by Lux, Vivian
Robert's face under my hands as I blotted him out of existence.
His face under my heel as I crushed him beneath me and finally walked free.
In that moment, I could have taken his life. Easily and gladly and with no thought to the consequences. With a sob, I opened my mouth to say so. "Robert!" I screamed, and with my scream I heard a sound like the roaring of the wind and gathering thunder.
I thought it came from me. I wouldn't have been surprised.
But when Robert's head snapped in the direction of the sound, I understood it was coming from far away. But barreling down fast. Like the swooping, rushing, roar of a river ready to drown us all.
Chapter Thirty Two
Emmy
The sound made me smile, but the fear in Robert's eyes made me smile wider. He stepped back. Joey let go of J. and he crumpled to the ground.
I was over him in an instant. "J.," I whispered, cradling his battered face in my lap. "J. the Sons are here. They're here."
His eyes fluttered open and I knew he heard it to. Silently, he reached for my hand and I turned to face the noise as one by one the Sons of Steel Motorcycle Club coasted into my parents' driveway and cut their engines. In the weak light of the porch light, I saw them: Teach, Mac, Doctor D., Case and Crash, and behind them were even more men.
Case jumped from his bike when he saw me on the ground. The rain had slowed to a fine mist, making the fog swirl up from the baking ground. It obscured his boots and made him look less like a biker and more like an avenging angel.
"Case, help!" I cried.
"Emmy! Is that J.?"
"Yes!" I sobbed, holding him tighter.
Robert was backing away from the bearded, tattooed mountain in front of him. He snarled like a cornered animal. "Bikers, Emilia? Really? A pack of filthy bikers?"
My stomach turned at the sound of his voice. I could think of no other answer than to choke out, "Yes. You need to go now."
"What, are you the club whore now?" He was lashing out, desperate.
"Get out, Robert," I repeated. "Leave. Now."
"Or what? You'll sic your dogs on me?" He laughed like it was an absurd notion, but his eyes rolled wildly from side to side.
Case drew himself up to his full height. "You've got a pretty filthy fucking mouth for a dead man," he rumbled in a voice dripping with menace.
When Case barreled forward, Robert screamed in a high, unearthly voice. "Joey!" His lackey moved to go to him, but Crash jumped into his path. "Try it, asshole!" he shouted, the manic craziness burning in his eyes. With a yell, the whole club surged forward. Case had Robert by the throat, lifting him off the ground. Crash was dancing wildly around, teasing and taunting Joey who bellowed like a wounded buffalo. He tried to dart round Crash's bad side but was met with a fist the size of a Christmas ham. Wayne the Storm Rider laughed as the guard fell backwards onto his ass.
"You don't know who you're messing with!" Robert screamed.
"Neither do you," Case growled, throwing him to the ground.
J. and I went unnoticed. I smoothed my hands over his face and they came away wet with my tears. "J.," I whispered.
He coughed. "Hey Em." He rolled to the side and coughed again.
"No," I pleaded. "Don't get up."
"Have to," he croaked. He pulled his feet under him, lurching drunkenly to the side before steadying himself on the car door. He used the handle to haul himself to his feet.
"J.!" Case shouted. "Saved you a piece!"
I turned to see him dragging Robert across the ground. Robert struggled futilely, his feet bicycling across the wet, slippery grass. His eyes darted wildly.
"Not my piece," J. croaked. Everything paused as he turned to me. "Emmy," he rasped, his voice broken and barely audible. "Finish this."
Chapter Thirty Three
J.
There was nothing in the world but pain and him. Nothing but Emmy sitting brokenly on the grass, gazing up at him uncomprehendingly. J. swallowed, tasting blood. He didn't have much more strength left.
But he was going to do this right.
"You're a fighter," he called to her. "Finish the fight."
She pulled herself up off of the grass. Her tears tracked trails through the dirt on her face. She had never been more beautiful than right now.
She looked at J. as if for permission. He nodded. Robert thrashed in Case's iron grip, but J. knew he wasn't going anywhere. His brother's grip was as unbreakable as love. And this was the greatest gift of love J. could give her.
Emmy cleared her throat, looking into the eye of the man who had terrorized her. J. expected her to lift her fists, but instead she lifted her voice. J. felt his heart drop in awe as she called with a voice strong and sure, "Robert, go away. Go home. I never want to see or hear from you again. Just leave me alone."
The cool, misting rain leftover from the downpour cooled J.'s skin. The only noise was the scraping of biker boots against the gravel driveway.
Robert barely opened his mouth. The words were tight and hissed. Spittle flew from his lips as he turned to her and unleashed all the evil and venom that he had stored for so long. "You stupid, fat, worthless cunt. I hope they pass you around like the cheap, gold-digging whore you are...."
And then everything happened at once. The scuffle of boots on the ground. A quick, sharp intake of breath and the sound of a fist cracking against bone. A thump, a scream and then silence.
When J. came to his senses, Robert was on the ground. He made a short, gasping noise, then groaned incoherently. J. lifted his boot and saw the perfect shape of his muddy bootprint on Robert's chest.
Emmy was at his side, her fists falling slowly back down to her sides. He lowered his own and pulled her to him.
Emmy was in his arms again and that was all that mattered.
J. picked up a strand of damp, flaxen hair and brushed it back from her face. The curve of her throat made a lump in his. "I didn't know where you had gone." His voice was cracking as he struggled to choke down the sob that threatened to escape. "The worst part was imagining you were in danger."
She made a small sound and rested her head against his chest. He kissed the top of her head, inhaling deeply, kissing her fiercely, but carefully. He still didn't know where he stood, what she thought of him, but he hoped she could feel what he thought of her.
Chapter Thirty Four
Emmy
The sound of boots on my mother's pristine floor was as jarring as the sight of the dreadlocked M.C. president chatting calmly with my sweating father. My mother was running and fetching, wiping and tutting as the men flew around us like tattooed guardian angels.
I wanted J. to go to the hospital. One of the Storm Riders had taken the BMW to dump Robert and Joey off at the one down in town. He was then to take the BMW and dump it off somewhere to corroborate the fiction Robert had agreed to.
He had been carjacked by a group of men. He had never seen their faces. This he swore.
Teach had nodded grimly at his promise and reminded him that they would be watching. And that J. had more friends than he ever could.
One of those friends was a doctor. Doctor D. had a First Aid kit in his saddlebag and he patched J. and Andy up as best as he could. My brother was in his bed, a bag of frozen peas over his right eye talking excitedly through a terribly split lip about motorcycles with a hopped up Crash. My knight in leather was now sprawled on my mother's prized couch, taking small sips of the iced tea she had nervously brought him. She looked everywhere in the room but into his eyes, and J. was either too tired to notice or had decided to let her fear of his skin color slide.
"You should sleep," I reminded him, smoothing my hand over his forehead. The warm chocolate skin was crisscrossed with bruises and swelling. It hurt my heart to see it.
"Can't," he mumbled thickly.
"Why not?" I bent to kiss the purple mark at his temple.
"Cause you keep doin' that." He snaked his hands into my hair and pulled my lips down to his.
<
br /> I wanted to kiss him carefully, dreading causing him any more pain. But he wasn't feeling the same caution as I was. Taken aback by the force of his lips on mine, I yielded to his urgency, allowing myself to melt into a low, slow, passionate kiss that stole the meaning from anything else in the world. His lips were warm and unhurt, his tongue was as urgently dancing as ever.
I marveled as he claimed me even as he lay battered and broken beneath me. His hand sought my throat, brushing against the ragged rawness, erasing the pain that lingered there, and then his lips travelled down to meet them. I arched to him, burying my face into the crook of his neck, wishing that I could dissolve completely into him as he peppered my neck and shoulder with his warm kisses.
"Come here," he rasped in my ear.
My body responded to his command, wanting nothing more than to merge with him and never be separated again. "There are people," I reluctantly reminded him.
"Don't give a shit," he murmured, his breath at my throat.
But when I obligingly moved to straddle him, his breath caught and he choked out a grimace. "Shit," he gritted.
"Where does it hurt?"
"Everywhere," he sighed. "It's been a bad fucking day."
A discreet cough made us both turn. Case stood awkwardly in the center of the room, his massive form dwarfing everything around him. His huge hands moved nervously over the top of the battered piano, fiddling with the doilies and tiny little knickknacks that covered it. I almost laughed at how absurd it was, a bearded tattooed mountain messing with those tiny little tchotchkes. But his sober expression stopped me.
"Teach is talking with a chapter of the Storm Riders out of Jersey. They should be here in an hour or so with a car to transport you." Case was looking everywhere in the room but down at J.'s battered form.
"Fine."
Something hung heavy in the air. I looked between the two best friends. "Is everything okay?" I asked, even though it clearly wasn't.
J. pressed his lips together and turned to face the back of the couch. I looked questioningly at Case and was shocked to see his pale blue eyes shining wetly. He looked up at the ceiling, his voice breaking as he spoke. "It was bullshit and I said so. You should know that."
J. didn't move or say anything. Confused, I placed my hand over his and he closed it tightly around my fingers and squeezed hard. I ached to understand what was happening.
Case's voice caught in his throat. "I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you, I swear. But I had to do what was necessary. For peace." He turned and strode out of the room, his shoulders hunched tightly around his ears.
"J.?"
"No."
I sighed, but I understood. There would be time to talk about it. There would be explanations to come. I laid my head on his chest and listened to his heart beat slow and strong and sure under my ear. His breath evened and deepened and I knew he had fallen to sleep.
No one disturbed us as we lay like that in the dark room. I closed my own eyes and drifted, riding the waves of his deep breathing, until a ragged, exhausted voice broke through my reverie.
"Emmy, can you drive?"
Teach was silhouetted in the doorway. He turned away and stifled a cough, then leaned heavily against the doorframe.
Reluctantly I slid from my post and moved closer to him. I didn't want to talk and wake J.
"I can."
"Car's here." He handed me a set of keys. "Actually it's a pickup truck because they had to transport their bikes."
"Who brought us a car?" I wondered stupidly.
"We're working on being a part of something bigger," he said. His voice was low and grave. He shot a look over my shoulder to where J. lay sleeping and I swore I saw the deepest sorrow in his yellow-tinged eyes. "Getting more people behind us."
I nodded. "It's good to have people in your corner."
He looked over my shoulder again. "I just hope he understands that." He sounded unsure. "This brotherhood is my life's work, and I mean to see it carry on."
I didn't know what to say, so I just closed my fist around the keys and nodded.
Case spoke from the shadows. "I'm stayin' here, Teach." He stood up from the recliner. I hadn't even known he was there. He must have been watching over us as we slept. "I'll help Emmy get him in the car, then follow behind."
"You don't have to do that."
"Yeah," Case said. "I do."
The sorrow and regret washed over Teach's face again and he nodded. "Let me know," he rasped, then coughed, deep and ragged.
He sounded exhausted and deeply unwell. I didn't want to acknowledge it. Teach was J.'s rock, solid and sure. The thought of him being anything else was incomprehensible, so I pushed my worry aside and nodded to him. He clasped my hand and nodded in return.
The roar of the motorcycles sounded different this time. As the men left, one by one, the noise diminishing with each passing bike, it sounded like I was the one who was receding instead of them. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back down on J.'s chest, I could almost feel myself floating away on that rushing sound.
Chapter Thirty Five
Emmy
The rumbling sound of Case's throaty snore woke me from a dreamless sleep. I lay quietly for a moment, confused about where I was, but pleased to be snuggled up to J.'s warm chest.
Another ragged snore tugged me back to reality. J. lay broken and battered beneath me. His long body was crammed onto my mother's prized sofa, his muddy boots still on. I was twisted and jammed up along side him. I lifted my head and rubbed my neck furiously to work out the kink that had set in. My fingers found the raw red welt that circled my throat. Robert's twisted face snarled at me in the dark. A looming specter that made me shrink in fear.
The big man in the recliner shifted and twisted, trying to contort his massive body into a comfortable position. He had fallen asleep watching over us, quietly making sure we were safe. I smiled at him in the dark. J.'s best friend had his back. It made me feel less afraid.
"Case," I whispered across the room.
He snorted.
"Case!"
He sat bolt upright, immediately in alert. I threw up my hands, "It's okay. It's me, Emmy."
He sat back. "Everything okay, Em?"
"Yeah, you were snoring."
"Oh," he sounded sheepish. "Sorry. The guys always bust my balls for that."
"It's okay. Hey, you don't look very comfortable."
He hesitated. "I'm fine."
I thought for a second. Something was nagging at me. "How did you all know to come? First J. shows up out of the blue, then the rest of you right at the last moment." I blinked slowly in the darkness, trying to piece together the events in my mind. "I never even told J. where I had gone. It's like he just knew I needed him."
Case shifted in his chair. "He got a phone call."
"A phone call? How in the world...?"
"Yeah. He shouted your name, asked where you were, wrote down an address and bolted."
I tried to replay yesterday in my mind. My family had been stuck in the living room for hours. No one had left to make a phone call. No one except....
"Andy," I breathed. I felt a rush of warmth for my baby brother. Warmth that then subsided into guilt over what had happened to him.
"Your brother's a good man," Case said solemnly. "Loyal."
"He is," I said softly. We sat quietly for a while. I listened to J.'s even breathing and tried to quell the ache in my chest. "So Andy called J. and he came for me. But why did you all come?"
"I told them to. We came for him. One in, all in."
"What?"
"He's our sworn brother. I wasn't about to let him fight alone." Case shifted his big body in the chair again, grunting and sighing. "I'm just angry it took me so long to get everybody moving. That's the problem with having bigger numbers. We should have been right behind him."
There was a deep pain in his voice that brought tears unbidden to my eyes. He yawned hugely. "Case, you need to sleep."
He shifted again. "Trying to."
"You look so uncomfortable."
"I'm fine," he snapped.
"No, clearly you're not. You look like you're about to fall out."
"Small chair," he grumbled.
"Go upstairs to my room. First door you see. The bed is tiny, but it's a bed. Better than an easy chair."
"I'm fine," he repeated mechanically. He pushed himself upward, sliding back as far as he could go. "I don't need to go." He stifled a yawn.
He didn't want to leave his post. The tears that had been gathering spilled over from my eyes. "Go," I whispered gently. "You need to sleep."
I thought he would ignore me again. I was actually surprised when he groaned and shifted, hauling himself upright. I heard his joints popping as he stretched out the kinks.
"You yell," he said. "I'll be down in a heartbeat."
"I know you will."
He nodded and shuffled heavily up the stairs. I heard the creak of the door, then the protesting shriek of my overtaxed bedsprings.
The house was silent again. J. was fast asleep. But I was wide awake.
I stood up and stretched, wondering how much longer it was until dawn. I didn't want to be alone with my thoughts anymore. Everything kept playing over and over in my mind. I shook my head and forced myself to think about the future.
I needed to plan. I knew I wanted to leave before my parents woke. I would leave a note, I decided. There was too much to say to be trusted to conversation.
The list of sublets was still in Andy's printer. I would grab them when I went to his room to say goodbye. Andy deserved to see me face to face before I left.
Feeling marginally more under control, I gingerly reached for J's laces. His boots hung over the overstuffed arm of the couch. A glob of mud dangled threateningly over the pristine fabric. I pulled the lace slowly. When J. didn't move, I gave a slight tug to undo the knot, and then loosened each lace in turn. I stood up and tugged gently on the heavy sole, freeing one of J's feet, and then the other.