Turning away, I trail after Crown, staring at the back of his auburn head and wondering how it is that the gray glare of the afternoon can make it seem so much more red, like blood. Like fresh blood spilling around a knife wound. I choke and cover my mouth with a black-gloved hand.
“Teasing Cat like that—” Crown starts, and I scoff, dropping my hand to my side as I move up to walk beside him. He weighs easily twice what I do, maybe three times. Crown is all rippling muscles, tattoos, and good intentions gone wrong. He used to be a cop, you know, Crown did … But then he found himself on the wrong side of the law, lost his job, and ended up as Cat’s righthand man.
“Is like teasing a rattlesnake?” I whisper, looking down at the toes of my shiny black boots on the wet gravel. Just a few seconds later, it starts to rain and I feel cold droplets spattering on the back of my neck. “Shouldn’t it be more like confronting a grieving father?”
“He’s the president first, and a father second when he’s in public,” Crown says, his face clean-shaven for the funeral, his green eyes full of I told you so and I know better. He’s the type who likes to joke and smile, but really thinks he knows best. Drives me nuts. “I know you’re hurting …”
I snort, and hysterical laughter breaks from my throat, driving a murder of crows into the gray sky. I whip around to glare at Crown, and his face softens. It’s the kindest expression I’ve ever seen him wear, and I won’t see anything like it anytime soon. He feels sorry for me today. Tomorrow, I won’t get a free pass.
People die. That’s part of club life. Sucks, but get over it, right? That’s the attitude I’m getting from the Daybreakers.
“Gidge,” Crown says, reaching down to put a hand on my shoulder. “It’ll get better. You’ll see. Every day that passes will be a little easier than the one before it.”
I throw his hand off, catching Sin’s dark eyes from across the cemetery. He’s leaning against a tree, the rain dragging his dark hair into his face. Smoke curls from his cigarette as he stares at me, and I slip around Crown to head his direction. When I glance briefly back at Crown, I see his green eyes burning, like embers from that far away forest fire. But then I blink, and the emotion’s gone, like storm shutters thrown across a window. I could see inside, break the glass, climb in … but now, not even a hurricane could get through.
With a shake of my head, I turn away and forget all about it.
Besides, Sin is much closer in age to me, and he … had a sister or maybe sisters. He doesn’t talk about it, but I know it’s true.
“Shouldn’t you be enjoying the service?” he snaps, much less kindly than I’d expected. He’s clearly as upset as I am. Shouldn’t we be able to commiserate together? Sin took care of me and my sisters for years, but for the last few, he’s mostly stayed away. My fourteenth birthday is the last time I can really remember seeing him around for more than a few minutes.
“What’s to enjoy? A weeping Nellie? A droning priest? A scowling Cat?” I hold my hand out for a cigarette. In the past, Sin and Crown have always refused to give me smokes, even though they both know I’ll find some other way to get them. This time, he just lets me have it.
It’s hard to light up in the rain, so I step close to him, toe to toe, hiding underneath the foliage of a massive pine tree.
“Fuck, Gidge, you’re all wet.” Sin reaches out and touches a loose strand of my hair, tugging on the sopping tendril and then wrapping it around his finger. He looks me over in a strange way, one that I barely recognize. His look takes my breath away, makes my chest feel hollow and my heart feel like it’s bursting with new and strange emotions.
I find my eyes drawn to a few beads of moisture on his full lower lip.
“So are you,” I state, rather unhelpfully. I’m drowning in pain and sadness and anger, so what is all of this newness flooding my body? What is this useless garbage taking over my limbs and making them tingle? Am I crushing on Sin at my sisters’ funeral?! What the fuck is wrong with me?
Maybe I was born wrong? Cat is poison, so his seed must be rotten, too.
I look away sharply, but I don’t move from Sin’s circle of influence, standing there and smoking my cigarette as I watch the water come down in sheets. The rain is so thick, so relentless that for a brief moment, it blocks my view of the coffins. All I can see are the gravestones nearest us, and the smoke trailing from my cig.
“Why don’t you hang around us anymore?” I whisper, and then realize what I’ve just said. Us. Hah. There is no ‘us’ anymore, just me. Just me, myself, and fucking I.
Sin makes a sound low in his throat, and when I turn to look at him, he’s scowling at me in the worst way possible.
“You’re a young woman now; you don’t need me anymore.” He finishes his cigarette, stabs it out on the tree, and drops it into the mud. When he crushes it out with his boot, I can tell there are layers upon layers of feeling inside of me, trapped so deep down I’ll never be able to free them.
“Clearly, we did,” I snap back, and Sin grabs me by the shoulders, turning me to face him. I look up into his silver eyes, and I feel myself start to shake. Tears roll down my face, mixing with my mascara, tangling with the raindrops already wetting my cheeks. He turns me around then and pushes me against the tree, leaning down and putting his forehead to mine.
“I’m so sorry, Gidge,” he whispers, choking on the words, nuzzling me. It’s the strangest thing, to see this self-proclaimed badass, this twenty-three year old asshole, rubbing on me like a puppy. No, no, not like a puppy at all. One of his hands falls to my hip, and the other lifts up to cup the back of my neck. “If I were there then none of this would’ve happened …”
Of course, he can’t know that.
That’s a privilege none of us are afforded in life, answers to all of those horrible what-ifs. There’s no way to know; constantly focusing thoughts on it is psychological torture that nobody needs.
“It’s not your fault,” I choke out, closing my eyes. It’s not. It’s Cat’s fault, and Nellie’s, and the Grey Wolfe Mafia.
“This is for Kian,” the man said, just before he pulled the trigger with cool indifference, ending my sister’s—and her unborn baby’s—life in an instant. Kian, Kian, Kian. Who the fuck is Kian?
My eyes open again, and I find Sin staring at me with this quiet sort of desperation. I stare up at him, at his slightly parted lips, his breath making little clouds in the air between us. All of a sudden, I find myself wanting to kiss him, and I don’t know why. There couldn’t be a worse time for a kiss in all the world. There couldn’t be a more awful day.
And yet, I reach down and put my right hand over his tattooed left one, pressing his fingers into my hip. My left arm curls around his neck, and then Sin and I are clashing together in a storm, all mouths and teeth and tongue. It’s so cold out that my nipples are already hard, pebbling into even tighter points as he presses his body against mine, slamming me into the tree. Even through the rain and the grief and the ash, I can smell the magnetic notes of his natural scent: leather intertwined with cinnamon and blood mandarin, touched with a hint of tobacco and cloves.
Sin’s hand slides down, pushing my skirt up in a very dangerous way as our tongues tangle together and his hips thrust against me.
What we’re doing is obscene.
It’s disgusting.
It’s so fucking wrong.
And yet … all of this sin wipes away the melancholic agony that has a chokehold on my heart. So long as I’m being bad, I don’t have to remember that things can never be good again. If I’m dancing in the dark and the shadows, I don’t have to keep missing the light.
This is so awful, I think, even as I moan and Sin tugs at my panties. He rips the fabric just enough that I hear it rend and flick my eyes open, catching his.
I’m pretty sure that’s the moment he remembers that I’m not a groupie or a club whore, but his boss’ daughter. It’s that terrible second when lightning crashes into a gravestone and makes me jump, that he remembers I�
��m only fifteen and he’s twenty-three, and the two of us together is a twisted, fucked-up mockery of everything that’s holy in life.
“Jesus fuck,” Sin curses, shoving off the tree and stumbling away. He swipes his hand down his face and then spits into a puddle, like he can’t stand having the taste of me on his tongue. The rain comes down in sheets, drenching him, as I stand there in the semi-protective embrace of the tree. I take one small step forward, and he holds up a palm to stop me. “No, don’t touch me. Don’t touch me ever again. In fact, just don’t fucking talk to me, Gidge.” Sin turns away as a choked sob escapes my mouth, and I fall to my knees in the mud, just crying and crying and wailing in a quiet cemetery where my heart and soul are buried along with my sisters.
It wasn’t just two spirits that were put into the icy ground that day. No, it was all three of us.
That’s when I knew it was time to embrace the darkness. Because if I was a part of it, then it couldn’t hurt me anymore. If I was wicked and awful, then I could pretend that I was untouchable, too.
I only cried once more after that, on the night I took those devils into my bed. And then … never again would a tear grace Gidget Kesselring’s cheeks.
Not in this lifetime.
A few hours after my head hits the pillow, I hear a faint growling sound from beside me.
I was born into a world of horror and nightmares; I'm too smart to ignore a warning of any kind.
My body goes stiff and my eyes slide open. I listen carefully, but the only things I can hear are the low snarls of my dog, and the choral snoring of the other girls. In the distance, there’s the faintest burble of the river.
“What is it, boy?” I whisper, so low that I know only Fem can hear me. One of his perky ears swivels in my direction as he stands up, hackles raised. I’m a smart girl though; I know that one dog isn’t near enough to take care of whatever’s stalking me in the night.
I’ve seen the monsters that prey on the weak: they take no prisoners.
Sliding my right hand under the thin, shitty mattress, I pull out Cat’s Magnum. After that day in the kitchen with Queenie, he never asked for it back. He can barely stand to look at it. But I keep it with me because one day, in some fantastical future that I dream of but don’t dare let myself hope for, I’m going to blow the brains out of my sisters’ murderers with this thing. I’m going to look down at them on their knees with that same cool indifference in my eyes, and I’m going to send them straight to hell.
There’s the very faint creak of the screen opening, and then the sound of the door. Two sets of footsteps move across the floor, just before I hear the distinct metallic click of a hammer.
Fem howls in rage as the sound of a gunshot explodes through the cabin, making my ears ring, my heart thunder. The men in this room have just shot a girl in the bunk two rows down and below me, and they did it without taking a single breath to contemplate their actions.
The Grey Wolfe Mafia is back indeed.
I’m choking on fear and confusion and pain before I swallow hard and get myself together. I asked Carol Briggs to switch bunks with me because Anne Maxwell is allergic to dogs and she didn’t want Fem sleeping so close to her.
In a way, I’ve just killed Carol Briggs.
There’s blood on my hands, but I’ll be damned if there’s anymore.
Girls are screaming and crying, but I’m already throwing my feet over the edge and pointing the Magnum with both hands in the direction of the retreating men. They don’t need to take any extra blood; that’s not what they’re here for. No, they had one mission and that mission was to kill me. They think it’s done, and they’re hauling ass.
I whistle to keep Fem in check, because if I give him the slightest indication he’ll leap off the bed and go for the throats of these assholes. Instead, I squint in the shadows and the yellow beams of porchlight leaking through the window, and I fire at the first man’s face.
My shot makes contact because he doesn’t expect it, turning around to see who was whistling and ending up with a bullet in the brain. His body slumps to the floor like boneless jelly, but I’m already refocusing and firing on the other guy. Too bad these men are as ruthless and as skilled as the dickheads in my father’s club.
He’s already anticipating my shot.
The shadow-man rolls forward as I fire, just narrowly missing him. He’s fast, too, so fast that he stands up and grabs onto my ankle before I can pull the trigger again. I find myself being dragged off the top bunk and onto the floor, my skull cracking against the wood and leaving me with little white ghosts flitting around in my vision.
Thank fuck I brought my dog.
Feminist throws all sixty pounds of his muscular body at my attacker, knocking the man on his ass. There are teeth at his neck before he even manages to collect himself. Me, I’m used to working through pain, so I push up to my feet. My head is spinning, girls are screaming, and I can smell the sweet copper burn of blood, but I don’t let any of that distract me. I might’ve been raised by demons, but they taught me better than that.
I won’t let myself falter twice.
Maybe if I’d been this on top of my shit the last time the mafia was in town, my sisters would be alive? I’m not taking any chances this go-around. I’ve already learned my lesson, been bitch-slapped so hard by life that whatever damage I just took to the head from my fall is nothing. Less than nothing.
I raise my weapon up, move the barrel from the man’s face down to his knees. I can’t fire anywhere else for fear of hitting Fem. With a single twitch of my finger, I blow a hole in my attacker’s leg and he howls like a banshee. Doesn’t stop him from lifting his weapon up and putting it to my dog’s side. With a whistle, I call Fem back and he releases the man with blood staining his white lips. The mafia asshole takes another shot and ends up hitting a girl in the shoulder, a girl I don’t even know.
By coming here, I killed a teenager and wounded another.
This is my fault.
This all my fucking fault.
Carefully, but quickly, I line up one more shot on the man’s arm and shoot. He drops the gun as blood sprays across the floor. I’m jostled by girls shoving past on their way to the exit, slipping and sliding in crimson puddles, as mindless as impala being chased by lions. They don’t even know what the real threat is or where they’re going, only that they want to run, get out, escape.
I stand there until they’re all gone, leaving me with nothing but the creaking swing of the screen door, the moans of the injured girl, and the screams of the man on the floor at my feet.
The Magnum is still in my hand when Grainger shoves his way into the cabin, followed closely by Beast. The look Grainge throws me is acrimonious rancor. It’s like he wants me dead or something.
“Motherfucking son of a bitch,” he snarls as Beast moves over to stand beside me, his sapphire eyes dark with the taste of a hunt. He’s mad. Oh, you bet your ass he’s mad at me. But he doesn’t show it with a freaking temper tantrum like Grainger. Instead, my father’s enforcer—the man in charge of keeping the rest of the club in line—gives me a once-over to make sure I’m okay, pulls out a gun of his own, and puts a round through the skull of my attacker.
“Thought you might need an informant,” I whisper, my voice much shakier than I want it to be. I engage the safety on my pistol and let it hang loosely by my right side as Grainger growls instructions into his radio, and a sea of bikers descends on the cabin.
Give ‘em fifteen minutes or so, and they’ll have the blood cleaned up, the bodies gone, and the cops greased. How they’re going to deal with the death and serious injury of two Christian camp teens, I have no idea, but this is one moment where I’m glad I’m not in charge of the Death by Daybreak Motorcycle Club.
None of that is my problem.
What is my problem … is the heavy mantle of punishment that’s going to fall on my shoulders.
That is, if the guilt of what I’ve just done doesn’t overwhelm me. Glancing over my shoul
der, I see the bloodstain spreading across the floor near Carol Briggs’ bunk. She’s her mom’s only daughter, a woman who was so shamed by having a child out of wedlock that she dragged her and her kid up from the Deep South to hide in the forests of Oregon.
What. Have. I. Done?
“We already have three,” Beast says, his voice like thunder. It shakes me to the core. And it scares me, too, because I don’t want to see the lightning strike. Should I start counting down the seconds to see how far away the storm is? “Let’s go.” He steps over the body toward the door, expecting me to follow along behind him.
Grainger, however, is not so hands-off. He storms over to me, through the blood and the gore, and he gives me this look that’s carnal fucking hell. With his teeth gritted and his umber eyes flashing, he reaches out and grabs my arm, yanking me toward the door.
“I don’t need your help!” I snarl, jerking back from him and slipping in the blood. I go down hard on my ass in hot, sticky red and feel my heart clench and shudder in my chest. Turning my head to the right, I see the girl with the wound in her shoulder, eyes rolled back in her head, moaning and moaning. I want to help her, but there’s no time for that. It’s best that I go with the club and get them the hell out of here, so this girl can get medical attention.
“Clearly …” Grainge begins, leaning down low and giving me this awful, awful sort of look accompanied with a dark smirk. There’s no joy in that expression. “You do.” He reaches down to grab me, and I lift the Magnum up, putting the barrel to his forehead.
To my credit, the move surprises the shit out of him.
Grainger stares back at me, just a shadow in the night, his rust-red hair bathed in darkness and starlight.
“Do it,” he purrs, staying right where he is, bent over me as I languish in a puddle of fresh blood. I press the gun hard against him, leaving a mark in his skin no doubt. But I don’t disengage the safety, and I most definitely don’t pull the trigger.
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