Chapter 3
Cameron
The sun is rising above the tops of the trees as we head back down the mountain, and I use the excuse of its glare to avoid looking at the girl in the seat next to me.
She’s in the passenger side now, having decided that she’s too tired to drive us back to town, and though I spent about ten seconds teasing her about needing to get more sleep, I didn’t do it for long.
After what happened in the forest, my heart isn’t really in it.
The truck is old, a gift from Aunt Sue–the woman we moved in with when Sammy’s mother (my stepmother) killed herself–and has a single bench seat instead of individual seats in the front.
The upholstery is old and cracked, the windows permanently dirty and the transmission bad enough that I have to rebuild it once a year, but none of that matters to me right now.
All that matters is that Sammy is sitting as far from me as she can get, her face practically pressed against the window on her side, her back to me.
Evidently, I’m not the only one upset about that little scene in the forest.
Usually, I’d make a joke about it. Something snappy and clever about how I was going to sue her for all the times I’ve hit the ground trying to protect her, followed up by a note about how I’ve kept track of every single time and know exactly what she owes me.
And she’d laugh and say there’s no way I can remember every time I’ve thrown my body between her and a bad idea.
But she’d be wrong.
Eighty-nine.
I’ve thrown myself in harm’s way eighty-nine times, trying to stop her from jumping from a bridge.
Standing on train tracks. Swimming in water she can’t see the bottom of.
Swinging from a tree that’s nearly cracked down the middle.
Driving too fast on a mountain road or straight into a snowbank.
Snowboarding in an area where she can’t see the edge of the cliff or hiking through a pass where she’s certain to meet not only cougars but also wolves. Maybe bears.
The girl has been trying to kill herself since we were seven, and that means it’s been twelve years of me standing between her and one of her plans to ‘blow off some steam.’ Twelve years of being constantly alert to any change in her behavior, always on my toes so that when she takes off running for the nearest cliff, I can catch her before she gets to the edge.
I’m exhausted.
And I wouldn’t change it for the world.
Okay actually, I take that back. If I could alter her so she wasn’t constantly looking for the next adrenaline rush, I’d do it in a heartbeat.
Teach her that her life is worth more than she realizes, and that it hurts me that she places such little value on herself.
Hammer into her head the idea that I want her to live, and that my need for her should be enough to get her to stay.
At least long enough for her to find her own feet and learn to see herself.
But, a little voice has always said, if she stops running–stops jumping off bridges and running into roads like her own life doesn’t matter–then what will she need you for? Because you won’t need to save her anymore.
And that right there? That scares me almost as much as her search for adrenaline, or whatever it is she does.
Because if she doesn’t need me to keep her alive, what reason does she have to keep me around?
I shake my head, pulling myself out of that particular wormhole, which I’ve been down too often, and cast her a sideways glance.
Her shoulders are pulled up around her ears and her hands are clasped in her lap like she’s trying to draw into herself, and that’s not like her, either.
The girl has the biggest personality of anyone I’ve ever met, and she doesn’t even try to contain it.
She explodes over everyone around her, corners them with her brilliant light, and doesn’t apologize if they get burnt.
She’s a 5-foot-nothing bundle of joy and energy, and I don’t think anyone has ever known quite what to do with her.
The opposite of her mother, to be honest. Celine, my stepmother, was a beautiful, sweet woman, but where Sammy is bright and spontaneous, always looking for the next adventure, Celine was... vacant. Dark. Empty, like someone had borrowed her soul and forgot to give it back.
I don’t know if she was always like that, but when my father returned to town and my mother left for a better life–or so she said–he’d turned to Celine like he’d already had it planned. And Celine, broke and devastated by Sammy’s father deserting them, had accepted him.
They’d been married within the week, and three days later, my father had run again.
This time, he’d left me with Celine and Sammy.
I was too young at the time to understand Celine, but my memories of her are soft and cushy, sweet and warm. The woman was a saint, and everything I thought a mother should be. Until I realized she was wearing a mask the whole time, pretending to be okay when she was already dead inside.
I never had the chance to ask her when she lost herself. By the time I realized something was wrong, at fourteen, it was too late. She killed herself one weekend while Sammy and I were camping in the woods, and left us to discover her body.
I don’t like to think about how she did it, but thinking back over Sammy’s life, I have to wonder if she passed that tendency to her daughter.
The fear of living too long or being forgotten.
The fear that your life isn’t worth enough to keep it... or that other people don’t value you enough to care if you stay.
“What the fuck is going on over there?”
I jerk when Sammy’s voice suddenly breaks the heavy silence in the truck, and realize that I’ve daydreamed my way through much of our drive down from the mountain.
We’re already at the outskirts of town, near where the hardware store and blacksmith shop sit side by side, and the parking lot is crowded.
Too crowded for this early on a Saturday.
Bikes sit haphazardly across the space, none of them parked correctly, and beyond those, I can see men milling around in what I’ve come to think of as standard motorcycle getup: rough jeans, plaid shirts, leather vests.
Most of the men have some sort of branding on their back as well, and as we get closer, I can see that the branding matches. They’re all from one gang, then.
And it’s not the one we have here in town.
Our gang belongs to Mars Hawke, cousin to Gunner and Barrett, who are direct descendants to the man who started Hawke’s Wood.
Mars is rough and sometimes out of control, but he runs his group with a sunny inability to accept anything bad and makes sure they stay in line, particularly where town matters are concerned.
He would never allow any of his men to park the way those bikes are parked.
I slant my eyes quickly from the men in the unfamiliar vests to the other side of the parking lot, and there I see faces I know. Mars, Dutch, and Orion, to start, and their crew behind them.
What the fuck is going on here? Is this some sort of turf war? And where did that other gang come from? We’re too far from anything to be a stop on someone’s road trip.
Either they had Hawke’s Wood as their destination or they’re lost and have decided to start a fight with Mars and his club in retaliation.
Neither of those things make sense.
Then I see one more member of the conflagration.
And he also doesn’t make sense.
He’s striding along the outside of the crowd, his hand on his gun and his face creased in a scowl, his hat drawn low over his head. On his chest sits a bright, shiny new sheriff’s badge.
Barrett Hawke.
Or, as he expects Sammy and me to call him, Dad.
“Shit,” I breathe.
“Exactly what we don’t need,” Sammy replies.
I don’t have to ask what she means. Barrett–Bear to those who know him–has been back in town for a total of three months, and he’s already done everything he can do to make himself unwelcome.
His brother doesn’t like him, his cousins barely tolerate him, and I think he’s already slept with half the women in town.
Which is impressive, given he’s also been hired as town sheriff, and is supposed to be working long hours keeping the peace. Or something like that.
Instead, he’s blown into town with a chip on his shoulder the size of the mountain we live on, and though he grew up here, he’s been treating everyone in town like they’re strangers.
Like they’ve already rejected him and he’s bitter about it.
He’s not doing much better with Sammy and me, if I’m being honest. I don’t like him on principle, because he’s deserted me multiple times, but Sammy?
Let’s just say the girl has made it her personal mission to piss him off in every way possible. And she’s alarmingly good at it.
A beat passes as I let up on the gas, half curious about what’s going on and what Bear is going to do about it. He might be sheriff here but he’s also only one man. With one gun, and a huge ego.
There’s no way he’s going to get out of whatever that is alive.
“Well, are we going to save him?” Sammy suddenly asks.
I slant a glance in her direction, surprised, because I wouldn’t have pinned her as a Saving Bear sort of person. But her tiny hands are curled into fists and her face has taken on an intense scowl.
She’d almost look scary, if she wasn’t the approximate height of an oversized squirrel.
She hates Bear with every ounce of her being, and yet here she is, ready to go into battle for him. And Christ, I love that about her.
I shouldn’t. I know I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t even think of the word ‘love’ in relation to her.
But that’s never stopped me.
“Think we should?” I ask quickly.
Because it’s Bear, after all. He hasn’t exactly done anything to endear himself to us.
She shoots a narrow-eyed glare in my direction, though, and that’s answer enough for me. Sammy has decided we should, and that’s all I need to know. I jam my foot down on the gas pedal, jump the sidewalk, and screech to a halt.
And then we’re both out and running for Bear.
Just as he wades into the crowd of bikers and starts swinging his fists.