L Akers - Fight Like a Man

His crew laughed in approval.

A long-handled branding iron lay against a tree, still pink with heat, like the bubbled and ripped flesh on the woman’s arm. She’d been branded with an oversized number “2”.

Olivia sniffed. The smell of recently burnt human skin wafted in the air. It preceded a buzzing that filled Olivia’s head; a sound so strong it blocked out the image in front of her. She found herself not in the woods with a trio of bikers and the woman on the ground, but back in the basement of a house, where she herself had nearly been raped a few years ago. Grayson had tried to find her to save her but he was almost too late—she’d had to save herself. She shook off a shiver and tamped down the terrifying memory.

In a quiet voice, she mumbled, “Fight,” the same word she’d heard in her own head in her dead mother’s voice that night.

The girl looked straight at her, seeing her word. It seemed no one else was making a sound; or somehow, she and Olivia had forged a connection. “How? They’re men,” she mumbled back.

Or did she?

“Fight like a man ,” Olivia answered. Words she’d heard her husband say to his daughter.

But the woman had no fight left in her.

“Get up,” Olivia screamed.

The biker looked at his crew and shrugged with a smile. “Next!”

The Asian woman didn’t move. Resigned to her fate, she didn’t cover herself either.

Emma grabbed Olivia’s arm. “Let’s go, Olivia.”

Olivia jerked her arm away. “If another one of you touch her, I’ll kill you.”

The other two bikers stopped in their tracks, and then laughed out loud. Neither Olivia nor Emma held a weapon, nor were they a match for even one of the bikers, no less three.

The biker who had just finished with the woman—the obvious leader of the group—stepped forward. He was a giant of a man with a short gray high-and-tight haircut that looked more fitting for a military man than a biker. Engraved on his vest was his name: “Trunk,” and on his bicep, was the word “TWO.”

He bowed and mockingly waved an enormous arm pulsing with bulging veins and covered in ink toward the little clearing where the woman still lay. “Welcome ladies . You can join the party. It’s not how it looks. She agreed to it,” he nodded toward the Asian woman, “or you can get the hell out.”

“Yeah, looks like she’s really into it,” Olivia muttered.

Emma shushed her and squeezed her arm. They both shook with fear, trembling against each other, shoulder to shoulder. “Then we can leave… with her?” Emma asked in a quiet voice.

Trunk smirked. “ You ladies can leave, but not her. You can even take the other two sniveling bitches waiting out in the rest area. Don’t need ‘em. Done had ‘em.”

He looked back to the woman on the ground. “But this one’s my new Old Lady. An Asian with blue eyes and a missing paw—believe it or not, that’s on the list —she’s worth three-hundred points on the scavenger hunt,” he finished, looking at his buddies and winking. “As you can see, we take our scavenger hunts very seriously.” He pointed to the pig and laughed. “She’s definitely riding out of here with me and the pig.”

“You can’t just take someone,” Emma snapped in false bravado.

The smile slid off Trunk’s face. “Nobody’s taking anything here. This bitch is giving it away—for food and water. Just like the other two who just left here,” he spit out between gritted teeth. “She ain’t no princess. She was a lot lizard before the grid went down. This is a promotion .”

He and his buddies loudly laughed and bumped fists.

Olivia squatted down so she could be level to the Asian woman. “We’ve got food and water where we’re going.” The woman’s eyes filled with tears. “Get up and come with us,” Olivia pleaded. The woman continued to lay still at Trunk’s feet, not willing to provoke him.

Emma tried to negotiate. “What would you trade for her?”

Trunk’s voice roared, “I said no. She stays . Now get the fuck out of here before you two are staying with her.” He snarled at them, knotting his fists into two huge balls, scaring them both to their core as he stood his ground over the woman.

Olivia gazed around at the three men and their campsite. Other than three nearly naked motorcycles—none of them sporting saddlebags—they had very little gear. A small campfire held a pot. Several empty beer bottles and food cans lay discarded beside a clear sack filled with water bottles. As far as she could see, they didn’t have weapons either. The other two bikers look amused and not prepared for anything other than complete obedience to their leader.

She looked again at the woman on the ground and thought she saw a tiny glimmer of hope in her eyes as she stared back at Olivia, so she stood and took a deep breath and squeezed Emma’s hand, and whispered almost silently, hoping Emma could hear her, “Fight like a man, little sister.”

She turned and put her hands up to cup her mouth. She screamed at the top of her lungs, “ Gabby! It’s a pig! Come shoot it! Hurry!”

JAKE LOOKED up in shock at Nick who had appeared out of thin air, standing tall and ready with his rifle pointed at the man on the ground. The other two mechanics ran up and slid to a stop, staring with wide eyes at the mayhem that had landed at their gate.

“Hurry up and get out of here,” Nick yelled at Jake. “We got ya covered.”

Jake lay on his back propped up with one elbow. He stared at his other hand which held a gun; a gun he couldn’t even remember pulling out. Snapshots of his life with Gabby flashed through his mind. He’d screwed it up. In one moment, he’d killed their life together. Nothing would ever be the same again. Gabby would be devastated.

“I shot him,” he mumbled.

His hand trembled and his nervous system took over, producing a wave of shakes that made it impossible for him to hold the gun. He carefully laid it down and looked up at Nick.

“I shot a man, Nick,” he mumbled again through the fog in his head.

Nick shook his head. “No, you didn’t. I did. Now get the hell outta here.”

Jake looked around in confusion. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. You didn’t even shoot. If you don’t believe me, I’ll poke you in the ass with the spitting end of this rifle and you’ll see how hot it is. That was my bullet.” He nodded toward the man on the ground. The thug wasn’t moving at all.

Blood puddled under him and ran into a crack on the pavement, making a dark river that ran toward where Jake lay. He scooted back in a hurry.

Surely, it didn’t kill him?

As though Nick could read his thoughts, he said, “It’s self-defense, Jake. Ain’t no one coming up in my house beating people up and stealing shit. Now go before the rest of those guys make it over. I’ll handle ‘em.”

Jake turned to look. Some of the other people had stopped in the middle of the parking lot, but two rough-looking men were heading their way. They’d be here in a minute at the most.

“The police might—”

“—dammit, Jake, there is no police. They weren’t here when I was under attack and having to defend my gas, and they ain’t coming now. You said you got cops at Grayson’s place. Tell them your story if you need to. But not here . Not now . Go!” he yelled.

The ATV had rolled to a stop against the curb with the motor still running. Jake struggled to his feet and picked up the gun, turning it over in his hand.

Suddenly he remembered.

It wasn’t loaded—and he had not a bullet one.