Healed By Doc (Damned Saints MC #6)

Chapter 1

Carly

I don’t know how long I’ve been running.

The cold makes it hard to tell anything. It strips time down to seconds and breaths. My lungs burn every time I drag air in. It feels like I’m inhaling knives. My breath puffs white in front of my face and I hate it, because it feels like proof.

Proof I’m here.

Proof I’m moving.

Proof to anyone watching.

Pine trees crowd in on both sides, dark trunks and sharp needles, watching me stumble through like I don’t belong here.

My bare feet slap frozen dirt and scattered debris. At first it was pain so sharp it made my eyes water. Now the pain is fading, and that scares me more. I keep curling my toes, trying to wake them up. They don’t listen.

I can’t think about that.

I can’t think about anything except getting farther away.

If I think, I remember.

And if I remember, I slow down.

The room flashes behind my eyes anyway. The smell of bleach.

The thin mattress. The bucket shoved into the corner like an insult.

The lock that never moved no matter how hard I twisted the handle.

The crack under the door where light seeped in, and shadows passed, and the sound of men talking carried through like I was a piece of furniture in the next room.

One of them laughed, and then said something I can’t stop hearing.

“No family. Twenty-four. Young enough to sell high. Nobody comes looking. And her roommate said she’s a virgin.”

He wasn’t guessing. He was stating a fact.

And the worst part is that he was right.

I slam my shoulder into a low pine branch, and the needles rake my cheek. The sting snaps me back. I bite down on a sound. Don’t make noise. That rule is louder than everything else right now.

My whole life has been rules like that.

Don’t be difficult, Carly.

Don’t ask for too much.

Don’t cry where anyone can see.

Make yourself easy to ignore, so nobody gets irritated enough to leave.

I learned early. I learned it before I even had the words for it.

I learned it in a kitchen where my mother’s attention slid past me like I wasn’t there.

I learned it when she left and my grandmother pulled me into her arms and whispered that it would be okay, even though she had no way to promise that.

My father was gone before I existed. My mother lasted until I was five. Then she packed a bag, kissed my head once like she was checking a box, and walked out to another man’s truck.

I remember the sound of the door closing more than I remember her face.

Grandma became everything after that. Warm hands. Soft voice. Dinner on the table even when she was tired. A roof over my head even when money was tight. She wasn’t perfect. She was stubborn and sharp-tongued when she was angry. But she loved me in a way that was solid. Automatic. Like I belonged.

Then she got sick. Then she got smaller. Then she died.

Two years, and I still sometimes reach for my phone when something happens, as if I can call her and hear her say, tell me, baby.

I don’t have that anymore.

I have a tiny apartment, a job in a diner in a nearby town, and a roommate who smiled at me and sold me anyway.

The thought of my roommate makes my throat tighten so hard I gag.

Tessa.

Her laugh was always too loud. Her kindness always had an edge, like she expected applause for it. She was the only person who knew I didn’t really have anyone. She knew the details because one night she asked and I told her, like an idiot, because I wanted a friend.

“No family,” I said, trying to laugh it off.

She whistled. “Damn. You’re like, free-floating.”

I remember the way she said it, like it was interesting, like it was a party trick.

Then, a week later, she came home waving her phone and said she had a gig for me.

“Easy money,” she said. “Table cleaning at this club. Cash. You’ll be in and out. I can’t take it because I’ve got that thing with my cousin.”

I should have asked more questions. I should have said no. I should have listened to the small, sick feeling in my stomach.

But I needed money. Rent was due. My hours had been cut. And I was tired of being afraid of everything.

“It’s just cleaning,” she said again, and she rolled her eyes when I hesitated. “You’re not dancing. You’re not doing anything. You’re wiping down booths. You’re sweeping. You always act like the world is out to get you.”

That one landed, because it was already what I told myself on my bad days.

Stop being dramatic.

Stop thinking the worst.

Stop acting like you’re special enough for bad things to happen to.

So, I went.

I wore jeans and a hoodie. I tied my hair back. I told myself I was being responsible. I told myself I was finally handling my life like an adult.

The club was loud and hot. Lights and perfume and men who looked like they were used to buying whatever they wanted. I kept my head down. I cleaned what I was told to clean. I didn’t flirt. I didn’t drink. I didn’t take breaks where I couldn’t be seen.

I did everything right.

And it still happened.

A man in the hallway had a badge clipped to his belt. He told me he needed to verify my age because they’d gotten a report about an underage worker. His voice was calm, annoyed in a bored way, like he’d rather be anywhere else.

I believed him because I was raised to believe authority means safety. Grandma taught me to respect cops. Teachers. Doctors. Men with badges and calm voices.

I followed him because my whole life, following has been easier than making a scene.

The door shut behind me and his smile went flat.

After that, my memories are sharp in pieces and blurry in between. A hand on my arm. Another hand over my mouth. The sting in my neck. My body turning heavy like it was filling with wet sand. The sound of the lock clicking.

Then the room.

Then days, or hours, or some long stretch of time where my brain stopped keeping count because counting made me panic.

Then the moment the door wasn’t latched.

I don’t know why it wasn’t. I don’t know if someone made a mistake or if it was some cruel test. All I know is that I touched the handle and it moved, and for a second I stared at it like it was a trap.

Then I moved.

I ran.

Barefoot.

Now I’m still running, and the cold is trying to chew through my clothes and into my skin. My hoodie is ripped at the shoulder. The fabric flaps open when I move, letting the air slice in. My hands feel stiff, clumsy. My fingers won’t fully curl.

Pine needles crunch under my feet in some places, and in others the ground is hard and slick. I hit a patch that feels like thin ice over mud and my foot slides. I windmill my arms, barely catch myself on a tree trunk, and hold on until the world stops spinning.

My heartbeat is so loud it feels like it should echo.

I force myself to breathe slower.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

It doesn’t help.

Then I hear it before I see anything.

An engine.

Low. Distant. Then closer.

My body locks so fast it hurts.

I drop behind a cluster of pines and crouch, pressing myself into the shadow between trunks. The needles above me catch the moonlight in tiny dull flashes. My breath comes out in thick white bursts, and I hate that too. I tilt my face down, trying to breathe into my sleeve.

The engine grows louder.

Headlights sweep through the trees, pale bands sliding across bark and branches. Everything looks sharper in that light. Every tree becomes a hiding place and also a silhouette.

I can’t see the vehicle. I don’t want to.

I press a hand over my mouth because my teeth are chattering and I can’t stop it. The sound feels huge in my own skull.

Please keep going.

Please don’t stop.

I’ve never been good at praying. Grandma prayed like God was a neighbor and she was asking for help carrying groceries. I always felt like I was talking into empty air.

Right now, I’ll talk into anything.

The engine slows.

My stomach drops. My vision tunnels. My muscles go rigid.

I squeeze my eyes shut and hold my breath until my chest aches.

I think of the men in the room. How they didn’t even look at me like I was a person. How one of them said, “She’s clean.” Like I was a car. Like I was an item they could sell.

I’ve never had a boyfriend. It just never happened. Tessa knew that. I told her once, like it was nothing.

In that room, it sounded like a bonus. Like it meant I’d sell for more.

My throat burns and my eyes sting. I don’t let the tears fall. Tears make you wipe your face. Wiping your face makes you move. Movement gets you caught.

The headlights sweep again, then slide away. The engine rises and fades, rises and fades, like they’re looping.

Then it recedes.

I don’t move.

I count in my head. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. I count until my body stops begging me to run and starts begging me to breathe.

When I finally lift my head, my neck pops from the stiffness. My legs tremble when I stand. I take one step and my foot doesn’t feel like it belongs to me. It lands wrong. I stumble. I catch myself.

I keep going.

As I move, my mind keeps trying to build a story that makes sense.

This happened because I trusted Tessa.

This happened because I didn’t have family.

This happened because I was stupid.

But the more I run, the more I realize it’s simpler than that.

This happened because they pick girls who won’t be missed. And I fit.

No father. No mother. No grandma. No one close enough to notice fast.

A girl who worked a diner shift and went home and didn’t make noise in the world.

I always thought being invisible would keep me safe.

It didn’t. It made me the easiest target.

The cold deepens as the night stretches. Pine scent fills my nose, sharp and clean, and it makes me think of Grandma’s closet where she kept cedar blocks to protect her sweaters. The memory is so sudden it makes my chest hurt.

Grandma used to say, “You take care of yourself, baby. You don’t wait for someone else to do it.”

I tried.

I got a job. I paid rent. I didn’t ask anyone for help. I didn’t get into trouble. I kept my head down.

And it still wasn’t enough.

My legs start to wobble again. My calves cramp. My stomach twists with hunger and nerves. My throat is so dry it feels like it’s sticking together.

I slow to a fast walk because my body is forcing it. Every step is effort.

Then the trees thin and I see it.

A cabin.

For a second I think it’s a trick my brain is making up, the way thirsty people see water that isn’t there. But it stays solid. A low shape tucked among pines, with a porch and a dim glow behind a window. No bright floodlights. No loud music. Just quiet.

Hope hits me so hard my knees nearly buckle.

Fear follows right after.

A cabin in the woods could be empty.

It could be another trap.

It could belong to the kind of man who sees a girl alone and thinks she’s an opportunity.

I stop at the edge of the clearing and stare, breathing hard, tasting cold metal in the back of my throat. My hands shake at my sides.

I don’t knock on strangers’ doors.

I don’t ask.

Asking means trusting.

Trusting means giving someone the power to say no, or worse, to say yes and mean something else.

But the alternative is the trees and the engine and the men who already proved what they’ll do.

My body decides for me.

I move.

I cross the clearing and climb the porch steps. My hands slip on the railing, but I catch myself and keep going.

I reach the door.

My hand lifts. It stops.

What if nobody answers? What if the wrong person does?

My legs give out. I slide down against the wall beside the door, trying to keep my eyes open.

Then a sound snaps me upright.

An engine.

Far, but real.

My stomach drops. My hands slap against the door like it can save me even before it opens.

I knock.

Once. Twice.

The porch light stays off, but a lock clicks from the other side, sharp and fast, and the door opens.

Warmth spills out first. Light second.

Then him.

He fills the doorway like he was built for it, broad and solid, shoulders spanning the frame.

Brown hair, rough and slightly too long, with silver threaded at the temples like he’s earned every year of it.

A day’s worth of stubble shadows his jaw, adding to the hard lines of his face, softened only by tiredness and something watchful.

His eyes find mine.

Hazel. Clear. The kind that don’t just look, they register. Like he’s seeing everything at once and still somehow seeing me.

My brain stutters. My chest tightens.

It’s immediate. Violent in its own quiet way.

Because I’ve been running from men who looked at me like a thing, and now I’m staring at a man who looks at me like I’m real.

Like I matter.

The cold is still in my bones. My bare feet still ache. My whole body is shaking.

But the world tilts anyway.

For one insane second, all I can think is, I died out there.

I collapsed in the pines. I froze on this porch.

And this is heaven.

Not wings. Not halos.

Just a door opening into warmth, and a man in the light who looks like he could stop the world with his hands.

His gaze flicks down, quick. Bare feet. Torn hoodie. My shaking hands.

Then back to my face.

Something changes in him, fast and unreadable.

He steps forward.

My knees fold at the same time, like my body has been waiting for permission to quit.

Everything goes unsteady at once.

Arms catch me before I hit the boards. Strong and sure, wrapping around me like a shield. Heat presses into my cheek, into my chest, into my hands where they clutch at his leather cut. The warmth of him is shocking after the cold, so real it makes my eyes sting.

I breathe once, a shaky inhale, and he smells clean under the cold air, like soap and woodsmoke.

His hold tightens, not crushing. Certain.

And as the dark rolls in, the last thing I register is his body between me and everything else, and the steady beat of his heart against my ear like a promise I don’t deserve to believe.