Page 17 of Burn (Two Wheeled Psychos #2)

It’s been a week. The longest week of my life since I collapsed in Phoenix’s bathroom and cried for the boy I was and the man I’ve become. A whole week that feels like an eternity without the addiction that is her.

He’s been with me though, an ever-growing presence, talking to me, mocking me, trying to force me into things I don’t want to do, yet crave to do. I’m fucked in the head and the more he whispers and yells, the more unhinged I become.

The nights are long and lonely, and the days are full of more of my regular work. I’ve offered to be on call every shift that I can be, to keep my mind and body occupied as best as I can. In between fire calls I’m in the gym, lifting more than I should, all while starving myself, cutting my muscles even more until I’m down to almost no body fat, and a raging beast of lean power.

If I could fight him off with brute strength I would, but that’s not going to work, and I’m slipping further into a hole of abusing my body because of his torment in my brain.

“Dude, you gonna stop one of these days? Geez.”

The captain says, poking his balding head into the gym as I finish getting dressed, slamming my new helmet on my head so I can go for a ride. I need the wind on me, to blow away the sweat and the hate that resides on and in me.

“No.”

I grumble behind the mirrored visor as I slap the Pista shut with a sharp nod of my head.

“Suit yourself. But nothing in this life is worth what you’re putting yourself through. Not even grade-A prime pussy.”

“Fuck you.”

I snarl, stalking past him, elbowing him in the ribs out of annoyance as I pass him in the hallway.

I need my bike, the only thing in this world that listens to me when I need something to talk to. She hears me, and takes my words, turning them into the screams of her throttle so that I don’t have to wail out my pain. She does it for me.

She’s waiting for me in the garage, all clean and gleaming under the bright overhead lights. Her black paint shines and the red accents seem to glow like freshly spilled blood on her sleekness. She’s a sight for sore eyes, and she calls to my compression suit clad body for me to ride her hard.

You can’t ride me away. I’m here to stay. Pussy.

“Fuck off.”

I grumble, sitting on her seat, turning the key, and flipping the ignition switch on.

Her engine rumbles, then screeches as I twist the throttle, revving her loudly, letting her sound echo through the garage where it bounces off the side of the fire trucks, coming back to me even louder.

I click on the music in my helmet, twisting the knob on the side, turning up the volume to a level where I can’t hear anything else except the beat of the song as I kick her into first gear and roll her slowly from the garage doors out onto the street. As soon as her front tire hits the road, I lift my feet, kick her up and take off into the early evening.

If you’re going to ride, let’s look for something to burn. A whore, a druggie, something. It’s been too long.

“No.”

Awww, come on. It’ll be fun.

“No.”

Pussy.

“Prick.”

I shout as I turn left onto a side street, escaping the city traffic so I can get out onto the turnpike and the open road faster.

The narrow city streets widen, and the houses turn to businesses. I drive onward, going up the ramp, and spit us out onto the highway. Sound barrier walls on either side keep her sound bottled in as I shift up and up, careening into the flow of traffic, blending in at first, before I take off like a bat out of hell.

I can’t see the cars round me, all I can see is Phoenix and the way she reached out for me when I backed away. I can’t hear the horns of the cars as I’m weaving in and out of them like a madman. All I can hear is her voice as she called out to me when I stormed out of her apartment in my still damp clothes that rubbed my skin as raw as her voice shredded my heart. I left her there, with no explanation again, but this time the connection was too deep for me to just walk away, and it’s been one fucking week trying to stay away from her.

I need to be away from her presence. If I wind up doing something to her that I don’t want to do I’ll never forgive myself. I don’t care how many whores and drug addicts I burn, in fact he’s right, I should do one, it might make me feel better, but I can’t listen to him when it comes to her. She doesn’t deserve my flames. The only one she’s been a whore with is me, and that’s my fault, my doing. She can’t be punished for what I’ve created in her.

“Should I? Should I ‘work’ tonight? Would it make me feel better, when just an hour ago I said no?”

I ask myself inside my helmet as I streak past a big rig, reaching out to touch its trailer with my gloved hand.

Do it. You know I’m right. I’ve always been right.

“No. I shouldn’t.”

If you do it, I’ll leave her alone.

“Fuck!”

Cars blast past me as I pull over into an emergency cutout in the center barricade of the highway and bang a U-turn onto the southbound lanes. I need to be back in the city if I’m going to appease him and make him shut up.

The cars whiz by faster and faster as I kick the shifter up and up again. I need to get back to the city, back to the shelter of the buildings and the underpasses, and back to my hunting grounds where I'm comfortable and can search in secret without being seen by prying eyes. The highway narrows again, and I take the off ramp towards center city. Wide open roads become narrow streets lined with the businesses and then the houses again.

The sun is setting as I drive through the city, the bright blues of the sky turning into the red, orange, purple hues that show that dusk is approaching. The trash will be coming out from their hiding places once the sky turns dark, when they can move around the city like rats, shrouded in the night, going unnoticed in their filthy ways.

The whores will step out onto the corners, and the dealers will peddle their goods in the shadows, but I’ll know they’re there. I can smell them, sense them, and if the voice in my head needs me to sacrifice another one of them for him to allow me my angel, then that’s what I’ll do.

I never had a problem with it before. I blame her, she’s tainted me, made me become something I’m not, just as I’ve ruined her and turned her into something she wasn’t before she met me.

Karma’s a big bitch ain’t she?

“You can say that again.”

Now, find me my victim and do it quick. It’s been too long.

Rolling my eyes with a dramatic sigh, I give in to him, like always. “Fine.”

I’m already in my new leathers, with a blacked out mirrored visor, so I’m ready to go. There’s no need to travel back to the fire house and raise suspicions of me coming and going so quickly. So I roam down the streets, waiting for the sky to darken and the streetlamps to come on.

It’s not long, once the sun starts to set, night falls quickly, even for the early summer. We haven’t reached the summer solstice yet, so the days aren’t too long. Before I know it, the corners are packed, and the alleys are shrouded by the scum of the earth.

The scent of the restaurants and bakeries in the air changes to the smells of the acrid drugs. Weed smoke fills my nose like an odor from a ripe skunk, and the acidic scent of meth crackles in the space around the rear entrance of a Chinese restaurant.

Whores in their bright clothes, fishnets, and crazy hair pace up and down the sidewalks, with their cigarettes hanging from their overly painted mouths, calling out to cars as they pass by. Twice as I make my round through in the inner city, the same hefty one in her way too tight, purple, halter dress, and black knee-high pleather boots cat calls me.

“Hey darlin’ you need a backpack?”

She asks as I slow down and approach her.

I can already smell the stink of old cum and weed on her, and it makes my eyes water inside my helmet when I stop in front of her, revving the bike, making her squeal in excitement like the piggy she is.

As if it wasn’t easy enough to pick up a two-dollar hooker, the bike makes it a breeze. Most women will willingly go with any dude on a motorcycle, throwing away all their sense of pride, safety, and everything else just for a ride on something that can go so fast. They don’t even ask to see who’s behind the helmet. They don’t even care that it could be a serial killer lurking behind the closed visor. The thrill of getting on something that goes over 200mph is more than enough for them to toss out all sense of sensibilities.

“I could always use a new backpack. I don’t know where mine got to.”

I laugh, putting my feet down, leaning on the sidewalk curb a little, so she can admire my ride.

“She fall off?”

“Yeah something like that.”

I chuckle, patting the small, plastic, triangular seat behind me.

“Hop on baby.”

Her long, cracked fingernails feel like daggers even through the leather as she holds onto my shoulder to hoist her fat ass up on my bike. I can feel the suspension dip from her added weight, and I shake my head about the extra work the engine is going to do driving her to someplace more remote.

You picked a good one, lots of meat to cook.

“Yep.”

I sigh in my helmet, not really feeling it, but whatever. I gotta make him happy so he leaves my Phoenix alone.

“Where ya wanna go honey?”

The whore says, leaning against my back, wrapping her arms around me, her hands going right to my flaccid dick.

“Someplace private, baby.”

I choke out, moving her claws off my crotch and up to my waist.

“Hands higher while I drive please. Can’t have me distracted.”

“Ooohhh, yeah, sorry.”

She giggles.

“Let’s go.”

The ride isn’t fun with her on my back. The wind doesn’t feel as nice, and her hands keep roaming all over my front, making me want to gag as I take us deeper into center city, going under the El tracks and into the catacombs beyond the train station. The noise of the rail cars overhead will be perfect for drowning out her screams, and the sounds of my vomiting if she continues to fondle me.

“You know, I could be a serial killer.”

I laugh in my helmet, turning the music down so I can hear her.

“I doubt that. Killers aren’t hot like you.”

She says back with that little piggy laugh.

“If you say so.”

The catacombs are practically empty when we arrive. The graffitied walls covered in years’ worth of tags seem to echo every sound around us, making the bike sound like something from the bowels of hell as I take us in deeper. It growls and snarls out its mechanical sound, getting louder as the tunnels narrow around us, hugging us in its privacy.

“How far in are we going?”

She asks, tightening her grip on my waist as we bump over debris and trash from the homeless garbage that resides down here.

“Far enough that no one will hear you scream.”

“Ooohhh kinky. Me like.”

She says, her hands moving back down between my thighs and the gas tank.

“What do you have planned for me? Something hot?”

“Very hot, baby.”