Death Layer (The Depraved Club) (12 page)

“You’re right,” I say sarcastically. “Wow. Why didn’t I see
it before? I should have just given up on the idea that I’m an actual human
being and become your fucking property. I’ll just fold up my brain and self
respect and just
belong
to you, how’s that?”

“For fuck’s sake! You saw what they did to Jenny: that was
no accident. It was a message. We’re next.” Bane glances at Smokey’s corpse.
“Now, we’re definitely next.”

Instinctively, I curl my fingers into Bane’s t-shirt, scared
and small. My brain is whirling. “You didn’t have to kill him!”

“I’ve killed for less.”

We stare at each other and a shiver works down my spine. I
believe him. In spite of myself, I realize I always believe him. If he says his
club could kill us, he must mean it.

I study his handsome, hardened face and feel what I felt
before—that this man is capable of anything he sets his mind to. He’s
intelligent, fast, and ruthless. He can be, in his own way, kind. He can
certainly kill.

How many has he killed?

Bane is studying me too, and a smile quirks at the corner of
Bane’s mouth. “You look like a drowned rat,” he says. “Can you walk?”

With surprising speed, he stands to his feet and pulls me up
beside him, supporting me. We try a few steps but my ankle can’t support my
weight.

“Figures,” Bane mutters, and again sweeps me over his
shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

That is how we arrive back at his room, nine flights later.
Meat Grinder is still at the bed, now stitching up Jenny’s side. He doesn’t
even bother looking up at us as Bane marches straight past him into the
bathroom.

Bane shuts and locks the bathroom door behind us, then sets
me down on the sink. He reaches his arms around me to wash his hands and open
the medicine cabinet. I watch his movements as he gets out a bottle of alcohol
and cotton balls and dabs them over his cracked knuckles.

“Motherfucker, that stings,” he hisses.

He’s efficient and thorough, even more so once he turns to
me. Starting with my banged ankle, he works up my legs and cleans up my
scratches until he comes to my face. Our eyes meet briefly before his attention
flickers to my cut lip. Anger clouds his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he grunts. “I’m sorry this is happening to
you.”

Startled by this, I don’t know what to say. That’s the first
time he’s apologized to me, and he really means it. I just stare into those
fathomless black-brown eyes, more curious than ever about this man. He cups my
face in his hands and grimaces as he rubs the cotton over the cut on the side
of my mouth.

“Ah!” I gasp.

“Right?” he mouths absently. “Stings like a motherfucker.
There, good as new.”

He tosses the used cotton in the trash and turns back to me.
He’s standing between my legs and I can feel the heat radiating from his body.
He cups his hands around my chin and his thumbs trace along my jaw line toward
my lips. The rough touch of his calloused hands raises goose bumps all over my
skin—those hands that have just beaten a man to death. Bane’s intense eyes are
burning me alive.

“Hey. Why haven’t you told me your name?” Bane’s voice is
gruff and soft.

I don’t know what I expected him to say right now, but that
was not it. I bite my lip, fighting tears. “What?”

He frowns at me. “Is it that you think if I don’t know your
name, you’re not really here?”

For fuck’s sake, he really can read my thoughts. It’s
creepy.

I nod slowly. “Something like that.”

“I’m stuck here too,” he says. “You know my name. That’s not
exactly fair.”

I laugh at the ridiculousness of this logic and give him a
wry look. “Fair? Really? That’s your argument?”

His smile stretches until he has dimples. “Look, after
Smokey, neither of our lives is worth a whole lot here. They’ll know it was me,
and there will be a vote and a punishment, and I’ll be out of favor for good.
That’s why we’ve got to be smart and we’ve got to plan and get out, together. I
gotta get out, and I can’t leave you here alone. This is the time. New names,
new papers, and a new life.”

Heart hammering, I search his eyes.

“You’re serious,” I realize. “You’ll actually help me
escape?”

The dimples deepen, maddeningly charming. “No, darlin’, I’m
gonna save my own ass and throw you in for good luck.”

The hope that rips through my guts is almost painful, and I
can’t quite bring myself to trust it. “Why? Why me? Why not one of your
girlfriends?”

Bane’s eyes flash but his gaze is steady. “Jealous, Red?” I
stare back, evenly. Bane laughs. “Shit. Let’s just say saving your life is
becoming a little hobby of mine.”

“I’m not fucking around. Answer me, why?”

His smile and his hands drop and his face scrunches, almost
pained. “How can you ask me that?” I frown, not sure what he means, and he
shakes his head in disbelief. “Jesus. Fine. Just tell me, are you in or out?”

Terrified my chance at escape will disappear, I almost
shout, “In!”

Bane nods but looks suddenly tired. “Alright. I’ve got a
contact can make us new passports: help us start over. Might as well tell me
your name before I change it.”

His hands cup my chin again and I close my eyes against the
rush of confused sensation. “Why does it matter?”

“I want to say it.” His voice is a whisper. His thumbs slide
away from my lips, down my throat to caress my collarbone. “I want to say your
name when I touch you.”

“Bane—”

“I want to say your name so you know that I know that you’re
a person, and that you don’t belong to me. Alright?”

Stunned, I blink into his face. It’s strained with some kind
of emotion. His hands slide over my shoulders, down my arms.

“I want to say your name,” he says, “So that when I touch
you, you know that I know I’m not just taking what’s mine.” His fingers close
around my side ribs, framing my breasts. “You’re not like the others. And
neither am I. When I touch you I’m asking you something, Red. Don’t you know
that?”

He leans closer, his breath rushing over my lips. I can
smell his scent and see every coarse hair of his five o’clock shadow. My heart
is pounding.

“Answer my question, Red. You know what I’m asking.”

I know exactly what he’s asking. I know what he wants. But I
lie. I avert my eyes from his all-knowing gaze. “I don’t know what you’re
talking about, Bane.”

His grip tightens on my ribs. “Yes you do. Tell me your
name.”

“No.”

“Dammit, Red.”

He shakes me until I have to grab onto his shoulders for
steadiness. The shock of touching him, of feeling his hands gripping so firmly
under my breasts, is like a fucking lightning bolt straight to my groin. But
he’s being too rough, and I’m scared.

“Please, don’t, Bane.”

I can’t handle this right now. It’s too much, right after
Smokey.

As soon as my palms land pleadingly on Bane’s chest he
freezes, catching himself. His eyes sear into mine, hungry and hurt, but then
his expression softens.

“Jesus,” he groans. “I’m sorry. You’re making me nuts,
woman.” He leans his forehead against mine and sighs. “I’m sorry.” He pulls his
face back and plants a long, warm kiss on my forehead. “I’m sorry.” His lips
brush my cheek, silky and tender. “I’m sorry.”

His mouth is moving toward mine. A new kind of fear grips me
and with a gasp I turn my face away.

“No.”

It’s a tiny little word, but an important one—like a magic
spell that reveals a person’s character. With Smokey, it didn’t work. With
Bane, it stops time and cracks the space wide open between us. His body is
still just as close to me as the moment before, his lips still resting against
my deflecting cheek. But I feel him leave.

“Yes ma’am.”

Slowly, he extracts his body from mine until he steps back
from the sink, watching me, and I can see the desire on his face and in the
bulge in his pants.

I am confused, hungry and scared, shaken and aroused. I
can’t move towards him, but I want to. A kiss still hangs in the air between us
but neither of us reaches for it.

Bane shakes his head. “It’s too bad,” he says. “I know you
want me, too.”

Just then, there’s a knock on the door.

“Bane?” Meat Grinder’s voice is serious. “You’ve got some
company out here.”

Bane rubs his hands over his face and shouts back, “Yup,
been expecting them!” He turns back to me with a grim expression. “Fucking
consequences, Red.”

Chapter Thirteen

Bane and I are standing in the office where this all started
for me: Jack Keller’s den in the underground D.L. Club. I can hear screams and
moans from the drug, sex, and fighting dungeons just down the hall. The room is
dense with sweat and suspense.

Six patch-wearing officers of the Death Layer Motorcycle
Club are sitting in smoking chairs or leaning against the absurd brocade
wallpaper and bookshelves. Their faces are as serious as a heart attack, just
the way Mr. King used to look at Skollz Corp board meetings. Only instead of
smart phones, these guys all have guns.

I’m shivering in spite of the high temperature. My lacy
lingerie dress is torn and pathetic, but feels somehow appropriate. No one is
paying much attention to me anyway, like I’m just another piece of furniture or
something. Anyway, it’s not so much the exposure that has me shaking; it’s just
plain old fear.

Bane is on trial.

The hefty, bearded man I recognize from the bar as the
Sergeant at Arms is here. So is Judge Jefferson from the band, who evidently
moonlights as club Treasurer. President Jack Keller is heading the meeting, his
severe face smug and leonine. It finally occurs to me who Jack reminds me of:
Scar, the evil uncle from The Lion King. I can’t stop staring at the void and
burn mark where Jack’s eyebrow should be.

He even sounds like Jeremy Irons. “All you officers are
witnesses,” Jack rasps between puffs on his cigar. “Road Captain Bane ‘the
Beast’ Harme openly confesses that he killed our brother Paul ‘Smokey’ Gunn
over a piece of tail of all goddamn things. Death Layer has a strict no-kill
policy among members. We look down on that sort of bullshit. Retribution has
always been blood for blood. Now I call upon you officers to act as judge, jury
and executioners.”

The men all shuffle, tense. The grandfather clock with the
skeleton and D.L. initials engraved on top tells me we’ve been here for over an
hour, the men grilling Bane about Smokey’s death. Now Bane clears his throat,
taking the floor.

“Look down on killing at Death Layer, do we?” Bane says.
“That’s rich. What about manipulation, stealing, destruction of property, raping
a brother’s property? Smokey broke charter laws too!” Bane holds up one finger.
“One, he stole my dog and threw her in the ring; but that was probably on your
fucking orders, right Jack? You all know I don’t do dog fights. Fucking
stealing, not to mention you almost succeeded in killing my dog!”

Jack’s eyes gleam but he doesn’t answer.

Bane continues, pointing at me. “Two, Smokey attacked my
property. Twice. Now you yourself agreed to my terms that no one touch her. I
warned the son of a bitch that I was serious after he got too familiar
yesterday, and tonight I catch him fucking pants down and dick out. You expect
me to just slap his fucking wrist?”

“So you killed a brother over pussy?” This comes from the
furious Sergeant at Arms.

“I killed him when he took a shot at me!” Bane’s tone is
uncompromising and disdainful. “But he deserved it before. I’d do the same to
you, Bug Breath. I was unarmed! There’s only one bullet hole in that stairwell,
and any idiot can see it wasn’t from my Remington. You’re gonna blood for blood
me because of an act of provoked self-defense?”

There is a grumble around the room. Bane is striking a
chord. I swallow, hopeful.

“Make sense, people,” Bane shouts. “I wouldn’t have had to
kill Smokey if he’d acted like a brother. But if a man pisses on my shoes, I’m
gonna fucking decapitate him. That’s the law of the jungle. We all joined Death
Layer to have each other’s backs in this kind of shit, not cause it amongst
ourselves!”

Judge Jefferson clears his throat, “I believe Beast, Jack.”
He says. “I was there in the clubhouse yesterday when Smokey got a little too
handsy with his property. Beast warned Smoke that if it happened again, they’d
have a serious problem.”

“It don’t matter!” This comes from the Sergeant at Arms guy
again. “Bane killed Smokey over a fucking woman! Blood for blood!”

“Jesus, you’ve got to be kidding!” Bane bellows.

The room breaks out in shouting and it’s chaos until Jack
smacks a gavel on his desk. Silence falls as fast as if he’d shot a gun.

“Blood for blood law in effect?” Jack bellows. “Vote yea or
nay. Yea?”

Jack, the Sergeant, and three other guys raise their hands.

“Nay?”

Only Judge Jefferson votes nay, his eyes darting around the
room nervously. Bane shakes his head and mutters as if praying for patience, rolling
his eyes heavenward.

“Blood for blood is in effect,” Jack announces.

Those words do not sound good. It might just be my
imagination but the faces around us seem to harden and grow more sinister,
their humanity withdrawing from their eyes as they look at Bane and me. Even
Bane clenches his hands into taut fists.

“Bane?” I whisper, my skin crawling. “What’s blood for
blood?”

He doesn’t answer me. Lost, I take a reflexive step closer
to him. I’m afraid to find out what blood for blood means, but I have a sinking
feeling that I’m going to have to. I’m afraid of the men around us, afraid of
Jack, afraid of being separated from Bane.

Bane feels my body’s presence at his side, I can tell
because he turns his head toward me. But he won’t look at me. He is staring at
Jack, waiting. The room is deathly quiet.

“How’s this gonna look?” Bane demands.

There’s another long pause. I can hear the grandfather clock
ticking, seconds of our lives melting away.

“Since it is a divided vote,” Jack finally answers, his one
eyebrow glowering at Judge Jefferson, “And because I want to preserve unity and
strength in this club as much as possible in spite of the sedition of certain
fucking members who take their pussy too seriously, I will give the Beast a
choice of blood.”

“How nice,” Bane quips. “How about yours?”

Jack leans forward over his desk and sets down his cigar,
growling at Bane.

“Don’t fucking open your mouth again except to answer my
questions,” Jack says, “Or I’ll end you right here.” The ash of his cigar falls
in a silver tray. Jack nods at the grandfather clock. “It’s four a.m., time for
the last elimination match of the night, the climax of the evening’s
entertainment for our high-paying patrons. You tell me who is going in the
ring, Beast: you, or your precious red pussy.”

“You can’t be serious,” Bane barks.

“Personally I’d like to throw you both in,” Jack shouts
back. “But unlike you, I don’t let my emotions get the better of me. Smokey was
a good friend, a great rider, a true brother. That’s your price for Smokey’s
death: fight for your life, or she does. One of you goes in the ring, now.
Decide.”

Tick. Tick. Tick.

The seconds on the skeleton clock stretch and warp and my
head feels light, like I’m having an out-of-body experience and watching myself
from above. My mind flashes back to when Mr. King first dragged me through the
D.L. Club, when I saw the skinny kid having his throat cut in the ring and
bleeding out on the sand. That fight wasn’t fair: everyone knew from the
beginning that the skinny, frightened kid didn’t have a chance against the
giant body-builder he was paired against. He was always going to loose.

Going to die.

I close my eyes, trying to get my brain to accept what’s
happening. I try to picture Rachel’s face for comfort, but it only makes me
panic as the thought occurs to me that I may never actually see her again. If
they put me in the ring, I’ll die. How could I possibly win? I’ve never fought
anyone in my life, not even on the playground in second grade.

I open my eyes and stare at Jack, whose face is rigid and
devoid of emotion. He’s rigged this, I’m sure. Bane’s words come back to me
with a sickening pang:
they’d love to have an excuse for me to be dead, Red.
They want for us to fuck up and give them a reason to come after us.
Bane
was right, and I fucked it up.

However twisted this whole situation is, however soulless
and evil Jack and the D.L. Club are, I realize my actions played a decisive
part in this moment. I could have listened to Bane. I could have tried trusting
him. But I didn’t. My hair stands on end as I realize that there’s no way out,
no mercy.

Whichever one of us goes into the ring isn’t coming out.

“Me,” Bane announces. “I go in.”

The moment he says it, my heart plummets to my feet and
beyond. No, he can’t. He can’t go in the ring. This can’t be happening.

But it is. Jack nods and two bouncers step forward. They
push me out of the way, flanking Bane on either side. One takes Bane’s arm and
starts to tug him toward the door. Bane punches his arms away.

“Don’t touch me motherfucker,” he snaps. “I’ll go on my own
or not at all.”

Jack rolls his eyes. “Let him alone.”

The bouncers step aside to let Bane pass. His face is angry
and fierce and determined, and more handsome than I ever remember. I want to
stop him, throw myself at his feet and force him to stay. Something inside me
bursts and a roar of scalding fear and sense of loss rips through me. I realize
he’s choosing to fight and die for me. For me.

I can’t lose him. I can’t.

The sudden knowledge galvanizes me and leaves me hollow.

“No!” I breathe. “No, Bane, they’ll kill you, don’t! Jack,
don’t! Please!”

No one listens to me, even as my screams reach a hysterical
pitch. Judge Jefferson comes up behind me and wraps his gentle but firm fists
around my arms, holding me back. I’m wailing, shocked and terrified by the
grief that has turned my limbs into lead. The seconds are slipping away, my
last seconds with Bane.

“No don’t do this Bane! Don’t do this!” I scream. “Let me
go! Let me do it! Put me in! Bane, don’t, I don’t want you to die! Please! Put
me in instead!”

Bane pauses as the bouncers open the door for him. He turns
his chin over his shoulder and looks at me for the first time since the trial
started. As our eyes lock, I have the familiar sensation that he is reading my
thoughts, seeing all of me. His face softens and there’s a ghost of a grin on
his lips.

“See you, Red,” he whispers.

He turns to go.

No…not like this…

“Ava!” I shout. This stops Bane in his tracks and I see his
shoulders tense. “My name is Ava.”

Bane spins slowly around, facing me completely. He’s
blinking at me in surprise, the old question and the light of confidence back
in his eyes. His lips part, whispering my name. I wish I could kiss them, pour
myself into them, but a couple thousand pounds of mean biker muscle is standing
between us and no one is letting us move an inch closer to each other.

“What is this, a god damn soap opera?” Jack roars. “Get on
with it!”

Bane tries to take a step towards me but the bouncers shove
him back and out the hall.

“Goddammit!” Bane shouts at the bouncer. “Don’t touch me
again. I’m going.”

Bane gives me one last parting look, heavy with unspoken
things. His eyes flash dark and then he turns and disappears down the hall with
the bouncers. The club officers trail out after him, making a sort of dark
parade to the death arena. Finally, Jack stands and leers at me.

“Well ain’t you curious Red?” He gloats. “Why don’t we go
watch?”