Gang Up: A Bikerland Novel (6 page)

She found Carthage knocking the shit out of a smooth addict near the eastern water station.

“You got my money now?” Carthage asked, kicking him again and again.

Abigail felt her blood rise, watching this hulking dark stud completely abusing someone helpless and weak. Fuck, but she was a slut for strength. Feeling her arousal at his actions made what she was about to do so much easier.

Still, she had a
little
sympathy for the addict. Smooth was an artificial drug, made in underground labs around the region. Most prominent in their region were the Deathheads—a gang that not even the Cauldron tolerated.

The drug got its name from the way it left a person’s brain—after enough usage—completely smooth and free of wrinkles. All their lessons, eaten away over enough time and hits. Apparently, it was quite pleasurable, though Case firmly ensured that none of his crew or family were ever on the stuff. Too many problems possible. That didn’t stop them from selling it, though. That trade was an ocean of money to be tapped.

Finally Carthage finished with the addict. He stepped away and picked up a bucket, one wary eye glancing up at Abigail. He sat down on the bucket, his bulky form straining the metal, and lit up a cigar.

“I ain’t ask you to be around here. What are you doing here, girl?”

It was a mistake, Abigail knew, to let her prey set the terms of the engagement. Her father had taught her that well enough.

That was partly why she had dressed how she had. Tight denim short-shorts molded to her ass. High-heeled boots. Her shirt barely hanging down past her tits, baring her midriff, all of her hot body on display.

“It’s too bad he couldn’t give you a real fight,” said Abigail. “I bet you’re a monster in a real fight.”

He smiled and nodded, chewing his cigar. “I am.”

“You ever fought in the arena?”

“The Temple Arena?” Carthage scoffed. “I find better fights across every inch of the wastes. I don’t need to fight there. I seen ‘em. Don’t get me wrong, now. But they ain’t what I like. All those rules.”

“Sometimes, there’s no rules.”

“Sure. And sometimes an addict pays you what he owes. But I don’t count on it.”

“Fair enough.”

“What you want, girl? You want to talk to me about Arena fights?”

“I want to talk to you about joining your gang.”

He laughed. “Girl, I knew you was crazy. I knew for a long time now. Other fellas, shit. They don’t wanna listen. They wanna talk about how you hot. And you are, that’s for damn sure. But you want to come talk to me about
my
people? Girl.” He shook his head. “You don’t want to have that conversation.”

“Why not?”

“Because what do you think you gonna offer me? I know you're Family. You gonna take me in, is that it? Your boss dead, they offer you up to me to bring ol’ Carthage into the Family, huh? That’s how it is? It won’t work. I’m Cauldron. For life.”

“That’s savvy,” said Abigail. “I could see that happening, actually. Not a bad play.”

“Except for how it won’t work.”

“And except for how it’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. I said I wanted to talk about joining
your
gang. Not the other way around.”

“All right. I bite. Everybody listening? You listening?” He kicked the addict again. More blood on the stones. “What’s on your mind, girl?”

“I want to be indoctrinated.”

“You want...” Carthage shook his head. “What is it that you want?”

She smiled. He wanted to hear it all the way? Fine.

“I want the cocks of every last member of your gang inside me.”

“No way.” He shook his head. “No fucking way. You’re crazy. I like you, all right? You got more balls than most my dudes just walking right in here up to me. Especially looking how you do.” He whistled, taking a look up and down her tight, luscious form again. “But no way. That’s an invitation for disaster.”

She strutted forward now, knowing his eyes were glued to her tits, her waist, her supple, muscled torso. She leaned over and put her hands on his thighs, grinning.

“Come on. Why does anyone else ever have to know?”

“Have you lived in this fucking place? Everybody knows everything, and all the time. Don’t give me that. You know why people will know.”

“We’ll keep it quiet. We will.” Her hand slid up on his cock. “You want to fuck me. You know you do. And your boss does too. Brall. Probably he's talked to you about some girl he wants but he can't have. It's me, naturally. And I turned him down for a long time...but I've changed my mind. I want to surprise him with my indoctrination. And once I’m indoctrinated, why...your boss, he might decide you get to use me whenever you want. Wouldn’t that be nice for you?”

“Damn.” Carthage shook his head. “Goddamn. You wild.”

“Yes, I am. And I’m perfectly serious.” She squeezed his thick manhood one last time. It was hard now. Huge, too.  “Talk to your boss. Make the arrangements. Send me a message through the general store. I’ll be checking there every morning and evening.”

And she walked away, smiling to herself. Knowing he was watching the hot sway of her hips, the tight flexing of her short-covered ass, his mind running away from him with the thought of what he could do to her tiny, hot, busty blond body.

––––––––

N
ot far from Brall’s tent was a training area for the cauldron. It was inside an old gym. The ceiling was mostly gone, one lip of shade in the corner providing some reprieve from the sun. The floor had once been wood, and in parts around the edges the thick boards could still be seen. But mostly the floor had been dug out and cleared away to get to the dirt underneath.

Brall’s men held knives, clubs, chains. Whatever weapon of their choice. They were spread out wide enough so no one would hurt the other as they moved.

He bellowed a command. “First attack!”

The men all followed through with overhead blows, stepping into each movement.

“Second!”

They responded with another movement, swiping to the side.

“Third!”

More movement forward, swiping up from under. And so on—moving up, down, to the side—and then backward making the same motion. The early part of training was always these warm-ups. The men knew how to fight; they always had. This was just to get them used to hearing Brall’s voice—or the voice of his sergeants—and to get them used to following orders. Later in the training day, he would have them do the more important work: learning positions of attack. Forming up ranks. Mock-battles and studying tactics.

There were more than seventy-five soldiers who followed him, and another hundred attached to those soldiers as whores, merchants, life-partners, or just otherwise hangers-on. Nearly two hundred mouths to feed needed only one thing more than food, and that was discipline.

So, he trained them.

A man with a belly full of food and a mind full of chaos was the most dangerous sort of person underneath a leader. Contrarywise, a man with an empty belly and a disciplined mind could be reasoned with—food is coming, you could say. Just follow me a little longer. It had saved Brall’s life in the long, famine-prone journeys in the wastes on more than one occasion.

Brall felt drained, unloaded, but somehow more full than he ever had been in his life. Sated for the first time since he didn’t know when.

She’s different. She can take me.

That was always the problem. Finding a woman who could stand up to his desires, his mercurial attitudes, his need to relief every last ounce of stress in his bones and muscles through rampant lovemaking. And Brall had a lot of bone, a lot of muscle, and so a lot of stress that could build up in his body.

He would meet her tonight, this time behind Farner's tavern. A darker place. More time for privacy. He couldn't wait. The only thing that kept his mind off of Robin was training, and so he kept training.

Brall continued the training.

At the side entrance, he saw Carthage leaning against the door. He picked out Garner from the crowd of training men, and told him to continue the practice. A good man, small and wiry and covered with tattoos.

When he was sure that Garner would do the men justice, he turned to Carthage.

“Did you get your money?”

“No. Taught him a lesson, though. And I learned something.”

“What’d you learn?”

“I learned who you want. I learned she’s into it.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Brall would never admit it, but he felt some self-awareness and even embarrassment at the suddenness of his affection for Robin. She was everything to him. She eclipsed Abigail in every possible way.

But just yesterday he had been telling Carthage that Abigail was everything.

His passions ran deep and dense, and he could not explain them; without being able to explain them, he did not want to be held accountable for them.

But this was all deep beneath his surface. All Brall truly knew was that Carthage asked about his business, and Brall found no reason to oblige his questions.

“It’s that Family girl, isn’t it?”

Brall felt a glimmer of fear enter his heart. The wrong words whispered around his men would end him.

“What?”

He pushed him out of the gym and they walked back toward the tents, toward Temple.

“Ah, yes now. Come, my friend!” Carthage clapped his back, squeezing his shoulder tight. “You need not hide such understandable wants from me. She is a beauty. A fine,
fine
beauty. You'd be doing right to make her yours, that’s true enough.”

Brall eyed him, suspicious still. “No one knows about this. How do you know about this?”

“What are you, some double? Some doppelganger stolen in the night to replace my old friend?” Carthage was laughing. Brall’s deadly serious look made him stop. “I...you’re serious? You’ve been talking about her for weeks, now. Weeks and weeks. I didn’t know it, of course. It was always ‘the blonde, the blonde, the blonde.’ But it is her, yes? It could not be another.”

“...no.” Brall shook his head. “The one I spoke of is...nothing. Old news. Not for me. My heart belongs to another.”

“Shit. I don't believe that for a minute. The words you said, friend! The way you romanticized!” Carthage let out another big belly laugh. “There ain't no way she's just been cast aside for some other.”

“I’m telling you the truth, now.”

“Of course you are.” Carthage winked.

“Don’t do that. Don’t fucking do that. You know me.”

“I know. I know. You a man who says what he wants. But sometimes a friend knows better than the man.”

“Not this time.”

Brall had much more to say still. They arrived at his tent, and he was about to invite Carthage inside and explain the entire matter to him, but a runner arrived.

He looked at the paper, grinning slow.

“New wire from those Sooners. Said they made up some time. They’ll be here tomorrow.”

Carthage nodded, and left to prepare. There would be a battle soon, and battle for the Cauldron took precedence over all things.

And yet Brall could not help but think, with Robin's life in the balance, that some sort of peace could be worked out. Perhaps he would sit down with Case or Troy or whoever ran the Family, and see what terms they could come to, just so long as he could have Robin at his side.

––––––––

W
hat Robin was really good for was accounting, but when the riders were at home, and the numbers were all crunched, her duties took her elsewhere.

She and Abigail worked on the long driveway leading out into the wastes, just inside the wall surrounding Temple. The driveway led directly into the series of garages owned by the Family in the Compound.

Robin stood over a tall metal pot set over a fire. The need for this task was regular enough that the fire had its own square built from stones. Abigail had pieced it together years ago using scrap from abandoned houses further out in the area surrounding Temple. The fire boiled pitch inside the pot, and as Robin stirred it around Abigail gathered up scoops of the thick black substance with a long wooden ladle and spread it out onto the drive.

All through the wastes the men put their bikes on the hardest land around. The tires had to pass over rocks and dirt, bones and metal, scrap and rodents. When they got home, they deserved an easy path back into the safety of the Compound. Titus had insisted upon it, and so it became the law of the land. A strong home was a strong Family. Home life was built on a series of shared expectations, regular anticipation of others’ needs, and no lipping about what needed doing.

But the men were always away, and so it became the women’s duty to perform maintenance such as this. Women also were responsible for patching holes in roofs, for clearing stuffed pipes, for rehabbing broken staircases and walls, for re-insulating houses that had been allowed to decay.

Robin did not look much at Abigail. She felt ashamed for what had happened with Brall—but also joy. True joy. She knew that he would take care of her.

She could not wait for tonight. She would lose her virginity then, she knew. Finally. To a real man. To a man who deserved her beauty, her body. She would fuck him rotten, and be fucked rotten.

Maybe I'll even get pregnant.

The thought delighted her dreamy, hot young mind.

All the details were uncertain, now. Her body burned with the possibility of tasting him again, knowing his intimate touch once more. And her mind burned with the possibilities he promised, how their life might be once they declared for one another. The two sensations were in competition with one another. She could not possibly keep up them both and hope to remain a whole person. It would be like launching yourself into a fire with a rocket at your back.

But she didn’t care. It felt so gloriously good to be consumed by something,
anything
that wasn’t fear. Fear of Troy, fear of the wastes, fear of the world.

It would mean a betrayal of her family, a betrayal of her values, but somehow that wasn’t as important anymore. She knew he would take care of her, and that she would take care of him. She felt like he would need her. God, the way he had
shuddered
when he said her name, the way she had
emptied
him. She knew that she was
important
to his life now. It was integral to her being, knowing she suddenly couldn’t live without him—and knowing that he, too, in turn could not live without her. Once again, it was difficult to determine which was more exciting.