Jackal Page 10

  Noelle crawled over to Shelly and put her arm around the other woman. She could feel the damp sweat on her back and shoulders and she knew Shelly was falling into a bad place in her mind. She had to bring her back but she had to do it gently. “You ok?” Noelle whispered.

  When Shelly didn’t answer, Noelle kept whispering, “I may not know your pain but I do know pain. Did you know there are several levels of pain? Your body can live through so much pain if you keep one thought in your head. You may want to give up and give into your pain but you shouldn’t. You are a strong woman. Much stronger than the men who beat you down. Do you know why?”

  Her words were getting through to Shelly. She could tell by the way Shelly had stopped shaking. The other woman was listening to her now. She had to talk her down from her ledge of panic and to do that, Noelle knew she would have to share more of her own pain.

  “The first few years I lived with Dane, I thought I’d never live long enough to grow up. He would lock me in a room in his basement and forget me for days. It took me a long time to figure out he was trying to break me. I mean I was just a kid at the time, how the hell was I gonna break? More importantly, why did he want me to break? I was no threat to him. But I had no clue what his life had been like growing up with his mother. That woman was nothing but bat shit crazy. She didn’t love him and he didn’t love her but he took his vows seriously. When she got pregnant with Dane, she cut him off. She threw my dad out of the bedroom and demanded he leave her house. When he didn’t leave her like she wanted, she began to make his life a living hell. But my dad kept his vows and provided for his family. I think he was nine when my dad met my mom. They fell in love and were together as much as possible.” Noelle paused for a moment. She knew she was reaching through to Shelly but she had to finish her story. She felt the other woman needed to know she wasn’t alone. “She blamed my dad for everything even though she was the one who threw him out, out of her bed, out of his own house, out of the business he began. She ended up driving drunk one night and wrapped her car around a tree. She did it on purpose her final try to turn everyone against my father. Then I was fourteen when one night three men broke into our home. They dragged us from our beds and then they shot my parents, first my mom, then my dad and finally they turned a gun to me. I expected a bullet to the back of my head the same way they shot my parents but the bullet ripped into my belly. The shooter came over to me and told me he was going to leave me to bleed to death. He wanted me to suffer before I died and to pay for my sins while I lay there spilling my blood.” Tears ran down Noelle’s face but she didn’t even notice as she remembered her past.

  “After three weeks in the hospital, my half brother was listed as my guardian and I went to live with him in my father’s house. He told me his rules on day one. He told me he didn’t give a shit about me and that I should have never been born. That he held all the power as Derrick Williams firstborn and he would be the one to determine my future. I was nothing more than my father’s bastard mistake.”

  “What did he do to you?” Shelly finally asked.

  “He would give me a list of chores to do and if I didn’t do them the way he wanted them done, I would get a beating. He would throw me into a closet and leave me there for days with no food or water and if I made a sound, he would drag me out and beat me some more. He would leave me broken and bloody laying on the floor for days.”

  “What did he do to you the time you heard your dad tell you to take back the power?” Shelly asked.

  “I hadn’t done anything at all that day. Dane woke up to bad news. A deal he was making, fell apart and he couldn’t believe it. He thought he was the world’s best deal maker but the man he was working with told him he wasn’t the business man his father was and he most likely never would be. Dane screamed at him that he was a better business man than his father ever was. The other man just walked away from him shaking his head and that pissed Dane off. He came home and began beating the hell out of me. I think I was almost sixteen at the time. Always before he knew when to stop, but that night I don’t think he was in his right mind. When he finally quit, he left me there. I just knew I wasn’t going to live through it. I knew I was better off letting death just take me. My pain would be done. I was almost at the point where I couldn’t feel the pain anymore when I heard my father’s voice whispering in my ear. I could barely hear him but I knew he was right there with me. He kept telling me not to give up or give in to what Dane was doing to me. He kept telling me to dig deep down into my soul and fight back. He reminded me that sixteen was too young to give up. I needed to beat Dane at his own game. He gave me the courage to finally fight back. He told me to find something I believed in and fight for it. He also told me no real man ever struck a woman or hurt her in any way. Only cowards did that.”

  Noelle turned to Shelly and looked her right in the eyes. “I never suffered the pain and misery of what you went through and I hope to god I never do. I can’t and won’t tell you to get over it but I can help you deal with it. You’ll never forget what those bastards did to you but I do know that you can take back the power they took from you. I’ll tell you the same thing my father told me. You need to take back the power. You need to find the one thing in your life that matters and concentrate of getting that back. If that thing is Razor then you need to fight for him. Don’t give those bastards the satisfaction of knowing they broke you. You are a woman whose strength knows no bounds. Some women forget that we have all the power we choose to have. We are survivors. History has shown us that and God made us that way.”

  “Do you really believe that?” Shelly asked, as her eyes grew big in her face.

  “Yeah, I really do believe that.” Noelle nodded. “They can beat us down, yet we always survive. They can impregnate us and we have the power and the strength to go through the pain of childbirth to bring a new life into the world. We will guard that life and watch it grow to adulthood without even thinking about it. Men can walk away from a child and yes sadly, some women walk away as well then again some women are better off walking away but for those who stay with their children they are stronger than they need to be simply because they have to be.”

  “Those men are coming here today to kill us.” Shelly wet her dry lips with her tongue. “How do we get past that?”

  “By fighting back. We take back the power those men don’t think we have. They think they can bully their way inside and just take our lives away from us. They think because we’re women we’re weaker than them, but we’re really not. They think they have the power to destroy us. And they will if we don’t fight back with everything we’ve got.”

  Just then, the silence was shattered as someone raised an alarm.

  Noelle scooted over to the window and peeked outside. She heard the roar of the bikes before she saw them. There had to be at least twenty bikers and they rushed the front gates with their weapons drawn.

  Four men revved their bikes and rammed the front gate and even though they broke through the chains, they were soon thrown from their bikes as the electric fence stunned them. Shots were then fired from The Devil’s own toward the gates till the fence was overthrown. The shooting started those inside and on the roof to begin firing at the bikers. More shots ripped through the air and soon, men were screaming in pain as more men poured through the opening.

  The bikers circled around the front of the building shooting into the walls, yelling and screaming. Sounds of running feet and gunfire lent to the chaos inside the clubhouse.

  Noelle aimed her weapon and fired when she saw a biker ride by.

  The men outside left their bikes and took cover wherever they could and they fired back. Every once in a while, one of the men fell and then they rushed the building, crashing into the doors and windows wherever they could get in. Then there were more gunshots and running feet. The sounds of battle became the only thing anyone inside heard. That and the sounds of screaming men and women echoed throughout the entire building.

  Suddenly
, the door to the bedroom where they were hidden burst open and two men rushed inside. Their weapons were drawn and they were looking for someone to shoot. When the one man saw Shelly in the corner, he stopped and smiled evilly. “Well, well, well, what do we have here?”

  The other man snapped his head over to the same corner. When he saw Shelly, he smiled as well. “Looks like we got our whore back. What do you say we have some fun before we kill her?”

  Noelle lifted her weapon to firing position. She only had one bullet left and she knew they hadn’t seen her yet. She found Shelly’s eyes and nodded. She could read the fear in the other woman’s eyes and she hoped she could handle what was coming. Noelle aimed her weapon at the other man’s head and squeezed the trigger. She knew she had to make the shot count and she took her time to get the shot right.

  The man’s head exploded and his body dropped to the ground.

  The other man turned watching his buddy drop. He roared his anger and began looking around the room. He finally found Noelle and raised his hand gun to kill her when another shot was heard. The man screamed and fell to the floor. Holding his shoulder, he glared at Shelly in shock. “You fucking bitch, you shot me! You fucking shot me.”

  Shelly got to her feet as Noelle was getting to hers. Together, they walked over to where the man was writhing on the floor.

  “You came in here to shoot us. Did you think we wouldn’t fight back?” Shelly yelled with anger at him.

  “You shot me, you whore!” He screamed. He looked around the floor for his gun and when he spotted it, he reached for it.

  Shelly shot him again, this time in the hand.

  He screamed again and began swearing at her. “I’m going to fucking kill you bitch. I’m gonna take my time and enjoy it.” He paused and held his shot hand in his other hand. His shoulder wound was forgotten for the moment as the man went on ranting, “I’ll tie you down and begin skinning you strip by strip. I’m gonna hear you scream and enjoy each and every one of them.”

  Shelly shook her head as she walked a little closer to him. Pointing her weapon at his head, she told him, “You are a pathetic excuse for a man. You hurt me just because you thought you could.” She raised her foot and stomped down on his crotch. The man screamed as she crushed his package under her foot. She rubbed her foot twisting it one way then the other. Grinding down as hard as she could. “I begged you and your brothers to stop but you never did. You laughed at me and told me the louder I screamed, the more it turned you on.”

  The man screamed louder.

  Shelly snarled. “You turned on yet, fucker? I can hear you screaming and I have to say you were right. It feels damn good!”

  Noelle’s eyes rounded as she watched her friend.

  “Yeah... You laughed at me when I cried, you told me my man Razor would never want me when you got done with me and while that may be true, I will love that man until the day I die but that day isn’t going to be today. Today, you’re going to die and you’re going to go to hell without the parts of a man that separates the men from the women. I’m taking back the power you took from me.” She gave his crotch an extra turn of her foot and the man was almost beyond feeling the pain any longer.

  Noelle took the gun from Shelly’s hand and ended his suffering with a bullet to his head.

  The sounds of battle were dying down around them as Noelle pulled Shelly into a hug and together, they began crying.

  They stood there just holding each other while the clubhouse finally grew quieter.

  Footsteps ran toward them and Wolf paused in the doorway. His gaze first took in the two bodies on the floor then he looked at Noelle and Shelly.

  They separated while wiping their eyes to clear the tears they’d shed, the girls then looked toward Wolf as he stood looking stunned in the doorway.

  “Is it over?” Noelle asked him.

  Wolf nodded, as he still looked puzzled. “Yes, it’s over.”

  “Did we win?”

  Wolf smiled sweetly. “Yeah honey, we won.”

  “How many did we lose?” Noelle asked.

  “The only dead are our enemies.” Wolf nodded. “We have some wounded but we all survived.” He gazed down at the men on the floor. “Who are these jokers?”

  “Devils,” Shelly told him. “They thought this was gonna be a walk in the park. I guess they had to find out the hard way that it wasn’t gonna be so easy.”

  “Your old man is gonna be proud of you woman,” Wolf told her proudly.

  “I hope so. I really hope so.” Shelly reached out and took Noelle’s hand. Turning her head toward the other woman she whispered, “I took back the power didn’t I?”

  Noelle smiled. “You sure did Shelly girl. You sure did.”

  “I know it was the first step but it was the biggest step.”

  “Yes it was and you did it.” Noelle tightened her grip on her hand.

  Wolf just stared at both of them, not fully understanding what was going on.

  Then they all heard the sounds of more bikes coming their way. Wolf turned and ran toward the front of the clubhouse.

  Noelle looked around and grabbed up a gun from the floor.

  A cheer went up in the clubhouse but that was a good sound.

  Two sets of footsteps ran toward the room.

  Jackal and Razor burst through the door. They stopped short at the sight of two guns pointed at them.

  Shelly looked beyond the barrel of her gun first. She dropped her weapon on the floor and threw herself at her man. Razor scooped her into his arms and just crushed her to him.

  Jackal stared at the gun pointed at him for another minute before Noelle lowered her weapon. He took three steps toward her and pulled her into his arms. He held her head to his chest as she sobbed. “Hush baby, we survived,” he whispered in her ear as her tears soaked into his shirt. “They couldn’t stop us before and they won’t stop us ever.”

  She looked up at his eyes. “We survived?”

  “Yeah baby, we survived. The Kings fought well today and they survived too. We beat the Devil’s back, both here and in Baton Rouge. We all survived.”

  She turned her head and watched Shelly and Razor for a moment. “I think they will survive too.”

  “It actually hurts my balls to know what Razor did when he found two of the men who abused her,” Jackal told her.

  Her eyes widened at this odd statement, then she understood what he was saying. “Yeah, she confronted another one and took care of him. She took back the power they stole from her.”

  “Good for her.” Jackal nodded. “She’s gonna make him a good wife.”

  Then Jackal leaned down, lifted Noelle up to his body by cupping her ass cheeks with both hands, and kissed her full on for some time.

  Chapter Twelve

  Everyone met in the main room. Doc and a few of the others were busy dealing with the many minor wounds they had sustained in the battle, but they had survived the first go round.

  They dragged the bodies of the Devil’s own out to the woods and left them there. Jackal reasoned the animals had to eat too, and they couldn’t take bullet ridden bodies to the police. The women cleaned up the clubhouse the best they could for now, but everyone there knew it wasn’t over yet.

  They still had at least two more people to deal with, Venom and Harvey Norris. This first strike had taken down their numbers greatly, now they needed to finish the job. And Jackal knew they had to deal with Dane as well. They also had to find out for sure what his connection to Venom was all about. Was it business or personal or both?

  Jackal stood at the doorway and watched as some of his men worked on fixing the front gate. When the Devil’s crashed through it, they ripped out the electrical system ‒ the Advocates had jury-rigged ‒ since Venom crashed through because they had not found the time yet to actually fix it. So until that was fixed they couldn’t use it again but they had also ripped the gate off its hinges and that’s what they were working on at the moment.

  Jackal heard footst
eps coming his way and glancing over his shoulder, he saw Pappy and a couple of his men joining him.

  “We survived the day so far,” Pappy said as he looked out the front door.

  “I didn’t plan on dying today.” Jackal chuckled. “But I hear what you’re saying.”

  “While we were busy, Trudy got the information we asked her for. Venom’s real name is Caleb Prentiss. Seems George and Harvey’s mom’s last name was Prentiss. As she and the old man were never legally married when they had George and Harvey, the old man claimed them and gave them his last name of Norris. Then he did something stupid as some men do, he got his old lady’s sister pregnant. When Caleb was born, his old lady walked out. Leaving her two young sons to his less than gentle hands. Apparently, the old man didn’t give a shit and his sons grew up with no one to watch over them. Caleb’s mom wanted nothing to do with the club the old man had at the time, so she left to raise Caleb away from his father. When Caleb was older, maybe fourteen or fifteen the old man found him and brought him back into the fold. Old George and Harvey hated it but they worked it out. Caleb learned what his brothers had to teach him and turned it around into a business. The bigger he grew the more ruthless he became.” Pappy looked over at Jackal. “It’s rumored he put a bullet in his dear old dad’s head when he pissed the boy off. Said something about his mother being a whore or some crazy shit like that. George took over the old man’s MC and they ruled this city maybe four or five years until you’re guys came along. Then it seems old George took right after his old man. He got one of the club whores pregnant and had Cody. The only thing that might have saved Cody was the fact that his mother took him far away from George and raised him away from the club.”

  “Then they took Blane’s wife and daughter and destroyed them,” Jackal finished his train of reasoning. Shaking his head, he looked at Pappy. “Blane came back from the Iraq conflict a broken man. Severe PTSD is what the military called it. His wife and daughter were his anchors to the real world. When George took them, Blane went back to a place he never should have. He hunted down his enemies and took them out like he’d been trained to do behind enemy lines. Then he was going to do the right thing and turn himself in and take his punishment. We didn’t know Harvey was George’s brother at the time and when we found out it was too late. Harvey had already taken him out to the swamps and left him for gator bait. He hid who he was behind a badge that gave him shelter and then when it didn’t anymore, he left. He knew there was no coming back from what he’d done.”