Evil’s Pact by Raven Dark

2

Lifeline

When I wake, every muscle in my body aches.

Groaning softly into the pillow, I roll onto my stomach and stretch, but instantly regret it. I feel the same way I did whenever I overdid the exercises the pastors put us through every day—as if I’ve been wrung out and put away wet.

The heavy weight of a strong male arm slipping around my waist wipes away any lingering fatigue. Spider’s beside me.

It’s strange, but after being with him for over a month, lying next to him like this feels weirdly alien to me. All this time, and I don’t think he’s ever spent the night beside me.

Even when we’d gotten closer in the week following Cap’s injury, he’d been so busy that he hadn’t spent more than snatches of time beside me after we’d…

I close my eyes, unwilling to be reminded of a time that’s as dead and gone as the man I’d spent that time with.

I’m not foolish enough to think that his spending the night with me means anything now, not after last night. Now is about the time I’d start searching my memory for anything he said or did that hints that the compassionate, loving man I’d fallen for is still there. It’s unsettling to realize that no part of me tries to look for that. That instead the same cold acceptance I’d felt last night still sits in my chest as if my heart’s been replaced with a block of ice.

It takes a moment to catch on to why that scares me. This kind of apathetic acceptance was exactly what I felt when I was in the Colony. It was an emptiness, a hopelessness that somehow, in its own way, kept me alive, kept me going. I’d shut myself down, feeling nothing, running on what Deacon Harmon called autopilot. I’d been the robot, a machine without feeling, someone who couldn’t be hurt. I’d had to become that or else I’d have gone insane.

And I’m becoming that again, shutting down because it’s easier not to feel than to try to hold out for something that will never come.

In the Colony, watching Sarah getting whipped had snapped me out of it. It had awakened me, cracked the robot’s armor, driving me out of that apathetic, unfeeling, self-preservative state. It had made me realize I couldn’t shut down, that I had to escape and couldn’t give up.

Lying in Spider’s bed, I try to shake the apathy off, but it holds fast, an armor I can’t remove.

I roll over, looking at the ceiling. The light fixture glares down at me. The camera is still there. I can’t see it, but I know it’s there. Instead of the expected surge of indignation or creeping fear that makes me shake with the feeling of being back in the Colony, the realization seems to bounce off of me, as ineffectual as a bullet ricocheting off of steel.

Dear God. I can’t have given up, can I? Sarah’s still out there. If I give up on myself, if I stop fighting, I give up on her.

A deep, sleepy groan reaches my ears, and I turn my head, my eyes meeting Spider’s gleaming ice-blue gaze. As if he thinks I’m going to bolt, he slips his arm tighter around my waist, drawing me into the heat of him.

“Going somewhere?” His voice is deep and throaty with sleep.

I sigh and snuggle into him without thinking. He smells like the spicy soap he uses. After I’d dropped off, I’d half heard him get up and shower before he’d come back to bed. His hair is tousled, as if he’d come to bed without combing it. He’s hot even when he’s half asleep.

After I’d dropped off to sleep, I’d awakened a few hours later. Unable to drift off again, I’d had a shower and crawled back into bed. Thank God, because I don’t have the energy to have one now. There’s an unwelcome throb, an annoyingly pleasant used feeling in my back end that refuses to let me forget what happened last night. As if I could forget.

Again, that awareness should bring shame, but the thought bounces off. I feel nothing.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I mumble.

Spider smirks. He strokes the line of the collar around my throat with his fingers.

I glance at him again. The chain and the key that matches it gleam between his powerful pectoral muscles.

“Take this off, please,” I say, gesturing to the collar.

“No.”

I lick my lips, staring at the ceiling once more. “Don’t you have another woman you should be sleeping with?” I ask him. There’s no bite in my tone. It’s flat, toneless, and it bothers me.

If he notices my apathy, he gives no sign. “We’re going to White Springs today,” he says as if I hadn’t spoken.

Ben. I’ll see little Ben again. A feeble sort of happiness blooms, blunted by the endlessness and inescapability of the situation I’m in.

“When?” I ask conversationally, rolling onto my side to face him.

“Around two, I think.”

“Am I going?”

Jeez, it’s like we’re a longtime couple chatting about the plans of the day. As if he isn’t a monster, and I’m supposed to be his girlfriend.

“Yes,” he says, pushing my hair back with that odd gentleness, a collector brushing his fingers through a doll’s hair.

“Why?”

“Trying to get rid of me?” He grabs my backside and hauls me tight to him.

“No,” I tell him honestly, because it won’t matter if I’m with him or not. “I just don’t know why you want me with you.”

“I’m not leaving you here where you’ll get yourself in trouble again.” He taps my butt cheek. “Get a few more hours of sleep before we go.”

“I don’t need more sleep.” I climb out of bed.

“In such a rush to get away from me.” He rolls onto his back, watching me throw on my clothes, his eyes dancing. “I didn’t say you could go.”

I freeze in the middle of straightening my shirt. Expecting a reoccurrence of last night’s savagery, dread trickles in, the first real emotion I’ve felt since waking. It’s a relief, somehow, that I can still feel anything.

When I turn to him, he nods to the door. “Go. Hang with the girls until it’s time to leave.”

I blink at him in surprise. “Thanks,” I say, shrugging. The permission in his tone is annoying, but there’s no point in becoming combative with him when it will only sour the mood.

Ugh. I can’t even bring myself to offer up a snappy comeback. What’s wrong with me? It’s as if the fight has gone out of me. I can’t let myself give up, but for now, there’s no way out, so I’ll have to deal with it later. For now, the nothingness inside me is probably the best way to get through the day until I figure out what the next step is.

I tug on the collar. “Are you going to make me wear this all day?”

“You’ll wear it until I decide it comes off.”

Sighing, I drop my arms. At least I don’t have to wear that infernal leash.

I leave Spider in his bed and grab breakfast in the barroom. Dee gives me the morning off, and I find Monica in her room, hanging out with Sassy and the girl with the candy-floss colored hair, whom they call Pinky. Neither of them has to work today, so we watch a movie while I wait for the men to get ready for the trip.

“Are you guys coming to White Springs?” I ask, sitting on the floor with Sassy and Pinky.

“Nope,” Monica says, stretching out on her bed on her side. “Only you get to go this time.” Leaning on her elbow, for some reason she smirks at me.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” I glance from her to the other two women, who both exchange meaningful looks. “What did I miss?”

“She so doesn’t get it,” Pinky says, pressing play on the Blu-ray player and starting up a horror movie of some sort.

“Get what?”

Beside her, Sassy chokes back a laugh. I glance between the three of them. Monica’s still smiling broadly.

“Emma, let me do your nails.” Pinky grabs a nail file from a nightstand and wiggles closer to me, grabbing my hand. “Apparently you’re stuck with us, so you might as well start looking like one of us.”

I smile at the idea that these women, who once saw me as nothing more than a thief, actually consider me enough of an equal that they want me to look the part.

Except Sassy and Monica are both still watching me, and Pinky’s profoundly interested in my nails.

“Guys. Tell me what’s going on.”

“You’re the only one who gets to go to White Springs,” Monica repeats, as if that explains everything.

“So?”

Pinky smiles and continues gently, methodically filing one of my nails.

“So, Spider could easily leave you here, but he isn’t,” Sassy says, as if I’m dense. “He’s taking you with him for four days.”

It hits me what they’re thinking, and I sigh, that icy acceptance growing colder. “It doesn’t mean anything. He only wants me with him so he can have his fun.”

“Nuh-uh,” Monica says. “Wow, Martian Girl, you still have a lot to learn.”

“I don’t understand.”

She sits up a little. “If he just wanted a piece of ass, he could fuck any one of the White Springs club girls. That’s what they’re there for.”

Pinky finishes shaping my long nails into perfect half-moons and then starts on the other hand. None of us are paying attention to the movie.

I shake my head. “He doesn’t trust me. He doesn’t want to leave me here alone where I can try to escape or get into trouble again. He said so himself.”

“He’s kidding himself,” Pinky says. “Men like him do that.”

Monica nods. “He’s got it bad for you, I’m telling you.”

I sigh, wishing they would stop. Their words seem to be attempting to bring to life the hope for something more, hope I’d wised up enough to give up on last night. The futility of them should hurt, but the sting glances off, barely felt. It’s as if they hit one of those force fields I saw in Return of the Jedi that surrounds the rebel ships.

Today I’ve dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, so the girls can’t see the damage he’s done. When I’d gone into Monica’s bathroom earlier, I’d checked; he’d left hickeys on my shoulders, bite marks on one of my breasts, and I could see the bruises left behind by his hands on my shoulders. And I can sit comfortably, but if I squirm, my back door feels like it’s on fire. No, he isn’t bringing me along on this trip for some warm, fuzzy time with me. He’s bringing me along because he wants to keep an eye on me. And because he can’t continue to possess me if I’m four hours away.

“You guys are way off base,” I tell them. “Spider doesn’t… He can’t. Even if he was capable of what you’re implying, he still thinks I’m keeping secrets. He doesn’t believe me about the Colony, and he still thinks I’m lying about Adamson—that guy who’s making trouble for the club and had me kidnapped. He still thinks I’m up to something with him.”

“Well, that may be, but you’re still changing him,” Sassy says, passing Pinky a bottle of black nail polish.

Monica nods. “You don’t notice the way he looks at you. The way he can’t keep his hands off of you. And the way he ignores every other girl here and at White Springs. Spidy has never lasted this long with a woman.”

“Besides, none of us have a collar like that.” Sassy nods to the black spider’s web chain encircling my neck.

The other two nod as if that settles the matter.

“That thing is gorgeous, by the way,” Monica says, looking admiringly at it. “I wouldn’t complain if Pip put one of those on me.”

I trace the line of the collar, feeling the cool, smooth metal under my fingers.

The girls have obviously interpreted the collar to imply that I’m special, that I mean something to Spider, but they’re wrong. It’s a mark of ownership, nothing more.

“He was gone a week,” I say, wishing I could stop this conversation. I hate the way the ice around my heart is trying to crack, the way my mind tries to snap out of its apathy and look for any spark of the compassion I haven’t seen from him in weeks. “He was probably getting it on with every girl he saw while he was off doing…whatever it is he was doing.”

“He was looking for Gary,” Pinky supplies a little too casually, shaking the polish bottle.

“How do you know that?” Monica asks before I can. Sassy raises her pale brows in interest.

“I heard Dragon talking to Rattler about it yesterday in the barroom while they were discussing the White Springs trip. I think he was telling Rattler to keep an eye out for Gary while you guys are gone.”

My brows raise. So that’s what he’d been doing all week. Worry skirts around the shield over my heart, poking hard at it. Worry for him, and for Ben and Penny.

“But he didn’t find him then. Not if he wanted Rattler to keep an eye out.” I shake my head. “This must be horrible on Ben and Penny, knowing he’s out there and that he could spring on them at any moment.”

“He’ll be caught,” Monica says darkly. “Everyone’s looking for him by now. The club will get him. I wouldn’t want to be him. Spider would probably flay him alive if he found him. He loves Ben.”

I shut that thought down. His love for Ben is the one thing that negates his insistence that there’s no good in him.

“I’m telling you,” Monica says now, “He has it bad for you. I don’t know why he’s being so stubborn, but he’ll realize it eventually. He has to.”

“You’re—“

Someone raps on the door, and I break off.

“Come in,” Monica says.

The door opens and Pip steps in, carrying a bag like Spider’s in one hand. “Hi, girls.” He shuts the door and goes over to Monica, tips her face up and plants a long, hot kiss on her lips. “Hi, babe. I’m gonna raid your bathroom. I need stuff,” he says.

“Fine, but don’t take everything this time,” she calls as he heads for her bathroom.

I turn to watch him over my shoulder while Pinky finishes with my nails. Pip rummages through the cupboard under her sink, tossing stuff into his bag, including Band-Aids and Kleenex. He grabs a box of tampons off the shelf and comes out with them in hand.

“Uh, Pip?” I ask tentatively.

“Huh?” He looks around distractedly and then snags a pad of paper and a few pens from Monica’s desk.

“Why do you need tampons?” I smirk.

“I’m stocking up my kit,” he says, bagging the pad and pens. “I’m running out.”

“But tampons?”

“Hey!” Monica leaps off the bed as he starts shoving the box into his bag. “That’s my last box!” She grabs it from him.

“Get some more.” He reaches for them.

“You aren’t taking my whole box,” she says, but she’s half laughing. She pulls out a handful of tampons and pushes them into his chest. “You go buy more.”

He snorts and puts them into a pocket on the front of his saddlebag. “Women.”

Then he catches me still watching him, waiting for an explanation. “So, here’s the thing,” he says to me. “Every good prospect carries a fully stocked kit. A pad and pen for taking notes. Even if he has a phone, because phones die or break. Duct tape. Zip ties. Ziplok bags. A first aid kit. A box of Band-Aids. Surgical gloves. A bandana. Bottled water. A penknife. Spare socks. Earplugs. Condoms. Lube. And tampons.”

“But why the last one?” I ask, grinning.

“Because they’re great for stopping nose bleeds.”

I widen my eyes and giggle behind my hand, struck by the sudden image of him with a tampon up his nose, the string hanging down. Considering how absorbent those things are, I suppose it’s smart and it makes great sense, but the thought is hilarious.

Setting his bag by the door, he flops on the bed and yanks Monica on top of him, shamelessly laying her over him.

It also hits me that this is the second time he’s had a conversation with me, the first time being with Ben. I like that he isn’t watching me as if he’s waiting for me to run off or looking for me to be up to no good. It seems his attitude toward me has changed along with the women.

“You’re probably supposed to be out with the guys getting ready,” Monica says dreamily, wriggling into him and letting her lips tease his.

“They’re ready early. Dragon’s talking to some of the guys who are staying behind. I have a few minutes.”

“Well, I’m not getting you off with an audience,” she says.

“Why do you think I always want to fuck you? Can’t I say goodbye to my girl?” He grabs a handful of her backside.

“You’re going to be gone four days. You should have given me more than a few minutes.” She lays her head on his chest, and for a moment I see longing in her eyes before her face becomes a satisfied mask.

I love watching these two. Monica might be right; it might be impossible for them to have anything more than whatever it is between them now, but everything about them, the way they look at each other, the way they banter, makes me think of a couple who are comfortable with each other on the same level as Snake and Dee.

I take it all in, waving my hands and blowing on my nails to dry them. Pinky’s painted them a shiny black that makes them look like talons.

“Ohhh. They’re gorgeous. Thanks, Pinky.”

“I guess you never wore that shit in the Colony, huh?” Monica says, stroking Pip’s short beard idly.

I shake my head. “I look like a vampire now.” I make a clawing motion at her. “I’d get a flogging for this.”

“Are you for real?” Pip says, lifting his head with a horrified look. “I heard Rat gabbing about those people. They’d really do that?”

I bite my lip and nod.

“Jesus Christ.”

“I’ve never had it happen to me,” I say quickly, unsure why I suddenly need to explain this. “But I saw it happen.”

He opens his mouth to say something, but someone bangs hard on the door. “That’s Dragon,” he says.

“Move your ass, Prospect!” Dragon roars. “Time’s up for pussy.”

I snicker, still not used to the way the guys talk so openly about sex.

“Coming, Prez.” Pip swings off the bed, gives Monica a heck of a kiss, squeezes her ass, takes up his saddlebag and opens the door. “Later, baby. Better get a move on, Emma. We’ll be leaving soon, and you don’t want Spider in a bad mood.”

The door clicks shut.

“Nice going, Pink,” Sassy says, throwing a few cotton balls at her. “Now she’s going to mess those nails up. No way are they dry that fast.”

Pinky shrugs. “I’ll redo them when she gets back.”

I get up and so do the three of them. Sassy stops the movie none of us were even watching.

The three of them surprise me with tight hugs. “If you ask me,” Pinky says, drawing back, “Spider’s taking you with him for more than just a booty call. The Satan’s Bastards are still gunning for the club.”

Monica grabs me in a second hug and I squeeze her tight. “Pink’s right. He’s trying to protect you. And Spidy doesn’t do that for any woman. Don’t give up hope. You’ve gotten under that stubborn hide of his. If anyone can bring him around, it’s you.”

“You’re wrong.”

She squeezes my hand. “We’ll see.”

Much as I would never admit it, a crack splits across the shield around my heart at the thought.

I say my goodbyes to the girls, and as I close the door to Monica’s room, an absurd tightness forms in my chest. I may not be able to accept the monster that is Spider as my life, but those women are like a lifeline, a bright spot in a future that feels otherwise hopeless and dark. I’m only leaving for four days, but it feels like a year.

Out in the barroom, Sam finds me and walks with me outside. “You are so lucky you get to go. I bet those White Springs guys are hot.”

I laugh. She’s dressed in a strip of a tank top and jeans with artful tears in the legs, her hair done up in wild blond curls. She looks happy, her face glowing when Rat passes us on his way outside to meet the rest of the guys and snatches a kiss from her. Who’d have thought the sweet, shy girl I met at The Devil’s Den would fit into the biker life? She looks beautiful. It suits her.

Sam gives me a quick hug and then disappears into the barroom.

Out front of the clubhouse, seven bikes wait. Dragon is in the lead in front of Spider, Striker, Reaper, Diesel, and Rat, with Pip in the rear. I’d been expecting more guys. The last trip out there, there had been a lot more.

“Get a move on, Wildcat,” Spider calls from beside his bike, “I’m not going to have you holding us up.”

I sigh and walk over to his bike. He puts his helmet on my head and does up the chinstrap. Then he takes my chin between his thumb and fingers, his voice a low, warning growl.

“Behave yourself over this trip, thief. You make trouble for me, and I’ll whip your ass until you howl.”

There’s nothing in his voice except cold warning, and his face is a strangely emotionless mask. The eyes of the Outlaw regard me without pity.

The sudden grittiness from him throws me, but I don’t have to think twice to know why he’s saying this. Two times he’s left me alone outside the clubhouse, and both times, I landed myself in trouble, kidnapped the first time, and almost shot the second. I can’t help thinking that he’s just blamed me for both of those incidents.

Any other time, I’d have given some sort of well-honed retort, but I can’t bring the words to come out. The accusations I’m sure he’s making bounce off my chest, useless.

I heave another sigh and swing on behind him, emptiness and icy hopelessness thickening the shield around my heart.

This is going to be a long four days.