Broken & Burned

by A. J. Downey

  “Does that mean you’re going?” Ashton whispered.

  “Yeah,” I answered suddenly annoyed, my backbone coming back from where ever it’d crawled off to. “It also means I’ve about had it with these Suicide Monkeys and after this I hope they’ll leave me the Hell alone!” Dragon’s booming laughter filled the common space of the Sacred Heart’s club house and he looked at his son.

  “Boy, she’ll make you a damned fine Queen someday.” He said. Dray was smiling a slight little smile that told me nothing of what he was thinking. He looked down at me from where he stood and I could swear there was a glint of fierce pride in his deep dark eyes.

  “Yeah. I think you’re right pops.” He said. And so it was I found myself back in Dray’s sweats in the back seat of Griz’s land yacht of a 70’s Caddie with my fucked up leg across Dray’s lap. Doc rode in the front passenger seat and Dragon and Trigger followed behind on their bikes as we drove into the next county over to the Suicide Kings’ modest clubhouse out in the middle of some industrial area. I felt my heart thundering against my ribs hard and harder as Griz shifted the old beastly car into park.

  A Suicide King with a red and yellow Mohawk opened my door and Doc was there with my crutches. It was awkward getting out but once I was on the crutches and on my feet with Dray beside me I felt a little bit better, a little bit more in control. I took in a deep, silent, cleansing breath and let it out slowly. I was surrounded by Dragon, Dray, Doc and Trigger and it wasn’t lost on me that they acted as a living shield. Sparks, the scarred bald man from earlier, came out of a worn old heavy looking door and held his hands open wide in greeting. He shook Dragon’s hand.

  “This way. Please.” He motioned and we went through the door into a wide open space with a large round bar and scattered tables and chairs. There was a loft area to one side and metal steps leading up to it. Chains and metal were everywhere and it looked like something out of the old post-apocalyptic Mad Max movies my da’ watched with me when I was a kid.

  “Nice place you got here.” Dragon uttered and he sounded impressed.

  A crowd of bikers in Suicide Kings colors turned toward us and we stopped in the center of the great expanse of room. My skin prickled with unease.

  “So our boy Spaz made bail today.” Sparks said and turned to face us. I swallowed hard and the mass of black leather and chains undulated a little and the bikers in front of us parted, spewing the man who’d shot me to the cement floor at our feet. I jumped slightly. Dray’s hand automatically went to my lower back and rested there. I felt steadier and grateful for him, but didn’t dare take my eyes from the man sprawled at our feet.

  His wrists were bound behind him with sturdy industrial zip ties and were turning purple with the length of time they’d been like that. A yellow bandana was clasped between his teeth and tied tight against the back of his head. Drool soaked it and ran down his chin. His brown eyes were wide and wild and his breath sawed in and out of his chest in great panicked gasps.

  “You want him Out Bad, and truth is Sweetheart, we do too.” Sparks said and I raised my eyes to meet his. His eyes sparkled with cold mirth and calculation. “I want this to be a lesson to all of you!” he shouted over his shoulder, back at his crew. “We don’t cause trouble with other clubs! We don’t go pulling petty crimes robbing coffee stands for drug money and we don’t go shooting innocent girls!” Griz stepped forward and hauled Spaz back by his collar onto his back and dragged him back a few paces. A gun appeared in Spark’s hand from beneath his cut as he turned and everything happened in slow motion.

  Steady Evy m’girl. No emotion. Just steady as she goes. I heard my father say but it wasn’t like in the coffee stand, this was simply me replaying his voice in my own head for my own benefit. Dray’s hand pressed harder into my lower back and the whole world slowed down to nothing. Sparks aimed the gun slowly but surely and pulled the trigger. The world erupted in a riot of sound and light. Blood flew from the man who’d shot me… from his leg, same as mine… I stared down at him dispassionately and couldn’t say it bothered me one whit. My ears rang from the shot and sound slowly returned to me and it was of a deafening silence that slowly back filled with the muffled screaming and crying of the man on the ground in front of me.

  I turned my head and met Dray’s eyes, so sad and dark and he met mine. Something passed between us in that moment. An acknowledgment of just how monstrous and barbaric our standing here bearing witness was… and an equal acknowledgment, at least to each other, that this was the natural order of things in our world. I looked down at the man writhing on the floor one more time and turned my eyes up to Sparks.

  “Are we done here then?” I asked. My Irish brogue out in the fore.

  “You accept our apology?” he asked smiling. The bastard.

  “Aye, tha’ I do.” I said and he nodded.

  “Doc.” Dragon said and the single utterance was weighted. Doc sprang into action and I closed my eyes, sending up a silent prayer of gratefulness to whatever power that be that he was here. Trigger’s face was carefully neutral as he helped Doc stem the bleeding.

  “What you got in there?” Doc demanded.

  “Thirty-eights.” Sparks responded mildly.

  “You don’t want him to die you best drop him at an ER.” Doc said harshly.

  Sparks nodded to several of his MC minions standing by and they dragged Spaz’s limp body out. I felt hot and cold at the same time watching the blood smear across the concrete but I knew, I just knew that the men I was with, Dragon, Dray, Trigger and Doc needed me to put on a good show, needed me to be tough as nails on the outside. I could freak out later. Right now I just wanted away from all of this. What do you know? Apparently watching the man that shot me get shot back did bother me.

  “My leg hurts. I’d like to go home now if you please.” I said to the men and my voice was steady and calm which was not at all how I was feeling on the inside.

  “We square then brother?” Sparks asked Dragon.

  “Yeah. We’re square.” Dragon said and held out his hand. They clasped arms.

  “Glad t’ hear it! Griz, take the lady home.” He said and yelled out, “Prospect! Clean up this mess!”

  We turned and followed Griz out. He took us back to the Sacred Heart’s club house. I went inside and held all emotion in until the goodbyes had been said and the door was safely shut behind us. Then I hobbled to the nearest sink, which happened to be the kitchen’s, and I threw up Ashton’s lovely meal. Dray was there, a cool hand pressed to my forehead, the other rubbing uselessly up and down my back. He said nothing and I gasped for air and fumbled for a glass of water. Trigger was on my other side and pressed a full glass into my hand. I rinsed out my mouth.

  “Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!” I blurted out.

  “Don’t be Baby.” Dray said quietly and he was as shut down as I had ever seen him. I was grateful I wasn’t the only one effected, we just handled it differently.

  “Been a couple years since we had to be privy to something like that.” Trigger commented dryly. Ashton looked on, golden eyes worried as she looked over her man who had blood on his hands.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “They shot him.” I said breathlessly, “The man who shot me, they shot him in the leg.” I said and wiped at my mouth.

  “Oh.” She said and markedly relaxed. A hysterical bubble of laughter escaped my mouth and I slapped a hand over it.

  “It’s okay.” Dray said and held me from behind, keeping me upright, pinned between him and the counter. I nodded rapidly.

  “There’s a difference,” I said breathlessly, “Between hearing about it all your life and seeing it up close and personal…” I said.

  “Yeah there is,” Dragon agreed, “But, you handled it like a pro, Darlin’. You did your man and this club proud tonight.” He said. They left me and Dray in the kitchen, his leather clad arms tight around me, gripping me to his chest as if he were afraid to let go.

  “I understand if you don’t
want to stay.” He said quietly, voice anguished. I closed my eyes. What woman in their right mind would wish to after seeing something like that? I smiled a little to myself.

  “I don’t feel bad that he shot him.” I said softly, and Dray was silent, waiting for me to continue. “I feel bad that I don’t feel bad… Is that crazy?” I asked. While watching the brutal act had bothered me, the fact that he’d been shot, that he’d had to endure what I had, that didn’t bother me in the slightest. I fought down another wave of nausea. Oh God. What kind of monster did that make me?

  “If it is then I’m fucking nuts.” Dray stated sardonically, he sighed.

  “You’re not nuts… I think we’re both the product of our upbringing.” I said. I had to rationalize this somehow… He turned me in his arms and looked me in the eye. I wrapped my arms around his neck and shoulders and stared him in the eyes.

  “That mean you’re sticking around?” he asked lightly, but his eyes told me the true cost of what it was for him to ask me, to give me the choice. I pressed my lips to his in a chaste kiss. I wouldn’t subject him to my mouth after he watched me puke, not without brushing my teeth.

  “That’s the second time you’ve watched me puke and the third time you’ve seen me at my worst and you’re still here…” I said practically.

  “No place, I would rather be than by your side Em. Question is, can you handle bein’ by mine?” he searched my face and whatever he saw there must have reassured him some because his hold on me lessened.

  “I love you Dray, good bad or indifferent, and there is no place I would rather be than with you.” I said and his eyes closed as if he were savoring my words.

  “Still before you commit you should know it all.” he said and my heart dropped. He opened his smoldering dark eyes and it was as if the fire had gone out, they were drowning in such deep sorrow.

  “Okay.” I whispered reluctantly, wondering, did he really have to do this right now?

  “Come on, let’s get you laid up and we’ll talk.” He murmured. I nodded mutely unsure if I could handle any more truth and consequences tonight.

  Dray led me through the common room and into the back. Everyone was quiet and I almost felt as if I marched towards some kind of death. What could he possibly need to tell me? What was possibly so important after seeing such things? I swallowed hard and tried not to be afraid, because whatever it was… whatever it was, if it was worse than what I’d just seen, maybe ignorance was bliss. Maybe I was better off just not knowing.

  He shut the bedroom door behind me and helped me into bed. My leg hurt and my face felt hot and my stomach still churned and Dray sat down on the bed by my hip and looked so fucking solemn I wanted to scream at him to stop, that whatever it was he didn’t have to tell me tonight, that it didn’t matter, but I could see it in his eyes he needed me to know whatever this terrible truth of his was, that he needed to unburden his soul and for whatever reason the time was now.

  “It’s not always like this Baby.” He said and took my hands in his, smoothing over the backs of my fingers with his thumbs.

  “I know, Dray. Look whatever it is you don’t…” he cut me off.

  “Yes I do, you need to know that it’s not always like this, but when it is, when the shit gets heavy and it will get heavy from time to time, you need to know what I’ve done, what I’m capable of and that I’ll do it. I’ll use it to protect you and the people of this club.” He was so earnest I simply nodded mutely and let him have his say.

  “I’ve done worse shit than what you saw tonight. Just last spring in fact.” He held his breath and I blinked. Worse? Worse how?

  “W-wh-what did you do?” I stammered.

  “I helped kill Ashton’s husband. I mean I was there, I… I hid in the man’s own damned panic room all fucking day and I held him down while Reaver shot him up with heroin. I helped get him into the tub and just stood there and watched while Reaver fucking toyed with him. Reaver fucking stood there, and told him why he was going to die and then he cut his wrists and I just fucking stood there Em. I just fucking stood there and watched the man bleed to death.” I stared at him and blinked.

  “Why?” I asked. Dray blinked at me and confusion flashed across his face.

  “Why what?” he asked, caught off guard.

  “Why would you do that?” I asked and we stared at one another across a chasm of silence for what felt like forever.

  “It was either him or Ashton… and I needed to do it, because I did something terrible to her Em.” He swallowed hard and his shame spilled out of him. He told me everything. About how he’d treated Ashton when she’d first arrived at the MC, about the Spring lake run, whatever that was, and how he’d gotten drunk, how he’d wanted to scare her off but also… how he’d wanted her for himself. How his father had intervened and how he’d taken his beating from Trigger and just, all of it… Every single sordid dirty detail. I stared at him, completely shocked.

  “Please say something.” He pleaded, and I did, probably the worst thing I could have possibly said in that moment.

  “I think I just want to be alone right now…”

  Chapter 20

  Dray…

  Her words hit me like a hammer blow to the center of my chest. I stared at her numbly for a second and nodded dumbly and got up. I slipped out the door and shut it behind me and moved back out into the common room. Just about everybody had gone except for my old man. He took one look at my face and his crumbled in sympathy. He kicked out a chair across from him.

  “Sit down before you fall down Boy.” I took the seat and he poured a shot of tequila. I grimaced as the phantom smell of blood invaded my nose but picked up the shot anyways and downed it.

  “I told her everything.” I said and my pops raised his eyebrows.

  “Sure that was the smart thing to do?” he asked.

  “No dad… No… I don’t know.” He poured another and I downed it.

  “What’d she say?”

  “She said she wanted to be left alone.” I poured the next one and downed it. He slid the bottle out of reach and leveled me with a smoldering look that made mine look like puppy dog eyes.

  “No screaming?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “No crying?”

  “Uh there were tears, but not like wracking sobs or hysterics or nothing.” I frowned, the world beginning to swim as the alcohol hit, I had a pleasant buzz going but I needed more than that, this called for a roaring drunk.

  “She just needs time to think boy. Sort out everything she’s feeling. Give her time.” He said sagely.

  “How do you know?” I asked hollowly.

  “Yer mom was the same way. If she started screaming and crying all hysterical like I was up shit’s creek without a paddle. She did the quiet stuff, it was kind of fifty-fifty on if my hide came out of whatever it was in one piece.” His words were cold fucking comfort.

  I put my head in my hands.

  “What if I fucked this up past fixing Pops?” I asked and his hand descended onto my shoulder.

  “You love her?” he asked me. I looked up at him and didn’t even fucking care that the tears showed.

  “I’ve never felt anything like what I feel for her, it’s like it’s just… too huge for words. Like they don’t make a word big enough or grand enough for it. I don’t know how this fucking happened. I gave this girl my whole damned heart and I don’t even know when I did it.” I looked at him and I think he flinched in the face of my raw pain but then my alcohol addled brain realized he was looking behind me. He must have had the good shit on the table. I turned, dreading seeing Em standing there but the person who actually was made it somehow worse.

  “Fuck man, really?” I asked and laid my head on my arm on the beat to shit table. Trigger hooked a boot around one of the chair legs next to me and pulled it out, dropping his tall bulk into it.

  “Your girl’s cryin’” he said, “My girl’s in with her.”

  “Fuck, I fucking broke the best t
hing I ever fucking had.” I moaned and Trigger chuckled.

  “Don’t count my Sunshine girl out. Ev just went through a hell of a thing and you, my young friend, just piled it on. It was an honest mistake Dray, just give her some time to process. She may surprise you yet.” Trig clapped me on the back and I held out my hand. My Pops put another shot into it and I drank it down.

  “Last one there Junior. You need to slow your happy ass down.” I heard my dad say, but my head was back on my arm. I was already grieving the loss of the first girl I think I’ve ever loved though I think the booze was helping that along to some extent. I don’t remember ever feeling so… squishy.

  “That’s a good word. Squishy.” I mumbled aloud and the two other men laughed a little.

  “Oh lord, he’s feelin’ that Tequila.” I heard my pops say. “Between his momma and me I’m not sure how we popped out such a light weight.

  “He’ll be feeling it worse in the morning. I’ll have Doc hook him up to an IV, last thing he needs to deal with is a killer hangover. I think he’s been punished enough.” Trig was wrong. So wrong, this was too much, the potential of losing Everett for good, after her being the first really good thing I’ve ever had in my life… it was too short; it was too fleeting! I had to do something, I had to do something drastic. I stood up abruptly and swayed on my feet. Trig was suddenly up beside me, hand on my back, the other on my chest. I looked down at his tattooed arm and blinked in confusion.

  “What’re you doin!?” I asked, wait, did I just slur?

  “Uhhh question is, what’re you doin’?” my dad asked, and he had his amused look on his face.

  “I gotta fix thish.” Yeah okay, I was definitely slurring, I’d only had like three shots! What was in that fucking tequila?

  “How you planning on doing that son?” my dad asked and leaned way back in his seat, crossing his arms.

  “I’ma ask her to marry me.” I declared and both of them busted up laughing at me. “Aw fuck you guys!” I tried to shake Trig off and moderately succeeded but then my dad was there.