Chapter 4

Kracken

We head into church now that Butcher and his woman, Selah, have arrived. Dragon gave Brick the heads up that they were enroute, and that Selah will likely be able to help us narrow down where those fundamentalist bastards are hiding. All I know is I want Moira back. I feel confident that eventually, I'll break through and help her heal. I know a lot of it is up to her but at the same time, I want to be there when she realizes she's something special.

Brick stalks into the room and settles at the head of our table. Picking up the gavel, he slams it down and says, "Shut the fuck up, we've got shit to discuss!"

"Selah, Butcher, we added two chairs in the center for you two. Please have a seat and we can get started," Banshee states, indicating where they should sit.

I look at them with interest, wondering if Selah ran across my woman during her escapades. I'm unsure how to ask, so instead, I decide to observe. If I have questions, I'll ask them when appropriate.

"Thank you," Selah replies as Butcher pulls out her chair for her.

"Selah," Brick calls out. "We have the gist of you and your siblings" upbringing. Wrecker opened up and gave us that intel. So, we won't need you to rehash any of that. But what I'd like to hear from you, is anything you know about the inner workings of the community. Those fundamentalist pussies have hit my house, and that's something that I won't let sit without doing something about it. Here's the problem we're having, they don't stay in one place for long before packing up their camp and going to a new location. What we're running up against is how they're getting their funding and how do they know when we've finally got them locked down."

"What do you mean locked down?" she asks, confusion marring her face.

I listen intently, my mind worried about Moira. Hawg created an internet search to see if she uses her debit card, since Belle let us know she has money in her account. So far, she hasn't, which concerns me because she isn't speaking. How is she getting food? Shelter? Is she safe? My fists clench beneath the table in order to focus back on what's being discussed.

"We have scouts out there searching for them, whenever we do find them, by the time the cavalry arrives, they've vacated the premises without our surveillance team seeing them leave. How is that possible?" Brick questions.

It's definitely gotten to Hawg, our IT guy. He's damn good at what he does, but even he has been stymied. My brother has practically been sleeping in his office, all of his computers running data searches and each monitor constantly scanning for intel based on whatever parameters he put in place.

"There are things about me that I don't want to become public knowledge, Brick. This may go against y'all's code, but I'm gonna need to answer that with only your inner circle and Butcher in the room," Selah replies.

"Is this one of those spiritual things?" Brick leans forward and asks her.

She clears her throat and quietly says, "Yes, sir."

Brick's voice booms in the air as he orders his men, "I need everyone outside of Banshee, Scythe, Kracken, and Hawg to clear the room."

Several of our brothers narrow their eyes at her, but I know that Brick will fill everyone in on what he can once she's done.

"I'm sorry," Selah says, looking at Brick. "I don't know how much of this is allowed to be spoken about to the general masses, and I don't want information being disclosed that shouldn't be. I know at some point some of this will be shared with them, but that's a decision I feel you should make once you've had a chance to allow what I'm going to tell you to sink in so you can process it."

"I get it, Selah. There are things that I don't understand, and I know that there are things that shouldn't be out there to be used against you and your family. If this was Ryleigh we were talking about, I'd want her gifts held close to the ones who wouldn't pass them off during a drunken stupor," Brick declares.

I hide my grin at his words. He'd move Heaven and Hell if his woman needed it done.

Selah takes a few deep breaths before she starts talking. "Thank you. I guess I should start by telling you a little about myself. There are things about me that I haven't shared, and up until now, it hasn't come down to me needing to expose myself."

"Take your time, Lah. Only tell us what's pertinent and a need-to-know basis of intel," Butcher states, putting his arm around her.

Brick pats the top of her hand in a brotherly way, then removes it, and says, "He's right, Selah. I know how those of you who are skilled and prodigious need to safeguard yourselves against certain types of vulnerability. We just need to know what is going to help us move forward in this instance."

"Okay. Um, so… my mother discovered something unique about me when I was younger that she used to her advantage, so it'd give her a leg up in the hierarchy of the zealots. When I hear or see something, mathematical problems and whatnot, it becomes like a puzzle in my brain that I have a compulsion to solve by putting all of the pieces together in a systematic order. She used to call me her own rubix cube or computer brain, depending on the circumstance. I can get all of the colors to realign with a few maneuverings and keystrokes in my mind."

"Interesting," Banshee says, whistling as he leans back in his chair, and hovers above the ground. "So, if I were to give you an equation, you could figure it out without needing to use a pen and paper to go through the steps?"

"Pretty much," she remarks, shrugging her shoulders.

I'm impressed as hell, to be honest. I can make change in my head and do that so I'm sure I'm not being fucked over, but that's a far cry from doing a mathematical equation completely in my head.

"As Banshee said, it's interesting, but what does it have to do with this?" Brick questions, his fingers steepled and his elbows pinned to the table.

"I'm also a whiz when it comes to programming because of the way my mind works," she replies. "My mother wanted to see how far she could push me, so she took me on an outing, and set me in front of a computer for the first time at the library. I was instantly intrigued by the data, coding, and security settings of the web. Now, mind you, the internet was a new thing back then, so things were easily broken into. But with a few strokes of my fingers on the keyboard, I was rewriting and encrypting systems. I was ahead of the times, so to speak."

"Was that back when Apple invented the first computer?" Hawg asks her, curiosity beaming from his eyes.

"Yes. Back when you had to have certain variables in order to cipher the structures and there was no taskbar to ease your way from one site to the other." She giggles then continues, saying, "It was barbaric compared to how things are now."

"That's both incredible and downright frightening," Scythe states. "You could've brought the world down around you without knowing you were doing so."

"Oh," she says, snapping her fingers. "I knew exactly what I was doing. I'm not sure how I had that knowledge, or how I instinctively figured it all out, but I got what I was capable of, and eventually, when technology caught up, so did my mom."

"Spooky shit," Brick mutters.

"Yes," she states, answering his unspoken question. "I wrote a program that allows them to be alerted if someone is seeking them. It's how they stay one step ahead of everyone, including law enforcement, and apparently, your tech guys. I'm the bad person here."

"You absolutely are fucking not!" Butcher snaps. "You were a damn kid, Lah. You had no control over what they forced you to do."

"He's right again, Selah," Brick insists. "If any one of us was in the situation you were in, and didn't know better, we'd have done the same thing."

"I knew better," Selah confesses. "But they literally were holding my brothers, then later, my daughters under the knife. I did what I did with knowledge of how it was helping those assholes and their vile organization stay under the radar and ahead of the game. If I wanted them to live, if I wanted them to have less severe punishments, I did as instructed. And I did it willingly, it saved my brothers and my girls."

"How so?" Banshee asks, tilting his head sideways.

"Instead of using knives to mar Wrecker's skin, when he was put in the neck brace and displayed in the center of town as devil marked, they'd use whips to drive the sins out of him. Instead of leaving him untreated, I'd refuse to input the next sequence into the computer until he was seen by a healer. I forced their hand and made Mammoth be his punisher instead of our community"s enforcer, because even though Mammoth had to appear as if he hated our brother, he assuredly didn't, and he secretly and covertly made sure that our big brother was gone easy on even if it didn't appear that way. Mammoth made sure that he had herbal salves on hand to help him heal quicker without as many scars as he would've had if we hadn't intervened."

My head is spinning with the information she's giving us. Her parents as well as that entire fundamentalist organization need to be drawn and quartered. "That's a lot of pressure y'all had on your shoulders," I state. "I can't even imagine being in your shoes and having to make those decisions."

The thought that she was made to do these things reinforces just how evil these fuckers are, especially knowing she was a kid when all of this started. I can see the guilt she still carries on her face, as if she was the one making those decisions.

Only… she wasn't. She was under the thumbs of a bunch of misogynistic assholes who used her abilities to further their cause.

"It broke my heart when Wrecker thought we hated him and enjoyed his torture. We had a role to play, and if we didn't execute it, things would have been worse… deadly even. To this day, he doesn't know how much was sacrificed to keep him alive. I bartered my virginity and willingly became a breeder, even though that wasn't my intended role, in order to keep him breathing."

"Fuck!" Butcher roars, unwrapping his arm from around her and slamming his fists on the table.

"There's more," she whispers, placing her hand on Butcher's trembling arm. "Will you be okay to hear what else I have to say?" He looks at her and nods his head.

"Do you need a breather, Brother?" Brick asks him.

"Yeah," Butcher answers, as he stands up and heads for the door.

"Let's all take a minute, and we'll meet back here in an hour," Brick orders. He walks behind Selah and squeezes her shoulder. "Give him a bit to collect himself. That's a hard load for a man to carry when he hears things like this about his ol' lady."

Scythe lifts her up by the pit of her arms, and murmurs in her ear, "Let's get a drink, yeah? Your man's not the only one who needs a break."

He's got that right. I think I could down a full fifth of whiskey and not feel a damn thing. I watch as Scythe plops Selah on a bar stool, then she's handed a glass of what looks like tequila. She shoots it and I watch as within minutes, she's jumping off the stool with her hand over her mouth.

"Fuck, didn't think she would get sick," Scythe mutters, watching her run. "Better go find Butcher so he can check on her."

I nod because that's how the brothers are with the ol' ladies. If their man is around, we get them, but we'll also jump in and handle things if necessary. Since we're virtually strangers to Selah, it's better that Butcher checks on her instead of Scythe.

When Butcher makes it back, we usher him to a seat, letting him know the other ol' ladies have his taken care of. He hesitates for a minute, but when he sees Belle leave and come back with something in her clutches, with no signs of stress on her face, he gives in and plops down next to us, shooting a glass of whiskey in one fell swoop.

We settle in to relax for a bit per Brick's orders and I watch my brothers as they grab something to eat from the kitchen or have one of our prospects hand them a beer. I'm in the middle of taking a long pull on mine when Selah comes rushing from the bathroom, something clutched close to her chest.

She runs over to Butcher and says, "I know who M is."

This catches the room"s attention. All eyes turn to her when Butcher asks, "Who? Who is she, Lah?"

"She's Moira. We have to go back, Butcher. We must go find her, I'm the only one who knows the people who will lead us to her."

"Brick?" Butcher turns to him.

Selah looks at Brick and states, "I'll make a list of locations I'm aware of. We can stop along the route and pick up a laptop so I can trace all of their resources. I'll take down the firewall I created so they're easier to find and get you what you need to take them down, and when I do, be ready to move fast because you can't cover all of the hideouts they have at their disposal at once, there's too many."

My heart is beating so hard, I can hear the blood rushing through my veins as I stand on unsteady feet and approach my president. "Brick," I plead, my voice cracking. I don't know what I'm asking for exactly, I just know if there's a chance they're going to hit the road to find Moira, I want to be with them.

"Go with them, Brother. But pick a few men to go with you so they can have your back. No brother rides alone, and you and Butcher are going to need backup while Selah works her magic on the computer," Brick commands.

The second his instructions leave his lips, chaos ensues. The clubhouse comes alive with activity as Butcher and Selah head upstairs to pack up their belongings. I'm following behind them when she sees Belle and stops. She hands her what is apparently a picture and says, "We're going to bring Moira home, Belle."

"Thank you," Belle says through her sobs, clutching the portrait of her and her friend tightly in her hands. "Thank you."

I hurry to my room and quickly pull my duffel bag out of my closet. Within minutes, I have my essentials from the bathroom packed, as well as several changes of clothes. Adding ammo to the bottom of the bag, I double check my gun and slide it into the inside pocket of my cut. My wallet has the basics for gas and food, and I know, if necessary, Brick will get us more. We're bringing one of ours home and I know that I'll personally pull out all of the stops to ensure it's sooner rather than later.

* * *

We've been on the road for a while, and I've been ignoring most of the chatter between Selah and Butcher, my mind on one thing and one thing only. Finding Moira and bringing her home. My internal thoughts are interrupted when I hear Scythe.

"Holy shit, you two. Not all of us have a woman to room with. May wanna switch channels so we aren't all envisioning the horizontal tango," Scythe whistles. "Fuck, my dick's as hard as a rock and I don't even want your woman. No offense, Selah, I just don't dip my stick in another man's oil pan."

"None taken," Selah replies through a laugh. "Seeing as my oil pan isn't up for the taking, I appreciate you not wanting to dip your stick in it."

"When we stop for the evening, make sure it's in a town big enough with a bar," Scythe requests. "I think my oil needs to be changed."

At that, all of us start laughing, and begin giving Scythe a hard time. While I realize we're working against time, we're still hours away from where Butcher found Selah, so we might as well talk. It helps keep us focused and alert since most motorists tend to ignore bikers.

"In a foreign town, you don't know if that shit is clean or if it's full of lumps and corrosion," Phantom states, his laughter contagious, keeping the others talking in an uproar of humor. He's our cleaner and I'm glad he's with us because I think it's going to be messy.

"Don't worry, I'll find a female mechanic with the mouth of a hoover and have that shit suctioned out," Scythe banters.

I can hear and see Selah laughing her ass off as she clutches onto Butcher, which adds to the hilarity of the situation. Scythe is typically quiet, talking only when he has something to say. For some reason, he's being a Chatty Cathy, but it may have more to do with easing Selah's mind about traveling with a group of rough and tough bikers.

"Make them stop or I'm gonna pee my pants," Selah gasps out.

"Sounds like we also need to hit up a town that has a laundromat," I tease, smirking behind my visor. "Are we riding straight through, or are we stopping somewhere along the way?" I ask.

While I'd love to drive straight through, I know that's not something Selah is used to, so if we have to take a break, we have to take one. I'll deal.

"We have to stop between here and there," Butcher replies. "Selah needs to get a laptop so she can start breaking down their protection software and linking her findings to Hawg so he can start working at deciphering their pattern. If by any chance, Moira has been spotted and recaptured by them, we need a direction to go so we can get her back."

"They better not lay another goddamn finger on her," I growl out. She's endured so much, too much, and I'm afraid if they've recaptured her, we'll never get her back.

"No matter if they have or haven't, we're gonna get her back and burn their organization to the ground," Butcher vows, making me a promise.

"Damn skippy we are," Selah says, agreeing with her old man. "Oooh, where can we get our hands on some flamethrowers?"

"The fuck do you need one of those for, woman?" Butcher asks.

I kind of want to know the same thing seeing as she's petite as fuck. Those things aren't light by any means, and I have a visual of her tipping over after she engages the trigger.

"When I first got away, I used to fantasize about burning all of their facilities to the ground and watching them as they were incinerated. It'd be nice to see that dream come to life," she answers.

"The smell of burning flesh is more disturbing than what you're thinking it is," Banshee warns her. "Your nostrils will never work the same again once you've smelled that."

"I'm with her," I announce. "I wouldn't mind burning them and their things to ash."

"Of course, you are," Jingles mumbles, snorting. "We'd all enjoy watching them burn, but Brother, we don't want to bring the attention of the law on us. We need to figure out a way to make them pay in a quieter way."

"Fuck ‘em," I grumble. "That badge they wear won't save them. I'll take their asses out too."

I'll burn the world down to save my woman, fucking law be damned. Even if I spend the rest of my life behind bars, knowing she was safe would be enough for me.

"Selah, don't talk anymore, darlin'. Keep your fantasies to yourself from here on out, all it seems to do is antagonize, spur on, and feed him," Banshee advises. "Your ideas and imagery have merit, and if it were feasible, I'd be the first one in line buying one for you, but we can't give any of the other factions a heads up that we're coming for them if we can't hit them at the same time."

Lah cackles like a villain on a horror show, before singing in an odious, bone-chilling tone, "These lips are sealed for now, but na-au-aught forever. I will not be, never will be silenced. Nuh-uh. I will be coming for you."

"What the holy hell was that?" Scythe asks.

"That was some creepy ass shit, right there. I think your girl's been possessed or some shit, Butcher," Phantom claims.

"Maybe, instead of hitting an electronic store, as planned, we should be hitting a church and finding ourselves a priest to have your girl exorcized," Jingles surmises.

"I'm not a religious man, but somebody better be pulling out some rosary beads. Like right the fuck now!" Scythe simpers. "Maybe even some sage, for fuck's sake."

"Bahahaha," Lah giggles. "Y'all are too easy to freak out."

"Baby. Let's not freak out the big, bad bikers," Butcher suggests, laughing.

"But I'm bored, and it was fun," she whines. "Ooh, maybe we could tell ghost stories to pass the time."

"Nope. Nada. Ain't. Fuckin'. Happening," Scythe answers. "If this is your form of foreplay, I want no part of it."

"Okay, I'll start," Lah says, ignoring the men's blatant objection. "Have y'all ever heard the story of the chop-chop China doll?"

"No, I haven't. But the better question is, how did you?" Butcher questions.

"The internet," she responds.

"Someone needs to censor her search engine and make sure she's not on the path of becoming a serial killer," Banshee utters.

Then Selah busts out, singing to some country song using the wrong words but using the right tune, "How do you like me now? Now that I'm on my way? You may think I'm crazy, standing over you as you lay. You may think I'm creepy, but I'm trying to find my way."

Scythe loses his shit and screams, "Oh, hell to the no!"

"Wait," I interrupt. "I wanna hear about this China doll."

"Fuck that shit, Kracken," Scythe bellows. "Does your woman know you're creepy like this?"

I chuckle, enjoying getting a rise out of my brother. He's too easy when it comes to this shit. For someone who lives the biker lifestyle, he's got some weird hang-ups. Hates scary movies, hates clowns, hates anything creepy crawly.

"No, I want her to tell us this story," I insist.

Selah's voice drops to a whisper, and she starts talking. "There was a town rumored to have someone called The Puppetmaster who created toys that he then put evil souls into. A young teenage girl, who was bullied at school, received a package that was from a beloved aunt one day, and when she opened it, she found a beautiful China doll inside. However, the aunt cautioned her niece about the doll, saying that she had to remember to put the doll up every night inside the case it came in, otherwise, it would turn evil and start killing people. But the girl forgot and woke up from a dream to hear screams and an eerie voice saying, ‘Chop chop China doll'. She snuck down the hall to her parents' room to find her parents both dead, blood everywhere."

"Jesus Christ and all the saints," Scythe shrieked, causing laughter to come through the mics.

"How the hell you became a biker is beyond me," Banshee murmurs through his laughter. "You grew up with us, Brother, and we told scary stories all the time up in the treehouse!"

"Yeah, and how many times did I volunteer to go into the clubhouse to get us more snacks and drinks? Hmm? I always left before the terrifying parts," Scythe retorts.

"Come on, Scythe, I wanna hear what happened next," I say. "Go on, Selah, tell us more."

She stops giggling, and says, "So, the girl gets her younger brother, her baby sister, and her grandfather, who's the only one still alive, and they head down to the basement to hide. Except… the doll follows, and soon, she's fleeing the basement with her baby sister in her arms. She's going to get help, hopefully from her best friend. When she gets to her best friend's house, thankfully with no doll trailing behind her, she quickly fills in all of her friends. They look at her in disbelief until she realizes her phone was videotaping. So, she shows them the video and the decision is made to call the police. Only… by the time the police arrive, the doll has added to her miniature maniacal killing army, and several of her friends, as well as the police, are now dead. The remaining friends flee from the house of horrors and decide to find where The Puppetmaster lives. They find the house and go inside, only when they get in there…"

"Shit, shit, shit," Scythe screams into the mic. "Why are you torturing me like this?"

Laughter rings through all of us once again, and when Scythe lifts both arms and flips all of us off, it gets even louder.

"You're all a bunch of assholes," Scythe rumbles out. "I'm never speaking to any of you again."

"Gonna be hard when your VP asks you a direct question," Banshee states.

"Fuck off," Scythe retorts.

I hear a faint click and realize the chickenshit has turned his mic off. "I think it's safe to finish now, Selah. Pussy boy cut off his mic."

"Well, that's just the thing," Selah says. "When they got inside, the door magically repaired itself, the blinds all shut themselves and they ended up trapped."

"What about the doll?" I question. "What the fuck happened to that demonic doll?"

"Nobody knows," she replies, her voice dropping to a whisper. "So, if you see a China doll, make sure you lock it away because otherwise, you might wake up hearing, ‘Chop chop, China doll' before you end up dead."

Fuck. Me.