7. Chapter 7
BLUE
I wondered if it was the right thing even as I snuck out of the clubhouse and into the night. Either option was upsetting, but at least if I went back to what I knew, where my blood said I belonged, but my heart hated, I knew what to expect. The awful grim reality of life in an MC with a prez who hated my guts as much as he loved me.
My dad.
I didn’t go to him right away, but I knew I didn’t need to. He’d found me through Otto, and he’d find me again. I had two weeks left of class at cosmetology school. I refused to let him run me out of my education again, so I stayed around the area, sleeping in my old Mazda I recovered from my apartment. I didn’t contact Grouch even though I knew I was leaving him in the lurch at the gas station and, even more, that he’d be worried sick about me.
I should have known that was how Rooster would come for me.
When Grouch called me two weeks into my self-imposed exile, Rooster spoke through the phone and threatened to maim my friend if I didn’t meet him in Carrick, a small town forty-five minutes away from Entrance.
When I arrived at the truck stop, he was waiting alone.
It had been eight years since I last saw him. Nearly a decade even though it felt both longer and shorter than that in my head. I’d lived an entire other life since Axe and Cedar helped me runaway, but the memories of my youth were branded so deeply into my brain I knew no length of time would fade them.
Rooster wore the time poorly, though.
While I’d come into myself, he seemed to have faded out. His once firm features were softened by extra weight and folded wrinkles that draped over the edge of his eyes and jaw. Years of exposure to sun and wind had turned his skin to creased leather and yellowed his white streaked hair like aged lace. Still, he was a big man, thick in the neck and wide in the shoulders like a minotaur. Like something trapped with me in an endless maze to harass me for the rest of my days.
I’d been foolish to ever think that wasn’t my fate.
The true psychopathy of my father revealed itself the moment he caught sight of me walking in my wedges across the dusty asphalt to his side.
He smiled.
A great breaking open of his craggy features to reveal radiant smile lines and square, white teeth. He looked thrilled and relieved to see me.
And when he stepped forward to drag me into his embrace, his arms were gentle as the enclosed me against his chest.
He smelled the same and something about that nostalgia poured vinegar into my wounds and made tears spring to my eyes. How strange to find comfort in the arms of your abuser. How contrary to want to hug him back because my instincts as a daughter always interfered and cried out for love from the same man who loved to hurt me.
I didn’t hug him back.
I even tried to stop breathing so that rich cigarette, leather, and Old Spice scent of him wouldn’t make this any more confusing than it had to be.
“Faith,” he breathed into my hair as if all his prayers had been answered when I knew he’d never prayed in his life. “Thank fuck, I found you.”
“I wasn’t stolen,” I said, forgetting myself because it had been so long. “I ran. I wasn’t for you to find and you know that, otherwise you wouldn’t have taken Grouch and forced my hand.”
The shift in his frame was so infinitesimal it was barely noticeable. But I’d spent years learning to read his body language so I recognized the blow before it came. I tried to duck the ham sized hand that swung toward my left ear, but he used his other hand to grip my shoulder too hard to move. It was a move he’d used before, clapping the meaty palm over my ear so pain and dizziness erupted in my head.
I stumbled away when he released me, but my vision was swimming and I couldn’t find a straight line to walk.
Vaguely, I heard the distorted sound of his chuckle.
“Never too bright, were you, Faith?” he taunted me as he watched me reel from his hit. “Dumb bitch just like your mother was.”
I had been too young when she left to remember her clearly, but Rooster liked to tell me about her whenever I acted in ways he disapproved of. You’re so much like your mother.
As if the only way to express my worthlessness was to equate it to the woman who’d given birth to me and promptly became a drug addict and then eventually runaway.
Probably to get away from Rooster.
I knew he wanted me to blame her, but how could I?
I’d runaway myself and I’d do it again as soon as I could be certain Grouch and Aaron were safe.
“What do you want from me?” I asked Rooster, straightening even though my entire head felt like a throbbing wound. “Why were you looking for me?”
“You’re my daughter,” he said the way someone would say ‘because I said so’ as if it was a good argument when it wasn’t any at all.
“I’m a grown woman, now.” I moved my hand away from my aching ear to fist it on one hip. “I don’t need your help or protection, anymore.”
He guffawed, all smiles again, the edges rusty with old cruelty like blood stains. “You’re never too old to listen to your father. Family is the most important thing, Faith. Didn’t I teach you that?”
Unbidden, I thought of the family I’d witnessed at The Fallen MC clubhouse. The way the group had embraced me as soon as Aaron vouched for me. The way they interacted, like they’d known each other forever and through thick and thin. Like nothing and no one would ever come between them.
A sharp ache slid between my ribs like a blade, so visceral I had to look down to be sure Rooster hadn’t stabbed me.
“You did, which is why I’m here. Let Grouch go and promise me you won’t threaten or hurt him again,” I demanded, trying to stare him down when there were still stars bursting through my vision from his hit. “I won’t come back with you unless you swear it, Rooster. And I know how people in your club swear on things.”
My father peered at me through those eyes that haunted my nightmares like the red orbs of some monster under my bed. “I don’t have to promise you shit, girl. You’ll do as I say because if you don’t, I’ll kill him.”
Fear and anger twisted my insides into a knot. I wanted to be brave so badly but my knees shook and I had to lock them to stay standing. It was one thing to pump myself up when I knew I was safely away from my abuser and another thing entirely to be within striking distance of him.
But I would be brave for those I loved.
And Grouch had only ever stood up for me in that quiet, stalwart way he had that made me feel protected but also gave me room to grow by myself for the first time in my life.
“If you let him go, I won’t run again,” I told him solemnly, reaching for the blade attached to his belt. He watched me with wary eyes as I unclipped the leather and slid the blade into my palm. Even with a weapon in my grip, Rooster knew I was no threat to him. “I’ll swear it.”
The blade quivered slightly as I hovered it above my palm, waiting for his acknowledgement.
“You’ll live with Hazard as his wife as you’re meant to,” he demanded. “And you’ll contribute to the damn club this time. Zeus Garro’s fuckers burned down the one fuckin’ foothold we’d managed to make in this godforsaken province and handed over our thieves to the fuckin’ pigs so we’re short on cash temporarily. I want you workin’.”
Hope almost choked me, a great, shining bubble of it perched delicately on my tongue.
“I can do that,” I said slowly, so that I wouldn’t give away my excitement.
“No fuckin’ hassles, Faith, or I’ll lock you in your room for a month.” His gaze split me open like one long slice from a scalpel.
I’d been on the edge of emaciation in my youth under Rooster’s care. Mostly because he forgot to feed Red and me more often than not, our house an empty cage compared to the rowdy, excess-filled clubhouse where our father spent most of his time. We mostly subsisted on canned pasta and pop tarts. When Red turn thirteen, he was deemed old enough to ‘hang around’ the club, but I was only granted that permission as Hazard’s wife and I quickly found out the clubhouse had food aplenty, but never enough to satisfy the hunger of the kind of men in Rooster’s company.
I’d been too skinny, too malnourished and pale, an impression of a girl instead of a real life woman to draw too much salacious attention from the men. And Hazard had intimidated them enough to curb the rest.
But Hazard wasn’t in British Columbia.
And whatever Rooster said, he wanted me back at home as a tool of service, not because he missed me by his side.
It was up to me to fend for myself.
For myself and Grouch.
And Aaron, even if he never knew how much I longed to help him.
Rooster took my silence for obedience and slid the knife from my hand to cut into his own palm. When we pressed our wounds together the truth I’d been trying to flee from for eight years finally hit me like a slap to the other side of my face.
I’d never be able to out run the blood that flowed through my veins and connected me to this monster. And it was silly of me to have tried.
I was proven right the moment Rooster got me to the apartment he was renting thirty minutes outside of Entrance. He didn’t take me to the clubhouse right away, because he didn’t want anyone else to see how he would punish me for staying away for eight years.
It was astounding really, how easy it was to fall through the looking glass into Rooster’s version of the world again. Where what he said went and what he said about me was toxic sludge he forced down my mouth every other moment to remind me just how worthless I was without him to guide me.
All those years of independence dissolved in seconds.
But I stared at the photo of Grouch and me I kept in my wallet and told myself it was worth.
And when I closed my eyes at night, desperate for sleep to take me away, it took me straight into Aaron’s arms.
Two weeks later, when I was well enough to walk again, Rooster took me to the White Raiders MC hideout at an abandoned farmhouse they’d turned into their new headquarters. Hazard was still in Calgary, but it was a small mercy because he planned to move to BC with a fresh batch of recruits after training the new president there.
It was hell.
Pure and simple.
A life filled with humiliation and criminal neglect, but I knew what to expect. Red and Cedar, the only two men in the club I had a hope of finding refuge in, were back in Alberta with Hazard and wouldn’t ride out for weeks.
I comforted myself by remembering that this way, I could look out for Aaron. Because I knew there was only one reason Rooster Cavendish had come to British Columbia, and it was to take over the drug and illegal arms dealing trade The Fallen MC had monopolized for so long. There would be gang warfare in the sleepy streets of Entrance before too long, and I was the only one on this side of the line looking out for Aaron. So I’d be miserable, but he’d be safe. And at the time, it seemed like a good enough trade-off.
It was easy to talk myself out of longing for him after a while. There was no way a perfect night existed, that somehow despite the violence and the running for our lives, we’d had exactly that. No way a man like Aaron, leather wrapped around a core of golden goodness, would ever have lived up to the pedestal I’d placed him on by the early hours of that night.
And then, three weeks after that night, when I was just getting into the rhythm of club life and degradation, Grouch dropped off a package for me at the clubhouse. Rooster wouldn’t let him see me, but just the sight of him through the curtains made my aching heart unclench.
The prospect, Jerky, tossed the parcel to me recklessly so that it crashed into the wall above my head and then dropped into my lap.
I winced as I looked at the torn brown paper, but the moment my eye caught on the blocky script, something in my chest turned over.
Faith Cavendish , it read above the address for the clubhouse and then in small letters tucked under the larger script, Blue .
My heart beat so loudly in my chest that I felt sure the men in the room would notice and call me out on it, but I managed to slowly get to my feet and casually walk down the hall to my room without detection. As soon as I closed the door, I dragged my desk chair over to the knob and fitted it beneath as a makeshift lock. The bed squeaked in protest as I jumped on the mattress. The paper gave way easily under my sparkly blue nails, and then, when I couldn’t open the box quickly enough, the cardboard ripped at the seams as I tore it open.
Within the mess of discarded wrapping lay a small blue box with a smiley face drawn in felt tip pen on the top.
I stopped breathing as I gently worked the lid off, and then my heart stopped beating when I saw the gift Aaron had taken pains to send me.
My mother’s sapphire ring.
The large round gem winked at me from the three diamond bands it was nestled between. It was even more beautiful than I’d remembered, so precious to me that tears started streaming untamed down my face, soaking the collar of my shirt. I lifted the ring with shaking fingers and fit it onto my right ring finger even though I’d never be able to wear it publicly without Dad beating the shit out of me.
Folded in the bottom of the box was a note.
Blue,
Got one more thing outta Otto ’fore Lion turned his crew into the cops. He sold the ring to some pawn shop in Naniamo. Had a friend’a mine look for it. He’s good at that kinda shit, and it still took him an age. Then it took a minute to find you. Couldn’t exactly look up ‘blue-eyed, blue-haired beauty who left me broken-hearted’ in my Google search. Hurt like a son’a a bitch to go back to the clubhouse and find you gone, but I shoulda known you wouldn’t stay. You think you’re trouble for a guy like me, and there I was spendin’ the whole night we spent together thinkin’ you’d leave ’cause I was too much’a that for you. I gotta say it, or I’ll hate myself for never takin’ the chance but, Blue baby, you’re exactly the kinda trouble a man looks for his whole damn life. The kinda trouble I’d fight an entire fucked-in-the-head club for the chance to call my own. So you ever need me, you ever want me, you know where to find me.
Never been a patient man, but I’ll be waitin’,
ABC.