Chapter Thirty-Seven
The looming bars I’d been expecting come into view. The steel, a sharp shield, spearing all light away.
At sixteen, Jade and I both knew that the Devil’s Peak MC clubhouse was off limits.
Now, as the gate creaks and clunks, Chase is taking me into a world he had previously protected me from. One he had been steadfast that Jade and I knew nothing about, even though we had heard things in passing—conversations we were not supposed to.
The boys grew up here.
It was where Chase and Harlen went to get away from us.
Rusty, Harlen’s father, is the Vice President. I’d also heard them often talk about a guy called Skinner. I didn’t know what his role was, but if his name was anything to go by, I knew in my gut it couldn’t have been anything good.
At that thought, my stomach flips over itself and I find myself propping my elbow against the window, pressing the back of my hand to my mouth.
I force my gaze across the lot. The place is almost empty—except for one bike and Rusty’s truck—and I feel a moment of relief at that.
Chase rolls through, cuts the engine, popping the door at his side. The sound bends the silence a little. Still, I hold my breath.
“Harlen and Rusty are inside; the rest will be back later.”
I don’t reply. I fold myself out of the truck, readjusting my tank top, seeing the flecks of a stranger's blood dried into the magenta fabric; a stain that couldn’t be removed. And I shiver because the memory, my reality, curls low and sick into my gut.
I wrap my arm around it, and cradle my left hip.
I thought I’d be used to death by now. I was only nineteen, but I’d seen struggle. Hell, I’d seen the end more than once. And yet this morning altered another part of me, even though the man who blew his head off meant nothing to me.
At the slam of our doors, the dented steel at the back of the brick building yawns open, and I watch Harlen and an older echo of him emerge.
The Graves’ men move toward us, though Rusty remains a few steps behind his son.
Harlen looks ready to scoop me into his arms, even though the gears of our friendship had shifted slightly. But when he draws near, I press my palm against his chest, stopping him from getting any closer.
I was covered in blood.
I wouldn’t coat him in it too.
“Shit.” The word falls from his mouth, and I know that when the worried blue of his eyes track over me, he’s looking for any new physical wounds, though pausing on the rotting one from three years ago.
Harlen wets his lips. “You didn’t get hurt, did you?” he asks, eyes still on my scar.
I bite the inside of my cheek.
I knew Chase would have already taken the liberty of filling him in. Harlen was nervous, I could tell he didn’t know what else to say.
I wrap my arms around my waist and rest the weight of my shoulders against Chase’s truck. Words feel invaluable, so I choose to settle on shaking my head instead. Jade would have laughed in my face if she’d known I’d grown to realize that sometimes silence spoke louder than words.
“Good, that’s good,” Harlen says with a nod, moving to stand next to me, his arm brushing against mine.
I swallow, hang my head and wriggle my toes.
What I really wanted to say though was I did, because mental wounds carried the same weight as the physical. They both eroded you equally.
A silence circles us and I can hear the murmur of his unspoken questions drifting on the breeze.
I wish he’d just come out with them.
“Are you okay?” he asks, his voice lower now, and the question felt like another double-edged sword. I didn’t know which tip he wanted me to throw myself against first.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watch his chin dip, his blue eyes on the side of my face and I don’t turn to meet him there, instead, curling my arms around myself tighter, casting my gaze toward Chase.
He is talking to Rusty. They are sitting on black crates beneath a large and thick oak tree. It weeps over the lot, drooping shadows across the entire space, only leaving small pockets for sunlight to peek through if it so happens to find itself through all the gray.
I suck down a breath, turn to Harlen and let the corner of my mouth tilt upward. It’s a sad, sorry grin and I can tell by the way his jaw ticks that it makes him uncomfortable.
“Not sure I can answer that one.”
Harlen hangs his head. “Yeah, you don’t have to answer that, Laik.” Then, he shakes it, and if he was alone I can imagine him beating his palm against his forehead. “I’m sorry, I just don’t know what to say.”
I nod, then push my tongue to the roof of my mouth, tasting the same metallic substance I had back at the diner. I wanted to spit it off my tongue, I wanted to scrub my skin, tear the flesh from my bones, just so I could feel like myself again.
I needed a shower.
Grey matter and I don’t know what else remains stuck to me like glue.
My breath comes in a short staccato, and there is something cold lingering in my stomach when I realize Harlen hasn’t said anything about the dead girl, the killing, the news that has no doubt taken to Devil’s Peak like a storm.
I turn my eyes on him and watch his jaw flex as he grinds on his molars. And if I wasn’t mistaken, he knew he was back. It made sense why words weren’t coming easy to him today, why it felt like he was walking on eggshells, tripping around me.
“I know, Harlen…” I speak beneath a whisper, it's so low and so haunting.
I turn and look up at him, see his eyes are cast over, a tender cloud of gray lingering at the edge of his blue.
“He’s back…” I step forward, and turn to walk backward. “It was only a matter of time, right?” I lift my shoulders in a shrug, then let them fall with my exhale. I dig the tip of my Reeboks into the loose orange rock at my feet. “He’s coming for me.”
My words fall like an anvil between us.
Harlen tries to speak, stumbling over his words, “He won’t, we won’t let that happen—”
Swallowing the bile that starts to trek up my throat, I cut him off.
I didn’t want to hear it.
“Any chance I might be able to take a shower?”
“Oh, yeah.” He swallows too. His eyes are distant now, landing everywhere but on mine. “For sure,” Harlen says, and I don’t miss the nervous lilt to his voice when Chase approaches, then storms past us.
He hauls the back door of his truck open a little too roughly. And it is all the confirmation I need to know that he heard exactly what I’d said.
He’s coming for me.
I can’t help it, I flinch.
Chase reaches across his back seat, then slams the door shut, turning with a washed-out gray T-shirt bunched in his fist. He extends it toward me, and I take it, my fingers trembling, brushing his when I do.
Chase’s voice is raspy when it eases its way down my spine.
“Come on.”
Water pummels the top of my head. I rest my tired eyes as flesh and bone and what was left of the blood matted in my hair roll from my face and over my chest.
My skin turns raw and red, my nails scratching as I lather a fifth round of the sandalwood body wash across my neck.
I am aware that I am tearing at flesh, however, the sting doesn’t transfer, and neither does the heat of the water that only comes as blunt needles across my limbs.
I let go of my breath, realizing that I’m numb all over again.
Numb to devastation.
Numb to tragedy.
Numb to death.
My knees wobble, threatening to give out, and I reach for the tap, catching myself before I’m ass down in a grimy shower stained with the smell of dehydrated piss and too much liquor.
Shutting the water off, I dry myself before stepping out.
Thick clouds of steam swirl in the air making the space feel smaller than it is.
My chest pinches, tightening with alarm.
I drag the washed-out gray T-shirt Chase handed to me earlier up my arms and over my head, watching the thin fabric fall to the top half of my thighs like a dress.
I step into my worn underwear, returning the lace to my hips, then my shoes, before pressing my palm to the rectangle mirror that sits above the burnt-orange vanity.
In circular motions, I remove the steam that has settled across the glass until my reflection ghosts back at me.
There’s a harsh bang that comes from the hall and there are a few voices that follow, some raspy, some low. The place had become a cacophony of testosterone.
I catch a shiver, and it digs around the ladder of my spine. Crossing my arms and squeezing my elbows, I stare into my eyes, noticing how dull and lifeless and empty they are.
Being surrounded by death does that to you. It doesn’t discriminate; it doesn’t pick and choose whose life it will fuck up.
Death takes; there’s no give.
Droplets of water drip between my shoulder blades and goosebumps tumble across my limbs.
I snatch the towel at my side, wringing the ends of my short hair.
Pushing my fingers through the damp strands and shaking it out, I flick the front to one side and leave it like that, knowing it will dry straight on its own.
Another bang comes from behind me, though much louder and closer this time, and I feel my heart punch out of my body. Spinning around, I clasp the edge of the chipped vanity, my palms now clammy.
Knuckles rap at the timber door, accompanied by a voice I’m not familiar with, “Can you hurry up in there, girly?”
I glance from the knob that wobbles, toward the toilet in the corner of the same room.
“One second,” I croak, dropping the soiled towel into a washing basket beside it in a frenzy and frantically snatching up my blood-stained clothes from the wet floor.
I cast one more gaze toward the mirror, seeing once again the red that has rimmed my eyes. I look so broken, it’s tragic and ugly, so fucking ugly. Sucking back a sharp breath, I drop my chin and free up the bathroom.
Jean-clad legs rest against the opposite wall, I keep my head to my chest as the man walks into the bathroom, shutting the door with a thud and a horrifying belch.
It makes the sparse contents in my stomach curdle.