Page 20 of Ordinary Girl

I take a deep breath, I’m so out of my depth here. I don’t know what I was thinking, agreeing to work for this club. Sleeping with their president. I guess, sometimes, we all do things we wouldn’t normally dream of doing, when pushed. When desperate.

Skip’s hand on the small of my back seems to push the calm forward. I can breathe again without it burning the back of my throat.

“Where she is?” I ask, my voice slightly less panicked than it was a moment ago, but I’m far from being okay with this situation.

“She’s over there. By the pool table. See? Skimming my men like a pro. Sofia, she’s fine.”

I follow Skip’s gaze, but seeing her – my daughter – laughing with these men, the way they’re looking at her, it doesn’t ease my fears, it makes them worse. And I don’t even realize I’ve taken hold of Skip’s hand until I feel him squeeze it, and I look down. See his fingers wrapped around mine. And I don’t pull my handfrom his, I leave it there. And I don’t want to admit it, but he makes me feel safe. Even here, in this place I still consider to be slightly sinister, he makes me feel safe.

He leans into me, his breath warm on my neck and I close my eyes, I fall back against him as he angles my head around: kisses my mouth. He tastes of whiskey and beer, and I cling onto his hand, fall deeper into his kiss. So deep I don’t even feel the sudden, sharp pain in my chest. I don’t feel it. I don’t… feel it…

Nine

Ana

Ican’t move. It’s like I’m frozen in time, everything’s still going on around me but all I can do is watch as my mama falls to the floor, her blood splattering those around her. My mama. Dead. Shot with a single bullet.

I’m numb. I don’t think I believe what I’m seeing, maybe I’m just dreaming. That’s why I can’t move. I’m dreaming. But as I look back over at the bar, at the crowd of people surrounding my mama… My mama’s dead…?

I feel my knees give way beneath me, feel the scream rise up from the pit of my belly, spilling out of me as I sink to the floor. But almost as fast as I fell I feel hands hook under my arms, hauling me to my feet, dragging me up. Dragging me away…no!I need to be with my mama…

I turn my head. The man dragging me away is tall and strong with dark, dark eyes that fill me with a fear I can’t keep down, and I try to scream again but he slaps a hand over my mouth, slams me back against the wall, I don’t even know if I’m scared anymore. I think what I’m feeling now has gone way beyond fear.

I try to kick out, try to fight, but a second man appears: smacks me hard across the face as the other one keeps me pinned against the wall. I close my eyes, the pain in my jaw is so intense I can barely breathe, and the smell of them – whoever they are – it’s making me sick to my stomach.

They’re talking to each other, but their voices are so low I can’t make out what they’re saying, and then they laugh. A sound which fills me with a new kind of fear. Tears burn my cheeks, I’mscared, I’m so scared, and I don’t know what to do. I don’t… But the second I feel fingers writhe at the zipper on my jeans, I know I have to fight this, so I try to kick out again, try to scream, but it’s a reaction that’s met with a punch to the gut that knocks the breath right out of me.

I just want it to end now.

I want to be with my mama…

Joel

She falls to the floor, blood pumping from her chest, and I reach behind me, draw my gun, looking around for the bastards who saw fit to gate-crash our party. The screams almost drown out the gunfire, the roar of bikes outside, the battle call of our brothers, it’s all-out fucking war now.

I glance over at Sofia’s motionless body. Freja and Dag are beside her, they’re dealing with it. I have no idea where Ana is. Ana…Shit!I’m trying to find her but it’s fucking chaos in here. Where the hell is Skip? He isn’t with Sofia. Not anymore. And then I see him, hunkered down by the door, his head bowed. He’s covered in blood, it’s dripping from his fingertips, pooling around his feet, and I don’t know how much of that ishis…

“Hey. Skip. Look at me, brother.”

He raises his head: glances briefly at me before turning away. “It should’ve been me, Joel. She just got in the way. It should’ve been me...”

That’s all he says, his gaze focused on Kasper and a number of our brothers as they check the yard over. It seems quiet out there now, but we trust no one, and that gate – the gate to the compound, that should’ve been closed. We should’ve kept it closed…

Skip hauls himself to his feet, pulls a cigarette from his pocket and lights up, drawing deep. “I couldn’t save her, Joel. Ididn’t see it coming. She was in my fucking arms and I couldn’t save her. I couldn’t protect her.”

I don’t know what to say. I don’t even know if Sofia was the only casualty, did those assholes cost us men, too?

“Everything seems okay out there.” Kasper stops to catch his breath, glancing back behind him, just to make sure. “I think they just wanted to warn us.”

“They got Sofia.”

Kasper frowns, and then it dawns on him, the reality of what’s just happened here. “Shit…! Where’s Ana?”

The scream rises above any other noise still filling the clubhouse. A wail so brutal it fills me with a coldness even I’ve rarely felt, and then it stops, just like that. And I grip my gun tighter as I make my way through the carnage to the back of the clubhouse, and that’s when I see her. Ana. When I see the Blackhawk patches on the back of their kuts as they paw at her, as she struggles to free herself, an action that’s met with a swipe to the side of her face so hard it knocks her head right back. And I don’t miss a beat, firing one shot at the bastard who’s got his hand between her legs, and another at the asshole behind her, felling them each with a single bullet, they had no time to react. They fall in a heap at her feet and I kick their bodies away like the sacks of crap they are, pull up her jeans and gently take her in my arms. She’s cold and taut, her body freezing up as I hold her, and when I look at her face it’s battered and bruised, those pieces of shit messed her up real bad.

“It’s okay,” I whisper, even though it’s so far from that. For her. We can deal with this crap, it’s our world, we play by these fucked-up rules. She doesn’t. She shouldn’t have had to. What the fuck was she thinking, coming here? “I’ve got you. Nothing’s going to happen to you now.”

I look behind me, beckoning Freja and Elise over.

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