by Marie James
Her dark eyes search my face as the machine spins around her, but in a matter of seconds, it’s over, and the TSA agent manning the equipment shuffles her through. I grab her hand and pull her to my chest the second she’s done. Her pulse pounds erratically against my fingers as I press them to her wrist, but we’re not out of the woods yet. By the grace of God alone, my bag doesn’t get dinged, but seeing as I shipped home a ton of shit yesterday, I was hoping it wouldn’t. We carry a ridiculous amount of things with us when we head out for work, and not even a third of it would be allowed on a commercial flight, hence the reason we take the Cerberus jet.
Mia is a trembling mess by the time I crouch again to help her with her shoes, and her unease doesn’t go unnoticed. People stare, whispering to their traveling companions, and I expected this as well. They don’t see her as a survivor like Max and I do. They only see the arm in a cast and the dozens of bruises marking her pretty face. People sneer at both of us, no doubt in their narrow minds thinking we’re the ones responsible for her injuries.
By the time we make it to our gate, Mia is in a state of utter terror, so I do the only thing I know will work. I find us as quiet a corner as I can, and I pull her onto my lap. Max doesn’t say a word. He’s well aware by now how much it calms her, so he stands sentry over us while I cradle her in my arms and remind her of all the things she’ll see when we get to the clubhouse.
By the time we board, she’s calmer, but it doesn’t last long as the guy who scared her in line is also on our flight and a mere eight feet away across the aisle. I situate my huge body in the center seat, lifting the armrest between so she can settle against my chest. Her tiny frame nearly folds in on itself as she brings her knees to her chest and leans against me. I wrap my arms all the way around her, legs and all, and tell her about the time I got caught trespassing on private property to go fishing.
The plane takes off, but all I can pay attention to is the soft breaths leaving her lips.
I ignore the flight attendant when she comes around with drinks and snacks.
I ignore the person on the aisle seat when he tries to strike up a conversation with me.
I ignore the way my heart swells when she sighs in her sleep and snuggles deeper into me.
Chapter 4
Mia
“Mmm,” Ryan moans as his arms pull me closer.
I’m not stiff in his arms, but there’s a tension building in my blood that keeps me from clinging to him like I’ve done the other times I’ve woken up like this.
We’ve been in New Mexico at the Cerberus MC clubhouse for nearly a week, and still, I wake up every morning wondering where I am and if today is the day they track me down and drag me back to that compound in Miami.
“You’re safe, Sweet Mia,” he grumbles before pressing his lips to the top of my head.
Sweet Mia.
He started calling me that after we got off the plane, and I haven’t told him to stop even though the smoothness of the nickname makes me want to cringe. There’s nothing sweet about me. I’m tainted, polluted, and infected by the things that happened to me. I feel filthy, like waking up in his arms does nothing but soil him, too.
“Shower?” he grumbles, already accustomed to the routine.
I keep my back to him as he climbs out of bed. I know he needs a few minutes to himself in the mornings, and I’ve done my very best to ignore the erection he wakes up with each day. I know it’s natural, something he can’t control, just like Jason couldn’t control it, but the first time I noticed it straining in his sleep pants, I freaked out, terrified he was going to take something I wasn’t offering. Mornings were the worst times back at the compound, and the heightened fear of waking up back there combined with the sight of his arousal really messed me up.
He skirts around the bed, swinging the bathroom door closed so he can piss before he comes back out to let me know that the shower is on and ready. Keeping my eyes low, I walk around him into the bathroom, but he doesn’t leave like he tried to do the first night in the hotel after I was discharged from the hospital. He follows me inside, closing us into the bathroom and locking the door, but he falters when he reaches for the bag to cover my cast.
“I was thinking,” he begins, but there’s an unease to his tone that I don’t like.
I swallow as I raise my eyes to his, only momentarily distracted by the tattoos covering his chest, full left arm, and right forearm. I’ve been tempted to trace the islander-type ink on his skin more than once, but I figured touching him that way would be crossing a line and giving him permission to touch my skin, and that’s not something I can handle.
“Tell me to go fuck myself if you need to, but—” He turns from me, bending low to pull a pair of scissors and electric clippers from under the sink.
Tears immediately well in my eyes, making the smile I almost had from the way he talks to me like I’m an old friend fade into a distant memory. I knew this was coming. It’s something I’ve wanted to do since the very first time I looked at myself in the mirror at the hospital. My vanity isn’t something I’m proud of. There are so many other things to worry about now, but my long, gorgeous hair isn’t that anymore. It’s dry and brittle from weeks of malnourishment and dehydration, and there are chunks missing, some down to my scalp in places from the men cutting it to keep pieces for trophies.
His face falls when he turns around to present me with the tools. My fingers grow sore from twisting them together in front of me, but I give him a nod.
“I can have one of the other girls come in and do this. They may be able to do a better job.”
He must be talking about Emmalyn, the club president’s wife, or even Misty, the nice lady who stops by to visit periodically. They each give me the space I need, hovering in the doorway to speak, but I don’t want anyone here to witness this. Hell, I don’t even want Ryan to participate, but I know I won’t be able to do it with one arm.
“It's fine,” I mumble, hating the huskiness of my own voice, knowing it won’t get any better unless I start talking more often.
Tears stain the front of Ryan’s borrowed shirt as he first uses the scissors to clip away the remaining long strands. My shoulders cool when the hair falls to the bathroom floor, but it’s the sound of the buzzing clippers that make me sob the hardest.
Knowing it needs to be done, Ryan doesn’t falter once he gets started. He doesn’t speak over the hum like he normally would when he knows I’m anxious, and for once, I’m grateful for the reprieve. I love hearing his stories, but a distraction is the last thing I want right now. As each piece falls to my lap and surrounds my feet, I can’t help but wonder if my hair was what drew that man in the parking lot to me, and with each strand that’s cut away, I feel freer, safer from the possibility of it ever happening again.
“It’ll grow back,” Ryan assures me when he turns the clippers off and sets them aside.
When I stand, I reach for the clumps lying on the floor, but his hand on my shoulder halts me.
“Don’t worry about the mess. I’ll clean it up. Here.” When I look up, he’s holding the plastic bag for my arm.
The steam from the shower fills the room, casting us in a damp halo that makes things seem a little easier than they actually are.
Remaining speechless as he secures the bag isn’t new. It’s like this every day, and just like every other morning, I don’t step back to get undressed until after he brushes his lips across my forehead.
“Jump in the shower,” he says with a smile. “You stink.”
This morning his teasing doesn’t put a smile on my face. This morning I’m too burdened, too stuck in my own head to appreciate his efforts.
His lips turn down in a frown before he can stop himself, but he doesn’t say anything as he turns around to face the closed door, giving me the privacy I need to get undressed and into the shower.
I don’t bother to hide my tears or muffle the sobs that rack my body as I use more shampoo than necessary to wash my now bald head.
The shower is one place I can grieve where Ryan doesn’t run to me to ease my pain. The tears are usually cathartic, mixing with the warm water before disappearing down the drain, but this morning they only seem to bring more pain.
I’m sick and tired of crying, of being afraid of my own shadow. I’m disgusted with myself for holding onto this stranger, and he has to be feeling the same way. Although he hasn’t said a negative word, I know he has to be getting tired of my neediness and the pity party I can’t seem to drag myself out of.
The psychiatrist who visited my hospital room before I left told me that things like this take time, that getting over the atrocious things that happened to me wouldn’t happen overnight. He expected things to get worse before they got better. He recommended a daily routine, but also trying new things, finding happiness in situations I could control before branching out and being more adventurous.
I could laugh at the memory if I weren’t so beat down right now.
Adventurous?
The most adventure I’d seen since arriving here was following Ryan out of this room in the middle of the night to grab something to eat, but one of the other guys was also burning the midnight oil, and I hightailed it back to the room before we even made it out of the hallway.
“Mia?” Ryan says. “Did you hear me?”
“What?” I croak.
Is he putting his foot down, telling me I have to get my shit together and get back to my own room?
They offered me one, and I stood in the middle of it for all of twenty seconds before I followed Ryan to his room and crawled in his bed without even asking permission. Max frowned before trying to tell me it wasn’t healthy, but Ryan told him to shut the hell up and ushered him out of his room.
“I think you’d enjoy the New Year’s party happening later.”
My body freezes, hand turning to cement on my thigh as I wash. Parties at the compound were always happening, but Thanksgiving was brutal, the holiday serving as a vacation for many men who arrived looking for a good time. Many women participated, seemingly willingly to avoid the punishment that came with saying no, but I never was able to manage it. I fought every single time, and unfortunately, it’s exactly what a number of them enjoyed the most. I swallow, shoving down those thoughts before they can manifest into something worse than the tremble in my hands and a racing heart.
“It’s just going to be the guys. Em and Misty will be there. You can meet Makayla and Khloe. I think socializing will be good for you.”
Anger seeps in, and I’m glad it’s replacing the terror that’s threatening. Anger is something I can handle.
Who the hell does he think he is? This man doesn’t know a damn thing about me other than I was an idiot and fell for a pretty-boy smile in a parking lot that landed me straight into the pits of hell for seven weeks. Shit, he doesn’t even know that much. I haven’t confessed a word about the day I was taken.
With rough, pissed off hands, I climb out of the shower and towel my skin dry as best I can. The absence of my hair makes things a ton easier, and that makes me even more bitter. I hate everything that was taken from me. I hate being here. I hate needing him to comfort me, and most of all, I hate being weak and fragile, terrified of my own damn shadow.
The Mia Vazquez that existed a year ago wouldn’t take shit from anyone. That girl would’ve been dead inside of a couple of days inside the compound. She would’ve willingly died before letting those men take from her. That girl was gone long before that guy grinned at me with what I thought was charisma and charm that transformed into hate and malicious intent by the time he tied me up and shoved that bag over my head.
Jason made sure that I was already beaten down and mostly broken by the time I was abducted. Jason put himself first, making sure to remind me that his job was more important than mine. It paid the bills my hourly wage at the specialty print shop couldn’t even begin to touch. It didn’t matter that my last year of college was spent crying for my dead brother until I got the notice that I flunked out. It didn’t matter that I was so overcome with grief that I didn’t even care about my own life until it was too late to go back and finish school so I could be a rock star in public relations like I’d always dreamed. My dreams didn’t matter then, and they sure as hell don’t matter now.
I shove my legs through a pair of cotton panties that I wouldn’t have been caught dead in months ago before tugging on a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt. Both belong to Ryan, both too big for me, and I can’t even be bothered to care.
I shove past him, swinging the door open so fast the doorknob would probably dent the plaster if he didn’t catch it before it hit.
“Mia?” Concern laces his tone, but I ignore him as I climb right back in his bed.
I’m pissed, but I’m not foolish enough to think I can make it down the hall to the room they offered me unscathed. People are always milling about, keeping their distance, or offering me food or an opportunity to join them in some frivolous activity.
“What’s going on?” Ryan asks as he climbs in behind me on the bed.
I rip the covers up to my shoulder, burying my face in them and both loving and hating that they smell like his skin. I’m surrounded by him constantly, and most days, it’s a relief knowing he’s right there beside me. But today it just grates on my nerves.
I stiffen when he clasps my shoulder, trying to pull me so I’ll either turn over to face him or snuggle against him.
“Don’t,” I hiss, and he releases me immediately.
“It was only a suggestion,” he offers. “We can stay right here tonight if that’s what you want. I’ll make us a plate from the kitchen, and we can continue our movie marathon.”
I don’t turn and yell at him. I don’t open my mouth to explain why I hate everything about what he’s just offered. I don’t tell him to leave, that he needs to get a life rather than being perfectly fine holing himself away.
I don’t do any of that, but when he sighs and rolls to his back as he begins telling me about going stag to his senior prom because the girl he wanted to go with had the flu, I let my eyes flutter closed, and I fall asleep to the only comforting voice I’m beginning to hate for no other reason than knowing I don’t deserve his kindness.
Chapter 5
Scooter
Shitty moods and silent attitude aren’t new for Mia. The only difference is that today, I’m somehow the focus of her irritation when normally it’s focused on Max or the pillows that don’t feel just right. She prefers my chest to anything else, but she didn’t want me near her at all this morning.
I let her sleep, which she does more than anything, but after watching the TV on mute for eight hours, only leaving the bed to make us lunch before she rolled over and went right back to sleep, I couldn’t take it any longer.
I used to find solitude in my room, needing the peace and comfort that those four walls awarded me after a long day’s work, but today it was just too much.
I left Max with her, instructing him to come get me if there was an issue. The fucker better because he’ll have an ass whooping coming if I go back to my room and find her upset. Suggesting the party was a mistake. I see that now, but she’s going to have to leave that room, eventually.
“How’s she doing?” Rocker asks, interrupting the insistency filling my legs to go check on her.
“She’s the same,” I mutter before titling my beer back up to my lips.
I’ve given myself a two-drink maximum tonight, refusing to get sloppy drunk like I normally would on New Year’s Eve. I should be drinking vodka so she can’t smell it on my breath. I shouldn’t do anything that may trigger a bad memory for her, but I don’t think I’d be able to stop myself if I started with the heavy stuff.
“Did you try to convince her to join us?” Rocker angles his head toward the younger crowd, the kids of the original Cerberus crew. “They seem like a lively bunch having fun.”
“She wasn’t interested.” That’s the watered-down truth, but I don’t feel like dis
cussing Mia with anyone.
“Oh, shit,” Jinx chuckles as he slides up to us. “Did you see who just walked in? I got a hundred on Dominic.”
I look over at the front door, watching as Tug walks in with Dominic’s daughter on his arm. She’s gorgeous in her own right. Hell, even though they’re way too young for me, I can see the beauty in all of the women. Jasmine is the oldest of the group, having been adopted by Dominic when she was young, going by the gossip floating around the clubhouse.
Jealousy seeps into my bones when I look at the group Rocker indicated earlier. So many of them are paired off and completely in love. Even at twenty and twenty-one, those kids have found their soulmates.
I shake the thought away, taking another long pull on my beer before turning my back on the group. It doesn’t take long before Tug walks toward us. I knew he’d seek me out first thing. He was friends with Max and Mia going way back, and I know he’s worried about her. He checked up on her a few times by text while she was still in the hospital, but it’s been radio silence since we returned. I figure Max has been keeping him up to date.
Predicting where Tug is heading, Dominic makes his way to our group first, and like the sneaky assholes that they are, Rocker and Jinx slink away toward the pool tables. I’m not usually uncomfortable around any of the original members, even though they’re technically my bosses, but the last time we gathered like this was Snatch’s daughter’s wedding, and Tug literally got caught with his pants down. In addition, Max was there participating as well. I don’t know the finite details, but the gist isn’t pretty.
My palms begin to sweat as Tug joins us. Dominic hasn’t said a word as he lingers, but he shakes Tug’s hand when he’s within reach.