Chapter Eleven
Amber
December 31, 2024, Diamond Creek, Nebraska.
It was the last day of the year.
The day of reflection.
For the past five years, I had sat at this bar on New Year’s Eve and reflected on the previous year. This day was for me. More so this year than any other.
A lot had happened this year.
So many changes.
When I first came to the clubhouse, I came here knowing I would never leave. Only I expected it to be the end of my life.
Not the beginning.
Here I found a family. One I loved dearly. Brothers and sisters that accepted me for who I was and what I had endured. Family who didn’t expect more than I was willing to give.
Looking around the room, I couldn’t help but smile as I watched Cash and Rachel cuddled on the couch. She hadn’t been feeling well lately but she insisted she was fine. Just a few headaches.
Blade and Beck were standing across the room. His arms around Beck, his hands rubbing her growing belly as they talked with Ace and Lily. Lily’s parents sat not far away at a table with Banshee and Tank.
Mr. and Mrs. Thomas were on the couch with Chrissy, Tabby, and Charlie. The girls were excited to ring in the new year with their special grownup glasses filled with sparkling cider. While Sam and Jack had disappeared upstairs an hour ago, but I don’t think anyone noticed.
Ellie was trying to hide her yawn as she sat on Ryder’s lap while he talked to King, about what, who knows. Brothers and the other club girls like me were spread out around the room.
The sheriff and Maureen were making out like teenagers after she realized how excited he was when she told him she was pregnant.
She was mad as hell when she stormed in and shared the news with the entire room. Shared wasn’t quite the right word. Screamed was more accurate. I understood her wariness. They both had grown daughters already. One of which would give birth to their child’s nephew, making him older than the sheriff’s child.
I didn’t know if I wanted children. Hell, I didn’t know if I could have children. My father had made sure I never got pregnant. But living on the streets, birth control wasn’t a priority.
Survival was.
When Dan took me in, he never offered it. And I never asked. I also never got pregnant. And when I ended up in the cell below the earth. Well, I never got pregnant then either. So, who knows.
Maybe it just wasn’t in the cards.
I was happy for Maureen though. Once the shock wore off, it was clear she was excited about the baby.
Grace was here. And so was Jessie, Ellie’s friend. I liked Jessie. She didn’t mince words. She didn’t care if people liked her. She was confident in who she was, and propriety be damned.
Grace was the same way. They might both be younger than me, but I wanted to be them when I grew up.
The only one who wasn’t here tonight was Romeo. He was in Virginia. One of his cousins had gotten married, and he said if he wasn’t there, his mama would come up here and drag his ass back. And probably everybody else here with him.
I had a special place in my heart for Romeo.
He was my first.
The first man I willingly had sex with.
When King set this chapter up, they had a party and invited anyone who wanted to show up. I had been living in Diamond Creek for a little while after traveling all over when I left Chicago.
I was tired of running.
Seeing the 1% patch, I knew what it meant. I had once again found myself among the depraved. The dregs of society. Men who saw women as nothing more than a hole to fuck.
This time I was ready. I was done with my time on Earth. I wanted to drink until I couldn’t feel anything, then let the men do what they wanted. I would have enough liquid courage to mouth off until they lost their tempers. I knew which buttons to push on a man to make them blow, in more ways than one. I had done it for years. I figured it wouldn’t take much for one of them to kill me.
Only that didn’t happen. I’d found the one freaking club that had respect for women. Instead, I made a choice to have sex that night. For the first time in my life, I had sex because I wanted to.
With Romeo.
And I enjoyed it.
Boy, did I enjoy it.
It was only that once though. Once I decided to stay, I changed the rules. Romeo might only be a year or two older than me but if I was going to live this life, I would never be with someone older again.
I would be the one in control. I would make the rules and force others to abide by them. It limited who I slept with, but I was ok with that.
Because it was my choice.
I held the power.
At least I had. Until Danny and Vicious showed up and reminded me where I had come from and what I had lived through.
Then the nightmares started again.
Most evenings, I would end up back down here. Woken by the terror of my past. Afraid to close my eyes again for fear I would be back in that cell. Back in that hospital with the nurse’s dire warnings filling my head.
Back in Chicago, looking my savior in the eye, scared he would recognize me and take me back somewhere and hide me away. And terrified of the feelings inside me that told me I would be a fool not to let him.
Many nights I found myself at the bar in the early hours of the morning. I wasn’t alone. Bane also sat at the bar, tormented by something only he knew.
I recognized the shadows and demons in his eyes when he directed them my way. Which was often. He never spoke to me. Never asked me to his room or tried to push himself on me.
He just stared.
Like I was a puzzle he was trying to understand. He seemed nice enough. Though quiet. Reflective. He didn’t engage unless someone spoke to him first.
He just sat at the bar and drank.
Shortly after he arrived, he’d ordered himself a case of Hell’s Breath. His own special blend he called it.
King lost his mind when he found it in the clubhouse and ordered his men not to touch it. Grace had given Jack and Ryder a taste of Hell’s Inferno, made from the same distillery as Hell’s Breath and well, it didn’t go over well.
So, Bane sat alone at the bar with his whiskey, drowning his troubles in a glass. I felt sorry for him. He looked lonely. Like he needed a friend.
He had been here for weeks. During the day, he would often disappear after breakfast for hours on end, doing who knows what. Then reappear in time for dinner and spend the evening drinking.
I walked over to where he sat at the bar and took the seat beside him.
“Happy New Year, Bane.”
“Happy New Year,” he muttered back.
“Any New Year’s resolutions?”
He scoffed. “Same old shit just a new number at the end.”
“Come on. It can’t be that bad.” I bumped his shoulder, trying to loosen him up. I was playing with fire, and I knew it.
The guys whispered about the surly biker from New York. How he was Montana’s best friend, only the two hated each other. I had never met Montana. But when you were in a biker clubhouse, the rumors flew around like vultures circling.
Women were said to be gossips who blathered on about anything and everything. They had nothing on bikers. As a club girl, I was always around. Sitting at the bar or in a brother’s lap. We all were, and often we heard more than we should because no one had looser lips than a biker who took advantage of any reason to bust another’s balls with a story they had heard.
“It’s almost midnight. Better pick someone to kiss before the guys snatch up the eligible women. There aren’t a lot of us here.”
The countdown rang out across the room. Brothers shouting out the numbers as the clock struck closer to midnight.
“Five... Four... Three... Two... One...”
“HAPPY NEW YEAR!”
“Happy New Year, Amber.” Bane leaned over and kissed the side of my head, then rose from his stool and walked off down the hall. I stared after him, confused by his decision.
I had steeled myself to allow him to kiss me. He was old enough to be my father, and given what my father had done to me, I stayed away from men his age.
But something about him called out to me. Not in a sexual way. Though I was surprised he apparently didn’t see me that way either.
Maybe it was the loneliness he wore like a cloak. Something about his demeanor reminded me of myself.
I held myself back.
I had friends. Brandy, Jade, and Tiffany were great. Crystal, well, she had a lot of growing up to do. But the others I got along with. We didn’t compete with each other like most women did. We went shopping and helped each other with our daily life.
But it was all superficial.
On the surface, I was happy. Content.
But deep down, I wanted more. I just wasn’t sure what I wanted or how to get it.
For years, I had told myself this life was enough. But now, seeing Blade rub Beck’s belly, excited for the life they created together. Being able to watch Ellie as she learned to be a mother to two little girls she didn’t give birth to. And witnessing Jack and the way he was completely devoted to being a father to Charlie.
Even seeing Danny and Dante with Danika when they were here. They loved that little girl despite only just learning about her.
It made me long for things I couldn’t have. I was too broken. Too damaged to mold a young mind. Sure, Sam and Ellie let me spend time with the girls. And I was sure once the babies were here, I would be a help to them in that regard as well.
But I wasn’t pure enough to raise a child. Being the sole person responsible for making sure they grew up healthy, happy and well-adjusted, wasn’t something I was capable of.
Hell, I couldn’t create that for myself, so how would I ever be able to provide that for a small human who was completely dependent on me?
Besides, a child needed a mother and a father. Or at least two responsible adults who loved each other enough to want to work together to bring up a child.
That wasn’t in the cards for me.
No husband.
No babies.
It didn’t stop me from dreaming, though. Or imagining a big, blond Viking with dark chocolate eyes. Eyes that were warm and caring, with just a hint of mischief. He convinced me to trust him, and I let him carry me out of that cell. I felt safe. Protected.
I was being foolish, though.
He had seen me at my absolute worst. Naked and covered in filth. There was no coming back from that. Men were not interested in women that were damaged and broken. Women that were used the way I was.
My current role notwithstanding.
Men wanted women they could introduce to their moms and not be embarrassed by them. Women they could have on their arm without the risk of coming face-to-face with someone who had fucked her before they did.
I didn’t even know the faces of all the men I had been with. I didn’t always get to see them. I could be on the street one day and have someone walk up to me with an intimate knowledge of my body and never know it.
No, men did not want women like me.
So, as I made my way upstairs to my room, the room that had been mine for the last five years, I settled into my bed, knowing this room would continue to be mine.
As a new year started, I would once again live out my days here in this clubhouse.
Where I felt safe.
Where I felt loved.
And at the end of this new year, I would once again sit at the bar and reflect, or rather mourn, all the things I would never get to do. All the ways I would never really live.
I was a prisoner of my own making. King may have put me on lockdown two weeks ago, but I trusted it was for my safety.
He knew the monsters I had to watch out for even if I didn’t.