Chapter 18 Sutton
SUTTON
As I ran through the small wooded area, my lungs burned.
I was exhausted. Worried. My heart slammed against my chest with every step I took.
The only way I knew how to remedy this was talking to my father.
Maybe I could talk some sense into him. Maybe I could buy Cage some time to come up with a plan that kept him and the guys safe.
As well as their families. They were all in danger because of their proximity to me, and I couldn't let anything happen to them. If my father stormed that lodge because I was in it, they’d all be slaughtered. Leveled. That much, I knew for sure.
But if I was on the run, my father would prioritize finding me instead of finding them.
Part of me wondered if it was smart to stay on the run. But part of me knew that was idiotic. If I could hold my father’s attention, it would be peeled away from Cage and the guys. And that was the hand I was going to fly with. Those were the cards I was going to play with.
“Come on, there has to be something,” I said, panting.
The small wooded area abruptly stopped, putting me straight out in the open. Sweat dripped down my face. My neck. My back. My hands shook with a lack of food and energy as my eyes panned around. I needed a vehicle. Something to keep me going faster. Keep me going forward.
Then, across the road and down the block, I spotted a junkyard.
“Bingo,” I whispered.
I took off running as quickly as I could. My legs felt like jello and I needed food. Water. Sustenance. But I needed wheels first. I needed a way to get around. My only bet for what looked like miles was something I could hotwire in this junkyard. An old car or a go-kart.
Or a bike.
After navigating the electric fence, I slipped by the guard that snoozed in the heavy afternoon sun.
Well, almost afternoon. I didn’t pay any mind to the cameras in the junkyard.
Because I wasn’t planning on staying for any length of time.
I rushed around, searching around the piles of rubble and metal for something that could work.
And while most of the cars and trucks were disassembled, something caught the corner of my eye.
And when I saw what it was, I smiled.
“Thank you, Jesus,” I said with relief.
There was a rusted old motorcycle leaning up against a pile of rubble.
It was rough-looking and didn’t look like a comfortable ride.
But it had all its components. I rushed over to it and looked over the wires.
The controls. Trying to figure out how best to hotwire it before I drove it out of this place.
It took me a few minutes to figure out how to hotwire it.
I was better with cars than I was with bikes.
And the only motorcycling experience I had were during Cage and I’s first few dates.
Dates where he taught me how to ride a bike.
“Think you can handle this?” Cage asked.
“Do I look like a fairy princess to you?” I asked.
“I mean, not in that dress and those heels. Maybe in a full-length gown, though.”
I stuck my tongue out at him and he chuckled.
“All right, the controls are simple. Since you already know how to drive a stick, you just have to get used to the gear shifting mechanism on a bike. Do the same thing you do with a car. Feel it, breathe with it, and shift as your speed and incline shift,” he said.
“Thanks for the tips. Now, watch me buzz off with your bike,” I said, grinning.
But when I struck up the bike and went to push off, it stalled.
“What was that about buzzing off?” Cage asked, laughing.
I smiled at the memory. It had been our first date.
Our first of many. I pushed the thought from my mind and focused on what I was doing, which was something I actually learned from Cage as well.
Between what he taught me because he wanted to feel like the man and what I’d learned from my father because he wanted to feel like a badass, I knew a great deal about getting around on my own.
How to drop off the radar for a few days.
How to procure myself a vehicle. How to commit temporary identity theft in order to get around, or out of the country.
“We could go to Bora Bora,” I murmured.
I giggled at the idea of spending my days in the sun in a bikini with Cage at my side. Fucking hell, he’d hate it.
After a few clicks of the correct wires together, the bike sputtered to life.
I looked around to see if anyone was coming, then scrambled up to look at the gas gauge.
There wasn’t much in it. Maybe a fourth of a tank.
But it would at least get me out of this junkyard and into a gas station up the way.
“Hey! The fuck’s going on out there!?”
Dogs barked as I scrambled up from the ground. I threw my leg around the bike and prayed this damn thing didn’t stall out on me. After all, four lessons on how to ride a bike, and I’d only been successful with it twice.
“Come on, work,” I murmured.
I pushed off and picked up my legs, tucking my purse between my thighs. At first, I struggled with it. With the balance. With the controls. The barking dogs grew closer. A man yelled at me as I walked the bike toward the exit of the junkyard.
I watched as a chain-link fence began to automatically close before I took off.
“There it is!” I exclaimed.
I got control of the rusted metal. I had control over the shifting mechanism.
And as I sped up, I pushed the bike to its limits.
I slipped through the closing metal gate just in time, then skidding in order to get out onto the asphalt quickly.
I drove up the road, the wind in my hair as I looked down at the speedometer.
It was broken, but that didn’t matter. I’d gauge it as best as I could while keeping my eyes peeled for gas stations.
As the wind bellowed through my hair, I sighed.
I had to be the one to end this insanity.
I had to be the one to reason with my father.
And while part of me knew I had to go in with a plan, part of me hoped he would listen to reason.
After all, I was all the family he had. Part of me wanted to believe Dad wouldn't slaughter his last living shred of family just to make a statement to the people who worked with him. To his enemies.
Then again, maybe he would.
Please forgive me, Cage. I’m so sorry.
The smile on my face grew, even as the panic in my stomach bloomed along with it.
If my father knew I was riding around on a motorcycle right now, he would kill me on the spot.
Ironic, considering what I was running from in the first place.
My father always wanted me to have the best. But that also meant he held me to a standard I didn’t always hold myself to.
That was one of the many things that drew me to Cage in the first place.
Cage didn’t hold me to an ideal. He didn’t expect me to be anything more than what I already was.
Hell, he didn’t want me to be anything more than simply who I am.
Cage was a good man.
My father, on the other hand, wasn’t.
“You need a plan, Sutton,” I murmured to myself.
But my mind ripped me back again into my thoughts as I raced down the road that lead me out of Redding.
“Cage! Look!”
“You’re doing it, Sutton! Make sure to keep your balance.”
“Holy shit, this is awesome,” I whispered.
“Eyes on the road!” he exclaimed.
I whipped my head up and, for the first time, felt the full force of the wind in my hair.
Granted, I was only going thirty miles an hour.
But it felt like I was flying at ninety.
On top of the world, owning it as I rode Cage’s motorcycle down the road.
I slowly turned it around and kicked it up a notch.
Hitting thirty-five. Then, forty. Fort- five. Fifty.
“Sutton, slow down,” Cage said.
I drew in a deep breath of fresh air and gave into his command. I enjoyed it when it gave me those commands. The heat of his voice. The gentleness of his worry. He wasn’t like my father. He didn’t command me to do things simply because he could. He commanded them because they were for my safety.
Something my father didn’t know much about.
Tears rushed my eyes as I thought about it.
The last actual date I’d ever had with Cage.
It was two months ago, and since that date we had struggled to get together.
I mean, other than the occasional night of him showing up at my door.
Or me randomly knocking on his father’s door.
They were good memories. Fond memories. Our dates spiraled into intimate nights where we sat around, drinking wine and beer, and shooting the shit.
Laughing our asses off until tears crested our eyes from the hilarity of it all.
I wiped away at a tear falling down my face as I came upon the sign.
Leaving Redding, remember to buckle up!
My eyes gazed out at the expanse of nothing in front of me.
California was so fickle like that. In some areas, you couldn’t move five steps without bumping into someone.
Or the facade of some building. And then, there were stretches like this.
Stretches of absolutely nothing except for grass and dust and desert and forest, all coming together to form an amalgamation that was both daunting and beautiful.
Like Cage.
My stomach growled and sighed. I needed food.
And gas in my bike. I continued on, looking for some sort of station I could stop at as my hunger grew.
My mouth grew parched. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth.
The top of my head was already sizzling from the heat of the sun, and my clothes were slowly growing damp with sweat.
“Not a glamorous thing, riding a bike,” I said to myself.