Certain things about me are too distinct to mistake for someone else.
We arrive at the hospital what feels like days later. Thankfully, the one thing I think we all have in common is that we want to get as far away from each other as possible, as quickly as possible.
I’m ‘handed off’ to a small group of people with gowns, gloves, and masks already on as they were waiting on my arrival. They talk quickly to the EMT’s getting all the info they need before they cart me off.
Hello, Doom and Gloom. My name is Remi. Nice to meet you.
Again.
We’re all in the hallway together, rolling toward an empty curtained-off area where I will begin round two of my unwanted detainment. Right before we all part ways, Mr. Smiling EMT grabs the arm of the lady who is clearly now ‘in charge of me.’
“By the way, she’s very openly against pain meds of any kind. Or anything that she describes as mind-altering. You should make sure everyone knows that. It might uh… Well, it could become a problem for whoever might attempt to give her anything.”
They both side-eye me as if I didn’t just hear every single word.
Bastards.
I open my mouth to show them my more linguistically creative side but then he hands me a slip of paper, pulling my attention from the comments on the tip of my tongue.
“It’s Mr. Miller’s phone number.” He tells me before I have a chance to refuse it. “He said to call him when you’re ready for him to drop your bike off somewhere. He’ll keep it safe in the meantime. Heal soon, Rebecca.”
He says my fake name like he knows it’s a lie. As if he wants me to know that he’s keeping my secrets. Like they’re his to protect. He winks, smiles again, and then disappears behind the curtain as the lady closes it behind him.
He’s too cavalier for a man who will wind up dead the minute they show up. He has no idea…
I’ve more than overstayed my welcome. It’s time to get the fuck out of here. I just need these people to get away from me.
They already know too much.
“Alright, Rebecca, first thing’s first.” The lady tells me. “We need to get you up to x-ray to see if you’ve got any broken bones or any internal damage. After that, we’ll have a better idea of what we’re looking at okay?”
I don’t respond. Nothing I say is going to make a difference anyway. As long as they don’t inject me with anything, I’ll sit back and bide my time. The first chance they leave me alone, I’m getting the hell out of here before anyone can stop me. I need to see how bad off my bike is and find a place to lay low for a day or so.
Here in this hospital, I’m a sitting fucking duck.
Chapter Three
Brody
“Remember, Karen. You’re supposed to be a triangle.”
“Come on, Brody. Is this geometry or target practice?” She whines, thoroughly annoyed.
“Neither if you keep standing like that. It’ll be a trip to the ER when you fuck up your wrist.” I tell her, laughing at the weird way she insists on standing. Honestly, it’s an accident waiting to happen.
“Well, I’m sorry that I can’t be a natural Annie Oakley like Max and Bree.” She complains, rolling her eyes in frustration.
Join the club.
“There’s something about almost dying that helps women have a natural edge in self-defense. Trust me, I’m glad that you didn’t have to earn that edge.” I say, trying to reassure her.
After Sonya came home from her first tour with Talon, I decided to take the girls to the shooting range. The guys and I learned that no matter how hard we tried to protect them all, we could never be with them 24/7.
Trust me, we fucking tried.
All of these damn women have proven to us that they need more than one way to defend themselves. Having an equalizer at the ready is the one thing you can never take for granted after everything the girls have been through. I pray to the universe that none of them ever have to use them, but I know the guys and I sleep better each night knowing they have their guns when they aren’t with us.
“You know I don’t like guns, Brody. They scare me.”
“They scare you because you don’t know how to handle them properly. You live in a 2A state, you need to get comfortable with them.” I tell her, repeating the same thing I’ve said since her very first objection to me teaching them all how to shoot.
North Carolina is an open-carry state, guns are everywhere. She should get comfortable with them when it’s on her own terms and not someone else’s. Even if she’s the only one of the girls that choose not to carry after her lessons, I’ve never met a person who didn’t feel better or safer after learning how to properly handle a gun.
She may spend a lot of her time in New York on photoshoots, a place where she can’t even take her gun, but when she’s here, she needs to know how to defend herself.
“Just because you and your brothers could shoot by the age of six doesn’t make it normal behavior.”
“And just because you have a team of people surrounding you in The Big Apple, doesn’t mean that someone won’t attack you when you’re alone here in Deacon Hill. Do you want what happened to Max and Bree to happen to you next?” I ask, growing agitated with her constant refusal to keep herself safe.
“Do you really think that could happen?”
“Did any of us really think it would happen to them? Do you know how much pain and suffering could have been avoided if the girls would have had a gun when Rob came to town?”
It’s a low blow, I know. Rob, Max’s ex-boyfriend, drugged the girls before they even knew what happened. But at the end of the day, I need her to understand the severity of her decision to be helpless. Her lack of give-a-damn about her personal safety bothers me. It bothers the other girls too, but they don’t seem to want to say that to her.
Lucky for her, I have no fucking filter.
With the gun laws so lax here, she needs to realize that if she doesn’t have a gun, there’s a damn good chance her assailant will. And it might not just be a run-of-the-mill pistol. Here, you can own pretty much anything and it’s legal.
She squares her shoulders, turning back to the target. “Okay. I’m a triangle.” She says, her voice a little quivery, yet more strong and serious than it’s ever been in one of our sessions.
The memories of what happened suck. There’s no denying that. There’s no hiding from it. When Rob abducted her and Bree, both girls almost died. Bree will tell you that she did. That she left her body, she’s convinced of it.
We all still struggle with what happened. Some more than others. Hell, both Max and Bree are still in therapy over it. But if bringing these horrible memories to the surface again is what it takes to get her to take this seriously, then that’s what I’ll push in her head. Reminding her of how quickly it can all be stripped away from her might be the only thing to save her from herself.
If Max didn’t know krav maga, I don’t think the girls would have made it through what all Rob had in store for them. They had to make a lot of sacrifices to try and protect each other, and Max ended up having to kill that sick fuck in order to get away. She literally bashed his fucking brains in.
He still got off too easy if you ask me.
That sick fuck should’ve had to endure the torture he forced the girls to go through for the rest of his miserable life.
The thought to take all the girls to get trained in hand-to-hand combat had occurred to me, but since there’s a lot more technical and long-term work involved in martial arts combat, this will just have to do. Karen just needs to accept it and move on.
After another hour at the shooting range, we call it a day. Karen showed more improvement today than she has in all the other days we’ve ever been here combined. Hell, even Sonya was able to ‘graduate’ from my lessons months ago.
Sonya! The prom queen, as her husband used to call her. That’s sayin’ somethin’.
“Same time next week?�
� She asks, a little cheer seeping into her question.
“You know it.” I smile, walking her to her car.
After she’s safely on her way, I hop in my truck and make my way back to the shop where I know I have several jobs waiting on me. I also most likely have a hornet’s nest of girls in the office upstairs finishing up the transformation for my new bedroom. I figured it would take them a few days to come up with a plan, but I should have known better. They were at the shop the very next day before I even had a chance to down my first Redbull.
These girls take decorating very seriously. It’s almost scary. I’ve never seen them so organized before. They even brought a tape measure! I mean, yeah it was pink, but whatever. I still didn’t expect to see something like that. However, I’ve recently learned that apparently, even men need curtains. And with the curtains, I apparently need a valance, whatever the fuck that is.
It’s been a few days now and they’ve taken more shit upstairs than the rest of us guys have brought in the shop since the day we opened. There’s a small part of me that’s scared to go back up there now. I have no idea what the hell is in store for me anymore. I mean, yesterday Kat asked me if I would be down to have a shag rug.
A. Shag. Fucking. Rug!
I told her the only time that would ever be something I agreed to is if they came in the shop one day and I was sporting a pornstache. Until then, the answer would unequivocally be no. She had the audacity to pout.
I hope they’re done with the room soon. I don’t know how much longer I can let them secretly chip away at my masculinity. The girls get their way 90% of the time, but this falls into the 10% category that I’ll have to put my foot down on.
Sometimes, a man just needs to be a man. I mean, that’s a healthy compromise, right? I give a group of girls that I’m not even screwing, 90% rights to my life. I can argue for the 10% when I see fit, right?
Yeah, I know… Stupid question.
I pull into my parking spot at the shop and make my way toward the open garage doors. I can tell Dex got his way with the stereo while I was gone because ‘When Legends Rise by Godsmack’ is cranked all the way up and he’s currently using an exhaust pipe as an air guitar.
Looking around I don’t see Abel or Max anywhere and roll my eyes, making a mental note not to go upstairs anytime soon.
“Nailing upstairs again?”
Dex laughs. “Like you even have to ask.”
“Where are the twins?”
“Breezie and Sonya took them to the park.”
I raise an eyebrow, not impressed.
“They’re both packing, and the band is with them. Chill dude, they’re okay. You know how protective Talon is of the twins given his past. And the girls can’t be monitored twenty-four-seven.”
“It’s not that I think they need to be monitored, I just want them all to be safe. If they’re focusing on the kids, as they should be, then who’s looking out for them, ya know?”
“The band. Didn’t I just say that?” He asks, clearly agitated.
“I know, I just… I haven’t let that shit go, okay? If one of us was with Bree that day, she would have never been taken.”
“And nothing has happened since, Bro. Let it go.”
“Oh, you mean besides Sonya taking off without telling anyone anything, right? Or did you forget that already?”
“Dude, chill. When was the last time you got laid?”
“Fuck off, Dex. Let me worry about my dick and you worry about yours okay?”
“My dick is perfectly pleased. He gets worshipped every night!” He laughs at my retreating form as I attempt to walk away before we can go another round in the same fight we always have any time the girls are anywhere alone.
And by alone I mean not with one of us guys.
You know, family.
I know I should move on and quit harping on the past. But at the end of the day, annoying or not, those girls are all part of our family and I’m a little old-fashioned when I think that makes it our job to always protect them. Yeah, I know I sound a little archaic, as Sonya so graciously puts it from time to time, but that’s just who I am. I won’t apologize for it.
I realize he’s followed me around the corner as he jogs in front of me, handing me a few slips of paper. “Well, you can go worry about your own dick while you’re out. Abel has a job for you. Two deliveries and a pick-up. Come back in a better mood, okay?”
I flip him the bird as I make my way to my fridge and grab another Redbull. I down half of the can before making my way around to the back of the shop to bring the truck around to load the finished bikes on. I’d rather be on the road than stick around here knowing that Max and Abel are boning in my unfinished room anyway.
Maybe Dex is right.
Maybe I do need to get laid.
Chapter Four
Remi
“Can I borrow your scissors real quick?” I ask the cashier after he hands me my change and my bag.
I make quick work of opening up the package of my new burner phone. I don’t even know how many days it’s been since I dropped my last one. I hand the scissors back to the cashier and make my way out of the little store, walking around the side to set up the new phone.
Once it’s all set up and ready to use, I dial one of the only three phone numbers that I’ve committed to memory. I’ve had it memorized for much longer than I wish I needed it.
She picks up after two rings. “Hello?”
“Hey, it’s me.” I tell her, whispering.
“It’s about time! Where the hell are you?”
“You wouldn’t believe me even if I told you.”
“Try me.” She says, a challenge in her voice.
I inhale deeply, holding it for a few seconds. She’s either going to laugh or she’s going to kill me. I honestly don’t know at this point. I blow out my breath, shaking my head as I reply.
“Deacon Hill.”
“Are you out of your goddamn mind? What the hell were you thinking?”
I’ll take ‘She’s gonna kill me for $300, Alex.’
“Look it wasn’t my doing, okay? My bike is fucking totaled, I just got went AWOL from another hospital outside of town, and this was where the nearest motel was. What other choice did I have?”
“Totaled? I’m gonna kill you.”
Called it.
“I just might let you at this point.”
“Were you followed?” She asks, whispering like someone on my end might hear her.
“I don’t think so. I think the accident actually worked in my favor for once.”
“Fuck, okay. How long can you stay put?” She asks.
“A week. Maybe two tops. That might be pushing it though. I cut it too close last time and we both know it.”
“You have no idea just how close.”
I hear her exhale harshly and I can envision her shaking her head while one hand flies to her temple, trying to massage out the stress that my ‘exciting’ life constantly brings her.
“How bad?” I ask against my better judgment.
“Don’t worry about that right now. Just… Just go see my dad. I’ll call him and let him know you’re coming. Go kill some time and lay low for a little bit and I’ll call you back when I’ve talked to him.”
“Thanks, Liz. I know this has to be almost as exhausting for you as it is for me.”
“Don’t thank me yet. I’ll call you back.”
I disconnect the call and tuck the phone in my back pocket.
Kill some time. Doing what?
I’m a grown woman, I shouldn’t be this lost just existing in the world. Lately, if I’m not running on autopilot, then it’s like I don’t know what to do at all. I swear, my life isn’t even my own anymore. I’m at the mercy of someone else’s decisions. There’s no escaping it. I can try it and run from it, just like I’ve been doing for gods knows how long… But escape? I don’t think that’s in the cards for me. I think death
will be the only way I ever truly escape.
Kill some time.
My stomach growls so violently that it physically hurts. My hands fly there of their own accord, trying to silence it so that no one hears. Paranoia is not a good look. But when you’ve tried to stay invisible for as long as I have, some reactions are involuntary.
Food. I need food.
I look around to see what’s close by and get lucky with a grocery store across the street and few stores down. I pull my baseball cap a little further over my eyes and pull my flannel a little tighter around me like a shield. I’ll go into the store with my hat on and be sure to come out with it off. I can toss my flannel before I leave the store too.
Distractions 101.
It’s the little things that keep people on their toes. Little things that keep me safe.
Looking both ways before I cross, I take note of any cars parked on the street or on the edges of surrounding parking lots.
Know your surroundings.
It’s the first thing Liz taught me when this shit show started.
I walk into the grocery store and immediately pick up a small basket, trying to calm my nerves and blend in. I ditch my hat in the closest trash can, making sure no one is in the aisle when I do so. I grab the elastic from my wrist and toss my hair into a messy ponytail high on top of my head.
I make a straight shot to the deli in the back of the store so that I can grab something warm to eat while I shop around for a few extra things. Popcorn chicken sounds like heaven right about now. My mouth immediately begins to water at the thought alone.
The guy behind the deli counter hands me my popcorn chicken with one hand while he texts on his phone with the other and I realize how grateful I am for millennials. They’re always so glued to their phone that they never know what the fuck is going on around them. I’m grateful, more than I should be. That means there’s one less person I have to worry about. That’s one less person worrying about me.
I pop three pieces of chicken in my mouth before I even have the time to turn away from the counter.
Absolution Page 3