1
MIKA
Asharp pain blooms on the side of my head, followed by a dull, throbbing ache. I try blinking my eyelids, but they are too heavy. My eyelashes stick together, making it even harder to pry my eyes open. When I do, I’m greeted with blurry vision and black dots swirling in my peripheral.
My limbs are impossibly heavy, and it takes every ounce of my depleted strength to lift my head. What the hell happened to me?
I’m jostled roughly, my body tilting and then slumping against what I realize is a car window. I must have woken up from whatever haze I’m in when I cracked my head against the cool glass.
Blinking, I try to focus my gaze on anything familiar. My eyes keep wanting to stay closed, but I fight to keep them open for as long as possible. It’s dark outside, and the dense pine trees flying by the window let me know the car is speeding down an old, mostly abandoned highway.
The motion makes my stomach swirl, and I avert my gaze, not wanting to get sick in the backseat. I don’t know where I am or how I got here, but as more of my senses wake up, I notice myhands are tied in front of me with a scratchy rope digging into my wrists.
Panic sets in, burning away the confusion and grogginess. My heart leaps into my throat and then drops to my gut as adrenaline courses through my veins. A clearer picture of my situation starts to form in my mind.
I’m trapped in a car, racing down an unknown highway, and I’m pretty sure I was drugged to get here. The last thing I remember before waking up in this vehicle is clocking out of my waitressing job and walking to my car. I bite the side of my cheek, trying to wake myself up more so I can remember every detail.
It comes back in flashes. I remember shuffling my sore, swollen feet across the cracked asphalt to my decades-old Honda. The cool, jagged feeling of my keys in my hands. Light flickering in an erratic pattern from the one light post in the diner parking lot. Shadows crawling out of the thick brush, morphing into… two familiar faces.
“Grant?” I ask weakly. My throat is dry, and my voice is barely above a whisper. Lifting my head once again, I peer into the rearview mirror, squinting until my vision adjusts. Sure enough, one of my older foster brothers is in the driver’s seat.
My gaze falls on the seat next to him, where my other foster brother, Heath, looks out of his window and taps his foot impatiently. I’ve only seen them a few times since aging out of the foster care system several years ago, but we’ve alwayskept tabs on each other. Some family reunion this is.
“Heath?” I squeak out, trying to get his attention instead.
“This is it, man,” Grant says to Heath, both unaware that I’m awake. “Our ticket into Sons of Destruction.”
“Yeah,” Heath answers, his voice laced with tension. “I just… I mean, I wish we didn’t have to, you know.” He tips his chin toward the backseat without looking in my direction.
Grant shrugs. “What did you think being in an outlaw biker gang was going to be like? Braiding each other’s hair while watching chick flicks? Of course, there was always going to be something like this to initiate us.”
Heath grumbles something and crosses his arms over his chest. I swear the six-foot, three-hundred-pound biker wannabe is pouting. Grant must sense it, too.
“Hey, don’t be a pussy,” he spits out. “Toughen up, Heath. Having a moral code won’t get you very far in this world.” Grant gives Heath a hard, judgmental look before turning his attention back to the road. “Besides, we got lucky with these two. Foster kids who aged out? No one will look for them. No one will miss them.”
Grant’s words pick at an old wound. I don’t think anyone has ever cared about me, and he’s right; no one would miss me if I disappeared.
“Maybe you’re right,” Heath replies. He nods his head, accepting the lie as long as it appeases his guilty conscience. “Of all the women we could have offered up to Sons of Destruction, these two have nothing and no one.”
Wait. Two?
I try turning my head to the spot next to me in the backseat, but it’s more of an awkward, full-bodied slump as I roll to my side. My eyes widen in shock when I see another woman with her hands tied. She’s still knocked out, her face ashen and her lips cracked. She looks like she fought against her captors, unlike me. I saw Grant and Heath in the parking lot and wrongfully assumed I could trust them not to stick a needle in my arm and kidnap me.
“Hey,” I whisper, nudging the woman with my elbow. She doesn’t move. For a moment, I think she’s dead. But then I see a faint pulse on the side of her neck as well as shallow, barely perceptible breaths.
“Ah, shit,” Grant says angrily. I snap my eyes to the rearview mirror and see dark brown eyes staring me down. “You fucked up the dosage, Heath.”
“What? What do you mean?” He looks over his shoulder, furrowing his brow when he sees I’m awake. “Hey piggy piggy,” he sneers. My chest tightens at his childhood nickname for me.
“Wh-what the hell?!” I shout. Or, at least, I try to shout. It comes out as a raspy, pathetic sound. “What are you two–”
I hear the slap before I feel it. Heath moved with surprising speed, lunging toward me and bringing his hand down across my cheek and nose. “Any more questions?” my foster brother asks.
I don’t say anything else. What’s the point? They have the upper hand. I’ll need to reassess the situation when we get to our final destination.
Before long, the car comes to a stop outside of a large Victorian-style mansion. This certainly wasn’t what I expected, but I know better than most that all that glitters is not gold. The house may look immaculate and pristinely manicured, but if hostages are being dropped off here, I can safely assume nothing good happens behind those large double doors.
My door is wrenched open by Grant, who wraps his meaty hand around my upper arm and yanks me out of the car. I stumble, and he tightens his hold on me, his fingers digging into my flesh as he drags me around the car and toward a side door I hadn’t noticed earlier.
