“Line ‘em up,” he ordered and we did and he poured another round.
“Trig,” Dragon leveled the big man with his dark gaze. We all looked to the big SAA, our friend, our brother and Reaver’s best friend. His eyes were particularly shiny as he raised his shot.
“To Reaver. My brother; my best friend. Ain’t no one like him, God could never have made two of a man like that.”
We drank, and truthfully, I don’t think any of us really stopped drinking. Half of us were already half gone by the time the girls arrived with the food and I don’t think any of us could wrestle up one bit of sorry for the state we were in by the time the night was through. It fucking hurt, and every damned one of us that were any kind of close to Reaver would have done anything to drown the pain.
Chapter 29
Mandy…
The wake for Reaver and Chandra wasn’t anything like the wake for Grinder. It was as if the men of The Sacred Hearts mother chapter, Zander included, were determined to drown their sorrows, to numb the pain any way they knew how. They drank, they threw knives in honor of the fallen brother and when night well and truly fell and the bar had essentially run dry, they tried to drown their pain in the women that hung around the club.
Zander came to me and while I hadn’t drank anything, I still felt vaguely nauseous, though it wasn’t at anything going on around me. Not at all. I understood that everyone dealt with the pain in their own way and this was the way the MC chose to grieve. In celebration of the fallen man’s life. Drowning their heartache in wine, women and song… The song provided courtesy of some hidden sound system blaring 70’s rock so loud you could barely hear yourself think.
Throughout the night, Hayden remained numb. Seated in a folding chair beside her husband’s closed casket, her hand laying on the gleaming lacquered wood. Shoulders hunched, her green eyes vacant, she stared off into space, barely blinking. She wouldn’t eat, she wouldn’t drink and she wouldn’t respond to anyone. Not Ashton, not Trigger and not Cutter either. It was heartbreaking and sometime, late into the night she’d started sobbing. Trying to work the latches holding the lid to Reaver’s coffin closed.
Dragon stepped in at that point, with Dray not far behind him. I drifted over to see if I could be of use, some sort of help, standing on the periphery, bearing witness to the disaster unfolding. Dragon knelt on the floor of the stage in front of Hayden, grasping her hands between his own, much larger ones.
“I want to see him,” Hayden keened.
“No, chica you don’t. You don’t wanna remember him that way, Baby. He wouldn’t want you to remember him this way. You gotta hold on to what’s in your heart,” he told her and drew her in. Hayden collapsed, sobbing and wailing into the shoulder of Dragon’s cut and it was so awful and no one could do anything for her except stand in silent support around her. Doc finally came and sedated her. Cutter lifted her in his arms and carried her back to Reaver’s club room. Everyone stood mute and sober and the drinks began to flow afresh and it was almost like people were doubly as determined to party after that.
It wasn’t long after the heart wrenching display that Zander found me in his room, brushing out my curls, braiding my hair tightly, just finding things to do with my shaking hands as I readied for bed. He came up behind me and kissed my shoulder.
“’s not gonna happen to me, Red. I promise. I’m gonna be here, I’m gonna stay here.” He swayed on his feet and it was the most drunk I had ever seen him. I closed my eyes. It was as if he had pulled the thoughts from my head. Plucking my deepest fears out of the back of my brain and I was scared and hurt and so many things that I grew angry.
It was our first fight, but it wasn’t really a fight. I lashed out at him, he was taken aback and he lashed out at me, and the things we said… Good lord. I accused him of lying to me, of making promises he couldn’t keep. He yelled back at me that he was going to keep them, that he didn’t know what was going to happen, but that he had things in hand and the argument which wasn’t really an argument at all, culminated in his screaming at me that the last thing he would ever do would be to leave me alone in this world.
We’d ended up holding each other, me crying, him begging me not to cry, before he laid down with me and holding me close, passed out cold from all he’d drunk. He reeked of alcohol and smoke from his time out in the common room and I felt overly sensitive to it, my gorge rising that much further as my nausea of earlier increased.
I fell into an uneasy sleep, tying myself in knots with worry on if I were coming down with something before the long drive ahead of us the next day. We were set to depart for Florida directly after the burial. All our things had been packed. Everett had been masterful at delegating responsibilities and keeping everyone on task over the last two weeks. Tomorrow we left our home, our men and that which we loved most, behind and it was killing me inside.
I woke early, felt horrible and so I showered and dressed before anyone else. I shouldn’t have been surprised that Ashton and Evy were up too. I went in to the kitchen to find both of them up and ready for the misery the day would bring as well. Everett was brewing coffee, Ashton was heating aluminum pans full of cinnamon rolls to feed the masses and it was supposed to be my job to pick up around the common room while they did.
I went for the giant black trash bags in the pantry but stopped when I caught them both looking at me, brows furrowed with concern.
“What?” I asked.
“You feeling okay?” Evy asked. I grimaced and shook my head.
“Terrible time for it but I think I may be coming down with something. I’ll be fine.” I did my part and was grateful when they let it go, though truthfully, if people hadn’t started waking up and coming out they probably would have pressed me further.
I made quick work of cleaning up and washed my hands so I could help Ashton serve. Everett gave me a cup of coffee and I went to drink, the rich aroma wafting up to me. My stomach flipped and not in a good way and I barely made it to the trashcan in the back of the kitchen on time. Everett was right there beside me and I moaned. Ashton passed her some wet paper towels and I wiped my mouth.
“You need to stop stressing,” Everett observed dryly and I nodded. She was right. I was a master at worrying myself literally sick. I’d done it just after the shooting and I was probably unconsciously doing it now. I straightened, waited for a wave of dizziness to pass and felt much better.
“Move,” Zander shouldered his way into the kitchen, looking little the worse for wear from his night before.
“Red, what happened? You all right?” he demanded. I nodded.
“I’m sure it’s just stress.”
He pulled my forehead to his lips and after several more moments of my reassuring him I was fine, went back out. Everett, Ashton and I made quick work of clean up along with the ladies from other clubs before we went to don our funeral attire. We’d kept Shelly and Hayden as busy as we could over the last two weeks, but when it came to the actual activities of the night before and the day of the funeral, well, we asked them to do nothing. We had it handled. Ghost was outside his club room door when I passed in the hall. Forearm leaned against the doorframe, forehead resting against his arm.
“Come on Princess, I know Baby, I know it’s hard but you gotta come out here and face the day.” The door cracked open and Ghost looked visibly relieved, shoulders dropping from where they’d been tensed.
I darted into Zander’s room and put on the black slacks and blouse I’d chosen for the day. I didn’t want to do this either, and I hadn’t been nearly as close with Reaver as any of the rest, including Everett. I paused and stared in the mirror at my pale reflection. Deep dark circles had taken up permanent residence under my eyes from sleepless nights filled with nightmares of watching that man shoot Chandra. Of staring down the barrel of the same gun with my own eyes, only in my dreams Everett hadn’t shot him in time. In my dreams I always woke screaming as fire and smoke poured from the barrel of that gun and I watched, helpless as that b
ullet spun towards me in slow motion like something out of a movie.
I swallowed hard, the nausea making a return trip and sighed, forcing myself to go out and stand silently aside out front. We watched as Reaver was loaded in to the back of a sleek black hearse by Zander, Disney, Trigger, Ghost, Dray and Dragon. Shelly stood pale and miserable beside Hayden, her arm around the smaller woman as she fell apart. Cutter stood with them, reverent and grim and did what he could for his fallen friend’s wife, who was beyond anything any of us knew how to cure.
Trigger closed the back door to the hearse and the men of the chapter moved around the vehicle to their bikes parked in front. The police were already here, blocking the traffic on the highway and to serve as an escort for the funeral procession to the cemetery. We moved to our vehicles. I let Everett drive and it was just me and her in my car. Cutter helped Hayden into the back seat of Ashton’s Jeep, Shelly got in beside her. Ashton drove their car and as we watched them ahead of my little focus, Everett and I held each other’s hand over the center console. We didn’t feel that all of us cramming into Ashton’s Jeep was appropriate given that the vehicles were all already packed for our trip.
The order of the procession was all the Sacred Hearts from the mother chapter, followed by the hearse, followed by all from the Sacred Hearts chapters from abroad, followed by us in the cars with The Kraken bringing up the rear.
As with Grinder’s funeral only weeks before, the roar of the bikes starting was both startling and deafening. I swallowed my leaping heart and closed my eyes as we pulled into the flow of things behind Ashton’s Jeep. The drive was agonizingly slow as all funeral processions tended to be. At the cemetery, the men all lined the pathway from the cars and bikes to the gravesite. The pall bearers carried the casket on their shoulders between the two lines of people. Everyone’s hand pressed to their heart.
It was poignant and as we walked behind Reaver, behind Shelly and Ashton supporting Hayden between them to the sitting area beside the open grave, I was surprised I felt a little lighter, a little less burdened by sadness, because how could I be with so many others here with us to share the load?
Behind the women of our club’s chapter, the men of our chapter walked until all the seats were filled, and we had passed. As the men of our club passed the beginning of the line, they fell in behind them, until the people between which we walked, collapsed in on themselves. The column folding in and drawing up to the grave as everyone found their place around it.
My father stood by to officiate and my mother smiled sadly and encouraging off behind him. He said words that really didn’t mean anything to this club and its people but were nice none the less before he turned the floor over to Dragon to speak… but he couldn’t. He bowed his head and choked up and our president cried. Trigger stepped up and grimly told a story or two about how fiercely loyal Reaver was and how he loved Hayden and it was all very beautiful and stirring and I couldn’t pay attention to any of it.
I was fighting too hard not to throw up. I closed my eyes and breathed in through my nose and out through my mouth and eventually the nausea subsided but by then, the ceremony was over and I felt heartily guilty that I hadn’t been able to pay attention. Zander caught my eye as we walked back to the cars and pursed his lips in a kiss. I hugged my parents who were worried about me and Everett, incredibly so, but who couldn’t argue with our logic on leaving until the violence was sorted.
“You all right sis?” Everett asked me concerned once we were shut into the car. I looked up the little hill, to the plot held by the MC, watching the sleek and shiny casket lower into the cold, frozen ground and frowned.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly, swallowing hard.
We fell in behind The Kraken who took the lead for the ride and drive to Florida. Zander and Ghost fell in behind us. They would ride down with us and make the return trip after we were settled without us. Dray and Trigger couldn’t come because of their positions within the club. It just wasn’t viable.
The eight hour drive was sheer Hell. The nausea quickly redoubled its efforts once the pavement began to rush beneath the car and about an hour into the drive I was frantically begging Everett to pull over. She blasted the signal on the horn. Two long bleats and dove for the shoulder. Ashton repeated the signal for The Kraken ahead and pulled off up ahead. Zander and Ghost pulled up behind my car as I threw myself into the tall, dry grass at the side of the road and everything I’d managed to put down after my incident in the kitchen came back up.
Zander’s hand fell on my lower back and rubbed while I held back my hair. Everett handed me a bottle of water and so it went… all the way to Florida. We had to stop six more times and I could tell that some of the men of The Kraken were getting irritated with me. Cutter, though, Cutter was not among them.
The fourth, or was it the fifth? At any rate, one of the times he came back, he gently led me away from the mess I made. Zander and Everett were by the car talking low and vehement, concern etched in every line of their faces.
“You get carsick like this on every big trip?” he asked.
“I don’t get car sick like this at all,” I rinsed out my mouth and tried to catch my breath.
“I see. You feverish?” He put his hand to my forehead and frowned, as soon as he removed it I shook my head.
“No, I don’t feel hot.”
“No, you don’t,” he agreed, “Ask you something personal?”
I nodded wearily and waved my hand effusively in a bid for him to go ahead, not trusting to open my mouth.
“You think you could be pregnant?” he asked me and it was as if I’d been doused in a bucket of ice water. I stared up into his handsome face, wide eyed and blinked stupidly. He nodded to himself.
“We’re pulling off at the next exit,” he shouted for everyone to hear over the rushing traffic, “Get Red here some ginger ale.”
And we did. Pulled off at the next exit and stopped at one of those 24 hour drugstores that had just about everything. I huddled miserably in the passenger seat of my car and wiped tears from my eyes. Everett sat silently beside me in the driver’s seat.
“Is it possible?” she asked. I had told her when we were safe in the bubble of my car, away from Zander overhearing.
“Yes,” I sounded miserable even to myself, “Please don’t say anything!” I pleaded as Zander climbed off his bike and headed our direction.
“I got you Sis,” Everett said. Zander opened my door and crouched beside me.
“Hey, how you doing?” he asked me. I didn’t exactly have to lie to cover my tears, I only had to tell half of the truth.
“I’m so sorry,” I said mournfully, “I’m holding all of us up and making everyone so miserable and some of them are getting angry and it’s all my fault!”
“Ohh, hey no, nobody’s mad at you, Sugar. You can’t help being car sick.”
He kissed my forehead and gave me a watered down version of his usually phenomenal smile. He was tired, from a night spent too long drinking, from getting up early for the funeral procession and from a long ride fraught with stops.
“Hey, girl,” Cutter came up behind Zander and handed him a soda bottle of ginger ale. Zander cracked the top and handed it to me.
“Sip on this, Sugar.”
“Gotcha some saltines too. Might help settle your stomach,” Cutter remarked. I took the bottle from Zander which was cool but not cold and sipped gratefully.
“I gotta hit the head, you sit tight, okay Baby?” I nodded and Zander kissed my forehead. Cutter crouched down, taking his place.
“Good, now here, you take this,” he reached around behind him and pulled a white paper bag out from the waistband of his pants, from under his cut. I handed the bottle of Ginger Ale to Evy and took the bag, my hands closing on a cardboard box inside. I looked. Cutter had bought me a pregnancy test. I looked up from the bag in my hands.
“Thank you.”
“No problem Sweetheart. Better to know than not. We’ll get you taken
care of as soon as we get to the house. We got an hour or two more.”
Everett handed me the bottled drink and took the pregnancy test, shoving it down between her seat and the driver’s door of my car as Zander came back out and headed for the car. Cutter put a box of saltine crackers in my lap.
“Thank you,” I repeated. My hands trembled. I was scared. What if I was pregnant? Zander had commented a few times now about hoping I was up on my birth control pills. I was. I mean I thought I was. I agonized for the hour and forty minutes it took for us to reach our destination, realizing, horrified that I had forgotten to take a pill. The day of the shooting and that Zander and I had made love, without any other protection. I closed my eyes.
I was pregnant. I had to be. I was sure of it, but I would hope against hope. I would pray it wasn’t so and I would take the test. We pulled into the drive of a very nice, very big old house that sat right on the beach. The front drive lush with foliage and private from the road.
Zander opened my door and I got out. It was warm. Too warm and I stripped off my cardigan. The black of my funeral attire needed to go even though it was well past sundown by this point.
“Go get cleaned up and lay down, Babe. I’ll bring in your bags.” I nodded and Everett pulled my overnight bag with a nightgown and my robe out of the back seat. We’d decided it was a good idea for our first night so we didn’t have to go fish through all our luggage. We were well aware we were all going to be here for a very long time. Months. That it would take as long for things to resolve with the police still investigating. That no move could be made until then. At least not by our men. We didn’t know what The Suicide Kings would and wouldn’t do.
Everett and I went into the house. Cutter showed us to our rooms and I changed quickly and quietly into my nightgown. Everett met me in the hall in her own version of sleepwear, a ribbed tank top and a pair of men’s boxers. She ushered me into a bathroom, thrusting the box into my hands and shut the door behind me.
Fractured & Formidable: The Sacred Hearts MC Book V Page 26