Page 12 of The Order of Disorder
“I’m patient,” he adds, voice cool as ice. “And I like my girls broken.”
It’s not real. I’m not here. I’m laughing with that girl downstairs. I’m racing in a car with Damian. I’m leaning my head on Wyatt’s shoulder. I’m falling asleep in Ryder’s arms.
CHAPTER FOUR
BY THE TIME the sun goes down, the entire hangar is vibrating with energy. Billy is jumpy and wired. He loves a party. Loves gathering his subjects around him to worship the king.
I can only hope that there won’t be another show tonight with me at the center. But Billy is impossible to predict.
I try to tell myself it’s just what my life is now. And that it doesn’t matter anyway. That I’m not in my body anymore. I left my soul back at Ryder’s house with him and it’s sinking into the gravel with his blood. Gone.
Billy hands my outfit to me—the bundle so small that at first I don’t understand what he’s passing me: a black g-string and nipple pasties with tassels. He points to the shoes lined up by the bed: black and red stilettos with a two-inch platform. Stripper heels.
It’s indecent, but I’m indifferent. I adhere the pasties to my bare breasts and strap on the shoes without protesting. My body doesn’t feel like my own anymore, and if it’s not my body, what do I care if it’s exposed? It’s just another night to endure.
Then Billy makes us wait. We watch from his bedroom window while the hangar fills slowly, people flowing in like ants starting to swarm.
One body at a time. Then fifty. A hundred. More.
The music ramps up, beats pounding over drunken laughter and shouted greetings. Outside, bikes continue to roar in, one after another. The smell of smoke and booze and exhaust is thick enough to choke on. The night’s just starting, and I already want it to be over.
When the floor is packed, shoulder to shoulder, Billy finally texts Silas to cue the spotlight and picks up my leash. We walk out onto the platform outside his room and light floods my vision, making me squint. I have to lift an arm to block my face. Below us, the music cuts out and people start to cheer for Billy.
He lifts a beat-up microphone to his mouth, one that’s connected to a wire wrapped around the platform’s handrail like a garland. When he speaks, his voice crackles through the sound system, booming through the hangar.
“We’re celebrating tonight! Raise a glass to the riders who just brought it home for the O.D.—our fearless, loyal, fucking legendary riders!”
The crowd erupts.
“These boys just pulled off something most clubs wouldn’t touch, and they did it flawlessly. No cops. No heat. No fuckups.”
He thumps his chest for emphasis and hollers now, his voice projecting so loudly he doesn’t need the microphone. It whistles and screeches in protest.
“Pure fucking nerve. That’s how we ride. That’s just who we fucking are. And that’s why no one ever fucks with the O.D.!”
The crowd explodes, hollering and cheering. He looks down across the sea of faces, basking in it.
He points to the screaming skull banner overhead. “When the skull screams, we scream back!”
The crowd loses it. Fists pump the air, boots stomp. A chant rises from the floor: “O.D.! O.D.! O.D.!”
Billy drinks it in. Eyes lit. Chest out. This is what he lives for.
He tugs on the leash, pulling me toward him, and then slips an arm around my hip.
“Look at that, Max.” His breath is hot against my ear. “You feel the power in this room tonight? This is peak fucking O.D. And you’re going to have a helluva night, dressed like this.” His hand rides up my side and covers my breast, squeezing it possessively. “You look so fucking sexy. Every last man down there is going to want to fuck you.”
He drops his hand, slips it into the front of my underwear, and then slides two fingers between my legs, making me stiffen before he pulls back with a smirk.
“And maybe they will.”
I stare dead ahead, across the hangar to the other side. Over the pit below us of sweaty bodies and pounding fists. Over the haze of smoke and lights. I am a mannequin. An object. An empty shell.
“Aw, loosen up,” he grumbles, disappointed in my lack of reaction. “You’re killing the mood.”
Then he tugs me down the rickety stairs to the main floor, like a trophy on a chain.
Downstairs, we pace endlessly through the crowd. Billy glad-hands with the men, flirts with the women, and seems to be handed a drink at every step. He’s keyed up. Charged. His eyes flick everywhere—scanning, clocking, soaking it all in.
