Chapter 7
CHAPTER
SEVEN
ATOMIC
I leave the hospital to go in search of food.
But before I do, I send Rim a message asking if he needs anything while he’s on his break from watching Rose and Adam.
I’m assuming he’s getting some rest or something to eat.
When he answers me, he doesn’t ask but instead demands that I need to come by her place.
Instead of questioning why he’s demanding anything of me as I’m his president, I realize that this is likely serious. I haven’t been to Ryan’s place since I got here, so I have no fucking clue what to expect. But if Rim is demanding I come out there, I know it cannot be good.
Climbing onto my bike, I start the engine and roar out of the hospital parking lot. Harmony Springs is not big by any means. It’s a small town. It doesn’t take me long to arrive at Ryan’s place.
I’m not surprised when I pull my bike up to a small early 1900s home in a very old and established neighborhood. All the houses appear similar, some in more disarray than others.
Rim is sitting on a bench on the front porch, his eyes on me as I approach. He stands as soon as I kill the engine and begin to climb off. When I make my way toward him, he stops in the middle of the walkway, waiting for my approach.
“I broke in through the back of the house. I don’t think you want to see it, but I know you need to,” he announces as his greeting.
Fuck.
Jerking my chin toward the door, I press my lips together in a straight line. “Let’s do this shit, then I can get Ryan some food. She’s hungry.”
He spins around and walks toward the house, not commenting on my announcement about buying Ryan food. Although, I don’t know why he would. He has no fucking idea who she is. He wasn’t around when all that shit went down.
I follow behind him, watching as he pushes the front door open. He steps to the side to allow me into the place. Once I am inside of her home, I freeze. Everything in this goddamn house is either smashed or turned over.
“What the fuck?” I hiss.
If a bomb actually had gone off in this place, I would not be surprised. It is fucked. Beyond fucked. Turning my head, I look back at Rim. He is watching me, gauging me for a reaction. He doesn’t have to even ask me how I feel about this. He knows without a doubt what’s going through my head.
I am pissed.
And I do not hide it.
“We’re cleaning this shit up,” I announce.
Rim chuckles. “I figured you’d say as much.”
He may have guessed that I would say that, but he doesn’t know why exactly. “Ryan comes home tomorrow, so this shit needs to look like she wasn’t attacked.”
“She coming home already?” Rim asks.
Clenching my jaw, I nod once. “She is, but I’m not fucking happy about it. I think she should stay in the hospital a little longer.”
“Without seeing her, just judging by the state of this place, I would say you’re absolutely right.”
Rim takes his phone out of his pocket and slides his fingers around it before I hear the sound of some Tool filling the room. Rock music to clean to. I can be down with that. He takes the kitchen and living room while I make my way toward the back of the small house where the bedrooms are located.
They, too, are fucking trashed, which makes me sick, especially when I walk into little Adam’s bedroom. He’s got a car bed, a dresser, and some toys, but not much else. Although I guess kids don’t really need heaps of shit. I have no fucking clue, really.
However, everything that he does own has been pulled out of the drawers and closet and strewn all over the floor.
If it were my shit, I would pick it up and shove it back into the drawers without a care in the world, but this is a little kid, and there’s no way Ryan wants to come home to this shit and reorganize.
So, I do something that I’ve never done before. I fold laundry, organize toys, and get the room cleaned up as best I can. When I’m finished with that, I make my way toward the master bedroom and pause at the doorway.
It’s not just that Ryan’s shit is everywhere. I expected that. It’s that things are broken, ripped, damaged. It’s that the headboard of her bed has scratch marks. That there are chunks of wood missing. It’s the broken lamp. The shattered mirror on her dresser.
She fought her ass off in here.
Anger slides through my veins, making them like blocks of ice at the sight of everything in front of me. I don’t even know how to process what has happened. Nobody at the hospital said anything about this.
I call down to the hospital, asking for Ryan’s floor and room number.
It rings a couple times before I hear her soft, raspy voice on the other end of the line.
She sounds confused as fuck, and normally, I would think that maybe it was cute.
Right now, I’m too pissed at the state of her bedroom to think that.
“What happened to you here?” I demand.
“What?” she asks. “Where?”
“Your bedroom. I’m standing in it, and I can tell you right now that I think there was a hell of a lot more to this struggle. Do you want to tell me what really happened?”
My words might seem harsh or demanding because that’s what they are, but I need to know exactly how I’m going to torture this fucking asshole when I find him.
“Did he violate you, legs?” I ask, my tone coming out softer, kinder because what I’m asking is a really big fucking deal.
There is a moment of silence. I think that maybe she’s hung up the phone, but then I hear her let out a sigh.
“In some ways, yes, but in the way you’re asking, no.”
“But he tried?”
“He tried,” she confirms.
“You’re a fighter, Ryan.”
I hear her hiccup, and then she exhales loudly into the phone. “I tried really hard.”
“You succeeded, legs. Fucking legend. I’ll be back soon with some food. Hold tight.”
Ending the call, I shove my phone into my back pocket and spend the next hour putting her bedroom back together as best I can. Once she’s able to leave this place, she’s never fucking coming back, not in a million goddamn years.
Her life in Harmony Springs, Arkansas, is over.
She’s coming home. Back to Pineville, where she belongs, and that is fucking that.
Because I’ll never let her or that kid of hers live in fear again.
It doesn’t matter what she did to me six years ago.
She doesn’t deserve to have this shit, her sister’s shit, on her shoulders.
Never again.
RYAN
Rose is watching me as I hang the phone back up on the bedside table. Her eyes are searching, and I don’t know what the fuck she’s looking for, but she dips her chin in a single nod when she’s done. Whatever she was looking for, she’s found it.
“What?” I ask.
“What did he say?” she asks.
I almost ask her who he is, but since there is only one he in my life, other than the one sitting beside her, she’s talking about Atomic.
“He’s at my place. He was asking me more about what happened,” I reply softly.
She dips her chin in a single nod. “You know the police have been asking for you. I didn’t say anything, but they’re going to want you to make a report or something.”
“They can come and talk to me any time they want.”
“Ryan,” she warns. “You need to get the man who did this to you off the streets.”
I don’t know why she’s acting like I won’t tell the police the truth. I mean, I won’t. But I don’t know why she thinks that I won’t. Rose knows my sister, and she knows me. There’s no reason she would think that I would hide something, except I hide everything… so there is that.
“I know,” I say.
She shakes her head once, then clears her throat slightly before she stands and heads over to the window. I watch her move through the room, unable to stop thinking about Atomic standing at that same window just a few hours ago.
“You aren’t going to tell the police everything, are you?” she asks, her voice soft.
“Does it matter?” I ask. “You know that their hands are tied on a lot of things.”
“But Atomic’s aren’t.”
“No,” I whisper. “They aren’t.”
She hums, then turns around to face me. I watch as her gaze searches mine again. I know I should feel guilty about keeping things from the police. I’ve always been an honest person. Only two times have I done something dishonest, and both times, it ruined part of my life.
One being when I stole money from Atomic and ran, the other being having his baby and not telling him. I don’t know how my life would have turned out if I had stayed in Pineville, but I regret following my sister. I regret running. I regret not telling Atomic about his son.
Withholding the truth was just as bad as telling a lie, and honestly, I really hate myself for it all.
I wish I could go back, but if I did, I don’t think I would change anything.
At the time, I thought I was doing the right thing.
I thought I could save my sister. I thought I was saving myself from a lifetime of heartache.
I thought a lot.
What I didn’t do was follow my feelings, my gut instincts.
I should have, though. I should have realized that my sister is an addict who will never change just because I wish she would.
I should have given Atomic the opportunity I gave Ellen to change.
Because I think he would have at least tried, whereas she never did.
All I wanted was for Ellen to have a happy life and for Atomic to love me as much as I loved him. I wanted his fidelity. His loyalty. I wanted all of him, but he couldn’t give that to me then. It was easier to leave rather than stay.
So, I did.
And even with all my regrets, I still don’t know if it was a mistake or not.
Rose smiles. “Good. I think that what happened was unacceptable, so if you don’t go to the police and tell them the truth about everything, I’m glad that Atomic will take care of it.”
I don’t tell her that Atomic taking care of it means he’ll likely torture both Golden Joker and my sister. She doesn’t need to know that. All she needs to know is that she’ll be safe and so will we.