Apologize, my mind whispers as I move my gaze from Cat to Nellie. She’s staring at me with wide blue eyes, her lips quivering as she fights back tears. I should feel sorry for her. Really, I should. But then I remember her fucking club members in front of me, shooting up with a needle while I cried and reached out for her. No, no, I don’t feel sorry for her at all.
“I’m not sorry,” I say, and already, I’m kicking myself, wondering how far I can push Cat before he gives in and wraps his big, hairy hands around my throat. Some part of me wonders if I’m suicidal, if I’d like that, having the choice to live taken out of my hands and put into someone else’s. How nice would that be, getting a way out without having to make a decision, a leap of faith, without having to pull the trigger on myself. “The only thing I’m sorry for is being born to the two of you.”
Gaz moves into the kitchen before Cat can stop him, hauls back, and hits me as hard as he can with his fist. The only blessing is that I drop Queenie’s cookbook and it slides under the refrigerator, briefly saved from harm.
Pain lances through my jaw as my teeth crash together, agony tearing up the inside of my skull. Blood is already pouring down from my nostrils; I taste crimson on my lips.
“You fucking whore,” Gaz snarls, as I smirk up at him, cradling the side of my face with my hand and daring him to hit me again. What do I have to lose anyway? At least if I die here, I won’t have to kill Grey. If I die here, I can die clean.
“Always with the trashy, misogynist insults. Don’t you have anything better to throw at me than that?”
My brother steps forward and grabs me by the front of my shirt, rending the fabric and throwing me as hard as he can into the fridge. My back hits the stainless steel and my breath rushes out of me. On instinct, I try to suck in some fresh oxygen, but he’s hitting me in the stomach with a closed fist. The lack of air covers up the pain. It’s hard to feel when you can’t breathe.
Meanwhile, Nellie screams and buries her face in Cat’s jacket.
But she doesn’t try to stop her son.
And neither does Cat.
Gaz throws me to the floor, and I land right where Queenie lay dying, my eyes staring at the crack under the pantry door, where all the blood oozed in. Is this what she saw in her last split-second of life, my face peering out at her from underneath?
A swift kick takes me in the stomach before fingers wrap in my hair, raising me up to my knees as my scalp burns. But I’m not completely helpless. I punch Gaz in the balls as hard as I can, and he lets out a satisfying grunt, paying me back with another hit to the face, one that’s so painful that I black out for a brief moment.
“Alright, Gaz, that’s enough.” Cat’s voice is cold as he gives the command for my brother to stop, leaving me bleeding in a crumpled heap on the floor. Gaz snarls and throws open the back door, storming outside to cool his head as our father squats down beside my face, his boots squeaky on the shiny floors. I’m shaking and coughing as he sweeps some hair back from my bloodied forehead. “You’ll fall into line willingly, Gidge, or I’ll rearrange your limbs until you fit. Do you understand me?”
“It’s …” I choke out, coughing up blood on the floor, hating the memories it conjures up in my psyche. “Gidget. Never Gidge.” Only people I like can call me Gidge. Only Queenie and Posey ever called me Gidge. I gasp, my throat getting stuck on the words.
Cat frowns and grabs me by the hair, dragging me out of the kitchen and across the floor while Nellie watches. Even though I feel like I’m about to pass out, I’m forced to scramble up the stairs lest I get dragged up them.
My father throws me on my bed and stands there, watching me pant and bleed and glare.
“Last fucking chance,” he says, eyes as cold as deep space. “Last chance.”
He turns and leaves before I get the opportunity to speak. That is, if I can even talk. I’m hurting so bad that I feel like I might die.
One day, I think as I lie there and wonder, not for the first time, if Queenie’s and Posey’s deaths are just as much Cat’s fault as they are the mafia’s. One day I’m going to kill you, Cat.
I don’t believe in premonitions or foreshadowing, but a chill travels down my spine at that thought.
And then … nothing.
I barely remember the next few days.
Nobody gives a shit whether I skip school or not, so I stay home the next few days and lay curled in bed around my three-legged dog. He literally doesn't seem to notice or care that he's missing a limb, but I do. Every time I look at him hopping around with only one front leg, I'll remember. I'll remember that I made a mistake, that I hate Cat, that I hate this life.
That I have to leave or die.
Rolling onto my back, I groan, and hear Beast shift at his position near my non-existent bedroom door. I ignore him and look up at the ceiling, imagining that kid's gray eyes looking back at me, ready for his own death, desperate to save me from a fate he perceived as even worse than his own.
Cat is not going to let me get out of this. As soon as he’s finished with the kid, he'll call me back in and make me kill him. And if not him, then someone else. Maybe someone even less culpable, someone even less deserving of a shot to the head. Gritting my teeth, I push the heels of my hands against my eyes so hard that they hurt.
My father is going to bind me to the club with string so tight it cuts. I'll be a murderer. My soul will be tainted a filthy black, and I'll never really be able to escape. Once, Gaz’s girlfriend took off with two hundred bucks and her clothes, left their apartment and moved three states over. Because she'd seen things, knew things … they hunted her down and killed her.
Someone that my brother claimed to love was executed for a mere infraction. Cat is going to reel me in like a fish on a hook that I can never remove.
I have to take my dog, and that kid, and I have to run.
But to outpace the long legs of the club, I'll have to be smart. I'll have to run far and fast, and I'll have to go either somewhere they'd never expect … or somewhere they can’t reach me.
That leaves me with two choices: the feds … or the mafia.
Fem flicks his tongue against my ear, and I yelp, dropping my hands and glancing over to find him panting and staring at me like this is any other normal day. He wants to go for a goddamn walk, and he's just had his leg amputated.
“It's time for antibiotics,” I say, and he just licks my mouth as I try desperately to push him away. “And your pain meds. You don't get a walk, not yet.” Fem ignores me, hopping down off the bed and stumbling just a little before he regains his feet. He bares his teeth at Beast, but then settles down to lick the long fur of his tail.
I stand up with a groan, meeting Beast's blue eyes from across the room.
“Do you want to learn to defend yourself?” he asks, surprising the shit out of me. I cock a brow as I study him, standing there in his leather cut and tight black tee, his worn-out jeans, and his steel-toed boots. I can still remember him in the ring, kicking ass and taking names. It's a mystery to me why he joined the club, but probably for the same reasons as everyone else. And really, it's not for booze, and drugs, and women: it's to feel like they belong, like they're part of something bigger.
Too bad they're really only part of a gang, practically a cult in my opinion.
“You mean like, hand-to-hand combat or something?” I ask, because Beast knows damn well I can wield a gun or a knife like nobody's business. I can also throw a mean right hook, but it wouldn't hurt to learn from the best … or the Beast.
His mouth curves up in a smile. It's not wicked or sinful or naughty, just primal. Like, primal as fuck, like he could throw me against this wall and fuck me so good that I wouldn't even remember I was planning on running away. Oh, Gidget, naughty. What can I say? Fearing for my life makes me feel reckless.
“You want to learn?” he asks, and his voice is just dripping honey. Fuck, Beast's accent is so thick, it makes me want to start speaking in a Southern drawl. “I'll teach you, Gi
dget.” And the way he says teach … criminal.
“I might just take you up on that,” I tell him, biting my lower lip before I even realize I've started flirting. I turn away and move into the bathroom to get Fem's pills, missing Reba so hard it hurts. I want to gossip so bad. I want to hear her tell me I'm an idiot, have her invite me to church …
Well, she may never invite me to church again.
Last two times she did involved fucking and bloodshed.
As I'm dosing the dog's pills, I notice Beast moving over to look out my window. He glances down once and then turns his attention back to me.
“Your friends are here.”
That's all he says before I hear the obnoxious blaring of the horn, and the hooting of three distinct voices.
“Gidget!” Dena calls out, slamming the horn several times and then cranking up the music on her car stereo. “We've come to break you out of prison.” She's laughing, and she sounds drunk as hell, but it's just barely four o'clock, so maybe she's just crazy?
Oh.
Or maybe she’s here to hit me up for party drugs again?
“They want some blow,” I tell Beast, and he doesn't twitch or scowl or lecture. No, he just looks at me and listens. It's absurd what a good listener he is. I mean, the man is huge and covered in ink and scars from his MMA days, but when he looks at me, I almost feel like I could open up.
Almost.
“We don't sell to kids,” is the only explanation I get. Not that I care. I didn't plan on getting coke for the party or attending it. I won't ever touch cocaine again, not after that night. I shiver and close my eyes against the resurgence of the memory. I dreamed it last night, I think, because I woke up sweating and wanting. And yet, when I reached out and tried to take hold of it, the images broke up and flittered away like leaves on the wind.
“You might not, but somebody else will,” I say, the wheels in my mind tick-tocking away. I feel like there's a clock counting away the seconds of my life. I never thought my father would actually let my brother beat me up like that. I've always sensed his animosity toward me, but I never thought he'd carry it so far. Reaching up my hand, I touch the tender flesh near my right eye as rain starts to come down outside. Good thing they have the convertible top up, huh? Would’ve been funny to see them get soaked though. Dena would lose her shit.
Beast turns to look at me, his eyes sharp and keen, surveying me, taking stock. He reaches out with a thumb and smears my makeup, frowning.
“Gaz,” he says, and I nod.
There's this stillness then that overtakes Beast that I can't explain. It scares the shit out of me, like all of that violence coiled and waiting inside of him might just come undone, that I might get hit with the shards of his pain.
I take a step back.
“Why didn't you say anything?” he asks, and I realize this is probably the longest conversation we've ever had. We might have fucked one fateful stormy night, but we're worse than strangers. Beast's ice-blue eyes bore into mine, and I take another step back. He notices and moves away from me toward the door.
“I'm not a fucking snitch,” I snap reflexively, realizing that I'm falling right back into club mentality. Didn't I just have a thought about visiting the feds and outing my entire family? Ruining the four horse-fucks of the apocalypse? Standing here with Beast staring accusatorily at me, I realize that I could never do that. Hatred of authority, of police, loyalty for club and family, that's been drilled into me since childhood.
And the mafia?
They killed my sisters. They raped Posey.
I could never turn to them.
Closing my eyes, I realize just how well and truly alone I am.
“You should go talk to your friends,” Beast says, and I can see him shutting down, closing that anger away in a box for later. It won't stay lost, that pain. Eventually, it'll come out. Eventually, somebody is going to get hurt.
Nodding, I head downstairs, past Nellie asleep on the couch, and outside.
Dena is pissed off now since, you know, I didn't jump at her beck and call.
She rolls down the window, frowning at the rain as it cascades around my face and crushes my dark curls against the sides of my head.
“Are you coming or not?” she asks, but the temptation is gone … until I see Reba sitting in the backseat, arms crossed over her chest. She looks at me from concerned green eyes, tiny wrinkles appearing next to her mouth as she purses her lips like an old Southern lady.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, feeling this icy wave of fear overtaking me like a tsunami. Looking at Reba, all I can see is Posey's bloody face superimposed over hers. Just being here is putting her at risk. At this point, I can't decide if my father, brother, or the Grey Wolfe Mafia are the worst threat.
“You're a prisoner here, Gidget,” Reba says, and I feel that fear inside of me start to boil into anger, just like before. I never want to go back to that person again, that empty, broken person. But honestly, I feel worse off than I did before, just after my sisters died. Now, my dog has three legs. Now, I can't even hang out with my best friend. Now, I'm housebound, without a phone or a laptop, with bruises from my brother, and a death sentence hanging over my head.
“You've got your self-righteous voice on,” I tell her, trying to stifle my rage. “And you know what? I'm sick of it. You don't understand what I'm going through, Reba. You don't understand the bullshit that I have to put up with.”
“If you'd only tell me—” she starts, her thick, honeyed accent dripping gold and beautiful. She's scared, sad, pleading with me. I want nothing more than to give in and fall into her arms, let someone who actually cares about me hold me for once.
“I'm trapped in a world you'll never understand,” I growl at her, because frankly, I don't know who's watching this house. I don't know if the mafia is planning a hit on my friend. I just want her to fucking leave. Reba starts to talk, but I cut her off. “You and I are from different spheres of the universe. Go read your Bible and leave me in the devil's embrace.” I step back and slam the door on Dena's pouted pink lips.
Reba follows me.
“This life, it doesn’t have to be your life,” she tells me, the rain turning her red hair crimson. I look back at her, and I wish with all my heart that she was right. But this poison, it’s in my blood. My only choice now is to run or die. That’s it. She’ll never be able to understand how the club works, not with her naturally forgiving nature. No, she’d believe the best of everyone until it was her tied to a chair, torture devices littering the ragged wood floors of Uncle Benny’s cabin.
Even then, she’d probably grant her abusers forgiveness and give into the light.
Not like me. I’m not healthy enough to have forgiveness in me, not for anyone. Not even for myself.
I turn around and walk right up to her, water sluicing between my lips. It’s cold as fuck out here, and I’m shivering. My makeup runs down my face, and I notice Reba’s eyes widening as she takes in the marks Gaz left me with.
“Gidge,” she starts, reaching out to me. I slap her hand away. If anyone’s watching us, I want them to believe I hate Reba Keller. That’s the only way I’ll be able to keep her safe. I channel my feelings for Gaz and Cat into my stare.
“You know what you are?” I whisper, venom lacing my voice. It hurts me so goddamn bad that I almost quit and fall to my knees. This is harder than getting hit by Gaz. I’d welcome another beating from him if it would somehow get me out of this. “An uppity little bitch who doesn’t know how to connect with anyone else because she’s too busy hiding behind her morals.”
Reba’s throat tightens up, and I can see she’s not buying it. Not by a longshot.
So I reach out and I shove her back as hard as I can against the car, hating myself even as I’m doing it. That gets her, that unexpected surge of violence. I wonder if she knows I’m doing it out of love?
“Don’t fucking come back here again, or you’re dead,” I choke, and my voice breaks on the final syllab
le. Spinning away, my wet hair smacks me in the face as I head back inside and slam the door behind me, locking it five times over.
For a moment, I just fall back against it, panting hard and wishing I could sink into the floor and disappear forever. Instead, I force myself up and stumble out the back door toward the pool.
Without bothering to take off my clothes, I dive in and let myself sink to the bottom.
My hair floats in front of my face, dark tendrils curling together like fog. I must be down there a long time because I start to feel this woozy, ethereal blackness taking over the edges of my vision. At first, I like it, because it feels like it just might be the emotional eraser I've been looking for.
But then I remember that as far as I know, we only get one life. And I haven't really lived mine.
Besides, if I let myself die down here, then that kid will die, too.
And for some reason, I feel like I have to save him.
Maybe … because he reminds me of myself?
I must be under the water longer than I think because suddenly, there are two strong arms wrapping around my midsection and hauling me to the surface. Beast yanks me right out of the water and puts me on my back on the pavement under the rain. When I roll to my side and try to cough, I find it almost impossible to get any air. I hadn't even realized I'd breathed in so much water.
Beast pushes me back down and covers my mouth with his, breathing for me.
It's a more intimate experience than I want, with his eyes looking onto mine, his breath becoming my own, giving me life. He pulls back and puts his hands on my chest, sending vibrant spirals of heat through me.
It's not quite so romantic when I cough and turn over, spewing water onto the concrete.
Beast doesn't say anything, just rubs my back in circles until I'm finished choking, sucking in sweet, beautiful lungfuls of air.
“Accidental or intentional?” he asks me, and I glare at him, pushing my bangs back from my face.
“Accidental,” I tell him, but maybe, there are no accidents. Now that I'm sitting here, with ice-cold rain pouring down from the sky, I feel like I've just been given a wake-up call from the universe.
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