by Paula Cox
“Wow,” he says. “This is . . . wow. Did you really paint this?”
His mouth is open in disbelief. “Yes,” I mutter uncomfortably. I always get uncomfortable when people look at my art in the same room as me. I don’t mind when people look at it when I’m not there. But when I can see their reaction, it scares the hell out of me. But Killian isn’t judging; he’s shocked.
“This is serious stuff, isn’t it?” he says. “This is the sort of stuff you see in galleries. Damn, Hope, you’ve got some talent. Where shall I put it? I want to see the others.”
“Oh, really?”
But he’s already handing me the painting. I take it and lay it on the coffee table.
He picks up another. This one shows a lone woman, like the other, but this woman stands next to a barn. A herd of buffalo charge out of the barn, and her face is stricken with fear. She’s caught trying to flee as one of the buffalo turns toward her. “It’s meant to be her worries and anxieties and . . .”
“Look at this detail,” he says. “This is serious, serious talent. Hang on a second then, Hope. You’re a chef and an artist?”
He turns to me, smiling. Not smirking, but full-on smiling. He looks down at me proudly. I blush. I can’t help it. This is the first time somebody has looked at me like that for my art. My chest fills with warmth.
“Where did you learn to do this?”
“I taught myself,” I say. My voice is raspy. I realize I’m breathing heavily. I try to stop it, but I’m overflowing with warmth. He can’t believe how good I am! I think, giddy. Surely that’s the most flattering thing an artist can experience?
“Taught yourself . . .”
He hands me the barn painting, and picks up another, and then another and another, until he’s gone through all thirteen paintings which were piled up next to my bedroom. Now they’re all laid upon the coffee table.
“You never mentioned it,” he says. “When I asked what you wanted to be, you didn’t say.”
I paw at the carpet with my toe, like a girl who’s just been asked to prom. I can’t look him in the eye. I feel exposed, more exposed than I did at the ferris wheel, even. Then we were just sharing bodies. Now he’s looking directly into my heart.
“It makes me nervous,” I admit. “When you’re an artist . . . I don’t know. It just makes you really nervous to have people look at your work. What if you thought I was no good?”
“You’re not a nervous person, Hope,” Killian says.
He closes the distance between us and stands directly opposite me, close enough so that we can breathe in the scents of each other, close enough so that we can feel the heat of each other. Close enough so that we want to screw each other’s brains out right here, right now.
“You’re beautiful, funny, talented and smart. You don’t need to be self-conscious, pretty lady.”
“It’s only about personal stuff like that,” I mutter, looking up into his face.
He stares down at me seriously, his jaw clenched, his hair in loose strands around his eyes.
“Never let anybody tell you you’re not incredible,” he breathes. “Never let anybody tell you that you aren’t worth a damn. You’re worth more than this whole damned town combined.”
He speaks with a deep intensity.
“Why do you care so much, Mr. Biker?” I say, my voice turning sweet. Am I enjoying this? Hell yes, I’m enjoying this. My body is suddenly alive. My nipples are hard. My pussy aches for him, aches for him to be inside of me again.
He lifts his hand to my face, cradles it in his hand. I nuzzle into it, the same way a cat does when stroked, but I don’t care. Maybe that’s what I’ll be. His cat. I would’ve laughed only two days ago, but a lot can change in just two days. I’ve learnt that in the most sensational way.
“I care because it’s true and I want you to believe it’s true. I care because you’re the best—” He cuts short, shocked by his own words.
“What?” I urge him. I bring my hand to his face, cradling him as he cradles me. His stubble tickles my palm, but I don’t care. All I care about is this moment, the warmth between us, the way his eyes seem to peer past my face and directly into me.
Distantly, a voice calls: Don’t forget that this man is a violent outlaw. Don’t forget the rumors. Don’t forget who he is!
But I ignore the voice, ignore my doubts, and repeat, with more force: “What? What were you going to say?”
“It’s mad, Hope, but I care about you more than I’ve cared about any woman—”
Dawn’s bedroom door crashes open. She stumbles into the living room, turns in a full circle, and then crashes into the TV.
When she lands on the floor, she starts singing in a slurred, jumbled voice.
The moment is torn away like a Band-Aid, exposing a raw wound beneath.
Killian and I let go of each other’s faces and rush across the room to Dawn. She stops singing and glares up at me, her eyes heavy, her lips dry and chapped, her head lolling from side to side like a baby’s.
“Oh, no,” I sigh, and then the sigh turns into a sob. Before I have a chance to process it, tears are streaming down my cheeks. But they’re useless tears and I ignore them. They’re tears I have cried many times before. I wipe my cheek with the back of my hand and kneel down next to Dawn. “What did you take?” I ask her, heart breaking with each word. “Dawn, what did you take? Can you tell me that?”
“That her room?”
I nod. “Yes,” I say, angry at the sadness in my voice.
Killian circles around us and goes into Dawn’s bedroom.
My sweet little sister, who yesterday looked like an angel in her flowing dress, looks like a rodent now. Her chapped lips pull back over her teeth to reveal mole-like teeth, yellow, black in places. He cheeks are sallow, her eyes pitted and black. The whites of her eyes are bloodshot and her irises are dilated into huge saucers.
“I just want’a feel somethin’,” she slurs. “I just want’a feel anythin’. Don’t b’mad. Don’t b’mad.” She starts shaking, her chest lurching up and down like there’s something inside of her trying to burrow out. She screams. “Don’t b’mad! Don’t b’mad! Don’t b’mad!”
“Shh, shh,” I say, wrapping my arms around her and lifting her off the ground to my chest. “Quiet, sweet. Quiet.” I stroke my hand through the sweaty tendrils of her hair, matted to her scalp. “You don’t need to worry,” I whisper, making sure to keep the tears from my voice. The tears which continually slide down my cheeks like warm rain.
I rock her back and forth, whispering to her the entire time, and soon she stops shaking. Then, in the voice of a different woman, she giggles: “We goin’n’a pony ride, sissy?”
“Yes,” I say, rocking her. “That’s all it is, sweet girl.”
I look up and see Killian standing in the doorway, a needle in one hand, a belt in the other.
She’s relapsed, I think numbly.
Chapter Ten
Killian
“She’s an addict?” I ask, holding up the needle and belt.
Hope nods as she rocks Dawn back and forth like a child. “She’s an addict,” she says.
“Okay, okay.” I turn back into the bedroom and turn it over, tipping over the mattress and rooting through drawers, searching like a madman. I find extra needles and pipes and aluminum foil strips and baggies and cotton balls. I find it all and then I pile it on the bed. I walk out of the bedroom into the kitchen.
“What are you doing?” Hope whispers, stroking Dawn’s forehead.
“I can’t be involved with someone who uses drugs, but I can help. I can help her kick it for good. I’ve done it before.”
“Really?” Hope’s voice is full of hope. “Dawn is tough, Killian. She won’t let anyone wrangle her for long.”
“Don’t forget, pretty lady, I’m pretty tough, too.”
I find a plastic bag and return to the bedroom. I stuff all of her paraphernalia into it then I shove it—carefully because of the needles—into my p
ants pocket. I return to the living room. Dawn is slack-jawed, collapsed into her sister’s arms and staring up at the ceiling with a spaced-out expression I know so well. I’ve detoxed members of the Satan’s Martyrs over the years, members we couldn’t afford to lose. Drugs are an absolute no, without question. Drugs are something I just can’t tolerate.
“What are we going to do?” Hope asks.
“I’m renting us a house, out near Sapphire Lake. We’ll take Dawn there and we’ll get her off the gear for good.”
“You don’t understand, Killian. She’s very—”
“You t’k’in’ ‘bout me?” Dawn sighs. “Don’t t’k ‘bout me l’k’ I’m not ‘ere!”
“Hush, sweet girl,” Hope says, wiping sweat from Dawn’s face. “Hush, it’s okay.”
“I’m fl’in’,” Dawn slurs.
“Where’s her cell?” I say.
“Her cell? Why?”
“Just tell me.” The words come out snappish, but there isn’t much I can do about that. Perhaps Dawn is a nice person. Perhaps she’s funny and smart. Perhaps she’s witty and bright and intelligent. When she’s sober. But the best person in this world is a fool when they’re high.
“If it’s not in her bedroom, it’s in her coat pocket, hanging on a hook near the door.”
“Okay.”
I find her coat—a long pale pink coat—and reach into the pocket. When I find it, I take it out and scroll through her contacts. When I find Shane—Dealer, I memorize the number. Then I drop it to the floor and stamp on it, again and again, until it is completely destroyed.
“What the hell?” Hope calls, and then quieter: “Hush, you’re safe. Quiet, love.”
“Get rid of the dealers’ numbers, that’s step one. Get rid of this crap.” I pat my pants pocket. “That’s step two.”
“And what’s step three?”
“I get us a car and a house to hold up in. Dawn is going to ride this out, Hope.”
Hope look down at Dawn sadly. “Do you really think you can help her?” she says.
“I know I can. But it’s going to be tough. She’s going to hurt, Hope. Hurt bad.”
“But you can help her?”
“Yes,” I say, without pause.
She nods. “Then let’s do it.”
And then Dawn begins to cry. Hope wraps her arms around her sister and holds her close, singing a lullaby.
I take out my cell and dial Gunny.
Hope is muttering fiercely to Dawn, quick whispers I only catch snippets of. “You can do this . . . you’re okay . . . strong . . . fight . . . please . . .”
I pace up and down at the other side of the room, the phone ringing in my ear, the plastic bag pressing into my thigh through my pants—the needles pointed away from me. Gunny answers after half a minute.
“Boss,” he says. “Something wrong?”
“I need you to rent me a house on Sapphire Lake,” I tell him. “It needs to be big, and peaceful. The kind of house they show on those billboards to attract tourists. You know the kind I mean?”
“Yeah, Boss, sure, but why?”
“Don’t worry about why, Gunny, just do it.”
“Yes, Boss. On it now.”
“I don’t care if the landlord or whoever is asleep. If you have to, ride over there and wake him up. I need it ready for tomorrow morning at sunrise. When you’ve booked it, you need to buy me a few things for it. Got a pen?”
“Yeah, wait a sec.” Gunny rustles around and then returns to the phone. “Okay, Boss, ready.”
“Okay, good. I need seven days’ worth of bottled water. Lots of clear soda. Ginger ale, Sprite, whatever . . . something you’d drink after throwing up. Energy drinks—find something that has electrolyte on the label. And survival food, fatty food and sugary food. White bread, peanut butter, crackers, eggs, yogurt, soup, bananas, stuff like that.”
“Anything else?” Gunny asks. The sound of his pen scratching the paper stops. I see him there, poised in a chair with the pen looking tiny in his huge hand, waiting for me to go on.
“Yeah. After that, go to the pharmacy. I need Imodium, Tagament, NyQuil, DayQuil, some allergy medicine . . . doesn’t matter which one but make sure it’s strong. Ask the guy what the strongest is. If he tells you it’s only for prescription or something foolish like that, let him know who you are.”
Gunny grunts out a chuckle. “That’s not a problem, Boss.”
“Okay, get some anti-diarrhea meds, anti-nausea capsules, and then get some painkillers. A fair amount of painkillers. Then all we need is some antibiotic cream, something you’d rub into a cut. Think we might have some of that hanging around the club. Ask Declan, the old man’s got his nose into everything.”
“Okay, okay.”
“Lastly, some vitamin tablets. Make sure they’ve got vitamin E in them. Oh, and cough drops.”
“Alright, Boss, do you want me to read it back to you?”
“Yes.”
I wait while he reads it back. He hasn’t missed a thing.
“Get the house, go shopping,” Gunny says. I can see him nodding to himself. “I’ll handle it, Boss.”
“Good man. Gunny, you’ll be paid well for this. Very well. You’re a good man.”
Gunny laughs. “None of us are good men, Boss, but we do our best, don’t we?”
“That we do.”
I’m about to hang up when I sense that Gunny has more to say. He hovers on the other end of the line, breathing down it.
“Something wrong?” I ask.
“I know these meds, Boss,” Gunny sighs. “I know what they mean. Is it one of ours?”
“No,” I tell him. “We’re clean. It’s someone else. But I have to help her.”
I’m glad he doesn’t ask me why, because then I’d have to explain. And what reason is there other than I feel something for Hope? I feel something for her which is not just lust or animal attraction? I feel something for her which might be—
But I won’t think about that now.
I walk back across the room to where Hope and Dawn kneel.
“That was quite the list,” Hope says, continually stroking Dawn’s head.
Dawn’s eyes are half-closed, only the whites showing, and her lips are pursed. She lolls in her sister’s arms, drooping herself like a sleepy child. Every so often she lets out a wordless murmur. She’s far gone, floating somewhere in her own head, seeing things we can’t even guess at. She’s high, damn high, flying high.
“It has to be,” I reply, kneeling down next to them and look at Hope, her elfin face red, her eyes watery, but her eyebrows lowered and her lips set into a straight line. She’s a fighter, make no mistake. “She’s going to ride this out, Hope. She’ll be okay.”
“She’s tried going cold turkey before,” Hope whispers. “It didn’t go so well. She ended up stealing a car so she could drive to her dealer’s house and get some drugs. Right now she’s manageable, but what about when she wakes up and she wants more?”
“She won’t be able to do anything like that for the rest of the night. I know that look. She’s gone. And tomorrow morning she’ll be in the house.”
Hope shakes her head slowly. “Ever since Mom and Dad died, I’ve taken care of her. A family of addicts, Killian, and I’m the only one who’s never touched drugs.”
I reach out and touch her face, touch her soft cheek with my rough biker’s finger. “You’re a great woman, Hope. A fine woman. You can get through this.”
“I know I can, but can she?”
I look down at Dawn, sweat sticking to every part of her, her lips trembling, eyelids fluttering. “Is she strong?”
“Yes, she’s strong,” Hope replies.
“Then she’ll get through it.” I stand up and roll my head from side to side, stretching my neck out. “Tomorrow morning, you’ll drive her to the house. Wait, do you have a car?”
“No,” Hope says. “Too expensive.”
“Okay, okay, in the morning there will be a car waiting outside fo
r you. The keys will be in your mailbox.” I’ll call Craig or one of the others and get them to sort it, I think. “I’ll text you the address of the house once I know it. We’ll work in shifts, me and you and some of the Numb. We’ll get her through it. Your job tonight is to stay with her and make sure she’s okay. You need to make sure she doesn’t choke on her vomit or—”
“I know all about that,” Hope says tiredly. “I understand it all.”