by River Savage
“Bullshit, he did this. Not you. I don’t want to hear you say that shit again.”
“For all I know you killed a man for me, Beau. How can you expect me not to react?”
“I didn’t kill him, darlin’,” he whispers, his voice almost disappointed.
“Then what happened?” The air grows thick as we both sit and look at each other, neither one of us speaking until Beau takes my hand. “I love you, Kenz, but I’m not gonna talk about this with you. Do you hear me?” Reluctantly, I nod, in understanding more than anything. If Beau didn’t kill him, then someone else did and he won’t tell me.
“I need to hear the words.”
“Yes, I understand, Beau.” I give him the words he needs to relax.
“Do you trust me, darlin’?”
“More than myself,” I answer without pause. He has to know how much trust I have in him. How much he could destroy me. We are connected like nothing else. I trust him with everything.
“Then breathe, darlin’. Trust that I have you. That I have this.” I nod, giving it over to him and maybe even more. This thing between us is bigger than I’ve ever felt before; this is on a whole new level.
“Good girl, now come here.” He falls back, pulling me down with him so my body covers his.
“Just promise me she’s going to be okay.” I press my lips to his and close my eyes, almost praying he grants my wish.
“I promise you’re going to be okay.” I open my eyes when he doesn’t give me what I want.
“I don’t care about me. I need her to be okay.” He rolls us to his left, following me over and covering me with his weight.
“I care about you. I need you to be okay.” I shake my head, not sure if I’ll ever be okay.
Not after this.
When I came here, I couldn’t imagine my situation getting any worse. I thought after everything I had been through, surely this time around would finally give me my happy ending.
Look where it got me. I was to blame for bringing this to their lives. I knew it. Beau knew it. Everyone in the club knew it.
But no one is saying it.
No, I won’t be okay, not until Kelly is.
Not until this is over.
Thirty
Beau
“Mackenzie? Did you hear me?” She looks up at my voice and smiles. But it’s not like her usual smile. This one’s new. It’s the one she started giving after Kelly was hurt. Each day it kills me and each day it gets worse.
After the first three days, Kelly’s swelling didn’t come down as quickly as the doctors first hoped. She was kept in her induced coma for nine days before they brought her out. Only she didn’t respond. Three weeks later and she still hasn’t woken up. She’s breathing on her own, her brain function is normal, she’s shown signs she’s there, but she hasn’t come out yet. We’re all hopeful, telling ourselves she’s just taking a little longer to come out of it because her body is healing. Most injuries with the brain vary from case to case, so all we can do now is wait.
“Yeah, just finishing up. You go on ahead.” Mackenzie waves me off and goes back to reading.
“Must be some book you have there.” I reach down and pull it out of her hands.
“Hey!” She shifts forward to grab it back, but I don’t let her.
“Reading time’s over. You’re coming to bed with me.”
“Beau, I was at the best part.” She fights it, but I’m done with this shit. I’m not letting her play this card anymore.
“It’s still gonna be there tomorrow.”
“I’m not tired. I just want to read, Beau.” She starts to shut down, just like every time I push a little. Over the last four weeks, I’ve let her get away with it, thinking it was what she needed. But now it’s getting out of hand and she’s pulling further away instead of coming back to me.
The last month has been tough for everyone. The club has taken a huge hit with Kelly still in her coma. Brooks is barely holding it together. Mackenzie feels guilty. We’re still on the lookout for Brent Harrison and between daily visits to the hospital, and having Mia stay with us off and on, it’s been a complete clusterfuck.
“You’ve been pulling back from me.”
“I’m just—”
“You can’t lose yourself in a book to get through this, Kenzie.” She looks up at me, guilt etched all over her face.
“I’m not, Beau.” Her argument is weak, setting in stone what we both already know.
“Darlin’, I haven’t had you in my arms in four weeks. Tell me when’s the last time you came to bed with me?” I try not to sound like a fucking pussy, but Jesus Christ, I’m losing my shit.
“I’m sorry. I just haven’t been in the mood. How can you even think about sex with everything going on?”
“I’m not talking about sex, darlin’. I’m talking about holding you. Fucking touching you. Just being with you.” In the beginning, I expected it. I knew she would shut down, but this, this is more. This is her letting it eat at her.
“I don’t know what you want from me, Beau.”
“I want a lot of things, darlin’, but I’ll settle for you coming to bed with me. You want to read, fine. You read in our bed, with me.” I reach out for her hand and wait for her to take it. “Come on, Kenz,” I encourage. It’s something so small. But right now, for us it’s huge. I need her to come back to me. To come back to us.
“Fine,” she finally relents. “I’m tired anyway.” She takes my hand and stands.
I hand her back her book as I guide her down the hall, turning the lights off as we go. She doesn’t talk and I don’t push her. After brushing our teeth, we settle into bed. She doesn’t roll into me like she used to, and I want to reach over and pull her to me, but I don’t. It’s enough she’s even here.
“The opening of Missy’s Place is going ahead next week,” I fill her in on what the club decided today.
“What?” her body flings up to a sitting position. “No, Beau. You can’t. Not without Kelly.”
“We’ve already postponed it three weeks. We’ve gotta get it going.” I itch to roll over and flick the lamp on, wanting to see her reaction, but I don’t want her to shut down again. Not when I just have her talking.
“It’s her baby just as much as it’s yours.”
“You’re right, and she would want us to go ahead. Kelly would want us to help as many people as we can. You know this.”
She doesn’t come back with anything; instead, she lies back down and settles underneath the covers. She knows I’m right, knows this is what Kelly would want. Pushing back the opening isn’t helping anyone.
“I’m sorry, darlin’. I know you wanted to wait. But we have a lot of people expecting to start work, plus all the women we had coming in.”
“No, I get it. You’re right. She would want it to go ahead.” She slightly rolls to the middle of the bed, facing me and I turn to face her. I can barely make out her features in the dark, but I can see her eyes are open and looking into mine.
“I’m sorry, Beau. I didn’t mean to pull away,” she whispers after a few minutes of silence.
“Nothing to be sorry for. I understand why you have, but darlin’, it’s gotta stop. I’ve given you time, and I’ve let you try to work this out on your own, but I’m done waiting.” Her hand finds mine under the blanket and I greedily take it, threading my fingers through hers.
“The guilt, it’s just eating me, Beau. Because of me, she’s in that hospital bed.”
“You can’t let this guilt win, Kenz. You need to fight it before it controls you. Fuck, trust me. If anyone knows, it’s me.” I roll in closer to her. If I could just fall into her to make her see, I would.
“How do you know, Beau? How do you know what this feels like? I can’t just stop feeling this. First it was Chad. Then Heidi, because we both know she’s not coming back, and now Kelly.” The desperation in her voice almost makes me lie and tell her one day it will go away, one day it will stop hurting, but I don’t because it
doesn’t.
“I know because every time I help a woman in a dangerous situation I see Missy’s face.” I try to give her something to hold on to. Something I haven’t given anyone before. “I’m reminded of that look of fear, the look of defeat, and then I’m reminded I couldn’t save her. I help these women every fucking day, Kenz, yet all I see is Missy. I see my failures. My regret. My guilt.” She stills as I shift my body back, angling to face the ceiling.
“It took me two years to realize something was wrong. For two fucking years I didn’t see it. I don’t know if it’s because I was selfish, lost in my own fucking head, or if I just didn’t want to see it, but I missed the signs. The turtlenecks she would wear in the summer. How she all of a sudden became clumsy. Fuck, even the way the light in her eyes just dwindled away. Two years, I was blind. How’s that for guilt?”
“You can’t blame yourself, Beau.” Kenzie finally speaks up, resting her hand on my bare chest. “You didn’t bring him into her life.”
“No, I did worse. I didn’t save her. Instead of protecting her, or insisting she leave him. I drove to his work and roughed him up. Took Nix with me and beat his ass. Told him to pack a bag and fuck off. But he didn’t. He was pissed and didn’t take too kindly to Missy telling me. She was dead the next day.”
“Oh, God, Beau. That’s not your fault.” She sits up and flicks the lamp on, bathing the room in orange light.
“No? Whose fault is it then?” I put it back on her. She’s no more to blame for Kelly than I am for Missy, but it doesn’t stop the guilt from being fed.
“His. He took her life. Not you.” Her eyes are red from crying and I’m a complete ass for putting this shit on her, but I can’t sit back and watch her travel down the same path as me.
“And you didn’t put Kelly in the hospital, darlin’.” Her shoulders sag in defeat when she understands what I’m getting at. “I know you want to blame yourself, but you have to fight it. There are always going to be moments in my day where I beat myself up over it. I was her big brother. I was meant to look after her and protect her. I can still see my mom falling to the floor when I had to tell her Missy was gone. I can still feel both of my parents pull away from me, from each other. I didn’t just lose Missy, Kenz. I lost my family. But I can’t change any of it. I can’t go back and save Missy. I can only do what I can now.”
“That’s why you started helping women? Started Missy’s Place?” she whispers, finally getting it.
“Yeah, darlin’. But it took me a long time to get here. Like you, I let it control me, but you don’t have to. You have all these people giving you grace and you’re pushing it away.”
“But how do I accept it when I don’t think I deserve it?”
“I learned a long time ago it doesn’t matter what you think you deserve. You can’t give yourself grace. You have to allow others to give it to you. No one blames you. Yes, this is a fucked-up situation. Yes, Kelly is still in a coma, but she’s not dead. You have to stay positive.” I reach forward and wipe her face. “You have to have hope. Fight for her. Fight for yourself. Don’t give up now, not when it matters the most.” Her tears are falling hard and fast now, but I don’t care. She needs to feel how real this is.
“You’re right, oh, God.” She buries her head into my chest. “I’ve just been so buried under this guilt, I haven’t seen anything around me. I’ve been selfish when I should’ve been fighting.”
“You’re the least selfish person I know, darlin’.” I hold her tightly against me, wishing she wouldn’t be so hard on herself.
“I can’t even stand myself right now, how can you?” She sniffles, her hot tears roll down my skin.
“Because the bitterness I’ve been carrying from Missy’s death doesn’t taste so sour in my mouth when you’re around. You changed me. You made me see everything differently. The way you think I’m seeing you right now, is so far from the truth. If I need to light one thousand candles for you to see yourself the way I do, then I will.”
“I don’t know what I did to deserve you.” She lets out a shaky breath, while wiping her face.
“Been asking myself the same question until I realized I don’t think I do deserve you. So I stopped asking myself and started loving you.” She looks up giving me one of her smiles. Only this time, I believe it all the way to my bones.
It’s the most beautiful smile she’s ever given me, because it means I haven’t lost her. She is still there. She’s fighting it, and that’s all I need. I can do the rest.
And I will.
I’ll do anything for this woman.
* * *
“How you doing, brother?” I ask Brooks a couple of days later on one of my daily visits to the hospital. His face is drawn downward and his beard is unkempt. He’s wearing clean clothes only because the girls have been bringing him some in, and he doesn’t look like skin and bones because the hospital has been feeding him, but besides that, the man is falling apart and I can’t blame him. I don’t know how I’d be coping if Kenz was lying in that hospital bed.
“She just needs to fucking wake up. Everything will be okay if she just woke up.” He drops his hand from Kelly’s and rests his elbows on her bed. I look over Kelly’s sleeping form and the overwhelming ache of helplessness grows. We’re no closer to knowing when she’ll wake. The doctors are saying she can wake any time. There is no reasoning with these types of brain injuries, we just have to be patient and wait it out. It’s the worst thing to hear. Sometimes the unknown is more frightening than the horrible truth.
“It’s going to work out, Brooks. You have to believe it, brother.” He nods but doesn’t say anything else. He’s probably sick of hearing it. From everyone. The whole clubhouse has stepped in. Always having someone here for when she wakes up. The girls come up every day, making sure someone is always with Kelly. Talking to her. Encouraging her to come around. Brooks hasn’t been alone but at the same time, he has. He’s alienated himself. And I get it, I do, but it’s hard to watch it. Watch him shut down and push everyone out.
We sit in silence for another twenty minutes until Brooks finally sits up and takes Kelly’s hand again.
“You find the fucker who did this yet?”
“Not yet. We’ve still got eyes out.” I hate we can’t give him the answer he wants. Yeah, Mayor Morre has been dealt with, but the man responsible for this needs to be found.
“I want him, Beau. I want him found and I want to deal with him.” I want him, too. After finding out who we’re looking for, Jesse and Hunter did some digging. It turns out it’s the same guy who threatened Mackenzie in Liquid.
Yeah, I’ll make sure we get him.
“We’re on it, brother. Rest assured, I will find him.” I offer the only thing I can: my word. We haven’t had any blow back from the Mayor. T’s promise on the Mayor turning up dead came through. A week after we left him alone in the barn with the Warriors, he was found dead a few hours out of town. Media called it gang war. Mayor Morre was apparently in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I called it good riddance.
“I want him to pay.” I nod, knowing that feeling all too well. Even with the blood on my hands, knowing Chad and the Mayor are gone, I can breathe easier.
“While we’re talking about club business, I need to talk to you about Missy’s Place. We decided we need to keep things moving on it.” I hate being the one to tell him we want to go ahead with it. It’s the last thing he needs to think about, but I won’t go ahead without him knowing. I’m not keeping it from him.
“Kelly would want you to go ahead. You can’t keep putting it off.” He gives his okay and I’m relieved. We’ve already put the staff off for three weeks. I don’t want to risk losing them.
“The club is gonna have a fundraiser night for the opening, you want to come?” I know it’s pointless asking him, but I told Mackenzie I would, just in case.
“I can’t leave her, man. What if she wakes up?”
“You’re right. I just wanted to
make sure you know you’re welcome.” A knock at the door stops Brooks from replying. I twist my head to watch Bell walk in.
“Hey, guys, how are we?” She steps into the room and walks over to Kelly. She’s wearing her nurse’s uniform today so I know she’s on shift.
“Hey, Bell.” I nod and watch her lean down and squeeze Kelly’s free hand.
“Morning, Kelly. Are you going to wake up for me today?” She smiles down at her before picking up her chart. “How was last night?” She looks up at Brooks.
“Same. Nothing.” He lets out a frustrated breath.
“She’s showing activity, Brooks. I know it’s hard but keep talking to her. Some people say they can hear what’s going on around them in this state. Everything helps.” She places Kelly’s chart back into place then moves around the bed.
“I’ll be back in later.” She waves us off, leaving just as fast as she came. The room falls silent again, and I wonder if I should just head out too. Mackenzie is at the clubhouse and I’m bringing her up later, so I can always stay longer when we return.
“I think I should head out. Give you some quiet time before the next visitor,” I tell him, deciding to leave. Every day he gets more distant and every day, it gets harder to watch it.
“How’s Mia?” He looks up, stopping my retreat and I see a flash of pain in his eyes.
“She’s doing okay. We’re taking her tonight. We can bring her down before dinner if you like.” I sit back down, letting this one play out.
“I don’t like her seeing Kell like this. The tubes and the machines, it’s too much. She was in yesterday.”
“I don’t think she minds. She just wants to see you and Kelly,” I try to reason with him. This subject has been a huge issue within the club the last four weeks. While Mia is being looked after by all of us, there are concerns for Brooks’ reluctance to have her around.
“I just can’t deal with her questions right now, Beau. She doesn’t understand. How can she? She’s five.” His jaw ticks and his body tenses. Agitation seeps from him, so I don’t push it. I know it’s his way of dealing, who am I to tell him otherwise? I have no idea how I would react in this situation.