by A. J. Downey
Holy Christ. It hurt. Deep in the center of my chest, it fucking hurt and I just didn’t have any room to process, to deal with it, so I did what I do best. I put on my resting bitch face and ghosted up the hall. I leaned my shoulder nonchalantly against the beautifully restored, wood paneled wall and cleared my throat.
“Eh he he hem…”
Cutter’s eyes drifted shut and his shoulders dropped and I could see it written all over his face… Fuck. The woman turned her head and looked taken aback and blushed furiously.
“Oh…” she said and unwound herself from Cutter’s body, sliding down him to the floor. I kept my face impassive. I wasn’t going to fucking cry. It wasn’t happening.
My phone started ringing, shrill, filling the weighted silence as the thump of another man boarding the boat, made the woman and Cutter both redirect their attention to the open hatch. My phone rang and rang and I went for it, pushing off the wall and reaching for it with my casted arm, which I really, really wanted to use to beat the fuck out of the man I’d let fuck me last night.
I picked it up off the table as Cutter drew breath to speak. I put my hand up and arched a brow coldly. I didn’t want to hear it. Not right now. Not yet. I wanted him to save it.
“Hello?”
“It’s Marlin, the doc from up north is in town, I’m taking your sister to the clinic to have him check her out and she wanted me to call you, wants you to be there for the exam.”
“Location.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line, “Everything okay, Hope?”
“Location, Marlin.” I said and I knew I didn’t sound okay which just made me want to leave more. Cutter and I were staring hard at each other across the short space between us. The atmosphere tense. The woman’s head bobbing back and forth between us as if she were watching a demented tennis match.
“Pear Street, other side of the Boulevard, down two blocks on Vine.”
“Copy that, en route.” I hung up.
“Hope…” Cutter tried.
“Fucking save it,” I snarled bitterly.
“Oh hey, it’s not what you…” I glared the woman into silence and she rocked back, a dubious expression on her pixie-like face.
“Hope!” Cutter tried again but I’d snatched up my jacket which had my wallet and sunglasses in it and dug them out. I left the too hot garment to flop onto the recliner it’d come from and marched for the steep steps out the hatch.
I didn’t have time to deal with my fucking feelings on this. Faith needed me and I could deal with it later. I shoved it down, and when that didn’t work I shoved it aside and burst into the bright Florida mid-morning sunshine.
“Whoa, hey!” A dude with a light brown, almost faux hawk, with sparkling blue eyes and a row of switchblade patches on his vest put up his hands. He had a smart phone in one of them and looked like he’d just finished a call of his own. I blew past him.
“Hope!” Cutter called from the hatch, the woman was on deck behind me hugging herself looking like she was about to cry.
“Go fuck yourself, Cutter! Faith needs me,” I leapt to the dock, chest heaving with uneven breaths borne of too much emotion. I didn’t break stride all the way to the clinic.
I got there just in time for Nothing to pull up with Faith and Marlin in the back of what I presumed was his Subaru Outback, an older one, probably early two-thousands, that had seen better days. Behind them was a man on a Harley. He was older, wearing a vest like the guy back on Cutter’s boat. A Sacred Hearts vest, I realized as he rolled to a stop. Shit, this was the doctor?
My sister was curled up in a ball on the back seat, staring sightless out the passenger side window of the Subaru. She didn’t look good. Pale and sweating, brow creased with pain. Nothing got out of the driver’s seat and was frowning at me.
“What’s wrong?” he asked by way of greeting.
“Nothing,” I said and he raised his eyebrows at me. I scoffed, “You know what I fucking mean,” I said and scowled. I knew my tone was acerbic and I also knew that Nothing didn’t deserve my pissed off but I didn’t have time to apologize, but rather, just enough to change my attitude for when Marlin came around to help my sister out of the car. The older man came up while Nothing used a set of keys to let us into the clinic’s side door.
“You the doctor?” I asked.
“You must be the sister?” he asked and I dismissed the skepticism. I was the tall, dark and fucked up one in our family. Didn’t look anything like my sisters, my mom, and while he’d been around, my stepdad either.
“Yeah, I’m Hope.”
“Doc,” he said and he was smiling but it held the ghost of something in it, like the smile had once been something much more than what I saw now.
“Thanks for coming,” I said.
“No problem, these boys did us a big boon not too long back, we owe ‘em a whole lot more ‘n a house call,” he was looking me over, and nodded to himself, “You wanna talk about whatever it is, I am a doctor, may not be a headshrinker by schooling or degree, but I am fair good at listening.”
I startled a bit and hoped it didn’t show, “No I’m good, just look after my sister please.”
He nodded, and turned to follow Marlin and Faith inside, he had to help her. She was moving like an old woman and I was betting the withdrawals were setting in hard core.
I followed the doctor, Nothing stayed outside to look out and warn us of trouble but the clinic was deserted. I wondered about that, but Marlin was talking.
“We have to hurry up some, the place is only closed down for two hours for lunch.” He helped my sister onto the edge of the exam table and the room was already prepped for the doctor to do his thing. He slid his big black bag he had slung across his chest off, and set it down.
“Won’t be needing that, you guys are good and stocked here, let me have a look at you if that’s all right, Sweetheart,” he said to my sister and the term of endearment made me close my eyes and count to ten. I needed to be strong, to be here for Faith. I stood at her side, and she held my hand and I held hers as the doctor looked her over.
He left me with her to help her into an exam gown for the pelvic and Faith started to cry. She hadn’t said anything yet, and that was okay. I just helped her get into the gown and laying down. I cracked the door to give them the signal she was ready and went and leaned a hip against the table by hers. I faced my sister and gathered her hand up between mine while the doctor did his thing behind me.
“Remember the first time we did this ever?” I asked and she laughed brokenly, her aquamarine eyes swimming with tears, the clear liquid magnifying her eyes and making them luminous. My sisters both managed to remain pretty when they cried. Not me.
“Yeah,” she said brokenly and jumped.
“Easy, Faith. Ready? Going to use the speculum now,” the doctor was kind, treated my sister gently and with respect. He was good. I had to appreciate that.
My sister and I murmured back and forth, talking about that long ago first pelvic exam and even managed to laugh a time or two. She was so afraid, so broken and in so much pain that I couldn’t stop the tears from leaking out if I wanted to. We cried together, the doctor paused.
“Faith, I have to ask you something…”
“Yeah?” her voice warbled pitifully.
“Honey, you ever been pregnant?” he asked.
My sister dissolved into tears and I saw Marlin just outside the door, stiffen through the crack in it. I held my breath…
“Yeah, they had some doctor come… they killed my baby.”
I hadn’t made them suffer enough…
Faith sobbed and shook and I bent over her and over the table and held her from the waist up while the doctor made soothing noises and finished what he needed to do. I let the tears drip hot and salty slick down my own face and didn’t even try to wipe them or slow them. The doctor’s tone had said everything I’d needed it to and Faith didn’t need it up front and center any worse than it already was.
“Thank you for coming,” she said and it was as if she were completely drained, hollow, a husk… nothing more.
“Faith, I will always come for you, you’re my girl,” I said and we hugged. I kissed her forehead and Marlin stuck his head in.
“We gotta go,” he murmured. I nodded.
“Okay, I’ll come with you,” I said.
“No,” Faith shook her head, “I really needed you for this part but Marlin told me what’s coming, Sis; you don’t… I don’t want you there for that. I promise. I’ll call when it’s over.” I’d never seen such a look of sheer iron will and determination on Faith before. She had always been my little party girl. Had never taken life, school, her grades, any of it seriously until she’d graduated… and had nothing to do and nowhere to go and no scholarship like Char to get her to the next level.
She’d had to waitress, take community college courses, take out student loans and claw her way into college and I had done what I could to help her… not as much as I could have or should have, which was why she had sought cheaper off campus living… which is why she’d met Tonya, which was why this was my fault.
I always had to be such a fucking hard ass and look at us now.
“Okay,” I said finally and let Marlin take her from me. She seemed to have some kind of understanding with him. Which, that was fast, but who was I to bitch? I hadn’t exactly been there for her before, we’d had some knock down drag out screaming matches. Fuck. Fuck me.
“Faith, can I talk to your sister about your results and what needs to happen?” the doctor asked her.
She nodded, “Yeah sure. I just want to go lay down, get this started, get this over with.” My sister closed her eyes and swallowed and Marlin took her away from me, and I let her go. Against every single urge and raging desire I had to snatch her to me and never let her go again.
The doctor picked up his bag, and slung it across his chest and I followed him out. Nothing gave me a lingering look of concern as he closed Marlin and Faith into the back seat of his car but my last lingering look of longing and ache was all for my sister.
“Give you a ride somewhere?” Nothing asked.
“Nope. I’m good,” I said and closed it down.
“Hope…”
“Take them back to the house please, Nothing. Make sure my sister gets there safe and make sure Marlin knows I need him to take care of her. Please? I need Faith to be okay before I’m good to handle my own shit.”
Nothing nodded readily, “Yeah, no, you can count on us, Hope; you can count on all of us. Just take care of you, too.”
“Not worried about me, worried about my baby girl,” I sniffed and Nothing nodded.
“I’ll call you and the Captain later, report,” Marlin called from the back seat.
“Call me,” I said and he nodded, Nothing got behind the wheel and the doctor stood beside me as I watched them go.
“Why did you ask about pregnancy?” I asked when they were gone.
He sighed, “There’s scarring. Even if she got pregnant again she’d never be able to carry a baby to term… Those bastards really hurt your sister, I’m sorry.”
I just wished I’d killed more of them. I didn’t say that though. I wasn’t about to admit to murder out loud, even if he was cool with back alley dealings like this.
“What happens now?” I asked.
“I wait here for the clinic people to come back from lunch and they let me run your sister’s labs, Cutter has some kind of deal with them. We just wanted her to have as much privacy as possible. Far as anyone knows she’s Faith Andrews.”
“That’s right,” I agreed. My stepfucker’s name had never suited either of my sisters. Of course he’d never treated either of them like he’d treated me, and my mom and the girls never knew about that. I scrubbed my face with my hands.
“It’ll be a day or two for some of the tests, Cutter’s fronting a lot of money to get her tests to the front of the line. Should know everything by the end of next week. I’ll be here a day or two with Hayden and Reave. Cutter’s putting us up at a local B&B, away from your sister, but I’ll be on hand in case she needs another IV or methadone becomes imperative…” I kind of lost him after that. Tuned him out, while my brain wrapped around and around that name…
Hayden.
So that’s who she was. I faked my way through the rest of the conversation and totally whooped my own ass on the inside for having to make him repeat himself on some things. I mean fuck I was supposed to be here for my sister, focused on my sister… But I couldn’t help it. I had never in my life wanted anything more for myself than I wanted to try and forge something with Cutter.
I was so incredibly angry with myself. For allowing myself to be fooled into thinking that he could love me so easily, or that he would want only me… Gah… past insecurities, current events… they swamped me, rolled me under and drowned me. I was suffocating, I was sick of it and so when I parted ways with the doctor at the clinic I did probably one of the worst things I could do, but fuck. I’d earned it. I went straight for the boulevard and for one of the nearest open bars.
Time to fight fire with fire. My sorrows wanted to drown me, well I was going to drown them right back.
Chapter 34
Cutter
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t know…” Li’l Bit turned and looked at me and looked totally freaked out. It was about the thousandth time she’d said it and it wasn’t freaking helping the situation.
“Not your fault, Li’l Bit… this whole thing has been a lot of flying by the seat of our pants since she hit town and we haven’t exactly had enough downtime to set the rules,” I said in a bid to make her feel better.
Hope had been and gone from the clinic and she wouldn’t answer her phone for me. At first it’d rung and then gone to voice mail, so she was hitting the ‘ignore’ function on me. I tried to have one of the boys call her which ended in Atlas calling me back calling me all kinds of names for him getting told to fuck off.
It’d be funny if it didn’t feel like I was dying on the inside. Despite the calm exterior I was going out of my mind. Thoughts racing, one careening through my head right after the other before getting caught in the track and looping around and around and around and fuck this… Just breathe. My PTSD was having a fucking field day, anxiety riding at an all-time high letting its freak flag fly and all those thoughts in my head funneled right on down to the unthinkable…
I’d lost Hope.
Reaver held Li’l Bit in his lap and turned her face in his direction, eyes sparkling, he whispered something to her and kissed her and she smiled and nodded. Worlds away from the broken and sorrowful angel she’d left as months ago. Finding out your dead husband was alive after six months of grieving him being gone, spiraling down further every day… well, it wasn’t exactly something you bounced back from overnight.
Li’l Bit had left here with her man, my friend, and it looks like she was worlds better in a matter of just a few months. She pretty much oozed vitality. Put on weight and got her color back. Her sparkle and her fire… and while I was glad, I didn’t really feel a damn thing for her. There was no more jealousy, there was no more envy… I looked at them now and I was genuinely happy for my friends and terrified at the same time that my shot at what they had, had just been blown clean out of the sparkling coastal waters in which we sat.
“You know how I know you’re in love? Like finally met the real deal?” Reaver asked me.
“How?” I muttered, not really giving a shit what was going to come out of his mouth.
“You got the same look on your ugly mug I did when I thought I’d lost my Doll forever. Fuck man, this your first fight?”
“No,” I said thinking back to our brawl in the sand.
“I think
it is,” Li’l Bit was smiling and she winked at me.
“Jesus Christ, you think you two are in love and you got it all figured the fuck out for the rest of us?” I asked.
Reaver and Li’l Bit exchanged a look.
“What?” I demanded.
It was Hayden who answered, “She’s your air to breathe, your water to drink, your nourishment,” she said and fixed those bright green eyes on me. I leaned back.
“Yeah, yeah I guess she is. It’s like I’m missing an arm over here or something, not knowing where she is, knowing she’s hurting…”
Li’l Bit smiled beatifically, “That was how Ashton explained it to me, about her and Trig. I didn’t really know what she meant until Reaver,” she looked her man in the eyes and just that act alone put a smile on her face, made her fucking glow from the inside out. He leaned forward and kissed her, holding her face to his, deepening the kiss by slipping his tongue past her lips and the thought that I might never do the same with Hope… fuck man. It left me gutted.
I knew, deep down, she wasn’t going nowhere. I’d called Marlin and he had a hold of her sister still. From what he and Nothing told me she’d shown up at the town clinic and looked upset, and when they’d left, her agitation had been off the charts. I didn’t know how my girl typically dealt with stress but if I had to hazard a guess I would bet it was punching something, which was out on a kind of her cast.
I had every man not workin’ out looking for her right now and was just waiting on a call. Reaver and Li’l Bit stopped sucking face long enough to remember I was here and to rejoin the conversation.
“I’m sure she’s fine, man. You said she could take care of herself.”
“That’s not the point bro – ” my phone rang and I snatched it up.
“Report,” I said by way of greeting.
“Yeah Captain, she’s at Jacks at the bar and nursing some bitch drink,” Lightning said.