“Love you, Gidge,” she calls playfully as she makes her way slowly up the stairs.
Later on, I'd wonder … if I'd been a little more selfish, would she be alive? Because then it'd have been me that was upstairs, me that saw the first man crawl through the window with his guns and his knives. Queenie would've been in the kitchen; I could've protected her and her future child.
“Love you, too,” I whisper, but only loud enough that I can hear it.
I start by plugging my iPhone into the dock on the wall and setting The Agonist up to blast through the speakers into the kitchen.
Yet another mistake.
Loud music.
Loud music hid the screams.
Yanking open the wide, steel doors of the fridge, I start to dig through all the groceries that Queenie's stocked, and find something that I might actually be able to cook. I decide salads with pan-seared chicken could be manageable. I mean, I just throw leaves on a plate, a breast on the stove, and then cut it up. Right? That's how Queenie does it.
Grumbling under my breath, I rock to the music and start to cook, feasting on more salty crackers as I drench a pan with olive oil and drop a few raw chicken breasts into it.
It's only when I turn back to the fridge to grab a beer that I realize that Posey's not by the pool anymore.
I pause for a moment and then take a few steps forward, pushing open the door and glancing around. Last time she disappeared in the backyard like this, I snuck out and caught her climbing the stone wall behind the property. It used to be that Cat and Nellie let us get away with murder. But since Queenie got pregnant, they've started acting a little … off. Pose can't bring guys into the house anymore, so she sneaks out a lot.
I roll my eyes and turn around, only to see Queenie stumble into the room, bright red blood dripping on the floor in front of her, staining her white t-shirt above the big, round bump of her belly.
At first, I think she's having the baby, that something's gone wrong.
Then I see the knife.
“In the pantry,” she mouths, and I can barely hear her because of the music. Racing over to the iPhone, I quickly turn it off and spin, finding Queenie's red-brown eyes wide and terrified. “Pantry, Gidge,” she says again, almost ferociously.
“Queenie—”
“Now,” she snarls, her face as white as her teeth. Queenie stumbles against the wall and glances over her shoulder. I hear laughter. And footsteps.
Backing up, I grab hold of the pantry door and open it, gesturing for her to join me. I don't speak again; I can hear men's voices coming down the staircase. Growing up the way I have, I know what that means.
I duck inside, and the doors close behind me just before I hear the sound of a lock sliding into place.
Queenie's locking me in.
When we moved into the house, the realtor told us the previous owner had put a lock on this door to keep her kids from getting into the snacks.
Fucking weird, right?
Fucking lucky for me though.
But not for my sisters.
Not for my fucking sisters.
Boots pound into the room and I hear Queenie make a strangled cry, the force of her body slamming into the pantry doors knocking a few cans onto the floor. I know there are guns around the house—a whole shitload of them—but in my panic, I suddenly can't remember where they are.
Scrambling on my hands and knees, I start to dig through the food in the pantry. There's a massive bag of rice in the corner which is weird because everybody in my family hates rice.
That's it, I think, feeling a small surge of hope as I tear the plastic bag open and dive into it with my fingers, getting a dusty film all over my sweaty hands. Buried deep in the bag, I find my dad's Magnum and check the magazine
It's loaded.
I stand up and move over to the door, trying to peek out through the small slats.
“On your knees,” one of the men says, cool as a fucking cucumber. He doesn't care that he's just stabbed a pregnant woman. My sister. Queenie. The most important person in the world to me.
Dropping to my own knees, I lean down and peer under the door.
I can see Queenie, slowly lowering herself to the marble tiles, her eyes wide, her lips stained with blood. Everything goes into slow motion then, a world of shadows and smoke.
The man standing in front of her drops the barrel of a gun to Queenie's head, pressing it into her forehead.
“This is for Kian,” he says firmly, and then without any preamble, any requests or threats or rants, he pulls the trigger.
My own gun falls from my hands and hits the floor, but the sound is masked by the awful noise of Queenie's body crumpling to the side, going limp in a pool of bright red blood.
If there is a god, he steals the words from my throat, the breath from my lungs, the love from my soul. It's like a specter, passing through me and chilling me to the bone. My hands start to shake and I try to stand up. Instead, I stumble back, and fall to my knees again. My kneecaps crack and pain ricochets through me, bright and white and hot.
Even that isn't enough to jolt my addled brain, wake me up from a world of nightmares and pain.
What's happening? I wonder, completely lost in denial. Why is this happening? I'm making chicken. I need to check the chicken. It'll burn if I don't, that fucking chicken.
A wail escapes my throat, this penetrating sound that echoes around the pantry like a banshee's scream. Underneath the door, my sister's blood pools, still warm from her body. When I reach out to touch it, it's sticky and thick and so completely surreal that for several minutes, I have no idea what it is that I'm looking at.
I surge to my feet and throw my body at the door, smashing through it, dislodging the flimsy lock. Right away, I slip on Queenie's blood and crash to the ground, my chin hitting the stone with such a violent impact that I can feel it all the way inside my skull, right in that mushy bit that used to be my brain.
“Queenie!” I scream as I drag her into my lap, her body limp but still warm.
Warm.
That's good right, the warmth?
“I love you, okay? So much, so so much.” I hold her and push strands of loose blonde hair back from her face, my tears falling on eyes open and wide and locked on the ceiling without a shred of acknowledgment in them.
I don't have to check Queenie's pulse to know that she's dead.
Setting her aside, I take the gun with me and stand up, my entire body quivering like I'm in the middle of a grand mal seizure. I almost wish that I were, that I were unconscious on the ground, that I didn't have to think through my own pain.
Since I have no idea if the men are still here, I move as quietly as I can over to my phone and pull it off the speaker dock.
Instead of dialing 911, I call Cat.
I'm the daughter of an outlaw motorcycle club president.
This is just what we do.
“What?” he asks gruffly, oblivious to the pain and violence and suffering that's filling up the room around me, choking me, making me sick to my stomach.
“Queenie is dead and I can't find Posey. There are men here,” I whisper, my voice detached, coming from my lips but not registering in my ears. Am I really talking? Is that me? Am I the one saying those awful things?
The phone falls to the ground at my feet and the screen shatters.
Its broken pieces mesmerize me for several seconds.
Broken pieces. Shattered. Is that what my heart looks like? I wonder, but then a warm breeze crawls through the cracked sliding door behind me, caressing my skin like a hug.
Posey.
I need to find Posey.
I wish I'd never had that thought.
I wish I'd never gone out those doors.
“Posey!” I scream, because at this point, I don't care if those men are still here. If I see them, I will kill them. All of them.
I burst out the French doors in the back, holding the gun in two shaking hands, looking for my older sister.
What's left
of my heart begs the universe to spare me from more pain. She left. She went over the wall and bailed. She's out with some hang-around and if I just wait, she'll come back. She'll come home and even though I can barely imagine living without Queenie, I'll have Posey to hold onto.
But around the corner, there she is, her blood snaking across the ground and into the inset drain in the bricks.
Naked.
Battered.
Dead.
My only thought then is … that I wish it were me.
Now …
Big hands close over my own and tug them away from my face, snapping me out of the awful memories with a rush of heat and flame. I lift my face up and find Beast watching me, his blue eyes darker now, a deep sapphire, like the sea without the sun. Normally, they're as bright as a summer sky.
He must be pissed.
“Where's Gaz?” I ask, blinking and dropping my hands into my lap, trying to pretend like my heart isn't racing so fast that I feel like I might puke. Fem presses his head hard against me, offering comfort that isn't laced with innuendo, like Beast's.
I push his hands away from me and reach up to touch my face.
Good.
I didn't cry.
I don't cry. Not anymore.
“He left to cool his head,” Beast responds carefully, his accent thick and hot and sticky. I want it all over me, that voice. I want to bathe in it, let it fill all the cracks inside my heart. But I know that if I do, I'll regret it. That sort of comfort is just temporary. It makes you feel so goddamn good and then it dissipates, like dandelion fluff in the wind. Or like blood down a pool drain. “You alright there, sugar?” he asks, and the word sugar just calms me down like nothing else. It reminds me of Reba and makes me forget for a second that I hate Beast.
“I'm fine,” I choke, standing up and feeling my knees get weak.
Beast catches me before I can fall, my palms hitting the leather of his cut, my head spinning from the musky masculinity of his scent. The spicy tang of bergamot nectar mixed with orange blossoms, patchouli, musk. It's a rush of sensory overload that turns my already weak limbs to jelly.
As smooth as a sailor, he picks me up like I weigh nothing.
“Fem,” I say sternly as he growls, pulse thundering, body rebelling against me. Such a traitor. Such a fucking traitor. She wants Beast inside of her almost as much as I wish I could get away from him.
He sets me down on the edge of the mattress, but doesn't move back. Instead, his calloused fingers find the bruises on my arms, these purple-yellow splotches left by Gaz's hands. He even clawed up my skin with his rough, blunt nails.
Most importantly though: he hit my fucking dog.
“I'm gonna kill him,” I snarl through gritted teeth, jerking my arms away from Beast's surprisingly gentle touch. “I'm gonna fucking blow his balls off.”
“I'll give him a talkin' to,” Beast tells me which actually gives me pause. A talking to from Beast is … well, like getting your face slammed into concrete. Literally. Basically, there's not much talking at all.
“Will you tell Cat?” I ask, but the enforcer of Death by Daybreak MC just stares me in the face, runs a hand over his beard, and stands up. “I'll tell Cat,” I say, because I will. But I know that he'll let his officers handle it, that he won't say or do a damned thing to control his son.
Problem is, if I tell Cat about Gaz, we'll have to talk about the lake, too. Then again, there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell he doesn’t already know about that.
“I'll be downstairs,” Beast tells me as I check Fem for injuries. I don't see anything, but his head got hit hard. I want to take him to the vet. This is one thing that I will happily spend my dad's blood money on. “You need anything?”
“Get out,” I tell him because I don't have a lot of fight left in me. Every second, minute, every hour that I fight my desires, I start to lose a little. My self-control bleeds away like the blood from my sisters' bodies.
My mouth tightens.
“Out,” I repeat, but my hands are on Beast’s vest, clenching tight. “Get out of my room.”
There's a long moment of silence.
“Will you take me and Fem to the vet? I want to get him checked out.”
The words are hushed, quiet, breathy.
Beast slides his hands down my arms and then takes a step back.
“I'll follow you,” he drawls, turning away and leaving me with this tingling warmth in my body that refuses to dissipate for hours.
Hours.
Hours I suffer in sticky, unrelenting lust coupled with a migraine.
I hate my life.
The next morning, I wake up before anyone else, even Cat, and get ready for a camping trip—Gidget style. I shower and blow my hair out, turning the crow-black strands into one glossy sheet of darkness. My eye makeup is thick and hazy, a deliciously wicked cat eye that makes my irises seem more red than brown. Lips—as red as the red, red fucking rose.
When I'm done, I dress in lingerie, leather pants, a Harley tank and a motorcycle jacket.
Fuck you, Cat, I think as I check myself out in the mirror. Fuck you, Gaz.
After I get back from the trip, I'll probably be chained to my bed. But if I'm going to get busted by Cat, I may as well go all the way, break every rule.
I live for breaking rules.
“Come on, Fem,” I say, grabbing my backpack and opening my bedroom window.
Cigarette smoke drifts up from down below, and I pause, noticing Beast standing at the edge of the driveway, watching the sun come up.
I curse when he glances back at me, ducking low into my pillows so he won't see the outfit and the makeup. Digging into my jacket pocket, I get out a cigarette and light up, blowing smoke through the window.
I need a valid fucking excuse for opening the window.
After I finish my smoke, I check to see if he's still out there.
He's gone.
“Okay, boy, this is our chance,” I whisper to Fem, grabbing his harness and slipping it over his head. I tie a rope to the back clasp and then hook it to the leg of my heavy wooden desk. Using the rope like a pulley, I lower the husky down to the ground and then cut the line.
I've been doing this with Fem since he was a puppy, so he doesn't freak out, just lets me lower him a whole twenty feet, and then stands there, waiting patiently. I didn't originally plan on taking him, but after what happened with Gaz, I refuse to leave him here.
I wait a few quiet minutes, watching Fem's body language, seeing if he takes note of anything or anyone, if he growls. When all he does is sit there, I decide to go for it.
Using a separate line, I slip into one of Posey's old rock climbing harnesses and literally rappel down the side of the house, snipping the line at the bottom with a hunting knife. Leaving proof of my escape on purpose (as much as I dislike Nellie, I don't want to cause her undue worry either), I head to the left, down the small slope and past the empty lot that my dad purchased and purposefully left undeveloped, over to a small side street where Reba's waiting with her mother's van.
“I was wondering when you were gonna show up,” she says, studying me as I first let Fem hop in, and them climb up behind him.
“Get out of here,” I tell her as I glance back at the house.
If I'm lucky, I'll have a five minute head start before Beast notices I'm missing.
I'm just hoping that he'll have a hard time tracking me down.
“This place is remote?” I ask again, and Reba nods, starting the engine and heading down the street toward the highway.
“It's not on any maps, church-owned land,” she assures me for the millionth time.
But even if all that's true, the boys might still find me there.
I feel like I can run … but I can't hide.
The Beast … he'll track me wherever I go.
“Do you think your dad would throw holy water on me if I showed up wearing an upside down cross?” I ask Reba as she parks in the hard-packed dirt lot and pulls the e
mergency break.
“Now, don't you get started antagonizing him on day one,” she warns me, pushing some red hair behind one ear and looking like she always does, like some fifties pin-up. “And no upside down crosses. You want to invite the devil inside o' you?”
Reba pauses as I raise both brows at her.
“You know I've already invited the devil inside of me—four of them actually.” Another dramatic pause. “At the same time.”
“Don't get started on that,” she says, throwing up her hands like she's sixty-seven instead of seventeen. Reba opens the driver's side door, props a white kitten heel on the step and then turns back to me. “At the same time? Is that physically possible?”
“Wouldn't you like to know?” I respond coyly, swinging out of the van and wondering which camp counselor I'll manage to piss off today. I've been to a lot of Christian camps with Reba in my life, and not once has it ever gone well.
“I do not want to know,” Reba says, slinging her white sequined purse over one shoulder and giving me a look. Dappled sunlight peeks through the trees and paints designs across her pale face. “I'm waiting until marriage to find out.”
She starts off across the grass with me and Fem jogging to catch up.
“Daddy is going to flip his lid when he sees you here …” she murmurs, pulling her sunglasses off the top of her head and parking them on the scooped bridge of her nose. “But you need this, Gidget.” She casts another look at me that I'm glad I can't see through the shades. “Especially after you and Grainger defiled our church.”
I purse my lips, but I don't really have much to say to that, do I?
His hand was in my pants; mine was on his cock.
Pure poison.
That's what Grainger is. Reba's right—we tainted that poor church.
At least I know I'll have plenty of company in hell.
“Please tell me we're making bird cages out of popsicle sticks?” I ask, bumping her with my shoulder and watching her lips twitch at the corner. See, even though I'm a filthy heathen, I have the power to do that, to make Reba smile. And believe me—it's a lot more difficult than it sounds. You know how everyone and their grandmother says they have a good sense of humor? Reba's one of the few people in this world that will freely admit to not having one.
I Was Born Ruined Page 7