Twenty-Three
JENNA
I lie on the sofa, blanket tucked beneath my arms, hands fisted in the top edge while I stare up at the ceiling in the dark.
The patterned, copper tiles blur, my eyes struggling to make heads or tails of the stamped design in the dim light.
Darla breathes softly to my left, The Kid tucked into her side under their shared blanket.
One of the prospects moved a mattress down for them to be more comfortable after spending the first night on the hard floor.
Kathy didn’t need the same treatment, content to stay upstairs with her inked terror keeping guard.
My chest rises and falls with a deep breath. Everything’s so goddamn messed up. People know too much, and yet there’s still so much I haven’t said. I knew my father’s club allegiance would be an issue. Didn’t figure Mary-Beth’s death would be the thing that got me in the most trouble.
What will her father do if he finds out?
Will I even see it coming—his bullet? Which leads to the age-old question: is it better to know when you’ll die or live your life in blissful ignorance?
I close my eyes and exhale heavily. All I know is I don’t want to die.
I watched Mom suffer through her final years, and that was enough to cement for me that swift and painless would be the best. When I’m old.
In my sleep. Once I’ve had a lifetime to make my own choices and live a life I’ve curated—not my parents, not their so-called friends.
I want to exist on my own terms. Make my own mistakes and find some semblance of peace before I check out. Have a normal job. Make normal friends. Go for coffee on a Saturday and be a hermit on a Sunday. Find a hobby.
Breathe.
Breathe, Jenna. I rub my aching sternum, panic flushing my system. How do I get out of this? Will I ever get away from what I’ve done? Could I live that ordinary life, knowing I took somebody else’s? Or will it taint everything, robbing me of the dream?
Do I even deserve to dream?
The Kid wriggles against Darla, smacking her lips a little as she settles again.
I twist my neck and squint into the darkness, attempting to make out more than her shadowy figure.
It’s no use. The moon hides behind cloud tonight, the world blanketed in a deep sleep that somehow forgot to add me to the guest list. I toss the blanket back and swivel to a seated position, hands either side of me.
What the hell do I do? Make a coffee? Maybe. Scream into the void? Definitely. Just got to find a void first.
The floorboards are cool beneath my socked feet, the fire barely retaining any glowing embers.
I slip another chopped log on as quietly as I can and gently stoke the ashes to get the wood to catch.
The house is quiet, save for the hum of the refrigerator, dark, save for the single bulb illuminating the back doorstep.
I know Jezabel’s room is one of the three outdoors. Heard Chaos’s sister has another, not that I’ve seen her yet. An educated guess would be that the third used to belong to Reno, unless there’s another bunny I’ve yet to meet.
I slip outside and immediately shiver. Dew coats the ground, the night still deciding whether to turn it to frost. Arms folded over myself, I wander to the end of the short concrete path—as far as I can go before getting my socks too wet—and stare out over the ghostly fields.
The pull to disappear is strong. To walk off into the nothing and not stop. Fade from people’s minds and memories. But I know I’d be miserable living that life, always on the move. Always looking into the eyes of the strangers around me, wondering if they’re the one.
I need to front up to what I’ve done. To tie the loose ends before I cut all connection to the MC world.
Time passes without consequence while I daydream of how things could have gone differently, playing pick-a-path with my own fucking life. Shivers wrack my body, and the hint of daylight casts a blue hue on the horizon line. You’ll catch your death of cold. Make things easier, though, wouldn’t it?
A faint red light draws my eye left, the rumble of an engine starting soon after.
What I assume to be Chaos backs out of the cottage’s driveway, headlight sweeping the road as he takes off—away from the clubhouse.
A light flicks on across the porch, and a shadowy figure steps out into the chilly morning.
I stay frozen—quite literally—in place.
The figure steps forward, arm moving slightly. Maybe to lift a coffee? I can’t be sure this far away. They turn, and the door opens, spilling light toward the road, then shuts again.
I breathe a sigh of relief.
I felt sure I could be alone in the dead of night. Maybe it’s closer to dawn than I realize?
My stomach plummets when the figure reemerges and moves swiftly toward the front gate.
I take a step back when she crosses the road, head turning and ponytail swinging to check the way is clear.
Surely not. She can’t have seen me out here.
Not from that far away. Not when I don’t have a light over me.
Chaos’s woman—name forgotten—moves swiftly toward the fence-line, and then lets herself through another gate.
She’s making fast progress toward me, while I’m still trying to decide the best course of action.
I mean, surely she’s not coming over for me.
But then again, why would she cut through a muddy field otherwise?
I stay shivering at the end of the path, watching as she reaches the fence between the field and the house lot.
“Hey,” she whisper-yells, ushering me over with a jerk of her head. “Come give me a hand.”
I look behind me as though somebody would be fucking standing there—smart—and then dash across the dewy lawn.
“Take this.” She offloads two hot travel mugs into my hands and then reaches for the top rail of the fence. A blanket is slung around her shoulders.
I move back, giving her room to dismount. How she managed to vault the fence in a long dress and thick oversized jersey, I don’t know. But she did. And now she unwraps the blanket from her shoulders to offer it to me.
No.
To put it around me. The fuck?
“You must be freezing,” she states, tucking the blanket over my arms and then retrieving one of the hot drinks. “How long have you been out here?”
“How did you know I was here?” I counter.
She smirks. The woman’s absolutely stunning in a neo-gothic kind of way. “Chaos forgets to log out sometimes.”
I frown. The hell does she mean?
She catches my confusion and gestures above my head. “He has cameras everywhere.” Of course. “And he logs in on my laptop sometimes to keep watch.”
To keep watch. My stomach bottoms out, head doing mental gymnastics. Would he have seen me come out here with the phone? Did Loki even narc, or did I rat myself out?
“So, whatchya doing?” she asks before taking a casual sip of what smells like coffee.
“Not much.”
“A lot on your mind?” She sighs, staring off over the field to her house. “I have that problem sometimes too. Makes it impossible to sleep, right?”
“I’m sorry,” I interject, stiff as a board so as not to drop the blanket from my shoulders. “I don’t remember your name.”
“Right.” She laughs softly. “Sorry. Vanessa.” She appears to consider offering her hand but decides against it, given my struggle to hold on to everything as it is. “I’m Chaos’s old lady.”
“I know.”
Her gaze drops to the ground briefly. “You’re Jenna, right?”
I smile softly. “Guessing you’ve heard about me already.”
“Some. But if anyone asks, he tells me nothing.” She sips the drink again, smile playing on her lips. “Did you want to go inside?”
“Not really.”
A brief nod, and then she’s back to nursing the coffee.
I feel responsible for the lull in conversation, but I’m also wary about opening up to people given what happened when I spilled to Fang. We drink our brews in companionable silence for a while, and I have to give it to her: she makes a great coffee.
“When I first moved here,” Vanessa says suddenly, “I wanted to disappear. Hence why I bought the cottage.” She gestures to her cozy abode.
“I’d left a lot of shit behind in my life, and I wanted to stay buried so it couldn’t find me.
But no matter what I did, how hard I tried to remain invisible, it found me anyway. ”
I shrink into the blanket’s protection a little more. Not sure I want to talk about this.
“We’ve all got things we want to leave in the past, shit we wish we didn’t do, people we wish we’d never met.
What sets this place apart,” she states, gesturing to the clubhouse, “is that they don’t judge you for any of that because chances are they’re just the same and that’s how they ended up here, in a biker club. ”
“With all due respect,” I say carefully. “I think my situation may have one key difference from yours.”
“That being?” She studies me with genuine curiosity.
Vanessa gives off the vibes that she’d never hurt a fly—soft and considerate through and through. But again, I can’t trust my sense of anything at the moment. I can’t trust myself.
“It’s not important. But it means that no matter what I do, these should be the last people to want me around.”
“Want to place a bet?”
I frown her way.
She smirks. “Serious. Twenty says that they accept you anyway.”
“I don’t like stealing from people.”
“You’re that confident?” she jests.
“One hundred percent.”
Vanessa seems to think it over for a while. “Even if I lose, it’s a bit of fun. Twenty on them accepting you anyway.”
“Deal.” I manage to fist the blanket into the hand with the coffee and offer her my other hand.
She shakes it gently, yet firmly. “I’ll come back and get that stuff later.
” She nods to the blanket and travel mug.
“I’ve got to get ready for work. But trust me when I say, Jenna, these people gave me hope when I felt like I had nothing left.
Give them a chance. They’re not as unforgiving as you think. ”
She turns and heads for the fence-line again, balancing her cup on the post while she climbs over.
I feel as though a fairy visited me. A little ray of light in an otherwise bleak landscape.
She shrinks into the distance, and a door creaks open behind me.
“Morning.”
I glance over my shoulder and find Jezabel, arms stretched over her head. Her yellow-and-black hair sits in knotted waves. “Hey.”
“You want to shower first?” she offers on a yawn. “I’ll get you some clean clothes if you like.”
“That’d be great. Thank you.”
Maybe Vanessa’s right. Maybe I should give them a chance.