Page 191 of Savior
“Same here.” Axel chimes in. “You can’t put what we did, on Dean. He told us retaliation would have to wait until we held a vote. But after last night…” Axel pauses to look at Cherry. The heartbreak in his eyes, evident to everyone in the room. “After last night, and what they did to Dean. Who they’re doing this for… They deserved it. They deserve it, and more.”
“Well, you’re gonna get more! No way they aren’t going to retaliate! We’ll be lucky if the Jokers stand with us after this!” Ruger snaps back at him, then turns to glare at Dean. “You burned bridges with the Knights, too. I want a vote for a new president!” he shouts, slamming his fist down on the table then points at Dean. “You aren’t who we thought you were!”
My eyes shoot back to Dean as Cherry’s anxious grip on my arm tightens a little more.
“Fuck you, Ruger!” Axel shouts back at him.
“You don’t have to vote.” Dean says, defeat already in his voice. “I’ll step down. Viper can have it.”
“Preacher was right about him. He warned us Dean’s past would eventually catch up to him and take us all down with him!” Ruger pushes.
“Enough!” Cherry shouts beside me, and suddenly the attention of the room is all on her. “You want to know the truth? Who’s really to blame in all of this?”
Dean’s eyes are almost pleading as he stares at her. “Cherry, baby, you’re not to blame. You don’t have to do this… Don’t do this… Not for my sake.”
I turn to look at her, but she’s glaring around the room defiantly, until her eyes settle on Axel. Her expression softens when they do.
“It’s your call, babe.” Axel says. “Ain’t gonna change anything between us if these guys know the whole truth. I love you, no matter what.”
She smiles at him, reaching for his hand to squeeze it before she walks further into the room with him.
“I’ve been around here a lot longer than some of you have.” She begins to say. “Even you, Ruger.”
Considering the only person here younger than Cherry, is Axel, I find that interesting. She turns to whisper something to Axel briefly, before he grabs a chair, pulling it out sideways. Still holding her hand, he assists her as she steps up onto it, then onto the large table in the center of the room, her boots clunking on the wood. Everyone seems confused as they stare up at her. Everyone, besides Dean and Axel.
“I met Dean seven years ago. I was only seventeen, then. It was three years after I was taken from my foster home… and sold, several times across state lines.”
The room falls to dead silence now, everyone clearly in shock of what they just heard. I don’t have to imagine how they feel, because I’m in shock, too.
“I ended up in Arizona, awaiting transport to my new owner. But the president of an MC called The Devils’ Scorpions, took a liking to me. He offered my traffickers more money than the man waiting for me in Texas was. And so, I became property of the Devils Scorpions MC.”
Cherry begins to undo the belt on her shorts, and my eyes shift from her to Axel. He’s staring up at her, like the rest of the crew. His expression sliding from neutral, to something more. His eyes slightly narrow, until she looks at him again, as if seeking his permission to move forward with whatever she’s about to do. He gives her a curt nod, then shoots a look at Dean, before his eyes transfix on Cherry once more.
I glance over at Dean in time to see his eyes drop from Cherry, to look at me. It’s impossible to decipher all of the emotions I can see whirling around in those dark eyes as he stares at me. Seemingly waiting to see my reaction to whatever it is Cherry is about to reveal to us. Her words pull my attention back to her.
“Asmo, their president, liked to brand the girls he kept for the club… And so, I was given this. Their mark to remind me always, that I belonged to them.”
She pulls down one side of her open denim shorts, turning slowly to show everyone the brand they forced upon her. A black tattoo, low on her hip. A black tattoo I’ve seen before...
I had forgotten all about that drugged up stripper in the Demons’ Den, slinking around that pole to Rob Zombie’s Living Dead Girl… Cherry and Dean have the exact same scorpion tattoo.
My eyes shoot back to him as I remember his words, months ago, when he was trying to tell me he wasn’t always a good guy… That he used to be paid to do bad things...
No… No… My Dean couldn’t have been involved with anything like this… There’s no way… There was something else he had said about his past.
As he stares at me, a worry in his expression, clearly wondering what I’m thinking, I remember what it was he had said. He was paid to get a girl away from another MC… But he had told me it wasn’t his story to tell. Now I see, it’s because it was Cherry’s.
Before I can even think to ask anything, war breaks out in the room again as Ruger lunges at Dean. Viking grabs Ruger before he can reach him, slamming Ruger back against the wall. Dean looks at him, clearly surprised and confused by his reaction.
“Is that why you’d road trip out West? Why you do the shit you do? You think you can wash the stain of human trafficking off your soul?” Ruger shouts at Dean. “I’ve seen that fucking tattoo on your chest! You thought by becoming a Savior, you could redeem yourself for your part in trafficking women and kids? You can’t! Men like you deserve to die and burn in Hell! There is no redemption for that!”
Rage eclipses Dean’s features now, over taking his initial surprise. It takes both Diesel and Chopper to restrain Dean and haul him back from killing Ruger with his bare hands.
“Dean had nothing to do with that!” Cherry screams from atop the table. “You’ve got it all wrong! Listen to me!” she pleads over the commotion. “Dean saved me! He took me away from them! His tattoo doesn’t mean what you’re thinking it does! He was never a part of any of it!”
They’re both still trying to kill each other in a fit of rage, neither of them hearing a word she’s saying. Cherry jumps off the table to put herself between them, Axel rushes to her side, pulling her back to prevent her from getting hurt.
“He got the tattoo for me!” she screams, her eyes brimming with tears now. “He saved me! He was never a part of them!”
