Gremlin snickers loudly as the head rolls off the pile of body parts and lands at his feet with a wet thump.
Lifting it up by the hair, he turns it to face him. “What did this fucker do?”
Jude shrugs his thick shoulders, and I notice that despite the messy state of the body, his suit is still pristine. “Fuck if I know. I was told to make it last and make sure he didn’t go peacefully.”
Fuck.
This is going to be a mess. At least some of the body has already been cut up… I guess there’s a silver lining in that.
Heading over to the workshop area, I start grabbing black rolls of plastic sheeting, rubber gloves, and three smocks.
Walking back over to Jude and Gremlin, I start handing the shit out, but Gremlin holds his hands up. “This one’s on you, prospect. I gotta take a piss.”
“Fucking dick,” I snap at him before I throw his set of shit over to the work area.
“We all gotta pay our dues, Coy, my boy,” Gremlin sing-songs at my ass as he walks out the back of the building.
Fucking animal doesn’t even use the fucking toilet, he just gonna piss on the side of the building.
Jude turns his cold eyes on me. “You’ve made your bones, Coy, this isn’t anything new.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I smirk at him. “But what the fuck did you do his dick? Jesus, fuck, man.”
Jude smiles like he’s fucking proud of himself. “I stuck a metal rod down it then I used an apple corer.”
He takes off his black suit jacket and heads over to an empty chair. Draping the jacket over the back of the chair, he removes his suit vest.
“The fuck?” I ask and begin debating my life choices.
“Eh, it was the start of our little heart to heart. I wanted to make sure I started off on the right foot,” Jude says, removing his crisp white shirt.
Underneath all the spit and polish of his clothing, this motherfucker is just like me. Fucking tatts all over his body and full sleeves. Looking over a few of them, I get a sense of his style. There’s demons and angels everywhere. Some are graphically beautiful and some look like the artistry of a child.
Grabbing the amputated feet, I look at him and ask, “Any reason you took the feet and hands off?”
“Call it professional pride, I guess. I wanted to see if I could remove them one by one at the end and not have him bleed out before I was done.”
Fuck, that’s… Well, that’s kinda talented, I think, after everything else that’s been done to the corpse.
“How did it go? Did you make it?” I ask as I throw the feet into the cremator we use for the larger animals.
Jude sighs. “I made it to the last foot before he died. I really should have cauterized the stumps, but I wanted to race myself.”
I chuckle because the fucker looks seriously disappointed in himself.
“Well, I’ve got a five-spot sayin’ you’ll get it next time,” I say, grinning at him.
Heading over to the back of the Tahoe, I start to reach in to grab the legs of the torso when Gremlin comes rushing into the building like the fucking devil himself is chasing him.
“Coy!” Gremlin shouts to me. “Where the fuck is your phone?!”
Slapping my hands down at my pockets, I look around for a moment, not feeling it in my back pocket. Walking over to the chair where my kutte is, I grab it out of my pocket.
“What the fuck?” I ask as I look at Gremlin then down to my phone.
Fuck me, I had it on silent.
On the home screen it shows I’ve got almost thirty missed calls, all back to back.
All from my old man.
“Dude, call your dad now,” Gremlin says, coming up to me and putting his hand on my shoulder.
Looking at his hand, I stare into his green eyes for a moment, trying to figure out why the fuck he’s touching me.
I don’t like people touching me, everyone in the fucking club knows that shit.
The only reason I even force myself to shake someone’s hand is because my old man wouldn’t let me get away with not doing it.
He doesn’t want me to look like a little bitch.
Fuck, it took Allie a full fucking month of constant touching to get past my reservations about touching outside of fucking. I love the girl with all my heart, but even with her I wasn’t too thrilled with it in the beginning. She broke through all those walls though, kicked ‘em down and said I’m here motherfucker, get used to it.
Allie’s the only one I let touch me. The only one who can touch me and not make my skin crawl.
And now that she’s broken the dam, I can’t get enough of how she feels against my skin. The soft, silky feel of her tender skin calls to my rough calloused hands.
Trying to shrug Gremlin’s hand off my shoulder doesn’t work though. He keeps it right where it is.
“Call him,” Gremlin says, and I can see he ain’t fuckin’ around.
Pushing dial on the phone, I only have to wait one ring before my old man comes on the line.
Short and to the point, he says, “Meet me at Baptist Health.”
Chapter Three
Coy
Meet me at Baptist Health. Fuck. The old man didn’t say anything else. He disconnected as soon as he got that out.
Taking every curve and corner of the roads to the hospital at almost twice the posted speed limit pushes even my bike to the limits. I’ve done a lot of shit on this bike, but I’ve never pushed it like this.
The warm night blows cold against my skin as I push my steel bitch harder, and when I finally reach the hospital, it feels like I’m moving through the world at a snail’s pace.
My eyes aches from the intensity of the flashing lights coming from the ambulances and cop cars, but what causes my heart to drop in my chest is seeing a shit ton of the club’s bikes already here.
There’s even some of our club vans here for the guys who were too drunk to ride.
Fuck.
None of this is a good sign.
I slow my ride to a crawl as I meet up with most of the guys sitting outside on their bikes. Each one of these motherfuckers is a brother to me, and the grim looks on their faces stops me from asking the questions I need to find answers for.
I need to find the old man.
Shutting my bike down next to the guys, I climb off, and for some reason my legs feel like leaden rods.
“Where’s Hound?” I ask Whitey, the VP.
He’s one of the blackest men I’ve ever met, but his real name is Whitey and that’s what he wants us to call him so we roll with it.
His deep rumble comes out from behind his thick, long beard, “Coy…”
“What happened?” I ask. “Hound okay?”
“Head into the ER, he should be waitin’ for you right inside the doors,” Whitey says.
“What the fuck is going on?” I snarl more to myself than anyone else.
Jogging toward the entrance, I hear even more bikes pulling into the parking lot behind me. I want to look back to see if I can figure anything else out before I walk into whatever hell I’m about to enter, but I don’t.
The doors don’t open fast enough for me and I have to come to a stop in front of them. When I get past them, I look all around me and I can tell something’s gone down and it ain’t good.