Page 5 of Jester

SISTER SASS

Talon Marsden/Member

Ever since I was alittle girl, I dreamed of riding with the Born Villains Motorcycle Club. My dad founded the club and built the community where we live. I grew up surrounded by rough men and tough women who were beaten down—yet never broken—by the world. They were what I aspired to be.

Ever since I was little, my mom—a beautiful brunette with beautiful blue eyes, milky skin, and the best smile—would promise me how I could be one of the bikers if I stayed strong.

“They look at ugly things,” Betty Boop would explain. “If you want to ride with your dad, you have to be willing to stare into the eyes of evil.”

“You look at ugly things, too,” I replied, never letting a comment die without me tossing in my two cents on the matter.

But I was also right. After all, the Sanctuary offered refuge to people beat down by life. I saw their fresh wounds, old scars, and haunted gazes. My mom was in charge of the Stockade—a one-story house where the new arrivals ended up. Sometimes, we’d have so many new people, we had to put them around the Sanctuary, either staying with members in their big houses or eventually in the cottages on Black Pine Road.

“We face those ugly things within the safety of the Sanctuary,” Betty Boop explained when I insisted she was as badass as the bikers. “To be a Born Villian, you might need to ride to the heart of the evil. There are people in this world with no humanity in them. I hope you never meet them, baby.”

I thought I had all the right stuff to be a member. I was as tough as my brothers—pretty-boy Overlord and spitting-image-version-of-our-dad Bomber. They might be bigger, but size wasn’t everything. I’d seen founding member—and tough-chick Ominous—fuck up plenty of men. She was everything I wanted to be.

My plans shifted after I caught sight of one of the founding members riding shirtless when I was seventeen. Jester whipped up a swirling storm of lust and painful hopes in my gut. I went from a tomboy wanting to get rowdy to a lovestruck bitch.

On that scorching summer day, a lot of the guys—and several chicks—were running around barely dressed. I didn’t take notice of any of their bare flesh. However, when Jester—a large man with long, wavy brown hair, gray-blue eyes, and rugged sex appeal—rode by wearing only his vest over his broad chest, I went supernova horny.

Of course, he hadn’t even acknowledged me that day. I was just another Sanctuary kid while he’d been a man for a long time.

Jester was never warm and cuddly. Though my father might have looked fearsome, he was always fun and soft with us kids. That’s why people called him Papa Bear. He was like everyone’s cool, understanding dad.

But Papa Bear could also be scary and lash out suddenly. Never erratically, but if someone threatened his people, my father would fuck them up quick and cruel. Then, he’d be back to the man I cuddled with during Sunday movies.

That’s not how Jester has ever been wired. He’s an angry, closed-off man unwilling to meet most people even halfway on any matter. Though he has friends, he’s rarely friendly. Despite his loyalty toward my family and the club, he had always intimidated me.

That’s why I’d never noticed how beautiful he was before. Jester’s six-foot-five frame was thickly muscled. He wore his dark hair long to hide his usually frowning face. His gray-blue eyes are simply hypnotic when they aren’t shooting hate daggers. Once he got under my skin, I couldn’t stop stealing glances and borderline stalking the hunky jerk.

Before my crush, I’d been cagy about guys. Puberty made me very aware of how male the Sanctuary tended to be. Soon after getting boobs, I cut my hair super short and wore a lot of flannel as if I could ugly up my appearance enough to be one of the guys rather than a vulnerable chick.

According to my brother, I lack common sense. “You’re like a fucked-up cartoon I saw years ago,” Bomber explained despite me telling him to shut up. “The cat got so startled by the ringing doorbell that it ran into the hot fireplace and killed itself. You’re that cat. You get so wound up, you never look at where you’re going.”

Though I called Bomber a lot of names that day, I never forgot what he said.

I might be racing into another fire by dreaming I can make Jester happy once he’s released from prison. We’ve been “dating” for years. I call him every week and talk about food and other casual topics since the prison calls are monitored. Sometimes, he can call on a private cell, and we get more personal. Years ago, during a call, Jester made clear what he had planned for us.

“You can fall for another guy, and I can pretend to be okay with that, but I’ll probably just kill him.”

At first, his tone and words startled me, but my sassy side refused to back down. “No way would I ever forgive you for killing the imaginary love of my life.”

“He should have stayed out of my fucking way.”

“This hypothetical guy clearly won my heart fair and square. Probably because you didn’t want to win it.”

“I don’t care how he took you away from me. I’ll make nice for a while, but eventually, I’m killing him.”

“Not if he kills you first,” I warned.

“No one can kill me. I’ve been dead since before you were born.”

That last part freaked me out.How can I love some undead thing, even if he’s handsome and went to prison for me?

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