Chapter 20 Everly
EVERLY
My eyes fluttered open and the remnants of Grave’s presence still surrounded me.
He was scattered throughout my dreams. Looming behind me during every action.
The images were still seared into my memory.
Us cooking dinner. Us making love. Him kissing me underneath the stars at his home in the desert.
We drove around on his bike, the wind encompassing us as we cruised the country.
Taking in the sights and ruining the hotel rooms we stayed in with our passionate desires.
I rolled over and groaned, feeling the crushing weight of my current circumstance sit heavily on my chest.
I was scared.
I was also falling for Grave.
I’d never met a guy so willing to help me.
So willing to protect me at a moment’s notice.
He commanded my body like the brute he was, but I never once felt as if he was trying to control me.
I was his equal, and lying against his body at night made me feel complete.
It was a concept that was foreign to me.
An idea found only in the pages of books I read whenever I had a bit of free time to myself.
He was an extraordinary man with pads of muscles that clung to me whenever his cock thrust into my body.
And lips that would never let mine go.
I shivered just thinking about him.
I thought about the last time I’d been in love.
It was middle school. My first ever boyfriend.
His name was Brandon and he was the little nerd at the back of the class.
Glasses. Braces. Lanky and taller than everyone else.
He had perfect grammar and aced all of his history and mathematics exams, and everyone wondered how the kid at the back of the class always passed without paying attention.
I was intrigued by him.
I passed a note to him one day, and thus began the tradition of us talking back and forth to one another.
I changed my assigned seat and got sat next to him and the two of us really hit it off.
Two seventh graders against the world with endless bullies and teachers always trying to get us to stop passing letters to one another.
He was the first boy I’d ever held hands with. The first boy I’d ever kissed.
And the first boy to ever break my heart.
His family moved away the summer before our entrance into high school.
It made me sick that he was leaving. I made him promise to call me when he got there.
Helped him rehearse the phone number for my bedroom that I’d gotten as a birthday present from my mother.
He repeated it back to me before he kissed me goodbye, and I waited up for two straight nights to hear from him.
Then three nights.
Then four nights.
And after a week, I finally convinced myself he wasn’t calling.
He had forgotten about me, and that was that.
He had made an impression. One that stuck with me all throughout my high school years.
I turned down coffee dates and dates to the dances.
I didn’t go to my junior or senior prom and I sure as hell didn’t go to any of the football or basketball games.
When I took my job at the grocery store, I used work as an excuse.
But that wasn’t the real excuse.
Brandon was.
And Grave had blown those insecurities out of the water.
He treated me like a man should. He protected me in all the ways he knew how. He could cook. He was relatively clean. And he was a hell of an animal in bed. He held me delicately against him by the fire and kissed my forehead with a tenderness no one would think a man his size capable of.
I was falling for Grave.
Hook, line, and sinker.
I slipped out of my bedroom and headed for the kitchen.
I looked around the room at the shattered windows as a jolt of fear ran up my back.
I couldn't believe I’d fallen asleep in a place like this.
A place so vulnerable to the outside world.
Was I really becoming that desensitized to the violence and fear I’d been thrust into. Was I really turning into my brother?
The thought made me sick.
I reached for a bottle of water from the fridge and found it mostly empty.
Yet another thing Grave had packed up for our journey.
I swallowed the liquid down as fast as I could, feeling the cool wetness pour into my stomach.
I capped the water off and stuck it back in the refrigerator, then I pulled my phone out of my pocket.
Eleven twenty.
Grave had ten minutes to get to me before it was time to panic.
I slipped down to the bathroom to splash some water in my face.
I was lagging, and I couldn't be tired if we were going to be riding all through the night. I could fall asleep in a car, but not on the back of a bike. Not unless Grave wanted to physically tether himself to me with cordage. I swished some water around in my mouth to get rid of the tangy taste. Grave had packed up all of my toiletries, so I didn’t have much to use to make myself look even semi-pleasant for the journey ahead of us.
I took my hair down and ran my fingers through it, then threw it back up into a bun.
I closed my eyes and drew in a deep breath. Grave was right. I felt a lot more at ease knowing I could shoot the gun that he’d left behind for me. I opened my eyes before I reached for a towel, then blotted at the last of the water still trickling down my face and my neck.
Gun.
I needed to go get that gun.
I walked into my bedroom as I tossed the towel off to the side and froze when I saw a pair of boots.
A thick black shadow loomed in the corner, and I slowly raised my eyes.
I tried to convince myself it was Grave.
Tried to tell myself it was one of the guys.
That Grave had listened to me and sent one of them to come sit with me since the cabin was opened on all sides from all the busted windows.
But the more my eyes crept up the body in front of me, the more fearful I grew.
And once I hit the navy blue leather, my hands began to tremble.
The saddle emblem on the front of the leather cut made me sick.
The man was tall. Lean. With wild blonde hair and beady green eyes.
The scars on his face were accentuated by the shadows playing off his features.
There was a knife on his hip as well as a gun, and my heart began to slam so hard against my chest I thought it would break free and fall to the floor.
I felt my phone vibrating in my pocket and I prayed that asshole didn’t hear it.
My gun was sitting right there on the bed. And on my side as well. The barrel was pointed at me and I knew if I got a fast enough start, I could get to it before he did. My eyes traveled to the gun and I drew in a deep breath, then I lunged forward and leapt for the bed.
My legs carried me as fast as I could, but I had nothing on the man’s long stride.
My hands fell to the bed just before he snatched the gun away, pointing it straight at my head.
His smile was positively maniacal. If he were any crazier, he would’ve been drooling from the sides of his lips.
I backed up towards the doorway of my bedroom and he lunged for me, his hand reaching out for my arm.
“Come here, you little bitch.”
I clawed at his face, raking my nails down his skin. I caught his eyeball and he cried out before I jammed my heel into his toes. The gun went off and I shrieked, then covered my head as I ran out of the room. I scurried down the hallway and burst into the bathroom, then threw open the cabinets.
I knew that damn crowbar was still there somewhere.
“You fucking cunt!” the man shouted.
My eyes spotted the crowbar at the back of the cabinet and I reached for it.
My fingertips graced the cool metal end before I felt his hands wrap around my hair.
The Black Saddle member ripped me back before I could grab it and I screamed out for Grave.
Calling out his name in hopes that he was only a few feet away.
“Grave! Help me! Please!”
But the cool barrel of the gun pressed against my temple cut off my sentiments.
“You made a promise,” the man said.
“I didn’t break it. I didn’t talk. I swear, I didn’t.”
“Such a naughty girl, lying to us. If you didn’t talk, why is your precious Grave meeting with Ditch?”
“Who-who-who’s-?”
“Don’t play dumb with me!”
“Okay! Okay! Okay!” I said as I trembled in his grasp. “Okay. I’m sorry. But I didn’t talk to anyone else but Grave. I swear. And Grave hasn’t seen his club. I know he hasn’t. He’s been with me.”
“Yeah. We know. Screwing him against the cabin like the whore you are.”
My blood froze.
Someone had been watching us? The entire time?
I felt vomit rising up the back of my throat.
I heaved and fell forward as the contents of my stomach fell to the floor.
Water and bile and the bit of dinner I could stomach for myself.
The man’s knee came up to my gut and he nailed me hard, causing me to gasp and choke on my own spit up.
I coughed and gagged as my vision blurred, then he cocked my head back to see him.
I looked into his wild green eyes as my phone vibrated in my pocket again.
I knew who was calling.
And I couldn't even answer the phone.
I brought my knee up to his crotch and nailed him as hard as I could. He fell to his knees and gripped the gun, firing it off in the bathroom. I sprinted down the hallway and rummaged around in the kitchen, trying to find a knife. Or a pan. Something I could wield to defend myself.
But another gunshot rang out, breezing by my shoulder and landing into the wood of the wall.
I ducked down and crawled around on my knees.
My new goal was to get out of this fucking cabin.
If he’d had other people with him, they would’ve already swarmed.
Started pumping the cabin full of bullets or some shit.
That was how these people operated. The Black Saddles.
The men my brother had gotten himself caught up with.
I no longer had sympathy for him. Or them. Or anyone.
I was angry.
And they were going to pay for what they were doing to me.
My brother, especially.
“Come out, come out. Wherever you are.”
They really enjoyed playing with their food.
“Ha!”
I watched the towering, lanky man jump around the couch before he furrowed his brow in confusion.
The man was an idiot, and it made me grin.
It would be easy to slip someone like him.
I scooted around the kitchen island as he slowly walked around, and once I had a free second I dashed for the front door.
“Got you!” he roared.
Another gunshot fired off next to my head and embedded itself into the doorframe.
I ran out onto the porch and leapt down the stairs, falling to my knees and scrambling.
If I could make it into the thick brush of the forest, I could lose him between the trees and the darkness.
Thank fuck I was wearing a dark brown sweater. I’d blend in wonderfully with-
My head wrenched back as the man grabbed my hair again. I was mere inches from the edge of the woods. Inches away from freedom.
I reached out for a tree branch, hoping to break it off and jam it down his throat.
But it was no use. The harder I fought, the harder he tugged. And if I wasn’t careful, he’d rip my hair right from my scalp.
“You’ll pay for your sins,” the man said as he slid the cool metal of the gun down my cheek. “And so will he.”
“You won’t lay a finger on him. I’ll kill you before you do,” I said.
Then he cracked the gun against my temple and everything fell black.