Renegade Lady (3 page)

When we reach the club’s common room, I see Chipper holding Mindy in his arms.  I look around and notice a few of the members staring at them with surprised faces.   At first, I don’t see what the problem is, but then a movement behind Chipper catches my eye. 

What I see shocks the shit out of me.  There’s a young girl standing silently behind Chipper, and judging by her size, I can tell that she should be at a pep rally, not a fucking MC.  When I finally zero in on her face, my shock turns into fury.  The little thing is covered in random streaks of dried blood from her head down to her toes.  Her face is bruised and swollen.  Her legs are bare, and the only thing that she’s wearing is Chipper’s shirt.

Before I can open my mouth and ask what the fuck’s going on, Pop beats me to it. “What the fuck happened?”

The girl starts to shrink away, but Chipper puts his arm around her and pulls her close to his side. “It’s okay, darlin’. You’re safe here,” he says quietly.

He then turns to his wife. “Mindy, can you take her and find some clothes, clean her up, and get a room ready for her? Make sure it’s close to my old room.  I got a lot of things to talk to Pop about, so we’ll all be sleeping here tonight.  But tomorrow, she’ll be coming home with us.”

“She’s going home with us?”  Mindy asks, looking as shocked as the rest of the room.

A determined look crosses Chipper’s face, and then he leans down and whispers into Mindy’s ear.  Whatever he said leaves her looking like she’s seen a ghost.  She looks up to him and places her hand on his cheek.  “Okay, love.  I’ll take care of your girl.”

“Come with me, honey,” she says softly, reaching her hand out to the shaken girl. The kid hesitates and looks to Chipper.  As soon as my brother nods, she takes Mindy’s hand. 

As I watch her walk away, something comes over me; something I can’t quite figure out. Even though she looks like she’s had the shit beat out of her, her eyes unsettle me… there’s just something about them.  Something that calls to me in a way that I don’t understand.  Shaking off my thoughts of underage girls and their haunted eyes, I turn to Chipper to see that he’s staring at Pop with anger etched onto his face, and I know he’s about ready to blow.

“Pops, you’re fucking lucky I had to get that girl outta that damn club, or I would have blown every last one of them bastards apart,” he says angrily. “Do something about that fuckin’ club, or I will!” he shouts.

Pops steps forward. “What happened?”

“What happened?” he shouts even louder. “I’ll tell you what happened.  Nearly every damn member was strung out on coke.  There’s no leadership, nothing getting done. It was a complete cluster fuck.”

“What about the girl?  Who is she?” I ask, not giving Pop a chance to respond. 

Chipper jerks his head towards me.  “She’s a sixteen year old kid that was being raped by members of the fucking club. Renegade Sons raping a kid…” He shakes his head. “It’s a fucking disgrace.”

Anger boils up inside me.  We may be bikers, often crossing the line between right and wrong, but we don’t rape women.  We sure as hell don’t rape little girls.  “Who?”

“All I know is that her name is Jenna, and she doesn’t have anywhere to go.”

I shake my head in frustration.  “No, I meant who the fuck was raping her?”

Chipper’s body grows rigid as he looks towards Pop.  He stares at him for a moment before looking back to me.  “Rig was, but he won’t be raping anyone else.  I planted a bullet in his brain.”

I can tell he’s not telling me everything, but I don’t get the chance to ask anything else before Pop motions for Chipper to follow him into his office. 

Jenna

The woman, I’m assuming, is Chipper’s old lady, leads me into a room at the back of the club house.  It’s a lot bigger than the rooms at the Mateland MC, and it’s sure as hell a lot cleaner.  There’s a bed in one corner and a small table with chairs in the other.  It looks a lot like the rooms at the women’s shelter that me and mom would stay in when she didn’t have money for rent. 

To say I’m scared is an understatement.  In fact, I’m terrified.  I can’t stop myself from worrying that at any moment, someone is going to say that I have to go back to Timmons.  I’m his now, right?  He said I was his and that no one would ever be able to help me.  They can’t just take me away from him, can they?

“Here’re some clothes.  They may be a little big on you, but they’ll do until we can get you something else,” the woman says, handing me a pair of dark blue sweats, a black Harley T-shirt, and thick white socks. “Sorry, but I don’t have any panties or a bra for you.  We don’t really keep women’s clothing here, so you’re going to have to go commando for a while.”

“They’re fine. Thank you,” I whisper, taking the bundle from her. 

She gives me a sad smile and motions towards a door near the back of the room. “The bathroom’s over there.  While you take a shower, I’ll grab you something to eat.”

I nod and walk to the bathroom.  As soon as I step into the room, I lock the door.  I know that if someone really wants in, there’s nothing I can do to keep them out, but the lock makes me feel a little safer.  I can’t forget that these are bikers, just like my dad and his brothers.  There’s no way they’re going to help me for nothing. Everything always comes at a price with them.

I get out of my clothes as quickly as I can, throwing the purple nighty in the trash, and glad to be rid of the nasty thing.  I fold Chipper’s shirt, setting it beside the sink before stepping into the cool shower.  I turn the stainless steel handle all the way over and put the hot water on blast, doing my best to let it scald the filth of Timmons and Rig off of me, the filth I couldn’t fully get off at the rest stop.  Grabbing the soap, I spend the next ten minutes scrubbing every inch of myself.  By the time I’m done, my skin is red and burning, but I do feel somewhat better. I rush to dry off and get dressed, then run a brush through my tangled hair. 

I’m just stepping out of the bathroom when Chipper’s woman walks back in. She’s carrying a plate piled high with food.  “Good, you’re done.  Now, you can eat.”

She motions me towards a chair and hands me the plate.  “I wasn’t sure what you liked, so I brought you a little bit of everything.”

“Thank you,” I say as I sit down.

She stays and quietly watches me as I eat; each bite causing my jaw to ache even more.  I’m not complaining though. I know that I’m lucky Timmons didn’t completely break my jaw.  He sure tried hard enough to.  The proof of that’s all over my face.

As soon as I set the plate on the table next to my chair, she gently grabs my hand.  “My name is Mindy.  I guess you already figured out that I’m Chipper’s old lady.”

I nod.  “Yeah.  I kind of figured that.”

She laughs.  “What’s your name, sweetie?”

“Jenna.”

“You want to tell me what happened to you, or do you want me to wait and hear it from Chipper?  He told me a little, but I’m sure there’s more to it.”

In truth, I don’t want to tell anyone what happened, but she’s been nice to me, so I figure I owe her something.  “Some guys were hurting me, and Chipper stopped them. He saved me, really. Problem is that I didn’t have anywhere to go, so he brought me here.”

“Hurting you?”

I know she wants me to tell her more, but that’s just not something I’m willing to do right now.  Instead, I ask her the question that’s been bothering me since Chipper and I pulled out of the Mateland MC parking lot.  “What’s he gonna do with me?”

A puzzled look crosses over her face.  “What do you mean, do with you?”

I shrug.  “Is he going to send me back?”

“There’s no way my husband would send you back to a place where you were being hurt.  Don’t worry about that,” she says, placing her other hand on top of our joined hands. “Where are your parents?”

“My dad….” What can I really say about my dad? It isn’t like I can tell any of them my dad is the Vice President of the Mateland crew. “My dad doesn’t want me. He never really did.”

“And, your mom?”

“My mom is dead,” I say, my voice sounding harsh even to my own ears.

“Do you have any other family?” she asks, giving my hand a soft squeeze. 

I shake my head.  “Not really.  I know my mom’s parents live out in Montana, but I’ve never met them.  As far as I know, Mom hadn’t talked to them since before I was born.  I don’t know anything at all about my dad’s parents.”

“No aunts or uncles?”

“Not that I know of.  It was always just me and Mom,” I say, trying in vain to think of someone, anyone that would care enough to take me in. “I have no one.”

“That’s not true.”

I jerk my eyes up to meet hers.  “Yes, it is.  No one cares whether I live or die.”

She gives my hand another squeeze as a soft smile crosses her face.  “When my husband brought you here tonight, he was claiming you as his.”

I shake my head in denial.  “No way.  Nuh uh.  You’re his old lady! He can’t claim me!”

“I meant that he claimed you as family, so that means you’re my family too.  I’ve always wanted a daughter.”

Her words are like a balm to my soul. “I always wanted a real mother.” I say quietly.

CHAPTER Three

Jenna

I’m sitting at the kitchen table, looking out the window and reflecting on how much my life has changed over the past few weeks.  I’ve been in Big Clifty for nearly a month now, and I still can’t believe that I’ve been saved.  First of all, I have a real home with Mindy and Chipper.  It’s not a huge place, but it looks like a mansion compared to the shitholes that mom and me lived in.

Secondly, my dad and Timmons aren’t even looking for me, although I’m pretty sure they know where I am.  All that really matters is that they haven’t come to get me yet, and I’m starting to think that they never will.  To be honest, I never really thought Dad would come for me, but a big part of me feared that Timmons would.  I guess he didn’t want me as bad as I thought he did, thank God. 

Timmons and Killer were the only two members of the Renegade Sons I knew before I went to the club house.  They used to stop by my Mom’s every once in a while looking for Dad.  Killer was an okay guy.  He never bothered me when he came over.  I’ve been afraid of Timmons since I was just a little girl, though.  I can’t really explain why, but I just knew there was something weird about him.  Then five years ago, he started making me touch him.   I was only eleven years old at the time, and he was in his late twenties.  That’s when I realized that he wasn’t just weird, he was a complete sicko. 

When I first walked into Mateland MC, I was a virgin.  Timmons stole that from me the first night.  I was sure nothing could have hurt worse than that, but he proved to me that I was wrong.  The other things he did to me made the first rape seem like a walk in the park, especially that first week when he kept me locked in his room, only coming in when he wanted to hurt me.

Eventually, he decided that he’d share me with Rig.  I hate to admit it, but Rig wasn’t all that bad.  He never used his fists on me, and he made sure I had food and water.  That’s a hell of lot more than I can say for Timmons.  To him, a fist in the face was a love tap. 

Rig took the time to show me around the club.  I was surprised to see other girls the same age as me there; a few of them I even knew from school. They’d quit a while back, and I hadn’t seen them since.  I naively assumed that they had moved away, but I never even considered the thought that they were stuck in this hell hole right along with me.  As soon as I saw them, I wanted to do something to help them, but how could I when I couldn’t even help myself.

Rig occasionally let me talk to some of the girls when I behaved well.  He said that they could teach me the ropes, but what they really taught me was to run if I ever got the chance.    The longer I stayed at the club, the more I learned. A few of the girls were even younger than me; the youngest one barely being thirteen. She looked like a little kid, but her eyes were dull and void from the loss of her innocence.  Some of the girls claimed they were there willingly, and even went as far as to say that they loved their old man, but more than a few were being held against their will, just like me. 

Before the night Dad gave me to Timmons, I had my life mapped out: turn eighteen, get my mom and me out of the little trailer we lived in, and run as far away as we could. But, finding Mom dead on the kitchen floor changed all of that.  I should have been smart.  I should have packed up and ran away from that piece of shit town as soon as I laid eyes on her cold, lifeless body.  Instead, I made the ultimate error of running straight to my Dad, which has, so far, been the biggest mistake of my life.

Losing hope as the weeks passed, I didn’t think I’d ever get out of that clubhouse. The day Chipper found me being raped and humiliated by two disgusting men, I knew I was going to be free. I wasn’t sure how, and I never would’ve thought he’d be the one to do what he did, but I knew in my gut as soon as I saw him that he was my savoir.  Chipper not only saved me, but he also gave me a home and a family; a place where I felt safe and loved for the first time in my entire life.