Chapter Nine
Blade
Ican”t believe Sera defended me the way she did. She knows nothing about me—nothing substantial anyway—but she heard what Jasmine was saying, and for some reason she didn”t believe her and defended me against her. I”m so fucking grateful. Any other person, man or woman in her position, would have believed what Jasmine was saying because of the way she was losing her ever-loving mind. Most people would assume that because of that, there must be something behind what was being said, but not Sera; she somehow saw the truth and acted accordingly.
She”s definitely something else, and I”m so glad she”s here with us. She”s definitely going to make life interesting. I already feel drawn to her in a way I wasn”t even with Jasmine. She’s a complete stranger, and there is no way I should trust her yet. That”s not me. I don”t go around trusting people easily, but with her, I somehow already know she”s worthy of my trust.
“I never lied to her. I just thought you should know.” I say into the quiet room.
“I already knew that without you having to tell me, Blade. Don”t think for a minute that I believed one word she said, because I didn”t. I also don”t expect you to tell me anything you”re not comfortable with, but just know if you ever want to talk, I”m here.”
God, she really is a breath of fresh air; anyone else would want all the gory details.
“I”ll tell you about Jasmine. You should know the story considering what you just witnessed.”
“That”s fine with me; don”t get me wrong. I”d love to know everything about you, Blade. You intrigue me, but I”d never force you to tell me anything. That”s just not who I am.”
“You really are like no woman I’ve ever met before. So I don”t know if you actually know this, but Jasmine is Cam”s aunt. When everything was going down with Claire, we brought her here to find out what she knew and agreed to protect her after she disclosed what had taken place between her and Claire when Cam was younger. She told us she”d tried to protect Cam when he was younger, and Claire didn”t take kindly to that; she actually had her own sister raped and beaten. So of course we all wanted to protect Jasmine after finding out that; who wouldn”t? No one should ever have to go through that at the hands of their own family.”
I stop for a second and take a breath. I hate what happened to Jasmine in the past, but it doesn”t excuse her behavior now.
“At first, she seemed so sweet and innocent. Not jaded like you”d expect after everything that happened to her. That sort of drew me to her. The women we have around here are nothing like that, but I”m sure you”ll experience that yourself soon. The terrible things she told us that happened to her made me feel for her because they were similar to the things I”d been through. I knew the pain, and I wanted to help her. So I did something I don”t normally do. I took a leap of faith and trusted her with some of the truth about my past.” I let out a humorless laugh before continuing, “What a fucking mistake that was. I told her about being raped as a child. I didn”t give her any more details than that; she didn”t need them. All she needed to know was that I understood her pain. At first, everything was fine. We were just getting to know each other. We were getting along so well. We were working towards a relationship.”
I stop and take some deep breaths again because I hate how all this makes me feel. I”m a fucking Enforcer; I should be stronger than this. I can torture and kill someone without a fucking issue, but talking about Jasmine and my past, yeah, I’m definitely struggling with that.
“I was spending every spare moment I had with her; it was great. Then one night I got called in to cover at Inferno”s last minute, so I couldn’t hang out with her like I planned, but I thought nothing of it. I was doing my job. I got back here at something like four the next morning and went straight to bed alone. I was fucking shattered; it had been a crazy night. Then the next day, she fucking cornered me as soon as she saw me and accused me of lying to her, saying she knew I hadn’t been at work that night and I’d slept with a bunny. Which I really hadn”t, and I told her that, but she wouldn”t listen. I still don”t fucking know who even said that shit. Then she told me that she also knew what I’d told her about my past was a lie. Hearing her say that, I felt part of me break, which is, I guess, the right way to describe it. I”d told her something so fucking personal, and she threw it back in my face. Flame actually witnessed the end of it and got me out of there. She was warned to stay away from me after that. She didn’t listen, though. Fuck, our next confrontation was worse.”
I feel my body tense up just thinking about what happened the next time. What she did next to me was worse than accusing me of lying in some ways.
“How was it worse, Blade?” She asks softly, but her eyes are burning with rage.
“This one happened in front of most of the MC. I was in the Common Room, when I saw her, I froze up. God, I hate admitting that, but yeah, I froze up right there in the middle of the room. She walked straight up to me and slapped me, kind of like she did today, but then she accused both me and Flame of lying about me being raped when I was younger. The worst part about it was the fact that the only people who knew about what happened to me at that point were the club”s Officers and Jasmine. It wasn”t common knowledge; she ended up exposing my past to everyone. I think that’s why she believes I lied, because it wasn’t common knowledge what happened to me back then.”
“It doesn’t fucking matter whether it was common knowledge or not; what she did was out of order. She’s fucking lucky I wasn’t here then, because I’d have knocked her the fuck out.” Sera sounds genuinely angry.
“It’s actually funny you should say that because I’m pretty sure Shadow told her at the time that she was lucky she was female because he wanted to deck her.” I say with a little laugh.
“Great minds and all that.” She says with a smirk.
“Shadow gave her a verbal bashing, and she didn’t like that; she actually called everyone liars and said they were just covering for me. Then came her final hit; she hoped that one day I actually got to experience being raped.” I whisper the last part because even thinking and speaking what she said to me makes me want to hurl.
“WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK!” Sera shouts. “She’s fucking lucky that I didn’t know she had said that earlier, because I really would have beaten the shit out of her. Fuck, what the hell is wrong with that woman?!”
”Yeah, it was pretty fucking horrible; every time I see her now, she seems to trigger me back to my past, like you saw earlier. I fucking hate it.”
“It”s understandable that she causes that reaction from you, Blade. Don”t let it get to you. I understand why it”s affecting you this way. I”d be exactly the same way.”
“Really? You don”t think I should be over it by now?”
”No, I don”t. I think our traumas are just that. Ours. There is no timetable on when you should be over it.”
”I know you”re right. There”s never going to be an easy fix for trauma.”
“Fuck no, there really isn’t. If there was, I”d have used it already.”
If this wasn’t already such a heavy conversation, I’d ask her to elaborate. But I can see that my own words have affected her. Whatever she went through, it’s bad. We need to shut this conversation down for now before we both end up in a bad way.
I reach out and grab her hand, and she immediately squeezes back. It’s a nice feeling to have her hand in mine. It just fits. Like it’s meant to be there.
“You know, even you telling me what you have explains a lot about how I’ve felt since we first met.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve felt comfortable with you since the moment we met. I trusted you when, in all honesty, I’ve never trusted someone before. Somewhere, on a deeper level, I knew you were like me.”
“You knew I’d experienced something traumatic too. Even if the words were never spoken.”
“Yeah. Like knows like.”
I can’t help but think about what she’s saying. When we first met, I was immediately attracted to her. I couldn’t miss her good looks, but she’s right. There was more in the background. I trusted her on some level from the start, too. Even if I didn’t realize it at the time.