by Finn, Emilia
But that’s not me.
I’m just me, and I want the world to leave me the fuck alone… except when they hurt girls.
In those cases, I sneak into houses and dismember the fuckers.
“Ang?”
“Yeah.” I shake off old memories and paste on a fake smile. “My evil plan is working. No wife, no kids, no worries.”
“You should try it sometime.” He pulls a ball cap low over his eyes and moves onto the freeway. “Girls are a pain in the ass, especially my girl, but I tell ya what… having a family, man, it’s magical. I wouldn’t trade it for a thing.”
“I’m happy for you, Marc.” I turn to study the trees whipping past us. “Truly, you know I am.”
It’s a full hour drive into the city. From our town to the next, we follow one single freeway and don’t get off again until we pull into the dealership on our side of the city.
We spend another hour walking around the yard at the back to make sure I’ve got everything I need, because I don’t want to have to come back again in three days.
Twelve-thousand dollars in parts spent in the blink of an eye should make the poor kid in me shrivel up and cry, but this is for Laine, and that kid would be proud that he grew to be a man that could look after a woman the right way.
Twelve thousand bucks is nothing when I compare it to her life.
Loaded up and riding low from all the extra weight, we pull in for a fast lunch at a Mexican joint and head out just as soon as we inhale the food. After another hour of driving in almost silence, we hit town and make our way to Kane’s street, and though Marc watches the house like it’s haunted, I ignore him.
He taps the steering wheel and stares as we pull in. I know what he’s thinking. I even know what he’s going to say.
Marc’s not subtle, nor does he have a filter when something pisses him off. Knowing this, I climb out of the truck and start unloading my shit.
“Wait, Ang.” Predictably, the truck door slams. “This dude…” He grabs a box from the back and follows me. “Kane Bishop… Do we trust him?”
“Yes.” I heft another over my shoulder and turn away. “Yes, we do. We absolutely trust him.”
“How can you know? We don’t know him.” He points between my chest and his. “We go back to forever. Right back to elementary school, it was always you, me, Luc, and Scotch. Now we got this bogie coming in and pretending like he belongs. I don’t know him. I don’t trust him.”
“He’s dating Jess, so you better get on board, or she might smack you with a skateboard again. I trust him, Macchio. I trust him with my life, so if you trust me, then you gotta trust my judgement.”
“But it all happened so fast!” He drops his box against the garage wall. “He wasn’t here, then he was wanted for murder. Now he’s marrying into the family and probably expecting one of us to name our kid after him. Why am I the only one that thinks this is weird?”
“Same reason you were almost wanted for murder last year when you found out Luc was diddling with Kari; because you’re stubborn as fuck and don’t like letting people into your club.”
His eyes narrow. “Don’t say diddling, asshole. She’s my baby girl, and Luc deserves to die for touching her.”
I shake my head and go back to unloading. “Whatever. She’s happy, and so is Jess. You get no choice.”
“What about Laine?”
I twist my knee with how fast I turn back. “What about her?”
“She got a boyfriend, and look what happened. This is why I don’t let people into our club! We’re lucky we’re unloading a truck full of car parts instead of a fuckin’ hearse. He nearly broke her!”
I drop my box and pray the loud crash doesn’t scare the girls in the house. Storming forward, I don’t stop until we’re chest to chest. “Graham’s out,” I seethe in an almost whisper, “and he ain’t coming back to bother her again. So you shut the fuck up about hearses, Marcus, or I’ll shove a damn wrench down your throat.”
“How am I the bad guy here?” He throws his hands into the air and attempts to turn away, but I grab the lapel of his shirt and pull him back. “Why am I wrong for saying what everyone else is thinking?”
“Because you have a tendency to say the worst shit at the worst times. She’s fine.” I lean closer. “She’s gonna be fine, but if she hears your bullshit, you’ll do more damage than good.” I push him back and turn away as he stumbles to get his footing. I snatch up the box I tossed and stack it properly. “Graham was bad news, we knew that before last week, but there was nothing any of us could do that wouldn’t come across as stupid older brother shit. Now she’s back, and she doesn’t need you throwing shit in her face. Leave it alone.” I push past him and ignore his rumbling growl when my shoulder slams into his. “Kane ain’t trouble for us.” I turn and walk backwards to drive my point home. “You’re all about family, Marcus; he saved X’s life in that club. I watched him do it. Fifty feet away, he put a bullet in that asshole’s brain before he could put one in X’s. His finger was already on the trigger. Without Bishop, your brother is dead. Without Bishop, Jess is dead, too.”
I turn away and move to the back of the truck without another word to Marc. I don’t only trust Kane because he saved X or Jess, but because without his actions, Laine would be dead, too. She was in that club with Jess, and I was working in my garage with zero fucking clue that anything was going down.
When Marc joins me at the back of the truck, I stop moving the heavy boxes and meet his eyes. “Next time you wanna be an ass about Bishop, imagine for just a second life without X and Jess. Think about Meg and Baby Chance, think of her bringing that baby into this world without you around. That’s what Jules would be doing if Bishop didn’t do what he did; bringing their baby into the world, but X would already be dead and buried. When you swallow your macho stubborn-ass bullshit, you can apologize to him for being an asshole. I trust him with my life, so you better get on board.”
11
Laine
Venture Into The Unknown
I stop in Kane and Jess’ kitchen doorway with an odd mixture of jealousy and disgust rolling through my stomach. Across the room, amid giggles and silly squeals, Kane pins Jess to the cabinets and feasts on her neck.
The pinning makes me sick.
It drags me back to dark clubs and puncture holes in my flesh from men that didn’t have permission to touch.
But she giggles. She swats him back.
He’s not hurting her, and she’s not scared. She’s not sad. She’s not powerless.
She’s so in control of her destiny, jealousy is the prevailing feeling that settles in the pit of my stomach.
My big sister controls this giant, and I let a pissant asshole control me.
Joke’s on me.
“Kane!” She slaps him back, but not even a blind man can deny that she’s leaning into it. Or closing her eyes in pleasure. Or pulling him closer. “Kane! Stop.”
He laughs against her neck and slides his hands around to her ass. His teeth crunch down on her flesh until she dissolves into a mess of groans, and when she stops fighting him off, he lifts her until her legs wrap around his hips and a sex filled groan rolls through her chest.
It’s almost like the club, where we were allowed to watch or be watched by others, but this is my sister, and when she moans, it’s not with pain or terror, but pure pleasure.
“Kane, you gotta stop. My sister…”
“Is upstairs. I’m starving for you, Blondie. I need a taste.” With my twin sister in his arms, he turns and comes to a dead stop when our eyes meet. “Fuck.”
“What?” Jess’ head snaps up. “Fuck, what?” She twists in his arms and turns white. “Shit.” She slides down his body and rushes toward me. “Baby, I’m so sorry.”
I don’t mean to be a crybaby. I don’t mean to be an emotional weirdo, but tears fill my eyes anyway. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t watching, like…” I step back. “I wasn’t watching like that. I was just coming down to ask you so
mething.” I turn on my heel to escape. “You guys do whatever you were gonna do, and I’ll make myself scarce.”
“No, wait.” Jess jumps forward and snags my uninjured wrist. “Just hold on a sec.”
“I’m sorry.” My tears spill over, making me look like a fool. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“He wasn’t hurting me, Baby. He wasn’t holding me down like how it looked. We were playing.”
“I know.” I swipe my bandaged wrist over my cheek. “I know.” I look up and meet the tattooed giant’s eyes. “He won’t hurt you. It’s not the same.”
“No.” She steps to the left and draws my attention. “He won’t ever hurt me. We were only playing.”
I hiccup on my tears. I’m such an idiot. “You don’t have to treat me like fragile glass, okay? I know what sex is, and I know what consent is. This is your place, your kitchen. I’m the intruder.”
“We won’t do it again.” Kane steps forward, and though his arm brushes Jess’ shoulder, he doesn’t pull her close. He doesn’t hold her down. “We’ll be more considerate in the future.”
“No.” My eyes won’t stop spilling over. I’ve cried every single day this year, and because of it, I’ve had a headache that just won’t go away. I’m so tired of it. So unbelievably fed up. “Don’t change your life because you have a freeloader in the house.”
“You don’t have to s–”
“Please, for the love of God, don’t change your lives for me. Be normal. Do what you do. Normalcy is what I crave, even if that means I see stuff I shouldn’t. Don’t shelter me; I need to find normal again.”
Kane’s dark eyes shine with something I’m positive borders on pride. “So, if I ask her for a blowjob at the kitchen table…”
“Kane!” Jess slams her fist into his gut.
“Umm…” My face burns.
He grins. “I just wanna know what’s for breakfast tomorrow. I like to plan ahead.”
My cheeks burn, and my lips quiver, but with a smile instead of the incessant tears. “I mean, maybe we could organize a kitchen roster or something. I’m not sure we need to go all X-rated. That’s my sister’s ass, and it’s not very nice.”
“We got the same ass, Laine!”
“No.” I step into the kitchen and move in a large arc around the couple. Stopping at the fridge, I take out a carton of orange juice. “I definitely got the better ass. Everyone says so.”
“No.” She turns and slides an arm around Kane’s hips. “You misheard. Everyone said you are the ass. You, personally. Ass. Hole.”
I reach into the cabinets where Kane was ravishing my sister just a minute ago and pull out a glass tumbler. “That’s definitely not what I heard. But whatever, don’t change your life because you’re scared of offending me. I’ve been a crybaby a lot lately, but I swear I’m not normally this fragile. I’ll be back to normal soon, then your boyfriend will kick me out because he’s got a problem with my attitude.”
Kane flashes a playful grin and squishes Jess against his chest. “I look forward to that day.”
It almost sounds offensive, like he can’t wait to kick me out. I should run out of here a crying mess because I was rejected by the thug, but the reverence in his voice, the glint in his eyes says he’s not excited to kick me out.
He’s excited to meet the braver version of me.
I barely know this man, and yet, he’s rooting for me as eagerly as the rest of my family.
I pour my juice and stare for a moment out the kitchen window and into the pitch-black yard. Taking a deep breath, I turn back to find Jess pulling out a dining chair.
I turn to Kane. “Are there flood lights in the garage?”
“Yep.” When I finish pouring the juice, he replaces it with an empty glass and takes mine away. He chugs half, then sets the other half in front of Jess and places a wet kiss on her lips.
“What about security?” I swallow my nerves. Alone. In the dark. At night. “Are there cameras out there?”
“Depends.” He takes the carton when I finish pouring and tosses it into the fridge. “If you don’t want them there, because violation of privacy or whatever, then I’ll go turn them off and won’t switch them on again till you give me the green. If you do want them there, to make you feel safer and whatnot, then yup. We have security cams in there, they feed into a computer set up in the spare room, and record for a week at a time. There’s a security panel on the wall that looks like the power box for the house. Passcode should be easy for you to remember; it’s Jess’ birthday. You can change the settings however you want. Keep them on, turn them off, have them only monitor the yard, whatever you need.”
“If I go out into the garage, will you guys watch me?”
He leans against the sink and folds his arms. “Do you want us to?”
“No.”
“Then we won’t. I’ll pull the power, and when you come back inside, just switch them on again. But if you forget, don’t sweat it, I do a security pass before I crash anyway.”
“You’d let me into a garage late at night on my own?”
His eyes narrow. “Umm… sure. Why not?”
“You’re not scared I might try to kill myself?”
My easy words draw a pained gasp from Jess, but Kane’s face remains impassive. “No. He’s not a problem for you anymore. You’re under my protection now, which means he won’t touch you. That also means you’re free of what led you to feel like you were trapped. You want to live, Laine. You want your life, and you want your family. He made it so you felt all alone, like there were no other choices, but now you see the lie in that.”
I’m not completely free. He’s still in my dreams every single night, but unlike before, when I wake up now, I come down to breakfast with my sister, and this strong man makes it so I feel safe and somewhat sane again.
It’s not all better yet.
It’s not even close.
But it’s not as bad as it used to be.
* * *
Goosebumps race from the tips of my fingers right down to the ends of my toes. My hair follicles are supercharged, almost like I can feel each individual strand. Moving down the staircase that leads through the mudroom and into the garage, cicadas taunt me, growing louder as I descend.
Jess gifted me with an old school cell – not a smart phone, there’s no internet or random numbers. My family are programmed in, and no one outside that group has my new number.
There’s a certain comfort that comes with a cell that does nothing but play silly little games. There’s no social media to check, no billion notifications to wade through. Just silence, but for the tinny noise my Tetris pieces make when they slide into place.
But Tetris can’t save me now as I clutch to the mini brick inside my hoodie pocket, my heart in my throat, and move the final few steps to the internal garage door.
I’ve never been afraid of the dark before. I’ve never been afraid of being alone.
In fact, as a twin that shared everything from the moment I was conceived, though I love my sister fiercely, I still purposely sought pockets of alone time when I was younger.
I needed quiet. I needed solitude. I needed soft music and time to think. But now, after everything that’s happened, I’m too afraid.
I place my shaking hand on the doorknob and turn to glance back up the stairs. Anyone would think I was walking into a war, but silly as it may be, Kane’s watchful eyes convey only pride.
He’s proud of me for coming down here.
He’s proud of me for placing my hand on the doorknob.
For some reason, this scary guy that doesn’t scare me at all, is simply proud that I can drag my miserable self out of bed each day.
“You good, Twink?”
“Yeah… I’m gonna turn the feed off.”
He nods.
“I won’t hurt myself.”
He nods again. “I know. I trust you, kiddo.”
Kiddo. “I have my cell, though, so maybe keep yours close in case I freak
out and the boogeyman locks me out.”
“There are no boogeymen out there anymore, I promise. You’re under federal protection now.” He flashes a charming grin. “Kidding. You’re under my protection, and that’s way better than anything Special Agent McDouche can provide. Call me if you need me, I’ve got your back.”
“Yeah… Okay.” I push the door open and peek into the pitch-black garage. Blindly fumbling for the light switch, my hands tremble when it takes more than a second to find, and a thousand make-believe men fill the darkness and start toward me.
As soon as my fingertips touch the switch, I flip it on with an explosive exhale and swipe away the stupid tears that burn the backs of my eyes.
“Hey, Laine?”
My heart pounds so hard, I clutch at my chest with my spare hand.
“That garage is locked up tight,” he continues. “Front and back, and my security feed has night vision. You think I didn’t check before you came down?”
I swipe away an annoying tear.
“You’re really brave for coming down here, but don’t worry so much, okay? I swept the place already. You’re safe.” He pulls a cell from his pocket. “I’m close if you need me. Until then, I’m gonna go make out with your sister some more. She looks good tonight, and I’m a thirsty dude.”
I laugh. Tears burn my eyes, but I laugh anyway.
I step down into the garage, but I don’t close the door. I leave it wide open, letting the mosquitos fill Kane’s house without remorse.
Instead of whining, I know he’ll go to the hardware store tomorrow and buy a truckload of bug zappers, because he might be the most gracious thug I’ve ever met.
In sweatpants, a hoodie, and bare feet, I walk around the beat up Buick, studying it the way I study most cars in the street.
I want to know its story.
Who owned it before?
What adventures has it had?
Why was it once a beautiful automobile, only to be dumped at the back of a farm?