Chapter 9 Ranger
RANGER
She looked up at me with those wide blue eyes of hers. Eyes that reminded me of a bright summer sky. And when she whispered those two words, it took a moment for the full weight of them to land.
It's you.
My chest cracked open. She knew. She had known — maybe not consciously, maybe not with words — but some part of her had known from the moment she stumbled through that door. Some part of her had recognized me before her brain had the capacity to catch up.
All this time, tending to her, feeding her, earning back her trust inch by painful inch, and she had run to me.
Not to the club.
Not to safety in the abstract.
To me.
I didn't deserve that kind of trust. I knew that.
A better man would've walked her to her car that night.
A better man would've made sure she got home safe before anything else.
Instead, I'd let her slip back out into the dark, and what happened after that was something I was going to have to carry for the rest of my goddamn life.
But she had still come to me. And I was going to spend every waking moment making sure she never regretted it.
“You are so brave,” I said as I gazed down at her, still dabbing at her sweating, pale skin.
She slowly blinked, and then the blinking grew faster. Like if she blinked enough times, I’d disappear, and she’d be right back where she was.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said softly as I dabbed at her neck a bit.
Jesus, she was really sweating.
I wondered if I needed to get Doc.
Her eyes roved over my face and I saw the memories dancing behind hers.
She reached out a hand, her fingertips quivering a bit before her hand settled on my forearm.
I felt her nails racing through the thick hair I had there.
I’d always been a hairy dude. Hated that shit growing up.
I had a full mustache on my fucking face by the time I was eleven, and when I went to go play sports in school, I had a partial back full of hair for everyone to tease me about.
Her eyes fluttered a bit as she raced her fingers along the hair on my forearms.
Like she derived some sort of comfort from it.
“I remember you,” she whispered.
I gave her the softest smile. “I remember you, too.” I smoothed the washcloth along her jaw. “Every single detail.”
She nodded softly, but her eyes still traveled my face. She had a stray strand of hair that stuck itself against her forehead. I placed the cool wet washcloth down in my hand and reached to move it off her skin.
Only for her to flinch.
I quickly pulled my hand back.
Those pale blue eyes of hers filled with tears and it struck something in my gut.
Her body trembled again, and I reached for the bucket I brought with me.
I had a cool washcloth at my disposal, but I filled a small bucket with warm water and plunked another washcloth inside of it.
Just in case she wanted heat instead of cold.
I reached for that particular washcloth and blotted her skin.
I watched goosebumps skitter across her body.
“Do you remember anything else from that night?” I asked, unable to help myself.
I wanted to know how much she remembered.
I wasn’t prepared for the words that came from her trembling lips that parted.
“I was taken that night, after I left the bar.”
The breath left my lungs. She was… what? That night? Like, when we were finished and parted ways? Good fucking god, that was eight fucking months ago.
She was held captive for eight months!?
Not even Wrecker was held captive that long…
You should’ve been a good man, you dog. You saw something you wanted, and you took it. You should’ve escorted her to her car. You should’ve made sure she got home safe. You should’ve given her the Cap treatment, and instead, you—
I forced my way out of my head when I heard her sniffling.
My gaze focused back on her, and her eyes attached to the ceiling.
Her lower lip trembled uncontrollably. My guilt ran away with me, eating my guts alive as I perched there next to her head, wishing I could run my fingers through her hair without her being so goddamn terrified.
I should’ve been a good man all those months ago.
I should’ve treated her to a walk back to her car.
I couldn’t change the past.
But I could change now.
“Nobody is going to lay a fucking hand on you again unless that’s what you want, Marla. Do you understand me?”
A tear rolled down her cheek as those desperate eyes searched my face.
I used the washcloth to dab at her face a bit.
She seemed to be okay as long as there was a barrier between my skin and hers.
I hated to think about what caused that.
I gazed into her eyes and repeated myself. “I’m serious, Marla. Nobody is going to get to you unless they get through me. You have my word.”
Her eyes danced in between mine before one word whispered from her lips.
“Ranger.”
I nodded. “That’s me. And I’m completely at your disposal.”
Another tear ricocheted down her cheek. “I want to say something, but I don’t want it to sound bad.”
I swiped the washcloth along her cheek, gathering the tear in its track. “Whatever you want to say, you can say it. I won’t have any reaction, if that’s what you prefer.”
She sniffled. “The memory of that night in the bar got me through some awful shit, Ranger. Thank you.”
Thank you.
She thanked me for the shitty man I was that night.
A man who cared more about getting his cock wet than her safety.
I hated how my heart warmed at her words.
My heart didn’t deserve the warmth.
For a moment, however, I allowed it to chase away the guilt. I stomached it down because none of this shit was about me. The focus had to be on her. My eyes volleyed back to that strand of hair stuck to her forehead. That couldn’t have been comfortable.
“Here,” I said softly as I moved my finger, covered in the washcloth, “you’ve got a flyaway riiiiight…”
I smoothed the washcloth over her forehead, pushing the hair away until it flopped back to the side. I moved my covered finger to tuck it behind her ear so that it wouldn’t agitate her.
If it even agitated her.
“Thanks,” she whispered.
My attention came back to her face as I looked down at her. She looked so fragile, laying there in my closet, the blanket pulled up to her chest and the pillows stacked so that she could get comfortable.
“How do you like your phone?” I asked as I tossed the washcloth back into the small bucket of warm water.
She took a moment before she responded. “I don’t want to complain.”
I shook my head. “No complaining. Is there something you’d like on there that isn’t there?”
She drew in a breath. “Books?”
I paused. She wanted… books?
“Are there, um,” she cleared her throat and it tugged my attention back to her, “any books we could put on here? You know, like electronically, or something?”
It took me a moment to process what she wanted before a smile split my lips. “Another bookworm, huh? Amanda likes reading, too.”
She furrowed her brow.
Yeah, she really wasn’t retaining information if she couldn’t remember the girls’ names.
I had to ask Doc about that.
“Wrecker’s girl, with the pin straight red hair,” I said.
Her eyes lit up with recognition and she nodded. “Oh.”
“I’ll figure out what application she has downloaded onto her phone for her books and we’ll get it loaded onto yours, all right?”
For the first time since she ran to us in terror, her eyes lit up with something other than fear.
Hope.
I saw hope in those gorgeous blue pools of her eyes.
“Really?” she asked.
“Really, really.”
She smiled up at me, then. A soft little tick edged the corners of her mouth up across her cheeks a bit, and my heart stilled in my chest.
She was so beautiful.
Like a little dove.
Thinking about her being caged for eight fucking months shattered my goddamn soul.
“I’ll get you whatever you want,” I whispered with a nod of my head. “Okay? All you need to do is ask.”
Her gaze searched mine. “Okay.”
“All right, now, in the meantime,” I said as I grunted getting up from the floor, “you try and get some rest. I’ll just be right over here, in my office ch—”
“If you want to sleep in your own bed, I could leave this door cracked open,” she said as she motioned to the door by her head that we had opened.
That gave me pause. “I don’t want to pressure you into something you’re not ready for.”
She just shrugged softly and tugged one of the blankets up to her chin. “Your chair can’t be that comfortable.”
I gave her a chuckle as I reached for the bucket. “It gets the job done.”
“Just sayin’,” she muttered.
“Hey,” I said, drawing her attention up to me. “Thank you. I’ll take you up on that offer, but only if you’re comfortable with it.”
She graced me with another smile of hers, and I committed it to memory.
I had to figure out how to get her to smile more.
I loved how it looked on her face.
You’re being a selfish dick again. It’s not about you.
I stuffed down the voice in my head as she turned onto her side. I took that as a cue that she was ready to be alone, so I busied myself with taking the bucket into my bathroom. I poured out the water and wrung out both of the washcloths, laying them out so that they could dry.
My cell phone dinged out.
“Ugh, church,” I grumbled as I dried off my hands and made my way back to Marla.
I already heard footsteps walking around the clubhouse by the time I crouched back down.
“Everything okay?” she asked softly, her back still turned to me. “Why’s everyone walking around?”
I saw her shivering beneath the blanket.
I hated it.
I hated all of this.
“Church, most likely,” I said as I reached for the door. “I’ll have to head downstairs for a little while. Want me to close this door?”
“Yes, please,” she said softly.
“All right,” I said as I stood and eased the closet door closed. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Do our knock?” she asked. “So I know it’s you?”
I made my way to the bedroom door. “Of course.”
“Okay.”
It killed me to leave her. It killed me to close that door behind me. But Cap had clearly called on us, and I couldn’t keep them waiting. They’d want to know all of the progress I made with Marla anyway. Recognizing me was a huge step forward in things. Plus, I needed to speak with Doc about—
I turned the corner into the common room to head to the basement staircase, but I found the core group of the crew gathered around the couches and chairs. They all had their phones out, and there were some god awful sounds coming from their phones.
More phones dinged, and the girls reached for their phones. I furrowed my brow as I fished my phone out of my pocket, trying to figure out what in the hell everyone was looking at.
“We doing church or what?” I asked as I pulled out my phone.
What the fuck?
“Who sent a mass text?” I asked.
“Oh my god!” Amanda exclaimed as she dropped her phone like a hot pocket.
“Give me that, princess,” Cap said, yanking the phone from Ariel before she had a chance to do something with it.
There was a mixture of sounds I couldn’t place as I opened the text message on my phone from the seemingly unknown number. Already, my hackles were raised. There was no number on the face of this planet that should’ve texted our burner phones. The only people that had these numbers were—
“What the fuck?” I asked when I saw the preview clip for the video that I was sent.
I whipped my head up, but found that everyone else had their heads stuck in their phones.
There was screaming. The sound of chains rattling.
Growling voices. Like everyone was playing the video at different times, all out loud.
I turned my back to the group and pressed play on the video.
My mind was already swirling with the fact that we’d have to chuck these and get another set up and running.
At least I’d be able to load books onto it for Marla this time around.
“Church. Now,” Cap demanded.
I held up my finger as I pressed play on the video. And all of a sudden, I realized what all of those sounds meant. The chains. The growling voices. The clicking sound that I now understood to be the cocking of a gun.
“This is a hostage video,” I said as I whipped my head up.
Cap stared me down, so I answered the question that I knew was on the tip of his tongue.
“No one else has these numbers,” I said with a shake of my head. “I don’t have a fucking clue who this number belongs to.”
Cap continued to stare me down.
“But, I’ll have that information for you come morning.”
“Oh my God,” Amanda whimpered out before she tucked herself back against Wrecker.
“Who is that?” Ariel muttered while pressing herself into Cap’s side.
I looked over at Jasmine, who just continued staring at her phone. I watched Ghost slip his arm over her shoulder and softly pluck the phone out of her hand.
She turned against him and started crying.
“Does anyone recognize the girl in the video?” Cap asked.
Wait a second, all of us got this video.
All of the girls got this video, too.
“Marla,” I whispered as I whipped around and started out of the living room.
She couldn’t see this video. My God, it would be so fucking triggering to her that I wasn’t sure I’d ever get her to calm down again. I had to get to her. I had to get her phone away from her before she got curious and checked things out.
All bets were off when her screech echoed across the inside of the clubhouse.
Fuck church.
Something very bad was happening.
And I had to figure out what the fuck it was.