by Ryan Michele
“I’ll tell Pops and be right out.” As he leaves me alone with bandana man, I don’t know why, but I want him back. I want him to protect me from this man who is so angry I’m not sure even my wonderful mother will be able to bring him down a few notches.
“Come on,” he says, leaving the room.
I stand there for a moment, shaking my head, and then hurriedly follow him—well, to the best of my abilities.
He pushes his way through the crowd, yelling names as he goes. However, the music is so loud I can’t make them all out. I think Cruz or GT or something.
We step out into the night and shoot to the parking lot. I have to take twice as many steps as him to keep up with his long stride.
“What car?” he barks.
“The blue one on the end.” I try to get a step in front of him, but he’s quick—I’ll hand him that.
He knocks on the passenger side door, and I immediately jump in front of him, blocking him from my mother. I already stepped up to James for her; scared or not, I’ll do the same for bandana man.
“Stop!” I scream, bumping him with my hip.
“Girl, you’d better watch how you talk to me,” he says as my mother’s wide eyes stare at me through the window.
“Stop it. She’s been through enough. If you want to talk to her, fine, but she’s hurt badly, and I can’t take her to the ER, so just give me a minute,” I lash out at him as the fear recedes, and my protective instincts kick in. No one hurts my mother.
I open the door.
“Cameron,” my mother breathes.
I turn to bandana dude. He’s my father? What the hell? He couldn’t have just told me that?
I GLARE AT him then turn back to my mom. “He wants to talk to you, okay?” I tell her.
“Yeah,” she whispers softly, her eyes still wide in shock.
I step to the side of the door as Cameron steps closer, the fury bouncing off him. Then he takes a look at my mother. “What the fuck happened?” His words are so cold, menacing, and scary that goose bumps form on my arms.
“Cameron,” my mother says in a calm tone, surprising me. She must have come out of her shock.
“Do not call me that. It’s Dagger. Second, tell me what the fuck happened to you? Tanner here said it was your old man?”
I close my eyes at the words, remembering only a few hours ago.
“Dagger? Really?”
“Not now, Mear. Tell me.”
Mear? I’ve never heard anyone call her that. Ever.
She sighs, but there is confidence in it. Damn, I love her strength. “Bottom line is James got drunk. He used me as a punching bag, and Tanner came to help me. We thought James was passed out, but he wasn’t. There was another fight, and he ended up dead.”
Cameron—I mean, Dagger’s—back straightens, and his face goes on alert. “Can you walk?” he asks her in a tone that is surprisingly caring. This night seems to be full of them—surprises.
“I need to help her,” I say from the side.
“Fuck that.” He picks my mother up as she closes her eyes tightly; no doubt, he’s touching something that hurts her. He carries her bridal style as I slam the door to the car and lock it.
I trail behind them, and the guy Dagger called Rhys—what kind of name is that?—meets us as he’s coming out.
“Call Doc. We need him ASAP. Find Princess,” Dagger barks to another man as we enter. He has longish, brown hair and a beautiful brunette is standing next him with a soft smile on her face.
I follow through the crowd, making sure my mother is in my sight at all times. The music has stopped, and the overhead, even brighter lights are on. All eyes seem to be on us. If there were ever a time I would like to disappear, this would be it. I hate being the center of attention, always have. Regardless, I pull up my big girl panties and move on.
Dagger enters a room and lays my mother on a bed. The room is wood-paneled with pictures and banners draped on the walls. The bed is unkempt, and clothes are strung across the floor throughout it. Empty beer cans and bottles are on every surface. It is defiantly not the cleanest place I’ve ever been in before.
I move to the side of bed, kneeling down, my hip aching as I do, and grab my mother’s hand gently. “Are you okay?”
She turns her head stiffly toward me, her eyes welling up, and my heart breaks for her. “It hurts a bit,” she mutters through clenched teeth. I have no doubt that it does.
“I have more Vicodin in the car. You want me to go get it?” I really don’t want to leave her and go through all those people outside the door, but I’ll do whatever I have to do to help her.
“I’ll be okay,” my mother, ever the trooper, responds. Hit her with a Mack truck, and she’s still just fine.
I move to get up, even though it pains me to, but she needs the medicine, even if she won’t say it. “I’ll be—” My words are cut off by a hand on my wrist.
My head snaps up, and I look into eyes that remind me of the ocean, but also the danger that lives beneath its surface. Rhys.
“Give me the keys. Tell me where it is, and I’ll get it.” My first thought is, That’s sweet. The second thought is, What is he playing at? But I’m grateful for his generosity. My mother always taught me never to look a gift horse in the mouth, and I’m not starting now.
I dig in my pocket and pull out my keys. “It’s in…” Oh, shit. “My purse. It’s in the backseat of the car. There’s a bottle inside it.” I really don’t want him going through my purse, not that there is anything in there of any real significance. He doesn’t appear to be a respectable man who will keep his hands out of my stuff, though. Now who’s judging from the outside in, Tanner? “Or just bring me my purse, and I’ll get it.”
He gives me this manly chin lift thing, snatching my keys from me, and then he’s gone.
I kneel back down, my own pain settling in deep as the adrenaline I’ve held on to from the moment I got the call from Mom comes seeping out.
“Tell me the trouble,” Dagger says, pulling up a chair and sitting down on the other side of the bed. His gaze drifts up and down my mother. For some bizarre reason, I suddenly want to cover her up.
Four other men stand around, each with their eyes trained on my mom and each with the confidence that they could end this entire situation in a second.
“You want me to?” I ask Mom, who nods slightly. “She’s hurting pretty bad,” I tell them like an idiot. Anyone with two eyes could see that bit of information.
I go through the entire story of what happened, not leaving a single thing out. If Mom is right, and this man or men can help us, then they may as well have all the facts.
“After cleaning Mom up, we came here.”
“So the knives and clothes are in your car?” Dagger stares at me, stroking his beard up and down. It’s almost like a calming thing for him, or maybe he’s deep in thought.
“Yes, in a black, plastic bag. Everything is in there.” I grabbed Mom’s hand during the telling of the story, and she squeezed me several times in reassurance. I needed it because it’s the only reason I’ve kept going. She is my strength.
Rhys came back in during story time, and I stopped to give Mom some more meds. Her eyes getting a bit droopy now, so she’ll most likely pass out soon. That’s good. She needs to rest and heal.
“Becs, Tug,” Dagger says to two men in the room who were listening to every word intently. They aren’t as scary as Rhys, but they are up there on the top of the pole.
“On it,” one of them says as Rhys tosses my keys to them.
“Why did you give them my keys?” I ask him a little more snottily than I should have.
“Stop it,” is all he says, and I glare at him. “Tanner, let the guys do their thing.”
I focus back on Dagger. I hate not having any control. It may just drive me to the brink of insanity at this point. Wait, I’m already there.
“The house. You locked it up and turned off the lights?” he asks.
“Yes.�
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“Did you do anything else? Move him or anything?”
I cringe, thinking of his lifeless body surrounded by a pool of blood. “I didn’t touch him after I figured out he was dead.” Bile rises in my throat, and I choke it down.
Mom’s eyes close, and the soft rise and fall of her chest tells me she’s asleep. So peaceful. So unhurt.
“Good. Need the address, and I’ll get it taken care of.”
My eyes flip to his confident ones. “How in the world will you do that?”
“That, my dear, is none of your business. Me and the boys will handle it.”
I shake my head back and forth vigorously. “Don’t you get that he’s a well-respected police officer there? You can’t just cover it up. You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig!” My voice raises, and I instantly clamp my hand over my mouth, not wanting to wake up my mother.
“Tanner, it’s taken care of,” Dagger says. “Now this you-being-my daughter thing … I’ll be talking to your mother about that once I get back.”
Wait. What?
“Where are you going?”
“I have to clean up this little mess. We’ll roll out and be back in before ya know it.”
He’s going to roll out?
“You’re going all the way to Tennessee?” I ask, and Dagger nods his head.
“All right, what the hell is going on now?” A beautiful woman with dark hair and red streaks comes into the room carrying a tackle box. What, is she going fishing?
“Princess, Tanner. Tanner, Princess,” Dagger introduces us almost robotically.
I give a small wave with a “hi,” and she does the chin lift thing. That seems to be a universal sign around here.
“Need you to look over Mearna when she wakes up and Tanner now,” Dagger tells Princess.
“I’m fine,” I say, instantly rising up from the floor. Dizziness assaults me, and two large hands grip my sides, holding me up and steadying me. His touch is like a fire I’ve never felt. It’s hot, but it burns so deeply it radiates though my body. “I’m … fine,” I say on an exhale after catching my breath.
“Sure you are. I’m fine. You’re fine. The world is fine. Sit in the chair and let me check you over,” Princess says, coming toward me.
I have to say, she is definitely intimidating, so I listen and sit.
“Where does it hurt?” she asks, touching my arm in a spot that doesn’t hurt.
I chuckle. “Probably the only place it doesn’t ache is where you’re touching right now.”
The men in the room move off to the side and begin talking in hushed tones.
“So who won the fight?” she asks.
“He’s dead, so you tell me.” My eyes grow wide. I cannot believe I just said that to her. Oh, my God. A perfect stranger and I just blurted that out? Someone please shut me up.
She laughs, a full-out, throw her head back laugh. I don’t know if I’m relieved or scared shitless.
“Sounds like you did, then. Need you to go in the bathroom and wash all that shit off your face. You did a pretty good job covering it all.”
Without words, I do as she asks in an attached bathroom that is dirty as hell and needs to be cleaned, like, last year. Gross.
When I am done, I sit back down, and Princess moves my face this way and that, inspecting every inch of me. “Fucker got you good. Lift your shirt.” I look to the guys in the room, and she follows my gaze. “Don’t worry about them. They get more pussy and tits than they’ll ever need.” The directness of her words is like nothing I’ve ever heard. “What?” she asks me.
“Why do you talk like that?” Maybe I should be embarrassed, but I’m not. Shocked is more like it.
“Like what?” She waits a beat before it dawns on her. “Oh! The pussy and tits thing? Sister, if you’re gonna be around these guys, you need to leave that prissy shit at the door. It won’t fly here. I grew up around this. By the way, who are you?”
Prissy shit? I’ve never considered myself a priss before. I feel slightly offended yet say nothing.
“Apparently, I’m Dagger’s daughter.” Her eyes grow wide, and it feels kind of good. Something tells me she doesn’t get shocked very often. “At least, that’s what my mother decided to tell me a few hours ago.”
“No shit?”
I feel the urge to chuckle at her puzzlement.
“No shit.” I pull the T-shirt up over my head, my black bra covering all the essentials.
“Fucking hell, girl. He kicked you good.”
At those words, Rhys turns to me. His gaze is so penetrating, so deep I try to cover myself up, protect myself from … I don’t know, but something. His eyes narrow as he takes in every bruise and cut on my body. He hasn’t even seen the ones on my legs or back yet. I feel so exposed, naked, bare.
“Let me check. It’s okay.” She follows my gaze over to Rhys. “You’re scaring the ever-loving shit out of her.” She speaks the words I would have wanted to say.
He does some grunt thing, shakes his head, and turns back to the other guys.
Princess pokes at my ribs, and while sore, I’m pretty positive nothing is broken.
“Are you a doctor or something?”
Princess grins. “Nope, just stitched up a lot over the years. If the Doc can’t get here quickly, I come in to check it out.” So she has no medical training whatsoever. Great. “No worries. I watch those hospital shows on TV.” She winks so I know she’s joking.
I want to relax, but it’s just not there. There are too many unknowns to enjoy any relaxation.
“The motherfucker you killed do that to your mom?” she asks, looking over at the bed where my mom is sleeping without a care in the world.
“Yeah. He was gonna take us both out. I didn’t mean to …” I can’t lie, because if I were in that exact situation again, I wouldn’t change a thing. I would have killed him. “Never mind. I did mean to. He was hurting her, and I couldn’t let him do it anymore.” I wait for her disgust or anger at me for taking another human’s life. It doesn’t come.
“Good,” she says, surprising me. “Assholes like that need to be taken out.”
I gape at her. I’m pretty sure I’ve entered a parallel universe. Since when do people talk so nonchalantly about taking another person’s life? I don’t even know what to say, but I cry out when she touches a spot on my side.
“You peeing blood?” she asks as I catch my breath.
“No,” I grit out through my teeth. Damn, that hurt.
“Good. It’s probably just bruised pretty good, but we’ll have Doc take a look to make sure. You want something for the pain?”
Lord, do I want something to knock me the hell out so I can forget, but I can’t, not now. This place is too different, and for my mother’s sake, I need to keep my eyes open.
“Just some Ibuprofen would be nice.”
“You sure you don’t want some of the good stuff? I can make it so you won’t feel a thing.” She smiles warmly, and I have no doubt from the look on her face that she has an arsenal of feel-good pills.
“No thanks.”
She nods, opening the box she laid on the floor at my feet. Inside are lots of little bottles filled with pills, and at the bottom are all kinds of medical supplies.
“Does this place have hurt people in it a lot?” The words flow out of my mouth. Where the hell is my filter?
“You’d be surprised.”
I don’t really think I want to know at this point. I look to my mother on the bed, the nasty bed with dirty sheets, and I’m sure the pillows are just as filthy. There’s no way I can let my mom lie on that.
“I don’t mean to be rude,” I say as she smirks at me, giving me her full attention. “Is there any way I could get some clean bedding for my mom? That”—I point to the bed—“is just gross.”
Princess laughs so hard tears begin rolling down her face, catching the attention of the guys who’ve been in hushed conversation. “Oh, honey.” She turns to Dagger. “Dude, sh
e doesn’t even know you yet and can see you as clear as day.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” Dagger glares at Princess, and I can’t help the twinge of fear in that stare. Princess doesn’t feel it at all as her laughter continues.
“Your sloppy self.” She shakes her head, turning to me. “I’ll get some new ones.” Turning to the door, she yells, “Blaze!” so loud my ears ring.
I few seconds later, the beautiful brunette who was by the entrance earlier strides through the door. “You bellowed?” Her sarcastic tone tells me these two have a pretty good relationship. I’m pretty sure there aren’t many people who would talk to the woman in front of me like that.
“Can you get some clean sheets, pillow cases, blankets, the works? Dagger’s room is a pit.”
When Blaze smiles, it’s time for me to catch my breath. That one movement lights up her face to the point beyond beautiful. “No problem. I’d change everything, too.”
“Stop giving Dagger shit, or I’ll turn you over my knee,” the guy Dagger called Tug says, smacking Blaze on the ass with a loud thwack.
“Hey! I didn’t do anything wrong,” she teases, not pissed in the least. If anything, her admiring gaze tells me that she’s in love with this man, deeply in love.
She kisses him on the cheek and quickly leaves the room.
“Can I get you anything?” Princess asks just as a huge guy with light hair walks in the room. I’m surprised he can get through the door.
“What’s going on?” the man questions.
“Hey, babe. Two women got beaten up, one killed a guy. Oh! And this one is Dagger’s kid.” She points to me as shock hits the man’s face. “Cruz, Tanner. Tanner, Cruz, my old man.” She winks.
Damn, she did a fine job finding her a man.
“Fucking hell,” he says, joining the man huddle, not really acknowledging me.
“So, what happens now?” I ask Princess.
“The boys will leave and take care of the problem. You’re gonna need to answer all of their questions and not hold anything back.” I nod. I’ve already told them the story, but I’ll answer whatever they’ve got for me.