A magnetic pair of eyes locked onto mine. Under the artificial lights, they glowed bright green. The man stared right through me and much to my surprise he didn’t blink or look away. Faster and faster, his hips slammed against hers. His eyes bore into mine as he thrust over and over again. When he closed his eyes and threw back his head with a long throaty groan, our connection was severed.

The man collapsed onto the girls back and released his grip from her throat. He’d been strangling her? She was moaning when I first walked in on them, and then she had fallen silent.

Dead silent.

I quickly remembered I had feet and closed the door, fleeing back down the stairs. I hid beside the water heater under the house, beside all the cars and bikes, where I sat for over an hour, running the gravel through my hands and hoping to come to terms with the shitty direction my life was heading in. As much as I wanted to take off into the night and run I couldn’t go far, my overwhelming fear of the dark held me captive at the house where I may have just witness a murder, but it least I could find light.

Fear had seriously fucked with my priorities.

It was that fear, as well as my growling stomach and light-headedness that reminded me of why I was there in the first place.

Basic survival.

I am desperate, and desperate people don’t have the luxury of options.

I sucked in a deep breath. I had to do what I had to do, even if I didn’t exactly know what that was. I mean, I knew the mechanics of it. But my brain was like a car with the mileage turned back to zero. A clean slate that I was about to make filthy dirty.

I may have been homeless and starving, but I was determined to get myself off of the streets and into a real life someday. A life with a soft bed and clean sheets. Once I didn’t have to worry about my safety or my stomach, I could focus on finding out the truth about who I really was.

I made a promise to push through the here and now and do what needed to be done, then I would never think about this time ever again. It would be a small spot on the radar of my life that I vowed I would never dwell on.

I stood up and brushed myself off and began my internal pep talk. I was going to do this. I was going to make it. I was going to have to fake like I knew what I was doing, like I wasn’t afraid, but pretending like I wasn’t scared shitless wasn’t something new for me, I’d done it every single day since I woke up with no idea of who I was.

I would be a biker whore because it was what I needed to be. I would be a tightrope walker if that’s what it took to stay alive.

With newfound determination, I walked back around to the bonfire, grabbed a beer out of the cooler, and cracked it open. The cool liquid lubricated my dry scratchy throat. I darted around from biker to biker and the girls who had their attention. I found myself particularly interested in a girl straddling the lap of a biker who must have outweighed her by at least a hundred pounds.

It was the look on her face I was intrigued by. The smile she wore that said your dick would feel great jammed down my throat. I mimicked her demeanor, and hoped it was enough to get the attention of someone who would take an interest in me.

Someone who could help me survive.

*     *     *

“Hey there,” a deep voice rumbled against my ear.

When I turned around, I was eye level with a wall of leather with white patches sewn into it. One read VICE PRESIDENT and the other, BEACH BASTARDS. The man wearing the vest had long blonde hair that draped over to one side of his head, revealing the shaved area beneath. He had a beard, not stubble, a full-on beard that was a few inches long and very well groomed. He stood well over six feet, his frame lean yet very cut and muscular. I couldn’t tell what color his eyes were because his lids hung heavy and were slightly reddened. His entire neck was covered with colorful tattoos and when he went to light a cigarette I noticed that the backs of both of his hands and were covered in ink as well.

“Hey,” I answered back, trying to assert my newly found false confidence.

He was beyond attractive. He was gorgeous. If I had to end up in someone’s bed, I imagined that being in his wouldn’t be half-bad. He sniffled, drawing attention to the light dusting of white powder trapped in his nostrils.

“They call me Bear. You belong to anyone?” he asked seductively, leaning in toward me.

“Maybe…you?” I winced at my choice of words. Of all the fucking things I could have said, THAT was what came to mind? Stupid fucking mouth. Nikki was right. I spoke first and thought second.

Bear chuckled. “I’d love that, beautiful, but I got something else in mind.”