Burn

by R. J. Lewis

  Finley was doing this on purpose, that piece of shit prick. The guy loved to push buttons, and with Jaxon barely around for Scorpion functions, he was now the target. Just thinking about it pissed him off. He shouldn’t be here in some back alley in the middle of the fucking night! Fuck Finley and fuck this douche bag moron who traded his life away to shoot his arm up for temporary pleasure.

  He was going to shoot him. That was the purpose of this, after all. His fingers lingered around the trigger…

  He shoved it back into his jeans and pulled the man up roughly by the collar of his shirt. Then he slammed him hard against the building and shook him with unrestrained rage.

  “You’re a pathetic piece of shit,” Jaxon growled, watching the man’s horror stricken face utter out whimpers. “Getting loans from a fucking mob boss to finance your drug habit and being unable to pay that shit back? You’re a fucking moron! If it was anyone else but me standing in this spot, they’d have shot your pathetic ass.”

  “Please–”

  “Shut the fuck up when I’m talking to you! You’re going to get the fuck out of town before sunrise and you’re never going to come back. You come back and you’re dead. Got it?”

  Like a bobble-head, the kid nodded over and over again. Jaxon shoved him to the ground and gave him a swift kick up the ass. The rabid druggie ran down the alleyway and out of site in record time.

  Jaxon sighed and rested his forehead against the side of the building. This wasn’t him. This wasn’t him. None of this was him.

  He couldn’t take it anymore.

  *****

  Jaxon felt pity for the guy, but what the hell could he do about it?

  He could do nothing but watch from afar at the way they knocked him around and then steeled him away into the toilets to rape the shit out of him. Yet another pretty face that had no chance the second he stepped foot here.

  As long as it wasn’t him, that’s all that mattered at the time. If another fish had to get fucked to keep the attention off of him, then so be it.

  Wow. Just the direction of those thoughts had stunned him. What the fuck have I become? The question plagued him as he went about his days.

  He was lucky he was a damn good fighter, and now that he knew these men were a bunch of cowards hiding behind a façade of strength, he never had his back turned to anyone.

  He watched the inmates closely, figuring out who was on top and who wasn’t. As he continued to subtly observe, he started putting the pieces together of what was going on around here. He knew where the power rested and he needed to get to it.

  And now began the orchestrating. He was going to do this, he told himself. After it was done, he would climb up and finish his sentence unscathed. And if he finished his sentence unscathed and got out of here… He would find her. He would find her and demand answers. Then he would make her his again because he was a lovesick fool who’d do anything for her.

  He later watched the same tall, pretty faced man stumble out of the toilets. The man could barely walk. Jaxon squashed his pity and moved on. The last thing he needed was to feel sorry for anyone other than himself.

  Nine

  Life went on. Days passed by. The world stayed the same. And I changed.

  I never left the clubhouse that winter. Remy wouldn’t allow it. He wanted me safe. The danger, he said, was still high, and if someone wanted me dead, they’d be watching carefully. What normally would have terrified me didn’t. I was supposed to be freaked the fuck out. I wasn’t. I just didn’t care anymore.

  I integrated within the club well. I got along with everyone. Rita wasn’t around often. I quickly learned from the old ladies that she was quite the promiscuous thing and had tried on several occasions to saddle up to an indifferent Logan, but Remy wanted none of that. He’d apparently said she wasn’t fit for the club life, and I wondered what made someone “fit” for the club life.

  Her destination was usually Winthrop, and she’d be gone for days on end with her buddies. Remy hated her friends, hated her outings, hated that he knew she was bouncing from guy to guy, but he’d resigned himself. She wasn’t a little girl. Everyone reminded him of that time and time again when she never picked up her calls. If she wanted to club in Winthrop and take random men home, that was her own business, he decided.

  On the occasions she was around, I’d cop some serious death glares. As if to test my patience, she’d mutter obscenities at me. It was easy to ignore her when I was preoccupied with clubhouse duties. I’d taken over caring for the small kids. Though children were strictly not allowed in the clubhouse, there was an exception to Prez’s niece, Darcy. She’d bring them around when she needed alone time with Barge, and Darcy’s boys, Jake and Mathew, were wild little things who loved ruckus and kept me on my feet chasing after them.

  Despite Remy allowing me to free roam the clubhouse, I was still being watched carefully by any bikie I was around – and I was always around a bikie. I think he expected me to bolt at any second, but I really had no desire to. My life was in shambles. I couldn’t call Lexi in fear of dragging her into this mess. I wasn’t even sure I could trust her. After learning about Daniel, my life felt ridiculously orchestrated, like I was surrounded by props instead of friends. I know it’s stupid to think that way of your best friend of seven years, but Daniel had lied to me impeccably, and that kind of mistrust had left me paranoid and wary.

  I did call her every now and then in the beginning. She was distraught every time. The fierce Lexi I’d grown to love would bawl on the other end every time, begging me to get out of Gosnells and to come home. After a while, I’d stopped calling her altogether. I was tired of the guilt tripping and how shitty I felt at hurting her for what she perceived was my abandonment. I couldn’t discuss how fucked up my life had gotten. So she was confused in her own right, but not completely oblivious to the dark I’d put her in.

  “If anything is wrong, you need to tell me,” she’d repeat to me every single time. “Sara, I’m tempted to come down and see you myself. Friends don’t do this to each other. You need to tell me what’s going on.”

  “Nothing is going on,” I’d respond. “I’m enjoying my time in Gosnells, Lexi. Please don’t be worried.”

  Then there was Lucinda. Every time I called her phone, I reached a dead end. There was never an answer. I’d left voicemail after voicemail, even told her the times I’d call her again, but nothing. I wanted to see her, but if Remy knew, I feared he’d get the wrong idea – that I still wanted Jaxon and was using her as an excuse.

  But of course I still wanted Jaxon. I would forever want him.

  Remy was another thing entirely. Things changed after that night I’d almost given him my body. In my heart broken state, I’d intended on using him like I used Daniel: as a way to forget Jaxon for even a few moments. I felt sick for doing it. It was wrong, and I vowed never to use another person again. With Daniel it had been mutual, but with Remy it was different. He wanted more. No, he needed more. He’d said so himself the day after that night. Well… it was along those lines and said in Remy fashion.

  “Ain’t no one gonna be looking at you in a way that don’t need to be looked at,” he’d told me after I’d stepped out of the shower. He was standing in the middle of the room with purpose, like this was something that needed to be understood and accepted.

  “What are you on about?” I asked, raising a brow. I hated this code crap, and I could hardly understand him sometimes when he spoke this kind of jargon.

  “What I’m saying, Birdy, is here, among us Jackals, you’re gonna be mine and nobody else’s.” Cue his serious, authoritative look.

  “Um… Okay, Remy.” I’d say anything to pacify him.

  Something occurred to him then. “That goes with anybody else outside of the Jackals. So long as you’re sleeping in that bed with me every night, no one’s going to be lookin’ at you.”

  I nodded and then awkwardly went to walk past him. He grabbed me lightly by the arm and planted me right in front
of him.

  “I’m being serious, Sara.”

  I nodded again. “I know but, Remy, I can’t control the way people look at me.”

  “Point I’m making is that you shouldn’t encourage it. I want your loyalty. I want…” He pressed his lips together in a line as confliction shone on his face. This was new territory for him.

  “I understand,” I said softly. “It’ll just be you.”

  He squeezed my arm at my words and made a small nod. He was wearing his emotions on his sleeve around me. It worried me sometimes witnessing his desperate need to have me for reasons I would never even pretend to understand. Often I wondered if he understood it, either.

  I didn’t see his kiss coming until his lips were pressed against my own, and it made my heart skip a beat. His first real move and it wasn’t sloppy or in haste like mine was in my desperation to forget him. It was soft and slow and it said, I’m going to wait as long as it takes. Ever patient Remy.

  I didn’t anticipate the relationship. It sort of just happened. Every time he left on “business”, he’d kiss me before he went. It didn’t matter where I was, in front of others or even on my own, he’d kiss me with such tenderness, my lips felt tingly long after he’d gone. This wasn’t wrong, I’d console myself. I wasn’t using him. I actually felt… good when I did it. Jaxon didn’t plague my mind when Remy was around. I think my heart was thawing for him. I still felt like there was a glacial wall in the centre of my being, but it was like he was hacking away at it with a tiny pickaxe.

  The nights were the most tempting. It started as a quick good night kiss, then after a few days, it lingered longer than usual. After a few weeks, it was full blown make-out sessions. I’d grip him hard at the shoulders, nails digging into his skin, fighting the shudders between my legs that were begging me to surrender to him. I never took it further, and he never pushed.

  I just couldn’t. I couldn’t… because what if out there he was still holding out for me?

  *****

  “I’m not going to take it that far,” I stressed, feeling pressured and annoyed I’d opened my mouth at all.

  Lucinda ignored me as she parked in front of the pharmacy. She had my script in her bag after we’d left the doctor’s.

  “Lucinda, please,” I begged.

  “And what if it does go that far?” she retorted, turning her body to me. The seriousness in her gaze rendered me speechless. That look was usually reserved for Jaxon, not me. “What if you’re kissing Jordan and things get a little hot and heavy?”

  My face burned. I couldn’t look her in the eye about this. It was just too weird.

  “Well, answer me, Sara! I want to know.”

  I heaved a shrug. “I don’t know! I’d tell him to stop.”

  “Then you’re an idiot,” she snapped. “You’ve kissed him before, obviously. Right?”

  “Yeah…”

  “Did you ever want to keep going?”

  Any second my cheeks would burst into flames. “I-I don’t know. Not really. Sometimes I’d want to put my arms around his neck.”

  She looked at me pathetically. “Arms around his neck? What the hell? Poor Jordan if that’s all you’re willing to do…”

  My jaw dropped, and she raised her brows challengingly. “I’m sorry I’m not out screwing him as we speak!” I sarcastically said with a roll of my eyes.

  “What if he wants more? Are you going to keep stringing him along?”

  “If he wants more, he can wait until I want it too.”

  “You’ve been with him over a year, Sara–”

  “And what’s another four?” I was being a cheeky little wench. I had to bite my inner cheek to keep from smiling at my ridiculous words.

  “Sara, I’m being serious,” she replied. She ran a stressful hand through her blonde hair and stared out the windshield for a few moments. Her blue eyes were lost in some kind of thought that turned the atmosphere into something heavier, sadder. “There are only so many times a man can hear no. Only so many times before his self-control reaches its limit. A reasonable man would walk away, but a man obsessed will take you however he can until he can’t hold back.”

  Whoa. Jordan was just a fifteen year old. Nothing we did was serious. We’d kissed like crazy and made out on occasion, but when I stopped, he did too. He’d been shy about his sexuality and would turn away to hide his bulging erection in his pants as if it was the most humiliating thing ever. Talk about awkward…

  “You need to be prepared. You need to be protected. Just in case, Sara.”

  I exhaled in defeat. “Fine. You want to drug my body with hormonal crap, go for it.”

  “God help us when you’re on it,” she muttered as she exited the car. “You’re already a little witch.”

  Ten

  Once a month, every Jackal in Gosnells showed up at the clubhouse for a barbecue. I don’t know why they called it a barbecue, though. There was no actual fucking barbecue; just a lot of home-made meals from the old ladies.

  I noticed this particular “barbecue” had more Jackals than I’d ever seen before. When I asked Remy about them, he said they’d been kicking around lately for “business.” These men were from different chapters, and their new faces made me uncomfortable. They seemed looser than the others, coming in through the doors screaming and howling like a bunch of obnoxious men. They brought an absurd amount of alcohol, and judging by how rowdy they were sober, I dreaded to think how much worse they’d get when drinking.

  One man in particular, by the name of Edge, was the scariest one of them all. He was a huge, bulky man, at least six and a half feet tall. Wearing only his jeans and his patch vest with nothing underneath, his physique reminded me of Damien. But where Damien had a caring nature, this man did not. Without a trace of humour, his eyes reminded me of steel: cold and hard.

  As they socialized, I walked around, keeping an eye on Mathew and Jake as they chased each other around with water pistols. I felt two sets of eyes on me. The first set of eyes came from Frank, but I was far used to them by now. Every time the old man kicked around, he’d watch me like a hawk with an indecipherable expression on his face. It actually got worse the day Darcy celebrated my birthday. She was the planner in the clubhouse, and a birthday forgotten in her eyes was the biggest sin in the world. When Frank had walked in on the mini-party, he had a look of anger so sharp it made my heart skip a beat. He’d turned around and left. Since then, he kept his distance, but stared and stared. While I’d been self-conscious about it at first, its regularity no longer fazed me. If he wanted to be a creep and stare at me then he could knock himself out.

  However, I’ll admit it was comforting at a time like this because the second set of eyes was coming from Edge. He was seated at one of the round tables next to a fat man with a beard that reached his chest. It was a stiff looking beard too, as if he’d put aside an hour to hair spray that shit or something.

  “You got yourself a fan,” said Tessa, emerging beside me with a bottle of beer in each hand. She offered me one and I took it.

  “Does he come around a lot?” I quietly asked her, though I doubted it because I’d been around for months and hadn’t seen him once.

  We were facing Edge’s line of sight, and I hated that Tessa was freely eyeing him uncaringly. Could she make it any more obvious we were talking about him?

  “Sorta. He comes around every now and then. He’s the VP in the chapter at Northam, which is right at the border, so you can imagine how important they are to us.”

  I reflected on Remy’s words. That to be a VP young wasn’t easy. Judging by Edge, he looked to be in his thirties, and that was young for his role. He was a thing to be feared, I was sure of it.

  “Yo, Sara-bara,” Logan said from behind me. I turned around, rolling my eyes at the stupid nickname he’d been calling me lately.

  “What?”

  “Remy wants to talk to you.” He held out his cell phone.

  I took it and put it to my ear. “Hey, Rem,”

>   “I’m at the shops. What the fuck did you say you wanted again?”

  “Yeah, I need some tampons.”

  “What the fuck are tampons?”

  “You know what tampons are.”

  “What brand?”

  “The ‘Ladies Comfort’ ones.”

  I heard some shuffling on the other end. “There’s no ‘Ladies Comfort’ shit here. It’s a goddamn nightmare in this section. Weird grannies everywhere, lookin’ at me like I’m some tampon creep. Am I wearing somethin’ that belongs to you?” I heard a startled gasp in the background. “Yeah, walk away.”

  “Relax, Remy, and stop scaring women in the tampon aisle. I’d have gotten it myself if you let me out–”

  “Doesn’t Darcy have some shit lying around?”

  “No, she doesn’t. I asked her.”

  “Are you even on your period?”

  I sighed, noticing Tessa leaning into me and listening to our discussion with a huge grin on her face.

  “Just forget about it,” I told him. “I’ll go with Darcy and Tessa to the shops tomorrow and grab some.”

  “You aren’t going alone with them old ladies. You can take Russo with you. And Vince. And Broom, too. Hell, I’ll just go with you.”

  I sighed again. He always had a Jackal or two stalking us when, if ever, we left the compound. That was a rarity, though. “Alright, Remy. Fine.”

  “Anything else you wanted?”

  “Cereal.”

  “That nasty rainbow shit you eat?”

  “Yeah, that one.”

  “Alright. Be there soon.”

  “Okay, bye.”

  He hung up. I used to think it was rude he never said good bye at the end of a call. Then I realized that was just another Remy thing, and there were a lot of Remy things.

  “You got that man wrapped around your little finger,” Tessa smiled. “Never seen him act like this since… well, never. Do you have rainbows coming out of your vagina or something?”