They were there then, watching from an unmarked car that we all knew was cop issued. No one cared. The night would get rowdy, no doubt, as only a biker’s wake could be, but it was nothing worth arresting us over. Besides, I had it on good authority from Cricket, who was not the kind of biker that kept things from his woman, that the club had a number of higher-ups in the force on payroll.
So, the party was bumpin’ and no one gave a fuck the police were outside the door. Bikers were packed to the gills, chapters from all over the province and as far as Saskatchewan were in the city for the funeral even though Cricket had only recently become a fully patched member. Still, his cousin was the VP of the mother chapter so everyone wanted to pay their respects. Cricket had done his best to keep me away from Berserker MC gatherings, which was probably his one redeeming quality in the end, so I didn’t know most of the people offering me their condolences and it was easy enough to lie with my smile when I gave them my thanks.
“Honestly, honey, you were way too good for Cricket anyways,” Sheila told me as she sipped casually from her half-empty mickey of spiced rum.
“Sheila,” Sarah reprimanded her with a quick, apologetic look at me as if she was responsible for her friend’s insensitive remark.
“What? It’s true. Even Cricket knew it.”
“Doesn’t much matter,” I told them both with a thin smile that I hoped would read as sad and not disgusted. “He’s gone now.”
“Exactly, that’s what I’m tryin’ to say,” Sheila cried out, three sheets to the wind and then some.
Most of the mourners were at least as drunk, if not more fucked up on harder stuff than booze. I’d never liked going to Berserker parties because the brothers were known for the prolific use of drugs. It had always seemed ironic to me that the Berserkers, who ran guns, were hardcore users while The Fallen, who sold grade A weed, stuck only to the soft stuff.
“Tryin’ to say what?” Sara said with an eye roll.
“It’s H.R.’s time to move on up! We all know she’s hot enough to take on one of the big boys,” Sheila said with a hiccough riddled giggle.
“Most of them are taken,” Jade said. She was Grease’s old lady though the moniker was a misnomer because the chick was a solid two decades younger than him.
“Not Wrath,” Sheila sing-songed. “And I seen him look at her.”
“You saw shit,” Jade hissed. “Always thinkin’ somethin’ is what it ain’t. What’re ya doin’ lookin’ at Wrath anyways, slut? He’s way above your paygrade.”
“Don’t be a bitch, Jade,” I said mildly. I’d grown up around biker babes, I knew how to navigate their jungle better than anyone ever could. “The girl is trying to pay me a compliment, which is appreciated. Though, Sheila babe, it’s got to be said, this is my old man’s wake. I’m not ready to talk about moving on or up, at the moment.”
The three women had the good grace to look mildly chastised even though Jade did it looking like she’d swallowed a dozen lemons.
“I’m gonna get another beer, need anything?” I asked, walking backwards away from them so I could see them shake their heads.
I turned on my heel and ducked easily through the mess of bodies littered throughout the rooms. The swell of sound and human smells made me nauseated, and a small part of me reasoned that I’d been recently traumatized, so feeling anxiety in enclosed spaces, especially those filled with men, and those men holding very little respect for women’s autonomy, was probably not a good idea.
Even as I thought it, I shrugged it off. I’d never been a “good idea” kind of girl, and I didn’t see any reason to start then.
Of course, that was a stupid decision to make and I learned that about thirty seconds after I made my resolution to stay.
“There she is,” Twiz said in the same second as he shot out of a small guest bedroom and tugged me inside it. “We were lookin’ for ya.”
“Feels like fuckin’ Christmas,” Pink Eye said over the sound of his clapping hands. “Ding Dong the Cricket’s dead, and we can get his girl!”
“Not a Christmas song, Pink,” Mutt pointed out like he was the smart one when he definitely was not.
I struggled against Twiz’s big body as he pushed me against the wall then gave up and glared at him. “What the fuck do you think you boys are doin’?”
Twiz ducked his furry face down to trace his tongue up my neck in one long, slimy trail. “You’re up for grabs now, babe.”
“And we grabbed you first!” Pink Eye practically shrieked, so tweaked on a cocktail of drugs that for one terrifying moment my mind’s eye morphed his young, pimply face into Cricket’s handsomer, deader one.