by K. L. Savage
He steals the bottle from me, twists the cap on it, and sets it to the side. “I’m going to need you to clarify that, Mary. What do you mean you didn’t care? You knew what they were going to do to you, right? They weren’t the kind of men that were going to tell you they loved you or fluff your goddamn pillow at night.”
“I know. They were going to drug me, keep me loopy, use me up, and spit me out. I know. Yeah, that didn’t scare me. Like I said, it would have been a good change to the norm.”
“And what was the norm?” he asks.
I turn to him when I hear the murderous rage. His jaw ticks, and the Knives that is about to flip the switch and disappear from this moment is close to the surface.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me. No one knows anything about you.”
“I don’t know anything about you either,” I point out, then reach out to steal the whiskey from the side of him, but he snatches it away from me in time.
“I’m an open book.”
“With a damn lock on it that no one has the key to,” I sass, and my words take him by surprise, so I hurry to grab the bottle. “Got to be faster than that!”
And then he jerks it away from me right as I take the cap off. “Gotta have a tighter grip than that!” he winks, and the way his lashes curl at the tip and fan over his cheek, heat floods me.
My nipples bead, and I pull my legs up to my chest to hide the traitors. The way he says, ‘I need a tighter grip’ sounds like there are implications in it, like he is giving me a dirty secret.
Maybe he likes a tight grip?
“So, what’s the story with Mary St. James, Hellraiser? What has her wild?” he asks, eyes glittering with humor.
Being wild isn’t new.
My wild just isn’t being suffocated.
I’m free.
The moment I could, I unleashed what’s been hidden inside me for so long. It isn’t about being untamed or a rebel.
It’s about living, and that’s all I’ve ever really wanted.
I’ve only ever want to feel alive.
Not just to wake up every day, thankful for the heartbeat in my chest, but the electricity in my veins and the wild thump of my heart when something exciting happens, that kind of alive.
I’ve been searching for it, and I’ve found it.
And I fight with him every day.
I want to kill the man that made that kind of abuse a norm for her. How the fuck can she sit there and tell me she was looking forward to what the Atlantic City chapter had in store? They were monsters. A girl like her with the pearls, the class, the riches, she isn’t supposed to know the hardships of life.
I guess it doesn’t matter what walks of life people come from; shit happens that will change you forever.
“I feel like all we are doing is talking about me,” she says, her voice smooth with a hint of vintage. Like if I asked for whiskey on the rocks, her beauty would be the whiskey, and her voice would be the ice.
It’s the only way I know how to describe it
“What do you want to know?” I look up just as another piercing crack rings through the night.
“I want to know your real name.”
“You don’t? It isn’t like it’s a secret. I’m not like the other guys. A name is a name.”
“I don’t know it,” she answers.
“Thomas.”
She blows a raspberry with her lips as she cackles, nearly falling backward in fits of fucking giggles. I can’t help but smile. “What?”
“Thomas? I don’t know what I expected. Tyron or Zeke, maybe Loch or something badass, not something nerdy.”
“Knives is badass,” I protest, shocked and almost offended. Almost.
“Exactly. You’re this badass guy. You have tattoos and muscles. You’re a biker. But to call you Thomas, I can’t,” she snickers. “Thomas is a frat boy who wears khakis.”
“I fucking hate khaki,” I mumble, remembering the time when my mom made me wear them. I only wore them once, and that was the day I lost my entire family.
“I didn’t mean to make you mad; I’m sorry.”
I grab her hand, and it’s warm from the fire. “You didn’t. It’s me. Bad memory.”
“A penny for your thoughts?” she asks, scooting over to inch closer to me. I expect her to move her hand away, but she doesn’t. I should move my hand away.
I don’t know if I can. Fighting her is too exhausting.
My entire life has been a fight. There comes a point where someone in my position has to accept that something I thought might be bad for me will be the best thing for me. I’m not used to good things. I’m used to pain, marveling in it, soaking in it.
I don’t want Mary to turn to pain. I can’t handle the idea of something happening to her to add any more agony to the loss I’ve already experienced. What if I fall for her, which, as crazy as it sounds, I can see myself falling fucking hard, and something bad happens? I’m left with picking up the shadow of myself again.
I’ve done that too many times, and I don’t think I can do it again.
I don’t talk about my past, but since she’s shared a little bit of herself with me, and since we are stuck in this barn for who knows how long, getting to know one another seems to be the only option. We could fuck, but I need to earn getting between those legs, and I’m not going to do that on a stack of hay in the middle of a storm.
First off, it’s cliché, and second, we aren’t fighting, and that needs to be last more than a damn day.
I want to earn her trust. I want… hell, I want her.
I must want a headache for a damn lifetime.
“What do you want to know?” I lean back, prop myself up on my elbows, and hope I don’t have to dig too deep.
“Where are you from?”
“Here. Vegas.”
“Mom? Dad? Family?”
Damn, she has to hit all the spots I don’t want to talk about, doesn’t she? Makes sense, since she loves to drive me crazy.
I shake my head. “No, my family died when I was a kid. I grew up in foster care.” I took another swig of whiskey, but it isn’t enough to burn the pain from my chest.
“I’m so sorry, Knives.” She squeezes her hand around mine. “Can I ask what happened?”
“Car accident,” I whisper, thinking back to the best memory I had. “Remember Halloween? When I nearly drowned because of Tongue’s brother?”
“Yeah, I still can’t get over that detail,” she says. “And yeah, I remember. That was terrible. I was so worried about you.”
“Oh, I bet.”
“Hey, we might fight, but I care. I don’t ever want to see you hurt.”
“I don’t want to see you hurt either.” My voice deepens, and the air between us sparks, crackling just like the lightning outside.
I trace her knuckles with my index finger, loving how soft she is and wondering how anyone could hurt someone like Mary. “People say that your life flashes before your eyes when you die, but I didn’t have that experience. I relived one day.” I smile when I think about my sister running after me, me running after her, and mom yelling at us to stop. “It was a regular day, beautiful, and the sun was out. Dad was grilling, and my sister and I were as thick as thieves. Mom was watching us to make sure we didn’t hurt ourselves, but I remember laughing. We decided to go to a movie that night, and out of nowhere, a truck ran a red light and smashed right into us.”
She gasps, holding a hand over her lips. “Oh god,” she says, squeezing my hand even tighter.
“My parents died on the spot, but my sister…” my throat clogs up when I remember the moment as if it happened yesterday. “She had this piece of metal, right here—” I rub the side of my neck, a spit right under my ear. “She couldn’t breathe. There was so much blood. I was the only one that came out with no injuries, can you believe that? I was safe. What crock of shit is that?”
My eyes blur, thinking of my sister’s young face and her long hair coated
in blood. “She looked at me, unable to speak. She tried. She kept trying to talk to me, but her throat was crushed. I held her hand and waited for help to arrive, but by the time they did, she had already died.”
Mary is crying, big tears wetting the sharp edges of her cheeks. “Knives, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry that happened to you.” She throws her arms around my neck and buries her face in my shoulder. It takes a second for me to react, because I can’t remember the last time someone hugged me.
I wrap my arms around her, too, pulling her tight and enjoying the way she feels against me. I inhale her scent, getting lost in her comfort, and a tear falls, dripping down my cheek until it lands on her shoulder. I haven’t cried in a long time, but Mary brings me to my knees. She opens me up, and I think she always has. It’s one of the reasons why we fight so much. She makes me vulnerable.
I hate being vulnerable.
I hate… feeling. I’m not used to it. With Mary around, it’s like the walls I built around me crumble and welcome her home to heal me.
But I miss what my life could have been. I miss my family. I miss my best friend. I hate what my life turned into after my parents died, but now, my life isn’t so bad. It took too long to get here, though. Way too long, and I’ve pushed the pain away, locked it inside, thrown away the key, and lost hope that my beat-up heart can be anything other than rundown and tired.
Mary is breathing life into me, and it terrifies me more than death itself.
Death is easy.
And I think I’ve been waiting for it to come back around for me.
I’m not afraid of a lot of things. I love making people afraid of me, but emotions bring even the strongest men to their knees.
She pulls away and sits back down in her spot, sooner than I was ready to let go, but I don’t want to make her stay in my arms. I want her to want to be there. “I need a drink,” she says, taking the bottle and taking a gulp. “No one should have to experience that.”
“It didn’t stop there,” I say in a small whisper, hoping she doesn’t hear me, but at the same time, hoping she does. “Foster care sucked. I bounced around a lot. I wasn’t the kid that everyone liked. I was a loner, a weirdo, scrawny—”
“—You were scrawny? No way, I don’t believe that for a second.”
“Believe it. I was short too. And the damn butt to everyone’s joke. I ran away for a bit when I was thirteen. That’s when I learned to build fires.” I can’t believe I’m telling her this. No one knows this about me, but she makes me want to talk. She makes me want to heal. “Most of the foster parents I had, they were in it for the paycheck. They would have so many kids and all of us shared a room sometimes. We could only bathe once a week, eat certain times during the day, so I was skinny and smelled a lot of the time.”
“That should be illegal. The system shouldn’t allow that to happen.”
“System fails everyone all the time, but there was one good thing that came out of it.” I smile when I remember his face. “Mason. Reaper knows about Mason, but only because Mason hung around the club when we were teenagers. When he aged out of the system, he was going to prospect, but that never happened.”
“Why?”
“Because of me,” I admit, hanging my head. I deserve the shame and guilt to wash over me. “I wasn’t always fit. I wasn’t always six-foot-three. And there was this group of kids, three of them, and they loved to beat the hell out of me every chance they got. Mason, even though he was a foster kid, no one gave him shit. He was big for his age, strong, nearly looked like a man, and was only a year older than me. He was my protector. My brother, when I had no one else.”
Her hand slides over my thigh and squeezes, telling me that she’s here and listening. How long has it been since I talked to someone and they willingly listened? I can’t even remember.
“He was all I had, and at fifteen, that’s a big deal. Especially when it seemed like the entire world was against you. He tried to protect me all the time, but he couldn’t always be there, and I’d get the shit kicked out of me.”
“If they only saw you now…” she says, letting it be known that I’d be their worst fucking nightmare.
Rain continues to pound the tin roof, and I open the oven to shove another piece of the nightstand in there, along with hay, to keep the fire roaring. “I was walking home from school one day, and I decided to take a short cut. It was this old back road, I’m sure it’s still there, but I haven’t checked. I haven’t been able to go back. They called it Miscellaneous Way because that’s where people dumped anything and everything. If I had just gone the other way home, everything would have been fine, but I didn’t, so Mason came looking for me.” I let out a big exhale until I have no air left in my lungs and wrap my arms around her again and pull her close. Our knees touch, and her hands fall to my legs. It probably isn’t comfortable for her, but I need to be close to her. I fought it before by fighting with her, and I hope tonight gets us past it.
“I protected myself with a few old knives, stabbed one kid, and right as I was about to attack the others, Mason was there, saving me like he always did. Only this time, he didn’t use threats to scare off the kids. He had a gun, and he shot all of them. He told me to run, but I wanted to take responsibility, yet, he wouldn’t let me. He said, ‘always take responsibility for your actions,’ and the police came. I ran into a shed and watched as the officers drew their guns. When they asked him to drop the weapon, the barrel was pointed to them, and they fired.”
Pow. Pow. Pow. Pow.
I can almost hear the ringing in my ears still.
“I watched him die and fall on the guys he killed. For me. It was always for me, and that pissed me off. Before he died, he told me to go to the biker bar we always passed by, and that’s where I met Reaper’s dad, who was the President, and Reaper was only a few years older than me. They’ve been my family ever since, but it still hurts like hell thinking about the family I’ve lost.”
Her hands lay on my chest. My heart thumps with the sad memories coursing through me and the way the warmth of her soaks into me, wrapping around the ache in my soul like the fire coming from the stove or a blanket.
I never thought sorrow could be thawed and warmed until it reached relief, but here we are. I lay my hand on top of hers and rub the top. I’m cut open, raw, and I feel weak.
A feeling I never wanted to feel again, but she’s here, and the weakness isn’t so bad when she’s touching me.
“That shouldn’t have happened to you,” she whispers, lifting her eyes from the middle of my chest to meet mine. She’s trying not to cry, but tears spill anyway. “Bad shit happens to everyone.”
“And what about you? What made you think the Atlantic City Chapter was a fresh start?” She shakes her head, and the tears reflect off the glow of the fire beside us. One falls, then another, and I’m trying to catch them and wipe them away, but I’m not quick enough.
“I’m from a very religious family,” she whispers, cutting her eyes to me. “My dad is a preacher.”
“I know,” I say, thinking back to when Reaper called for Church and Badge gave an update on the girls we rescued. Mary St. James was a preacher’s daughter, a famous preacher who makes a ton of money, but Mary doesn’t seem like the religious type to me. Now that I’m getting to know her, I’m starting to realize her rebellion isn’t new but hidden.
“You knew? And all the times we fought, you didn’t try taking a dig at me?”
“I’m an asshole, but that was your family; I wasn’t going to slap that in your face. Especially since you’re so adamant about not going back to them, so I kept quiet. As did everyone else. Pretty funny though, the Preacher’s daughter hanging out with bikers. I bet your dad would have a heart attack.”
“I doubt it,” she says, a flat, monotone grip to her throat. “He isn’t very religious either. He’s a fake. He’s horrible.” Her fingers dig into my chest, her nails pinching my skin like she wishes he were in front of her so she could rip his heart ou
t. “He’s the reason why Atlantic City wasn’t so bad.” Her gaze meets mine, and hatred, holy hell, hatred unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, flashes in her eyes.
I thought she didn’t like me, but that wasn’t the case at all. Now that I see what her hate looks like, it is safe to say I’m on her good side.
“For twelve years, he molested me. Twelve. Long. Torturous. Years.”
And just like that, the peace I felt disappears. I lift her off me because somehow, she found her way to my lap. I start to pace, feeling the need for blood pumping through my veins. I pop my neck, grab the sides of my head, and snarl.
I’m breaking.
“Knives?”
“He did what? For how long? I’m going to kill him. I’m going to fucking kill him!” I yell so loud, someone up above must hear me, because thunder grumbles the ground and lightning booms overhead. I’m fucking pissed.
Twelve years of being caged.
Twelve years of being in her own prison.
Twelve years of being silent.
Twelve years of acting normal.
No wonder she is how she is.
She’s free now. It’s no wonder she’s a fucking hellraiser when praying got her nowhere.
And then I’ve been kissing her, throwing my lips on her because I couldn’t wait another second. Did she even want it? “I’m sorry, Mary. I didn’t know. I wouldn’t have… I would have respected your space and not kissed you.”
“Don’t do that; don’t take that away from me. I’m not someone who is ruined by her past. The only thing I don’t want is to go home. I never want to go there again, but I want to move on with my life. I want more than what I had. That’s why I was okay with Atlantic City; at least there would have been variety—”
Hearing her talk like that, about being raped and abused by different men, has a possessive beast swelling inside me that I’ve never felt before. Barely breathing, I cup her face and hope she can see the cold in my eyes as I make a promise, “I swear, I promise, I’ll kill him. He won’t even have to be in the back of your mind anymore. I’ll hunt him down. I’ll—”