by Meg Jackson
I might, foolishly, believe that Reign and his friends really could keep me safe. I might believe any promises he could make, I might believe anything my brain wanted to tell me in order to hold onto this happiness – the first of its kind I’d ever found in my whole long, sorry life.
Already, as I lay there with my eyes closed, I found myself letting silly nonsense fantasies dance into my head. About having little biker kids, about laying in bed with Reign on lazy Sunday mornings, about setting up a life for myself out here amongst the sage and sand. Silly, silly fantasies that tugged and almost clawed at my brain, demanding attention when I knew that they were impossible.
Reign was running his hands through my hair, tickling my scalp in the most delicious way imaginable. I felt drunk with oxytocin, giddy and giggly. Reaching up to stroke his broad chest, I let my mouth speak without my mind’s constant commentary.
“Where are you from?”
There was a pause; Reign’s hands stilled in my hair. But it was only for a moment.
“North Carolina,” he said, and his voice hinted at a past he didn’t want to discuss, but which he’d tell me about if I wanted to hear it.
And, God help me, I did. I wanted to know everything about this stranger who’d opened me up, taken my heart in his hands and squeezed it until it beat again, who’d brought me from the sad state I was in when I arrived in Ditcher’s Valley to this blissful, sun-soaked moment.
“That’s a long way,” I murmured dreamily.
“Sure is.”
“Why’d you come here,” I asked when it became apparent he wasn’t going to answer me. His body stiffened under my back. I realized that I was pressing him; perhaps more than he was comfortable being pressed. Likely, he wanted me to shut up and stop prying and just accept the moment for what it was.
But I was a student of philosophy, even after all these years, and questions came out of me before I thought twice about asking them. It hadn’t been that way with Jeremy; with Jeremy, usually, the less I knew the better. But now I wasn’t that woman anymore. I was someone new – or, rather, someone old.
“I had to get out of my house,” was his response, vague as could be. I could see the signs to stop talking clear as daylight. But what did I do? Did I respect his privacy and move on to other, lighter subjects? Of course not.
“Why’s that?”
Another long pause.
“My father killed my sister,” he finally said, and like a bullet going through me I felt regret and shame and shock and awe, all at once. Good job, Gabriella, you wanted answers? You got them. Now you know. Happy?
I wasn’t happy. The way he said it…like he was ripping out a piece of himself and handing it to me because I’d told him to. He could have not answered. He could have said he didn’t want to talk about it. But he’d said it, boldly, baldly, putting it out there like he had nothing to lose. Because I’d asked him. And I got the feeling he didn’t want to lie to me, or keep things from me. Well, that had become clear enough as we sat there, both rigid now, suddenly uncomfortable in the heat.
I leaned forward, sitting upright, our bodies making a smucking sound as they separated. Turning my head towards him, I saw his eyes fixed on me but full of an awful sadness. Full of an awful memory. A great and terrible weight had fallen on the day: everything, from the sky to the sands, seemed pregnant with desolation.
“That’s what happened,” he said finally, with a short nod of his head, as though I’d called him a liar.
“That’s horrible,” I whispered. “How old were you?”
“I was seventeen. She was twelve. He was a bastard,” Reign said, looking away from me with a sharp turn of his neck. He gazed off into the distance. “And I just left. Hopped on my bike and rode away. I left my other sisters and my mother there with him. I haven’t spoken to them since.”
The silence was as thick as the heat around us.
“I didn’t go to the funeral,” he said.
“Well did they…did they get him? Your father? Did they, you know, catch him?”
Reign shook his head.
“He lied. My mother, she…she was too afraid to even tell the truth. They said she fell, that they just found her like that at the foot of the stairs. It was a small town. Everyone knew, but no one wanted to talk. I should have. But instead I ran away. Like…”
Another long pause as his brow furrowed, as though he were looking for the right word, even though I could see that the word he was looking for was well within his grasp. It was a word he knew well.
“Like a coward.”
I wanted to shake him and tell him he was wrong, that he wasn’t a coward, just a kid, a scared kid, and that he couldn’t blame himself. It was his father who was to blame, not Reign. Not Reign and not his mother. But something told me other people had said the same to him, with not much result. Still, I had to try.
“I don’t think so,” I said meekly.
“I know. No one does.”
“What was her name?” I asked after another minute of silence had dripped by. Time had slowed to a crawl. I was thinking of Jeremy, and my own family, and Reign as a teenager…
“Miranda,” he answered quickly. Saying her name hurt him, you could see it in his eyes.
“I’m sorry, Reign,” I finally whispered, meaning it with all my heart. It killed me to see him looking so haunted. I reached up, touched the mark over my eye, which had faded some but still felt tender to the touch. So that’s why he was so eager to help…
“Just come here,” he said, and reaching out grabbed my shoulders, pulling me back against him. One arm snaked across my chest and down my stomach, holding me by the waist. His face buried into my wild black hair. I felt his heartbeat against my spine.
We lay like that for a long time. Billy Joel wondered if his girlfriend was right, if he was crazy. Led Zeppelin offered to give someone a whole lotta love. Paul Simon talked about all the ways you could leave your lover, and Cream basked in the sunshine of someone’s love. And then another tune started. A familiar one. Not familiar in the way all the other songs had been, because everyone knows them and has heard them a million times.
Familiar to me in a way that could only be described as intimate.
I didn’t know why, but it struck fear so deep into my heart that I could actually feel the cold sweat as it pushed its way out of my pores. My airways seemed to constrict; I was being strangled! But there were no hands around my neck…I desperately breathed in through my nose, could barely take in enough air to speak. My nails dug into Reign’s thigh as my body stiffened and went rigid, flashes of nightmarish violence bursting in my skull.
From somewhere that seemed very far away, Reign called my name, shook my shoulders, asked what was wrong, what was wrong. I couldn’t respond. My tongue had swollen, filling my entire mouth.
Pick up your money,
pack up your tent,
you ain’t goin’ nowhere…
24
“Why now? What happened in the car? Jesus, Gabriella, you could at least…” Reign said, his brow furrowed, eyes barely concealing a feverish need for her to take back what she’d said. He’d never told anyone about his sister, except for Honey, and the moment he did, his confidant was ditching him.
Well that’s what you get, his mind told him. That’s payback for letting Miranda down, for letting them all down, for not protecting them the way you should have. You don’t deserve to have someone like Gabriella.
But even as his mind told him that, in the least sympathetic of tones, he couldn’t just roll over and give up and let her go – not just yet. Gabriella stood before him, shaking, eyes wide and ready to brim over with tears.
“I…I don’t know, I can’t explain it, Reign, I don’t know, I just…I have to go. Now, tonight. I can’t…not another…I have to…” Gabriella tripped over her words, her anxiety making each syllable crash into the next. She was shaking all over, her fingers looking like they were power-typing in mid-air.
After wa
tching her park haphazardly outside her room and dash back and forth with her few belongings, including that signature blue duffel bag, he’d managed to convince her to come to the bar and pick up some food for her trip – she hadn’t eaten since that mega-bacon cheeseburger the night she’d arrived.
Now, he almost regretted dragging her into the dirty, dingy bar – it wasn’t exactly an ideal location for their goodbye. He didn’t want her to remember him as the guy in the bar who kissed her goodbye while their shoes stuck to the floor and boisterous, hairy men shouted in the background.
“Please, Gabriella, one more night and I swear, I’ll…”
“No! Reign, no! No more nights! You…you can….oh, god, I have to go. Come with me,” Gabriella said. The look on her face as she blurted out the last part told him that she was as surprised to be saying it as he was to have heard it. She bit her lip, her eyes falling still for once on his face. He reached out, stroked her arm, and shook his head.
You can’t, you know you can’t, he thought, visions of his brothers flashing through his head. For some people, the time came to make a choice between their family and their love. For Reign, that time was now; it wasn’t his “real” family, but it was the realest he’d ever known. He wanted to go with Gabriella. Wanted it so hard his teeth felt like they would crack from how hard he was clenching his jaw. He wanted it so hard that he could feel the wanting inside him, the way a heroin addict wants their smack.
But he couldn’t, and that was the royal bitch of it.
She nodded, understanding in her eyes, and took a deep breath. Closing her eyes, she seemed to steady herself. His hand lay on her forearm, fingers gently stroking the skin, the warmth where there skin met as comforting and homey as a fireplace roaring in the middle of winter while a storm blew outside. She felt like home, when he touched her.
And now, with her leaving, he got the idea he’d feel homeless for a long time.
When Gabriella opened her eyes again, Reign knew that she hadn’t changed her mind – and wouldn’t. He could argue more, try to persuade her to stay, but he’d be wasting his time and hers. Better he accept it, bade her well, make sure she made it to town limits at least. He dropped his head.
“Okay. I get it. But wait, half an hour, please?”
“Reign, I’m not…I’m not in the mood…” Gabriella said, sounding half ashamed and half frustrated. He had to be a bit amused; she thought he wanted to get one last bone session in before she left? Far from it. If he touched her any more than he was then, he’d have to hang himself after she left.
“No, I have some things for you. I got them early this morning while you were sleeping. They’ll…they’ll help,” he said. “They’re at my place though. Will you wait for me to come back? Please?”
Gabriella nodded, her eyes now filling with tears, seeming even deeper and wiser than they usually did. Something about the way that salt water pooled above her lower eyelid made her eyes sparkle. It broke Reign’s heart to see her cry, but he had to admit she looked beautiful doing it.
If you stay with me, I’ll make sure you’ll never cry again, he thought, wanted to say, kept inside his throat. He turned from her, exiting the bar quickly. As he turned, he watched her collapse into a stool, her elbow hitting the surface of the bar with an audible smack. She lay her head in her palm, her black hair forming a curtain around her face. On the far side of the bar, he saw Honey watching them with interest. She couldn’t hear anything, but Reign bet she knew what was happening. Endo was looking over, too.
Great, glad you fuckers caught the damn matinee, this is a one-time-only performance, he thought bitterly, pushing the doors open. Anger was growing inside him alongside the sadness, and the feeling of loneliness that had already taken root in his heart in anticipation of what it would feel like to watch Gabriella drive away. He trotted to his apartment behind the bar, willing himself to keep his emotions in check long enough to see her off with a forced smile on his face. She probably felt bad enough, he didn’t need to make her feel any worse by acting like a child.
In his apartment, the cool air that usually brought immediate relief from the desert heat offered no salve for his pain. He gathered the few items he’d managed to gather in the short time Gabriella had been in Ditcher’s Valley. How long had that been? How long had she been there? Two days? Three days? How had she made him feel this way in such little time? He, who used to brag about his lone wolf nature, who thought he’d never need a woman around to make him feel whole, had let himself fall hard over the short course of three days.
It seemed impossible. It seemed like something that only happened in cheesy romance novels. But there he was, living proof.
And damn, did he hate it.
Gabriella’s face was not the one looking back at him from the passport and driver’s license he held, but it was close. The face on both documents was much more Latina. But it would do. It would pass. It was the same fake passport, the same fake driver’s license, that the club doled out to illegal immigrants who could afford the luxury get-into-America package.
The names were different, but the pictures were the same. Gabriella was so much more beautiful than all those other women, Reign felt irrationally ashamed to be giving her the forged documents. But they’d have to do; he hadn’t had enough time to get her to sit for a new picture.
The phone he’d bought was the same model, style, and carrier as his own. Commonly known as a burner phone, and most often associated with shady figures hanging out in alleys, handing out free samples of low-grade black tar heroin to anyone who copped a dimebag. But it, too, would do. It would have to.
He flipped open the screen and quickly added his number to the contacts list. At least, his current number. Soon, probably, he’d find himself with a new burner, a new phone, and then she wouldn’t be able to find him. He found her burner’s number on the packaging and entered it into his own contacts. Same story, though. Eventually, she’d get a new phone. She’d have a new life. They’d never cross paths again…
The thought was too painful to dwell on, and he let it pass through his mind quickly, without lingering. His heart felt like it was in a vise, and every moment that passed brought him closer to losing her, tightened the screws a bit more. It would be better to just get it over with. The waiting to lose her – that, surely, was the worst of it.
It had to be. Didn’t it?
He left his apartment, trotted back to the bar. She hadn’t moved, was sitting behind her veil of hair at the bar. Didn’t even look up as he drew near. Honey and Endo were still acting like they had front-row seats to the hottest concert of the summer, though when he shot them a knowing sneer they got busy looking elsewhere.
He wondered what Endo was doing outside of the kitchen; as far as Reign knew, he was supposed to be on lunch duty. But it didn’t matter; being next in line to lead the club meant Reign knew about what happened at the bar but wasn’t required to give a damn about the day-to-day operations. He knew his interest lay mostly in his irritation over Endo and Honey acting like they had the right to peek in on this private moment.
He lay his hand on Gabriella’s shoulder and she jumped. When she looked at him, he saw only fear in her eyes. That was worse than the tears.
I’m gonna go kill her husband, he suddenly thought. I’ll go to Colorado and I’ll kill him and then she can come back to me.
You’re gonna do that like you’re gonna set fire to the bar, the rational part of him said. He knew he would do nothing of the sort. It was one thing to harbor a slave; another thing entirely to lynch the slaver. He didn’t need to make any waves outside of Utah, not for himself and not for the Black Smokes. His duty and his life were one in the same. She was his heart, but that had to take the backseat.
“Oh,” she said as he lay his gifts out on the bar.
“The phone can’t be traced to you. Neither can the ID’s. They’ll get you where you need to go, baby. And I’ll make some calls, and get you a contact down in Juarez. My number’s i
n there,” Reign said, pointing the phone, which Gabriella held, staring at it like it was some sort of strange alien food. She nodded, though. He reached out to her again, this time taking her chin between his fingers and lifting her face to his.
“You can call me whenever,” he said, keeping his eyes on hers although they wanted to look elsewhere. It hurt so much to look into those eyes, but it would haunt him forever if he decided this was the right moment to take the easy way out. “Say it. Tell me when you can call me.”
She croaked out something. He smiled, shook his head.
“Say it, baby.”
“I can call you whenever,” she finally said after taking a deep, shaky breath. She closed her eyes, opened them quickly when he gave her chin the slightest shake. She looked like maybe she was trying to smile back, like she was trying to be brave. That was a good idea. She’d need to be brave.
“I don’t know how these things happen, baby. I ain’t ever felt anything like this before in hella years. And three days was all it took. Damn, they say these words are hard to say but…shit, I never knew how right they were,” Reign said, forcing a chuckle. He was telling the truth; there were women, many women, too many women, who’d wanted to hear those words, and to whom he’d said them. They’d rolled right off the tongue, easy as pie, and he hadn’t mean them in the slightest.
Now, when it was true, when it was all he could feel, when it seemed like every speck of dust and drop of water on the earth had been put there just to bring him to Gabriella’s arms, he couldn’t say those words. They caught in his throat, threatened to choke him if he didn’t swallow. Or cough them out.
“I love you,” he finally managed, and watched as her face flit from joy to sorrow to joy to sorrow -- tossing and turning from one to the other at breakneck speed. She opened her mouth as though to say something in return, but he wouldn’t let her. Instead, he leaned in, met her parted lips with his own, and took all of her in that one moment. It seemed to stretch out forever and end too soon all at the same time, their tongues meeting briefly, one last breathless embrace.