“I just really think,”
“He’s out there, doing his best to show me, right now.” Ever’s words were everything. If only I could lock them away and pull them back out when CJ got home so he could hear them for himself. He still had doubts that she could ever truly love him, despite her telling him over the years that everything was okay. CJ just couldn’t get past the difference in how his daughters treated him. Anna was always open and demonstrative, while Ever was different. She didn’t offer up hugs quickly to many people, and definitely not to her father. She showed she cared in her own ways, but something I couldn’t quite get him to understand was that she was like that with most everyone, not just him. He still blamed himself for her behavior though.
We were quiet for a while before Ever added, “I don’t need you, or his confessions, to tell me how he feels. I already know my dad loves me.”
I couldn’t stop the tears from falling harder then as I leaned down and put the letter away in the box I had pulled it out of. She was right, these weren’t meant for me to read right now. I had some living to do still too. More importantly, I had a pregnant daughter with a husband who had already been missing far too long, and she needed me to take care of her.
“What do you say I get cleaned up and then we go out to grab some lunch?”
“I’d say, that’s exactly what I came over here for.” Her answering grin let me know all was well between us, despite the awkwardness of the situation moments ago. That was my girl though, so resilient it made my heart ache to know she was that way because she’d once had to be.
Chapter 12
Moved Again
Deck
Awareness was something I no longer possessed.
Still, I heard them coming for me. The bitch was gone. My limbs itched, my insides ached, and I knew she would be my only salvation. The only way to feel better was to be nice to her.
“Be nice,” I mumbled the words through dried, cracked lips that hadn’t seen enough water in days.
“Jesus, look at him,” a voice said.
“Maybe we should just put him out of his misery right here. What the fuck has that crazy cunt been doing?”
“Boss says we move him,” the first voice mentioned.
“You want to touch that? He’s lying in his own filth for fuck’s sake.”
There was a sigh on the air before heavy boots stomped my way. For one, fleeting moment I thought maybe my family had found me. They had come, I was saved. That wasn’t right though. I didn’t recognize the voices or the almost French accents the men spoke with. A large man with a heavily bearded face and thick winter clothing hovered over me a moment. “Nice,” I mumbled again.
He shook his head. “I ain’t nice, but I’m not about to let anyone stay like this.” He commented, more to his companion than for my benefit. “Help me get him up,” he called out. It didn’t take much, and I was hauled between two men to the bathroom where they threw me in the shower stall and began hosing me down. I didn’t even care that the water was freezing. The cold drove the itch away for a minute and the water ran into my mouth, fresh and beautiful.
“Sacrament!” Someone spit the word into the air and drew my attention. “So pathetic.” I knew that he was talking about me, but I couldn’t bring myself to care.
Water.
Clean.
The burn in my veins. Maybe a fever.
Shivers.
“Get him out of there before he falls apart completely. He is going to shake himself senseless.”
“Withdrawals.”
If they said anything else, it was lost to me in the foggy state that I fell into. They dressed me, took me to a car, and we drove away from my second hell. The ride to my new hell was lost to me as my body gave up, deciding rest was needed more than anything else.
“What the hell has my little sister done now?” The booming voice woke me from my stupor just as a man grabbed hold of my jaw roughly and twisted my face into the light so he could see me better. “This is him? This is Declan Donavan?”
“Your sister is insane,” someone commented, but I couldn’t see past the light shining in my eyes or the pain it was causing me.
“This is the man that the motorcycle club has been up my ass about?” He asked the question. I wondered why that seemed familiar. ‘Motorcycle club…’ The thought died before I could process it fully. I think I’d once belonged to a family like that. Wind. Freedom. Love… “Find out and make damn sure whether it’s him or not.”
“What will you do if it is?”
“Well, we can’t hand him back looking like this. None of us would survive the drop. We either put him out of his misery or we have to get him healthy enough to give back.”
“Giving him back could have benefits.”
“Yes, but only if he’s healthy. I’m not sure what my family was thinking by taking him in the first place. He doesn’t make the best pawn, and I’m not stupid. I don’t believe my little sister suffered at his hands. I’ve seen evidence that he treats his woman and kids like the most precious things in his life. My father and brother may have played into her delusions, but I learned early on to verify everything where she was concerned.”
“We all know she’s not right in the head.”
“My father and brother don’t want to see that. She’s quite good at playing mostly normal,” the man admitted.
“Your father isn’t an issue any longer.”
“True. Let’s work on getting this poor asshole cleaned up. Maybe, if we play our cards right, the Aces High MC will deal with my brother and sister for me.” There was a brief moment in time where I wasn’t sure if I passed out or if everyone just stilled to take in the situation. “Take him to Durbin, unharmed.”
Arms tried to lift me, but my legs wouldn’t hold. “He can’t even stand on his own. Your sister was drugging him, but I’m certain she never let him up out of that bed either.” The man turned me and lifted the shirt that had been put on me earlier.
“Are those sores?”
“Bed sores, same thing happened to my grandfather when he was in the nursing home and the lazy motherfuckers didn’t turn him.”
“Fuck!” A door slammed, but I still heard the man yell. “Get him cleaned up and healthy. Tell Durbin I want it done as fast as humanly possible without adding to the damage he’s already taken.”
As they attempted to move me once more, my legs gave out. The muscles no longer capable of holding my body up. Something inside of me just snapped and I was down for the count until I woke up in another bed sometime later, this time lying on my side with vomit in front of me, sweat drenching my body, and shakes so violent, I couldn’t tell if I was having a seizure or not.
“Don’t worry, we’re not leaving you like that,” a voice called out to me. I flinched, at first, because it was a woman. She must have noticed my reaction though. “I’m sorry, I thought you were aware I was here. I’m going to get this mess cleaned up and call Durbin in to see you.”
I wanted to ask where I was. Who this Durbin was? There were so many questions, but I couldn’t get my brain to settle on one thought long enough, or my mouth to work, in order to get them out. Honestly, I just wanted everything to end. Everything. I had nothing to live for anyway if I was like this.
“Can you tell me your name?” The woman asked. I just stared blankly at her. While she didn’t seem threatening, I didn’t want to be left alone with her either. “Okay, I’ll just let Durbin try.” I could hear her recounting to someone a little while later that I was not responsive to her, except to feel afraid of her presence. A part of me, somewhere deep down inside baulked at the idea that I might be afraid of a petite woman, but then a little tickle of a memory tried to surface and I knew I was wrong to think that a woman, no matter how small, couldn’t be dangerous. They were the worst enemy because you never saw them coming or the amount of damage they could inflict.
“Declan,” a man called out to me and I turned my head just enough to be able to see h
is approach from my peripheral vision. “Name’s Durbin. I’ll be your detox expert for the remainder of your stay,” he announced with a slight laugh at the end as if something was funny. I didn’t see any humor in my current situation though.
“Where?” I attempted to get out, wanting to know where exactly I was, how I got here, why I was here, who brought me, and so much more, but the one word hurt to speak.
“Where isn’t important. You’re safe, for now.” The fact that he had to add the ‘for now’ should have disturbed me, but it didn’t. For some reason, I wasn’t surprised by it. “I’m going to work on getting you healthy again and then we’ll talk about what will happen with you after.” He sighed and then sat himself in a chair I hadn’t noticed beside the bed I was in. “I’m not going to lie, this is not going to be easy for you, but you need to hang in there and keep fighting through it.”
“Why?”
“You ever want to get back home to your family?”
“Family?” I questioned, though I don’t think the entire word managed to escape my body the way I intended.
“Do you know your name?” The man asked, looking at me as if I were a puzzle he was trying to solve. I didn’t answer him. What he had called me moments ago sounded familiar. It felt like mine, but what did I know? “Shit,” the man huffed out when I didn’t answer. He then stood and started looking me over, getting close and examining my head for something. “Damn it!” He yelled and then, before I could question what had him so upset, he took off out of the room.
I caught a few words he yelled at someone, though I didn’t see another person. Maybe he was yelling at the woman who had cleaned up my vomit. “Head injury, memory loss,” and then there were the words that sent cold dread flooding through my system for some reason. “Is it worth it to keep him?”
Was he talking about me? What would they do if they didn’t keep me? Throw me out? Take me to a different hospital? That’s what this room looked like, a hospital room. It definitely smelled like one too. Maybe they would just stop treating me and let me die. I bet I would die quickly. My whole body seemed to be screaming for the promise of peaceful death.
The man didn’t come back the rest of the day. I couldn’t even tell you if the woman came back though. I was lost to the agony and the nightmares.
Days passed.
I felt better.
Stronger.
We began physical therapy for my muscles after I was able to eat solid food again. My constant companion was a nightmare of a woman who loved me. Hated me. I didn’t know. Everything was so mixed up. I had been told that I had some kind of swelling in the back of my head, closer to my neck. It was affecting my memories, but that maybe I would get it all back once all the swelling went down. Things did start coming back. I remembered a beautiful woman with blond hair and a smile that could light up a whole room. There were little girls that drifted in and out of my memory too. Then there was the other woman who usually caused me to wake up in a cold sweat. I didn’t know what to make of it and Durbin, my advisor – for lack of a better word, refused to tell me. He said it was better if I remembered on my own.
“When can I go home?”
“Did you remember where your home was?” Durbin asked with the same cocky grin he always wore when we had this discussion.
“You know I haven’t. Maybe going home would help me remember,” I insisted and not for the first time.
“Maybe going home is the last thing you need,” he countered as he always did.
I sighed and pushed the weights up with my legs once more. They shook with the effort, but it felt good to do so many reps after barely being able to walk into this small gym he had me rehabilitating in. “You really don’t know what happened to me?”
“When you were brough to me, a severely malnourished junkie with a head injury. I wasn’t there to witness how all of that came about.”
I didn’t know why, but something about that whole scenario didn’t sit well with me. Being a junkie didn’t feel right. I couldn’t deny the constant craving I had though, so maybe that’s all I had been and the family I kept dreaming about was just that – a dream.
“How long have I been here?” I asked. It was actually the first time I’d ever bothered to ask that particular question.
“Tomorrow marks 90 days in my tender care for you,” he teased as he bopped me lightly on the shoulder and nodded his head to the leg press that I was working on. “Let’s get you stronger.”
Stronger. That was all fine. I just wanted to get the monkey off my back that kept begging me to find more of whatever I’d been taking before. The bitch of it was, even if I wanted to, really wanted to go back to that stuff, I had no clue what it was I had been taking or why. Sometimes, I got flashes of a woman with a needle, but then the memory or whatever it was would be lost to the fog. I wasn’t sure what the hell to think. Those flashes were usually part of the nightmares that woke me from sleep, which was why I didn’t know how reliable they were.
“I have to go help a friend out for a few days. I want you to keep working on yourself while I’m away, and if you have any questions you can ask Amber.” Amber, that name made my heart twinge. I didn’t particularly like the Amber he was talking about though, so I wasn’t sure why I had that reaction. My response to his announcement never came and finally, the man I’d only ever known as Durbin spoke up again. “When I get back, we’ll see about getting you out of here and back to your home.”
“My home?”
He nodded his head. “No questions right now. I’ll see to it that it happens though. You have my word.”
It turned out that Durbin’s word was not to be trusted because he never returned from that trip. Instead, I was confronted by another man who told me that my journey was almost at an end and I would be going home soon whether Durbin liked it or not. I still didn’t know where the fuck ‘home’ was, but I supposed it was something I would find out soon enough.
Chapter 13
Memories and Remorse
Lucy
Regrets seemed to be the major theme of most of CJ’s letters to me. The regrets revolving around all the things that were done wrong that cost him time with his children were among the worst of it. If I could go back in time and be the man CJ was when he wrote these letters, I would just hold him and let him know that everything turned out all right. I know, that seems weird to say because, truth be told, the CJ was growing old with was at home. The man in question was asleep in our bed only feet away where I could look at him and see that he was safe and sound and not suffering over much at the moment. Obviously, he was in turmoil over coming home empty handed once again, but that wasn’t something he could control either. Some of the things he wrote about in his letters were in control. Though, hindsight had a way of making us believe we’d failed miserably, where in the thick of it, you are blinded by some aspects of life.
I glanced down at the letter in my hands again. I had sneaked it out of the box and brought it in here to read when I couldn’t sleep because they had become a sort of addiction for me. I needed to know what the next one said, and the following one, and each and every line after that. At the same time, I didn’t want CJ to know that I was reading them because I feared he would take them away and hide them from me. He was home now, for a few days while one of the men from another Chapter continued to try to dig around for answers in Canada. It was hitting my man hard that they continued to smack into dead ends in their search for Deck. I feared that eventually, I would end up with another letter full of his regrets. I couldn’t think about the possibility of them never bringing Deck home though. Instead, I moved to immerse myself back into CJ’s letter. As hard as it was to read some of the words he penned from our past, they were also oddly comforting to me.
My dearest Lucy,
My beautiful wife, my partner in life, my everything, please, tell me that one day you will forgive me. I don’t even know how I can ask that of you when I can’t forgive myself. I feel like a piece of
me, a limb, a chunk of my soul, has been ripped from me and no matter what I do, I can’t make myself whole again. Part of that is missing you, it always feels that way, but even if you were to come and crawl right into my lap and get as close as you possibly can to me, I don’t think it would take that feeling away this time.
Our boy is gone. He was about to start a family of his own. I still can’t believe it. I can’t believe my little boy had grown so much that he was about to step into the role of father before his life, and that of his baby’s, were snuffed out. How the hell do I even begin to wrap my head around that, let alone get right with the fact that this was all down to me. I may not have run him off the road or took his life with my own hands, but I may as well have.
I never put my foot down about the way things were handled at the club. There was never a moment, even after all we went through, where I questioned how things were done or tried to change them. I was fucking raped, missed out on a part of your life, our son’s birth, and so much more, all because of the filthy fucking whores we allowed to run roughshod through the clubhouse. Had I put my foot down then, do you think it would have changed anything? Do you think the men would have followed suit? I can’t even say for sure. Knowing what happened to me, I don’t even think they would have gotten rid of the whores back then. I don’t think it would have been enough to convince them. Still, it will always hang over my head because I never tried. Not until it was too late. My boy suffered from my slow action. He suffered in the beginning of his life for it and then his life was cut short for the same damn reason.
I can’t get that out of my head. Hell, baby, I know I don’t even have to explain all this to you. It’s the reason I’m not with you right now. You already know all of this. You blame me too. I wanted to be better than the man my father was, but Luce, I’m worried that I ended up worse. My actions, my inactions, they’ve cost us so much more. They cost me you, so many times. Too many times. They cost me Ever, and a relationship with her that I can be proud of and grow. Instead, we just have this constant awkwardness and struggle. Now, they’ve cost us all Toby. How do I get right with that?
Everlasting (Aces High MC - Charleston Book 6) Page 6