anymore.

Ghost played the recording a second time.

"Nothing on the murder?" 

"No."

He tapped the screens a few more times, then handed me the phone and my purse. The video was gone.

"That should be all," he said. "You ready?"

How could anyone be ready for this? Then again, if no one was ready, then I was about as ready as anyone. "Yeah, whatever," I said.

Ghost opened the door and waited as if he were ushering me out of a house party.

Maybe he'd offer me some food now, or a drink. A little treat while he conferred with the rest of his brothers. His jacket had a little patch that said "Vice-President." So he wasn't in charge. Just muscle. Which meant my fate was in someone else hands.

They would make lock me back up here. If they were truly generous, they would let me develop Stockholm syndrome on my own rather than let a guy like Twist force himself on me. Maybe it was already happening. I just wanted Ghost to tell me what to do. With my head pounding, I could barely remember the sight of him killing. I hadn't seen it, not really. All I could remember was the way his muscles had moved and the purpose in his body. The same things I’d seen when he saved me from Twist. Quite a different thing from the naked ugliness of the other bikers I'd seen so far.

The sounds of the dirty bar outside hit me. My daydreams broke. I frowned at him. "Where do you want me to go?"

"Where do you want to go, Katie?"

I rolled my eyes. "Home."

"Ok. Let's go."

I waited for the punchline, but he stood like a statue. I tiptoed out as if my footsteps might remind him of how crazy his suggestion was.  Ghost shut the door then landed a hand on my shoulder. For a horrid moment I was kicking myself for believing his lie. But he simply led me to a bike.  

It was parked a bit apart from the line of Harleys along the road. Unlike their pitch black, his was painted tan, parts of it almost vanishing into the sand. I didn't even feel any tension looking at it. Maybe cause it was different from the ones I'd rode with Dad, maybe cause I could barely see it. Maybe cause I'd learned these kinds of bikes weren't half as dangerous as the men who rode them.

Ghost half lifted me on the bike before sliding on himself. 

"You ridden before?" His voice rumbled back at me. "I mean, other than tonight. I guess they brought you here."

He seemed to have gotten tongue tied. I was making this killer nervous? I almost wanted to laugh, but it seemed like we were doing a secret thing here.

"Yeah, I've ridden before."