How would anything ever be the same?
–
It was a stench so foul Leo's breath caught in his throat. He would never get used to the odor. It was repugnant and sour, a cross between rotting meat on a warm summer day, rotten eggs and rancid milk. Leo was nineteen the first time the smell had ever invaded his nostrils. It pushed past his resolves, breaking through a barrier he hadn't known existed.
The bodies were heavy but he heaved them over his shoulders one by one, dragging both of the men by the hem of their jeans into the shallow dirt grave he had dug for them. They stumbled forward, their cold corpses collapsing against each other. Dirt began to crumble forward on top of them.
Leo spit into the distance. He ran a hand through his sweaty hair, grabbing his shovel from the matted grass. He started heaving dirt onto their bodies, the metal blade of the shovel cutting roughly against the ground. He worked quickly and rhythmically, never once stopping to digest his situation.
It was like Leo's father had always said.
Shit happened. That was life. It was how you dealt with it that mattered.
Leo snickered thinking about it. It was probably the only prose that had ever left his fathers chapped lips that Leo could agree with. He was a cold and unlovable man who had hid behind the translucent veil of religion, a hoax he sold without much effort to the unsuspecting people who gathered every Sunday in his congregation.
Leo reached forward, a sweat drenched bandana hanging from his muddy hand. He was filthy, but that was the least of his worries. Off in the distance, Layla was watching him from behind a large oak tree as he patted down the soil with the back of the shovel, taking his time to smooth out every edge. After speaking with her mother, she had stolen her Mercedes and followed him, craving answers.
She would have never realized it before but they did look awfully alike. Leo's square jaw was offset by high freckled cheekbones that were quite scarily similar to her own. His eyes, like Layla's, were dark and captivating. Bedroom eyes, her mother had once called them. The kind that burned against your soul and made you question your existence.
When Leo finally felt satisfied with the grave, he paused above it. He stared down at the patch of dirt beneath him. It was impossible to make out where it began and ended, and that was precisely the way he wanted it.
He collapsed on the rotting front steps of his cabin, stretching his legs. Layla watched as he lit a cigarette. He struggled with the lighter at first but finally found a flame, clumsily bringing it to the end of the Marlboro perched between his full lips.
Even his mannerisms reminded Layla of her own. He smoked slow and carefully, basking in each hit of nicotine that came in contact with his lungs. She watched as he shut his eyes tightly. He was whispering something. She could see his mouth moving, but the words were lost amongst the trees.
One. Two. Three.
Leo was counting down. It was a stress coping mechanism that he had picked up as a young child. The idea was, you counted backwards from one hundred and when you finally got to one, whatever you were worried about wouldn't seem that bad. Of course, Leo, like Layla had never been one to play by the rules. Counting backwards seemed too strenuous. Too complex. He decided instead that he would do it the old fashioned way. The results were the same and the habit had stuck. Now, whenever Leo felt any kind of stress surfacing inside of himself, he'd simply shut his eyes tightly and count down to one hundred until it disintegrated.
It didn't always work. It was trial and error, but then, wasn't everything?
"I can see you, you know," he finally said, flicking his cigarette.
Layla watched the burning ash flutter to the ground. She was taken aback by Leo's words. He couldn't be talking about her, she told herself in slight disbelief. She had picked the perfect spot to hide – just far enough away from the cabin where she could watch Leo but not close enough for him to spot her.
At least that's what she had thought. Apparently, she had been wrong. With a sigh, she stepped out of the shadows. The converse sneakers Leo had bought for her crunched against a mixture of gravel and leaves. She flattened her hair, ducking underneath a low patch of branches near the entrance of the clearing that opened up to Leo's cabin. Layla clung to the fabric of her sweaty tank top as she stood in front of him. She crossed her skinny arms over her chest. Leo willed her to look at him. Instead, she focused on a butterfly perched on a leaf just a few inches from her feet.
"What are you doing here?"
Each word carried its own bite. Had he really thought she wouldn't come?
My daughter.
The words Emily had spoken replayed over and over again in Leo’s head, clawing at the depths of his mind. He couldn't quite push the reality of it all to the surface. Denial, Leo had realized, was just as sweet a drug as any other.
Layla didn’t know what to say. The truth was, she didn’t understand what she was doing any more than Leo did. She tried to tell him so but he didn’t hear her. His eyes were dark and glazed over. Layla knew that he had been drinking. She remembered the liquor. Four shiny glass bottles, which sat empty against a collection of hundreds of others just like it.
She didn’t blame him. Burying the bodies of two corpses, Layla had figured, was the kind of act a person had to be drunk to follow through on.
"I don't know," she said again, her voice small.
It was the most honest statement Layla had made in days. She didn’t know why she cared so much about Leo. Two days ago, she hadn't even known of his existence. Now, she relied on him like air.
"I need to know if what my mother said was true," she finally said, allowing the truth of her presence to bubble to the surface.
She listened to herself speak but couldn’t seem to stop the words from leaving her lips. This was exactly what she had told herself she wouldn't do. Pry. But her conscious was eating away at her, almost painfully so.
"How do you know my mother?" she was breathless, her normally confident and flirtatious demeanor having been mustered down to something far more tired and disheveled.
She knew the answer. It was buried deep in the pit of her stomach, behind other realities she knew but couldn't bring herself to come to terms with. If there was any truth to her mother’s statement, Layla already knew it. But it was funny what a person could hide from themselves if they really tried.
–
Past
The first time Layla ever deceived herself, she was fourteen. She had went on a three day coke binge with a fellow cast mate after the final day of filming a movie and they had destroyed her mother’s apartment in the process. When Emily walked through the front door, she didn't recognize the home she had come back to.
It was a war zone. Valuable antiques were shattered and ruined. Glass covered nearly every square inch of the hard wood flooring, trash, drug paraphernalia, beer cans and half eaten food was scattered across every counter top, and urine and throw up had inevitably been left unflushed in the porcelain toilet.
Emily dragged teenage Layla out of bed by her hair, hauling her emaciated body into the rummage.
"You will clean every last inch of this," she said, pointing a sharp red manicured finger at her intoxicated daughter.
Layla was smacked. She shielded her eyes, moaning in disapproval as her mother pulled open the blinds, nearly ripping them off the walls in the process. Layla shrieked. She hadn't seen the sunlight in days, a reality that the dark bags beneath her eyes more than accentuated.
"Honestly Layla," her mother sighed, her hands finding their way to her hips, "I just don't understand you. I don't understand how you can just –"
"What?" Layla spat back, her words slurring against each other. "Fuck it all up?"
Emily shrugged.
"You said it, not me." She replied evenly.
Finding a fix in some cities was as difficult as trying to find a needle in a haystack. But not LA. Layla had figured out where to find all her favorite drugs by the age of twelve. By thirteen, she was tangling b
etween sheets with her dealers. And by fourteen, she was a full blown addict.
That was also when her career had began to take a turn for the worst. Not that she hadn't seen it coming. Child stars were ticking time bombs. The lucky ones, the ones who managed to claw their way from puberty unscathed, came out on top. The others were handled as damaged goods, cast aside the moment their expiration dates hit. Layla was teetering the age of fifteen when her agent first approached her about going to rehab.
"I'm coming to you first," Ronald had said, "before I go to Emily."
It was the ever looming threat that lured in constant rotation over Layla's head. Either she got it together on her own, or her mother would be called in to save the day.
As if she was capable of doing so anyway, Layla thought bitterly.
She shrugged her shoulders, reaching forward to rearrange the glass shaped figurines that sat on Ronald’s desk. He was an odd but straight forward man who only had a few clients – all but one of them dejected child stars like Layla.
"I don't know what you are talking about," Layla finally said. "This is LA."
Her tone spoke for itself, saying what her mouth wouldn't. Off the top of Layla's head, she couldn't think of a single celebrity that didn't dabble with an addiction of some kind.
Ronald nodded slightly. It was what he disliked most about working with Layla. She possessed an uncanny gift that none of his other clients had. Nine times out of ten – she was right.
"Even so," he continued, clearing his throat, "you're not...handling this well."
He waved his hand over Layla's down trodden appearance.
"Clients are dropping you left and right. I can hardly get you on late night television."
Layla cringed. That part stung. It was widely known in Hollywood that late night television was an outlet for has beens and even worse than that – had not’s.
"What can I do?" Layla finally asked, surrendering.
"Rehab."
He crossed his hands over his desk, pulling each one of his fingers before cracking his neck anxiously. Layla had seen him do this routine before. It had become his sort of ritual whenever he asked Layla to make an important career move – one he wasn't sure she'd follow through on.
"Okay," she finally said, "I’ll do it."
–
Present
And so began the cycle. Layla bounced from one overpriced rehab facility to the next, never once stopping to consider the fact that she didn’t really want to change.
She looked up at Leo, her eyes sad.
"Just tell me." Layla whispered, light headed.
"Are you my father?"
Leo shook his head, swallowing hard as he looked at the beautiful young woman he had saved. The woman he had come to love. He felt sick to his stomach thinking back to what they had done, but even worse was that he didn't regret it. Not even a little bit.
What had his life come to?
"No." Leo whispered.
He made a promise to himself then. He'd let her go. He'd never see her again.
As long as she never know the truth.
Book two coming soon!
Is Leo really Layla's father? What secret is Layla's mother Emily hiding? Is the threat of danger over for Leo and the Disciples? And what happens when Chase, the clubs allusive Master of Arms, sets his sights on Layla?
You'll have to read to find out!
Abigail Stone is a small town girl from Kansas. She lives for the smell of rain, breaking in a pair of new cowboy boots, and dancing like no one is watching. Abigail has been reading Contemporary Romance since she was a teenager and has always had a soft spot for misunderstood bad boys. ‘Save Me’ is Abigail’s debut novel and the introduction book to her Disciples MC series. Be sure to sign up for her mailing list to receive FREE copies of her new releases! Sign up Here.
I would like to express the utmost gratitude to the people who helped me make this book a reality. To everyone who provided me support, read my writing, offered constructive criticism, and allowed me to pick their brain for ideas. Thank you. I would also like to thank my editor, my husband, my sister and all of my friends. You all are incredible and this book would not be possible without all of you.
Save Me (Disciples MC #1) Page 10