Steel Me Away (14 page)

Emmy

And then I was free and gasping.  With a half whoop, half sob, I gulped the precious air back into my lungs and started coughing. 

"Get the fuck off of my sister!" 

Andy gave Robert another shove and he stumbled, catching his balance on the beat up old piano with a crashing, discordant chord.   He quickly shoved his hand into his pants, hiding the evidence of what he was attempting.  I tried to scream that he was raping me, but could only cough and gasp.

Robert pushed himself up to his feet just as my parents appeared at the doorway.

"Get out of here!" Andy was not a trained fighter, but he was scrappy and wily.  He lashed out with a vicious kick to Robert's shinbone that connected with a loud crack.

"Andrew!" My mother sounded mortified.

"Mom, shut the fuck up!  He was hurting Emmy, look!"

My mother finally noticed me gasping on the couch.  I could feel the red welts burning out in an incriminating circle around my neck.  She must have seen them, because her mouth fell open.  "I don't...."

"Get the fuck out of here!" Andy shoved Robert again. 

Robert stumbled, then drew himself up to his full height.  "This is none of your business," he drawled.  "You think you saw something you didn't."

I choked and found my voice.  "No, he saw it," I croaked.  My voice was harsh and screeching.  "You're a liar, Robert.  You tried to kill me."

My mother turned slowly between us, her mouth a perfect 'O' of dawning realization.  "Robert," she said slowly and almost reluctantly.  "I think you had better go."

"You need to leave my house," my father echoed.  His rum soaked voice wavered slightly; his eyes were watery and unfocused.  He looked confused, like he was about to cry.

"Out."  Andy made to shove Robert again, but Robert stepped lightly backwards and my brother stumbled. 

Robert caught him by the wrist and yanked him upright, smiling down at him smugly.  "Careful now."

Andy yanked his wrist back and wound up to punch Robert in the face.  I shot off the couch, "Andy don't!"  I half screamed, half croaked.  "He's got friends.  You'll go to jail."

"Listen to your sister," Robert smiled. 

"Get out of here," my brother spat. 

Robert turned with an arrogant grin and walked to the door.  He paused at the stoop, with one foot on the porch.  "Goodbye Hawthornes," he sighed.  "I tried to help Emilia get rid of her white-trash beginning, but it was too strong.  Now I see where she got it from."

"Fuck off!" Andy shouted. He ran at Robert with his arms straight out and caught him hard in the chest.  Robert flew backwards through the doorway and landed hard on his ass on the porch.  Andy stepped out over him in the rain.

"Joey!" Robert shouted.

My heart started pounding before my brain registered what it had heard.  I rounded the corner to the doorway, just in time to see my brother felled by a giant fist as Robert looked upward smugly.

Officer Wilkens' first name was Joey.

"Andy!" "Stop it!" My mother and I both screamed at once.

Andy sprang back to his feet, his eyes wild with rage and hurt.  With a guttural yell, he launched himself at the guard.  Momentarily taken aback by the fury of the attack, Joey lost his balance.  The two of them toppled off the side of the porch, landing heavily on the wet, slippery grass. 

But my street fighting brother was no match for a former police officer.  Joey rolled deftly and leapt back to his feet before Andy could right himself in the mud. 

"No!" I shrieked as Joey's boot connected with Andy's side. "Robert! Stop him!"

"Why?" Robert seemed genuinely curious.

My tears were mixing with the rain.  "If you ever loved me, stop hurting him brother."

"He attacked me," Robert explained patiently.  I heard my brother scream in pain. My mother cried out in horror.  I felt my insides twist.

"Did you ever love me?"  I pleaded.

He looked down at me.  His eyes flicked over my body possessively and I wanted to shrink away.  But I knew how to appease him.  Only I could stop this.  Only I could save my brother and draw this maniac away from my family.  "Whatever you want," I heard myself say.  "If you stop him from hurting my brother, I'll do whatever you want."

The gleam in his eye made me want to vomit.  He licked his lips and closed his hand tightly around my arm.  I winced as his fingers found the already formed bruises.  The ring of fire around my neck blazed painfully.  "Joey!" he called, raising a fist of triumph.

My brother was on the ground, curled into a ball, his arms flung protectively over his head.   Officer Wilkens cracked his knuckles and looked disappointed, but stepped obediently back.

"Come with me, Emilia."  Robert tugged my arm.   "We'll talk this through."

"Emmy..."  My mother's whisper was a faint as the whisper of wings of a butterfly.

"I have to," I realized.  And I let him lead me. 

We walked slowly to the car.  Each step carried me back into the past.  My heavy feet scraped the gravel below legs that felt like tree trunks. 

Nothing had changed.  My brief taste of true love was ashes in my mouth.  I had left J. without saying goodbye.  I would never see him again. 

The tears came fast and flowing as we crossed the damp, dark lawn.  Robert led me towards the car, now parked at a crazy angle at the end of the long driveway.  The black, hulking shape seemed to move and waver in front of my tear-filled eyes.  It undulated, and then a part of the blackness detached itself from the car and lurched forward.  The shape of a man, dressed in black riding leathers.  The emerald shards in his eyes snapped cold fire in the porchlight's weak glow.

"Emmy," J. rasped.

Emmy

Robert stood motionless for a moment, giving me just the time I needed to yank my arm free and run to the man I loved.  I caught him in my arms just as he stumbled forward and struggled to hold him upright. "J.! What happened?"  His head fell forward onto my shoulder and I wrapped my hands tightly around his waist, half to hold him, half to know that he was real and warm and back in my arms.  "How did you get here?"

He moaned into my neck.  I pressed my cheek to his forehead and peered down at him.  His face was contorted into a grimace.  He leaned heavily on me, favoring his left leg.  In his left hand he held a helmet, horribly scraped and battered. 

I felt sick at the realization of what this meant and I looked around for a sign of his bike.  "How did you get here?"  I repeated.  "How did you know?"

He sucked in a deep breath and smiled, but didn't answer.  He just tucked a loose, damp strand of hair behind my ear.  I closed my eyes and exhaled at his touch.  With one slight brush of his finger, he could erase all of the horror of the past hours.  I felt the tears rise up inside of me. I wanted to collapse against him and let him hold me.  His arms would keep the terror at bay.

But the terror wasn't over.  "How touching."  Robert's sarcastic voice behind us cut through me like a knife and I shuddered. 

J. raised his head from my shoulder and I saw his expression change.  The weak light wasn't weak enough to hide the shadow that crossed his face.  He steadied me, checking to make sure I was standing.  Then he stepped back and I saw the fury that he had been holding inside rise up and out from him.  "Got a piece of advice for you, asshole," he called.

"And what is that?"  

J. stepped forward.  "You send someone to kill me, they better make damn well sure I'm dead."

My stomach dropped and I gasped in horror.  For a moment the world swam before my eyes.  I reached wildly for anything to hold on to and my hand found J.'s arm.  With one hand he steadied me, while he raised the other in Robert's direction.  "You want me gone?" he continued.  "You want me out of Emmy's life?  You fucking take me out of it yourself."

Robert hesitated and I saw the light gleam in J.'s eyes.  The same wild light that burned during the fight with the Storm Riders.  His voice rose.  "Come on pussy.  Let's do this.  It ends now."

Joey bellowed like a bull and rounded around Robert; rushing in to defend his master like a trained dog.  I shrieked and stepped back, my hands outstretched in futile warning.

J. whirled around out of the arc of Joey's swinging fist and swung the helmet around.  It crashed into Joey's face with a sickening crunch.  He screamed and clapped his hands to his nose, dropping to the ground with rivers of blood poured through his clenched hands.  J. stumbled slightly on his bad leg and Robert saw his opportunity, leaping forward and tackling J. to the ground.

"No!" I swung my leg out, aiming to kick him off of J. Robert ducked under my leg and grabbed my ankle.  He yanked hard and I fell heavily to the ground.  A searing jolt of pain shot up my hip.   His face twisted into a snarl as I stifled a moan.

"Leave her alone," J. growled.  He pushed upwards, knocking Robert off balance.  "Your fight's with me."  He moved faster than lightning. shimmying himself free before Robert could grab hold of him.  He was on his feet, readying the helmet to swing again.  Robert lunged forward from his knees, catching J. low around the ankles.  The helmet came down across Robert's head just as the two of them fell to the ground.  I saw blood drip from a split in Robert's scowling lip.

J. pushed himself up from the ground as he landed a vicious uppercut to Robert's jaw.  Robert lurched backward and landed awkwardly on his hand.  I recognized the snort of indignation that tore from his throat.  He couldn't believe someone had the audacity to stand up to him.

J. scrambled back up to his feet again and stood panting.  I could barely see him in the darkness, but his eyes seemed lit from within.  They were wild and alive, but no longer furious.  This light was different from the wild, unleashed rage I had shrank from before.  This was cold, calculating, and determined. 

With a start I realized the difference.  He wasn't fighting for himself right now.

He was fighting for me.

The two opponents crashed together.  J.'s superior strength overpowered Robert, and the two of them slammed hard into the hood of the BMW.  "Fucking animal," Robert spat, and aimed a fist at J.'s face.  J. grabbed him by the shirt and slammed him backward into the hood. 

"You like to beat on women?  Who's the animal?" he shot back, whirling Robert around by the shirt. 

His knee caught Robert in the stomach and he crumpled to the ground. Robert rolled onto his back and raised his hands in surrender.  "Stop!" he choked, panting.  "Please!"

I gasped out the breath I didn't know I was holding.  "J.!" I cried. 

My beautiful knight in leather looked at me.  I watched the pain in his face slide away as we locked eyes over the body of my horrible past.  I stepped towards him.  I was ready to leave this all behind.

He didn't see Joey, but I did  "Watch out!" I cried, but it was too late.  The former police officer yanked him backwards in a chokehold, lifting him from his feet.  J. clawed at the beefy arm around his neck, his boots kicking uselessly in the air.  "No!" I screamed. 

But Robert stepped between us.  With a vicious snarl, he punched J. in the stomach. What little air J. still had whooshed out of his lungs and his eyes bulged. 

"Stupid piece of worthless trash." With each snarled word, Robert rained blows down on J. while Joey held him helplessly from behind. 

"
No!"
I screamed, over and over again.  "No! No!" I dropped to the ground, searching for a weapon.  My fingers scrabbled in the wet grass, but closed on nothing useful.  His helmet.  I needed to find his helmet.  Or a rock.  Something to stop Robert before he killed J. in front of my eyes. 

I crawled helplessly in the dark, my sobs robbing me of breath.  My fingers closed around a piece of cloth and I lifted the helmet by the strap triumphantly. I whirled around.

My only thought at that moment was murder.

Robert's face under my hands as I blotted him out of existence. 

His face under my heel as I crushed him beneath me and finally walked free. 

In that moment, I could have taken his life.  Easily and gladly and with no thought to the consequences.  With a sob, I opened my mouth to say so.  "Robert!"  I screamed, and with my scream I heard a sound like the roaring of the wind and gathering thunder. 

I thought it came from me.  I wouldn't have been surprised. 

But when Robert's head snapped in the direction of the sound, I understood it was coming from far away.  But barreling down fast.  Like the swooping, rushing, roar of a river ready to drown us all.

Emmy

The sound made me smile, but the fear in Robert's eyes made me smile wider.  He stepped back.  Joey let go of J. and he crumpled to the ground.

I was over him in an instant.  "J.," I whispered, cradling his battered face in my lap.  "J. the Sons are here.  They're here."

His eyes fluttered open and I knew he heard it to. Silently, he reached for my hand and I turned to face the noise as one by one the Sons of Steel Motorcycle Club coasted into my parents' driveway and cut their engines.  In the weak light of the porch light, I saw them: Teach, Mac, Doctor D., Case and Crash, and behind them were even more men.

Case jumped from his bike when he saw me on the ground.  The rain had slowed to a fine mist, making the fog swirl up from the baking ground. It obscured his boots and made him look less like a biker and more like an avenging angel.

"Case, help!" I cried. 

"Emmy! Is that J.?"

"Yes!" I sobbed, holding him tighter. 

Robert was backing away from the bearded, tattooed mountain in front of him.  He snarled like a cornered animal.  "Bikers, Emilia?  Really?  A pack of filthy bikers?"

My stomach turned at the sound of his voice.  I could think of no other answer than to choke out, "Yes. You need to go now."

"What, are you the club whore now?" He was lashing out, desperate.

"Get out, Robert," I repeated. "Leave.  Now."

"Or what? You'll sic your dogs on me?" He laughed like it was an absurd notion, but his eyes rolled wildly from side to side.

Case drew himself up to his full height.  "You've got a pretty filthy fucking mouth for a dead man," he rumbled in a voice dripping with menace. 

When Case barreled forward, Robert screamed in a high, unearthly voice. "Joey!"  His lackey moved to go to him, but Crash jumped into his path.  "Try it, asshole!" he shouted, the manic craziness burning in his eyes.  With a yell, the whole club surged forward.  Case had Robert by the throat, lifting him off the ground.  Crash was dancing wildly around, teasing and taunting Joey who bellowed like a wounded buffalo.  He tried to dart round Crash's bad side but was met with a fist the size of a Christmas ham.  Wayne the Storm Rider laughed as the guard fell backwards onto his ass.

"You don't know who you're messing with!" Robert screamed.

"Neither do you," Case growled, throwing him to the ground.

J. and I went unnoticed.  I smoothed my hands over his face and they came away wet with my tears.  "J.," I whispered.

He coughed.  "Hey Em."  He rolled to the side and coughed again. 

"No," I pleaded.  "Don't get up."

"Have to," he croaked.  He pulled his feet under him, lurching drunkenly to the side before steadying himself on the car door.  He used the handle to haul himself to his feet.

"J.!" Case shouted.  "Saved you a piece!"

I turned to see him dragging Robert across the ground.  Robert struggled futilely, his feet bicycling across the wet, slippery grass.  His eyes darted wildly.

"Not my piece," J. croaked.   Everything paused as he turned to me.  "Emmy," he rasped, his voice broken and barely audible.  "Finish this."