Tank, page 8
Louis returns with our coffees and gingerly sets them down in front of us. I don’t look at him because my gaze is firmly fixed on Tank. “Ah …you two know you can’t have sex here, right?”
Tank stares back at me, the corner of his mouth twitching up in a lopsided smile.
“Right?” Louis prompts again.
“Yeah, we got it,” Tank says, picking up his coffee. “We might need that breakfast to go though.”
“No. We won’t. I’m not fucking you, Tank,” I say, but at this point I’m not sure I believe it. I don’t want to believe it, but I know it’s the right thing to do. I can’t give him hope that there’s a future for us.
His smile quickly disappears. A muscle in his jaw ticks. “Fuckin’ little cock tease,” he mutters under his breath.
“Alrighty then, two orders of chocolate pancakes with burnt maple glazed butter,” the redhead says, placing the plates down in front of us.
“Wow, that looks—”
“Like a heart attack waiting to happen, right?” she says. “I know, but it tastes so good you won’t care if you die from it, trust me.”
I smile up at her and she thrusts a hand towards me. “Kerri. It’s nice to finally meet one of Tank’s old ladies.”
“Oh, I’m not his old lady.”
“You can’t have old ladies, Kerri. It’s one. Not the plural,” Louis says, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. “Sorry, she watches too much Sons of Anarchy. Thinks she’s got wicked street cred ’cause she feeds a biker chocolate pancakes once a week.”
“He’s right, Red. You care enough ’bout a woman to make her your old lady, you ain’t lettin’ no other bitch ride on the back of your bike.” Tank looks at me while he says this, those cunning blue eyes of his stirring up too much emotion. Too many promises, too soon, too late. Too … wrong. I can’t let him think that there’s a chance of that happening for us. I can’t be his old lady. I can’t be anyone’s, because it will only wind up getting them killed.
“But Jax has—”
“Alright, Kerri. Let’s not talk to the real biker about fake ones, okay? They tend to not love that so much,” Louis says, as he steers Kerri away from the table. I laugh and Tank shakes his head as he attacks his pancakes. I glance down at mine, stabbing a piece of the fluffy rich chocolate pancakes with my fork and stuffing it in my face. I’ve never been big on sugar, I prefer to get my fix elsewhere, but my body has been so starved of anything indulgent these last few days that it only takes one bite and I’m hooked. I dive into the food with abandon.
“Slow down there, Princess, or else these people are going to think I don’t feed you.” Tank says.
“You don’t feed me. Unless you count that rabbit food you’re always trying to shove down my throat.” I frown and set my fork down, sipping the warm coffee from my mug. I don’t know when last I had coffee that tasted like this. I can’t remember the last time I ate like this.
“Jesus, is it wrong that seeing you devour your breakfast that way is getting me hard?”
I smile through a mouthful of foamy coffee and set it down, wrinkling my nose when Tank reaches across the table to wipe away my latté moustache. “I didn’t know you got off on pigging out.”
“There ain’t nothing wrong with a beautiful woman havin’ a healthy fuckin’ appetite, Ivy. You gotta start feeding your body better.”
“And get fat with chocolate pancakes? No thanks. At least drugs kept the weight off,” I say, and despite the offhanded tone, I feel shame steal over my face. We both know my habit has nothing to do with keeping my body slim and tight, and everything to do with the memories I bury beneath an avalanche of bad decisions.
“Yeah, they kept you from doing anything fuckin’ useful with your life too,” Tank snaps.
He’s right. Of course he’s right. But it doesn’t change a thing. I avoid his gaze and glance down at my plate, pushing the pancake around in the chocolate syrup with my fork.
Tank sighs and tosses his napkin onto the table. Shoving the plate aside, he rests his huge forearms on the table, palms up, relaxed. It would be nothing to reach out and place my hands in his, to reassure him that I know he only has my best interest at heart, but I don’t. Because the truth hurts, and the truth is that there is no future between us. There never was, and there never will be. “I’m not the enemy here. I’m just trying to help.”
“And yet you still won’t tell me why,” I challenge. What he’d said earlier about no one else being willing to help me is true enough, but it isn’t the only reason I’m here with him.
“I’m responsible for you. Have been since the day you walked into that club. You came there looking for me, and all you got was an addiction you can’t slay on your own, and a heart full of hurt.”
“I had the addiction long before I came to your club, Tank.”
He nods. “That may be true, but coke wasn’t accessible to you then like it is now.”
“Well, it’s no longer accessible at all. Is it?” I say, pushing my plate away and glaring up at him, though I know he doesn’t really deserve my bitch fit. “Besides, I doubt Prez will let me set foot in his club again.”
“Prez is the one who asked me to get you straightened out. I don’t think you’ve done your dash with him yet, but you fuck up again and you can bet your sweet fuckin’ arse he’ll wipe his hands clean of ya, darlin’. He doesn’t need your death on his hands.”
“It wouldn’t be on his hands. It’d be on mine,” I say solemnly.
“No, it would be on all of us,” he says, and I raise a brow. “The club looks after family.”
“Right. I don’t think the biker creed really applies to whores, Tank.”
“You’re not a whore, Ivy. You’re just a little lost right now.”
I shake my head and turn away from him. I can’t look into those bright blue eyes and see the sincerity in them. Because I know that even though he may believe what he’s saying, it’s not true. I’m not that girl. I can never be that girl.
I’m a whore. I was born innocent and my father corrupted me—he stripped away all of the goodness within until there was nothing but rot left on the inside. I wasn’t born a whore, but I’ll die one. Just like I’ll die a junkie, because no matter how many promises I might make those around me, I’ve never been able to give it up. If I do, I start to remember everything. And being someone’s whore and being high all the time is far better than remembering.
Anything is better than that.
When we return to the cabin Ivy goes to her room to sleep and I put the groceries away that we’d picked up after breakfast, and then I head to the gym to work out. I’m three rounds in to hitting the bag when I turn and see her sitting in the corner of the room. Her thin jumper is stretched over her knees as she balls herself up.
“Thought you were sleepin’?”
“I don’t sleep well,” she confesses, and her eyes are dark and shadowed. “It’s part of detoxing. Restless legs. And I still hear it, you know? The sound of his heavy boots thudding on the stairs, the locks, and the creak of the door. When you’re faced with that every night, you kinda train yourself to sleep lightly.”
I slam my fists into the bag and then lean my forehead against it. “Give me a name, Ivy.”
She gives me a sad smile. “Can’t do that.”
“Why are you still afraid of him? You don’t need to be afraid anymore. You’re in my house. Under my protection—under the club’s protection. He can’t ever get to you.”
“I’m not afraid for me. I’m afraid for anyone who gets too close to me.”
I unwind the hand wraps from my fists and walk over to her side of the room. She’s already on her feet, ready to flee.
“Have I ever given you reason to doubt me? To doubt that I could protect you?” I say, pressing my hand to the middle of her chest and pinning her to the wall. Beneath my hand, her heart beats like the rapid thrum of a hummingbird’s wings. She’s so fragile, and I feel that with the sick sense of nausea of someone who wants to both hurt her and soothe her all at once. She makes me so fuckin’ crazy.
“What do you want from me, Tank?” she whispers.
I trail my rough hands over soft, milky skin, up to her neck where I grasp the base of her skull in my hands. Time and time again, I keep coming back to this place. To this thought: It would be so easy to take what I want from her. But I can’t, because nothing worth fightin’ for ever came easy.
I want her submission. I want her heart. I want her to look at me and not wish I were someone else. More than anything though, I want to rid her of the belief that to love is to hurt, to feel pleasure is to hurt. And I want to wring my hands around her bastard father’s neck for making her believe it is. I want to squeeze the life from him and savour the sound of his last breath rasping through his clenched teeth.
That’s what I want.
I want her, and I can’t do a fuckin’ thing about it. That shit is what eats me the fuck up inside, because just like she said, it’s not safe. It’s not smart to make her my world when it could so easily be ripped away from me, when it gives my enemies leverage. She’d be a tithe for the horrible shit I’ve done, collateral damage, and fuck me for being a selfish prick because a part of me doesn’t care. A part of me wants her, has always wanted her, no matter the cost, and that Tank doesn’t give a shit about the consequences.
“I want you,” I find myself saying. Ivy’s eyes widen, her brows shooting upwards with surprise, and then her expression turns cold, removed.
“No,” she says, as if that’s the end of it. As if I’m a kid and she’s telling me I can’t have ice cream before dinner. She shrugs out of my embrace. Brushing past me, she heads to the door.
“Why?” I demand, and she pauses.
For a long time she just stands there with her back to me, and when I think she’s not going to answer, her response has the hair on my arms standing on end. “Because he always finds me.”
She turns, and her eyes are haunted. I’ve seen her on a bad trip. I’ve seen her wake, panicked and stricken with fear, running from the monsters that haunt her dreams. I’ve seen her throwing up her guts and begging for crack, and I’ve seen her completely destroyed by Kick, but I ain’t ever seen this Ivy. I ain’t ever seen anyone’s eyes so haunted, and I’ve been present in the last moments of a lot of lives. I know fear. I’ve governed it, grown it, and sometimes even revelled in it. But not this. I’ve never seen Ivy like this.
“He always brings me home,” she says, and there’s resignation in her voice, as though everything she’s saying is inevitable. “Why do you think I’ve spent the better part of three years inside that clubhouse, Tank? I may be an addict, but I’m not an idiot. There’s a reason I followed you there, and there’s a reason I’m addicted to cocaine.”
“Because you’re used to your life being fucked up, so what does it matter if it gets fucked a little more?”
“It has nothing to do with that,” she says.
“Bullshit,” I snap. “You gotta deal with this shit, and you gotta deal with it now. Snortin’ another line ain’t gonna change what happened to you. And it ain’t gonna help you protect yourself when I ain’t around.”
“No, it won’t, but it helps me forget. And every second I spend sober is another second I want to peel off my skin. I need to forget the things he did to me, Tank. I use to forget, and that shit is the only thing keeping me glued together.”
“Bullshit.” I step closer and snag her around the waist. She fights. I wrap my hand around her delicate little throat. Ivy stills. Desire flares in her eyes, and I bring my lips to her ear.
“Let me be your cocaine.”
She laughs humourlessly. “You can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because you don’t want to hurt me,” she says. Tears escape the corner of her eyes, and she shoves out of my embrace and leaves the garage.
I may not want to hurt her, but someone’s gonna pay for this shit. I’ll find out where this fucker lives, and fear will be my tithe for every second he made her suffer, hate herself, or doubt how fucking incredible she is. I’ll make him pay with the worst pain imaginable. I’ll set fire to his flesh, and rejoice in the screams.
There is only one god in my world, and it’s the fear in a man’s eyes as he looks on your face and knows with one hundred per cent certainty that it’s the very last thing he’ll ever see. It’s the swift cold hand of death as she grasps you by the throat and doesn’t let go. And I have every intention of introducing that sick fuck to my god, and makin’ the two of them real fuckin’ cosy.
I wake to a loud bang and startle in my sleep. My bed is wet again. I feel the stickiness between my legs, the once-dry, warm flannelette sheet beneath me now cold. I push back the covers and climb out of bed, fumbling around in the dark for my cupboard. I’m quiet, so I won’t wake my dad. If he sees I’ve wet my bed again, I’ll get another beating. Mamma says it doesn’t matter; she says it’s just stress that makes me do it, but Dad tells her she’s babying me. He hits me when I piss the bed.
He hits me for a lot of things.
“There she is,” my dad bellows, and I freeze, knowing that he’s awake and could come in and find me wide-eyed and stinking of piss. His voice sounds funny, like it does when he drinks too much beer, and there’s another man downstairs that sounds the same. Drunk, Mamma calls it.
I don’t like it when he drinks, and I don’t like it when he brings his friends home from the bar. He’s not as mean, but he acts like a completely different person, and it scares me because I never know what will set him off and what won’t. And that’s a very dangerous thing.
“Baby, make us a sandwich, will ya?” Dad says, and I creep over to my door to hear them better.
“She’s a looker, Wayne. I thought she’d be a dog when you put her up for play.” The other man says this. His voice is slurred and gravelly, like Rock Biter in The NeverEnding Story. I used to watch that film over and over, until Dad gambled away our TV and VHS, along with all of our movies.
“Up for play?” Mamma asks, sounding confused. Fear prickles down my spine and I quietly move down the stairs, poking my head around the corner just enough to see, but not be seen. I don’t care that my pants are soaked and he will know that I pissed the bed again. I’m too worried about my mamma; something doesn’t sound right. It doesn’t feel right.
“Don’t worry about it. Just fix us somethin’ to eat, woman.” Dad wraps his arms around Mamma’s waist, but she shrugs him off and shifts away. He doesn’t look happy, but then again, he never does.
“You sly dog,” the man says. “You didn’t say anything about her lookin’ like an angel.”
“I like to play my hand down low,” Dad replies
The other man is tall and thin. He has a horse face, long with too big a nose, and big dark eyes that look hungry. He slaps Mamma on the butt as she’s bent over in front of the fridge, and she squeals and turns to them with the look she gives me when I’m behaving like a brat.
“What are you talking about?” Mamma asks.
“Wayno here lost another round of poker,” the man says, clapping my father on the back. He circles my mother and then slaps her on the bum again. This time she doesn’t yelp. Her gaze is fixed on Dad’s, and she’s turned white from head to toe. “You’re comin’ to keep me company, sweet pea.”
“What?” She drops the jar of mustard. It smashes against the ground and both the men laugh.
“Hope you don’t value your crockery too much?” my father says, and he knocks back the rest of his beer, and throws the can in the sink.
“I ain’t got nothin’ fancy for her to break anyway … except my heart,” the man says, and he laughs, and I see his gap-filled, rotted-out mouth. The monster laughs too.
“Wayne, you can’t be serious?” Mamma says. She searches their faces. I don’t understand why she’s so scared, why I’m so scared, but I want to take her by the hand and run away with her. I wish I were brave like Atreyu. I wish I could just stop reading and put the book down like Bastian when it got too frightening.
“Sorry, darlin’. A man can only gamble with what he owns.”
“Wayne!” My mother screams as the other man pulls her along with him. She slaps him across the face. His eyes grow very dark. “Stop it! Wayne!”
“Get her outta my fuckin’ hair,” the monster says. “I got a kid around here somewhere. Pathetic, snivellin’ fat little shit of a thing. You want him too?”
Fear seizes my chest and my eyes go huge and round as dinner plates. He’s taking my mamma? He can’t do that. She’s mine. She’s mine. I run down the hall and strike him. “Get away from her!”
The man’s knees buckle as my foot connects with them, and he yells, “You little fuckin’ shit.”
That’s when I hear the monster behind me. He catches me up in his big arms, crushing my chest beneath their weight. He smells like beer and cigarettes and something else sour that makes my stomach twist with fear.
“No!” my mother cries. “Let him go.”
I struggle in his arms, kicking out with my legs until eventually I get him in the private parts, just like when Johnny Dover kicked me and stole my lunch money, leaving me crying on the concrete. The monster falls to the ground, taking me with him, but I’m quicker and I jump to my feet, ready to protect my mum. Ready to take on a whole army of monsters to keep her safe, but when I look up she’s not there. She’s shrieking, kicking, and clawing at the doorframe as the man tries to carry her out of the house. He throws her over his shoulder and fights her the whole way to his car. And the entire time, she’s screaming my name. He throws her on the ground, like a sack of potatoes, and for a moment her mouth gapes open like a fish. She can’t breathe. I run towards them and kick him in the back of the knees again, but he doesn’t fall, and he’s so much bigger than me that when he turns and shoves me away, I fall hard on the concrete drive and skin my knees. It doesn’t hurt right away, it’s just sort of numb, and then when the sting comes it’s sharp as a knife’s edge, and it brings tears to my eyes. I’m frozen with pain.
