by K. L. Savage
She bites her bottom lip, and her eyes squeeze shut, holding back painful sounds from how red her face is.
“Shit, Gale. Are you okay? Someone! We need help over here!” I shout for someone, anyone to come help her. “I think you need a doctor,” I say, letting Gale use me as a crutch, something to lean on so she doesn’t fall.
And that fucker Lundon doesn’t even apologize. He whistles and grabs the two cups. One is water, the other are pills.
“What’s going on?” Sunnie asks from behind me. Her body is close. I can feel the soft curves of her breast gliding against my back. She’s so warm, and her body heat is hard not to recognize when she’s thawing me from the inside out.
“Lundon here is being a fucking asshole. Ran right into Gale, on purpose,” I sneer, and if it wasn’t for holding Gale upright, I’d punch the lights out of this guy.
“I didn’t do it on purpose. I barely hit her. She’ll be fine,” he says with a roll of his eyes.
Gale and Sunnie gasp at the same time when a few of my MC brothers walk through the double doors down the hall and see the commotion. Of course, it’s Reaper, Tongue, and Bullseye. Tongue has a few of the orderlies back up to put as much space as they can between them.
Their boots pound with every steele-toed thud, owning the hallway. Lundon doesn’t see the huge men come from behind him, Reaper leading the way. Bullseye is playing with one of the darts in his hand and he cocks his head, not liking the look on my face or how Gale cowers into my arm.
Bullseye flicks the dart in the air and catches it, then pierces it through the air. It lands in Lundon’s shoulder, and his back bends as the pain renders his body. He tosses his head back and shouts, “What the fuck?” He tries to reach for it, but it’s in a spot that he can’t reach.
I’ve seen the damage those darts can do. Poodle has the scars to prove it. When the dart enters the skin, the tip releases like a claw, pinching the muscle and flesh. The only way to take it out is to yank it.
It isn’t pretty.
“We got a problem here, Pirate?” Reaper asks, and Tongue yanks Lundon’s head back by his hair and places a blade against his throat.
“Let me cut him, Prez. Just a little nick. I’ve been bored since NOLA.”
Right. NOLA. I wasn’t allowed to go on that trip because Reaper tossed me in here to get better. I wouldn’t have been of use to them if I tagged along, but it hurts knowing I couldn’t be there for Skirt.
“I don’t give a fuck what you do, Tongue,” Reaper says, getting a smoke from his inner pocket.
“Is this your boys’ club?” Sunnie tries to whisper as low as she can, but Bullseye still hears her and chuckles, slapping his knee from finding it so funny.
Reaper’s eyes fall to Sunnie, and I have the urge to step in his line of sight to protect her. His eyes, typical black pools swirling with death and holding the souls of the ones he killed, morph to a shade lighter. “And who are you? Are you friends with Pirate?”
“I’m going to call the cops,” a stupid orderly says, and Bullseye’s arm snaps out, grabbing the guy’s neck like a snake that attacks.
“You do that. You tell them Ruthless are here, and I can bet they will take a long time to show up,” Bullseye warns, taking another dart out and rubbing it against the guy’s throat.
I don’t remember them being so goddamn vicious.
Reaper tries to light his cigarette, but Gale snatches it from his mouth and breaks it in half. All eyes are on her now, including Reaper’s, who looks amused. I haven’t been able to decipher in all the years I’ve been a Ruthless if him being amused is a good thing or a bad thing.
“I don’t care if you are big, bad bikers. This is a no-smoking zone. You will not smoke in my building while people are trying to better themselves. Do I make myself clear?” Gale’s voice shakes, but it isn’t from fear—it’s from pain. A bead of sweat trickles down her temple, streaking her makeup.
Reaper grunts and tucks his matches in his back pocket. “My apologies. Old habits. It won’t happen again.”
Lundon cries out when Tongue digs the tip of his knife into his flesh. A droplet of blood runs down his throat, reminding me of a tear. “If we were in the swamp, I’d feed you to the swamp kitties.”
“Swamp kitties?” Sunnie questions, her tone indicating Tongue is crazy. She has no idea how crazy he is.
Bullseye shakes his head, and Reaper ignores Tongue, a skill no one else has been able to master. “It seems there might be some issues. I don’t like that.” Reaper pulls Lundon away from Tongue and slams him against the wall, the dart digging deeper into his shoulder. Lundon cries out and starts to struggle.
“Please, please, stop. Put me down!” the coward begs.
“Oh, you're one of those.” Reaper looks him up and down, unimpressed. “Let me tell you something, boy. We aren’t like you. We aren’t all bark and no bite. We will tear you to pieces; do you understand that? You fuck with anyone here, especially her or her”—Reaper points to Sunnie and Gale—“and I will peel your flesh from your fucking bones. Do I make myself clear?”
“Crystal,” Lundon whines, nostrils flaring.
“Good.” Reaper drops him and tugs on his cut. “Now, I came to visit Pirate because I was told none of us were allowed here.” Reaper turns his dark gaze on me, and the kindness he has for the women disappears.
Bullseye tugs the dart free, slinging the meat and flesh from the prongs to the ground. “I’m going to need that back, thanks.” He wipes the blood on his jeans and tucks the dart in the pocket of his cut.
Tongue steps forward, and his knife plays on the edge of Lundon’s mouth. “If we have to interrupt you again from hurting someone here under our protection, I’ll cut your tongue out of your throat and FedEx that nasty bitch to the swamp, got it?”
Lundon and I stare at each other, and I see the moment he remembers my threat about a friend who will cut his tongue out. He thought I was full of shit.
“You guys are crazy.” Lundon’s arm is limp at his side as he hurries away. Blood drips on the floor in his wake.
“Bullseye, clean that up since you’re the reason why it’s there. Pirate, you and I need to talk.”
Reaper walks toward the visitor area, his presence a violent, dangerous energy surrounding the entire space. People give him a wide berth, and Tongue follows behind him, cleaning his nails with his knife as he walks.
One of these days, he will slip up, and you know what? I bet he won’t even care. He’ll like getting cut.
“Sunnie.” I turn around and lay my hands on her shoulders. I’m not sure how to process the way she’s looking at me. She’s staring at me like she doesn’t know me, but she knows me better than any of my MC brothers do. “I need you to take Gale to see a doctor. She’s badly hurt. Get a wheelchair or something. I have to go talk to my Prez.”
“Prez?” she asks. “What the hell is that?”
“President. Reaper. He’s the guy who was front and center. He’s the President of the MC or boys’ club, as you call it.” She looks unsure, but I bend down and kiss the middle of her forehead, and Gale clears her throat. I side-eye Gale. “Everything will be fine.” I rub my hands up and down her arms. “I got to go, friend.” I make sure to direct the word at Gale, annoyed that I have to play pretend.
“Patrick?” Sunnie calls out after me.
I look over my shoulder to see her eating up the distance between us, and she crosses her arms over her chest. “Yeah, babe?”
“Be careful.”
“Nothing to be careful for. Swear.” I reach out and hold onto her fingers for a moment, not wanting to let go. As I step away, our fingers slide apart, leaving me aching for another second of her touch.
Maybe Gale is right.
I’ve become addicted to Sunnie, maybe obsessed.
The fight and anger I wanted to hold against her changed into this undeniable need. The urgency for rum, the desperation for it, it’s the same feeling I have for her. She’s consuming me.
I hope she isn’t the reason for breaking me. I’ve been broken once, and the road to recovery is long and brutal.
I won’t win another shattering of my soul.
“Hi.” I nod to one of the nurses who is holding the cross around her neck, mumbling a prayer. I don’t catch all of it, but I hear an ‘amen’ and “save her from hell” whatever that’s supposed to mean.
I turn the corner and find Reaper sitting in one of the metal chairs that’s too small for him. His body is crunched together, knees hitting the bottom of the table, and he is placing puzzle pieces in their correct place. Tongue is hovering above Reaper, pointing to the puzzle, and Reaper slaps his hand away.
“You’re going to fuck it up.”
“Am not. It goes there, Reaper.”
“Don’t fucking tell me. I know exactly where it goes, and it isn’t there.” Reaper proceeds to place it in the spot Tongue told him to. “There.”
“That’s what I said.”
“It isn’t,” Reaper grumbles.
I sit in the chair on the other side of the table, and Reaper tries to lean forward and place his elbows on the table, but he can’t. He’s too damn big. “Goddamn it, is this place made for little people?”
Tongue stands behind Reaper and crosses his arms, the knife in his hand for protection.
“You need to put that away, Tongue,” I tell him. “This isn’t the kind of place for that. I don’t even know how you were able to get in here with it.”
“I punched the guard,” he says. “No one takes my knife.”
“Right.” Of course he did. Damn it, I hope them showing up doesn’t cause issues for me. It’s another reason why I didn’t want them here.
“Why can’t we come visit?” Reaper asks, flipping a puzzle piece in his hand. “Doc says you didn’t want to see us.”
“I’m recovering, Reaper. You put me in here. Part of me hates you for it.”
“And the other part?”
“I appreciate it,” I admit.
“Then I can live with the part that hates me.” He sighs. “You were in a bad way. You need to be here.”
“I know. I’ve learned a lot so far, overcome a few things, but I still want my rum. I don’t know how I’ll be able to be a part of the club with the bar right there, Reaper.”
“We already took care of that. The liquor is gone. Anyone who wants to drink either goes to Kings’ Club or they lock their booze in their room in a fridge. You can go to the club, but everyone has been advised not to serve you.”
“It would be easier if you just kicked me out of Ruthless and take my cut.” The thought of being without them tears me apart, and my arm instinctively reaches for a bottle that isn’t there on the table.
“Why the fuck would I do that? I care about my brothers more than I care about fucking booze, Pirate. I don’t know what the fuck happened to you, but I hope one day, you’ll trust us.”
“It isn’t that I don’t trust you. I just don’t know how to talk about it without looking like a weak bitch,” I say honestly. “I’m tired of feeling weak.”
“Weakness is giving up, and you don’t seem to be throwing in the rag, so you’re far from weak, Pirate.” Tongue's words of reassurance take me by surprise. Even Reaper is turning around, his arm swinging across the table as he does, and he knocks the puzzle on the ground.
Men like us don’t belong around tables like this.
“Damn it. I almost saw the golden retriever puppy.”
I cough to hide my laugh.
“Anyway, I’m here as a messenger, and I wanted to see you, Pirate.” Reaper takes out an envelope and slides it across the table. “A few letters from people at the club. Sarah too. Just to let you know we are in your corner. We are fighting for you too. I know you think you’re alone, but you aren’t. You have family.”
Family.
There’s that word again.
For a long time I believed my family was dead, but that’s what happens when you’re stuck in the past. I have a family. People who are here. Alive. They want the best for me, but I can’t betray Macy.
“Reaper, while you’re here—” I want to change the subject. I don’t want to go down memory lane, or the progress I’ve made will be ruined. “I want you to look into Tom, the guy running for Mayor.”
“Why, something happen?”
I look around to make sure we aren’t being watched and notice we are completely alone. I reach into the waistband of my sweats and slide the gun across the table. “You could say that. Tom is supposed to be Sunnie’s father, but I don’t think that’s the case. I saw him harassing her, and apparently he’s a pimp. I want you to dig up everything you can on him. He cannot be Mayor.”
“Sunnie, she’s the girl with the blonde hair?”
“Yes.”
“She yours?” he asks.
“If I’m ever deserving of that, then yes,” I say.
“I’ll look into it. Expect one of us back soon, and Pirate?”
“Yeah, Prez?” I glance up when he stands. Reaper is a fair President, vicious, but he does what is best for the club. He’s the best damn leader we have.
“Don’t ever say we can’t visit. I know it’s hard for you here, but it was hard for us too, watching someone we care about want to kill themselves like that. And you look fucking good, Pirate. It’s good to have a conversation with you. I don’t think I ever have before.” He gives my shoulder a pat as he walks away, leaving me thinking about the man I want to be.
“Don’t give in to the demon inside you,” Tongue says. “He isn’t worth the energy.”
“What do you know about demons, Tongue?”
“Enough to know that if you let them, they will take over.” He digs through the letters and taps one with his index finger. “Read that one first. It’s mine.”
“Will do.” I watch as Tongue follows Reaper’s path, and a door in the distance opens and closes, telling me my brothers have left. I stare at the stack of letters in my hand. There has to be a dozen here. I wonder if they are words of encouragement.
One thing’s for certain, I have more to fight for now than I have in eighteen years. I think it’s time I realize Macy needs to finally be laid to rest, a wound that needs to be closed once and for all.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
SUNNIE
“Meet me in the garden, the space between the pink and red roses at 9pm…”
I reread the sloppy handwriting, and butterflies float around in my stomach. It’s been a few days since the fiasco with Lundon, Gale, and those scary biker men who wear leather. Does Patrick my Pirate wear the same outfit?
My face flushes when I imagine him in only leather.
Yep. Yep. He definitely looks good.
We haven’t been able to see much of one another because of his group sessions, and Gale put him in a time-out from hanging out with his ‘friend’ because she was scared shitless of the men who threatened Lundon.
We have been writing notes back and forth, hiding the folded-up pieces of paper underneath a fern that sits in the back corner, ignored and lonely.
Gale is on desk duty for her hip, but she has eyes everywhere, so we have to be careful.
The clock reads 8:55 when I check the time. Crap. I nearly didn’t check the fern in time. I tuck the note in the waistband of my pants and causally stroll by the front desk to see Gale on the phone and Patricia reading her book.
I still want to know what happens between Samuel and Elizabeth, but my mind has been preoccupied for a few days. I make a mental note not to forget and feign right to go to my room before hurrying out the door on the left.
It’s a good thing the gardens exist, to give this facility a place of beauty and relaxation because this hallway is haunted by the cries of addicts fighting for their lives. Low groans and high-pitched screams with each door I pass.
The lights flicker, and the hair on the back of my neck stands up when a woman’s wail crawls over my skin.
To think Pat
rick was in this hall just a few weeks ago, it twists a shard of glass into my heart.
“No, please. One last time. I swear, it will be one last time. One more. Please!”
I pick up the pace to get away from the sounds, the desperate begs; it’s sad and pathetic. And what’s worse is they know it too. They know when they beg for one last hit it’s a last-ditch effort. I don’t look down on them; I pity them. I’ve been there. It’s one of the hardest experiences I’ve ever had to go through, besides losing my child.
Withdrawal is like kerosene constantly dripping through your veins, and your craving for a high is the pilot light, a tiny flame. That’s it. A small, not an intimidating sway of fire, but since it’s a dark lover with kerosene, they cause a continual burning blaze in the blood. It scorches you from the inside out.
It’s so painful. I don’t wish the process on anyone.
The constant shouts are finally behind me, and I release a breath. I really hate walking down that hallway. It truly haunts in its own way, holding the screams of the weak as they succumb to the torture forced upon them.
I peer over my shoulder when I get the sense of someone watching me, but no one is there. Ignoring it, I blame it on my shaken-up nerves from hearing people scream.
The rehab center is an old house, an oversized Victorian with pristine architecture. It’s hard to believe this used to be someone’s house. It’s too much for a family to have and to think of it as anything else but a rehab facility is impossible. I bet there are a lot of stories hidden beneath these walls. The trim of the doors curve in the middle, like a book when someone opens it.
As I open the door to take a step outside into the garden, it’s like turning a page and seeing Wonderland for the first time. Inside the home is dreary, but outside it’s a new world. There are twinkling lights that sparkle against the skies above the greenhouse. The aroma of plants hits my nose, and it’s earthy, fresh, and a floral scent hangs in the air with all the flowers blooming around me.
The pathway is made up of a tan slab of rock with gravel in between each stone. I run my hands along a vine, and my fingers trail over the wet stem. The automatic sprinklers must have come on. There are tiny raindrops on the green leaves, and the water on my fingertips is cold. I wipe my hands dry on my sweatpants and continue forward, smiling when I see the rose garden up ahead.