"Wait, what?"
Stepping away, he dropped down onto the gray couch, keeping those blue eyes on me the whole time.
"They ripped this town apart looking for you, Nala, the bikers."
This didn't make sense. If they had been looking for me, why hadn't he written back to me, why hadn't he come and saved me from that house? From him.
"Claire and….. until the fire and everything that happened after, god Nala when… we all assumed you had run, hidden or…"
"Or?" When he didn't say anymore, I know what he meant. They thought I could have been dead when they hadn’t found me.
"What do you mean after everything that happened?"
"Umm," scratching the back of his head, his eyes kept darting to the door behind me, the one we had walked in through. Was he expecting someone?
My gut instinct had been right. I knew that I should not have come back here. This had been a mistake. Lizzy had been wrong.
Dropping my eyes to the floor at my feet, I felt lost. What was I going to do?
Luke moved suddenly off the couch and was instantly at my side once again as more tears fell from my tired eyes.
"I need you to tell me everything, Nala, now," clearing his throat, he lifted my chin. "Start from the beginning."
Hours later, I found myself sat on a bed in a room that Luke said was mine now. Mine.
My eyes had been focused on the swirls in the wallpaper, following each and every curve in them.
I felt numb.
More than I had ever felt before, and I didn't think that had been possible.
Everything in me felt like It was unsafe to be here. Luke wouldn't tell me anything about what had happened after I had been taken, not any more than he'd already said. I wanted to know what happened to the clubhouse. Where was he?
Even if I hated him, to my very core. There was still this pull I felt to him, wherever it was he may be.
What had happened to my dad once he got to the hospital?
Was Lizzy right?
Would he be unable to so much as blink after what she had done to him?
What had happened when they realized I had left, escaped from that house?
My heart clenched, thinking about Lizzy. What had happened to her once I had gotten on that plane? So many questions unanswered, and so many that I wished I could ask her.
There was one thing I couldn't stop thinking about, though, had she actually sent my letters to him? Deep inside, I knew that she had sent them, and if he had replied, I had to believe that she would have given them to me. She would, right?
If he had gotten them, I know that he would have come for me, he would have, without a doubt.
A sudden knock on the front door had me standing instantly.
Someone was here.
Fear filled me that it was my dad's men, or even worse, the man himself. I knew that was impossible, but my entire life felt impossible. Everything that had happened to me should not have been possible. And yet here I am.
A female voice floated through the wall; a voice I knew better than any other. Claire. She was here. Luke had basically refused to tell me anything, apart from that she was working as a plumber. Her ambition of following in her mother's footsteps had been fulfilled.
After spending so much time in isolation, in that house, alone with my nothing really, apart from my own thoughts. I completely stuck in the past, while everyone else, well, they had all moved on so much in their lives, so it seemed.
"Claire, clam down," Luke's voice drifted down the hall outside of the closed door to this room, my new bedroom.
"Fuck off, Luke!" Hearing her voice clearly, I found myself standing with anticipation of seeing her, touching her. I felt almost overwhelmed "she can't stay here, you know that, Luke!"
What?
"Claire, we can't just kick her out on the streets."
"Have you forgotten everything that happened, brother? Everything that was lost?" There was a beat of silence before she said something that made me shrink back. "I will not allow her being here to destroy my life, not again."
I stayed huddled on the bed listening to the two of them moving around the apartment. There was a lot of banging and muffled voices, as though they were trying not to shout back and forth for me to hear. It was like they didn't want me to hear what they were saying. I'd already heard enough when she had come home. I didn't need or want to hear anymore.
My best friend didn't want me here. If she reacted this way, what would he do when, if, he saw me?
No part of me could understand why she was reacting this way. It just didn't make sense. I thought that she would have been happy to see me, that I was back.
She was the one person I thought that I would always be able to count on. I know that I hadn't written to her, not as I had written to him, but there was a reason for that. It was to keep her safe. She would have come out to England, tried to save me from that house, but it would not have gone the way she thought it would have. Not with all of those armed men inside of it. She would not have survived that.
Hearing her now, though… was this really a better option?
Maybe I had been wrong, and perhaps I should have written to her. Perhaps she wouldn't hate me so much if I had of.
My stomach growled, empty and craving something, anything to eat. I hadn't eaten a proper meal since before I left. Sure, I had eaten on the plane, but they weren't proper meals, just snacks really.
Taking a deep breath, I found myself standing in front of the bedroom door again, holding onto the handle. Unable to move, I kept thinking back to what I had overheard. Claire thought me being here could destroy her life, again?
What the hell had happened when I had been taken?
What had she, they, had to endure?
Was it somehow because of me?
Swallowing the sick feeling down, I pulled the door open. Slowly making my way down the hall, I could see Luke sat at the breakfast bar, just staring at an empty bottle of beer in his hands.
"Luke?" He jumped at my voice but didn't move to look at me, just kept those eyes of his on that beer bottle.
"You okay?" his voice was strained.
Rounding the breakfast bar, I looked at him, asking the one question that had been on my mind since she had come home.
"Why does Claire hate me so much?"
He looked deep in thought and for a moment. So much so that I thought he wasn't going to answer me. Like he didn't want me to know.
"When you left, she put everything into finding you, and some shit, Jesus Nala, the things that happened….. after the fire she was never the same. My sweet and caring, strong as hell sister became hard. Harder than anyone should be at that age. Its….. its not really your fault Nala."
"How can you say that?"
Standing, he moved so that he was on the same side of the breakfast bar as I was. Swallowing visibly, he wrapped his arms around me tightly, just has he had before.
"The things that happened, there is every chance that that would have been the outcome either way. When Richard Matthews is involved…. It was only a matter of time."
Wait… "What has Brandon's dad got to do with any of this?"
"Everything," he goes to say more, but the words die in his throat as another person comes into the room. Claire.
"You need to leave, Nala."
"Claire," her brother almost growls, dropping his arms from my cold and hungry body he stands in front of me. As though he was protecting me from her. Protecting me from my best friend, or I guess, ex-best friend. What happened to you, Claire?
"Don't look at me like that, Luke, you know she can't stay here."
"She can and she will" unable to move my eyes from her, all I could do was stand in silence. The venom in her voice was one thing, but that look in her eyes. God, I had never seen Claire look at anyone in this way before. Pure and utter hatred.
Maybe, my gut instinct had been right. There really was nothing left for me in this town. Not anymore.
<
br /> "She can stay here; we’ll keep her safe."
"And what about us, Luke?" She crossed her arms over her chest. "Who is going to protect us?"
"It isn't her fault what happened, Claire, I know you know that."
The room fell silent and unable to contain the words that had been threatening to come out as soon as I had gotten here. As soon as I had seen the burnt outbuilding, the place where I thought my heart still lived. How very wrong I had been.
"What happened to the clubhouse?" The both of them froze, and as I waited for an answer, I would have taken anything. Claire looked at me for all of a second before turning back to her brother.
"Don't make me make you choose, brother," and then she was gone.
Sighing as Luke cooked me some food, some chicken and vegetables, he kept looking down the hall. To the room, Claire had stormed off into, I assumed it was her bedroom.
"Luke?"
"Nala, you need to…" clearing his throat, "Give her some time, and she will come around, I know she will."
Not knowing if he was right, all I could do was shrug my shoulders "I can leave"
"And go where?" He knew better than anyone that I had nowhere else to go in this town.
"I need you to tell me what happened, what made her hate me so much?"
One last look at her door, he turned to me, "I wasn't really involved in what happened, but she got hurt really bad. Not physically… but she was never the same after the day that building burned to the ground. She moved in here with me and shut herself off from the world, apart from working on her apprenticeship, she never left the apartment. She would never tell me everything… but Nala… God…. You need to promise me you will stay as far away from Richard Matthews, from his family" huffing, he added, "and stay away from The Unholy Confessions."
"Why?" I didn't understand. "They were in the bar. They were downstairs." He knew I was referring to them and not Matthews. Why would I want to go anywhere near that man?
"The owner, he has an agreement with them. I don't like it, but I need this job and this apartment that comes with it, so I.. deal with it."
Dishing up a plate, he pushed it to me on the counter.
"I already told you, I don't know everything, Nala, but Claire knew them, in the same way you did, so I believe and… if she hadn't of been, then none of this…... she would not be the person she is today."
Looking back, if only we had gone to the god damn ice cream parlor and not that tattoo parlor, our lives would be so very different right now. I mean, I would be married off, but god, if it meant that she, if it meant that Claire, my best friend, was not hurting like this, I would have dealt with it.
"The stuff that happened, with Brandon's dad. Was it, was it because of Weston?"
When he flinched, I knew It was. He knew about him about my father. That was his true identity, I was convinced of it. All of the others… made up by him in the way of concealing him away from…. Well, I didn't know exactly what, but whatever it was, it couldn't be good.
"Claire was involved…she was in a relationship with one of The Unholy Confession bikers".
One of the bikers, "Pinky?" I knew that something was going on between the two of them, but she had never told me, or I guess she never really got the chance to tell me.
Nodding his head, he placed the wooden spoon in his hands down onto the counter. "When…"
"NO!" Claire scream made me drop the plastic bottle of water I had been holding. Water splashing everywhere as it fell to the floor. Luke's mouth snapped shut, and I couldn't help but groan out loud.
"Please," I found myself begging, "Talk to me, Claire, you're my best friend."
"Claire," Luke's tone was warning her.
"Luke, I think you have said enough, don't you?"
"Claire, tell me what happened? Please"
Shaking her head, she just stood there, looking at me.
"You can stay here, Nala, but we can't be friends anymore."
Tears filled my eyes as she said those words to me.
"Oh and Nala, one rule," her voice had turned serious, and I waited with bated breath for what she was about to say, "Do not… stay away from my brother".
The following three weeks passed almost agonizingly slow. Sure, I was free from my previous prison, but essentially this was just a new one. It was just in a different country, and without armed men on every corner that I turned. I found myself nervous about stepping outside in fear that someone would be there, just waiting for me.
I should have been feeling joy seeping into my bones, knowing that I was free instead. That I was able to do anything and go anywhere I wanted too, only I couldn't. I was scared half to death of who could or would be out there. Lurking in the shadows. Especially with the way that Claire and Luke had reacted, it seemed as though there were other demons in this town, just waiting on the outskirts to take a metaphorical stab at me.
Almost every day, Luke had warned me to keep my distance from Brandon's family and The Unholy Confessions. That felt harder than it should have, not seeing the bikers that is. Every night, without fail, I would hear their bikes before entering the bar to drink what I am sure was copious amounts of alcohol. I had not been brave enough to sneak a peek and see if he was there. Terrified of the reaction I would get, if my best friends were anything to go by, then I wanted to avoid it at all costs.
My dreams had intensified with being back home. Whereas before, it felt like I was on the outskirts, almost like I was watching a show, simply rewatching the moments I had treasured once upon a time. Now those same dreams felt as though I could feel every single touch, every single earth-shattering moment, and I spent more time awake when it was dark than when the sun was high in the sky. The dreams didn't feel as intense in those moments when the sun was shining.
Despite my best friend's unwelcome response, I had become close with her brother, Luke. He has become my new confident of sorts and knew everything, possibly more than even Lizzy had known. Well, apart from about him, I couldn't talk to Luke about that. It didn't feel right too. Of course, there was every chance that he knew more about all of that than he was letting on, just like he was not telling me the reason Claire hated me so much. He was good at listening. I think that was my favorite thing about him.
Luke gave me his old iPhone when he realized I didn't have anything with me apart from a few clothes and a couple of hundred bucks that Lizzy had stolen from my dad's office, no doubt. This phone felt lightyears ahead of the last one I'd had. It took me far longer than I would like to admit to get the hang of using one again after so many years.
I kept finding myself pulling open a new webpage to search for anything about my dad.
What had happened to him?
Was he alive?
Was he dead?
Was it wrong of me to wish, to hope and pray that it was the last thought, that he was dead?
Instead of following through and typing out those words, I kept shutting the cell phone off. Every single time. No good would come from looking for anything about my dad right now. If he was alive, it would only panic me further.
Claire left for work at the crack of dawn every morning, slamming the apartment door so loudly it woke me, without fail each and every time. I wasn't sure if it was for my benefit that she did it or if it was to make a point to her brother that she was very indeed unhappy with their visitor who had taken over the guest bedroom. She was so angry to see me here, it hurt deeply that she didn't want me in their apartment. That she didn't want to be my friend anymore.
Would he react the same way?
Would Ashby Bronx hate me just as much as I had made myself say that I hated him in the last few years?
Pushing open the kitchen window that I found myself most days starring out of, just like I had back at the house in England.
Was this really so much different?
Honesty, I think there was only one difference, and that was the fact that there were no armed men, willing to put a bullet in anythin
g that moved the wrong way.
A door creaked down the hall, and I found myself holding in a breath. Claire hadn't gone to work this morning. I know that because she hadn't woken me up by slamming the door as loud as she possibly could. I was still not sure if it was purely for my benefit or for her brothers. As she was still not talking to me or acknowledging my presence at all.
Sensing her moving behind me, I daren't turn to look at her, hearing the refrigerator open. The hum of the unit filled the painful silence.
Peaches: MC Romance (The Unholy Confessions Book 1) Page 14