Chapter Seven #2
Rage walks into the room before I can answer. He heads in my direction, stopping directly in front of me. Without removing his eyes from mine, he takes my car keys from my hand. He throws them behind him without looking.
Prospect juggles to catch them but manages to keep them from landing on the floor.
“Take her car out to the Trough,” he tells him, taking me by my arm and guiding me out the door. He leads me over to his bike.
“I’ll just walk to the Inn. It’s such a beautiful evening,” I tell him, looking around and hugging myself.
He holds a helmet out for me to take, but I can’t bring myself to grab it.
“I don’t care if you ride with or without it, but I feel I should inform you before you decide against it.” He clicks around on his phone for a few seconds before holding it up to my face.
I glance at the photo he’s showing me and immediately look away. “Oh my god,” I breathe out, holding my chest.
“That’s what happens when your head hits the pavement at sixty-five with no helmet. Like I said, it’s not mandatory …”
I take the helmet from him, giving him a scowl of my own as I pull it onto my head. “I didn’t need to see that. I get it.”
He shrugs, kicking his leg over his bike. He nods over his shoulder. “Just keeping you informed. Let’s go. I’ve got something I need to check on.”
“Fine,” I say, sliding on behind him.
He grabs my hands and pulls them around his waist. When he flattens my palms against his solid stomach, I try to pull them away, but he holds them there.
I take a few deep breaths, trying to regulate my nervous system.
I’m mentally calmer than when Cole dumped me on his bike yesterday, but my heart seems to be racing faster.
“Don’t take your fucking hands off me until we’re completely stopped, got it?”
I nod, unable to speak as his warm hands hesitantly leave mine.
The second the bike roars to life, I curl my fingers into his soft t-shirt. Before we roll out onto the street, he stops abruptly, sending my ass sliding across the seat and forcing me against his backside. “Oh!” I squeal embarrassingly.
I feel his body shake. Is he laughing?
There’s no time to wonder about it because we’re moving again. I try to scoot back a little, but every time I do, he brakes, keeping me right where he wants me.
I dig my nails into his mid-section, letting him know what an asshole he is, but it gets zero reaction from him.
Soon we’re headed out of town. It should scare me, but it doesn’t. However, I do have a weird feeling in my stomach. It doesn’t feel good, but it doesn’t necessarily feel bad either.
At least the scenery is beautiful here. Rolling hills, high plains, and mountains on the horizon.
Everything the west has to offer. Eventually I begin to relax.
That is until he turns off onto a country road, leading us into the middle of nowhere.
To make matters worse, he pulls right into a grove of trees.
My hands instantly fly off of him when he stops the bike, but he grabs my wrists. “Just chill the fuck out, will you?”
He takes his helmet off and dips his head, looking through the trees. My gaze follows his to see a run-down trailer. It’s surrounded by a bunch of old cars with weeds growing up around them.
Rage pushes a button on his phone before bringing it to his ear. “You didn’t call this morning. What did you find?” he asks the person on the other end.
His jaw clenches, and I swear his eyes turn an entire shade darker. He doesn’t like their response. How you can get darker than black I don’t know, but it is frightening.
“You said you would check on her first thing this morning.” He grinds his teeth as he listens. “If you guys can’t get your asses over here, I’ll go in and check on her myself.”
I don’t know what the person on the other end says, but the growl from his chest makes me regret my decision not to drive away from this place. This feels like a mess I don’t want to be involved in.
A man comes out of the trailer followed by a woman. Instantly I’m repulsed. I’d swear it was my mother if I didn’t know better.
A shiver runs up my spine, and Rage looks back at me.
Did he feel that?
“If I don’t hear from you by the time I get off work tomorrow, I’ll be on Janet’s fucking doorstep,” he says.
The woman’s laughter filters between the trees, grating on my nerves like nails on a chalkboard.
The way she’s feigning over the man with her makes me want to vomit in my mouth. They look like they haven’t showered in a long time. They’re both dirty and disheveled. Neither have control over their limbs. The constant state of motion tells me everything I need to know about what goes on inside.
“Don’t tease me with a good time,” Rage says before hanging up.
The woman stumbles into her man almost knocking them both off the porch, so he flicks his cigarette and hauls her back inside.
“Fucking CPS,” Rage grits out, running his hand through his hair.
My head snaps back, and I scramble off the bike. “There’s a kid in there?” I ask, my gaze roaming over the property. Just the state of the yard tells me it’s not a safe place for a child to be.
He grabs my arm, keeping me close to him. “I can’t go in.”
“I’ll go in,” I tell him.
“Serenity …” he begins to say, but his phone rings again. “Yeah,” he answers.
I pluck his fingers off my arm one by one and then remove my helmet. Never have I been so certain about what my next move should be than right now.
Rage releases me. “Stay put,” he orders before placing his finger in his ear so he can hear the person on the phone. He turns away from me. “Yeah, we’re good to go,” he says.
While he’s distracted, I quickly begin to run through the trees, dodging the low hanging branches.
I have no idea how I’m going to get in, but I need to make sure that any children inside are safe.
Rage was calm as he talked to CPS, but I could sense his concern for someone inside. It’s probably his kid.
I look behind me, and Rage is standing on the edge of the tree line waving me toward him. “Get back here!” he mouths.
“I got this,” I mouth back.
His jaw sets in a hard line, and his hands rest on his hips. I turn back to my task, sidestepping all the junk in the yard.
When I get to the steps, the stench of smoke and trash hits me in the face.
“Get up, you dumb bitch. Stop playing with me,” a man says from inside.
I stand beside the screen door and peek through. He’s standing over the woman who is draped across the couch. He smacks her in the face in an attempt to wake her up.
She’s passed out, but he doesn’t seem concerned. I jump into action, knocking on the metal frame.
The man looks over his shoulder at me before coming to answer it. I smile wide when he opens the door.
“Hi!” I say excitedly. “I’m here to babysit.”
His brows pull together.
“She asked me to come over and babysit for a while so you two could have some alone time,” I tell him.
He looks back at the sleeping woman and then past me out into the yard, looking for my car.
“Oh, my boyfriend dropped me off,” I tell him. “He’ll be back to get me when I’m finished.”
The man rubs his belly. “Thank god you’re here. That kid has been screaming for days.”
My heart falls fast.
He holds the door open for me and I rush past him, ignoring the woman who I think might be overdosing on the couch.
I head down the narrow hall, knowing the kid he’s talking about has to be back here somewhere.
The trailer isn’t very big. I start opening doors but don’t find anyone until I hit the room at the end.
I can’t even wrap my mind around the conditions of this place as I stare at the crib. The child is quiet. I can’t tell if they are asleep or something much worse. He said they’d been crying for days.
Slowly, I approach the crib and find a precious little girl lying in her own filth. The entire mattress is soiled. I steel my heart as I reach in and place my hand on her back. Oh my god, she’s burning up! But at least she’s alive.
I carefully scoop her into my arms and hurry to the door in the hallway that leads behind the trailer. I open it, finding no stairs. Without hesitation I jump, but I’m not very graceful, and I fall to the ground. I roll onto my back as I tumble, keeping the child safely pressed against my chest.
She wakes up and begins to whimper. Her tiny voice sounds hoarse and weak.
I push to my feet and hurry away with her, careful not to trip. When I round the corner and Rage sees me, his face pales. He begins running toward me.
“She’s burning up!” I yell.
Instantly, he turns around and whistles. Carson and Cole both step from the trees.
“We need to get her to the hospital. Get the truck ready!” he hollers to them while still heading toward me.
He takes her from my arms as soon as we meet in the middle of the field.
I run beside him, struggling to keep up.
“I think the woman inside is overdosing,” I say, struggling to catch my breath.
He doesn’t say anything about this bit of information. His focus is solely on the child in his arms.
I can see his love plain as day. She must be his daughter.
Cole and Carson are waiting in a pickup. I slide in the back with Carson while Rage climbs up front with the little girl on his lap.
Everyone is quiet as we speed back to town. Carson pulls his phone out and orders someone to pick up Rage’s bike.
When he finishes the call, Rage turns to me. “What did you see?” he asks.
I scoot forward, looking over his shoulder at the girl. “The woman was passed out on the couch, and the dude with her has no fucking clue what’s going on. I told him I was there to babysit. He said she’d been crying for days,” I tell him, nodding toward the tiny bundle in his arms.
“Mila’s never looked this bad. She’s so thin,” he says, his voice catching.
My heart breaks for him because the little girl has obviously been neglected for some time.
He pulls out his phone. “I’ve got to call CPS.”
But when they answer, he can’t speak. I gently remove the phone from his hand and put it to my ear.
“I told you we’d go check on her tomorrow,” she says in greeting.
“Hello. Um, my name is Serenity. Chase gave me his phone so I could call you,” I tell the bitch on the line.
“Who did you say you were?” she asks, clearly confused.
“My name is Serenity. I was supposed to babysit Mila today, and when I got there, she was sick. I think her mom might be ill, too. She was sleeping on the couch, her boy …” I pause, not sure who the man on the couch was to her.
Rage nods at me.
“Her boyfriend,” I continue, “he said he couldn’t wake her up, so I found Chase at the Trough and he’s going with me to take Mila to the ER. Could you please meet us there?”
“Oh!” she squeaks. “Oh, of course. I’ll be right there.” She hangs up without another word.
I hand the phone back to him. He stares at me for a second before turning his attention back to his daughter.
“Mila,” he says, pressing his mouth to her ear. Her little eyelids flutter, and she whimpers. “I’ve got you, baby. The doctors are going to make you all better.” His hand continues to rub over her dirty hair.
I slide back into my seat, and Carson reaches over and pats my knee. “You did good,” he says quietly.
Please let her be okay. Please, God. Please.