Chapter 5
Shadow
Damn it! Why was I dumb enough to put all my cash and ID into that stupid bag?
I wasn’t expecting to have to run tonight.
I wasn’t expecting to be confronted by Preacher’s damn daughter who couldn’t stay the fuck away from me.
I don’t need another do-gooder in my life who thinks I’m a hero.
And I don’t need complications. Especially not beautiful ones who happen to be my friend’s daughter and who would be off limits even if I wasn’t a fucking mess.
She’s fast, I’ll give her that, but she only makes it half a block before I draw up level with her and snatch the bag out of her hand.
It’s dark, but we’re still in a residential neighborhood.
The last thing I need is someone to look outside and see a huge motherfucker dressed in black, chasing after a woman.
I don’t touch Fawnie at all. My hand doesn’t so much as graze hers.
When I have my bag back, I do an abrupt turn and head back the way I was going, doubling my steps. I don’t run. I easily could. I’m far from winded.
She follows behind me, panting loudly. “Hey! You didn’t even give me a chance!” She complains far louder than she pants. “Also? That was kind of hot. How are you that fast?”
My body screams at me, wanting to know why the hell I couldn’t just chase her down slowly. I would have overtaken her in a block instead of half. Now is the worst time for an unnecessary flex.
“I wasn’t fast enough to escape that fire,” I retort, adjusting my hand on the bag since my knuckles feel as though they’re going to split open, I’m clutching it so tightly.
“Yes, you were!” She bounces along beside me, breathing hard.
I keep my gaze resolutely forward and try and avoid looking at her. Because when I look at her, I can feel parts of myself getting soft.
“Fine. Getting burned then.”
“You went through a glass window. I saw it.”
She’s not wrong. The cuts were minor compared to the burns, but I was a real mess and the arm and shoulder that took the brunt of it have some jagged scarring.
“I had no idea how I was going to get out, and you came crashing through. You were like an angel. I swear, I thought you weren’t even real.
If my mom hadn’t seen you too, I would have thought that you really were a supernatural being who pulled me and Bubby out, then just blended back into the night. ”
Ugh, haven’t we been over this already?
“That’s the crux of your problem right there. I’m no supernatural being, no angel, and no hero.”
You’re no hero. You’re just a waste of space. Come on. Tell me I’m wrong.
I don’t hear voices or anything. Just mean thoughts.
All the time. Call it self-sabotage or call it my own personal cheer squad—well, the opposite of a cheer squad, my jeer quad.
They’ve become so much a part of me that I’ve become comfortable with the intrusive shittyness in the same way that people are fine with the thoughts they have on waking, looking out the window, and telling themselves it’s going to be a nice day or it’s going to rain, or that the flowers are drooping and need watering.
Factual, boring shit.
“I’m me,” I grunt, resuming conversation so I can drown out the garbage in my head. I might be used to it, but it never gets any less annoying. “Grumpy. Broody. Some days a complete asshole. I’m not looking for redemption. The best I’m ever gonna get is that one day is less shitty than the next.”
I increase my pace, my long legs eating up the sidewalk before I cross a street at the same rapid pace and pound down the next stretch of concrete.
Houses whip past. I ignore them, and the rest of my surroundings, while also being perfectly aware that they’re there.
I’ve pretty much made an art form of it.
“Can you stop for a second?” Fawnie had fallen behind, but she catches up with me. Her breaths puff invisibly up into the velvet sky.
If it was cold out, I’d be able to see them.
They’d probably catch on her thick eyelashes and star them together. Her soft blue eyes would darken. She’d grin at me inexplicably, just because she loves being happy, and her dimples would appear.
I glance up at the dark sky just for somewhere else to look. My hand curls around the strap of my bag until the leather crinkles and bites around my knuckles.
I don’t want to notice Fawnie’s clothing but now I take her in. She might have come to stalk me all in black, but there’s pops of color here and there, like her purple sneakers. It’s like even in the darkness she can’t keep out the sunshine.
How fucking poetic.
She stares at me with absolutely guileless, huge blue eyes while she struggles to keep up with me.
I remember exactly what they looked like backlit with the glow of flames. Huge. Tear filled. Pleading. She’s the one person on this earth who has ever looked at me with true awe. She looked at me like I was something. Like I could be everything. I know it was just amazement, shock, and gratitude.
There’s no fire now. Not behind us. Not in front of us. Not anywhere except in our minds.
She still has that same wide-eyed, sweet look to her.
Hero worship? This is so much more than that.
I knew she’d want to save me if she ever met me.
She’s Preacher’s daughter, even if she doesn’t look like him at all.
She has that same good spirit. That same tendency to believe that the world is a good place despite all evidence to the contrary of it being one endless hell of a dumpster fire.
Those eyes offer friendship, but they’re already far more dangerous.
They stay locked on my face while she walks, and I know she sees too much. All of me. Everything. She could take me apart, right down to the core of me. Her soul wants to feed the life back into mine, but hers is filled with romance and poetry. There’s no room in my life for that.
She says nothing as the seconds and then the minute tick on. She’s not anxious. She doesn’t need to fill the silence. It’s not weird for her. I’m not weird to her.
My heart is beating too fast, and not just from the fast pace. I’m a mess.
Truth? I would love to slow down. Turn around and go back home. Maybe even forget this night ever happened. “No.”
Another truth? I have no real idea where I’m going. I packed the bag, knowing that if I had to leave, I’d walk to the bus station and get on the first one that was heading to some place cool. Would I ever be back?
“Shadow!”
When anyone other than my club brothers use that name, and even when they do, I cringe inside.
It makes me sound like something I’m not.
Mysterious, instead of a miserable fucker.
But I guess when handing out club names, Asshat or Fuckface aren’t top of the list, and when Tyrant asked me what I wanted to be called and I said ‘Nothing’, he took me literally.
So I’m the shadow that lurks on the fringes.
Watching, but never fully a part of the action.
“Can you stop?”
I increase my pace. The bus station is a good six miles away. I’d like to arrive there before midnight, when the last bus leaves.
Her hand lands on my arm.
I stop dead in my tracks. In my mind, I see myself tugging my arm free callously and resuming walking, leaving Fawnie far behind me.
For some reason that I can’t fathom, I don’t do it.
Her touch scorches through my hoodie, but not like fire.
She doesn’t burn me. She’s not destructive.
I’ve made it clear that I don’t appreciate any sort of physical closeness, and the people in my life have respected that.
It’s been nice.
And also incredibly lonely.
I do the next stupidest thing I can do, and drop my eyes to that hand. They don’t stop there.
In the streetlight, her blue eyes glisten with near purple flecks. Her cheeks are pink from chasing after me. Her prefect bow lips are open so she can pant and suck in air as she tries to catch her breath.
It’s jarring seeing her without the heavy eye makeup, baggy clothes full of sewn on patches, and all the safety pin jewelry she usually prefers. Her jeans are tight, outlining her long legs. Thank god she’s not turned around. I don’t need to see what they look like from the back.
When she was here visiting Preacher before, I glimpsed her from a distance when I rolled up the clubhouse, not knowing she was there. She was chilling in the kitchen like she was perfectly comfortable being in a place surrounded by rough bikers.
I walked by that night at a faster pace than I normally use. She didn’t see me as I ghosted past.
And I felt nothing.
Not one fucking thing.
Just like I feel nothing now with her sweet bubblegum scented breath minging with the vanilla jasmine scent of her skin in the air between us, her dainty hand on my arm, fingers wrapped tight as a manacle.
Her lovely, near perfectly symmetrical features draw into a hard line. Her lips go flat and her eyes spark with something just a little bit dangerous. A shiver traces up my spine and not one of disgust. I still don’t try to shake her off.
I’m frozen, my duffel strap cuts into my shoulder, my back and legs scream at me, my t-shirt, hoodie, and even the front of my jeans are soaked in sweat.
Her eyes shoot straight to my mouth and darken. It’s probably just the streetlights. The shadows. I don’t like the way the hair on my arms stands on end, or how aware of it I am.
Of her.
Of every fucking little detail from the darkened houses with cracks of light showing behind closed blinds, to the stars up in the sky, the slight breeze cool on my skin, to my own thundering pulse.
It’s somehow taken up occupation in my entire body, from the soles of my feet all the way to where it should be, hammering away at my throat.
I want to form it into an expression even more gruesome than it already is. I can’t make myself do it.