Venom: Dark Riders Motorcycle Club (3 page)

I pricked a finger and a drop of blood pooled at the tip. The man took my hand and brought my finger to his mouth, licking it slowly.

"How did I know it would be
you
?" Venom said.

I pulled my hand away as if it had been burned.

"I've never waitressed before," I said. "It's just hard to carry so many beers."

Venom lifted his eyebrow and watched me as I stood up.

"Mm hm. I'm sure," he said. "Hurry back with those beers."

I took the plate of shattered glass and ran back to the bar. He knew! He had to have know that I was listening. My chest felt tight and I gasped for air. What would happen
now
?

"Lilly? You okay sugar?"

Cam came over to me and pressed her cool hands against my face.

"You look like shit! What happened?"

"Oh, I just…I dropped the glasses you gave me," I said.
 

 
It felt bad to lie to her, but what was I supposed to say? Plus, it wasn't really a
lie
, was it?

Cam looked down and saw my bleeding hand. She grabbed it and ran it under the tap.

"Honestly, what am I going to do with you?"

After checking the cut for glass, she poured vodka on it and wrapped it in a bandage. It almost felt like my mom fussing over me, well, minus the vodka.

Cam gave me another platter with another set of beers and pushed me out towards the table. When I looked back at her, she just shooed me away.

"Go on!" she said. "Hurry up!"

I tried my best to hurry, but it was hard. I really
hadn't
ever waitressed before, so there is only so fast I could go. Once I got near it, I try to listen in on table one's conversation again, but they hushed as soon as they heard me coming.

There was Venom, Keg, and two other guys that I didn't know. Their eyes were trained on me as I set a stein down in front of each of them. Venom used the opportunity to brush my hand as I gave him his drink.

"Clay, Pan, this is Lilly," he said. "The one I told you about."

I tried to smile, but a cold sweat covered my body. What had he told them about me?

"Lilly, why don't you sit down?" Venom said.
 

He patted the seat next to him, and I sat down.

"You heard us, didn't you?" Venom asked. He wasn't angry or nervous. His broad shoulders rolled back and relaxed under his leather jacket. He seemed almost, I don't know,
amused
.

"N-no," I stuttered. "Like I said, I just dropped the beers and…"

The smile left Venom's mouth and he leaned towards me.

"Cut the crap," he said. His voice rumbled as he spoke.

"So now you know our little plan. We're going to set your boyfriend and his club up for murder and drug trafficking, and they're going to go down," he said. "You're going to watch it all happen, and there's
nothing
you can do about it. You know why?"

I looked at him, but I couldn't bring myself to say anything.

"Because we
own
you now."

A
FTER
MY
SHIFT
, I went to my new room without eating dinner. My stomach was in my throat. I wanted to throw up.

This whole time, all I wanted was just to get out of this place. I just wanted to go back home, to my mom, to my normal life. But now
this
?

I curled into a ball, pressing my legs against my stomach. What was I supposed to
do
? What the heck
could
I do, anyway? I didn't even know where I was!

Maybe Venom was right. If I wanted to get out of this whole thing alive, didn't I need to play by his rules? And that would mean…

I imagined cops streaming into the club house. They would drag the Dark Riders out one by one. The last ones, Asher and Mav, would only go kicking and screaming.

Or worse. There could be a shoot out. I remembered the stores of guns, and thought of the Riders setting themselves up like a mini, leather-clad, beer-swilling army.

I threw a pillow over my head and pressed it against my face. I didn't want to think about it. We all know how those kinds of standoffs always end.

Maybe I shouldn't have worried. Joel and the others hated me anyway, right. So screw them! No one came to save me, so they could save their own fucking selves.

I pounded my fists against the bed, but couldn't keep it up for long. There was one thing keeping me from really feeling that way.
Asher
.

My mind floated back to when we had just started middle school. We were still chubby little babies then, but we felt so grown up. Hey, we were practically high schoolers.

One day my dad had slapped me in the face. It had shocked me. Not that he had hit me, but that he did it on my face, where it could leave a mark.

"That's what happens when you don't listen to me," he said. "Stay away from that ragamuffin boy."

I knew I shouldn't scream, because he would hit me again, but I couldn't stop the tears from coming. They poured down my cheeks and snot leaked out of my nose.

"What are you crying about, huh? If you are crying now, what will you do when you get older? You know all boys will make you cry. That's what they do," my father yelled.

I ran out of room, and I
kept
running. Out of the room, out of the house, all the way back to that old space behind the school. I press my face against the rough bark of one of the trees and started to sob.
 

My 10-year-old body shook. I wrapped my arms around myself, squeezing hard. It wasn't even the slap that did it. It was what he said.

You know all boys will make you cry. That's what they do.

Was it?

Through my sobs I heard the jingle of a bike bell as someone pedaled by. I tried to stop crying, but couldn't get the tears to go back in. Soon, there were footsteps.

"Lilly?" Asher put his hand on my shoulder. "What's wrong?"

I pushed him away.

"Nothing's wrong, " I screamed. "Get away from me."

He stumbled back, but he didn't leave. After a while, I felt his arms circle around my body in a hug.

"Lilly…"

I jumped up and pushed him off. Asher fell into the dirt, landing on his back, and I climbed on top of him.

The first punch shocked even me. I didn't know how much it could hurt you to hit someone. It must have hurt Asher even more, but he didn't yell.
 

I kept hitting him, my punches getting stronger. My tears fell on Asher's face as I shoved my fists into his body.

"Come on," I yelled. "Why don't you hit me?"

When Asher didn't move, I got even more intense, pummeling him.
 

"Why don't you hit me and run away?"

I don't know how long it must've lasted. I kept hitting him like that until I didn't have any more energy. My arms went weak and I fell onto Asher's chest, still crying.

"Aren't you going to make me cry?" I sobbed against him. "That's what dad says boys are supposed to do!"

Asher's arms wrapped around me and he stroked my hair gently.

"I would never want to make you cry," he said.

I turned over on the bed, spreading my arms wide and looking up at the ceiling. I didn't know what to do, but I couldn't just leave Asher in Venom's clutches, could I? Somehow, I had to warn them.

I squeezed the pillow to my chest and sighed. Now just exactly how was I going to do
that
?

"R
ISE
AND
SHINE
!"

I woke up to Venom looming over my bed. I yelled and covered myself with my blanket.

"We're going on a field trip," he said. "It's going to be fun. So hurry up and get ready."

He gathered the fabric of my sheet in his fist and yanked it off of me, throwing it to the floor.

"Five minutes."

As soon as he was out of the room, I jumped off my bed. What was with this guy and wanting things done in five minutes? That wasn't even enough time to brush my teeth or wash my face!

I hustled, but by the time the door opened again, I was barely ready.

"Let's go," Keg said.

He came close to me and wrapped a blindfold around my eyes before leading me out of the room. Everything was dark and disorienting again. Well, at least they didn't gag me that time.

When we reached outside I could feel the warm sun on my skin. It shocked me. I had forgotten how many days I'd been cooped up in there. The air was filled with the smell of exhaust, and I coughed as the burning smoke reached my throat.

I had expected the whole gang to be going, but I only heard a few voices.

"You sure you want to take her there?" Clay's high whiny voice came from my right.

"I want to teach her a lesson," Venom said. He pulled me in his direction and I nearly fell. "I'm sure she's a quick learner."

"Fine, then let's get this over with," Keg said. "I'll go ahead."

His bike roared to life and his tires screeched as he drove off. The next thing I knew, Venom picked me up and put me on the bike behind him. I tried to stay as far away as I could, but there was only so much space on the seat. If I moved any further, I was going to fall off.

Venom took off. He sped up so quickly that the wind whipped my skin. It was almost painful. He popped a wheelie, leaning us so far back that I involuntarily grabbed his waist just so that I wouldn't fall down.

"That's better!" he yelled over the roar of the road.

This is what I had always been afraid of. On Asher's bike, I felt free. I
knew
he would never let anything happen to me.

But with Venom, it was like a roller coaster ride. The bike swerved from left to right, popping up, and leaning so close to the ground that we almost scraped the road. I heard cars honking, blaring their horns angrily as we passed by. For once, I was thankful I couldn't see what Venom was doing in the traffic.

Unable to see, all I could feel was the bike tossing my body around. Everything came as a surprise, shocking me with each sudden movement. Venom must have been enjoying hearing me scream.

By the time we stopped, my whole body was sore. Even my throat was ragged from yelling. At least we weren't moving anymore.

Venom lifted me off of his bike and pulled me into a building. We walked up three flights of stairs before he stopped. We entered a room that smelled stale with dust before I heard the sound of blinds clattering open.

They took off my blindfold. I was in a large, empty room. It looked like no one had been there in years, because what looked like a beautiful wooden floor was completely covered in dirt and dust. More dust bunnies danced in the sunlight as it entered the room.

"Where am I? Why did you take me here?" I asked.

"Look out the window," Venom said.

I ran to the windowsill and looked out. My eyes went wide. I was
home
.

Even without seeing the building, I could tell where we were. The building used to be abandoned, but mom told me some young kids from the city bought it to build a café. That's what was on the
first
floor, but we must have been on the
third
.

Were they going to let me go? I scanned the horizon for my mom's house, and found it. I could never miss the dark, weathered, oak and chestnut. Somewhere under that roof, mom must have been tearing her hair out.

"Why did you bring..."

My voice died as I turned around. Keg and Clay had been assembling something in while I was distracted. I'd watched enough movies to know what it was. A sniper rifle. The long, gray gun was pointed out of the window.

I pointed at it, my hand shaking.

"W-What is that for?"

Venom smiled. "Come on Lilly, you aren't that stupid. You know what guns are for."
 

He came next to me and pointed out the window. "Do you see that?"

I followed his finger, squinting to see what he was pointing at. It took me a while, but I finally saw it. The club house.
 

"Nice view, huh? But I know how to get an even better one."

Venom dragged me behind the gun.

"Look in the scope," he said.

It scared me to even be
near
the thing, but I lowered my eye to the long scope on top. I screamed as soon as I saw who it was trained on. Asher.

The crosshairs hovered right over his head. Why did this have to be the way I saw him? All this time I worried about him. Did the shot kill him? Was he hurt? And then I had to see him down the scope of a gun.

Still, I couldn't help lingering. Bandages wrapped around Asher's arm. It looked like he was having a hard time moving it. Just how bad was he injured?

He was talking to some other Riders. His face contorted, yelling at them before they stormed back into the club house. He looked down, shaking his head. What was going on with them? Tears welled in my eyes.

"Asher got lazy once
you
started coming around," Venom said. "Too much love in the head."

I turned to him, my hands balled into fists.

"What do you want with him? Why won't you just leave him alone!" I yelled.

"What do I want with him?" Venom asked. "I don't want anything from him. If I wanted to, I could kill him
right now
."

Venom came over to the fun and wrapped his hand around it. His finger rested on the trigger, pulling it back ever so slightly. With each millimeter I could feel my heart squeezing tighter and tighter. I couldn't even scream, because that might make him pull it.

"But I won't, " Venom said, finally. He dropped his hand and smiled at me.

"Too messy. Better to set the Dark Riders up and watch them fall," Venom said. "And
you're
going to help me."

"Why should I?" I screamed.

"Because you'll do anything I want you to. Anything to keep me away from
Option A
," Venom said. He patted the sniper rifle and looked at me.