51. Living Is Subjective
Living Is Subjective
Arlo
L eaving the hospital made me feel sick, but on Mrs. C’s insistence, I found myself at her place, taking a shower and laying my head down with Beans right beside me, wondering what the hell was going on.
I’m so thankful that I gave Mrs. C the code and a key to my place in case she ever needed it. She picked up Beans as well as Bree’s bag and packed up a few things for me too. I hate to admit I needed it, but fresh clothes do feel good.
I can’t rest, though. I want to be at the hospital waiting, but Zoe is right. I’ll be no good to Bree if I have nothing left in the tank, and for now, she’s being kept under sedation, so I can’t do anything. I can’t change anything.
My dad took the Harley back to the shop for me, and I dread to think what explanation he gave or how he was received showing up there on a stolen bike in a Bone Roses cut. I also dread to think of how Cali would have chewed him out, unfazed by the man or the president patch.
Reaching for my cell, I check the time. I’ve been here three hours. It’s the middle of the afternoon now, and for the first time, I feel hungry. Pushing myself up from the bed, I head for the hallway that leads to the kitchen but stop when I hear voices. I’m not in the fucking mood for confrontation or conversation, but I know I’m getting one of them.
Steeling myself, I head for the kitchen and see Doug and Zoe sitting at Mrs. C’s table, waiting.
‘Who’s with Bree?’ I ask firmly, and Doug meets my eye.
‘Mama, Cara, Merv, and Missy.’ His tone is less furious now than it was at the hospital.
‘Come and sit down, sweetheart.’ Mrs. C rubs my arm and smiles up at me. ‘You need to eat. I’ll fix you something.’
Giving my friend a grateful smile, I take a seat opposite Doug.
‘I’m pissed,’ he says, and I meet his eye. ‘Grandma told us every fucking thing and—’
‘Douglas Campbell, don’t you curse in my house.’
‘Grandma…’
‘Not today, not ever.’ She points the knife in her hands at her grandson, and he drops his head back with a growl.
‘We know, Arlo,’ Zoe picks up, ‘we know you and Bree were together before and that you went to prison, and we know about what’s been going on these past few months. I’m sure there’s still a lot of detail we don’t have and we’re not pushing you for that right now.’
Zoe reaches out across the table, and it surprises me, but I take her hand, and the contact causes a lump to form in my throat.
‘It’s hard for us to know we were kept out of the loop on something so big.’
‘Bree was afraid of making y’all a target,’ I admit, my voice sounding strange and unused, and she nods.
‘Yeah, that’s Bree. Always up in our business but keeping us out of hers.’ She smiles weakly.
‘Listen, man,’ Doug starts, and all eyes in the room move to him, wondering what his move will be. ‘She loves you, and seeing her happy with you meant everything, even more now we know what she was going through, but this is hard. I wasn’t given the opportunity to protect her, and that kills me.’ Doug’s voice cracks with emotion, and Zoe releases my hand to wrap her arm around her brother.
‘Doug,’ I start, and he meets my eye. ‘I’m sorry we didn’t tell you. We were trying to keep you all safe. We didn’t know what he was capable of.’
I still have no idea what she went through during that time that she was alone with him, and it eats me up.
‘Grandma told us y’all weren’t really dating.’ I nod, confirming that truth. ‘But it’s real now?’
‘Realest thing in the world. I love your sister, Doug. She’s everything to me.’
Accepting my words, Doug holds out his hand for mine, and I accept the handshake.
‘Then let’s eat and get back to her.’
T hese fucking machines. I have a love-hate relationship with them right now. I love them because they’re helping her heal. I hate them because the incessant beeping and whirring and ticking is driving me fucking crazy.
We passed the twenty-four-hour mark, and she’s still with us. The doctor said they’ll be taking her off sedation in the next day or so to see how she does, and I feel impatient as well as worrying that I’m not ready.
I want to see her, look into her eyes, kiss her, and have her kiss me back. I want to hear her voice, her laugh, but I’m afraid she won’t come back to me the way she was—that she won’t come back at all.
‘Hey, kid.’ My dad’s voice has me raising my head and turning to find him leaning against the door frame. He’s been here every day, sometimes for twenty minutes, sometimes for two hours. He, Lynnie, and Mrs. C have spent time talking, and he’s just been there, behind me, feeling like a real dad for the first time in my life. I can feel the regret pouring off him. He hates that we wasted so much time over stupid rules that meant nothing to the men who fucking betrayed him, the men now feeding the roses around that piece of shit cottage in the woods.
‘Hey, Dad.’
‘How’s your girl today?’ He joins me in the room but as always, doesn’t sit.
‘Same, they’re waking her up soon.’
‘Good.’ His voice is firm and sure. ‘Seems a stupid thing to say right now, but happy birthday, Arlo.’
Fuck. My birthday, I’d forgotten. I’m forty. Seems like a milestone I’d want to celebrate, but until my girl is awake and in my arms, everything is standing still.
‘Yeah,’ I huff out a laugh, ‘pretty stupid.’
Dad grips my shoulder and, for the first time, moves to stand next to the bed and really looks at Bree.
‘She looks like him.’ Miles. He never got over losing his best friend. ‘Prettier, of course.’ He smiles, and I nod. ‘Horse is still alive, kid.’ I glare up at him now, my nostrils flaring as a fire starts in my belly, and he holds up a hand. ‘Calm down, listen before you blow.’
‘He took her, he betrayed you, and you let him live?’
‘Living is subjective.’ He raises one eyebrow. ‘He has a pulse, put it that way. I thought you might want to be the one to change that.’
I hold my dad’s gaze for a moment while the gift that he’s trying to give me sinks in. He is giving me the chance to get revenge, to take something back to help close the gaping wound inside of me.
‘He called the cops.’ I feel my brow furrow with confusion, and he steps closer to me. ‘The day you got arrested, it was Horse. He spilled everything because he thought I already knew. He wanted you out of the way, thought after you did the job, you’d change your mind about leaving the club and take the VP spot from under him.’
Anger bubbles in my bloodstream as I remember Horse’s counsel during that time.
It must have been the girl. You shouldn’t have told her.
Cut her out, kid. Don’t let her in. She’ll just lie to you some more.
If your dad finds out what she did, he’ll kill her. You know he will. Campbell or not.
Serve your time and move on, kid. Forget she ever existed.
This stays between me and you.
He tore us apart, kept her from me, made me believe she betrayed me, then fucking helped kidnap her.
‘He says he didn’t know it was her they took, maintains that, but it doesn’t matter now. He knows he’s just waiting for you.’
‘I need to be here right now,’ I say firmly, and he nods just once.
‘I’ll keep him breathing until you’re ready.’
With that, he turns and walks away.
‘O kay, she’s no longer under sedation. It’ll take a little time for it to fade, and she should wake on her own terms when she’s ready. She might be confused and probably thirsty when she wakes. Try not to crowd her, okay.’ The nurse smiles as she leaves the room, and I watch Bree eagerly.
Lynnie, Zoe, and Mrs. C are sitting in chairs around her bed. Doug and I are standing, arms crossed over our chests while we wait.
‘Did she say how long? I can’t remember,’ Lynnie says, and Doug answers.
‘No, Mama, just a little while.’
‘Right.’ She nods and reaches out to hold Bree’s hand.
My dad’s gift from yesterday niggles in the back of my mind. I itch with the need to go to the club and put Horse down as painfully as possible, but I’m where I need to be.
‘I’ll be just outside.’ I dip out of the room, unable to handle my murderous thoughts while surrounded by Bree’s family, but Doug follows me out of the room.
‘What’s eatin’ you?’
I drop into a chair, and he sits opposite. I take him in. He’s tall, not quite as tall as me but he’s a big guy, broad-shouldered, strong, and tattooed. He and Leo would fit in at the club. Doug even rides a motorcycle. In another life, one where Miles never left, where he raised his kids alongside me, Doug would have been my brother. Would I have considered Bree and Zoe as my sisters and protected them by Doug’s side, or would she and I have found each other anyway?
‘The vice president of my dad’s club was part of taking her.’ I surprise myself by sharing this with him, and he sits forward, the same rage I feel flaring in his eyes. ‘Dad didn’t know. His VP and some of the others betrayed the club and lied to my dad. He says he didn’t know it was Bree, that it was just a paycheck, but I don’t even fuckin’ care if that’s true.’
‘So what, he just goes back to the club, tail between his legs while she’s in a hospital bed?’ His voice is low and quiet in the public setting but filled with so much palpable anger that it soothes me somehow, sharing that rage with him.
‘Nah, he’s, my dad, he’s keeping him, for me.’
Realization dawns on Doug’s features, understanding of what I’m saying, and he leans back in his chair. The Campbells surprise me. Miles left the club so they wouldn’t be a part of the darker side of club life. They live their calm, quiet lives in their small, crimeless town where they have games nights and dinner parties and nice houses and cute kids, and I would expect them to be horrified at the blood and the leather cuts, the reality of what I’m laying out to Doug right now. Instead, I watched Bree empty an almost full magazine into Nolan with a bullet in her belly. I watched Lynnie hug my dad like she’d missed him. I felt Zoe take my hands without flinching at the blood all over them, and now I see the satisfaction in Doug’s expression that I have the opportunity to exact revenge on Horse.
‘He’s the last one. Nolan, the fucker who was stalking her, Bree put him down herself, and my dad and his men took out most of the guys who betrayed the club and helped take her, the guys who trashed my place. Horse is the last one breathing.’
‘Not for long,’ Doug’s words are firm, and I nod once.
‘Nah, not for long.’
‘Doug, Arlo,’ Zoe calls out, and we stand, rushing into Bree’s room in time to see her grimacing as the sedation wears off. ‘She’s starting to wake up.’
With one last glance at the man who will be my brother from here on out, I make my move to stand behind Lynnie and wait. My girl is waking up, and I can’t wait to have her back.