9. Natty
NINE
NATTY
PRESENT
It was still dark in the room when a phone began to ring. I felt groggy as sleep continued to pull at me, like tiny talons. My arm ached, my eyes burned, and I tried to fall back asleep until the second ring blared through the room. Adrenaline surged forward like a spike in my chest as the realization of what that ringing meant.
A phone meant communication.
Help.
I could find it and call someone.
Sitting up lightning fast, my chest heaved as I looked over at the side table, seeing nothing. The phone rang again, but there was no light, nothing at all indicating where the device might be.
Alec was positioned between me and the end table, and with my arm chained to his, there was no way to get around him. Besides, I didn’t want to crawl over him. I had to think through a plan, just as long as whoever was calling stopped and he didn’t wake up.
I held my breath as another loud ring resounded through the room.
Alec stirred, but I was too enraptured with the idea of freedom to fall back to my pillows. Instead, I waited and watched as he slowly twisted to the side and pulled the phone out from the drawer. There was no way to charge it in there, so he must have already done so, or had a burner phone.
His thumb slid over the screen as his deep voice replaced the ringing.
“What?”
There was a pause, while someone spoke, and then Alec was sitting up, mirroring my position.
“What the fuck did you just say?”
The person on the other line said something else, but I couldn’t make anything out. Alec’s face was highlighted by the limited light coming through the clouded glass. A floodlight of some kind outside, maybe a porch light or a passing flashlight.
A rogue piece of hair fell over his forehead as worry creased his features.
“Caught on fire how?” he snapped at the person on the phone. “The club is guarded…there’s no way…” He trailed off again.
A smile slowly worked its way up my face as I realized what had happened.
Silas.
Alec seethed, working his jaw. “What’s left?”
The person on the other line must not have given him very good news because violent cursing filled the room as Alec listened.
“So the entire fucking club burned the fuck down, and all of you just stood there. Or what? What the fuck are you telling me right now?”
His voice continued to elevate as rage fractured each word, giving my heart tiny little wings. I hated that I was becoming the type of person who relished in another’s pain, but my life was spiraling out of control and Silas was sending me a message in the loudest way he could.
“No. Fuck.” Alec let out a heavy sigh, shaking his head. “I’ll call you first thing in the morning. I need to think through this. I can’t leave, so this will have to wait. Set up operations in one of the safe houses.”
He hung up the phone and the silence in the room felt heavy.
The air left my lungs as I fell back into the pillows and fought a smile.
Finally, Alec looked over at me, and I stared back.
“He knows you have me,” I mused, hoping it would continue to piss him off .
A horrible sneer tilted his lips up as he threw the phone against the wall, the pieces shattering as they fell to the floor.
I pulled a pillow over my face to smother my laugh.
“Time to get up, Artemis, your little shower ban is over.”
Alec tugged me off the bed. The light pouring into the room meant that I’d been asleep for a good while. But what was more concerning was seeing Alec fully dressed. Which meant he’d disconnected our cuffs at some point and I missed it.
I’d also missed him dealing with the fallout from the fire. His face had no residual anger or tension. He was like a blank sheet of paper, staring at me as if I were simply an unruly prisoner he was sent here to bathe.
Alec hauled me into the bathroom, flicking the light, which illuminated the same forest green walls that he had in his room.
A knock sounded on his bedroom door, which had me frantic. Fearful it was Fable and desperate that perhaps it was someone here to help me. Knowing Silas was trying to send me a message had me wondering if he’d figured out where I was being kept, and if perhaps he’d found me.
Alec cursed as he walked with me back toward the door and opened it.
Rachel was standing there, a pile of sheets and towels in her hands while she briefly glanced over my body, focusing on my hand for the smallest second.
“We need to change these sheets. I’ll be just a minute while you go get something to eat.”
Alec watched as Rachel moved to the small dresser, where she set down her pile and then began changing the sheets. I could tell her that we hadn’t been having sex, but I was too scared that Alec would take it as a challenge and try to fuck me. He would try, and I would go down fighting him with every breath in my lungs.
A frantic desperation in me wanted to beg her to help me again, regardless that I knew she couldn’t. It felt like days since I last saw her or had any hope at all that I could get out of here. Alec’s expression shifted as he watched me stare at Rachel, and instead of moving out of the room, he extended his free hand.
“I’ll take them and change them myself. Then when we’re done showering, we’ll come out for dinner.”
Rachel blinked, nothing on her face changed at all except for the smallest flick in my direction. I wanted to scream. I wanted her to fight him with me and help me out of here, but I wouldn’t risk her safety. She had a son to get back to, and I’d do just about anything to make sure she had that reunion.
Once Alec had shut the door, and I felt like a piece of my heart had caved in, we wandered back into the bathroom. I tried to focus on the tiny window above the shower, which let in a degree of light. I took in the white tile on the floor, the basic silver faucets and walk-in shower. Leaning in to turn on the hot water, Alec gave me his back. He had scars littering the exposed skin from where his tank top didn’t cover, some from burns others looked like blades. I nearly gasped because I’d seen these before…
He twisted, catching me as I stared.
“Don’t fret over my scars, Artie. Your precious Silas got more than me, and on occasion took my share because he’s an idiot.”
Tears edged in the corners of my eyes because Silas wasn’t an idiot; he had a good heart. He was good. Regardless of all the dark that his father poured into him, he remained steadfast in his goodness. I didn’t want to talk about him right now, not as I was about to debase myself in front of his brother.
“Remove them.” I held up my wrist as if I wasn’t bothered by the abuse he’d obviously endured.
Alec’s eyes, so much darker than his brother’s, seemed to soften as he let out a sigh. Maybe I wore him down, he was likely just as tired of being chained together as I was. I watched as he produced a key from his pocket and my heart soared as he unlocked our wrists. I rubbed the redness around mine, muttering a reluctant thank you as Alec moved around me. “Just get undressed, Artie.”
Assuming he’d give me privacy and freedom was too much to hope for, so I turned away from him and slid out of my t-shirt and jeans, feeling my fingers shake as I slipped off my bra and panties. I knew Alec was watching me, and I knew, as much as he might care for me, he didn’t really give a single fuck that this was making me uncomfortable.
I faced the shower, covering my chest with my arms as I stepped inside, but Alec was right behind me a second later, stripped naked. The sound of metal clicking filled the space as he grabbed my hand and cuffed my wrist once more.
“What…” I looked up as my abductor connected the adjoining metal to his wrist, glaring down at me, while completely naked. His chest was packed with muscle, and he had more hair than Silas did, but any lower than that, I refused to look.
“You need any help washing that gorgeous hair of yours, just ask.” He winked, moving under the spray, making his black hair skew to the side.
A dark rage barreled into me, so dark and fierce, I screamed. Shoving my arm up, my wrist was at his throat as I pushed against his windpipe with all my strength.
“Fuck you!”
Tears gathered in my eyes as spit flew against his cheek. I didn’t care that I was naked, or that he was.
I had hit my limit.
Alec had kept me from Rachel, or anyone else who might see me, talk to me or help me. He had brought me my meals and uncuffed me long enough to secure me to a lead pipe in the bathroom; otherwise, I didn’t leave. Finally Rachel came and he wouldn’t even let me out of the room to go to the kitchen. I needed out of this house and away from him.
It seemed to line up with what Rachel had said about Fable just wanting me alive and here to taunt Silas or draw him out. I assumed he’d either give me to his second born son as soon as Silas was dead, or just kill me himself. One or the other, either way, my life was looking dim and so fucking small if I couldn’t get free.
Alec’s free hand wrapped around my hair, gently tugging until my head was tipped back.
“So fucking gorgeous.” His eyes darkened as he suddenly moved us backward, as if my hold on him was nothing but air. My back was against the wall within seconds, and he was standing over me .
“What is it my brother calls you?” His lips moved against my ear, his erection was hard and slick as it slid against my abdomen. “Heaven?”
My eyes pushed close; my lips trembled as the hand holding my hair moved to my hip.
“Should I taste you, and see why he calls you that? Or is it something I could only discover by fucking you?”
He wouldn’t rape me.
Deep down, I knew he wouldn’t…still, fear gripped me painfully tight as my voice shuddered. “Let me shower in privacy.” With one last quick breath, “Please.”
Tense eyes assessed me then an odd emotion flitted through them as his gaze dropped to my lips. “I will, Artemis. I promise…Just give me this one thing, don’t make me take it from you.”
My chest felt tight at the reminder of all he’d taken so far. At the realization that there wasn’t much left remaining.
“What?”
I didn’t want to give anything more, every piece of myself that I had left, I wanted to hold tight and hide from anyone else who would force it away.
“Kiss me.”
That was one thing I wouldn’t give him. “No.”
My head shifted, trying to move away from his gaze, but he moved with me. “Then tell me why you’re still waiting for him…I don’t understand it, Natty. He left you…and then you were traded like a fucking baseball card to a different club, and he still never reclaimed you.”
I turned my face. “Stop.”
His fingers gripped my chin. “Don’t you get it yet, Natty? Silas has his priorities, and you aren’t one of them. He’s been around, watching you, hasn’t he…everywhere you go?”
I glared up at Alec and tried to push, but his body covered mine and he wouldn’t budge.
“Do you know how pathetic it makes you look that you’re willing to play house in another club, pretending to be some baking princess who wouldn’t dare hurt a fly, all while you’re just waiting for your dark prince to come and tell you it’s okay to come home? ”
“That’s not how it is.” I pushed again, my hands sliding against his slick skin and getting nowhere.
He drew closer, his erection had mostly died down thankfully as he pressed close. “You’re choosing not to live your life, Natty. You could move on with someone who wants a life with you and yet you’re just frozen.”
He slapped the tile next to my face. “You will always be the runner-up to revenge and the mistress of vengeance. He wants the darkness more than he will ever crave your light.”
Like a soaked piece of paper, Alec had just reduced my life to a limp mass of blurred lines and smeared ink. Fat tears began trailing down my face, and I hated him for bringing his hand up to cradle my trembling jaw.
With his last words, every ounce of fight I had lifted from me like a cloud of steam and in its place was complacency.
“You have others who crave that light. Others who have needed you and all the hope you always saved for him . You have those who would also rip the world from its axis just for a chance to belong to you.”
Alec continued to stare at me as I cried. His thumb came up, swiping at my tears, only to then smear them along his lips, tasting the salt with his tongue.
My head tipped back as I asked, “Does crushing me really bring you so much pleasure?”
“If it’s the only way I’d ever get to keep you, then yes.” Alec’s lips brushed against my jaw.
I stared at the tile, waiting for him to be done with me because the fight had left me years ago when my choices had first started to be stolen from me. Back when Dirk had begun his obsession with me…when I’d become a thing instead of a person. That’s what Alec had reduced me to, and he had no idea how deep his betrayal gutted me.
Alec finally registered I wasn’t engaging with his ministrations, and he released me, shifting under the warm spray. I moved as well and began washing my hair. I didn’t care that Alec was watching me, or that he started washing his own body with a bar of soap, a mere few inches from me. I didn’t care that when he cleaned his cock, he stroked it several times and, in the process, the slick tip touched my thigh .
“Did he ever get branded for you?” His whispered words were followed up with a pleading look, as his hand wrapped around his cock. “Did he get a tattoo anywhere on his body that represents you? Because I did, Artie, all of this is for you.”
His arm flexed, the one he’d connected to me. As if he wanted me to see it every single day.
I rinsed my hair. “Silas only has one tattoo that matters to me.”
Alec only stared at me, stroking himself. “Does he look at you like this? Does he see the way your back dips just enough to leave a dimple right here?” He brushed his finger over my lower spine, making me flinch. “Does he think about sinking his tongue into every hole you have, only to prepare it to be filled with his cock?”
His wrist rotated quicker as my skin began to pebble from the cold air. The hot water was gone.
“When’s the last time you were fucked by him?”
I covered myself with my arms. “I’d like to get dressed.”
“You can get dressed, but I’m going to finish first and you’re going to watch me. You’re going to see what you do to me, what you’ve always done to me, and you’re going to remove your arms so I can see those tits while I do it.”
My nostrils flared in anger. Hurt whirling inside me like a tornado.
“And if I don’t?”
His caresses became more insistent, the head of his cock weeping with clear cum. Eyes hooded, he explained, “If you don’t then I’ll have to take a step closer and paint your skin, or I could have you lick it from the tiles once I finish all over the shower floor.”
I set my chin, glaring at him.
“This is sexual assault, Alec. Are you really stooping so low as to take something from me that I’m not willing to give?”
My heart thrashed as I tried to remain stoic and calm.
I thought I knew him.
All these years, I had assumed there was an understanding between us, a clear line that he’d never cross, no matter what or where we landed in life.
His smile was crooked as he stepped closer, turning off the water as he advanced .
“Seems being the good guy holds no bearing with you. Darkness is what gets you off. It’s your kink of choice, so as much as you’re saying you don’t want it, I know if I were to slip my tongue between those silky soft thighs, I’d be able to taste that you do.”
“Don’t do this, Alec.” My whisper cut through the sound of his slick erection being stroked.
He didn’t stop, his hips thrust forward as he fucked his hand, harder and harder until he reached up and roughly placed his hand against the tile near my head.
His groan was like an explosion in my ears, making me slam my eyes shut. I wanted to block him out, the sound, the feel of his sticky cum coating my stomach. All of it.
He shuddered, trying to catch his breath.
“Clean yourself off.”
I looked around, but there were no towels in sight. “Turn the water on?—”
He shook his head. “Use your fingers, smear it, then lick them clean.”
Horror washed through me as I glared. “I’m not?—”
“I’ll remove your cuffs for the rest of the day,” Alec offered, cutting me off in the process.
The temptation was so intense, so achingly sweet that my fingers twitched near the mess against my skin. Alec’s hair still dripped, fat water droplets rolling down his face as he watched me with hooded eyes. I knew deep down if I gave him this, he’d take everything from me. There would be no line, no standard at all. He’d see my weakness, and in doing so, he’d use it to control me.
So, I kept my chin raised and I stared.
His left eye twitched. “I said to clean yourself, Artemis.”
“And I won’t touch any part of you, even if your cum has to dry to my skin.”
A moment passed, then another, where he merely stared at me. His erection gone, his scowl in place and finally he let out a low scoff.
“Suit yourself. Let it dry, Artie…stay covered in my cum, it only turns me on.”
Alec finally allowed me to leave the shower, still chained to him through the handcuff. I covered my chest with my free arm, and didn’t ask for a towel, knowing it would be fruitless. Alec dried off, brushed his teeth and then we finally moved to the bedroom.
“Will I be sleeping naked, or will you be giving me clothes?” My skin was freezing, and the drying semen on my stomach began to feel uncomfortable. Alec didn’t answer, just tossed one of his shirts at me. I stared at it, knowing I was going to need him to disconnect the cuffs if I wanted my arm inside the sleeve.
He moved away from me, but I yanked his wrist as hard as I could, making him turn to face me with a grimace.
“The fuck, Artie.”
“I need to put my arm through the hole, uncuff me.”
He glared, his gaze dropping to my heaving chest, my pebbled nipples and the white stain he’d left against my stomach. I’d been sunbathing with Laura as often as possible before all this, so my stomach was fairly tan.
“Maybe I should keep you naked, Artie. I do enjoy the view.”
He pulled the small chain between the cuffs, drawing me closer to him. “That’s exactly what will happen to you if you try anything when I unlock these, do you understand?”
Defeat was a soaked thundercloud in my chest. I envisioned fighting him. I had a beautiful delusion that Rachel had left me a knife, or something to defend myself, but I knew she wouldn’t risk her place here to offer that. Her kindness to me was attempting to get me out of this room, but it had failed. Just like I had.
With a reluctant nod, I waited as Alec unlocked the cuffs. I slipped the shirt over my head and as soon as I pushed my arm through the hole, he slapped the cuff back on.
He stared at me while I moved with him toward the bed.
“It’s dinner time.”
It sounded as if Alec were suddenly feeling remorse over what he’d said and done to me. Having more freedom with his proximity, I turned away from him, curling into a ball against the wall. Memories of a past life rushed through me painfully fast as I ignored Alec’s commentary. He kept talking, but I wasn’t listening anymore.
My mind drifted back to what Alec had said about me being pathetic, and how the love of my life didn’t really want me. It wasn’t like I hadn’t heard it all before. Silas had let me go, choosing his plans of vengeance over a life made with me. While most people weren’t privy to what had happened, and not even Alec had gotten all the details surrounding it right, it still served as a reminder that The Roman was a slave to his club, and to his darkness.
He was a dark forest, obstructing all the light.
And I was parched earth in need of his shade.
We were impossible, and the idea that we could ever be anything more than two passing ships in the night was laughable.
I closed my eyes, pushing out the tears that kept trying to push forward and I did the one thing I had trained myself not to for these past two years.
I remembered.
Age Sixteen
Silas was gone again.
This time he’d left in the middle of June, right after we’d started our annual frog hunting tradition. It was different this summer though. We’d finished our studies in May, and then we started driving. Neither of us had a car; we just borrowed Sasha’s Jeep. She didn’t mind as long as we were careful and safe, and promised to never touch any of the shit being channeled through the club. The older we became the more it seemed to bother her that we were both so close to the Death Raiders.
I would never touch drugs regardless. Watching my mother get high and choose drugs over keeping me fed removed any temptation I might ever feel for that shit. Silas too, he was smart…he was the college kind of smart, and everyone knew it. I had overheard his mom talk to him about applying places, but Silas never answered her.
I’d even brought it up once while we were out learning to drive stick together, the Jeep jerking with every push of the clutch and us laughing as the gears ground. We’d barely made it down the road when Silas pulled off and decided we should go swimming instead. Soaking wet, and shimmering with beads of water against our skin, we laid out on the dock watching the minimal clouds float by.
“Will you try to go to college?” I turned toward him, loving the way the blue in his eyes turned almost aqua in this light. He swiped a hand over his thick hair, letting tiny drops of lake water linger on his chest. He gave me that stare that always struck me quiet, because he followed it up with a blinding smile.
One that made my breath hitch.
“Only if you come with me.”
A scoff crept up my throat as my heart sank. “And what, sleep on your floor while you get yourself a degree?”
His head dipped but I didn’t miss the way his cheeks flushed pink.
“Maybe not…maybe instead you just sleep in my bed, and we share the degree.”
I sat up, folding my legs under me, ignoring the way his eyes tracked my every move. “We can’t share a degree, Silas, that’s not how it works.”
I’d skip over the sharing the bed thing completely because while I was completely and devastatingly in love with Silas, I knew better than to ever imagine he’d care for me in that way. It was something we’d danced around since we were kids, something neither of us had ever confronted. We were getting older though and I’d catch him looking at me differently.
His eyes would linger on my legs and my lips.
Small touches would land on my back, and he was finding reasons to hold my hand more and more. I only wanted it to mean that he saw me how I viewed him, but he’d yet to make any official move. I noticed it when he’d found an old dirt bike behind the clubhouse and informed me, I needed to learn how to ride. He’d sit behind me with his hands over mine on the throttle, teaching me how to hold it steady. Other times his hands would remain on my hips while we navigated the small lot behind the house. Even when I started getting comfortable with riding and transitioned to bigger bikes, Silas would remain behind me, holding me.
“I don’t see why not.” His severe glare caught me again, making words die on my tongue. “You’re already in here.” His palm covered his heart. “Half of you at least…you’ve got the other half of mine in there.” He pointed at my chest. “Not like they’d want me to give half the effort when a simple solution would be to go as one whole.”
My heart sank because I knew he was telling the truth and I didn’t have the grades or the money to go to college. I didn’t have the drive either; as it was, I’d barely graduated high school through the state, and whatever homeschool program Sasha used with us. She had us take state tests at a local school; otherwise, Silas and I did all our educating at her kitchen table.
Being separated from him was a painful knife twisting over and over in my chest. Every day that he wasn’t here, every night he was gone…it all felt so wrong. It was how I knew I’d never survive after we were old enough to move away from the club and start our lives. Silas could leave this place, go to college and work on Wall Street if he wanted. He could be someone who helped configure moon landings and space shuttles. He was brilliant, and yet the only aspiration he seemed to have was spending time with me.
With him gone, it left a gap in my life I struggled to fill.
I applied at a few places to work, but the club was miles from anywhere local. I could walk, but Silas had always warned me to be smart, not desperate. One solo walk on the club road at night and I’d be sorry, so working was out unless it was something I found within the club.
Most people knew I belonged to Lilly, the strung-out bunk bunny who sucked club cock, and whatever other depraved things they’d ask for, all for drugs. Not money or food. No, that she’d leave me to beg for and when I was younger, I cared enough about her that I would take her whatever I found. I don’t anymore. Now, I keep it all for myself. Because it finally dawned on me that I was alone in this world. At the mercy of Sasha and the strange admiration of Silas; otherwise, I would be homeless with nowhere else to go.
Dempsey, Sasha’s man, had offered to move Sasha and Silas into his house off the club property, but that invite didn’t include me. With Silas gone, Sasha allowed me to continue sleeping in her son’s room and I was fine with staying on the floor, but one night, when missing him became too intense and the loneliness in my chest had nearly tore me open, I crawled into his bed and inhaled what remnants of him that I could find. Campfire. Our Lake. Summer.
I didn’t like the way my life seemed to stop spinning and existing, unless Silas was at the center of it. I knew it wasn’t healthy and, in a way, I was just like my mother, except Silas was my drug, this home our club, membership of just two.
Weeks passed where I busied myself in Sasha’s garden, keeping it green and helping as much as I could with her trips to the farmer’s market. She’d established a good customer base there, several of whom had shown up just for her week after week. It was nice to help her, and any time she tried to pay me, I’d just slide the money back into her purse. Her teaching me, feeding me and giving me a place to live was more than I could ever pay back.
There were nights I could tell Sasha wanted the house to herself, or to spend time with Dempsey without me around, so I’d go down to the lake and sleep on the dock, staring up at the stars. Occasionally it would be too cold, so I would go inside the club and find the smallest possible corner and use a blanket to hide while I dozed off. I repeated this process enough times that Sasha had noticed, and one night, discovered my little spot while the club was having a huge party. The blanket covering my tiny oasis was ripped from me, while Sasha’s face came into view.
I had a pair of headphones on, some I had found in her son’s room. I slowly slid them off.
“What are you doing in here?”
The lights from the club made me wince, and the music from the club pounded in my ears.
“I’m sleeping.”
Sasha glanced around quickly, seemingly worried with her dark brows drawn in tight.
Her hand shot out and pulled me up. “We have to get you out of here before someone sees you.”
I wasn’t sure why she was so panicked, considering I had been around this club all my life. Even longer than Sasha and Silas had been. They arrived when I was just six or so and by then, I had already seen a world full of horrors someone as good as Sasha couldn’t protect me from.
I stood quickly, grabbing my bag and blanket, trying to follow her through the rear part of the club. We had bypassed a few couples, and one round of pool when my mother suddenly appeared. She had a tray full of shot glasses balanced on her palm, and a sour look stretched across her face. Her blonde hair was curled and lifted into a pretty updo. Her makeup was thick, and her clothes skin tight.
“The fuck you doing in here, Natalia?” she spat.
She may have been speaking to me, but she was glaring at Sasha.
My mouth parted, ready to answer, but Sasha just continued pulling me behind her, eyeing the approaching group headed our way. Sasha tried to divert us, so we’d head in a different direction, but my mother was suddenly there again, stopping me by digging her fingers into my arm.
“No, let him see her, Sasha.” She yanked me so hard, I faltered backward, and I saw Sasha’s eyes get big as fear stamped out all that usual confidence she carried.
I tried to track what was happening but within seconds, my mother’s arms had pushed me hard enough that I wavered forward, and I was running directly into someone’s chest.
A gruff laugh escaped the man’s chest, his fingers were on my upper arms and then his whiskey breath, laced with weed covered my face.
“Who the fuck do we have here?” He laughed, so did a few men around him, and then my mother smiled, and I realized what had just happened. She’d found a way to secure herself a useful position in the club.
While her looks were fading, her hair thinning and her hips diminishing—She was becoming irrelevant, and I was her ticket to remaining flush with drugs.
“This is my daughter, Natty.” She spoke loud and proud as if she were truly a mother. As if she was the one who had helped me when I’d gotten my first period, or who shopped for my first bra. Like she was the one who helped me learn to read, or how to write.
Sasha was fuming behind me, and I knew she was going to fight my mom again. She’d done it before, punching her square between the eyes when she caught her trying to hand me off to someone who wanted to touch me as payment for the drugs she craved so badly.
This was no different except I was bigger, and Sasha had less ability to control what happened to me, and Silas wasn’t here.
Pain radiated up my arms as the man holding me squeezed, forcing my eyes up.
I knew who the president of the club was. I had been watching him from afar my entire life, but I had managed to escape his attention for sixteen long years. Now, unfortunately it seemed my mother had effectively ended that as Dirk seemed to stare with vicious intent.
Sasha stepped up next to me, gently pushing me to the side, and I knew in that moment as Dirk’s hands left my arms, that Sasha would do anything for me. She would die for me, take a bullet, but I also knew beyond a shadow of a doubt this wasn’t about me, it was for her son. She knew Silas was attached to me, in some capacity…I was his favorite thing about life right now and while I knew it would pass, his mother would do anything to keep me from falling to pieces.
I was a glorified teddy bear to her, and merely a golden egg to my mother.
There was no one that wanted me to stay in one piece simply because I was me, and it was the right thing to do, except for maybe Silas.
I didn’t hear what Sasha had promised Dirk, or the way she had flirted, nor did I pay attention to the way my mother pinched the back of my arms, hissing threats in my ears.
Within mere minutes, Sasha was walking us into the night air, the stars hanging overhead as if there wasn’t a whole house full of sinners just existing right below it. A crater in the dirt, full of raiders who worshiped death.
“What just happened?” I was breathless as fear clung to every syllable I managed to get past my teeth.
Sasha didn’t reply until we had crossed the club yard, the garage and a few spare houses. Not until we were pushing through her front door.
“Dirk knows you exist, Natty. That’s what just happened.”
Sasha kept the lights off, flipping only the one above the microwave on. I cradled my arms to my chest, unsure of what this meant exactly.
“He’s known about me…I’ve been in the club, around here?— ”
Sasha shook her head and I noticed her hands were shaking. “No, you don’t understand. He wants you, Natty.”
“You’re right, I don’t understand…” My voice shook.
“I’ll break it down for you. You have big tits, a tiny waist, and golden—silky hair that touches your ass. You’re beautiful, Natty. More than that…you’re sexy…and Dirk likes to have first dibs on anyone in the club that looks as good as you do.”
My eyes burned, fingers trembling. “I’m only sixteen…he wouldn’t…he can’t.”
Sasha glared; her jaw tensed as she let out a heavy sigh.
She didn’t have to say anything more. There were angels and demons that danced along a minuscule line in these motorcycle clubs. So far I’d veered toward the safe side of things, for the most part…but Dirk was a bad man. Someone who wanted to hurt me, and now if he knew I was here…
“Will he come for me?” I gripped the back of the chair until my nails sunk into the wood.
Sasha’s trembling fingers came up to her hair as she tucked a few pieces behind her ear.
“I’ll do everything I can to protect you, Natty…but I need you to promise me you’ll stay away from the club. Do not go over there, no matter what. Do you understand?”
I nodded and when I saw Sasha grab a beer and start to leave, I turned toward the hall only to stop mid step and spin back toward her.
“I don’t think we should tell Silas about this.”
Sasha took a sip, and I might have been mistaken, but tears were gathered in her eyes when she shook her head. “No, I don’t think we can. He’ll try to murder Dirk and get himself killed in the process.”
That was my concern as well. Silas was protective of me in a way that made him forget logic and act first. I gave her one last nod, agreeing that this thing would stay between us and then I turned and slipped back into the only room I had ever felt wanted in.