by Jamie Begley
The woman helped lift him to stand, taking most of his minimal weight. “That’s right. Just a few more,” she coaxed as they treaded up the steps ever so slowly.
One step in front of the other, they followed behind the images of Shade and Train, into the bedroom that had been his torture chamber. He wanted to beg them not to make him play anymore games, but he knew they wouldn’t listen to his pleas; they always fell on deaf ears.
The haze continued through the hallway until he heard gunshots firing. He was shoved against a wall, and the woman whom he clung to fired back. Unable to hold himself up, he slipped down, comprehension finally dawning on him that these people were protecting him.
The relentless woman picked him back up, yet he had been dragged outside too many times for their cruel amusement to allow the fragile spark in his chest any room to grow.
When the door to freedom was opened, he squinted his eyes and turned his face away from the bright light. For a second, he thought he was granted the death he’d craved … until he realized a man like him wouldn’t be granted access into Heaven.
Holding onto her was like holding onto Taylor. She was his sole reason for walking into the sun for the first time in four years—the last time he’d attempted escape—and the only reason he didn’t will himself to take the gun from her hand and pull the trigger.
I’m coming home, Taylor.
At the thought, he started falling to the ground, and again, the woman lifted him up to force him to run at her side. Nearly useless, Gavin was half-lifted and half-shoved inside a vehicle, then he felt her body dive on top of him as the door slammed and a hail of bullets pinged against the SUV.
“Phase four, complete! Hostage is secured. Fall out, now! Go, go!”
The driver gunned the vehicle as the bullets continued to hit. He felt the floorboards bounce at the speed they were traveling. Just as the woman lifted off him, she jerked back down when a bullet hit the back of the vehicle.
“Son of a bitch hit my car.”
Gavin heard a curse from the front seat.
“Take that southpaw out, or I will.”
He heard the voice coming from the front seat when he’d first been shoved into the vehicle. A faint memory teased him, then faded when he felt the vehicle swerve again.
“Stay down!” another male yelled from the front, but Gavin felt the woman rising slightly despite the order.
He was getting nauseous at the way the vehicle was being driven, his empty stomach rolling at each screech of the brakes or dip on the road.
“I hope the one that will be spitting glass out of his mouth in the ER was the southpaw,” someone muttered.
When the SUV turned another corner, Gavin screamed, his fevered imagination thinking a bomb had gone off. The woman holding him crooned softly, talking to him. When she reached up to take her mask off, he realized it wasn’t a mask but goggles and a headset.
“We have you, Gavin. You’re safe now.” Pushing his greasy hair back, she stared down at him, her face silhouetted in the dark. “You know, you’re better-looking than your brother Viper. I bet the women fought over you. Viper’s married and now has a baby girl, but he’s missed you every day. All of The Last Riders have. You just need to hang on a little longer until we can get you to a place where you’ll be safe. Can you do that for me?”
“Who … Who are you?” he was finally able to get his thoughts organized enough to ask.
“I’m Rae.”
“Take me back to my room. If they catch me, they’ll hurt you,” Gavin warned her. He didn’t have enough strength to save them if they were caught.
“Sweetness, no one is stupid enough to mess with me. You’ll never go back to that room again—Viper will see to that. When he gets finished with the Road Demons, their club won’t be standing.”
Gavin felt her reach for something. Then he felt something damp wiping at the dirt and grime that must have been on his face. “That feel better?”
He couldn’t remember the last time they’d let him take a shower. The little water he’d been allowed had to last until they were ready to refill it.
The sickening churning in his stomach was becoming worse, as was the pounding in his head. He just wanted to sleep—and that way if he went to sleep and didn’t wake up, he’d die freed from that stinking basement.
“Gavin! Listen to me! Don’t you quit now. I’m still here. I’m not going to leave you, so you better not leave me!”
“W-Why? No one else came for me. No one.”
It wasn’t going to take them long to regret they found him. He had killed Memphis and Crash a million times in his mind. It was only going to take him once when he was able-bodied. He’d exact his plan of revenge.
“No one knew. They thought you were dead. They all did. Viper and Ton still don’t know you’re alive. They wouldn’t have left you there if they had known. Not one day, not for one second. Sweetness, you weren’t left behind or forgotten.”
“Viper was mad at me. He … They all left me to die. Crash told me it was Viper’s punishment.” Crash enjoyed talking to him from the top of the steps. The fucker knew Gavin’s mind. If he’d come any closer to him down the stairs, it would have been worth the bullet Slate would’ve put in him, just to kill Crash.
“Crash lied. Viper would have killed everyone in there if he had known. There isn’t a man in the club who wouldn’t lay down his life for you.”
Gavin felt her rest her head against his shoulder, the wetness of her tears on him.
“Did you see Train and Shade? I should have taken a box of Kleenex inside with me; they were crying so hard.”
“They weren’t there—”
He hadn’t seen them, had he? He would have known if they would have been in there. It was Ink and Chain who were there, wearing masks, trying to make him believe that they were Last Riders. Had it really been them?
“Yes, they were. They were the ones crying in the corner.”
Gavin felt her move but couldn’t tell what she was doing.
“I was the only one not crying,” she bragged.
He didn’t believe her. “You’re crying now.”
“That’s because you stink.”
He tried to wiggle away from under her. With the haze of the heroin dissipating, he became aware of how awful he must smell, and that he was naked underneath her. Cringing that the woman had to be exposed to his filth had him trying to move away from her.
“Don’t move; you’re my Kleenex.”
“I’m sorry. They wouldn’t let me shower unless—”
She cut him off by covering his mouth with her hand. “You smell like a survivor, Gavin. Take a deep breath. You’re free. You’re free.”
Hearing the words over and over had him finally realizing that it wasn’t a hallucination. Hallucinations didn’t cry, did they?
Hearing her crying sent a chain reaction inside him that made him unable to hold back the sobs of relief coming from his chest. He wasn’t proud he had survived Slate’s cruelty; he was returning to the world defeated, and all The Last Riders would see it.
“I … gave up.”
“You didn’t give up. You survived. You did what any good soldier would do. You did what you had to do to live. Don’t you dare talk about stinking or giving up, or I’ll kick your ass when we get out of this car!”
“Killyama!”
Gavin jumped at the loud yell from the front.
“What?” she yelled back.
“You can get up.”
“Okay.”
Taking the headset off, the woman levered off him and climbed onto the seat, then reached down to help him sit next to her. The change in positions had him heaving.
“Here, I have a barf bag. Hammer’s driving makes me puke, too.”
Taking the bag, he opened it and breathed in and out slowly, desperately holding back the bile that was rising in his throat. Gavin raised his head from the bag when he felt a rush of air as she lowered the window.
“
I thought I didn’t stink,” he remarked when he saw what she was doing.
“I did that to give you some fresh air.”
Laying his head back, he turned to stare at her. “You’re lying.”
“A little.”
Gavin looked down when she took his hand in the dark. The movement, however small, depleted the last of his strength. He didn’t even fight the unconsciousness, letting it wrap him in its dark warmth, not caring if he ever emerged again.
A window lowering in the front sent another rush of air to revive him. Foggily, his brain skated the edge of consciousness enough to hear.
“Good to see you, Reaper.”
His head on the woman’s shoulder, the name of the person’s voice flashed through his mind, then was gone.
“Reaper?”
Gavin was used to hearing those familiar voices in his other life and knew who they belonged to. The SEALs who had come down after he heard the basement door open hadn’t been a delusion. It finally clicked. Hammer and Jonas were in the vehicle with him. The men he had gone on missions with had to be there as well.
The part of his brain that held on for dear life, because he knew if he completely gave in to the comforting darkness, he would emerge back in that hell hole, giving up completely. He didn’t know where Shade was now, but he had been there. The woman said Train was also there. And, if Hammer and Jonas were there, Hell was going to have to wait. Those four soldiers wouldn’t only take a bullet for you, they would spit in the eye of the Devil before they would let him take your soul.
Gavin was lifted out in a tight grip; his arm was placed over one muscular shoulder, then his other was placed on another as supportive hands went around his waist. Both men took his weight.
Lifting his eyelids to make certain it wasn’t his captors, he saw Train’s and Shade’s grim faces staring back at him.
“Don’t let them take me back …,” he begged, barely able to get the words out and ashamed of the sobs that he couldn’t hold back.
Shade tightened his hand on the arm wrapped around his shoulder. “Brother, the only fucking way you’ll ever go back there is when we go there to burn the motherfucker down. You hear me, Reaper? That’s the only fucking way. I swear on my fucking life, that’s the only way you’ll ever fucking go there again.”
“Am I really going home?” He switched his gaze to Train, still not believing Shade’s words weren’t a figment of his imagination.
“Yes, brother. You’re really going home.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Faces and voices floated around him as he slipped in and out of the fantasy of being rescued. Had he imagined being in a SUV with a woman, Hammer, and Jonas?
“Gavin … Baby brother.”
A ragged voice in a sea of other voices had him forcing his lids to open, trying to struggle away from arms trying to hold him.
“Just kill me. I’d rather be dead than go back there,” he begged the person staring down at him.
“He doesn’t recognize us.” Another face filtered into his sight and fear spiked that he didn’t have enough strength to get away from two of them. He was so tired. His useless body was unable to get up and run, despite his mind screaming at him that he had to get away.
“Gavin … don’t.”
He tried to move again despite the pleading voice trying to get his attention.
“It’s me, Loker.”
“Loker, I’m sorry,” he sobbed out to the hallucination, feeling arms tighten around him.
“I’m the one who’s sorry. I didn’t know ….”
Gain tried to find a focal point so his brain would stop swimming and right the faces to bring them into focus.
“Gavin ….”
Reaper instinctively turned his head to the other side, recognizing the joy-filled voice of his father.
“Gavin!”
“Dad?” Turning farther in the direction of the blurry image of his father, he wanted to burrow into him like when he had been little and his dad had come home on leave, hoping that if he held on strongly enough, he couldn’t leave. He’d always had, though, despite how hard he tried. Reaper couldn’t make his arms work enough to grab onto his father.
Lowering his voice so no one else could hear, he begged his father, “Don’t let them hurt me.”
A sob tore from his father as he pulled his son into his arms. The sob terrified Reaper. His father never cried. It was just another one of Slate’s tricks.
“Don’t let them take me back!” he cried out.
Why wouldn’t anyone help him? They kept calling him Gavin, but he didn’t want to be Gavin anymore. They hurt Gavin. Reaper couldn’t be hurt. They were just trying to trick him again ….
No one cared ….
Reaper couldn’t be hurt ….
The pain of being lifted had him waking again, whatever he was lying on being moved as faces passed him. He didn’t know where he was, but it wasn’t the basement. One face that was different than the others had him reaching out to her. He remembered her carrying him out, protecting him ….
“Any woman who lets me sleep on her shoulder, smelling like I do, deserves a dozen roses.”
“It wasn’t so bad once I got the window down.”
“Do me a favor?” He waited until she nodded. “There’s a girl—Ton has her name. Call her for me. Tell her I’m ….” He started shaking. “Tell her where I am, and that I need her.”
Exhausted at getting the words out, he couldn’t understand what she said but felt the hand that covered his before he was once again moving.
I can’t give in to the pain, he thought feverishly.
When he woke up, Taylor would be there … She would be there ….
He clenched his hands on the cool covering over his body, afraid to open his eyes. The thought that his rescue was fake had him frozen, too petrified to move in case Slate or Ink was there when he opened his eyes.
Flickering memories crossed behind his closed eyelids of Viper being with him in a room. He wasn’t sure it had happened or if it had just been one more delusion the drugs planted in his mind. Ton being there and crying had just added to the confusion of the memory. He had never seen his father cry.
Replaying the hazy memory helped him to remain still, occupying his mind and helping him ignore the itchy skin that had him wanting to rake his nails over the flesh … over and over again until none of the irritating skin was left.
When he felt the covers being lifted away, he grabbed it back, then grabbed the hand that pressed down on his shoulder.
“Don’t touch me,” he moaned in fear.
“I need to give you a bath.”
At one time, the feminine voice would have assured him that he was in caring hands, but not anymore. It only raised his protective instincts higher.
Some women weren’t the nurturing creatures that they pretended to be. Some hid their evil intentions behind smiling lips, pretending to be kind, when they were just as evil as their male counterparts. He trusted no one any longer, male or female.
“It’s okay, Gavin. The nurse just wants to wash you. I’m right here.”
He lifted his lids to see Viper standing beside his hospital bed and a middle-aged woman in scrubs with a wash towel giving him an encouraging smile.
“I can wash myself.” Gripping the stark white sheet against his chest, he prepared himself to jump from the bed if she tried to touch him again.
“Mr. James, it won’t take long.” The professional way she spoke didn’t ease the heightened tension in his body. He didn’t want to be touched, not by anyone.
“I can do it,” Viper offered, reaching out to take the wash towel from the nurse. “I’ll ring you when we’re done.”
Reaper saw the budding argument in her face. Then she gave the cloth to Viper at the ominous look he gave her back. “I’ll notify the doctor that he’s awake.”
Reaper settled back against the bed when she left. “You always could scare the shit out of everyone with that look.�
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“It never scared you,” Viper said, dunking the cloth in the pale pink, oblong pan of water.
“Oh, it did. I just tried not to let you see it.”
His brother twisted the cloth, letting the excess water fall back down into the pan. When Viper took a step toward the bed, Reaper shook his head at him. “Is there a shower in the room?”
Viper tilted his head to the side. “You’re hooked up to an IV. I’m afraid you’re going to have to settle with my help.”
“Give me the washcloth. I can do it myself.” He moved his fingers to the buttons that were clearly marked on the bed to raise the head.
Viper gave him the cloth. “You want me to untie the gown for you?”
Reaching up, he fumbled behind his neck, untying it himself. Slowly reaching out, Viper unsnapped the closures on his arms, helping him remove the gown.
Reaper stiffened when Viper’s eyes went to his body. He didn’t miss the ragged emotion displayed on his face before Viper turned away to put the gown into a bin against the wall. When he turned back around, however, his expression was back under his control as he returned to the side of the bed to watch.
“I can do this,” Reaper muttered, becoming uncomfortable under Viper’s stare.
“I didn’t think you couldn’t.” Viper took a seat on the chair but didn’t move his eyes away from him.
Reaper put the cloth to his face, breathing the clean scent of soap. He wanted to groan at the pleasure.
“How are you feeling today?”
Dunking the cloth back into the water then wringing it out, he washed his face again. “Like shit. How are you doing today?” he tersely shot back, on edge at the haggard expression on his brother’s face. It wasn’t hard to interpret the torment in his eyes or the cause. Viper was blaming himself.
Viper’s lips curled up in a weary smile. “Been better.”