by C. M. Owens
I scrub a hand over my own face and inwardly groan.
Rush pulls out a flask from his jacket and takes a long sip. “Welcome to the shit show. It’s been a nightmare. Nice of you to join in during the witching hours,” he drawls, passing me the flask like we’re now teammates.
“Can Eve really not shoot a gun? Or fight? Or do anything at all badass?” I ask him on a tired sigh before I take my own long sip of the—
I cough harshly, because I really was not expecting gin. The taste of raw pine-needles assaults me, and I see his lips struggle to keep their stoic, serious line as I shove the flask back at him a little angrily.
“Some things never change,” he murmurs like he’s amused as he takes another sip. “But no. Eve is decidedly anything but badass. She’s Suzy Homemaker playing house at the club. Drex likes her that way, which is why he keeps her heavily surrounded and makes excuses for the two of them to stay in the clubhouse. She’s not sick and stuck in bed, Kara. He just can’t afford to look weak right now, so he tells her when she’s not feeling good, and she complies.”
That makes more sense. Glad my brother sent me off into the thick of an ongoing war with very little warning of the gravity of the situation and how it’s already escalated. Meanwhile, he tucks his girlfriend into bed like a fragile doll.
I feel overestimated.
“I’m in the final quarter instead of half-time,” I note, using football metaphors because...it’s Texas.
“Glad you’re finally figuring that out,” he says as he drains the last of the liquor from the flask, turning it up and gulping heavily.
“You covered me with your body,” I also note, because...he reacted like an unlikely human shield.
My eyes move to study his profile, but his jaw merely tics as he shrugs a shoulder. “Drex would have ended me if I’d done anything any differently.”
I was so fully surrounded by him that a bullet would have had to pierce him first to ever touch me.
“Why did Drex put you in charge of me?” I ask, but he stands and pockets his flask.
Instead of answering, he says, “Come on. There’s nothing left to do here but wait, and we have work to do now that you’re finally committed to this.”
I don’t argue as I guzzle the bottle of water. He pauses at a vending machine in a little room off to the side to buy me another. My eyes narrow on him as he passes it off to me without a backward glance, moving like it’s normal to be so attentive to another.
Even normal guys don’t usually give a shit if I feel like ass. I’ve learned most guys are just selfish assholes. Most people in general, in fact.
If you can’t beat em’, join em’. That’s been my motto for a while now.
“Are you close to Dash?” I ask him as we board the elevator.
He stabs the button to the ground floor. “I only have one person I’m close to in the club. I know better than to forge too many attachments,” he replies without looking in my direction. “Someone warned me against that in the very beginning. It was good advice.”
So...he’s still only attached to Sledge—his unofficial, weirdly protective father figure. Sledge’s heart has always been too soft for the club.
“How’s Sledge?” I ask as the doors open to the elevator on the first floor.
“His old lady betrayed us to Herrin and Sledge helped kill her to send a message. He’s hiding it well, but I’d say he’s extremely fucked up right about now,” he states with zero emotion.
Freaking Halo.
“Peachy,” I mutter.
After climbing on the bike and sliding in behind him, I quickly strap on my helmet. He’s quicker to get the bike started and rolling this time, instead of fumbling around like a novice.
He tenses when I tighten my arms around his waist, and I try to ignore the familiarity between us and the remembered comfort I have when I press against him. After all, I’m the one who helped Sledge teach him how to drive.
I don’t bother asking where we’re going, but we’re definitely not heading toward the club. I get a little worried when we pull up to a house that is loaded down with at least ten cats eating out of one massive bowl.
They scatter like roaches under a light when the thunder of the Harley gets too close to the porch, and they peer out at us from the safety of their hiding spots.
It looks like an eighty-year-old woman’s place with all the beds of flowers, floral prints on the outdoor furniture, and endless stream of wind chimes.
Little humming birds buzz around some of the feeders put out for them.
“Did you recover a long lost grandma or something?” I ask him.
He makes a snort of derision. “Or something,” I barely hear him mutter.
He pauses at the doorway when a stream of muffled music barely reaches our ears. It’s distinct enough that I know exactly what the song is.
“Does your grandma have a thing for Julie Andrews?” I ask in a wry tone as I look around at the cat enthusiast’s somewhat creepy décor. “She’s seeming like a little old lady cliché right now.”
The music cuts out, and silence permeates the air as Rush takes a seat.
“Trust me, we should just wait this out,” he tells me as he picks up a magazine and starts flipping through it.
Confused bigger than dammit, I take a seat next to him and find my own magazine from the stack laid out on the coffee table. It’s reminiscent of a couple who are waiting to get my cervix examined or something.
There are even two creepy anatomy posters of the male and female body across from us with detailed, handwritten labels for each part inside and outside of the body. Well, all the critical parts of the body, that is.
“Your grandma into anatomy as well?” I pry.
He snorts and coughs down a laugh. “Something like that.”
I hear a door fly open, and I look up, waiting for this curious old lady to show her eccentric, cliché self.
It takes a few minutes of groans and grunts, and what sounds like someone struggling with stairs...
“Should we help her?”
“Absolutely not,” he says with a curious shudder that I feel, because it shakes the cushion I’m on.
I turn and give him a wary look as he keeps his attention trained on the gun magazine he’s reading.
He cuts his eyes to me, and he gives a lazy dip of his gaze to my low-cut shirt. “You can take the girl out of the club, but can you take the club out of the girl?” he asks, eyes coming back up to mine.
“Are you asking me how much I’ve changed? I gotta tell you, I’ve spent a small fortune in therapy. All they really do is teach you to accept how fucked up you are after you’ve been formed to be a fucked-up person from birth,” I state idly, getting slightly creeped out from the cat clock whose eyes seem to follow me as I lean from one side to another. “Why all the cats?”
“Bad breakup,” he answers too quickly, eyes drifting down my neck. “What about you? Ever had cats?”
“I’ve only had one bad breakup, and the guy was a total flunky for my father,” I quip with a tight smile. “We were too young to know better back then. It wouldn’t have ever worked out, and I accepted that before I moved on.”
His eyes harden, that blue resembling ice as his expressions shut down.
“Maybe if the girl had given him all the information, he would have gone with her,” he says very coldly.
I shift in my seat, weirdly feeling like he thinks I’ve wronged him. Dick.
“The girl tried to give him the information. He was too stubborn and content to hear it,” I volley.
“Sounds like the girl only half-assed her attempt. At least in my opinion,” he says with a shrug before redirecting his attention to the magazine. “How’ve you been sleeping without your nightly orgasms for stress relief?” he adds like the bastard is amused by my denial.
“Considering I’ve only had such stress relief once since my untimely kidnapping, it’s not been too fun,” I bite out.
His brow furr
ows, and he cuts his confused attention toward me. “When the hell did you get yourself off? You’re under constant supervision, and I sure as hell haven’t seen—”
“The night you were drunk and came staggering in with the wound on your stomach that’s just started healing,” I point out. “I was left uncuffed, and I didn’t do anything nefarious. Yet I still get chained to the bed every—”
“You jilled off in the bed with me while I was drunk out of my mind and bleeding everywhere?” he asks with an undue sense of incredulity.
“You perved from your window every night while I handled my stress relief. Out of the two of us, you’re sicker than I am.”
He shakes out the magazine, clears his throat, and smirks as he starts reading again.
“You’ve gotten business-like about orgasms—treating them like a chore. A little self-control and pleasure denial would do you some good,” he answers.
My thighs press together, which is just my fucking damage and not the normal I’m still striving toward. I pretend I’m not even a little aroused right now, because it’s alarming how easy it is for me to want to go back to the old me.
The old me would be straddling him on this couch, stripping his pants down just far enough for me to free the important part of his body, and riding him like I’m on a mission while the two of us lose ourselves in each other. Now I know that’s a toxic habit, because sex was once my drug. Especially sex with Rush.
We were two broken kids trying to heal ourselves by pretending to fall in love. I’m not even sure what love actually fucking is. My therapist assured me we weren’t ever feeling any form of healthy love. Well, he let me figure that out on my own, rather.
It helps me break up the tension to think of the countless hours I spent traumatizing that small-town man who was used to dealing with privileged kids and their neglect issues, attention depravation, and deep-rooted insecurities that stemmed from overly rigid parents and shit.
My level of fucked-up-ness both intrigued and horrified that poor man.
Just as I turn to look back, I muffle the startled gasp in my throat.
A man is dragging his body across the ground toward the front door as fast as he can, tears silently streaming down his face as his teeth grit in determination.
There’s a blood trail behind him, even though I’m not sure where the blood is coming from. I start to get up, but Rush’s hand reaches out, and he grips my arm, dragging me closer to him without ever looking up from his magazine.
A wash of cold awareness slips over me when I realize we haven’t come to see a long lost grandma.
This house is in the middle of no-fucking-where for a damn good reason.
The guy doesn’t even risk a glance in our direction, and I watch in a state of helplessness as he reaches up, whimpering in panic, as he fumbles with the seemingly taxing door knob. His blood is smearing all over the white frame that I now notice has some other, subtle bloodstains surrounding it like this isn’t the first time this has happened.
His hands have blood running out of them from what appears to be stab wounds, and I’m positive his dick is bleeding, giving the pool of blood near his crotch.
I have no idea who this guy is or what he’s done, and Rush seems cold and indifferent toward the entire situation.
Just as he gets the door open and manages to drag himself out onto the front porch, there’s a muted, distinct sound of a silenced bullet buzzing the air.
The man grunts and writhes for a traumatizing moment or two, before his body gives one last jerk. He starts bleeding from his head where the two stealthy kill-shots impacted, and I sit very, very still.
I swallow thickly when I hear the distinct sound of someone skipping toward us, while whistling the tune of I Feel Pretty. It’s one of the single most horrifying moments of my life, and that says about my internal panic right now.
“Rush! I thought I heard you pull up,” an enthusiastic, familiar blonde says when the whistling abruptly stops, as I chance a glance in the direction of her voice.
She’s grinning broadly as she continues skipping around the blood trail, her long ponytail swaying like a little kid’s, as her eyes remain bright and happy...
Fuck my life. This chick is a complete lunatic.
I swallow hard once again.
“And you brought your girlfriend! Want some tea?” she asks, pointing that last question at me and waiting patiently for my response...like she’s being a good hostess.
“N-n-no, t-thank you,” I stammer, inching closer to Rush’s sidearm.
She flicks her gaze to him again, and he idly glances up at her.
“You want me to drag him to the basement, don’t you?” he asks too casually for my comfort.
“You came to ask for a favor, didn’t you?”
“Dash is in critical condition right now,” he answers.
Her smile falls, and her eyes go dead in the next instant. “Snake?”
“He wasn’t there for the shootout. Some of your stripper friends didn’t make it, though. However, your two favorites are at the clubhouse,” he carries on, having a conversation that makes absolutely zero sense to me.
Why did she ask about Snake?
“You’re sure Snake is okay?”
“Jude is fine,” he assures her. “At least physically. I’m not sure where his head is at right now. You know how tight he and Dash are.”
She nods slowly.
“Get rid of the body. The incinerator is already turned on,” she tells him like that’s a normal-fucking-everyday thing to say. “Give me a starting point.”
“If I had a starting point, I wouldn’t be here. I’d be handling it myself,” he replies, lips twitching. “Surely you and Maya can finally come in handy, considering the hell the two of you have inadvertently drawn us into just because you got issues that sent you searching for romance in your twisted skulls.”
She gives him a wry look.
“The club won’t be drawn into my shit. But I’ll get started on yours. Figure out a way to keep Snake in line so that I can work without his anger toward me getting in the way.”
She pauses, looking down and smiling before randomly adding, “Good kitties.”
I get a little nauseated when I see the cats piling in so they can start lapping at all the blood. This is just too fucked up for me.
Even Rush bristles at the sight.
“Fucking crazy bitch,” he mutters under his breath. “He prefers Jude now,” he calls after her as she turns and steps over the body while heading outside.
“I know. That’s why I’m calling him Snake,” she says over her shoulder before she disappears from my line of view.
I’m not okay with losing sight of the terrifying woman who looks like a Barbie Doll reject in a belly-dancing outfit.
Rush gets up and goes to start pulling the body out of the doorway like it’s a typical afternoon’s task, kicking at cats to shoo them out of his path. I swallow back the bile, because he’s definitely more jaded than he used to be.
A slight sense of horror washes over me when a clown van comes barreling backwards out of the small, detached garage next to us. It even has a big red nose on the front, and curly hair that surrounds the windows, and undersized jazz hands for rearview mirrors...
A little clown horn squeaks like she’s beeping out a farewell, before she speeds off in reverse, does a quick one-eighty to face the front, and revs the engine with a much more horsepower potential than one would expect a clown van to have. The van darts off with the madwoman behind the wheel.
“I’m not okay with this level of insanity,” I say very loudly as my hands slightly tremble.
“Neither am I,” he calls out, and then curses as the sound of something heavy thumping down the steps signals he’s presumably dropped the dead body.
“Okay then. Glad to know we’re in agreement on limits,” I mutter as more and more cats come inside to start cleaning up the mess. “She should have offered me something a lot stronger than te
a,” I decide aloud as I cut my eyes away to stare outside. “I’m going to need a lot more therapy.”
“Welcome to the shit show,” he says again like he heard me. “Be glad you’re only here for the finale.”
The more things change, the more fucked up they get...
Chapter 13
RUSH
Kara doesn’t complain as I begin tying her down with the newly acquired satin ties I stole from Sarah’s house. Hopefully, Snake won’t walk in, recognize them, and blow a fuse.
To be honest, I’d like to know who was getting tied down in their relationship.
Drex is predictably blowing his short fuse as we speak, because Dash isn’t getting better fast enough.
Kara eyes the new ties with a skeptical look, darting a suspicious glance toward me. I keep my lips from twitching, mostly because I can hear the loud crashing going on just outside my door.
“Who’s my brother beating to death?” Kara idly inquires.
“Someone who deserves it. Let him blow off his steam without judgment right now. He’s trying to keep himself under control so that he doesn’t get us all killed with his reckless leadership skills,” I answer before pushing up from the bed and going to lock the door.
Usually I sleep fully clothed, but I pull my shirt over my head, moving back toward the bed. Her eyes predictably drink me in, and I watch as her thighs press together as she fights the urge to squirm.
She gives me a little glare when my lips tug up in a grin at one corner.
“You know this is highly inappropriate, right?” she asks.
I give her a careless shrug. “Dash is a fighter. He’ll survive. I’m sure he won’t mind.”
“That’s not what I was referring to,” she bites out.
She finally squirms a little more noticeably as I stop at the end of the bed, and her breath catches in her throat when I take her vibrator out of my pocket.
“I’m just trying to be a polite host. My version of hospitality is a little more fucked up than it used to be. Pardon the extra damage, but you’ve been gone a while,” I drawl, staring over the thin, cotton panties she wears without shame. “And you’ve been incredibly insensitive toward my damage every time you refuse to wear shorts. It’s only fair.”