Chapter Four #2
“I can return them washed.”
“You can keep them until you have your own.”
“I have my own.”
There is pride again. Quick and sharp.
“I know,” I say. “I mean until your boxes are sorted and you can get to what you need. You deserve to sleep with something clean against your skin tonight.”
Her cheeks color. “Sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize every time you remind the world you exist.”
The words land hard.
Too hard.
Her eyes fill, and she turns away, pretending to look at August.
“I do that?” she asks.
“Yes.”
She laughs once, but it ain’t happy. “Jeremy said I never apologized enough.”
I keep my voice even. “Jeremy sounds like a man who needed women smaller than him because he wasn’t much to begin with.”
She looks back at me then. A little shocked. A little pleased. A little scared of being pleased.
“He wasn’t always like that,” she says.
“They never are.”
Her eyes drop.
“I hate that,” she whispers.
“What?”
“That I still want to explain him. Like if I tell it right, maybe I won’t sound so stupid.”
I sit on the edge of the chair instead of the bed, giving her space. “You don’t sound stupid.”
“I married him.”
“Smart women marry cruel men every day.”
“I had his child.”
“You loved your child before you knew what it would cost to leave his father. Those are not the same thing.”
She stands very still.
Then she sits on the edge of the bed, slow, careful not to wake August who has passed out again. Her hands fold in her lap. She looks younger like this. Bare-faced, exhausted, sitting beside her sleeping son in borrowed safety.
“My mother would have hated this,” she says.
“Being here?”
“Needing anyone.” Her mouth tightens. “She hated needing Mike. Hated that she loved him. Hated that she kept anything from him. Hated that she told me his last known address on her deathbed like it was a gift when maybe it was just one more thing she couldn’t carry.”
I think of the woman in the photograph. Not her mother. But a proxy. Another woman, just like Caroline. Laughing beside Mike Welles in Oregon, one hand on his chest, young enough to believe the damage was still in front of her instead of already happening.
“She gave you somewhere to run,” I say. “Even if it was late.”
Amelia looks at August. “I ran to a dead man.”
“You ran to his blood.”
“I don’t know if I’m his blood.”
The fear in her voice is soft and terrible.
There it is.
The question she’s been choking on. Just like Legend looked at the photo and still refused to call it proof.
“What happens if I’m not?” she asks.
I don’t answer too fast. She deserves better than comfort thrown like a blanket over a broken window.
“If you aren’t Mike’s daughter,” I say, “then you’re still a woman who came to us in trouble with a child who needs sleep and a husband who needs to learn Hell has gates for a reason.”
Her eyes search mine. “Legend said I could stay.”
“He meant it.”
“He doesn’t know me.”
“No.”
“He doesn’t trust me.”
“No.”
That hurts her, but lies would hurt worse later.
“But he don’t need to trust every piece of your story to know you should be safe tonight,” I say. “That is different.”
She looks at the locked door.
“Men like Legend scare me,” she whispers.
I almost smile, but there is nothing funny about it. “Men like Legend scare most people.”
“You’re not scared.”
“I was.”
That brings her gaze back to me.
“When?” she asks.
“At the beginning. Before I understood the difference between danger and cruelty.”
Her lips part slightly.
“Legend is dangerous,” I say. “Derby is dangerous. This club is dangerous. Hell itself is dangerous. I won’t insult you by pretending otherwise. But cruelty is different. Cruelty needs you small. Danger doesn’t always.”
She studies me like I have handed her a language she doesn’t fully speak yet.
“Jeremy is cruel,” she says.
It sounds like the first time she has said it without softening the edges.
“Yes.”
Her eyes close.
A tear slides down her cheek.
She wipes it away fast, angry at it.
I let her.
Some women need to cry. Some need to be allowed to pretend they’re not crying until they are ready.
Amelia’s the second kind.
Down the hall, Derby’s boots move once, then stop. He’s trying not to listen. I know because men who aren’t listening don’t hold themselves that still.
I lower my voice. “Does August know?”
She looks at her son. “He knows enough.”
Five years old and knows enough.
I hate the world for that.
“He started hiding toys before I packed,” she says. “Like if Jeremy couldn’t see what he loved, Jeremy couldn’t take it. I found Blue Rex in the laundry hamper wrapped in a towel.”
Her voice breaks.
This time, she doesn’t apologize for it.
Progress can be cruel too.
I reach out slowly and touch her wrist above the bruise. She lets me. Not fully relaxed, but she doesn’t pull away.
“He’s safe in this room tonight.”
She nods.
“And so are you.”
Her mouth twists. “Is that a promise?”
“Yes.”
“Can you make that promise here?”
There is the real question.
Not whether I mean it.
Whether my word has weight in a building full of outlaws.
I lean back. “Amelia, I’m Sophie Montgomery.
I was born into horse money, claimed by an outlaw king, and I’ve survived more male stupidity than most women should have to tolerate before the age of thirty.
Marriage license or not, I’m property of Legend.
If I say you and your son are safe in this room tonight, every biker downstairs will either help make that true or find out why this old jail still has places a body could disappear. ”
She stares at me.
Then she laughs.
It’s quiet because of August, but it’s real.
Not free.
Not healed.
But real enough to make the room warmer.
“I don’t know if I should be comforted or terrified,” she says.
“Both usually works around here.”
Her laugh fades into a sigh.
She picks up the borrowed clothes. “Can I change?”
“Yes. I’ll step outside.”
“You don’t have to.”
The words come too fast, surprising both of us.
She looks embarrassed by them.
I understand, though.
Sometimes being alone after the running stops is worse than running.
“I can turn around,” I offer.
She nods.
So I stand and face the door while she changes behind me. Fabric rustles. A zipper lowers. She inhales sharply once, and I almost turn, but I stop myself.
Permission matters.
The hallway floor creaks.
Derby’s voice comes low through the door. “Everything okay?”
Amelia freezes.
“It’s fine,” I answer before she has to. “Stop hovering.”
“I ain’t hovering.”
“You are guarding anxiously.”
“I guard mean.”
“You guard loud.”
He mutters something I choose not to hear.
Behind me, Amelia lets out a tiny breath that might be amusement. “Does he always argue with you?”
“Yes.”
“Do you always win?”
“Yes.”
Derby says through the door, “I heard that.”
“You were meant to,” I tell him.
Amelia changes the rest of the way in silence. When she speaks again, her voice is small. “Okay.”
I turn.
My pajama pants are indeed too short, hitting her way above the calves.
Where I’m shorter than everyone, Amelia is tall as a runway model.
Still, the shirt hangs loose on her shoulders.
She’s as fit as a model too. Without the dusty clothes, she looks both safer and more exposed.
There is a yellowing bruise above one hip where the shirt rides up for a second before she pulls it down. Another along her upper arm.
I see them.
She sees me see them.
The room goes quiet in a painful way.
“He didn’t do all of them,” she says.
I keep my face calm. “You don’t have to explain them.”
“I bumped into the dresser.”
“Okay.”
“I mean it.”
“Okay.”
Her eyes flash. “You don’t believe me.”
“I believe that sometimes bodies hit furniture when men make rooms unsafe.”
She looks away.
That is enough for tonight.
I gather her dirty clothes and fold them over the chair. She starts to protest, then stops herself. Good. Let one small thing be done for her. Let it not cost.
August rolls onto his back, mouth open, one hand searching. Amelia immediately lies beside him, and he settles the moment his fingers find her sleeve.
There is the whole world for him.
One sleeve.
One mother.
One locked door.
The clubhouse may be safer than the road, but it’s still a building full of men, old cells, locked places, and ghosts that know how to echo. A five-year-old doesn’t need to learn the shape of sleep in an old jail if there is any other choice.
I pull the blanket over them both.
Amelia looks startled by the gesture.
I smile faintly. “I’m Southern enough to fuss even when I’m trying not to.”
Her eyes soften.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
“You’re welcome.”
I turn the lamp down low but don’t shut it off. Women who are running don’t always sleep well in the dark.
At the door, I pause. “I’ll be downstairs. Derby is in the hall. If he annoys you, tell him to get me.”
Derby says, “Still hearing things.”
I open the door and find him leaning against the opposite wall, arms crossed, face set in irritation as if the hallway has personally offended him.
“I thought you weren’t listening.”
“I ain’t. Y’all are loud.”
“We are whispering.”
“Loudly.”
Amelia surprises me by speaking from the bed. “Good night, Derby.”
He goes still.
Not much.
Enough.
“Night, Amelia No.”
Her mouth curves in the dim room.
Locking the door, I close it before either of them can ruin the moment.
Derby stares at the door.
I stare at him.
He looks at me without moving his head. “Don’t.”
“I haven’t said a thing.”
“You’re thinking.”
“I do that.”
“Think quieter.”
“Unlikely.”
He pushes off the wall and starts toward the top of the stairs. “I’m going to sit where I can see the hall.”
“You’re already sitting where you can see the hall.”
“I need a chair.”
“You need emotional distance.”
He stops.
I smile sweetly.
His eyes narrow. “Woman, I liked you better before you got comfortable bossing us.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“No,” he admits. “I didn’t.”