Bane (Angel's Rebellion MC: #7)

by Jeneveir Evans

  My phone buzzed letting me know I had a text coming in. I was just stepping out of the shower when I heard it going off. It was dancing across the bathroom vanity heading toward the edge of the counter. I barely managed to catch it as it went over. I glanced to see who the text was from and saw it was from Bane.

  Bane: Hey, fucker. Kenz said get your ass over here. She has dinner cooked.

  Me: Nah. I’ll just stay here tonight.

  Bane: Don’t make me come get your ass.

  Me: Brother. Y’all need the time together.

  Bane: Dammit, Eagle.

  Me: It’s all good.

  I didn’t get another text so I decided he’d given up. I went over to the mini fridge I had in my room and took out a beer. Viper had given me the idea of getting one when he got one for his and Dog’s offices. I’d helped carry them in and it hit me that having one in my room could come in handy. It has too. After twisting the top off my beer, I took a drink. Damn, that tasted good after a long hard day. I pulled on a pair of boxers and sweats then sat on my bed with my back against the headboard.

  I sighed.

  I hated this damn feeling I was having. It had already caused me more pain than I had ever wanted to have in my life. Still, that didn’t stop me from wanting to be in a relationship. Only thing was, I really didn’t know where to go to meet someone.

  I grimaced at the thought.

  I wasn’t about to start clubbing. Hell, the women there would be nothing but glorified biker bunnies. That wasn’t what I wanted. When I’d seen Kenzie that night, I had known from the start she wasn’t one of those. Now, I just needed to figure out where to find women of Kenzie’s class.

  Hell, even that didn’t sound interesting. What the fuck was wrong with me? I hated this feeling of discontent. Was I not happy in the MC? I rolled that around in my head for a minute. Did I still enjoy being in the club? I thought about all the good times I’ve had with my Brothers and honestly couldn’t see me doing anything else. Apparently, that wasn’t the issue. I thought about Dog, Bane, Slade, Cas, and Boomer, hell maybe not Boomer. That poor bastard was living in hell right now ever since Audrey died.

  However, I definitely wanted what Dog, Slade, Cas and Bane had found. The club girls were great, I liked every one of them. Only I wanted more than that. I wanted a committed relationship. I groaned. I really wanted that. I wanted a woman to go home to every night. I wanted to go to sleep next to her after I’d spent hours loving her body. I wanted to wake up next to her. I wanted to spend time with her doing everything and nothing at all.

  Hell, had I been deluding myself the last month and a half? Was I jealous of Bane? Did I want Kenzie after all? Not that it would matter, I wouldn’t go there, yet was that what I was wanting? Bane’s woman?

  I thought about it. I brought Kenzie to mind. I pictured her face and in each picture, I saw Bane standing with her. I really didn’t think wanting Kenzie was the issue. I drew in a breath of air and released it slowly.

  Hell. I didn’t know if I was ever going to get this figured out. Maybe I needed to take off for a week and go on a ride. The more I thought about it, the better I liked the idea. Yeah, that’s what I needed to do. I was startled out of my thoughts by someone pounding on my door.

  “Hold your horses, I’m coming,” I called out.

  I opened the door to find Bane standing there.

  “What the fuck you doing here?”

  “I told you not to make me come get your ass.”

  I sighed again. This seemed to be the night for deep sighs caused by thoughts that were bothering me.

  “Bane, y’all don’t need me with you every night. You need time to spend together as a couple. Having me with you every single night isn’t doing that. Kenzie is going to start resenting me being there all the time. I’ve done enough damage to you both as it is. I don’t want to cause more.”

  I watched as his whole body seemed to drop.

  “You change your mind and don’t want to be around me anymore?”

  God, I hated hearing the doubt in his voice. It was almost the same as when he gutted me with his questions about how a hug from a dad felt.

  “Fuck, no, Brother. You and I are good, right?”

  He studied my eyes, trying to figure out if I was telling the truth or not. He knew me well enough to know when I was bullshitting him. He exhaled a deep breath.

  “Yeah, I guess we’re okay.”

  I frowned at his answer. The doubt was still in his voice. I opened the door wider and motioned him in. I walked over to the fridge and grabbed him a beer. I held it out to him, he took it, screwed the lid off and took a deep drink.

  “Talk to me, Bane.”

  “I just feel like you’re pulling away from us, from me. Have I done something to upset you?”

  “Nah, Bane. I’m not trying to pull away. It just hit me the other night when you had to ask me to let you have some time alone with Kenzie that I was with y’all every fucking second. I haven’t been allowing y’all to have a relationship without me being there.”

  “I don’t want to lose you again, Eagle.”

  “Brother, you’re not going to lose me again. I promise that.”

  He walked over and sat on the edge of the bed. Hell, it almost felt like that entire night all over again. My stomach clenched tight at that thought.

  “Bane, the demon isn’t talking again is it?”

  He grimaced. “Maybe a little.”

  “What’s he saying?”

  He shrugged.

  “Dammit, Bane. Don’t do this. Let me in, tell me what’s going on.”

  “I fucking hate this shit. I hate that I have to fight a damn voice in my head. A voice that makes me doubt the people in my life. A voice that whispers everything negative it can think of.”

  “Brother, you’re not the only one who has demons.”

  “It makes me feel like I’m crazy, Eagle. Like I need to be in a straitjacket.”

  “Bane, I have demons too, they may not be as bad as yours, but I have them. I think we all do.”

  “What are your demons, Eagle? What bothers you?”

  I sat down on the floor and rested my back against the wall. It didn’t escape my attention that we were in the same position as last time. I fucking hoped this wouldn’t be as traumatic. I wasn’t sure I could handle hearing more ways I had failed my best friend.

  “I’m lonely, Bane,” I said quietly. “I envy you, Brother. I want a woman to come home to. I want someone to want to be with me. I’m ready to settle down.”

  I laughed self-deprecatingly.

  “I’ve been restless for a long while now, Bane. I guess I’m ready to give up the single lifestyle for something more.”

  “That’s what you saw that night when Kenzie walked into the door, wasn’t it? A future.”

  This time it was my turn to grimace.

  “It doesn’t matter what I saw, Bane. That’s all water under the bridge. You and Kenz are good together. Everyone can see it, Brother. You shine with pride having her on your arm and she glows when she looks at you.”

  “You think she glows when she looks at me?” he asked, almost afraid to hear my answer in fear that I would change it.

  “Yeah, Bane. She does. When Kenzie looks at you, the love she feels for you is written all over her face.”

  He swallowed hard.

  “I love her so fucking much, Eagle. Never thought I’d find something like what I have with her,” his voice came out in a whisper. “Never thought I deserved it. I sure enough don’t deserve it after what I did to you.”

  “Bane, you deserve love just as much as the next person does.”

  “How can you still say that after what I took away from you?”

  “You have to get it through your head that while you might have put a doubt about me in Kenzie’s head, I was the one who didn’t try to fight for her.

  “Bane, you’ve fought for her. You’ve shown her you're willing to do whatever it takes to be the man she ne
eds. You. Not me. You. All I showed her was that I wasn’t man enough to fight for her.”

  “Do you still want her, Eagle? Be truthful with me.”

  “At rare times, Bane, I think about what might have been, but it’s more in an abstract way. I don’t look at her and want her like I did months ago. Do I think she is a beautiful woman? Yes. Do I want to take her away from you? No. Do I have any feelings for her? No, none at all. She is nothing more than a friend to me now, Bane.”

  “You sure you don’t want to be with her sexually, Eagle?”

  “Bane, I can assure you beyond a shadow of a doubt I don’t want Kenzie sexually.”

  He was quiet and didn’t say a word.

  “Is that what you’re afraid of Bane? Are you worried I’ll try to make a play for her?

  “No, I know you won’t. You’re a better man than me in that regard. Hell, you’re a better man than me period.”

  “That’s bullshit, Bane. You know it too. You need to listen to me. What I’m about to say might upset you, but you need to hear my fucking words, Bane.”

  I took a long drink of my beer. I was worried what I said next might piss him off enough to leave or to not talk to me again for a time.

  “Bane, just because you don’t have a father, that doesn’t make you less of a man. Hell, it makes you more of one. You’ve had to be strong your entire life. You didn’t have someone to fall back on like I did. You only had me and, Brother, I seriously dropped the ball in that department. I have a dad who I always knew would catch me if I fell.

  “You didn’t have that luxury. Yet, Bane, you flew anyway. Despite every obstacle you faced. You flew. You did it without anyone to catch you. I don’t know if I could have done the same thing you did. I don’t know if I’m that strong.”

  “You’re that strong, Eagle.”

  He was silent for a moment as he looked at me.

  “You really believe all that you just said about me?”

  “Hell, yes, I do, Bane. You’re one of the strongest men I know.”

  “You saved me, you know,” his voice sent an eerie chill over my skin.

  I had a feeling what he was going to say next would be another thing that would rip my insides out.

  “What do you mean, Bane?”

  “God, I wished I’d hit my growth spurt early, if I had maybe I would have been able to shut Billy up. Ever since that day you found Billy bullying me and beat the hell out of him for doing that to me, I’ve been fighting the demon hard. Before you got there to stop him that day, he said so much shit to me, Eagle. I can still hear him calling me a bastard over and over. I can still hear him telling me that my daddy must not have wanted my sister or me, if he had, he’d be around.

  “I can still hear him taunting me with the knowledge that I didn’t even know what my father’s name was. I still remember him saying that he bet my dad was in prison for murder. I still hear him telling me that his mom said Leigh and I had to be the bane of Mom’s existence. He said if she hadn’t had to raise two bastards her life would have been so much better.

  “I was ten years old. I didn’t even know what he meant by bane of Mom’s existence. I had to look it up when I got home. After I read what it meant, I realized he was right.”

  “Jesus Christ. That’s why you wanted us to start calling you Bane?”

  “Yeah. It was true so why not?”

  “Bane, you can’t really believe that shit? You know your mom loves you. Fuck, I don’t know if I can call you that anymore. Not now.”

  “It’s my name. Just like yours is Eagle.”

  “Answer my question.”

  “Yeah, I guess I still really believe it. If we weren’t the bane of her existence, then why hasn’t she ever told us who our father is? Why wouldn’t she tell me about him? Something. Anything. But she wouldn’t. She flat out refused to when I asked her. I begged her, Eagle. I tried every damn argument I could think of to get her to let me know something and she wouldn’t tell me one fucking thing.

  “I’ve always felt like she was ashamed, Eagle. If not, why didn’t she ever date anyone or bring home anyone?”

  Damn, I was right. This shit was eviscerating me.

  “I don’t know why she hasn’t told you, Bane. Aunt Deb had to have had a good reason.” I took another drink for fortitude because I knew the answer to my question was something I was scared to hear. “What did you mean earlier that I saved you?”

  “Remember that fall of our eleventh-grade year? You were supposed to go with your dad to watch the Razorbacks at that away game. Y’all were going to be gone for the weekend. Since you weren’t going to be home, I decided to do the homework I had. I still hadn’t done that bullshit assignment for Mrs. Ramsey’s class. The one where we had to do our family tree.

  “I thought you and Uncle Keith had already left to go to Mississippi. I was in my room looking at the damn rubric, at all the points that I would be counted off for each item I didn’t fill out. I was looking at the father information and I kept thinking how the fuck was I supposed to fill this out if I don’t know it. Not filling in that was half the damn grade.

  “When we were first given the assignment, I had looked at it and realized what was required. I knew I couldn’t answer half of it. The demon laughed when I read what I needed to know. As the days passed, he started hounding me endlessly. I swear to Christ the bastard remembered every single fucking word Billy said to me years ago.

  “They kept repeating in my head. Before long, the fucker was sneering at me, asking me how it felt to know that my own dad didn’t want me. That my mom must secretly hate me because I bore the blood of my dad. The shit he said was endless.

  “Eagle, I’m not crazy. I know the demon is my subconscious talking, but it doesn’t matter what you call it. I was hearing this shit all the time. All the fucking time.

  “I’d told Mom I had homework and was just gonna stay home and work on that over the weekend. That was honestly my plan until I got to that god damn assignment. That night I sat looking at this damn rubric, listening to that fucking voice egging me on, and I lost it. I couldn’t take it anymore.

  “Mom and Leigh were at your house staying with your Mom while y’all were away. I knew I was going to be alone till the following day, so I got Mom’s pistol and took it back to my room.

  “I just couldn’t fucking handle it anymore. It was driving me crazy. I couldn’t take the voice constantly spouting all the shit it came up with. I had the pistol against my temple when I heard the pounding on the front door. I tried to ignore it, thought whoever it was would go away, only they didn’t. Instead, I heard a voice call out…”

  The blood drained from my face. I was fucking lightheaded. Tears were running down my cheeks. I’d never known I’d been just seconds away from losing my best friend, my cousin, my family. The person I loved as much as I loved my parents and sisters.

  I whispered, “Open up asshole. I know you’re in there.”

  A corner of Bane’s mouth lifted up.

  “Yeah, that’s what I heard. I couldn’t believe it either. I thought I was hallucinating. Yet, you kept banging. I hid the gun and went to the door. I opened it and asked what you were doing here. You told me that you’d told Uncle Keith…”

  “That I really didn’t want to go to the game, that you and I had planned to go to a motorcycle show.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Christ, Bane. Do you know what that would have done to me if you would have taken your own life?” God, it was hard to breathe just thinking about it.

  “No. At the time, I was too involved in the damn voice in my head. All the pain that kept running through me. All the anger at not knowing. That’s what I was battling. I remember asking you why you really gave up the chance to spend the weekend with your dad. Do you remember what your answer was?”

  “Yeah, I do. I told you I’d rather spend the time with my best friend.”

  Bane nodded. “I couldn’t fathom it, Eagle. You gave up a whole weekend with Uncl
e Keith so you could spend it with me. Your words stayed with me. They played over and over in my head. They made the demon shut up. You’d chosen to give up time with your dad to be with me. That fucking meant the world to me.”

  I let out a shuddery breath.

  “Bane,” I said softly, “are you still suicidal? Do you still think about it?”

  “I’m not gonna lie to you and tell you that the thought hasn’t crossed my mind a few times over the years, but I’ve never gotten to the point I was that night. Whenever the demon tries to push me in that direction, I remember what you said and the demon shuts up.”

  “You got to promise me something, Bane. I’m serious as fuck right now, you better god damn promise me that no matter whatever happens in your life, you won’t kill yourself. You got me? You promise me that right now, motherfucker. Promise me. You kill yourself and it will destroy me, Bane. You gotta fucking promise me now that you won’t ever act on that thought.”

  Bane looked in my face. He saw what I was feeling, he could see the agony in my expression. He could tell that the terror of the thought of him doing something like that was devastating me.

  “No matter what happens, Eagle. I promise you I won’t ever take my own life.”

  I closed my eyes in relief and prayed that he always kept that promise.

  “I didn’t mean for shit to get this deep when I came over here to get your ass.”

  I opened my eyes and looked at him. My insides were still clenched in knots. For years, I’d never known how close I came to losing him. I think I might have lost my mind if he had done that.

  He glanced over to my alarm clock. “Well, you got your way tonight. Hear me well, fucker, your ass is going to be at Kenzie’s tomorrow night.”

  “Alright, Bane. I’ll be there tomorrow night.”

  He got up off the bed and I knew he was about to leave. I got up off the floor and stared at him. I reached for him and hugged him tight to me, he returned my hug.

  I murmured to him as I held him tight in my grasp, “Bane, you’re a part of me. A good part. I’d be lost without you. I love you, you fucker. Don’t ever forget it.”