Amy nods and tucks some hair behind her ear. I hate the way she always looks at the floor before meeting my gaze. I want to tell myself it's because she's so submissive, that she's afraid to look at me, but I don't think that's it at all. I think she's gathering herself, pulling her thoughts into an organized procession, so that she knows how to look, how to react. It's a good skill, one that I'm pretty fucking certain I don't have or will ever have.
“Just me and you?” I ask and she opens her mouth to respond.
“Nah, sugar pie, you got me!”
I roll my eyes to the ceiling and glance over at Beck. He's strutting down the hallway like the piece of shit ginger fuck that he is, grinning from ear to ear and looking like the cat that got the cream.
“And Gaine if he's up for it.” I look over my shoulder and make sure the door is closed firmly behind me. I'd like to stay away from Gaine Kelley for the day if at all possible. I look back at Beck. His goatee is gone, shaved clean away for the first time in probably three years. His shirt is soaked in sweat and I'm pretty sure it's the same one he was wearing last night.
“He's asleep. Leave him the fuck alone.” Beck laughs at me and even elbows Amy who gets real wide-eyed and doe like. I glare at Austin's friend and it isn't difficult for me to remember why, despite his physical perfection, we've never slept together. Ay, qué idiota! “And why the hell are you hairless all of a sudden?” I gesture at my chin while Beck's grin grows to grotesque proportions, stretching across his sunburnt face like a disease.
“Ain't the only place I'm hairless now,” he says with another laugh.
“Oh.” That's all that comes out of Amy's mouth before I'm turning on my heel and marching down the hallway towards the elevators. The ache between my brows has grown into a massive migraine already, and it's not even eight o'clock yet. This day is not looking good.
“Hey, hold up, I gotta thank you for turning down that girl last night. What was her name? Cassie?”
“Crystal.” I spit the word out like a curse as I jam my thumb on the button for the elevator.
“Yeah, yeah, that was it. Anyhow, I gotta thank you for turning her down. Woo wee, that girl was crazy. Shaved every damn inch of my body from head to toe. Got off on it crazy hard, too.” Beck tries to show me the gleaming tats on his forearms, the reapers, skulls and tombstones shining like they were freshly inked. “Let's just say, I never had such a weird ass lay in all my life.”
The elevator doors slide open and I step inside, slumping against the railing with a sigh as I watch Amy covering her mouth and trying not to laugh. Beck notices and thumps her on the back hard enough that she stumbles.
“You like war stories there, sugar pie?” he asks, laughing his annoying ass off while the doors begin to slide closed. But not nearly fast enough. My stomach drops when I see Gaine come flying out of the hotel room, pants unzipped, boots in his hand. His hair is stuck up every which way and his eyes are sticky with sleep.
“Yo, wait up!” he calls, and I'm tempted to hit Beck in the nuts, so he'll drop his arm and let the doors slide closed. No such luck. Instead, Gaine comes sliding into the elevator in his socks, looking like a much more attractive version of Tom Cruise in Risky Business. “Shit, fuck,” he says, dropping his adopted Southern accent. “Why the hell did you sneak out like that?” he asks me as I do my best to keep our arms from touching. I don't know what's up with me, but when I look into Gaine's face, I feel something untwisting inside, falling away from my heart, leaving it bare and nervous. It's beating reminds me of the hooves of a herd of wild horses, pounding the earth and making my fingers quiver. I squeeze them tight around my arms, curling my nails into the leather of my jacket. What's with the nerves all of a sudden? I'm too old for this love shit.
I get out a cigarette and put it between my lips, watching Gaine as he leans back and slips his boots on.
“I didn't sneak anywhere. I got up to take care of my shit. Who invited you anyway?” Gaine gives me a look while Beck chuckles in the background. The fucker thinks everything under the sun is funny. I wish he wasn't such a badass or I'd have beaten the crap out of him already.
“I did,” Amy chirps up like a stupid songbird or something. My hands clench tight as I wonder when the two of them had the chance to chat. “Well, not directly, but when we were having drinks the other day, I said he should come help me rescue Christy.” She smiles and puts her hand on Gaine's arm. Inside of me, something snaps and the cigarette drops out of my mouth, hitting my boot and bouncing across the elevator. I want to hit her, I won't lie. Instead, I clench my hands at my sides and glare so hard, I'm sure she can feel my gaze pummeling her perfect skin, incinerating her.
Amy's hand falls to her side as Gaine bends down and picks up the cigarette, handing it to me with a weird look on his face. His lips twitch a bit as he watches me, saying things with his eyes that he dare not speak aloud, especially not with company. I fold my arms across my chest and fall back with a grunt.
When the doors on the first floor open up, I'm the first one out, stomping across the lobby in knee-high leather boots and a scowl that could melt metal. People part when they see me coming and nobody complains. Behind me, Beck, Gaine and Amy struggle to keep up, following me out into the muggy afternoon and the silent roar of summer. There aren't many people, hardly any cars, but the sounds ambush me, crushing me with the buzz of insects and the whirring of air conditioning units.
“Oh, thank goodness,” Amy says from behind me. “There's Christy's car. She should be inside. I tried to get her to come to the hotel directly, but her uncle owns it so … ” I tune her out and don't respond, just roll my eyes and wonder who thought it was a good idea to meet at the twenty-four dive in the middle of this shitty town. It's not exactly inconspicuous. There isn't a single other car parked outside the crappy little building.
Gaine catches up to me and walks shoulder to shoulder with me as we make our way to the front doors and push them open together. Inside the bar, sitting alone on the cracked black leather of an old stool isn't Christy, the unassuming Southern belle. Instead, it's Will fucking Walker. swear on the very depths of my soul that it will be the last.
He doesn't turn to look at us when we enter, just sits there nursing a beer like he doesn't have a care in the world. This early in the morning, he's the only patron. Even the bartender is missing. Not a good sign.
I pause and pull the tire iron out of my jeans, pausing only when I hear the click of a hammer being pulled back.
“Drop the gun, sweetheart,” says a voice from behind and to my left. I don't even look, letting Beck work his magic behind me. As long as there's less than four armed men, we'll probably be alright.
“What the fuck is this shit?” I ask Will, feeling my heart clenching with rage, begging me to charge forward and unleash the pain I'm nursing onto the world. If I could, if I let it go, would that make things different? If I did that, would the weird emotions I'm feeling towards Gaine be able to become something else? Only one way to find out.
I move forward and pause only when Will turns and levels his 9mm on my chest, pursing my lips and barely blinking when Gaine steps up beside me, a gun held out in front of him. Didn't even know he had it to be honest with you. I'm not used to scuffles like this. Triple M pretty much stays on the sidelines. We have minor brawls, fist fights, maybe a swinging baseball bat here and there, but nothing that requires firepower. Can't say that I like it much.
I examine Kelley's metal, a sleek piece of silver that doesn't mean much to me. I'm a bike girl, not a gun girl. You'd think the two interests would go hand in hand, but trust me, there's a difference.
“Now, I'm not here to start shit with y'all. I simply want an answer to my question.” I spit at the floor and bark out a laugh, letting my eyes slide surreptitiously around the room. I want to know how many of his people are here and where they're at and what they're up to. I doubt Austin expected anything to happen to us during a two minute walk across the street. I didn't hear any bikes p
ull into town last night, so I'm guessing the whole MC isn't here, probably just a few guys. That puts things in our favor. If we're not back in ten, I'm sure half of Triple M will be down here at Austin's behest. I know he wouldn't let anything happen to his precious little Amy Cross. Speaking of which, I glance over my shoulder and find her with a can of pepper spray in hand, eyes narrowed, nostrils flared. She looks pissed.
“Where's Christy?” she asks, bringing my mind back around to her friend. Oh, fuck. This could be bad, really bad. I swing my gaze back around to Will Walker as he rises from the stool with a grunt, leather creaking as he stretches his arms above his head and gives us a crooked toothed smile. Hillbilly fuck with ugly ass teeth. God, I sure would like to see those yellow monstrosities lying chipped and ruined on the splintery wood floor. I clench my fingers around the metal and lick my lips.
“Your friend is fine,” Will says with a wink, and I notice that Gaine stiffens, finger tightening like it's having a muscle spasm, going stiff as a board. I know he knows about my past. In a night of blind idiocy, I spilled everything to him. Maybe not the best choice I ever made, but what's done is done. Gaine knows more than anyone else about what I went through back then and vengeance is burning in his blood. Thing is, this vengeance is mine for the taking. “She's just hangin' in the back with some of my boys.” My body goes cold then, straight from molten to ice. The transition is so quick that it makes me dizzy, and I almost sway on my feet. Only Gaine's solidness beside me keeps me still. Why the fuck is that, I wonder?
“You touch her and you can forget shit, Walker. I will cut off your nuts and feed 'em to you, one misshapen, sterile, inbred bite at a time. And then I'll move onto your dick. You don't even want to know what sort of creative ideas I have for that useless piece of hypocrisy.” Will just laughs and shakes his head, secure in his fallacies and his stupidity, his ignorance and all the horrible misogynistic bull that's floating around this community. Biker bitches don't mean shit, not to him, not to a lot of people.
I start to wonder if I was put on this earth to prove them wrong.
“Beck, you okay back there?” I ask, voice neutral, calm. I won't give anything away. Don't have to. Sometimes, when other people think less of you, it's best to let 'em. Then, when it's time to come in and kick their ass, they won't see it coming. El día que se muere, la tierra va a llorar lágrimas de alegría.
Will doesn't think women are worth a damn, so he doesn't think they're a threat to be reckoned with.
“All good back here, lady cakes,” he says, and I smile.
Two steps forward, elbow cocked back, and then I slam the tire iron against the side of Will's face. He doesn't scream, doesn't cry out, just drops to the floor like a sack of fucking potatoes. Shouts ring out from behind the door to the back room where I stumbled upon Austin fucking Amy for the first time. What a momentous occasion that was. I didn't think anything of it then. I just thought she was another random fuck, a girl that would disappear into a history of blurry faces. I wonder sometimes if the most important events in life are cloaked in obscurity on purpose, just to screw with us.
Gaine doesn't hesitate in firing back, one handed mind you which is pretty damn impressive. His other arm comes out and snakes around my waist, pulling me tight against his hot body, the pulsing thrum of energy he carries around with him always. I was immune to it, or at least I thought I was. Until now. Now, even in a hail of gunfire, I feel like I'm bent over the fire, heating back up and rising like steam. That coldness fades away in a split second, retreating back to whence it came, and then I'm just hot and angry again. And compared to that strange coldness, it's a fucking blessing.
“What the fuck were you thinking, Mireya Sawyer?” he says and he sounds like a New Yorker again. He's been surrounded by viscous, Southern drawls since he was sixteen, so it's rubbed off on him pretty heavily, but like me, when he gets stressed, it's back to resting on his laurels. I've got Castilian, and he's got Upstate New York. What a pair we make.
“Screw you, Kelley,” I say, even as we drop to the floor in a flurry of activity. Vaguely, I remember Amy and feel a surge of panic in my chest. I try to check for her, but Gaine's yanking me behind a table and holding me tight against him while the room quiets down and an eerie silence descends. I don't see Beck or Amy, but I pray to God that she's alright. If I were to get her killed, Austin would never forgive me. I would never forgive me. I might not like the girl, but I feel responsible towards her somehow. Maybe it's some latent mothering bullshit or something? I don't know. I just don't want her to get killed by a bunch of rapists with guns.
“The fuck is wrong with you? Do you have a death wish or somethin'?” Gaine whispers in my ear while we wait in tense anticipation for somebody to make the next move. Things have got to happen fast from this point on, before the cops get here. Nobody wants to deal with cops.
“Don't talk to me like I'm stupid, Gaine,” I growl at him, pausing my rant early to listen to the sound of a door swinging open. A couple pairs of boots move into my vision and a blonde girl with red eyes and wet cheeks falls to her knees not six feet from where we're crouching.
“Where the fuck is Tray? We want honest answers this time.” My hands clench involuntarily, curling into fists so tight, I feel like the bones might burst from my skin and cut me open. Mack. Tray's other brother. Unfortunate isn't it that the world seems to breed idiots in excess.
I untangle myself from Gaine's arms, despite his protests and rise to my feet. They won't shoot me. Yet. They want to hear what I have to say. I need to keep it that way until I get the girl back. I may not know her personally, but I know what they'll do to her if they take her out of here. She will be doomed to a short, painful life of hell, and it'll be at least partially my fault. I hope that she's escaped my fate thus far.
I look down at the girl before I bother acknowledging Mack. She seems alright, a little roughed up maybe, but she doesn't have that vacant look in her eye like she's been betrayed. Got here just in time, I reckon.
My eyes move up a pair of dusty boots, past faded jeans, a red tee and onto a baby face that will never cross over into handsome. I imagine that Mack will always look like a kid, probably right up until the day he gets wrinkled up like a fucking prune. Tray stole all the good genes in this family, the physical ones anyway. There wasn't much else worth having to be found in this lineup. I stare at Mack and try to reconcile what I use to think about him with what he did to me, and what he's doing now.
He looks over at his brother's crumpled form and wrinkles his nose. The three men behind him keep their eyes on Gaine when he stands up behind me. They just saw me smash Will's face in with a tire iron and they're not taking me seriously. Oh, well. Their ignorance is my bliss.
“If he's dead, you're done, Mireya.” I try not to laugh. Nobody else might've noticed, but I can hear the soft clink of chains behind the bar. Once Beck gets to the other side, these guys are all done for. They may as well kiss the world goodbye. I smile instead.
“I can only hope,” I say, and Mack's blue eyes flick up to mine and hold there with grim determination. Inside, he's a fucking pussy. On the outside, he's playing a good game. I always thought he could be an actor if he wanted, would probably enjoy it, too. And I'm not a hundred percent certain, but I think he's gay as well. Not that it matters to me, but I wonder what his ignorant asshole buddies would say if they found out. “You want Tray back? You're going to have to do an awful lot of traveling to find his ass.”
Mack holds up his gun, points it straight at my face. I hold my hand out to keep Gaine from reacting in my defense. He's always been good in a fight before, always stood by my side, but I don't know if I've ever seen him so protective. I can't tell if I hate it or … No. No. I hate it. I can take care of my damn self.
“And what the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Mack asks, stepping forward aggressively, his shaking shoulders the only indication that he's actually terrified by the situation.
“You don't owe them anything,
Mireya,” Gaine whispers, voice so low that I'm probably the only one that can hear it. “Just keep quiet and wait 'em out. I think I hear sirens anyhow.”
I ignore him.
“I mean, if his pathetic, miserable, useless soul is still floating around somewhere, it's buried in the depths of hell. It's going to take an awful lot of good riding to find him down there.”
Beck explodes from behind the bar like a machine, muscles hard as rocks, joints like pistons. He pounds the space between the man closest to him in seconds, slamming his elbow into the blonde's temple and dropping him before any of the others can even turn to look.
I move forward, taking advantage of Beck's movements to cloak the iron in my hand until it's too late, swinging it hard and drawing blood from Mack's forehead as he crumples. Deep down, a monster stirs and kicks, begging me to keep swinging, to destroy this man and all the rest with a pounding beat of rage and violence. Take that vengeance and destroy them. There's a good chance that I'll get arrested then, or that I won't be able to stop. My arm draws back and all of a sudden, my hand's missing my weapon. I spin to find Gaine behind me and nearly kick him in the balls when he reaches out and grabs me around the waist, tossing me over his shoulder like a helpless heroine in a romance novel.
“Put me the fuck down!” I scream, but he's already spinning us around, flashing me a quick look at Amy Cross, who's still alive, thankfully, and a panoramic view of the dazed Crows as we sprint towards the front door and burst out into the heat, trailing Beck behind us. He's got Amy's friend scooped up in his arms and is booking it with Amy at his heels.
Loving Me, Trusting You Page 7