by Gemma Weir
I finch. “Someone else needs to do it. She’s not in any fit state.”
“I’m fine. I can do it.” Angel says, her voice monotone and lifeless.
Spinning around, I look over my beautiful broken girl. Her face is puffy from all the tears she’s cried. She looks so fucking young, and all I want to do is pull her into my arms and smother her with all the love I have. Instead, I move to the side as she pulls on her boots and walks past me, straight out of the door.
Smoke and I share a look as I close my bedroom door behind me and follow after my girl. She walks purposely to Prez’s office and knocks, before opening the door and entering the room. I follow her, quietly closing the door behind me.
Grits, Prez, and two uniformed officers are in the office. Grits pulls Angel into her arms, but she doesn’t react; instead she stands rigid and unyielding as her friend tries to offer her comfort and support.
The cops speak, but I can’t focus on what they’re saying. My eyes don’t move from Angel. I watch her, waiting for the chink in her impenetrable armor to show, but she never falters. She’s emotionless as the police inform her that her parents were both involved in a fatal car accident. She’s detached as we climb into the police cruiser and head to the hospital. Her expression is impassive as the mortician draws back the curtain that reveals the bodies of both her parents.
She finally loses it when her eyes fall to her mother’s lifeless body. She twists her face into my chest and a strangled cry escapes from her. I nod to the officers and the curtain is quickly drawn, hiding her parents from us once again.
Angel’s limbs give way and I lift her into the air, carrying her from the room. She clings to me, hot tears running silently onto my shoulders. I hold her in my lap the whole drive back to the compound and then carry her back to our room where I hold her in my arms for the rest of the night. She alternates between inconsolable wails and silent, body wracking sobs. By the time the sun starts to filter through the blinds, we’ve barely slept at all.
I don’t know what to do. I fetch us food, but she refuses to eat. She hasn’t spoken in hours and her eyes are dead. I want to kiss her, hold her, and surround her with all my love. I want to tell her over and over that I love her and that she’s not alone, but right now I’m not sure that’s enough. Anything I can offer her seems insignificant in the face of her loss.
My parents are dead.
Every bruise, cut, and injury, my father caused me seems to have reopened in the face of his death. The pain is overwhelming. When I close my eyes, I see all of the anger and hatred he had for me replay over and over in my mind.
I hated him and I’m glad he’s dead—and that makes me a terrible person.
The feeling of grief engulfs me when I allow the reality of my parents’ death to permeate my mind. The little girl inside of me is terrified at being all alone in the world, the sole surviving member of my family. But the downtrodden teenager who suffered at the hands of my father, who wasn’t protected by my mother, keeps reminding me that they hurt me, that they betrayed me and deceived me.
My mama loved my father, that love was the reason she chose him over me. That love is what caused her to accept his abuse and defend him. My sister fell in love and that love caused her to leave me behind, that love meant she chose her freedom over her family. I don’t blame her, but that love ultimately led to her death.
I love Daisy.
I don’t want to die. I don’t want Daisy to die, and so far, all love has brought me and the people around me, is pain and death.
I don’t want to be alone. Daisy saved me, and I know I’ll never love anyone the way that I love him, but I don’t want to be the reason he’s hurt. I don’t want to be the reason he dies.
Thoughts swirl around inside my head, Daisy, my parents, my sister, all of them warring for the last word in the spiral of depression that seems to be consuming me.
I’m hungry, but when I try to eat my hands won’t move. I’m tired, but when I close my eyes all I see are their cold, dead faces turned and staring at me. I want Daisy, but I don’t want to hurt him more with my guilt and grief.
I find solace in the void within my mind. Retreating to the familiar peace, I let the silence overwhelm me and I block out everything else.
Someone organizes a funeral. I stand at the front of the church while Daisy guides me. I don’t remember the service. I don’t speak, I don’t eat, I don’t cry. All of my tears have dried up, all grief I felt for my father has gone. I’m glad he’s dead. My heart aches for my mama, her love was ultimately the architect of her death. She would still be alive if she had found the strength to walk away from him, if she would have acknowledged that he was hurting her, that he was hurting all of us. But she couldn’t.
Daisy told me that my parents’ death wasn’t an accident, that they think it was Carduccio’s men who forced my parent’s car off the road. It was meant to be a warning, a threat to force them to pay the money they owed, but in the end the money killed them.
Grief is a fickle beast. The only thing keeping me sane is Daisy. His constant and enduring love is the only thing keeping my head above water, the only reason I manage to drag myself out of my own head each day.
My hate for my father and his responsibility for my mama’s death consumes me. I want to shout it from the rooftops, that he killed them. He killed my sister, he killed my mama and he was the only one that deserved to die.
Because of him I’m eighteen and alone, that shouldn’t happen. My mama won’t be there on my wedding day, she won’t know my children, she won’t get to see me happy and loved.
“I love you,” Daisy whispers, as he pulls me into his arms.
He’s told me dozens of times already today that he loves me, that we will get through this, that I’m not alone.
It takes seven days for him to permeate my depression, when finally his words start to be louder than the pain and anguish in my mind.
I’m not alone.
Because I have a man whom I love, who loves me in return.
I have a family, who in the short time I’ve known them, have shown me more support and affection than my father did in my entire life.
I have friends. Grits has visited me every day. She’s consoled me, brought me brochures for the community college, and talked at me when I couldn’t fight my way to speak back. Anders and Blade have taken all of Daisy’s shifts so he didn’t have to leave my side. The Sinners have accepted me and taken me under their wing.
I wake up and it takes me a few minutes to remember that my father’s gone. I feel grateful that he can’t hurt me anymore, that I’m safe and free. But then I remember that she’s gone too and that it’s his fault.
I’m angry. I’m angry that my mama didn’t leave him, that she didn’t see how evil he was. I think she must have known deep down, but she was just so frightened of him. Her spirit was so beaten down that she lost her fight.
I miss my mama. I miss Nicole. I miss the history and despite my father there were good times and good memories.
But I’m not alone.
Even in the darkest depths of my grief, anger and loss I have Daisy, the light at the end of the tunnel. It might take some time, but he will help me pull all of my broken and shattered pieces back together again.
Two random meetings, nine emails, and four days, led me to the beautiful boy with the silly name. He brought me back to life and I’ll never be alone again, because that beautiful man loves me and he taught me how to love him back.
I thought that seeing her bruised was the worst thing I’d ever see. I was wrong.
Watching Angel struggle with this loss is impossible. I don’t know how to help her. I’ve never had parents to lose, I don’t know what to do.
We planned a simple funeral and Angel went, but I don’t think she really knew what was happening. For a few days she was so lost inside her own head, she just stared into space. I’ve never felt so helpless. Watching the woman you love retreat so far inside herself that she
struggles to function is heartbreaking.
I tried to care for her myself. I thought that I could love her enough to keep her afloat, but after a few days Grits insisted we have a doctor see her. Doc said she was grieving so hard, her brain wasn’t allowing her to focus on anything else and that she needed time, love and patience.
So that’s what I’ve given her. I tell her repeatedly that I love her and that she’s not alone, that we’ll get through this.
Grits visits with her every day and spends hours talking to her. Even when Angel didn’t speak back, Grits talked enough for the both of them. From the moment she got here, Angel has impacted all of our lives. I fell in love with her, but she managed to charm Anders and Blade, two of the hardest men I’ve ever met. The entire club has rallied round us because Angel’s a Sinner now and Sinners take care of their own.
Echo finally tracked down Slow two weeks after he betrayed us, selling Angel out to her dad for a pathetic thousand dollars. A thousand dollars to turn his back on his family and his legacy. The spineless bastard cried when his dad stripped him of his prospect cut in front of every member of the club. Then he sobbed as every man in turn stepped up to avenge the Sinner’s. When it was my turn I poured every bit of anger into my fists and rained down blow after blow until he was nothing but a sniveling disgrace. The asshole will be okay once he gets out of the hospital, but he won’t ever be welcomed into this town or this family again. Her voice pulls me from my thoughts.
“I love you,” she says. The sound of her voice is so fucking sweet, especially when for a moment I wondered if I’d ever hear it again.
She crawls into my arms and I wrap myself around her. She’s even more tiny than before but she’s slowly regaining her appetite and the light is gradually returning to her eyes.
“I hate him,” she whispers. This isn’t the first time she’s said these words and I agree. I hate him too.
“I know, baby.”
“He took them both away from me. Why was he so awful? He’s part of me, his blood runs in my veins. I don’t want to hurt you. I love you. I don’t want you to die and the people I love all die.”
“Shhhh,” I soothe. “You loving me brought me back to life; you couldn’t hurt me, you’re everything.” She quiets and slowly her breathing calms and she falls asleep.
Days pass and little by little she starts to come back to me. She talks about her mom and her sister, she tells me the good memories instead of the bad. She talks about her mom’s cooking and her sister’s passion for life and how she would sneak out by climbing through Angel’s window.
We don’t talk about her father. I hate the man and I’m fucking glad he’s dead. I’m grateful but aggravated that I didn’t get a chance to kill him myself. I would have, if it would have kept her safe, but I’m selfish enough to admit that I’m pleased the burden of his death isn’t resting on my soul.
Angel and I talk about the future and she tells me that she wants to go to college and get a proper education. I grab the brochures Grits left and hand them to her. “So pick a course and do it,” I tell her. I’m rewarded with the brightest smile I’ve seen since before her parent’s death.
The next day I pull out my phone and show her the apartment I’ve found. “Move in with me properly, Angel. Wake up next to me every day and come home to me after college every night.” She doesn’t say anything for several long moments, then she throws herself into my arms and kisses me senseless.
It’s been a month and my Angel is almost back to life. She speaks and eats. She smiles and laughs. The woman I love is so brave and so fucking strong and I tell her every day how fucking perfect she is and how fucking lucky I am to have her.
In return, she tells me how much she loves me and how I saved her. She’s fucking clueless. I didn’t save her, she saved herself, and together we make each other whole.
I’m the luckiest man alive.
Two random meetings, nine emails, and four days brought me my perfectly broken Angel and she changed everything.
It’s been six weeks since my parents’ death. I fell apart, but with the help of Daisy and my new family, I’m slowly putting myself back together. I won’t ever be a normal, carefree teenager, but that’s okay. The things I’ve been through all make me who I am.
“Come on, baby. As perfect as you are naked, you need to get some clothes on so we can go get the keys for the apartment. Tonight we can get naked and start christening every room, but right now we need to get going.”
I laugh and walk over to the closet pulling out the tiny denim shorts and ripped Sinners vest I know he loves me to wear. He groans when I slide my feet into my peep-toe wedge sandals and pull my hair up into a messy bun on top of my head.
“Seriously, Angel, I know you have at least ten bras. Why can’t you wear one with that shirt?”
“Daisy, my breasts are tiny, I don’t need to wear a bra,” I say smiling at him. I walk toward the door and his arms wrap around my waist pulling me back into him.
His lips nuzzle into my neck before he bites me playfully. “I love your tits, baby, but they’re mine and I don’t want anyone else to see them. Where’s your cut?”
Rolling my eyes, I spin in his arms until I’m facing him. “There’s not a single person in this club that doesn’t know I’m yours.”
“I don’t care. I like seeing my name on you, so go put your cut on.”
I’m smiling as I slide on the soft leather cut. I know he loves seeing the ‘Property of Daisy’ patch embroidered across my chest and I love the way he looks at me when I’m wearing it.
We walk out of our room hand in hand. The bar is full and I smile to myself as we walk across the room, to the table full of our friends. Liv is sat in Echo’s lap, his hand protectively placed over her stomach where their baby is growing. Blade is nursing a coffee and looking a little worse for wear. Anders and Grits are sitting close to each other, smiling and chatting. Smoke and a couple of the other guys are eating breakfast and laughing.
Daisy pulls out a chair for me and I slide down into it. He kisses me on the forehead and then goes to grab breakfast for us both.
He places a plate full of fruit and muffins in front of me and then sinks down into the chair next to me.
“Do you get the keys today?” Grits asks.
I nod. “Yes. I’m so excited.”
“Does that mean we can go shopping for house stuff for you then?” She asks.
Daisy and Anders groan in unison. I laugh. “Yes, we have nothing, so I need to get the essentials at least.”
Grits and I start to chat about where we can get a sofa from when Dino the new prospect comes running into the room. “Prez, err, Sir. Err, she barged her way in, and I don’t know what to do.”
Anders stands up and sighs. “Dino, what the hell are you talking about? Who barged in?”
Dino shuffles his feet nervously. “Err, I don’t know who she is, she just, she insisted.”
“What the hell? Who?” Anders shouts.
“Hey, you little wimp, get back here. Where is she?” A female voice screams.
We all fall silent and watch as the doors to the bar fly open. The bright sunlight plows into the room and a silhouetted figure appears.
“Where is she? Angelique. Angelique.” She hollers loudly.
Slowly, I rise from my seat, my legs shaking. The figure moves further into the room, heels clacking loudly against the floor.
“Angelique. Angelique.”
My mouth falls open and I stare at the woman that’s just entered the room. At the bright red heels, dark skintight jeans, fitted shirt, colorful tattoos covering both arms, bright red lipstick, and equally bright red hair twisted into sleek pin-up victory rolls.
Her eyes reach mine and she gasps. “Angelique.” The word falls from her lips and she freezes.
“Nicole!”
I feel Daisy step up behind me, his warm, reassuring and protective presence silently supporting me.
“Who the hell are you?” Anders
asks the woman.
I don’t wait for her to speak.
“This is Nicole. My sister,” I say.
“You told us your sister was dead,” Anders questions.
“I thought she was.” I reply quietly. “Nicole?” I say again.
Nicole moves forward until she’s in front of me. “Hey, Sissy,” she whispers, a tear rolling down her cheek as she pulls me into her arms.
The End… for now.
Holy crap I wrote a second book!!
To my lovely friend and beta reader number one, Sarah. You have lived and breathed Daisy with me and I can’t thank you enough for letting me talk through every scene that wasn’t working and character I wasn’t sure about. I’m fairly sure I’ve harassed you every day for the past six months and you haven’t complained once. Even though you’d already read it, you still pre-ordered Daisy from iBooks the moment I told you the pre-order was live. I’m so grateful for all your support and I apologise in advance because the harassing will start all over again once I start writing book three.
To my husband, Martin. I think we were all a little shocked when Echo first released and did better than any of us expected. Thank you for assuming that this second book would be as good as Echo, if not better, and allowing me to write seven nights a week, and never moaning about it. I love you so much for supporting me while I’m living my dream.
Kelly, Joanne, Carrie and Stace – my book besties, my life is richer for having you guys in it and I just wanted to say thank you for all your unending support.
To my babies Sophie, Eddie, and Myles, I love that you tell people mommy is an author. I don’t really feel like one yet, but you make me feel like a superstar when you tell people that your mommy writes books and that they should buy a copy.
Lastly to you the reader. Thank you so much for taking a chance on my stories. I hope you enjoyed Daisy and I promise there’s more to come from the world of Archer’s Creek.