11. Chapter Eleven
T here is no way to even remotely describe the way I feel right now as I sing my absolute fucking heart out. It became a running joke with Mum and I about how even after completely losing my memory, my love for Twilight quite literally fought through life or death to ensure its place as a forever obsession.
After the accident as a way to help bring me comfort, Mum and I would watch the movies on a continuous loop. Say what you will, but I will forever and always be Team Jacob. I wouldn’t be mad if a sexy as sin werewolf shifter came into my life.
After Rippy’s guitar solo, the song slows down a little. As I look out over the crowd that seems to get bigger and bigger the longer I am up here, Rhodes has moved closer to the stage with a few of the guys I saw him with earlier in the set.
Just like me, he is singing with all that he's got. I know from the many stories told over the last few weeks that Rhodes is quite the singer too. I also know he isn’t big on performing; singing around a campfire is more of his thing but I can’t help myself. Once the song ramps up again, I reach my hand out to him and pull him up onto stage with me to finish off the song. I put the microphone between the both of us as we sing the last few lines.
Holy fuck. My brother has a set of pipes.
Cheers erupt as we finish our set. Sweat is pouring off me but it's obvious Rhodes doesn’t care as he picks me up and swings me around. I erupt into laughter as he puts me down. I feel elated. Free. Like the weight of the world isn’t currently sitting on my shoulders.
I know music has always been my salvation but this has just gone and proven it, to me and everyone else in this room.
Rhodes takes the microphone from me as he faces the crowd.
“My sister, ladies and gentlemen,” He says while gesturing for me to bow to the room. I do so with a hint of caution so as whispers start up. Muffled questions sound around the room as the revelation of who I am is revealed.
“Birds, please ensure your attendance at Wednesday's meeting where we will go into further detail about what this all means. But for now, let’s celebrate the return of my beautiful twin sister.”
If I thought the cheer after our set ended was loud, it has nothing on the hoots and hollers the crowd yell out.
A rumbled war cry begins and slowly the entire room chimes in. Men and women alike begin stamping their feet and smacking tables. The noise almost becomes unbearable as everyone eventually erupts into celebration of my return home.
The DJ begins playing some track over the noise as it slowly drowns out. A few of the girls I saw out the back in the dressing room come out and begin spinning on the poles.
Rhodes turns to me and shouts over the noise.
“Come on Scar. There’s a heap of people we need to re-introduce you to.”
I hand my microphone off to Brandy who before Rhodes can drag me too far off the stage wraps up into a tight embrace. I hug her back just as tight even though we are sweaty messes.
“Thank you so much Scarlett. You were incredible,” she says.
“No, thank you. That was one of the most insane things I’ve ever done.”
The rest of the girls come over and we each give each other a hug in congratulations. Even Rippy, which comes at a surprise to me.
“Not too shabby Australia,” she says with an approving nod of her head, “we will come find you once Rhodes is done making the rounds.” There’s a strange look on her face that I don’t quite understand, but I just smile and nod in response, shrugging it off and turn back to Rhodes.
Rhodes takes me over to the two other guys he was with in the crowd.
“Boys, this is my sister Scarlett. Scarlett, the blonde is Wyatt and the big dickhead beside him is Jethro,” he says with a smirk. Said dickhead, punches Rhodes in the arm and curses him out under his breath.
“They have been training with me as my right-hand men. Jethro was to be my Vice and Wyatt my enforcer. Now that you are stepping back into the role, you obviously have the right to choose who you want, but I would love for you to consider the boys.”
He pauses briefly. There’s a sadness and a pinch of anger in his face. I know how much it meant to him to one day become President of the Thunderbirds. He’s been working hard for it. I already asked Dad if he was able to keep his position even if I was to come back, but unfortunately it just doesn’t work like that.
“I’ll definitely consider it.” I give them all a big smile trying to reassure him. There’s an obvious relief in Rhodes knowing I’m not going to instantly let them go as he sighs. He picks up a glass of brown liquor and throws it back.
“Come on, let’s go introduce you to everyone else.”
By the time we have done the rounds of nearly the entire room, I feel like I’ve met more people than I knew back home. Never have I felt as overwhelmed as I do right now. While everyone was kind and incredibly welcoming, I've felt inundated with new faces. People hugging me with tears in their eyes and telling me they are glad I’m home.
There was an expectation in the eyes of the people I had apparently known before. Like they expected me to just remember them instantly. The look of disappointment on their faces sent a sharp pain through my chest.
It hurts to not remember. Not for the first time have I tried to push the memory but the stabbing pain in the back of my mind reminds me just how bad of an idea it is. It won’t work, no matter how determined I am. There’s no thread to pull on. The memories don’t exist inside me anymore.
We take a quick break from the introductions for a while and head to the bar. I’m glad for the break, needing five minutes just to sit down and breathe. I consider making an escape for the front door but with the way Rhodes is hovering, I don’t think I will be escaping his clutches anytime soon.
“My girl, that was incredible!” Shelly yells out as she drops down two Captain Morgan in front of Rhodes and I. “I just saw Dakes and the boys over by one of the booths. Make sure you take her over there Rhodes.” Shelly gives my brother a stern look.
He nods. “Yes ma’am.’’
She rolls her eyes at him before chuckling, “You little shit. Don’t forget that I used to change your diapers young man.”
“Thanks for the reminder, Shelly,” he grumbles, throwing back the drink she sat down in front of us. I sip mine slowly, allowing the relief of the alcohol to take hold.
After we are done with our drinks, we slowly get up but come to a stop as we see Brandy, Jan, Rippy and Maxie headed our way.
“Hey girl, having fun?” Maxie laughs as Rhodes staggers slightly. I give him a questioning look. He must have had more to drink than I thought. He gives me a reassuring smile as he collects himself but I don’t buy it for a moment.
“A little overwhelmed but that is to be expected,” I laugh, answering the girls.
“Come on then, are you ready for your surprise?” Rippy says as she sticks her hands into her pink leather jacket, turning around nodding for us to follow. I’m left with little option as I follow behind them.
Brandy begins fixing my hair quickly as we walk through the crowd. I can’t even begin to imagine the kind of state it is in after being on stage. Ignorance is bliss, I guess.
We eventually stop at one of the booths on the other side of the room. I don’t stand a chance at even trying to hear the conversation the other girls are having with whoever they have stopped to talk to. The three of them are acting like a wall. That and Brandy is still busy fluffing around with my hair. She has also procured a compact powder from fuck knows where and begins patting it onto my face.
“Jesus Brandy, anyone would think I’m about to meet the Hemsworth brothers,” I laugh.
“Close enough,” She says with a wink, a cheeky smile sits firm on her face. I begin to give her a suspicious look.
Before I can question what she means by that, a hand grabs me around the arm and I’m pulled through the girls.
I give a sharp glare at Rippy who grabbed me.
“What the fuck Rippy?”
Her smirk is sinister as she lets go of my arm and nods her head.
I turn my gaze from hers to face the people she was talking to and my heart all but falls through my ass.
Scarlett Smith has all but left the building.
Pike, Sonny, Dacre, Nicky and Dawson are standing in front of me.
In Pinks’.
In front of me.
In Pinks’, in front of me.
It feels like the entire world shuts down. Even worse than a pandemic condemning the world.
The breath gets caught in my throat. I’ve completely forgotten how to breathe. I long for that break outside to gather myself. But the possibility for it now seems far away.
A feeling of anger washes over me. I have to hold myself back to not storm up to the men looking down at me dumbfounded and demand answers. To relieve me of my grief. To make me understand why I wasn’t good enough. Why they broke my heart to pieces all those months ago. Shattered me beyond repair.
They built me up only to allow me to crumble back down.
A sob gets stuck in my throat. Tears threaten to spill from my eyes. I do my best to will them away but I don't think I’m that strong. I pretend I am. After these past weeks, my emotions are raw. The bad ass bitch persona I’m desperate to claim and hold onto is currently sitting in the corner crying.
While I feel so goddamn angry at them, so beyond betrayed as they stand in front of me, why do I feel relieved? Why do I feel the need to run into their arms? Would they even want that? Did they ghost me because they didn’t want me anymore?
Why do I feel elated when they are the ones that have caused me so much pain?
A million questions run through my head. I’m a slave to them. A slave to my emotions as I feel my soul get dragged through the pits of hell. Tortured by Satan himself as we stand in front of each other in some kind of shoot-out.
How are they here right now? Why aren’t they saying anything?
My question is immediately answered as Dacre’s soft voice chokes out, “My Star. ”
The new nickname doesn’t even register as he pushes through the other four boys who are standing in front of me looking like stunned mullets.
Smoking hot stunned mullets.
I curse the thought away just as it comes. Damn them. I will myself to not allow those kinds of thoughts through. Not until I get some kind of explanation.
Dacre reaches me before I can even blink, slamming into me and taking the last dregs of breath I had in my lungs.
The tears then come in full force as he holds onto me in such desperation. There is no hope in stopping them. Not when one of the men I fell desperately in love with is holding me.
My head and heart are at war with each other. Fighting over what I should be doing right now. How I should be reacting. But I shut them out. I allow myself to feel the relief, even if whatever will follow this embrace will crush me.
I need this. I’ve needed this more than I realised.
Even though months have passed with no contact, I can’t help but love them. Love him. The things they made me feel. The way it felt like I had known them my entire life. How normal it felt to be with them. With Dacre, it's different. It was even back then. We just get each other. I see his demons and he see’s mine. We had this instant connection, something that I haven’t felt with anyone else before.
I feel Dacre’s shoulders start to shake knowing like me, he has been reduced to tears.
“Shh, my sweet boy. I’m here,” I whisper through the tears into his ear giving him a small kiss to the side of his head.
His hands tighten around my body. We are a mess of broken pieces as we grip each other, both desperate to know if the other is real.
“Scar. You’re here. You’re real.” His voice is so quiet that if I wasn’t this close to him, I wouldn’t have heard him. I keep my voice low. This moment is for us.
“I’m here and I’m real. I’m never letting go, sweet boy.”
We hold each other for a little bit longer before I pull back and hold his head in my hands slowly lifting so he is looking at me. To be honest, I don’t think he plans on letting me go anytime soon.
God, those green eyes of his. They seem to be brighter even in the dim lighting of the club.
I wipe away the tears running down his cheeks with my thumb.
“No more crying Dacre,” I say.
The absolute raw emotion in his eyes could bring even the strongest man to his knees.
“How are you here?”
“It's a really long story. But also, how are you here?” I throw his question back at him with a smirk.
A smile lights up his entire face. Back in Australia, his smiles never quite met his eyes no matter how hard he tried. But getting the real thing, fuck. This man is fucking devastating.
“It's a really long story,” he says with a wink that sends us both into a fit of laughter. The light heartedness is exactly what I needed. It was feeling way too dark there for a moment.
I unwrap myself from Dacre as I remember the four other men standing behind him.
He reluctantly lets me go as he turns us both around.
Even though time seemed to slip away as Dacre and I reunited, it seems like it wasn’t enough time for the boys to wrap their heads around the fact that I’m standing right in front of them.
Nicky eventually snaps out of his frozen state, a massive smile taking over his face. He rushes over to me and picks me up and spins me around in circles. He eventually stops and grabs my face to look at me in my eyes.
“Fuck baby girl. I never thought I’d see you again.” Before I know it, his lips are on mine. It won’t register until much later the double meaning behind what he said.
His kiss is intoxicating, stealing all reasonable thoughts from my brain. Nicky is the type of guy that I could easily get lost in. Nothing else matters when I’m in his arms.
His lips eventually pull away from mine.
Still in a daze, it takes me a second to realise Pike is standing in front of me. I could never understand why he wanted me. While all the boys are utter perfection, Pike could very well be a god. His eyes are a bright blue. His blonde hair sits in a perfect mess on his head, looking like he just came from a fucking photo shoot.
Like Dacre and Nicky, Pike’s smile is fucking devastating. Butterflies tear up a storm in my belly as he aims his smile at me.
Fucking hell, I’m a goddamn simp for this man.
The months of heartbreak have done nothing to dim that feeling.
I curse myself internally. I shouldn't be allowing myself to be this excited with any of them but it can’t stop. My brain is a muddle of mush.
“Pike!” I yell as I jump into his awaiting arms.
He laughs as he squeezes me tight .
“Fucking hell Princess. You have no idea how good it is to see you. Maybe those other fucking losers will get off my dick now that you are here.”
“ Vete a la mierda pendejo.”
The beautiful Spanish makes my head snap up off Pike’s chest as I look at Sonny who is glaring daggers at Pike. As he turns to look at me, I’m hit with yet another heartbreaking smile.
Sonny doesn’t bother with greetings as he rips me out of Pike’s hold and engulfs me in his. A muttered ‘never could share his fucking toys’ comes from Pike, but Sonny either didn’t hear him or he couldn’t care as he holds me.
“Mi estrella .” Even though my Spanish lessons all but began and ended with the song Despactio, I gaze up to meet Sonny’s eyes. I know whatever he said to me would be something sweet. Something that would for sure redden my cheeks even more.
“That performance was fucking incredible. I didn’t know you could sing like that. Shit, I have been hard since I heard you out in the parking lot.”
I slap his shoulder as I look down shyly, my cheeks flaming hot at his omission.
I cuddle deeper into his chest. Out of all the boys, Sonny is the comedian. Never failing to make a witty joke or send me into a blushing mess with his flirting. God, I’ve missed him. I’ve missed them .
I eventually pull away from Sonny with a smile and look over at the last owner of my heart. He is still standing near the booth. His arms are crossed over his chest and a look of nonchalance on his face. That grumpy look on his face never far away. It makes him hard to read but that never changed the way I felt about him.
“Hey Daws.” I give him a wide smile as I walk over to him. As I reach him and go to embrace him, quicker than I can even blink, he side steps me leaving me confused and a little dazed.
What the fuck?
I turn to his new position. His arms are still crossed over his chest but a harsh smirk now sitting on his lips. The Dawson I met back home was gone, and a new and what seems to be cuntier version in his spot.
“Dawson?”
“That’s my name baby, don’t wear it out.”
Snickers sound from a few of the other Thunderbirds standing around watching our reunion. My gut drops. I stand there staring at the man in front of me unable to form words. I don’t even know what I would say right now. Don’t wear his fucking name out? What kind of bullshit is that? Anger slowly begins to bloom in my chest.
“What the fuck Dawson?” Dacre pipes up from behind me but my attention stays fastened onto Dawson.
Before he can begin to explain his bullshit attitude, Rhodes pushes through the crowd.
“Hey Scar. I was just about to bring you over to these idiots, but it seems the girls beat me to it.” He pauses with a chuckle.
“You wouldn’t remember but we grew up with these boys.” Rhodes turns me to face the boys.
I feel as the colour drops completely from my face. I feel my heart as it begins to pick up its pace. We… We grew up with them? The boys I fell in love with are the same boys I was friends with when I was younger ?
“Scarlett, this is Pike, Sonny, Nicky, Dacre and over here...” He turns me back around to Dawson. I feel like a ragdoll. It's also obvious that Rhodes completely missed our little reunion.
“...and this is Dawson. I had planned your reunion to be a little bit different but here we are.”
“I know who they are, Rhodes.” My voice feels empty as I speak the words out loud.
“Wait,” he says as he yet again spins me around and puts both of his hands on my arms to hold me in place. “What do you mean you know who they are? Do you remember them from before?”
“Those boys I told you about.” I pause as he nods for me to continue, “They are those boys.”
Realisation dawns over his face. A look I’ve never seen on him before embraces him as he turns around sharply.
“Yo, what the fuck,” Rhodes says, his face reddening in anger. “Why the fuck didn’t you lot tell me earlier that my sister was fucking alive?”
His voice deepens and gets louder until he is almost yelling. If I had any sense I would probably have stepped away from him. The last thing I need to get in right now is a bar fight.
“We didn’t know that Scar was actually our Scarlett man,” Nicky says calmly to Rhodes.
“We thought she was dead, Rhodes. You know that if we even thought it was possible, we would have called you straight away.”
“Be that as it may, you lot have been fucking around with my fucking sister. Left her fucking heartbroken with not even any kind of communication,” he says, swinging his arm back around my shoulders and pulling me into his body. I go, unable to resist as I stare at yet another person who has betrayed me. Five more people who shoved a red hot iron through my chest, piercing the last pieces of myself I had.
“We…” Pike pauses like he is trying to find the words.
“Come on Rhodes man. It's not that deep,” Dawson says as he walks over to stand with the other four boys. “It was just a summer fling. Not like it meant anything.” He shrugs. A look of disinterest still on his face.
“A summer fling? Is that fucking right?” I stare at him in utter disbelief. Fuck this. I’m angry now. How dare this asshole dismiss the best few months of my life!
His only reply is a shrug as he takes a drink of whatever bullshit juice is in his cup.
“Fuck you Dawson.”
I refuse to stay for a moment longer. Any previous feelings of happiness or love completely dissipate. I refuse to allow myself to be broken again by men that don’t deserve my heart. I cannot allow myself to fall apart.
I turn to Rhodes and without asking, snatch the keys out of his pocket and storm out of the club, completely ignoring the other boys and Brandy’s calls for me to stop and wait. I feel like I am walking away from a part of my soul. A vital part of what has made me who I am today. That Scarlett from all those months ago is gone. She doesn’t exist anymore. How can one survive after so much heartbreak? How can you pick up the pieces when time and time again they get destroyed by people you trust. People that you love.
Shelly goes to stop me, but my face must give enough emotion away that she thinks better and steps aside to let me through.
The club quickly fades away and I allow it, giving myself over to my base needs.
Flee. Run.
Normally I would stand up for myself but right now, there's no way I could even begin to. Not without breaking down and falling apart at the seams.
They don’t deserve my tears. They never did and they never will again.
Once outside, I swing my leg over Rhodes' bike. I’m used to riding dirt bikes, but I don’t hesitate at all as I start the bike and shoot away from Pinks’ leaving behind Scarlett Smith and everything she was.