by Vivian Lux
"Casey." His name caught in my throat, after so many years of not daring to say it out loud. "Casey, my god. I'm sorry. I am so sorry."
The relief of finally getting to say it broke a dam that had been holding back the flood of tears. I sank to the floor next to him, my breath hitching with each strangled sob. "I'm sorry Casey. I've been sorry forever," I wept. "I was so scared for you! I know you told me not to tell and I know I promised. I am so, so sorry."
He was unmoving but his skin was as warm as it was the day I first met him. I cried to feel it under my fingertips as I smoothed the honeyed hair back from his forehead and pressed my lips to that scar. When my lips touched him, his chest hitched. Just once.
I placed my hand on his chest, hoping to soothe him back to sleep, feeling the warmth under my hand. "I thought I would never see you again," I whispered. "But here you are."
I kissed his forehead again and all the feelings I hadn't felt for five years came back to the surface. I realized why I could never muster feelings for the men I had tried to date. Everything I had ever wanted was wrapped up in the man that lay before me. The numbness I had felt since that day I destroyed his family and my happiness, fell away. I sobbed and sobbed as my heart broke wide open and feeling rushed back in.
Then the faint sips of sleeping breath changed. I pulled back from holding him to see his eyelids flutter. The ice blue was exactly as I remembered it and for the moment he looked at me with nothing but tenderness and love.
I bent to kiss him.
Our lips met, my stomach dropped, and the world fell away to have him again. I parted my lips and he snaked his hand into my hair the way he did that time before.
And then his eyes opened all the way and he pulled back and there was nothing but hatred in his eyes. "What the fuck are you doing here?"
I sat back on my heels, "What...?"
"You ruined one family, are you trying to ruin the next?"
"No, I...."
His eyes glittered with loathing. "Get the fuck out of here Alexandra." He sat up and took a slug from the whiskey bottle then threw it against the wall where it shattered into as many pieces as my heart. "I said get out!"
Chapter 27
Lexi
I was folding over myself, falling, falling, falling as my heart crashed down in flames. It was a pain unlike I had ever felt, searing and white-hot. I swallowed and gasped in panicked waves of nausea as tears flooded my eyes.
I had to run.
Whirling away from him, desperate to escape the pale blue eyes that burned with hatred, I flung open the bunkhouse door and rushed blindly into the thick crush of biker bodies. Grunts and cries of, "hey!" fell on my deafened ears as I hurried through them, searching, searching for something, anything to fill the hole where my heart used to be.
I ran into the freezing, darkened parking lot. With a choked back sob, I searched wildly for an escape. Something to blunt the sharp pain of being myself. I couldn't take feeling this awful anymore.
The weak yellow light of a single feeble streetlamp caught the top of Crash's shorn head. He was standing in a cluster of men, watching as a skinny kid set up bottles for target practice.
I saw my escape.
He was surrounded by armed bikers, all bearded and tattooed, with menacing scowls on their faces. But his face was alive with amusement, the good humor he always showed visible even in the dark.
He could be my escape.
I felt myself lurch towards him, pulled by the frantic magnetic force of my need. He heard my footfall on the frozen pavement and turned just in time to catch me as I flung myself into his arms.
He made a small sound of surprise that I silenced with a kiss. The dam that held me back inside had burst and now I was feeling every feeling that had been denied to me, for five long years, all at once.
I mashed my mouth into his, desperate and hot, wanting to consume him and be consumed in return. I couldn't stop myself, I leapt upward, wrapping my legs around his waist right there in front of everyone. He cupped his hands under my ass and I pulled myself into him, wanting desperately to disappear entirely.
"Holy shit, girl..." He was confused, but he didn't try to stop me. Instead I felt his desire harden against me. The wild flames of my mania burned hotter and I ground myself into it. All around us the bikers hooted and hollered as he carried me away, while I clutched and clawed at him. There were too many thoughts in my head. There were too many feelings in my body. It was too much to bear. I was overloaded and shut down completely, without thought or recognition. I was only a body that responded to his.
My back slammed into the wall of the building. We were in the shadows, hidden from sight and yet still out in public. But that didn't matter. All that mattered was that his lips were hot against mine. Our tongues met and mingled, sparring wildly as he clutched handfuls of my hair. I welcomed the pain and snaked my hands under his shirt to claw at the rock hard muscles of his chest. He hissed as my fingernails dug into his skin and yanked my head back to sink his teeth into my neck.
"I need to see you," he rasped against my ear. My body broke out into goosebumps as he yanked up my shirt and exposed my heaving breasts to the chill air. His hot mouth found the peak of my nipple and I heard a low, animal sound emanate from my throat. I clawed at his chest again, snaking my hands down to cup his firm buttocks and pull him closer, the throbbing in my core beating the same rhythm as the blood in my ears.
"Goddamnit, Lexi, I have been waiting for this," he panted in my ear as I felt a tug at the zipper of my jeans.
The sound of my name shocked me out of my numbness and brought me back to my senses. I squirmed a little and blinked against the cold wind. "Wait," I breathed.
"Tired of waiting," he rasped into my neck.
You're using him. Stop. This isn't fair. "Crash, wait," I begged, feeling the scalding hot blush of shame begin to lick at my cheeks.
"I'm fucking sick of waiting."
"I know, but please…"
A wave of pain crossed his face. "What is it, Lexi? Is it my leg? Is it my head?"
"No, of course not...."
"Then what? You think I'm just some sort of joke?" He pulled his face back from mine and I could see his eyes flash bright with anger. "You pity me, don't you?" When I didn't answer immediately, he stepped back and stared up into the dark sky. "Poor silly, crippled Crash, right?"
I felt a flash of anger. "God dammit that's not fair."
"Oh, I'm the one who isn't fair? What the fuck!" I jumped as he kicked the snow piled against the fence, sending a spray of ice into the air. He stalked away, rubbing the back of his neck. "Stop jerking me around, Lexi. Talk to me like I'm a fucking man."
"I am, just..." my teeth chattered in the cold and I struggled to make myself understood. Even though I didn't understand it myself. "Crash, I'm sorry."
"You're sorry?" he echoed. The sneer in his voice snapped me out of my sadness and straight into anger.
I was shivering violently now, half from shock, half from the cold, but my rising anger warmed me. Stopping us before we took things too far was the right thing to do. And here I was, paying the price for doing the right thing yet again. I couldn't take it any more.
"Yes, I'm fucking sorry. Sorry for everything I ever did or didn't do." Spittle flew from my mouth as I choked back a sob. I didn't want to be sad any more. Being sad was fucking bullshit. "I was trying to do the right thing and you know what? It is the fucking right thing. It was the right thing. So I wish everyone would just lay the fuck off of me and do the right fucking thing too!"
Crash was staring at me, confusion and hurt in his eyes and I had to look away. I wasn't screaming at him, that was pretty damn clear. I wasn't being fair to him at all. I recognized that, but I was too far gone in my own anger at injustice to stop myself. "This isn't fair!" I shouted, whirling around and kicking the snow.
"This isn't fair," I repeated as I sank to the ground.
Chapter 28
Case
The
ceiling seemed farther away than it should. Case squinted at it, wondering what had changed, and then he wondered why his head was hurting so badly.
"Case."
That voice had been saying his name for hours. Maybe. Maybe it had been years. Maybe his whole life had been spent lying in his cot, staring at the far away ceiling, hoping not to feel anything.
"Case."
Turning his head was a lot of work, so he continued to stare straight ahead as he answered J. "What do you want?"
"You're scaring me, man."
He turned his head in tiny increments, not daring to take his eyes from the ceiling for fear that the world would turn upside down when he did. "Why?" Case asks dully.
"Do you even know what day it is?"
What a silly question. It was the day of the party of course. The day he saw…He didn't want to think her name. "Yeah." Then he paused. "I think so."
He heard the sound of J. standing up; the crinkle and brush of his leathers was the loudest sound in the world. It drilled like an ice pick through his ears and directly into his brain.
Case groaned. His throat was a desert.
"No I don't think you do. You've been lying here in your own drunken filth for four fucking days."
Case inhaled sharply. That hurt too. "No, you're lying."
"Why would I lie about this? Every time I thought you were getting up you'd just pop another pill and black the fuck out again. You're a fucking vegetable over her and it's pissing me off. You wanna turn into your mother?
Anger flooded his veins and he tried to lift himself off the cot to knock J. to the floor, but the room swam too violently before his eyes and he sat back down again and groaned. "Fuck you," he spat bitterly.
There was another footfall that sounded out the bunkhouse door. Case couldn't turn his head to see, it was J. who greeted the new arrival.
"I'm trying here, Teach, but he's being a punk. Can you deal with him? Because I'm about ready to flip my shit."
Resentment simmered angrily in Case's belly.
"Case!" Teach's voice was gruff and matter of fact. "This is your only warning. A man cannot serve two masters. Either you sober up and start doing your duty to the club again, or you turn in your colors. That's it."
Case laughed incredulously, "What? You're serious?"
Teach's voice lowered to a growl. "Dead serious."
Case fought to sit up, the rage in his belly now stronger than the pain in his head. "My colors?" he repeated incredulously. "You'd take my colors?"
"I don't want a washed up junkie for a brother," J. snarled. "Or a best friend."
"Hey fuck you, asshole!" Case shouted. "You think you're better than me?"
"I think you're better than this shit!"
"Shut up!" Teach roared. "Case, your colors are fair game and you fucking know it." The president's usual composure and calm was gone. His amber eyes were dark with fury. "Did you forget so quickly? You wrote the change to the bylaws yourself."
"You're supposed to get a black eye," J. thundered, starting towards him with his fist raised. Case threw up his arms protectively, but the motion had him overbalanced and he fell backwards into the side of his cot.
"Fucking pathetic," J. spat as Case groaned.
Teach looked down at him, his anger inflating him until he looked seven feet tall. "This ends now," he growled from above Case, his eyes dark and terrible. "No fucking drugged up washout will wear the patch of the club I have devoted my life to."
"You're such an asshole!" Anger lifted Case to his feet and the throbbing pain shot through him like a lightning strike. With a guttural cry he whirled his fists around and sent them crashing into the nearest object. There was a loud clang of broken springs and screeching metal and suddenly his knuckles were on fire and bleeding.
"J. go get the first aid kit," Teach rumbled.
The pain in Case's hands snapped him out of the anger-fueled blindness and he looked up to see Mac's bunk. The mattress was now sunk through the several broken springs, which had ripped and torn it to shreds. It was broken, irreparably so.
As if on cue, Mac appeared in the doorway and peered inside. When he saw the wreckage of his bed, his face twitched with a disgusted wrinkle of his nose.
That expression on the face of the man who had done everything for him wrenched something inside of Case. He choked back a sob.
"Aw damn. Mac, I'm sorry." The pounding in his head was excruciating. J. reappeared in the doorway with the first aid kit, the medical tape already out. He approached Case as one would a wild animal, but he no longer had anything to fear.
"Can I get a minute alone with J.?" Case muttered, staring at the floor. "I'm done trashing the place. I swear."
He waited until he heard the bunkhouse door close, then looked up at his friend.
"What the hell is going on?" J. demanded. His jaw worked. The anger hadn't left his face yet.
"The girl. The girl Crash brought to the party."
"What about her?" J. snapped.
"When protective services came that last time. That time my brothers went into foster and I got sent to the group home?"
J.'s expression changed. He knelt down to where Case was still sprawled on the floor. "Yeah, the last time you saw them, I know."
"She was the one who reported us."
"Damn," J. whistled.
"I know. She lived down the street from me." He paused, trying to find the words to describe Lexi, but all he could bring himself to say was, "I loved her."
J. didn't answer him, but he leaned back against the broken cot and nodded for Case to continue. Case swallowed, hating that he was forced to remember. "And I think she loved me. I trusted her, but she must've told someone, because CPS came and found my mother drunk on the couch. They saw the dirty house with no furniture and a bare mattress for my brothers to sleep on. They saw everything that I tried to keep a secret. All because I weakened and I told her."
Case rolled onto his back, strangely grateful to be staring at the ceiling again. It seemed to make thinking easier. "I never thought I'd see her again. I wanted to, but I never wanted to, you know?"
"I do," Jay said grimly.
There was a silence that stretched out far too long. Case's mind was whirling.
Lexi, what had he said to her? He had had her next to him, her body close to his for the first time in the five years he had yearned for it, and he had driven her away. He had been drunk, and God knows what the pills had done to his language. She had been there, kissing him and then she had disappeared again. And he had the most horrible feeling it had been because he had driven her away.
"I think Crash has a thing for her…" J. said carefully.
His voice brought Case out of his misery. Carefully He pulled himself on to his knees. "Shit, I think you're right."
"Does he know?" J asked carefully.
"Who she is?" Case knelt gingerly, gulping a few times against the nausea. "I don't think so. Unless she told him, but I don't think she would have."
"Why do you think that?"
Case gave up and sat back heavily on the floor. "Because…because I know her."
J stood up and extended his hand. "This is your story to tell. I won't say a word until you tell me what to do."
Case extended his hand and his best friend lifted him to his feet. "I don't know what to do."
"Well you can lie on the fucking floor some more," J. said pointedly. "Or you can stand the fuck up like a man."
Case steadied himself on J.'s arm. "There," he said, gritting his teeth. "I'm up. Now what?"
"Well, now you should probably go drink something other than Jack Daniels." J. leaned in and sniffed him. "You smell fucking horrible. So after the water, go take a fucking a shower, change your clothes." J. looked him in the eye. "And get back to work."
Case looked at the floor. Four days. His little network would have run out of supplies by now. He dusted his hands off on his jeans had nodded. "Get back to work," he echoed.
***
The shower only took the edge off. He no longer felt like he was going to vomit everywhere. Now he only had an eye-watering, skull-splitting headache to contend with. "Progress," he muttered grimly as he used two towels to dry his massive body.
Since he felt like shit, he decided to start with the most pleasant task first. One of his favorite pushers was a little spitfire named Ingrid, who sold at the community college and was his best earner. She had been flirting madly with him, and he wondered if today he should take her up on her constant offers. That would help his mood considerably.
He got out his phone and shot her a text, asking to meet at their predetermined place.
His phone rang immediately after and a breathless little voice shouted, "Hey!"
He gritted his teeth. "Don't ever call me."
She gave a little squeak. "Oh shit, sorry! It's just that I can't get away right now. I'm at my place, can you come here?"
The pounding in his head intensified with irritation. So much for fucking her today. "Whatever ."
"Great, thank you so much, and I'm so so sorry. But also one thing, I have a friend here." She must've heard his sharp intake of breath because she started babbling even faster. "No no don't worry, she's cool, she's dating a biker, so like she knows the drill. I swear."
He felt like shit, and he did not want to deal with this. But getting back to work with the best way to move on. "Whatever," he grunted again. "I'm coming by." And he hung up.
Chapter 29
Lexi
"I just have to meet this one guy."
I didn't want to be at my house, but winter break had robbed me of the usual excuse of class. In desperation, I had texted Ingrid and asked if she wanted to go somewhere for dinner.
The less time I spent at home, the less motive I gave to my mother to pry into my life. I knew that if she got me cornered, I would be confessing everything to her. And so I kept in perpetual motion, even resorting to driving around aimlessly rather than face my mother's suffocating love.