BANE: A Devils' Due MC Romance Novel (8 page)

That was easier said than done, of course, especially with people who wanted to get rid of me the same way they got rid of him.

As I was sitting at the farthest end of the bus that ferried me back to Buffalo, I kept praying that the trip would be longer than it should be.  I wished that the red lights would never turn green.  I wished that the train of pedestrians would never stop crossing the road.  I even wished for a vehicular accident that would cause a monstrous traffic jam so that the bus would get stuck in the middle of Highway 16.

I had no such luck.

I alighted from the bus at Hummington Drive.  I walked slowly towards Charleston Street, where the clubhouse was.  What should’ve been a ten minute trek stretched to thirty minutes or so.  It was already dark, but it wasn’t late enough. 

I stared at the clubhouse from afar.  Even as I stood at the other side of the road, I could hear the merrymaking inside.  Men screamed with rapturous joy.  Women tittered with crude delight.  The thunderous sound of motorcycle engines accompanied the loud music being played, Iron Maiden’s
Wasted Years
.  It was a tune that I was familiar with.  My father loved that song.

I could sit there by the roadside until their party was over.  But that would take forever.  Their frolics never ended early.

I took a deep breath as my sweating hand tightened its grip on my books.

Then I started to walk towards the building.

Their revelry stopped as soon as I entered the clubhouse.  What seemed like a thousand pairs of eyes descended on me, and I immediately felt the revulsion and scorn in their hearts.

I managed to take a few steps amidst the silence.  I slithered my way through the horde of people - patches and prospects and
sweet butts
- until I was halfway across the lobby and so near the hallway that led to my designated room.

I thought I was scot-free, until someone threw a bottle of beer in front of me.  It quickly shattered and some of the shards scraped my ankles.

“Fucking rat slut!” a girl screamed.  I didn’t see who she was. 

It didn’t matter, though, for less than a second later, everyone in that place was yelling at me.  Soon, thereafter, it was raining cigarette filters and chicken bones and spit.

I quickened my pace until I reached the hallway.  They never stopped screaming.  Most of the curses were from the girls, and they were cruel. 
Just die bitch!  Go suck some cop’s cock!  Just send her to Lonesome Rose! 

The men said some mean things too, but not as mean as what the women were shouting.  But that doesn’t make their words less hurtful.  A particular conversation scarred my heart.

We can just bury her next to her old man.

Did we even bury her daddy?

Oh, that’s right.  We just left him in the sewers with the rest of the rats.

It reminded me that they never even held a funeral for my father. 

I ran towards the room and closed the door.  I threw myself on the bed.  I clenched my hands into fists and slammed the cushion.  I tried my best not to cry.  I’ve been crying since he died... I’ve been crying too much...

I should be stronger than this
, I told myself, hoping to muster enough strength to regain my composure.  But it wasn’t enough.  A torrent of emotions flooded through me and I began to weep, forming a puddle of tears on the bed beneath my face.

You’re not a prisoner here
, Bane said, but it never felt that way.  I had nowhere else to go, no one else to turn to.  I was stuck here, with the club that abhorred me because of what my father did.

My dad served them for more than thirty years, and now, all that they could remember was his final act of betrayal...

And their hatred for the daughter he left behind.

I was awakened by sound of the door creaking open and the loud footsteps that followed.

He saw me peeking out of the blanket that covered my entire body.  He was a little bit shocked that I was still awake.

“Aw hell!  I know I should’ve knocked but I thought ‘ya were already dreamin’,” he said as we went straight to the drawer past the bed.  “Now close ‘yer eyes.  I gotta get dressed.  I stink like a fucking hobo after bein’ under the sun the whole fuckin’ day.”

I pulled the sheets over my face, but the blanket wasn’t enough to cover my sight.

And I saw him.

He removed his kutte.  He was wearing a white shirt... the only kind of shirt he always liked to wear.  But it was covered with something that I didn’t immediately recognize because of the darkness.  Something shiny and gluey that stuck on his clothes like streaks of paint.

I gasped in horror when I realized that it was blood.

Lots and lots of blood that smeared his top like zebra striped of crimson red.

Was he bleeding?  My heart pumped like crazy with worry.

He removed his shirt.  His husky body glistened with sweat and nothing else.  I heaved a sigh of relief in knowing that he was unharmed.

But then, I saw it.

Scars, old and dry and withered, daubed all over his brawny back like doodles of a child who could barely draw.  They painted a story of pain... years and years of pain... and he bore their marks with amazing strength and fortitude.  One scar, though, was prominent than the rest... a huge wound that striped his ribs... healed but blemished for life.

“Mission fucking accomplished!  Those Rapid City sissies won’t be encroaching on our turf no more,” he said as he threw his shirt inside the cabinet.  I didn’t know if he was talking to me or if he was just thinking aloud.  “School was alright?” he asked, making me know that he was, indeed, conversing with me.

“Y-Yes,” I muttered.

“Good!  One day down and...” he paused to make a mental calculation which caused him some agony.  “Ah, bullshit!” he finally gave up after a few seconds.  “One day down and a few more months to go!”

His pants dropped on the floor and he stepped out of them.  He was wearing gray-colored briefs that divulged his thick thighs, each of which was as big as a tree trunk.  I started to breathe rapidly as I saw the powerful bulges of his lower body, finely toned lumps that would take years for a sculptor to replicate. 

I didn’t know his exact age, but Bane looked old... or at least older than the other patches I’ve seen... with the exception of my father, of course.  If I were to guess, I’d say he was between forty-five and fifty.  He looked more mature... wiser, even, though his manner of speaking didn’t reveal it... than the people he was with.  The contours on his face were guided by decades of toil and trouble, all of which he has seemed to endure with ease, considering how confident he always appeared to be. 

Yeah, judging from how he looked, Bane was old.

But his body...

His body made a liar out of his face.  If he was indeed forty-five-ish, then guys more than half his age would really envy his fine, fine form.  He had muscles everywhere... and they weren’t the scary kind of muscles.  His sinewy torso and his stubby limbs were of the perfect proportions.  Looking at him like that, down to his underwear and all, and I was led to think... his body didn’t strike fear to anyone who’d see him... rather, his body was reassuring for the people he held dear, as it promised them protection which he was more than capable of providing.

Then he pulled down his briefs.

And I stopped breathing completely.

A lump formed in my throat as I caught a good view of his well-chiseled buttocks.  I tried to clear it but there was no air in my lungs, and all that came out was a loud cough.

He turned his head and before I could close my eyes or gaze the other way, he saw me... looking at him with my darn mouth wide open.

“Hey! I told ‘ya to close ‘yer eyes!” he said with a bewildered smile, pondering, perhaps, why I was gaping at him like that.  He didn’t bother to dress up more speedily, though.  He took his time in finding a new pair of briefs before putting them on.

“I... uhm... I... errr...” I didn’t know what to say.  I was desperate for a reply -
any reply
- just to inform him that I wasn’t leering at his naked physique.

“‘Ya what?” he asked rather irritatedly.  He always struck me as an impatient man.  He didn’t like it when someone dithered and dallied for an answer he was demanding.

“I... I was looking at your back,” I managed to speak, with a prayer that it was a good enough reason for me to peer at him like that.

He grunted.

“The scars scare ‘ya, kid?” he wanted to know as he gave me a vexed look over his massive shoulder.

I shook my head, more vehemently than what was normal.

“Wounds of war,” he casually replied as he put on a fresh pair of jeans. 

“War?” I was confused.  By
war
, did he mean a war with another MC?  Or was he a soldier  - a real soldier - once?

“Yeah, it was after the Gulf War,” he began to explain.  “Some insurgents in Kuwait didn’t really like Uncle Sam meddling with their business.  They caught me and... well... let’s just say those fuckers did a number on me.  They wanted me to spill the beans on some things so they can prepare a damn ambush.  They were desperate to be... persuasive.  But I didn’t squeal.  I’d rather die than give them what they wanted.  I’m no
rat.”

He paused when he realized that his choice of words may have offended or hurt me.  It seemed like he felt a little bit of remorse as he didn’t even turn around to see my reaction.  He just sighed and wore the new shirt he got from the drawer.

“The Gulf War?” I expressed my unfamiliarity about the subject.

“Yep. 1991.  Where you already alive back then?”

“Uhm... no... I was born in 1998.”

“’98, huh?  That was a hell of a year!  Lots of troops were sent home in ’98, including me.  That crisis in the Middle East was startin’ to quiet down and there was no longer a need to maintain a large group of soldiers there, they said.  That’s a load of bull, if you’ll ask me.  I think they were just afraid of the Millennium Bug or something.  K2Y is it?”

“Y2K,” I corrected him.  That part I learned from school.

“Yeah, that motherfuckin’ virus shit.  Turned out to be all hot air though, right?  All the talk about it, then boom!  The new millennium came and nothin’ happened.”

He wore his kutte and prepared to leave the room.

“Well, get more sleep, kid,” he said as he walked towards the door.  “Got an early day ahead of ‘ya.”

Before he could step out of the exit, however, he stopped as if he realized something that shocked him.  Then he shot me a quizzical look.