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Shield(5)
Author: Anne Malcom

He didn’t know when it stopped. That hero worship thing, that boasting to his classmates that his daddy kept the whole of Amber safe.

Maybe it was when Luke began to understand the politics of the town. Who really ran it. Not his father with his uniform and moral responsibility but the motorcycle men, with the tattoos and that something else that Luke wouldn’t see as morals.

He didn’t know when the hero worship started to fade off. But he knew when it disappeared completely.

He’d often ride with his father in his cruiser after school, when his mother was at book club or working at her part-time job at the library. He loved it at first, riding up front, watching his dad at work.

But he was older now, and he didn’t quite know if he liked watching anymore. He didn’t quite like what he saw.

He’d been pissed that day that he couldn’t go shoot hoops with his friends. He couldn’t escape this horrible feeling creeping up on him like a bad tuna sandwich that his dad wasn’t the man he thought he was.

Then he got the call on the radio telling him to go to the compound. The one on the outside of town where the bikers lived. His dad’s jaw went hard and he raced out there, lights and everything. Before that, he usually only put them on when Luke begged him. Or if someone was going just a little too fast on the road outside town.

His dad usually didn’t give them tickets, just warnings. Luke used to think that was cool.

Now he wasn’t so sure.

“You need to stay in the car, Luke,” his dad ordered in a voice Luke didn’t quite recognize.

Luke didn’t answer, because they were screeching into the clubhouse and he saw blood. A lot of it. And a dead body.

His father saw it too.

“Luke, do not move and do not look.”

Luke squeezed his eyes shut, not just because his dad ordered but because he didn’t want to look. No way.

But he couldn’t help it.

When he heard the car open and close, and muffled voices and radio noise, he opened them again. His father was looking down at the man with the blood. Talking with the men.

He waited for his father to do more than look and talk.

He was waiting a long time.

He didn’t know what made him move his gaze.

And then he saw her. She was swinging her legs, with boots much too big for her hanging off them. He didn’t think she was doing that for any reason other than she must’ve been doing that before.

Before the man and the blood.

Luke saw her face. It was the girl from school. Cade’s pretty sister who didn’t look at all like she belonged to this. Luke watched her. Watched innocence seep out of her like water from a fast-emptying bathtub. He watched the hurt that didn’t even seem to fit on such a small face take over.

He clenched his fists on top of his knees, itching to clasp the door handle. To do something to help her.

His dad would help her. It was his job. He kept people safe.

He’d somehow keep her safe.

Because he was watching her, that frozen moment of when a little girl had something sacred stolen from her in the backyard of her childhood, Luke did not see that his father had finished the conversation with the men.

Not the bleeding man, of course. That man wouldn’t be having any more conversations.

He didn’t notice until the car door opened, slammed closed and his father started reversing out of the lot. Luke whipped his head around, hating that he had to leave the girl. He focused on his father’s hard-jawed profile.

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

His father didn’t look at him. “Taking us home.”

Luke gaped at him. “You’re not doing anything?” he spluttered. “You’re not helping them?”

You’re not keeping her safe? was what he didn’t say.

There was a long silence, long enough for his father to direct them out of the parking lot and back onto the open road. Long enough for Luke to realize that he didn’t even get one glimpse of that little girl.

One last glimpse.

Because the next time he saw her, she wouldn’t be a little girl at all. She’d be changed, matured beyond her years, something ripped from her soul that would ensure the absence of carefree happiness.

“Yeah, I’m not doing anything,” his father murmured, little more than a whisper. “And that’s how I’m helpin’ ’em.” The last part was barely audible.

“What are you talking about?” Luke’s harsh adolescent yell somehow didn’t seem as loud as his father’s muted whisper. “You have to help! That’s what you do. That’s your job.”

His father finally looked at him then. Luke thought he glimpsed something like shame, but it was quickly replaced by something just as unfamiliar.

Anger.

“No, son. My job is to keep Amber safe. Keep you and your mother safe. That’s exactly what I’m doing. I’ll hear no more about it.”

“But—”

“I’ll hear no more about it!”

Luke flinched at his father’s cruel tone. He didn’t want to be quiet. He wanted to yell, scream at his father that he was doing it wrong. Being wrong. Beg him to at least take him back so he could do something for that little girl.

But he did none of those things. Instead he folded his arms across his chest, staring out the window and trying to blink away the tears that inexplicably rose behind his eyes.

No, Luke could not remember when he started respecting his father less. But he could remember when he stopped respecting him altogether.

That moment right then.

And he’d always thought it’d been because of the injustice of letting outlaws make their own justice, which turned out to be revenge. Thought it was encouraging lawlessness.

Or maybe he’d forced himself to think that.

Because it was actually none of that.

It was because he’d driven away from that little girl before Luke could do anything.

Before Luke could protect her.

 

 

Present Day


Rosie


I was roughly yanked out of the bed of truck that I’d been hurled into an hour before. My arm caught on a protruding piece of metal, sharp pain followed by the warmth of blood radiating from my bicep.

I didn’t flinch, keeping my body slack as they muttered to each other in Spanish. My eyes stayed squeezed shut, but I keenly took notice of my surroundings: the smells, the crunch of gravel, not dirt, beneath their feet.

They didn’t know I was awake. Nor that I could understand how they were arguing over who would “fuck the mouthy American first.”

Of course, they counted on me still being unconscious for that particular rape. They’d make sure I was awake for the rest of them. They’d try not to hurt me too badly, or bruise my face. Couldn’t damage the merchandise before they sold me.

Then I’d be raped again. But it would be by someone different. Someone richer, most likely. Maybe I’d get brutalized on a private jet, surrounded by beautiful things. But a woman may as well be surrounded by filth—she always would be at the moment a man took something brutally that should never be taken. That was never his to take.

In the States, back home in civilization, there is a reported rape every six minutes. That’s just what’s reported. Here, who the fuck knew. Who the fuck knew how often a woman had that innocence, which she didn’t even know she had, stolen.

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