16. Priest
“Are you okay?” I asked when I went to her room later that night. It was almost eleven. We had gone to the clubhouse around seven, and we had been there for two hours before someone told me that September had headed outside to get some air. I didn’t think she would try anything, but I couldn’t be certain with her feisty ass.
The minute I stepped outside and looked in every direction that she could have run in, she wasn’t there. There was movement to my left that drew my attention. I walked further into the parking lot and headed to that corner where there was nothing but a large concrete wall and a few bikes. I saw Mutt, Blue, and Ice standing in a semi-circle. I figured at first they were fucking with one of the sweet butts, but I noticed Blue lean down and reach his hand out. When I saw someone slap at his hand, I started to turn, until I heard her voice. She was shouting “no” repeatedly.
“Yeah,” she replied.
September scooted to the right side of the bed and pressed her back against the wall. She closed a book that she had been reading and wrapped her arms around her knees, which were pulled to her chest.
It fucked with me that she wouldn’t even look at me. I sat carefully on the edge of the bed because I didn’t want to spook her.
“What happened back there?”
She shook her head.
“I know you don’t want to talk about it, Ember, but how can I protect you if I don’t know?”
September’s head jerked up, and I noticed that her eyes were red rimmed as though she’d been crying. When I drove us back to the cabin on the bike, she’d clung to me so tightly that I could barely breathe. I knew it wasn’t fear of riding the bike because she’d become accustomed to it. It was fear, though, of what, I wasn’t sure.
When we climbed off the bike at home, she had been shaking like a leaf. I’d tried to console her, but she pushed me away and said she wanted to shower. I waited for an hour before I decided to check on her again.
“How can you protect me, Priest, when you’re my captor? If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be in this situation.”
I tried to control my anger and remember that she was not in a good place. I angled my head and looked at her. “Hey, it ain’t my fault you’re in this situation. It’s your sorry-ass daddy’s fault. His ass wasn’t looking?—”
I shook my head and cut myself off at the look that passed over her face.
“My bad. I shouldn’t have,” I apologized.
“No. You’re right. It’s his fault as much as anyone’s,” she agreed softly.
“Will you please tell me what happened back there? I swear that I’m gonna deal with my men, but I need to know what went down. I was more interested in getting you away from there so that you would feel safe again than I was fucking them up. But trust me when I say I’ma fuck their bitch asses up.”
September looked at me like she was trying to gauge if she could trust me or not. I decided to throw her a bone and hoped that it might get her to open up. “I know a little something about fear and people intimidating you.”
When she looked at me with curiosity and an open expression, I continued. “My mama didn’t always choose the best men to bring home, let’s say that. I encountered more fists in my face and kicks to my ribs in my early days than I’ve done in all my years of being in this MC. More hungry days too. So, I know something about suffering.”
My jaw clenched as I wondered why I’d said that much. I hadn’t meant to tell her about the hunger.
“Is that why…?”
“Why what?”
“You’re so defensive. Have a difficult time trusting people.”
“Part of it.”
She nodded and then sighed. “I had a flashback out there. They accused me of trying to run, and when I said that I wasn’t, one of them reached out and grabbed me.”
“Who?”
“The dark-skinned one. He’s really, really darker than the other two.”
“Blue,” I grumbled. That’s how he had earned his name. He was so black in some places that his skin looked blue.
“Anyway, the other guy with hazel eyes said that touching me wasn’t all he wanted to do to me when I told them not to touch me.”
That would be Mutt’s bitch ass. And being a dog was exactly how he’d earned the name.
“The dark-skinned guy with the baldhead and beard told them to leave me alone because they didn’t need problems with you. I tried to back away, and I fell. When he went to help me up, the other two pushed him aside and stood over me.”
That would have been Ice. I needed to speak with him and let him know I appreciated him looking out.
“Anyway, while they were over me like that, I had… I had a flashback to the day my mama was killed.”
“What happened?” I asked.
I reached out, grabbed her foot, and massaged it. She seemed as surprised by the act as I was, but it helped her to relax. She told me the story about how three men broke into her house and assaulted her mother. She said that she wasn’t supposed to be there that day, but she hadn’t gone to a friend’s house at the last minute, because the friend was sick. She told me that they had beaten her mother, and when it seemed as if one of the men might try to sexually assault her, her mother escaped his grasp and ran for the knife block on the counter. She then told me that a third man shot her mother and killed her.
“In front of you?”
She nodded as the tears streamed down her face. “I wanted to help her, Priest. I swear that I did, but the other two held me back. I fought so hard, but I couldn’t break away. My mama lay on that floor dead with her eyes and mouth wide open. The last thing she lived through was trying to fight those men so they wouldn’t attack her or me.”
“What happened to you?”
“One of them hit me in the head, and I blacked out. By the time I regained consciousness the police were there. Our neighbors heard the gunshots and dialed nine-one-one.”
“Thank God. Did they ever find them?”
“No. But Priest?”
“Yeah.”
“I think…” She swallowed and didn’t finish.
“What? Tell me what you think, princess.”
“That my daddy had something to do with it.”
My blood ran cold.
“Why?” I clenched my teeth together and dug my nails into my palms.
She hesitated and chewed on her nail. September refused to meet my eyes. I reached out and gripped her chin between my index finger and thumb.
“Why?” I repeated.
“The day that you showed up, he and I were arguing. I’d been going through some online files, and I accessed a file that wasn’t meant for my eyes. That’s how I learned what he was doing. I confronted him about it, and I defended those women and appealed to his sense of decency. But there was something that he said during the argument that made me believe he was involved in her murder.”
“What did he say?”
“I told him they were someone’s daughter like me and someone’s mother like Mommy. He said, and I quote, ‘Snooping in shit that didn’t have anything to do with her, that’s what got her ass iced.’”
Fury ran through me on her behalf and her mother’s. That bastard had robbed his own child of the right to her mother. I didn’t doubt that he had something to do with it. I knew he did, and I was certain that he probably ordered a hit on her. But I wouldn’t tell September that, not now.
She cried, and I didn’t know what to do with that shit. I kicked my boots off, scooted to the middle of the bed, rested against the headboard, and pulled her into my lap. I wrapped her in my arms and grabbed her hand. I found myself rubbing small circles in the middle of her palm. We sat that way for a few minutes before she asked me, “Why did your mama choose such bad men? Who hurt you, Priest? What did they do to you?”
It wasn’t lost on me that the role of captor and captive had fallen away. We could pretend all we wanted that we were still in those roles, but we weren’t and hadn’t been for a long time.
“You ask a lot of questions, princess.”
“Tell me your story. I want to know.”
September rested her head against my shoulder, reached up, and cupped the side of my face. “Someone needs to care about you, too, Priest.”
I sighed.
“My mama had me when she was fifteen, but my grandmother supported her so that she could finish high school and then college. She met a man during her senior year of college that she really was feeling. He was an older cat, and I remember, at first, he used to come by and bring me toys to play with while he spent time with her. I didn’t think too much about it at first, but I noticed that she acted differently after he left.”
“Different how?”
“He was getting her hooked on drugs.”
“Oh my God. I’m so sorry, Priest.”
I didn’t respond to that. I just needed to get it out before I closed that wall up again.
“He eventually stopped coming around, but she was hooked on drugs badly by then. I was between her house and my grandma’s house on bad days. There were different men in and out of our lives, and all of ’em was fuck boys. One day the nigga who got her hooked popped up out of nowhere at our house again. I hadn’t seen him in four years. By this time, I was eleven, and I pretty much hated every nigga that came through our house. But his ass, I hadn’t forgotten him.
“Soon as he stepped his bitch ass through our front door, I had some words for him. He smacked the shit out of me, and I got up and fought his ass. I ran to the kitchen at one point and grabbed a knife. By then, he was snapping on my mama and beating on her. I came after him again, but that time, he pulled out a gun and threatened to shoot her and my little sister, who was two at the time. I backed up, but then he held the gun on me and ordered my mama to handcuff me to the heater register. I begged her not to do that shit, but he told her if she didn’t, he’d put a cap in my head and my sister’s. So, she did that shit.
“I didn’t blame her for that. Not until I learned later that she had shown up at his office and begged him for some money. That’s why he came to our house because she’d embarrassed his ass. She cuffed me to the register, and his ass tightened the cuffs. The register burned me.”
“Where?” September asked. When she looked over her shoulder at me, I saw fresh tears in her eyes. That shit did something to me because she was crying for me.
“Right here and here,” I stated. I pointed to two spots on my right arm that were now tatted over with a cobra wrapped around my arm and wrist.
“Is that why you tattooed those spots?”
“Yeah. After he did that, he beat her ass again. This time, he beat her so badly that her face was all fucked up. She screamed, and my sister and I cried. I tried to get away from the register, but I couldn’t. She jumped up and tried to run for help, and he beat her until he pushed her down the steps.”
“Did he push her, or did he beat her, and she fell?”
“He fucking pushed her.”
September shook in my arms. I tightened my grip around her. “My bad. I didn’t mean to take that out on you.”
“It’s okay,” she stated softly. She rubbed my arm and leaned against my chest again. “What happened?”
“She died.”
“Your mother?”
“No. My sister.”
“What happened?”
“My mama was holding my sister when he pushed my mama down the stairs. My sister was only two. She didn’t survive the head injuries she endured.”
“Oh my God. Priest,” September whispered.
She pulled out of my arms and turned on her knees to face me. Her tiny hands on my face felt good. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “Did they get him?”
I shook my head. “Nah, they didn’t get that muthafucka. She lied and said she fell down the steps. The police knew better, but they didn’t give a shit. Another nigga’s dead and gone. The drugs got worse after that. Not long after, I was out on the streets.”
“Do you think he’ll ever pay for what he did?”
I smirked. “Oh, his ass will pay. He’ll definitely pay.”