by Zoey Parker
I fought the tears that threatened to overwhelm me, telling myself she couldn’t see me cry. I didn’t want her to see me fall apart like that. I had to be strong for her.
“What’s he gonna do?” she whispered.
“I don’t know,” I answered, lying. I thought she could tell I was lying, but she was too good a kid to call me on it. She always thought of other people’s feelings, the poor thing. I couldn’t let it all go down like it was. I had to think of a way out. She needed a chance in life. I couldn’t let her become just another lost little girl.
The door opened, and The Scarecrow leered at us. His nearly yellow hair stuck up in all directions, reminding me of straw. I wondered if that was where he got his name, or if he styled himself to fit his branding. I almost laughed, it was all so surreal.
“I wouldn’t smile if I was you,” he sneered.
I scowled instead. “Better?”
“Yeah, better, wiseass bitch.”
“Could you not use language like that in front of her, please.” I held her tighter still, my hand over her ear.
He laughed. “She’s gonna hear a lot worse than that soon.”
I shuddered. Her little heart raced so fast. Her body trembled.
“My man is an hour away, maybe more. Held up on some other job. He’s on his way, though.”
My heart leaped, a spark of hope kindling there. More than an hour. That was more than enough time for Lance to find us. He would. He had to. That was the only solution.
I eyed The Scarecrow up. He was a big man—not as big as Lance, but big enough to overpower me in an instant. I didn’t have to think hard to remember the strength of his hands, seeing as how I could feel the soreness in my muscles. I was sure there would be bruises left behind. I would have to try to fight him if I could, if it came down to that. Otherwise, Lance was our only hope.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Lance
It was the longest half hour of my life. More like twenty minutes at the speed I was keeping. It could have been a year for all I knew. It stretched out forever. Every minute that passed was one more minute when Gigi could’ve been taken away. When Jamie could’ve been taken away. I couldn’t go fast enough. I had to go faster.
For some reason, the face I thought of when I rode wasn’t Jamie’s, or Gigi’s. It was my foster mother’s. Shit, when was the last time I thought about her? Years. Probably not since right after I left that terrible place. She was a religious woman. She always wore a cross around her neck, always went to church. I remembered walking past her bedroom door sometimes at night, before bed. It would be open, and she’d be kneeling at the side of it. Saying prayers. That was after she knelt next to me at my bed. She taught me all the prayers and even talked about getting me baptized since I never was.
She would always pray for her husband. I remembered that especially clearly. She’d pray for his soul. At first I wondered why she did it. Then he hit me for the first time, after beating her. Then I would wonder why she prayed for him instead of leaving him. She would never leave him. She wasn’t the kind of woman who did that. All she did was kneel by the side of her bed or go to church. She didn’t do anything to stop him from hurting her or me.
I never prayed again after I left that house. I didn’t see the point—it didn’t do any good. God and I weren’t on tight terms after that. I thought there couldn’t be a God since he let something like what happened to me happen in the first place.
On my way to the motel, I said the first prayer in a long time. God, please don’t let anything happen to them. They never hurt anybody. Do it to me. I would deserve it, not them. Just let me get to them in time. Don’t punish them to punish me. It’s not their fault. I just found them. Don’t take them away.
I was sure it wouldn’t do any good, but it couldn’t hurt. I was desperate enough to try anything that might have helped them.
I loved my little girl. And I loved Jamie.
I wasn’t sure which of those two feelings surprised me more. I never thought I would love either of them, or anybody. I loved my club, but that was different. I used to love Rae, but that feeling was getting smaller every minute. The person I used to love was dead. She died years before.
Even so, I never loved Rae more than I loved myself. I never loved her more than I loved the club. She was third—a shitty thing to admit to myself, but it was true. She never came first. I knew when I rode to the motel that if Jamie and Gigi were the only two people left in the world, I would be all right. I’d find a way. That was how I knew it was real love.
I was about to lose it.
No! The thought was as clear in my head as if I screamed it out loud. I wouldn’t lose either of them. I would search until the day I died for them if I had to. I’d kill anybody who got in my way, too.
I thought about Gigi. Her little face was clear in my head. The day she came to the clubhouse. The way she looked when she saw the gun in her face. The way she cried. The way she grinned when she kicked ass in poker. The way she looked when she slept, with her arms around a stuffed animal. How it felt to hold her in my arms, so light, when she told me about cooking with Jamie. She was always ready to laugh, or sing a song, or play a game. She was the bravest kid I knew. Abandoned by her mom, but she made the best of life with me. She tried so fucking hard to be a good kid. It ripped my chest, thinking of her. I thought my heart would break. She was mine. She needed me.
And Jamie. I would’ve closed my eyes if I wasn’t on the back of my bike. I thought back to earlier that day—had it only been hours earlier? In bed together, just the two of us. The way I felt when I was inside her. Like a king. Like I could do anything. Breaking her, making her scream, making her mine. She was mine, nobody else’s. I remembered touching her, tasting her, the sounds she made. How hot and tight she was, how she clawed at my back when I drove myself into her. How she rode me, so hard, so fast. The prim, sweet girl who didn’t like using bad words, bucking like a cowgirl on my cock. I needed more of that, more of her. I couldn’t have her taken away so soon, not when I knew how good it could be.
I winced when I remembered laughing off her premonition. I didn’t want to admit at the time how freaked she made me when she told me how scared she was. She should’ve been scared. Hell, I should’ve been scared. I should’ve said goodbye to Gigi before I left, too. I had just walked out without thinking about it. What the fuck was wrong with me? I might never see her again, and I had been so fucking thoughtless.
That’s not true. I’ll see her again. We’ll be together again, in a little while, and she’ll be safe.
I got to the motel, cutting my lights when I pulled in. What a shithole. I couldn’t believe it was still open, and wondered if maybe it wasn’t. Maybe the power was still on, but nobody stayed there who wasn’t whoring or shooting up. My stomach turned at the thought of my daughter in there. She was too young to see things like that.
Hadn’t I seen things like that at her age? Yeah, and she didn’t need to turn out like me. So fucked up, all I did was push people away for most of my life. I could see so many things in ways I never did before. It all made sense. All it took was meeting the perfect woman for me.
Too late, though. Just in time to get her into trouble, and lose her. Lucky me. Lucky her.
I pulled to the far side of the lot, waiting for the rest of the guys to join me. I saw Jamie’s car parked in front of one of the rooms—the only ground-level room with a light on. Were they still in there? I was just about to leave my bike and go to the door, just to listen, when my phone rang. It was Flash.
“I’m almost there,” he said. “And everybody else is, too. Just hold on, okay?”
“I have to know if they’re still in there,” I said. “I’ve gotta know.”
“We’ll find out when we get there. I’ll be not even five minutes, okay? Just wait. Be smart about this.”
“What do you mean?” My eyes never left the door to the room.
“I mean if they’re in there with him, I do
n’t want you going in alone. And if they’re not there, five minutes won’t be enough time for them to get far. If you’re gonna ask The Scarecrow questions, you better damn well believe I wanna be there to help. Got it?”
I clenched my teeth, gritting them hard. It was the toughest thing I ever had to do. “Got it,” I spat.
“Good.” He hung up. I had to stand there, waiting. All alone.
What would happen if The Scarecrow tried to get them out of there before the club showed up? I’d do what I had to do. I’d blow his fucking brains out if it came to that. Same thing for anybody who came to take Gigi or Jamie away. I would do what needed to be done and think about it later. But I wouldn’t think too hard, as long as my girls were both safe.
I wasn’t alone for long. Sure enough, not three minutes passed before I saw Flash turn into the parking lot with four bikes behind him. They all came in the way I did—lights off, slowly, not attracting attention. I had to admit to myself that it felt better having my crew with me.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Jamie
Gigi relaxed in my arms. It felt like she might even be sleeping. I was glad—as long as she was asleep, she wasn’t living in the nightmare her life had become. It had all gone downhill so quickly. Just hours had passed since we sat together at dinner. She asked me why I didn’t have an appetite. I told her I wasn’t hungry, but didn’t say why. How could I have told her I had a feeling something terrible was about to happen? How could I have known the terrible thing was going to happen to the two of us, not to her daddy?
I shivered—there was no heat in the room, and it was a chilly night. I held Gigi tighter, trying to keep her warm with my body. No way I would peel the crusty bedspread back to warm us up. I could only imagine how many diseases were living in that bed.
The room was a mess. I was surprised the place was even open with the condition it was in. Besides the fact that the paper peeled off the walls, the carpet was so worn down it looked like a bare floor, and the furniture was falling apart, it was filthy. I wondered if he did the majority of his living in that very room. It suited him.
The Scarecrow sat at the foot of the bed, his back to us. He was watching TV. It was nearly impossible to see what was on the screen thanks to the heavy static, but he laughed just the same. Even the sound of his laugh sent shivers down my spine. He made me sick. Just looking at him turned my stomach.
What did it take for a person to become who he was? I remembered Lance’s story, the way his foster father abused him. His junkie mother. He didn’t turn out to be some soulless monster. What level of depravity did a person have to be exposed to for them to become so evil?
There was a time when I didn’t think actual evil existed. I thought everybody basically did their best as they saw it at the moment. There was always a reason for weakness. Even Rae, though I hadn’t liked her, was sympathetic. She wasn’t trying to make the wrong decisions. She couldn’t help herself. I had reminded myself of that so many times over the months, hadn’t I?
Yet there I was, staring at the back of The Scarecrow’s head, looking at pure evil. Only an evil, heartless person could consider selling a child. I didn’t care about what he wanted to do to me nearly as much as I cared about her. Who would ruin a child’s life like that? A sweet, innocent little girl like Gigi? And he didn’t care! That was the worst part. He didn’t even flinch. How disconnected, how totally cold did a person have to be?
“What happened to you?” The words came out in a near whisper. I spat them at him.
“Are you talking to me?” he muttered.
“Yes. What happened to you?”
He turned. I saw his profile highlighted by the TV screen—the crooked nose, the pointed chin. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“How could you do something like this? She’s a person. I’m a person. We’re not things. How can you sell people to other people?”
“What are you trying to do? Get inside my head so I’ll feel sorry for you? Gimme a break. Go to sleep, shut the fuck up. I can’t wait ’til you’re outta here.”
“You could get me outta here much quicker if you let me go.”
“No way. Stop trying. You’re worth too much money.”
I was curious. “How much?”
He snickered. “You really wanna know?”
“Yes. I should know how much money I’m making for you, shouldn’t I?”
He shrugged. “Fair enough. I’m asking for twenty grand.”
“Twenty thousand dollars? Not bad. You realize I could give you thirty, right?”
“Yeah, but I could get the money outta your account either way. So really, that’s fifty.” He chuckled nastily. “This is a pretty good day for me. Not so good for you.”
“You can’t get that kind of money. Only I can. It’s not like you’re going to take thirty thousand dollars out of an ATM. It’s not even in my checking or savings. It’s in my trust fund, from my parents. There’s more than that, actually. Much more. But I have to be there personally to take out such a large sum. They’re not going to give it to you.”
I had his attention, I could tell. He tried to pretend like he was only half interested, but I sensed there was much more. It was the change in the way he held his body. He sat up straighter, cocked his head in my direction. Listened more closely.
“Keep talking,” he murmured.
This is it. You have to be cool. It was my only shot to get through to him—I couldn’t push too hard or too fast. “If you wait until tomorrow, when the bank is open, I can go in and get the money. They’ll give me a cashier’s check for it. I can take it anywhere and get the money. Or I can put it in my checking account so you’ll have access to it. You can keep my ATM card. I don’t care. All that money can be yours.”
He made a noise like he was considering it but also wanted to be cool, just as I was. “How much? And don’t lie to me.”
“A hundred thousand.”
“Bullshit.”
“Give me my phone and I’ll access the account right now.”
“No way.”
“Then you’ll have to take my word for it.” He went silent, mulling it over. I knew I had him on the hook. “Think about it. Are you going to sell both of us for that much? I doubt it. You’re not getting eighty thousand for her.”
“Mind your business on that,” he spat. “You’re not getting her.”
Ease up. His temper was flaring. I kept my voice low, but was serious. “What? Yes, I am. That’s part of the deal. Both of us for my money. It can all be yours. This can all be over real quick.”
He stood, pacing the room with a thumbnail in his mouth. My stomach churned at the sight of his dirty hands. I didn’t want to imagine the germs he was sucking on. How did people live that way and actually survive it? How did he not have a dozen deadly diseases? Then again, for all I knew, he did.
He glanced at me. Sizing me up. Still wanting to pretend he didn’t care as much as he did. “You’re not bullshitting me?”
“You say you saw my house, right? You know I’m not making this up.” I didn’t usually brag about money, but it seemed like a good time to start. “My parents were rich, and they died years ago. I was an only child. You do the math.” If you can, I wanted to add, but I bit my tongue. It was no time to be insulting, not when he was so close to giving me what I wanted. So, so close. I could almost taste my freedom, and Gigi’s.
I could also almost see the wheels turning in his head. Imagining what he would do with a hundred thousand dollars. What would somebody like him do with that kind of money anyway? I couldn’t begin to imagine. I saw his excitement, though. Just under the surface. He was wondering what to do with us overnight. Should we stay there? Go somewhere else? He had to stay in control, didn’t he? Where could he keep us under his control?
Just like that, his eyes clouded over. He went from excited to flat in the blink of an eye “No. It’s not gonna happen.” He sat back down, facing away from me. My heart sank.
&nbs
p; “What? No, you can’t do that. What’s wrong?”
He didn’t turn around. “It’s not just up to me. I made promises to people. I can’t take them back.”
“Promises? To what people?”
“The people you’re going to, dumb bitch. Who do you think I’m talkin’ about? They’re not gonna be happy if I tell ’em they’re gonna lose out on the money you would make.”
I hadn’t thought about that. “I could give them money, too.”
“You don’t know how much you would make for them. They wouldn’t go for it. Sorry.” He shook his head. “I could’ve used that money, too.” Then he shrugged like it was just another day at the office. Our lives hung in the balance and he didn’t care.