Chapter Twelve
Indie
Arguing with Gunner was pointless. He picked me up and tossed me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and walked outside to his bike. Cash placed my suitcase in my car and handed Kytten the keys.
“I’m right behind you, Rosie.” He kissed her, then climbed on his bike, and the two of them roared off with my things.
“You can’t just kidnap me,” I argued, my arms crossed over my chest as I scowled at the big lug.
“I can, and I am. Get on the fucking bike.” King stood behind me, presumably to make sure I didn’t run. “Don’t give me this shit, Indie. My woman is fucking worried about you. I come back to the club without you, and she’ll cut my dick off. Get. On. The. Bike.”
I should have known Haizley would know what happened once Gunner came through the door. Did I want to leave? Of course not. If I wanted to, I would have done it a week ago. But I couldn’t just give in easily either. Like I said, my pride was the only thing I had.
I’d lost my innocence a long time ago. My dignity? Well, not sure I ever had that. My self-worth and my self-respect, yeah, those had also been stolen from me. I’d gotten really good at faking confidence, but I didn’t really have that either.
Pride was the one thing that couldn’t be taken from me. And dammit, I wouldn’t give it away easily either.
“Fine,” I shouted, throwing my hands up in defeat. “But I’m doing this under duress, and only for Haizley.”
“Noted. Now shut up and get on.”
I climbed onto the bike behind him and held on. My forehead rested on his back between his shoulder blades, and I took deep breaths as I tried not to cry.
Why was my life such a shit show? What was it about me that God, or fate or whoever was in charge felt I needed to be constantly dragged through the mud? What the fuck had I ever done to Karma to make her hate me so fucking much?
We pulled into the club parking lot, and I climbed off the bike the moment the kickstand hit the ground. Gunner’s growl faded as I rushed up the stairs inside, looking for Kytten.
She sat at the bar with Brandy, one of the club girls. “I need my keys,” I said, holding my hand out. Brandy smiled at Kytten, then slipped off the stool and disappeared.
“Sorry, I gave them to Cash.”
“Where is he?” I asked, looking around the room.
“In church.”
King, Gunner, and Mimic walked past me without a word and disappeared behind the wooden double doors. My shoulders slumped and my head fell back as my eyes closed. I knew enough about MCs to know I wasn’t allowed in there, so I sank down on the stool next to Kytten.
“Where is she?”
Haizley barreled into the room and made a beeline for me. She pulled me off the stool I had just sat down on to wrap her arms around me. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”
“I’m fine, really.” I tried to pull away, but she wasn’t having it.
“Don’t lie to me,” she snapped. When she finally pulled back, she looked at my face. “They went after you.”
“It appears so.”
“Why?”
I shrugged. I didn’t know why another MC wanted me, but I had some guesses.
Hearing Mimic retell the story, my mind caught on the part where the guy who punched me said, “he’d found me.
” I tried not to think about who would be looking for me.
As far as I knew, the Trick Pony was closed. All the major players were dead.
But clearly someone knew I was out here. Did they know about the others as well? Had they been searching for us all this time? I knew Daniel was searching for me, and I knew I wasn’t special enough that I was the only one he wanted back.
There had been murmurs and rumors. Whispers overheard during training. Talk of a purpose. The reason we were taken. The plans they had for us. They never confirmed anything. Not to us. Then we’d disappeared.
“Gunner won’t let them get their hands on you. That you can be sure of.”
“Haizley, I can’t stay here.”
“Why not?” Her brows crinkled together like what I said didn’t make sense.
“Because I’m not part of the club.”
Before I could continue, she crossed her arms and scowled at me. “You are part of the club. You work for the club. That makes you family. We take care of family. Let me get you something to eat.”
I didn’t stop her, even though I wasn’t hungry. I wouldn’t argue with her now. When Cash was out of church, I would get my keys and say my goodbyes. They couldn’t keep me here. Instead, I smiled at her and sat on the stool next to Kytten.
Johnny was behind the bar and slipped a glass in front of me. I hesitantly brought the glass to my lips, and when I tasted the sweet flavor of the Coke, and only the Coke, I looked up at him and smiled. He winked before walking away.
“Is there something going on between you and Johnny?” Kytten asked.
“What?” I asked, choking on my drink. My fingers went to my lips to catch the dribbling soda. “No.”
“How did he know what you drank?”
“Uh.” I looked at my glass and then Johnny, before turning back to Kytten. “Can I tell you a secret?” I wasn’t sure why I said that, except there was something about Kytten that felt comfortable.
“Of course.”
“When I go to the Queen’s Diamond, I usually sit at the bar next to Johnny. No one bothers you when you sit next to a biker. And well, I don’t drink. But it’s one of those things that people make a big deal about, so Grace brings me a rum and Coke, without the rum. I guess Johnny figured it out.”
“My brother doesn’t drink either,” she whispered.
“What?” That couldn’t be right. I saw him with a glass of whiskey just last week.
“Grace is really good at keeping secrets, I guess. I’ve only met her briefly, at brunch and then the day Amber left. She came in at the last minute, but didn’t stay long, but yeah, she serves him sweet tea ’cause it looks like whiskey.”
“Why doesn’t he drink?”
“Apparently, he’s allergic to it. Which is weird, ’cause I don’t have a problem with it.” She held up her margarita glass and clinked it against mine before taking a healthy drink.
“I didn’t know you could be allergic to alcohol.”
“Me either. It’s not that common. But it is genetic. So it came from one of our parents.”
“You don’t know?”
“We were kids when our mom disappeared. And we never knew our dad. To be honest, I barely know my brother. We got separated years ago and just found each other. I’ve been getting to know him over the last few weeks.”
“That’s why he thought I was you,” I whispered.
“What?”
I shook my head, cursing myself for my lack of control. I needed to learn to keep my thoughts inside my head.
“The first time we met, he thought I was the sister he was looking for. I thought it was weird he didn’t know who his sister was, but I guess it makes sense now.”
“It’s your hair, probably. Mine was blonde. Like blonde-blonde, when we were kids.”
“Oh, I’m not blonde.”
Shit, Indie. Shut the hell up!
“What’s your natural color?”
“It’s light brown.”
What the hell was I doing? I bit my lip and looked out at the room.
“I’m sorry. I’ll stop asking questions.”
“No, it’s—”
“It’s not. I’m prying, and most of the time, I don’t even realize I’m doing it. It’s just second nature considering what I do.”
“What do you do?”
“I help women and children escape abusive homes. I’m a Nyght Nymph. Scared women and children don’t like to talk much, so we’ve all learned how to talk to them to get the information we need to help them. And I forget how easy it is to slip into that role.”
When she mentioned the Nyght Nymphs, I nearly dropped my glass. Magyk was a Nyght Nymph. She told us all about her and her sisters when she rescued us. Foolishly, I thought she’d meant real sisters.
Magyk had given us all new names, new identities. It wasn’t the one I went by now, though. After Alice and I had left the foster home, we ditched those names. We didn’t want anyone to find us and take us back.
I wish I knew where Alice was. She could be a bitch, but I considered her a friend. Sure, our relationship was based on shared trauma, but hey, all friends had to have something in common, right?
Alice was the only person out there I knew who could relate to what I was going through. Yes, there were others, but other than Jenny, I had no idea where any of them went. Magyk told us we would be spread throughout the country.
Every few days we would travel to a new state and drop off a few girls. Sometimes two or three, sometimes only one. Magyk explained it needed to be random if we had any hope of not being found.
That was one of the things I liked most about her.
She was honest. She didn’t sugarcoat shit when she talked to us.
We might have only been between the ages of thirteen and fifteen, but we deserved the truth.
After everything we had lived through, the truth wasn’t scary.
It was comforting. It gave a false sense of control, and at the time, even a false sense of control was something to hold on to.
“Hey, where’d you go?”
“Huh?” I looked up from the glass I hadn’t really been staring into. “I guess I was just thinking about what you said. You’re a badass, Kytten.”
She threw her head back and laughed. “Oh, girl, if you only knew how wrong you are. You saw my legs. We all have our own monsters that torment us.” She peeked over her shoulder at the people milling around, and I expected her to lower her voice.
But she looked back at me with pride. “This place saved me. It gave me my brother. It gave me Cash.” Her cheeks turned pink when she said his name, and I smiled.
“And it gave me back myself. Without the people here standing behind me, holding me up, I wouldn’t be who I am. We can help you too. If you let us.”
“I don’t need help.” I took a sip of my soda to wash down the lie.
“That’s what I said. But men don’t break into your apartment in the middle of the night for no reason.”
“I don’t know who they are or what they wanted with me.” I took another sip. It wasn’t that I wanted to lie. I had learned early that no one could help me. Apollo tried, but Daniel found me. Daniel had even found me here in this little nothing town that was barely even a dot on the map.
There was nowhere I could hide from my past, and I didn’t want these people to see who I really was. Mimic had seen a glimpse of it and reacted exactly as I knew he would.
That was how they all would.
“Maybe not. But we can help you find out why they targeted you. Give us a chance, Indie.” She leaned over and whispered, “Give my brother a chance.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Kytten raised an eyebrow at me. “I think you do. Everyone deserves happiness if they’re willing to reach out for it.”
“I am ha—”
“Indie.”
Gunner’s commanding voice interrupted the next lie I was about to tell Kytten. I turned around on the stool and focused on him.
“Come in here, please.”
“Why?”
He crossed his arms over his chest and looked at me the way a father would look at his daughter when he was disappointed in her. I didn’t understand why the look on his face hurt me so much. But it got me moving off my stool and following him into church.