Stolen by the Motorcycle Club

The dreaded siren blared through the neighborhood, echoing through the streets. My feet pounded against the wet pavement.

I needed to get home. That familiar sound reverberating through the town meant only one thing.

There had been a breach in the border wall surrounding our town. Members of the Vengeance Motorcycle Club were near.

As I rounded the corner into the alleyway, I glanced over my shoulder nervously. While this was the shortest way to get home, it also meant I could be cornered.

The cursed bikers could be anywhere. They could even be right behind me. My heart sank to my stomach.

Ever since I could remember, I’ve been warned about them—by my teachers, by the police, by my parents.

They are the reason I can’t walk home from school alone. The reason I can’t go out on weekends. Hell, even our nursery rhymes are about fearing them.

I’ve been told that my town, New Bethlehem, was once a happy and peaceful place. But ever since I’ve known it, we’ve lived in abject fear of the Vengeance Motorcycle Club and their Club President.

The police can’t stop them. Our church, the highest authority in New Bethlehem, does nothing but make them laugh. The priests tell us they are devils.

But I know the truth. They’re just men—big dumb gorillas with metal machines and no regard for rules.

There’s a handful of different clubs—no better than gangs. They run the outskirts of the cities, hiding in their clubhouses.

The leader of Vengeance MC is the biggest and baddest of them all. The Club President from hell. President Ash.

His name alone sends a shiver running down the spine of everyone in New Bethlehem. Ever since he took over as Club President, he has been destroying the balance we had established within our town.

He stole everything—especially our freedom. The legends of his evil run rampant.

They say he kidnaps innocent girls from our town and gives them to his boys as trophies. They say he wears a hood at all times because his face is too terrifying to behold.

They say murder is as commonplace to him as brushing his teeth. I don’t know how much to believe.

My family home was only a few blocks away. I was picking up medication for my father when the alarm started.

“Get home, young lady!” an older woman yelled down at me from the balcony. “Quickly!”

It’s getting dark; the moon illuminates the deserted sidewalk. To any other eye, the scene might appear innocuous—peaceful even.

Everyone’s doors are closed, their curtains drawn. Their gates are locked, and their kids are safely inside—everyone but me.

When The Vengeance MC Club first came to our town, we constructed a thick perimeter wall meant to protect our small world of religion and peace. But even that isn’t strong enough to protect us from him.

He breaks in anyway, so we stay locked in our houses every night. Walls and walls, but none of them are enough to keep us safe.

“Phoebe, what took you so long?” my mother asks, worried.

I shake the bag of medication in my hand.

“How many times have I told you not to leave these things till too late?”

She pulls me in for a hug—I can sense her shaking.

I love my mother, but sometimes she can be way too protective. She has lived her life believing in only one thing: God is our savior and always will be.

She believes that God controls everything that we do and decides our futures through some type of unknowable power. Despite growing up in this town, I don’t believe in it.

I respect it, though. “Mother, it’s fine,” I assure her. “I made it back before the sunset. How was I supposed to know the siren would go off?”

She sighs and runs a hand across her face. Stress is etched into her aging features. She doesn’t know how to deal with me sometimes—especially when I decide to go against her strict rules.

I don’t mean to do it, but my incessant curiosity keeps tempting me. “What if Ash saw you?” she asks sternly.

“Well, I wouldn’t know if Ash saw me because I don’t know what he looks like,” I retort, my voice rising.

Mother narrows her eyes at me. She hates the thought of me knowing anything about Ash. His appearance is still unknown to me.

He could walk by me in the street, and I would be completely oblivious. Although his hood would be a dead giveaway, I guess. He is the reason wearing hoods is banned throughout our town.

“Phoebe, please. Don’t be difficult,” Mother begs, exasperated. I fold my arms over my chest.

To say I am sick of being holed up every night is an understatement. I have given up on seeing friends on Friday nights.

I’m a hop, skip, and a jump away from graduating, but that doesn’t mean my mother’s rules will be relaxed. She’ll probably just double down on finding me a husband.

Finding a husband when we are young is what is expected in our town. Once I graduate, the first thing my mother wants me to do is get married. The amount of suitors I’ve met over the past month is ridiculous.

“Everything okay in here?” I turn as I hear my father come down the stairs. Our house isn’t very big, which makes spending most of my time in it even worse.

My parents abide by the simple life God would want. I’m not one for materialistic luxuries, but sometimes I do feel a little deprived.

“Nothing—I have your medicine.” I see my father’s gaze switch to my mother.

“Did she just get back?” My mother nods.

He motions with his head for her to leave because he knows how easily she and I argue. When she’s gone, he leads me over to the couch so that we can sit down.

“You know the neighbor’s daughter? Mandy, is it?”

“Alice,” I correct him.

Father nods. “Ash took her last week. He stole her right out of her bed, and she hasn’t been seen since.”

I feel my eyes widen. Alice? She is a year older than me and many times more attractive. The fact that she has been selected to be a part of whatever business Ash is doing doesn’t surprise me in the slightest.

“Why are you telling me this?” I ask him. I like to be in the know, but I didn’t expect my father to want that too.

“I’m worried he might take you. Every morning, I’m scared to walk into your room in case I find that he has stolen you during the night.”

I shake my head at him. The likelihood of me being taken is slim. If he’s taken another girl from my neighborhood, that should mean he won’t be back here for another one for at least a month.

It’s the kind of game he likes to play with people. He lulls us into a false sense of security until he changes his pattern and shocks us all into confusion.

Father takes my hand in his and looks me in the eye. “We all wonder why he does it, Phoebe. I promise you, we will figure it out and stop him as soon as possible.”

He squeezes my hand slightly. Father runs our local church, which leads me to believe his ability to stop Ash isn’t that great. The man we are so scared of is the President of a club that is notorious for its lack of mercy.

“Everything will be fine,” I assure him. “Mayor Miles will sort things out eventually.”

That makes my father smile. Miles is our only hope to end this suffering. If he can’t do it, we have no chance. He was elected with one goal. All the one-percenters, the most violent of MC club members, will be locked up.

I give my father a hug and decide to go straight to bed. A sudden burst of rain hits the glass, making me jump in alarm.

I pull my hair tie up and enter the bathroom. Maybe if I shower, I can wash all this anxiety away.

I turn the water to extra hot and strip off all my clothes. As I step under the showerhead, I am transported to another world—a world where I don’t have to listen to other people’s rules all the time.

Where my parents don’t dictate every decision I make. I rest my head against the tiles.

“Maybe I am destined to join the Deliverance Club,” I murmur to myself. “A gang where I can do whatever I want.”

I’m just thinking how stupid I probably sound when a shadow flits across my vision. I jerk my head up, surprised.

I peer out of the shower and look around cautiously. Nothing.

I feel even more ridiculous now. I get out of the shower, turning the water off after me.

As I wrap my towel around my body, I try to dismiss all paranoid thoughts. The shadow was probably just a figment of my imagination. I am known to have a strong one.

I’m fully aware of the threat President Ash poses to me and my family, but I can’t bring myself to fear him under normal circumstances. Yet tonight, for some reason, the chill dancing down my spine makes me think twice.

A loud crash of thunder from outside makes me squeal in fright. I thank God that the curtains block out the flash of the lightning.

I dry myself and go back into my room, where I change quickly into my night things. Then I turn the lights out and hop straight into bed with the covers pulled right up to my chin.

I just want to sleep this storm away and carry on tomorrow without Ash plaguing my thoughts. But the more I try to get comfortable in bed, the harder it seems to banish him from my mind.

My inner vision is clouded by strange shadows. I am about to doze off to the sound of the rain splattering against my window when a flash of lightning illuminates my room.

That’s when I see him. There’s a man standing at the end of my bed, dressed all in black.

I want to scream. I want to run. But before I have time to do more than gasp, he is on me, and a leather-gloved hand clamps down over my mouth.

I have never been taught self-defense, and any idea of what to do deserts me. I struggle as hard as I can while screaming into his hand, even though the sound is muffled.

I kick as I am pulled up and out of my bed. I feel him applying pressure to my neck, and for a second, I think I am about to die of strangulation.

I lash out, trying to connect with my captor’s ankles. But each time, I miss and meet only air with my bare feet.

“Settle down. Everything will be over soon,” he whispers in my ear. But I don’t settle down.

Even as I feel my vision going black, I keep fighting back. A fear I’ve never experienced before exploded through me the moment I saw him.

Because he’s wearing a hood.