Craving Trix

by Nicole Jacquelyn

  Her fingers twitched, then straightened, rubbing softly over my cheek for just a moment. She was there, healthy and safe. I couldn’t consider what-ifs. We had too many absolutes to deal with first.

  Rose sat in Tommy’s lap the entire way to the hospital, both of them completely silent. I didn’t have the heart to make her buckle up. The poor kids were wrecked, and Cecilia wasn’t doing much better.

  I barely had the headspace to comfort them at all.

  I think we were all still in a state of shock. None of us knew what we should be doing.

  By the time we got to the hospital, it was already filled with club members.

  As soon as we’d hit the waiting room, Grease, Casper and Dragon rushed over to meet us.

  “You guys okay?” Grease asked gruffly, grabbing Tommy by the scruff of the neck and Rose by the back of her head, pulling them into his body. Tommy started to sob then, breaking his silence for the first time since Grease had pulled Mick off of him. “Thanks for taking care of them, Cam,” he said softly.

  I smiled a little and looked away. He hadn’t called me Cam in years. There hadn’t been much time when they were loading Callie into the ambulance, and I was glad he trusted me enough to leave them with me.

  “Ma’s with Lily,” Casper said, wrapping his arms around CeeCee. “They’re not sure what’s wrong with her eyes yet.”

  I nodded and glanced over to Dragon, who was holding Trix’s face against his neck. As I watched her, she began to tremble slightly, and his other arm came up to pull her more securely against him.

  “Stitchin’ Leo up now,” Dragon murmured. “Plastic surgeon’s workin’ on him, but he’s still gonna have a fuckin’ gnarly scar. They said there might be some nerve damage. Coupla inches to the left—” He cleared his throat and shrugged one shoulder. “He’ll be fine.”

  “That’s good news,” I replied. I glanced around the waiting room, taking in the brothers and old ladies filling up the space. “Where’s Will?”

  “Surgery,” Casper answered. “Callie, too.”

  “What?”

  “He was hit twice. Didn’t even slow the crazy motherfucker down.”

  “Those steroids musta been good for somethin’,” Dragon joked darkly.

  “Jesus. Poet, too?” I noticed he was also absent.

  “Nah, they dug his out. Admitted him, though. Should be okay. Amy and Nix are in with him.”

  “They’re here already?” I asked in surprise.

  “Must’ve fuckin’ flew on that crotch rocket of his.”

  I nodded. Then I nodded again.

  The pleasantries, if you could even call them that, were out of the way. I had no clue what to say.

  “Why don’t you go sit with Tommy—” Casper started to say to CeeCee.

  “What about Mark?” she asked, lifting her head. “Where’s Mark?”

  “Eastwood?” Casper asked in surprise, his voice carrying.

  Both Grease and Dragon turned to look.

  “Cam said he was there. Where is he?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “He’s my friend. He—”

  “Probably not a good time,” I cut in, with a shake of my head.

  “He’s around here somewhere,” Dragon said, watching CeeCee. “Patchin’ him up. His mom’s on her way.”

  “He’s okay?” Cecilia asked, her mouth trembling as she reached up to cover it with both hands. “Oh, God,” she whispered in relief.

  “Your sister is in there fuckin’ blind, your aunt and cousin are in surgery to take bullets outta ’em, and you’re askin’ about some fuckin’ kid?” I snapped, finally at the end of my patience. What the fuck was her deal?

  “Cam,” Casper scolded.

  “Ma’s with Lily,” Cecilia hissed.

  “So that means you just don’t give a shit? Your grandmother is dead, Cecilia. Slider and Vera and Micky are fucking dead.”

  “Cameron!” Casper said sharply, cutting me off.

  “I’m done,” I said in frustration, raising my hands as I took a step backward.

  “We’re all worried, kid,” Dragon said, pulling my attention to him and Trix. “Ain’t nothin’ to do but worry. Cut your sister some slack.”

  * * *

  A few hours later, Will was out of surgery, but Callie was still back in the bowels of the hospital, where they tried to fix the gaping hole in her chest.

  We were all on edge.

  Lily still couldn’t see and they had no idea why. They thought she must have hit her head somehow, even though she seemed fine from the outside. It was taking a long ass time for them to do brain scans and whatever other shit they had to do, so we just waited.

  Rose had fallen asleep at some point and was spread out on a couch in the surgical waiting room where we’d ended up. Lily and Ma were in another part of the hospital, so Casper, Cecilia and I were splitting our time between the different floors, pacing and drinking coffee.

  Lily got really agitated if there were too many of us in the room, so we’d decided to let Ma stay with her. Dad went in a couple of times an hour, just to give her a kiss and remind her he was there, but she was so fucking out of it that I wasn’t sure how much she’d remember.

  I was going nuts. Seriously losing my shit.

  I wasn’t real patient on a good day, but that night, I was like a bomb waiting to detonate. So much fucking waiting. Waiting on Callie. Waiting on Lily. Waiting to find out if Leo was going to be able to move the left side of his face. Waiting for Poet to wake up so we could have a meeting and figure out what the fuck we were going to do.

  Trix wasn’t talking to me. She wasn’t talking to anyone.

  I knew that she and I had a lot of shit to deal with, but fuck if any of that mattered anymore. I just wanted her with me. I wanted to smell her and feel her skin and hear her voice. I needed her—but she wasn’t moving more than a foot away from her pop. Hell, he’d gone to the bathroom and she’d waited outside the door for him. Every time I tried to sit with her or talk to her, she gave me the bare minimum of her attention, instead watching Dragon move around the room like she was afraid to let him out of her sight.

  She didn’t need me. She was making that perfectly clear.

  I’d just sat down on the floor in a corner of the waiting room when a doctor came out of the back hallway, pulling off his surgical cap. “Family of Callie Hawthorne?” he asked.

  Shit, I’d forgotten that she’d married Grease. I had no idea why they hadn’t had a wedding, but they’d obviously made it legal if her last name was Hawthorne.

  Grease strode to the doctor and they spoke quietly for a few moments before the doctor turned and walked away.

  “She’s good,” Grease announced hoarsely, meeting Tommy’s eyes across the room. “Puttin’ her in the recovery room now. We can see her in a coupla hours.”

  Casper’s ass hit the floor next to me at Grease’s words. He fell so hard it was as if his legs could no longer hold him upright.

  “Thank fuck,” he said on a shudder, drawing his knees up and bracing his elbows on them, his head bowed low.

  I reached over and set my hand on his back as he sniffed hard, keeping his head low.

  “She’ll be alright, Dad,” I said softly.

  “My sister,” he whispered. That was all he said, but there really wasn’t anything else to say. He’d been hit hard that day, no doubt about it.

  We’d lost four people. Four people, and all of them were related to Casper by marriage or blood. Father-in-law, mother-in-law, grandmother and nephew.

  My entire family could have been wiped out. Again.

  I squeezed my eyes tight and beat back the urge to weep. I didn’t have time for that. I didn’t have time to mourn.

  Not yet.

  We had people still fighting. We still had things that needed to be done, police reports to give, revenge to mete out. I couldn’t let myself think of the people we’d lost.

  “Better go give Farrah the news,” Casper finally said,
reaching over to pat my knee. “You’re a good boy.”

  “I’m fuckin’ twice your size,” I scoffed, shaking my head.

  His red eyes met mine and he gave me a small smile as he reached up and dragged his hand over my head. “You might be a fuckin’ giant, but you’ll always be my boy.” He nodded twice and climbed to his feet as I tried to keep my shit together.

  I may have had a shitty start in life, but I’d gotten really fucking lucky with Casper and Farrah.

  My eyes went to Trix and I watched as Dragon looked at his phone and then said something quietly to her, making her nod her head. I climbed to my feet as they started walking down the hall.

  “Hey,” I said quietly, getting their attention.

  “Gonna go down and see Leo,” Dragon said gruffly. “Bren says he’s awake.”

  I looked to Trix and met her nervous eyes. “You want me to go with you?” I asked her gently.

  It was killing me to watch her from a distance. She looked so fucking fragile, so different from the girl I’d watched grow up. I wanted to pick her up and carry her out of that goddamn hospital. Take her away from all of it so I could find out what was going on in that head of hers.

  “That’s okay,” she replied softly. “I’ll be back in a little while, alright?”

  I clenched my jaw against the need to argue.

  Dragon snapped his head to the side, cracking his neck. Then he wrapped an arm around Trix’s shoulder and gave me a pitying look.

  It pissed me off.

  “Yeah, alright,” I mumbled, taking a step back so they could pass me.

  I watched them walk down the hall until they reached the elevator doors.

  “You were young when she and Brenna showed up,” Grease said, coming up behind me.

  “Yeah.” I scratched a hand over my jaw, where my five o’clock shadow was bugging the shit out of me.

  “She was quiet then,” he said, nodding toward the elevator Trix and Dragon were stepping into. “Scary quiet.”

  I sighed, my stomach twisting.

  “Seen a lot of shit. Been around a lotta kids with shitty backgrounds. But that little girl was a fuckin’ mystery, man. Took to Dragon straight off, knew who he was, trusted him from the first. The rest of us? Hell, we may as well have been the monsters hiding under her bed.”

  “You got a point?” I snapped, instantly regretting it. He didn’t deserve my shit. Not then.

  “Yeah, I got a point.” He shook his head. “You know what happened with my Callie?”

  “A bit.”

  “Let’s sit,” he said, gesturing to a couple of chairs away from the rest of the group. We sat down and Grease leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees, picking at the blood around his fingernails.

  I looked at my hands. They weren’t much better. Shit.

  “Callie’s parents were killed, fuckin’ gunned down in their house.” He looked at me to make sure I was following. “My woman was there, hidin’ in a damn storage space. Heard everything.” He swallowed hard. “She was like a fuckin’ wild animal when I found her, sweaty, covered in piss.”

  He went silent for a long time, his eyes vacant on the floor in front of him.

  “She seemed to get better, though. Had to move her north, set her up in a place, visited when I could. Took a while, but she started livin,’ makin’ friends with Farrah, goin’ to school. Hell, she had Will up there while I was locked up. Kept shit straight and waited for me.”

  “Didn’t know that,” I murmured, rubbing at my hands.

  “Yeah. Wasn’t until somethin’ happened that it all came up to fuck us.” He looked at me. “She got attacked, had to kill my brother—blood, not club—and when I found her that time?” He shook his head. “She was gone, brother. Nothin’ there. Found her beat to shit, holding one of Farrah’s pistols in one hand and Will in the other. Couldn’t reach her. She’d been okay, far as I knew, might’ve been okay forever, but that attack brought everything back for her. Spent weeks in the hospital, spent about a year after that gettin’ her head on straight before she’d even see me.”

  “Musta been hard,” I said softly.

  “You tell me, brother. How you feelin’ right now?”

  His words knocked me back in my chair.

  “Trix ain’t Callie. Personalities couldn’t be more different, but fuck me if she ain’t got that same look in her eyes.”

  I lifted a hand to my face and dug my fingers into my eye sockets. All I could hear in my head was Trix screaming for her papa.

  * * *

  “Keepin’ Lily here,” Casper told me quietly around four in the morning, his eyes sunken and dark. “I’m gonna take CeeCee to a hotel for the night.”

  They couldn’t go home. I didn’t know how any of us would go back there. Fuck.

  “Okay,” I said with a nod, glancing over to see my little sister curled up in a chair. She looked about ten years old and my throat caught.

  We’d moved out of the surgery waiting area once Callie had been put in her own room, and the new space was a lot smaller than where we’d been. Samson and his old lady had taken Tommy and Rose back to the clubhouse earlier to sleep in Grease’s room. The kids had a hard time leaving with the long-haired man and his woman, but eventually they’d relented. All the adults from our family were staying at the hospital and they’d needed any sleep they could get.

  “Everybody’s outta the woods, need to get the kids to bed,” he said tiredly. “You taking Trix home?”

  “We know what the fuck’s goin’ on?” I asked. “Don’t wanna take her home to more fuckin’ fireworks.”

  “Poet’s been on the phone for the last four hours. Pissin’ off nurses and makin’ a nuisance of himself. Got brothers from all over congregating in Eugene. Not sure what Poet’s found out, but according to him, shit’s mostly handled.”

  “‘Mostly’ don’t exactly give me the warm fuzzies.”

  “Then stay at the clubhouse. You think I’d send ya home if I thought there was a problem?” he asked incredulously. “Get your fuckin’ head on straight, Cameron.”

  “Yeah, I hear you,” I mumbled, getting to my feet. “Sorry.”

  I made my way over to where Dragon and Trix were resting on a couch.

  “Time to go, Sweetbea,” I said gently, reaching under her back and thighs so I could pick her up.

  I made eye contact with Dragon briefly to make sure he wasn’t going to try and stop me, but all he did was give me a slight nod.

  “Cam?” Trix asked sleepily as she wrapped her arms around my neck and pressed her face into my throat.

  “Yeah, Bea.” I swallowed hard as her body relaxed against mine for the first time that night. “I’ve got you, baby.”

  I took her straight to the clubhouse, nodding to the increased security at the gates as we pulled in. As they locked the rolling barbed wire fence behind us, I relaxed slightly. It felt really fucking good to be in a place where I knew nothing could touch her.

  “You get that back gate checked out?” I asked Samson quietly as I carried Trix’s still sleeping form past the bar where he was sitting in the main room of the clubhouse.

  “Yup. Put a few boys out there. Found Woody’s shit. Left it alone.”

  “Thanks, brother.”

  “Yup.”

  I kept moving through the room and into the back hallway.

  When we reached my room, I didn’t even bother with the lights. I walked straight to the bed and laid Trix down gently, climbing in beside her fully clothed.

  I fell asleep still covered in dried blood, wearing nothing but my cut, jeans and boots.

  Chapter 16

  Trix

  I woke with a silent gasp and lay completely still as I took inventory of the room I was in.

  Sunlight was pouring through the long, narrow window near the ceiling, and the sound of Cam’s snores filled the room.

  We were at the clubhouse. My body relaxed against the scratchy green army blanket we were lying on and I turned my he
ad slowly to look at Cam. His mouth was open slightly, his face completely relaxed beneath a scruffy beard.

  There was a smear of blood on his neck and a few more down the arm that was wrapped around my torso.

  I swallowed hard at the nausea that threatened, looking toward the water-damaged ceiling.

  Oh, God.

  Everything from the day before came back to me in a flash, the scenes in my head bombarding me, one after another. I could barely breathe.

  I’d gone screaming to my pop, babbling incoherently instead of telling him there were people at the house.

  I’d never forgive myself for that.

  What if I’d told him instantly that there were men in the front yard? What if I’d warned them?

  Shame burned so hot in my belly that my body curled inward.

  I gingerly grasped Cam’s arm and moved it off me. I needed to get out of there. I needed to hide. I didn’t want anyone to see me. I couldn’t bear to look at anyone, knowing what I’d done.

  I was scooting down the bed so I could crawl away when Cam’s hand shot out, stopping my movements.

  “Bea?” he asked roughly, his eyes still closed.

  Then they opened widely, and he was frantically jerking me back up the bed.

  “You okay?” he asked, ripping my shirt over my head before I could protest.

  His hands ran over my torso, sliding up my belly and down each arm. Then his fingers were at my shorts, dragging them and my panties down my legs. My flip-flops had fallen to the edge of the bed at some point and he brushed them off with an impatient swipe.

  “Oh, God,” he mumbled, his fingers anxiously searching for any injuries. “Oh, God.”

  His voice was so agonized, my entire body locked up. I couldn’t even respond to his words or reassure him as he rolled me to my side so he could check my back.

  “Bellatrix,” he groaned, burying his face between my breasts. His hands hurriedly tore at my bra straps, pulling my bra down my chest so he could feel the skin of my breasts against his face.