Chapter Fifteen
SAIGE
Almost a week has gone by since I was able to leave the clubhouse.
Leave Camden. I haven’t slept more than an hour at a time since I got out, the image of him watching me sleep pressing down on me whenever I close my eyes.
I’m safe here. There’s no low rumble of engines outside, no men walking around in leather cuts, no cuffs holding me hostage.
All I want to do is forget, but how can I forget someone who buried themselves deep into the marrow of my bones?
Camden was supposed to be a monster, the villain in my story, the one I hunted, to cut him down and make him pay for his crimes.
But somewhere in the middle of it all, in those long silences that stretched endlessly between us, the way he spoke to me like I mattered, the way he never touched me unless I let him, the way we argued and fought, and how he never once tried to dim my light, I started seeing the man instead.
Now I lie at my only friend’s house, in one of his oversized sweatshirts, listening to the rain pelt down on the roof, waiting for a demon I’m not sure I want to exorcise.
I bring a hot cup of coffee to my lips, blowing at the steam across the top of it.
The sweet French vanilla taste coats my tongue, and I’m reminded of the bitter black coffee Camden was so disappointed to give me.
If he only knew that the strong woman who challenged him so hard preferred her coffee sweet as sugar.
“Okay, I love you and all, but how long are you going to be sleeping on the couch, my lovely?” Seb’s voice breaks through the incessant thoughts running rampant in my head.
“I don’t want to go home. What if he figured out who I am?”
“You gave him your name, mistake number one, but I highly doubt he’s got the time to track you down after the attack they just had. You could have been from outta state, honey. You’re giving him way too much credit. Plus, I don’t think that’s what you’re really scared about.”
“Please enlighten me, oh wise one. And when did you become a relationship expert? Your bedroom has had a revolving door since you learned what sex was.”
“That’s my modus operandi, not yours. Once the fun stops, I’m out. But you, my little sweet cheeks, you’ve been secretly holding out for someone to come sweep you off your little combat boot-covered feet.”
“I absolutely have not.”
“Really? What exactly are you feeling right now?”
Guilt. Confusion. But under all that, buried so deep I can barely admit that it’s there at all, there’s this ache I can’t name.
I miss him. Desperately. I miss the way he looked at me like I was the only thing that made sense in his world of chaos.
And it’s killing me, painfully, because I know if he comes for me, I won’t know whether to run, fight, or let him in.
“My darling, I can see it written all over your face.”
“What?”
“You fell for him.”
“No.” That’s absurd.
“I read people for a living; I know that you’re lying. But if you aren’t ready to face the music, then I’m not going to push you. You’ve been through enough. Now, are you hanging up your murdering cape or do you plan on going on a little stabbing spree to make yourself feel better?”
“I’m not a murderer, Seb. Not in the way that others murder. I’m a vigilante, you know the types of people I go after. But no, I’m done. I can’t do it anymore.” Not yet, anyway.
“That’s unfortunate. Just got a tip about a guy who’s paid off a judge. Rape and battery. Belongs to an MC called the Widowmakers. Charming name, isn’t it?” My veins turn to ice. They’re the club responsible for the attack on the Hell’s Heathens compound.
Interest piqued, I turn to face him, my head spinning with possibilities.
“Who is it?”
“Their president, Aaron Conrad, goes by the name ‘Pestilence.’ Guy is loaded and is bankrolling quite a few on this side of Washington State. Beat up and brutally raped an eighteen-year-old girl outside a club. Left her for dead next to a dumpster. The majority of it was caught on CCTV footage, but he paid someone to destroy it, then the lawyers, then finally, the judge. He walked away a free man while she waits for her reconstructive surgery.”
“Is she going to live?”
“With some scars.” Rage ignites in the pit of my stomach, that ember that is always there, just waiting to spark.
“I’ll take care of it. Do you have the details?”
“Honey, I’ve got all of ’em.”
Seb spends the next hour going over everything I need to know about Aaron “Pestilence” Conrad. Aaron doesn’t know it yet, but death is coming for him. There’s now a timer on how much longer he gets to breathe.
Walking back into my home after feeling like such a traitor is an odd feeling.
The house no longer smells of my family, and it’s cloaked in a silence that I’ve come to dislike.
My heart pangs, reminding me what it was like to be back at the clubhouse, the constant low rumble of bikes, the voices that carried through the walls, the low thumping of music at all hours of the night. Camden’s steady, comforting breathing.
I push the thoughts to the back of my mind. I hate him. He’s the reason I’m standing in a silent, empty, lifeless home. He can’t bring them back.
“I’m sorry. I know it’s meaningless, trust me, the words probably sound empty to you.
But you can’t fathom how sorry I am. Your hate is valid, Saige.
I hate me, too, for what I’ve done. Yell at me, hit me, put it all on me.
I don’t know how to even begin to ask for your forgiveness, because I know I don’t deserve it. ”
“I don’t want to talk anymore tonight. I just want to sleep this nightmare away.”
“Baby, this is killing me.”
“It killed me already.”
“Saige . . .” he pleads, his voice thick with emotion that makes my heart shatter.
It is not my job to comfort him for what he did.
It’s not okay. None of this is okay. I need to get out of here before I do something stupid, like jump out the fucking window.
“I would never willingly or knowingly hurt an innocent person.”
“But you did. Four of them.”
“Jesus, Saige, was there another . . .”
“You killed me that day, too, Camden.”
The Widowmakers’ clubhouse, if you can even call it that, is miles beyond the last gas station and long forgotten by society.
The perimeter is marked with rusted chain-link fencing and bent rebar, shoddy craftsman shit for an even shittier compound.
It’s the complete opposite of the Hell’s Heathens’, their main building backed up to the Olympic National Forest, acres of space, a clean building with amenities to keep everyone happy and comfortable. The differences are night and day.
This place looks like it was slapped together with the guts of a thousand dead machines, a hodgepodge of hollowed-out RVs, and repurposed school buses, plastered together with a welder and some Duct Tape.
Everything festers like a wound from neglect, and the entire place looks like it could crumble at the barely held-together seams at any moment, and no one would bat an eye.
I wait just on the outskirts of the entrance, Camden’s stolen bike hidden by the dark night, the moon a low crescent and not radiating light to my advantage.
Men loiter on the other side of the fence, talking and bitching, doing a piss-poor job of guarding their compound while they drink beer they probably didn’t pay for themselves.
In the background, the low rumble of a Harley echoes through the night, and I know it’s time. When the gate is left open by a greasy, drunk man in a leather cut, I slip through a space just wide enough for my body.
Once I’m inside the gates, adrenaline kicks up a notch, vibrating through my veins like a jackhammer, jump-starting me and keeping me alert and focused.
I work my way through the junkyard, the charred earth littered with old oil drums, car and motorcycle parts, and a dwindling fire pit filled with crushed beer cans and melted tires.
Music blasts from old speakers as I get closer, the sound coming out broken and earsplitting.
Men in cuts stumble, drunk or high out of their minds.
It smells like gasoline, cigarette smoke, and something unidentifiable that’s probably growing under the floorboards and up the walls.
Everything’s sticky with heat and neglect, and the whole place should be condemned.
If I touch anything, I’ll need a goddamn tetanus shot.
As I’m walking, I find an unwelded space between two walls and squeeze through, finding myself in a bedroom.
It’s dank, the scent of mildew and piss assaulting my nose.
Footsteps coming from the other side of the wall echo closer, and voices filter through the open space I just entered through.
Shit. Looking around, I find a makeshift closet and slip inside, stepping as far back into the box as I can.
The door to the room creeps open, and then Pestilence himself walks in, stripping out of his clothes with grunts as he falls listlessly onto the stained mattress. Well, I had only planned on this being a recon mission, but now that the opportunity has presented itself . . .
I stay hidden between the makeshift closet held up by four large pieces of plywood, waiting and listening. Once I’m sure he’s asleep, I slip out, my knife already firmly in my hand. My steps are quiet, stealthy as I near his body. He reeks of vomit and motor oil, and I stifle my gags.
Just as I lift my arm to drag the blade across his neck, dark, evil eyes snap open, his hands reaching out, grabbing my wrist and my throat.
“Did you really think I didn’t know you were there? I’m not the president of the Widowmakers for no reason,” he hisses. Stupid man.
“Funny, I thought you were stupid enough to rape girls and think you could get away with it. Time to pay up,” I croak against the tightening hold on my neck.
With my free hand, I quickly grip the handle of the knife at my thigh, raising it and slashing across his throat.
His eyes go wide, shock replacing the cocky features he just wore.
His hands fall free, grasping his neck as blood rushes out of him like a waterfall.
This is the part that’s always the same, no matter how many I kill.
They all share the same desperate, shocked look on their faces.
The hubris of these men is ultimately what leads to their downfall, and yet, they’re always surprised.
I let him bleed out, quickly pulling my lighter and brand from my holster and heating it up. Once it’s good to go, I rip up his shirt, holding back a dry heave at the sight of his body, then press the brand into his flesh, searing the willow right above his heart.
My last thought as I look at his dead body?
I wish Camden could see me now.