Tomas’s Trials, page 10
“It’s hardly your place anymore now, is it?” Brutus said. “It’s not like little Peaches will be back. She was such a loser anyway.”
Amber stared at him in shock. “That is hardly the way to speak about a woman who’s obviously troubled.”
“Troubled? She was nothing but a loser, and her husband let all of us know. Too bad he failed to get the information he needed before he screwed things up for himself,” he said. “But you know how that goes. Or maybe you don’t, but you will by tomorrow.”
“Really?” she asked, as she dropped her arms from around Tomas. “What does that mean?”
“Oh, you’ll find out,” he snapped. “Soon enough, you’ll find out. And you won’t like it one damn bit.”
She took a deep breath. “That sounds like a threat.”
“Not a threat,” he sneered, “a promise. As for your boyfriend here, You might as well say goodbye. I’ll take him in now. That was supposed to happen tomorrow night, if and when this asshole ever got back. Otherwise, we would go hunt him down in town, but now I want that chance with him first.”
“So … what? You take him, and you kill me? Is that how this goes?” she asked bitterly.
“Not if I buy you out,” he said, “then you are all mine.” There was such satisfaction in his words that she stared at him in horror.
“Did you say, buy me out?”
“Yep. Somebody has to pay for your sins,” he explained, “but that’s all right. I’m happy to do it.”
“Jesus.” She stared at him.
“But this guy has got to go first. I thought about making you do it, you know, as a way to make sure you realize that you’ll never get free. To make you understand your place and what happens to people who can’t follow the rules.”
“What rule did he break?” she cried out.
“He interfered,” Brutus said, “and he knows better.”
She looked over at Tomas, who was just looking at Brutus, with a lazy smile on his face.
“That’s all right,” Tomas said, “just step aside, Amber. We’ll settle this. He wants a fight, so he’ll get a fight.”
“No fight,” Brutus argued, with a sneer. “That’s a waste of my time and energy.”
“Let’s go for it then. Show me what you got.”
*
Outside, and suddenly surrounded by two other men, Tomas walked past the houses, assuming they were heading in the direction of Baxter’s house. However, they took several redirects and ended up in a clearing on the other side of trees. He looked around and asked, “Baxter doesn’t want to see me?”
“No, he really doesn’t,” Russ said in a hoarse voice. “Traitors are like that.”
Tomas stared at him in surprise. “Traitor? What did I do?”
“You took one of our women away.”
“A sick woman,” he said, feigning surprise. “Quite a sick woman.”
“Nothing wrong with her that a good man couldn’t cure,” Russ snapped. “She’s just lonely.”
“She lost her partner,” Tomas acknowledged, “but obviously that’s not all that was going on.”
“It would have been, if you had left it alone,” Russ said. “We were trying to solve that problem right away.”
“What problem?” he asked carefully. “I mean, whether she was suicidal or not, I don’t know, but she obviously needed care.”
“But you don’t get to make those kinds of decisions,” said Russ. “That’s not for you to decide.”
“Ah.” Tomas nodded. “So what you’re saying is I overstepped my authority.”
“Yeah, you think?” Brutus growled. “And we don’t take kindly to that.”
Tomas nodded slowly. “So, what now?” he asked. “Because, if you don’t make the rules clear, how the hell am I supposed to know how to follow them?”
“You should have known. You already belong to a different faction of the same group,” Brutus snapped.
“Yeah, but a faction where they look after their women,” Tomas noted, with a deadly calm. “They don’t leave them to suffer the way you left Peaches to suffer.”
“She didn’t suffer, not at all,” Russ argued. “Like I said, she would be married before the week was out.”
“That’s not what you just said,” Tomas murmured, wondering how bad this was likely to get. Not that he was worried because he had a lot of skills, but skills against one or two was one thing, Skills against four or five was another. He didn’t know how this would go down with just these three idiots or how many more would be coming his way.
Meanwhile a wild bird called in the distance. Tomas cocked his ear and said, “Interesting birdlife you’ve got around here.”
“Fuck the birdlife,” Brutus said. “The only thing I want to hear is your screams of pain.”
Tomas studied him. “Seriously that’s what this is all about? You want to beat the shit out of me?”
“You’ll be lucky if you survive,” Brutus stated, snarling. “We don’t take kindly to anybody interfering.”
“I still don’t understand why you’re so upset,” Tomas repeated. “She would have died. And you’re worried that I saved a woman, so that you still have her in your group?”
Russ laughed. “Because it was my woman who you stole, asshole. So I get the rights to your first beating.”
Tomas stared at him. “Yeah, I remember now. You’re the one who she was so happy to see last night when she was screaming and woke me up. So you’re the one who would force her to marry you? You can’t get a woman on your own, huh?”
One of the other guys chuckled. Russ shot him a hard look and threatened Tomas. “You’ll pay for that. Don’t you worry. You’ll pay.”
“You’ll only get part of this, Russ,” Brutus stated. “You know perfectly well that he’s mine to take down.”
“What? So now you’re fighting over me? Is that normal here?” While pushing their buttons, Tomas assessed his team—Saul was close, but where was Dezi?
“What Russ’ll do to you is nothing,” Brutus growled, looking over at Tomas. “That’s my woman you’re trying to claim as your own.” Brutus glared. “Like you’ll get a fine piece of ass like that for yourself. That’s not happening. You’re nothing but a busted-down piece of shit.”
Tomas stared at the two men in wonder. “Is this really how you guys live? Threatening women to the point that they have no choice but to become your partners? You can’t get somebody to want to be with you, so you take them by force? You do know the world has a word for that.”
“Don’t you fucking say anything to us,” Brutus screamed. “We treat our women just fine, and they know perfectly well how to get along.”
“How you live may seem perfectly fine to you, but I wonder if the women have any idea about what really goes on around this place,” he stated calmly.
“What do you mean by that?” Pearson asked suspiciously.
Tomas turned toward him. “Do you think all the women will take kindly to knowing that they’re forced into these arranged marriages, whether they like it or not?”
“What makes you think they don’t know already?” Russ asked, looking at Tomas imperiously. “It’s not like we’ve had to force any of them.”
“Really? I guess the word force has different meanings for you guys,” Tomas noted. “If women aren’t free to leave, free to get medical care when they need it, free to get support when they need it, free to choose who they want for a partner, that sure sounds like forced to me.”
Russ shrugged. “We run as a society here, and everybody does their part.”
“And the women’s part is to marry people they don’t want to be married to? Is that it?” Tomas stared at him.
“We haven’t heard any complaints yet.”
“Of course not. And, even if you did, I’m sure you would have beaten that out of them. Don’t you think?” Tomas said, with a sneer. “I wonder, if you got these women away from here, how many would willingly return?” he asked.
“All of them,” Brutus piped up.
“Like I said, we haven’t had any complaints,” snapped Russ.
“Because they don’t dare.” Tomas shook his head. “God, this is a feudal society.”
“And that’s just fine with us,” Russ said. “It works.”
“No, it doesn’t work,” Tomas snapped. “Anybody who has to force a woman to stay with men who they don’t want to be with, denying them proper medical attention when they need it, is not taking care of their own. This is using power and abuse to keep people prisoners, who don’t want to be kept,” he said, shaking his head. “Honest to God, you guys should be ashamed of yourselves. This is no way to build loyalty.”
“What the hell are you talking about? It has been like this from the start,” Brutus argued.
“The hell it has. Women in biker gangs, other groups, and women in general should have choices and should go with men they want to go with. Or be alone if they so choose.”
“No, they are possessions. They can get passed around, just like everything else,” Russ added. “And this system works for us.”
“But it doesn’t work for the women,” Tomas stated. “Only you guys don’t give a shit about it working for the women, do you? I mean, as long as you get a piece of ass at the end of the night and somebody to cook and to clean, you really don’t care.”
“What’s to care about?” Brutus asked, with a harsh glare. “As long as they do what they’re supposed to do, nothing else matters.”
Tomas couldn’t believe that any woman would even want to be here. But obviously these guys all seemed to think that the women were here willingly. “It would be interesting to bring it up in the next meeting,” Tomas noted, “and to find out just how many women want to be here.”
“You won’t be at that meeting,” Pearson stated, “so I wouldn’t worry about it.”
“Ah, so I’m not allowed to stay, is that it?”
“Hell no,” Brutus yelled, staring at him. “You’ve caused enough trouble already.”
Tomas nodded. “Of course. I mean anything that would cause the women to rise up against you guys and to claim their most basic of rights as human beings would be horrible, in your view anyway. Not to mention the women freely sharing their own beliefs and looking after themselves and their offspring, which you won’t even let come into the world with any medical assistance,” he said, shaking his head.
“Oh hell no. They don’t need medical assistance. Women have been giving birth—”
Tomas snorted and interrupted. “And dying in childbirth for hundreds of years. Yeah, I get it. It’s perfectly natural, and most births go well,” he stated, “but there’s a reason why we have modern medicine. It’s to help make our lives easier and to relieve suffering and loss.”
“We choose to not have anything to do with the outside world,” Pearson said, his voice calm.
But Tomas knew he was the most dangerous of them all. There was just something about him and that killing acceptance in his gaze.
“I’m surprised that your clan does,” he said to Tomas.
“They do because they also see the value of looking after their people. And keeping them happy in the knowledge that they are well loved and cared for,” he murmured. “Not like this bullshit here.” He shook his head. “Women need physical assistance sometimes. Everyone does. You can’t just wear them down to the bone, looking after you guys.”
“I don’t think that’s really an issue here,” Brutus snapped. “All the women here are in good shape. We wouldn’t allow it any other way.”
Tomas stopped and stared, chuckling. “Wouldn’t allow it any other way?” he repeated, still staring at him. “Are you for real? You do realize it is the twenty-first century, not the thirteenth, right?”
And at that, Brutus took a swing at him.
“Hey, not here,” snapped Pearson, who Tomas had found out earlier was the third man in line after Baxter and then Brutus. “Brutus, get yourself under control or get out of here. We have to get farther away from the houses.”
“I don’t give a fuck anymore,” Brutus yelled. “I’ve had enough of this guy and his smart-ass insults.”
“And I don’t care if you give a fuck or not,” Pearson said. “Now move it.”
And, with great difficulty, Brutus managed to get himself under control and to go forward. “He’s a dead man. He’s mine, and he’s dead.”
“He’s not,” Pearson argued.
“You already told me that I could take him out.”
“I told you that you could give him a good beating,” Pearson stated. “Taking him out is a different story. You heard Baxter say so.”
“Fuck that,” Brutus yelled. “This traitor will just go back and make life difficult for Amber, and she’s mine.”
“Amber doesn’t even want you,” Russ snickered.
“She just doesn’t know what she wants,” Brutus snapped, glaring at his buddy. “Not with this fucker in the wings, filling her head with nonsense. Besides, who the fuck are you to talk? It’s not like Peaches wanted you. Hell, she tried to commit suicide to get away from you. That says a lot for you, doesn’t it?”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Pearson yelled. “Enough of that bullshit, you two. That stops right now.”
The two men shrugged, but both were angry and still glaring at each other.
“Nice interplay you’ve got here,” Tomas murmured. “Sounds like an awful lot more discord is here than anybody is letting on.”
“There’s always discord everywhere,” Pearson snapped.
As they kept on walking, Tomas looked around, knowing that Saul would be somewhere close by. “So, is this what you’ll do to Dezi now too?”
“Wish I could,” Pearson snapped. “It’s only because of Dezi that you won’t get deep-sixed tonight,” he murmured. “A beating he would understand, but, beyond that, it’s not good.”
“I’m glad you won’t blame Dezi for this at least,” Tomas noted.
“Anybody can have a bad seed in their group,” Pearson noted. “It’s what you do about it at the end of the day that counts. And tonight Dezi will prove to us that he’s got the balls to do what needs to be done.”
“Ah.” Tomas nodded. “So you’ll get Dezi to beat me up.”
“Only after we’re done,” Pearson added, “then he gets to decide whether you live or die.”
“Cute,” Tomas murmured. “Nice society you’ve got here.”
“You keep saying that,” Russ said in a gruff tone. “Just shut the fuck up.”
“Why?” Tomas asked. “I mean, obviously nobody here gives a shit what I say, and nobody’ll listen. That’s the whole point of this, isn’t it? To silence me because you don’t want to hear anything I say, because you just don’t like it. It’s not what you want to hear because it doesn’t give you permission to confine and serially rape a woman who doesn’t want anything to do with you. I mean, that’s all you’d be doing, … the whole lot of you, it seems. Neither woman wants to be married to Russ or to Brutus. Neither woman wants to share a bed with you. I mean,” Tomas repeated, “Peaches even went so far as to attempt suicide. What does that say about your great society?” he asked, with a sneer.
At that, Pearson shoved him forward. “You’re not helping your case.”
“I don’t give a fuck about my case,” Tomas snapped, as he took two more steps. Then, in a move that completely caught them all off guard, he spun on his right foot and took out Pearson. He heard a satisfying crunch, as he hit his jaw, before he went down.
Pearson was out cold and didn’t move.
Then Tomas turned to face the other two. “Now that the numbers are a little more even,” he said, “bring it on, bitches.”
Chapter 7
Amber couldn’t stay. Baxter’s orders be damned.
No way she could stay here, knowing that Tomas was out there getting his ass kicked. When she went to open the door, Mary stood in the way.
“Where are you going?” she asked in a hard voice.
She stared at her in shock. “Mary.”
“Yeah, me,” she snapped. “I want to know what the hell you’re up to.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked, but the fear bubbled up inside. “We were helping Peaches, that’s all.”
“Like she fucking needed help,” Mary snapped. “That woman is just a wuss.”
“A wuss?” Amber cried out. “She’s still grieving the loss of her husband, and you call her a wuss?”
“She wasn’t grieving,” she sneered. “She hated him with a passion. I figured, when he had the affair with Annette, she’d be happy about it. But, no, she just kept on whining that she wanted to leave. As if that would be allowed,” she said, with an eye roll. “And, when both of them died, she found out just how hard her life here would be.”
“It didn’t have to be hard,” Amber murmured, staring at the other woman. “She didn’t have to suffer.”
“Maybe not”—Mary shrugged—“but she did, didn’t she? She could have made the best of it. That’s what women have been doing since time began, making the best of it.”
“What? And that’s all we have to look forward to?” Amber asked. “Just making the best of it?”
“You’ll be lucky if you even get a chance to do that after the shit you’ve just pulled,” Mary snapped.
“You mean, helping poor Peaches?”
“Yeah, that’s exactly what I mean, as if you didn’t know,” Mary spat.
“I’m not sure what I knew and what I didn’t know,” Amber stated, “but I hadn’t realized how futile, outdated, and backward you all were,” she murmured.
“Watch your fucking mouth,” Mary said, her fists clenching.
Amber stared at her. “And why are you here right now?”
“Because somebody needs to teach you a fucking lesson. I don’t know if Baxter will let you stay or not. He shouldn’t, but I don’t get to make that decision. So I just wanted to make sure that you know that, if you get the chance to stay, what your life will be like,” she added, with a sneer. “Nobody’ll trust you. Nobody’ll want anything to do with you,” she murmured, “and the minute Brutus is done with you, believe me. You’ll be done with all of us. Good luck staying alive at that point.” And with those cold, harsh words, she turned and walked away.
