Chapter 27 Wren
WREN
The cabin is basic, just like Catfish said, but that isn’t a bad thing given the wave of anxiety currently choking me as surely as if it had its hands around my neck.
There’s much to do to make the small box habitable.
First, it’s utterly frigid in here.
But thankfully, someone took the time to cut and stack firewood, some in the corner of the cabin, and more lined up outside beneath a shallow roof, covered in a thick tarp to keep the worst of the weather off it.
The first thing I did was start the fire in the cast-iron fireplace with the cloudy glass door so it could start getting warm before we brought everything else in. I need the heat to obliterate the cold so I can understand whether my shaking hands are a function of the temperature or panic.
I’ve killed two spiders already and am dreading sleeping in the full bed over on the other side of the room. There’s no telling what is lurking inside the corners of that mattress.
Catfish walked down to the river to get us fresh water with a heavy-duty pot and a pickaxe from a rusted tool cabinet next to the only door. I’d told him we could wait until morning, but he wanted us to be able to have something hot to drink before going to bed.
I wish we had whiskey. Preferably a bottle but a glass would do. Something strong enough to take the edge off and quiet the ever-growing thunder in my skull. Because my vision keeps narrowing like I’m standing precariously close to the edge of a cliff.
Multiple glasses would both warm me and hopefully drown out the rising tide of panic before knocking me out in a drunken sleep.
Since there’s none of that, I keep moving.
I sweep cobwebs out of the corners and drag bags out of the car. On the ride, Catfish told me he’d had a premonition that we’d need to run, so he disappeared to pack emergency supplies into his truck, over and above what we swiped from the ranch house.
There’s no toilet here, running water, or shower. Instead, I focus on setting up zones. I organize canned goods and dry packets onto a long table against one wall, wiping the dust away with a rag as I go.
A plastic tote box containing rolled-up sleeping bags sits by the wall.
They smell like wet canvas and campfires, and I have no idea how many people have used them before.
Surely the fireplace will get hot enough before we go to sleep that I can simply stay in my clothes and sleep below the thick jacket I’m currently wearing.
There’s a battered old two-seater sofa at the end of the bed, facing the fireplace. Its cushions sag like it was dragged from someone’s curb after a lifetime of loyal use. I close my eyes and try to be grateful.
Catfish got us out. Got me away from whatever horror show the FBI was planning. If it was a successful FBI raid, then my guess is Dorian Chase could have been behind it.
And if Dorian Chase was involved, I have a sense that I’d be headed to an “off-record” meeting that no one comes back from. There’s no way on this earth I would go anywhere with him.
And maybe that’s the kernel of truth I cling to.
I’d rather be here in this cabin, with its lack of amenities, than in an interrogation room at a field office before being shipped off to wherever he’d take me.
“You doing okay?” Catfish asks as he kicks his boots against the door frame, before stepping inside with the large pot.
Snowflakes sit in his hair, his cheeks are flushed, and his eyes are watering a little from the wind. His fingers look pink with cold.
“I’m fine. But you must be freezing. Come stand by the fire a second to warm up a little.”
He does as I say, placing the large pot he just carried on the floor, and I reach for him, tugging him closer to the warmth.
I crack the door to the fireplace open a little so more heat can envelop him; then I wrap my arms around his waist and press my forehead to his chest. He’s solid under my hands, grounded in a way I envy.
“It’s no palace, but I hope it’ll be enough for tonight,” he says, brushing his lips against my hair as his hands rub circles on my back. “We can move on tomorrow if it’s miserable.”
Tears sting the back of my throat, the same dizzying feeling of being utterly closed in overwhelms me.
A loud crack splits the silence in two, and I flinch like a gun’s gone off.
“Hey,” Catfish says quickly, steadying me. “It’s just a tree branch or ice in the river. Nothing out there.”
His thoughts match my own exactly, and yet…I grip onto his biceps. “Do you have any protection? Guns? Anything?”
Catfish nods. “Multiple. There are three hidden in the truck alone. And I have two on me.”
“Will it be enough?” My voice breaks before I can catch it.
He hesitates, then places a hand on the nape of my neck.
“It’ll definitely be enough tonight. No one knows where we went, the snow is covering our tracks, and unless you’ve ridden this way before, you wouldn’t even know there’s a trail to the river.
Technically, we’re still on Atom’s land.
So, we’ll be safe. Be brave, sweetheart. ”
I don’t feel brave, but his words loosen something sharp in my chest.
“Your truck,” I say suddenly. “You drove us here, which means your truck GPS might still have logged the route. Some vehicles sync to satellites automatically, even when it looks like they are off.”
“Shit,” he mutters. He tugs his coat tighter. “I’ll go drive it out, park it a mile or two away, then walk it back in.”
“Or we could just use the short-range jammer I brought to block GPS signals. I’m going to have to…going to have to…going…”
Breath comes hard. My words splinter, as do my thoughts. The pressure is back on my chest. My ribs can’t expand far enough to take a breath.
I feel like I’m suffocating.
Catfish says something I don’t hear as my brain trips a fuse. Static roars in my ears.
I know I need to breathe, but it’s like trying to remember a language I don’t speak.
“Wren?” Catfish’s voice is low but firm. “Look at me.”
I try, but my vision blurs. The edges of everything shimmer like a heat mirage.
His hands envelop mine, big steady palms enclose my shaking fingers. “Hey, Wren. You’re safe.”
There’s that word again.
Safe.
I’m not even sure what it means anymore. I feel like it’s something everyone says to you before something bad happens.
I jerk away from him, then stumble, slumping down onto the floor in front of the fire.
“I shouldn’t have come. I shouldn’t have let you put yourself at risk.
If the FBI even thinks you’re involved for a second…
You need to get out of here, River. I’ll be fine.
But you can’t be here when they get here. This isn’t your fight. It isn’t—”
“Hey,” he says, dropping down next to me. “I’m here by choice.”
“And I’m telling you to go. It’s not fair that you get implicated in—”
“Wren. We’ve had this conversation. I’m not going anywhere.”
His answer doesn’t help. “What if Chase is already tracking us? What if he has a trace algorithm running through the FBI? What if all the fake IP bounces I’ve set up fail? What if he finds you here? You aren’t thinking clearly.”
“Wren, shut up. I know you’re just trying to protect me again, but we’re here together, so you’re just gonna have to get over it.”
When I look up at his eyes, there’s the kind and honest sincerity I’ve seen in them since the first day I met him. My own sting with tears.
“You’re going to get into trouble. Grudge isn’t going to be happy.”
I guess my tears spilled over, because Catfish brushes them away with his thumbs. “Probably not. But I’m assuming you can make all this right with one quiet word with King.”
“Maybe. Sometimes King doesn’t listen to anyone.”
There’s another crack outside. Louder this time. Catfish stands. “I’m gonna go get the rest of the weapons out of the truck and do whatever you need me to do with the jammer. I’ll be back.”
I show him what to do, and while he’s gone, I sit on the rug, back against the sofa, and stare into the fire. There’s a dense and sticky blanket of shame that crawls over my skin after anxiety and panic have crept in.
I’m only human, and it feels like those kinds of emotions belong more accurately with someone fragile. Especially tears when I get overwhelmed.
It feels wrong. Because I’m more than capable of bringing skills and perspective to help in tense situations, and then, these unhelpful and heavy-to-carry emotions emerge, swamping me until I can’t move.
When he comes back in, it’s with a metal case that likely contains some kind of hunting rifle. He also places two smaller handguns on the table while he removes his jacket.
I guess it’s getting warmer in here, but I haven’t noticed. Meticulously, he walks around the room, placing the guns around the place.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Evening the odds. I doubt anyone will find us, but I want a weapon within arm’s reach if someone does. So, I’m just spreading them out.” He looks out the dirty window, wincing as he tries to see through the darkness. “What did you do for King that he’s so loyal to you?”
I think back to Vex and Calista’s introduction of me to the club and what happened. “Someone tried to hurt his wife, Rae, his Duchess. I found her…before Vex could.”
“Duchess? I wonder how she ended up with that name.”
My heart rate settles as I smile. “I know the answer to that. King kidnapped Rae to punish Saint because Rae’s his sister.
He tried to call her a princess to be patronizing.
And so, Rae told him that if he wanted to reach for a stick-up-her-ass title, he should at least call her duchess, because she thought they were older, smarter, and were…
what was the word she used…oh, right, caustic with their wit. ”
Catfish steps over to me and sits down on the floor, his back against the sofa like mine. “For real?”
I nod. “Yeah. But I really like her. She’s a psychologist. I had some…helpful…talks with her. About the anxiety attacks. About gender dysphoria.”
I don’t know what makes me tell him about that now, but somehow, despite all the disappointments I’ve had, I feel confident trusting him.
“What has the journey to accepting who you are looked like?” Catfish asks, sliding his arm over my shoulders. In the quiet crackle of the fireplace, I focus on lowering my heart rate.
Catfish nudges me to settle my head into the crook of his shoulder.
“It’s big growth, and then a period of acceptance.
It wasn’t like a switch flipped. Like, when I was young, I always felt like I was playing a part.
I wore the clothes and smiled when people called me pretty.
It felt like a costume. Not even my birth name felt like it was mine.
None of it ever felt right or quite fit. ”
“That must have been difficult.”
“I was confused by what definitions fit me. Because I didn’t really feel like a boy either.
I mean, on a sliding scale, I was always more like the boys than the girls in my class.
They spoke my language. Were blunter. Had less of a need to people please.
I had more of a need to protect than be protected.
I considered if I was a trans man, but I guess I wasn’t trying to cross over into another box either.
I just wanted to step out of the whole gender game entirely.
All the stereotypes made me itch. Wasn’t sure if that meant I was gay or straight.
Knowing you’re not cisgender or heterosexual is the first step. ”
His fingers run lazily through my hair. “I know that feeling.”
My lips curl into a smile, and I kiss his pec. “It gives me hope, hearing you acknowledge that.”
He turns slightly so we can see each other. “Accepting you as you are means I need to accept myself as I am. And I’m working on that. The definition of my sexuality has shifted, because if I cling to saying I’m straight, I’m just seeing you as a woman. And that’s not fair to either of us.”
I could kiss him for saying that alone.
“I appreciate that. Picking from all the other options of what you then are is harder. For me, being so young when it happened, picking the right label felt so permanent. It felt crucial to get it right the first time. Mom was a great help.”
Catfish kisses me, his lips brushing mine, first tenderly, and then with depth. “I hate the idea that since your mom died, it’s been you against the world all this time. I want to protect you from all that.”
“Where were you when I started dating?”
Catfish sighs. “I have to be honest. I think if we’d met ten years ago, I would have cared too much about what the rest of the world would think about the two of us. I was so deeply rooted in my own ego and earning my place in the club that I might have thought it too much of a risk.”
I curl into him fully. Without words, I want him to know I appreciate him being honest with me. I place my hand beneath his thick hoodie.
His skin is so warm beneath my palm, still lightly tanned after a summer spent outside.
While everyone wants to hear that the person they are with would have wanted them in every lifetime, I understand what Catfish is saying.
As Niro told me, the MC world isn’t ready for diversity, and back then, people may well have looked at Catfish differently.
In the rare moments I wondered about what it would be like to have another person with me in my house with lots of dogs, I always quickly dismissed the idea. Because I was sure I would never find someone willing to put in the effort to love me for who I am.
But I see a kernel of that in Catfish. Because so far, he’s tried really fucking hard to get it right.
“When I came out, I was terrified of dating,” I admit.
“I wasn’t sure how to explain myself. Or when.
I remember the first one-night stand I had after coming out and the guy talked to me like I was a woman, paid the bill for our drinks, held the cab door open, was a gentleman, the whole nine yards.
Even in bed, he kept checking in and was surprised when I did the same.
When he left, I got in the shower and cried because it felt so… dysphoric.”
At my words, Catfish blows out a breath.
He’s silent.
And I wonder how he’s going to respond to that, almost as much as I want to know who’s after me.