Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
I’m not crazy. I could feel him and smell him. I saw him. Hector was here, and he wants to take me back to Mexico. Tears blur my vision. I try to shake away the feeling, but I can’t. “I’m not crazy.”
The doctor from yesterday stares at me with pity. I don’t need his pity. “Did something happen?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m asking if someone has hurt you since yesterday. Or if something triggered your PTSD.”
I shake my head. There’s no way I’m telling him about Tyrant.
“You can trust me.”
“Nothing happened.” I blow my nose.
“Okay. Did you take the pills I gave you?”
“Not yet.”
“I want to help you, but you’ve got to be honest. When did you last use?”
“I took a pill yesterday.”
“What did you take?”
“I don’t know. Some type of painkiller.”
“Maybe whatever you took is causing hallucinations. I don’t really know if you can't tell me what you took. Why don’t I give you something to make you sleep?”
“I don’t want to sleep.” I pick at the scab on my hand.
“I’m going to get you something to drink. I’ll be back in a few. Just try to stay calm.”
I snort. What would he know about calm?
I pace the length of the room. A shadow falls over me. I look back to see Tyrant smirking at me. “Jose said you were a hot little piece.” He yanks on my hair.
“Stay the hell away from me.”
“Or what?”
“I’ll scream.”
“Yeah, and I’ll tell them your crazy ass attacked me. Go ahead. Try it.”
He’s right. He wins. Hector wins. I’ll always be the loser.
“You know he told me about your kid. How your baby died.”
“What?”
“You didn’t know?”
“What do you mean? Tell me. Please.”
“Your little bastard was born addicted to drugs with half of his organs missing. Putting him down was a kindness.”
“No. You’re lying.”
“Do you really think they’re going to let you walk away?”
My mind flashes to the night I went into labor. Did I really hear my baby cry, or did I imagine it? I’m going to be sick.
“If you don’t believe me, call and ask him to tell you the truth.” He leers at me, and I run past him, grabbing Lunatic’s knife as I go. There’s no one around as I rush down the stairs and out the front door.
The sunlight nearly blinds me as I run into the trees.
I can’t breathe. My baby died. All this time Hector has been lying to me.
I have nothing. No reason to live. I sink to my knees as violent sobs shudder in my chest. I killed my baby.
My mind envisions my helpless baby born with half a heart.
I did that. I let them drug me. Use my body.
I didn’t fight back. I didn’t protect my baby.
I can’t.
I can’t breathe.
I don’t deserve to. I clutch the blade in my right hand and cut my left wrist, followed by my right.
I collapse in the dirt and pray for the first time in years for the ground to open and swallow me up.
I stare up at the clouds between the treetops.
Black dots float before my eyes, and I stop fighting. I give up.
“Daisy. Can you hear me?”
“You’re going to be okay.”
No. No. No. I don’t want to wake up.
Three Days Later
I do a slow blink. My eyelids feel heavy and crusty.
My throat feels raw, as if someone took sandpaper to it.
Everything hurts. I wipe at my eyes, blinking several times as the room comes into focus.
Not the room. There’s a wrinkled and dimpled ass barely covered by a red lace thong right at my eye level.
I stare at the blurry sight of a tramp stamp tattoo.
A heart with wings that looks like it was inked in a jailhouse.
“Am I in hell?”
“Lonerock,” a gritty female voice answers, sounding like someone who has smoked one too many cigarettes. The ass rises from the bed and disappears behind black leather pants.
I sit up and stretch as the woman looks me over.
“You look like shit, but it’s good to see you awake.
” She pulls on a black leather vest like Lunatic and his club wears.
My heart squeezes tight at the thought of him.
She twists her silver-streaked hair into a messy bun on her head and turns to face me.
She’s got a president’s patch. I stare at the patch.
“Who are you?”
“Everyone calls me Hot Mama. You don’t remember a damn thing, do you?” She shakes her head and grabs me by my cheeks, looking me over. “You’ve been through it, baby, but don’t worry. We’re gonna straighten your crown.”
“My what?”
“Get cleaned up and meet me in the kitchen. There aren’t any free rides here.”
Confusion clouds my thoughts. I stare at the bandages wrapped around each of my wrists. The last thing I remember is running into the trees outside of Kings of Anarchy MC’s clubhouse. Tyrant’s ugly words come crashing back into me with full force.
Anger and sadness burns through my veins.
I should have killed him for what he said.
For touching me. My bladder aches and I stumble getting out of the bed.
My feet hit the worn wooden floor. I glance down at the socks covering my feet that have little white dots on the bottoms that grip the floor.
There’s a bandage and tape biting into the crook of my elbow.
Everything feels strange. I lick my teeth, hating the fuzzy texture. I find my way into the bathroom and nearly cry with relief when I empty my bladder. I glance down at the hospital gown I’m wearing, but this doesn’t look like any hospital I’ve ever seen.
Hot Mama. I roll the name on my tongue. Is this the place Hector told me about? It all sounds vaguely familiar, but I can’t hold on to a thought for nothing. I’m groggy and feel like I’ve been run over.
“Clothes are on the bed,” Hot Mama calls from another room. It takes me longer than it should to get changed into the sweatpants and tee shirt.
“Get your finger out of your ass. I called like I said I would. How the hell would I know? She just opened her eyelids. Yeah. Right. No. Mhmm. Heard that before.” I try to follow the conversation, but I have zero clue what she’s talking about other than the fact that I’m awake.
I trudge down the hallway and find this kooky woman in the kitchen pouring a shot of liquor into her coffee. “How do you take yours?” she questions without looking at me.
“Cream and sugar.”
She grunts and twists the cap back on the liquor bottle. “Cream is in the fridge. Might want to give it the sniff test.”
I dig a mug out of the cabinet and pour myself a coffee, then take a tentative sip.
I nearly gag. “Damn, that’s strong.” Hot Mama watches me over the rim of her cup, her eyes sharp as nails.
I know a test when I see one, so I drink another mouthful and force a smile.
“Tastes like you boiled it in motor oil.”
“You got jokes,” she says, and her smile is tight and lopsided. I sense she’s not someone you bullshit, so I keep my mouth shut while I stir in a questionable glop of creamer and some sugar.
I wince at the pain that radiates through my wrists when I try to put the creamer back in the fridge. It’s like someone took a blowtorch to my nerves. The first sip burned all the way down to my stomach, but the next one is sweet and warm.
“Tablets are on the counter. You’re supposed to take one every few hours. Won’t make the hurt go away, but it’ll help.”
I stare at the orange prescription bottle and hesitate. I still can’t decide if I want to survive another day.
Hot Mama snorts. “You gonna pout or are you planning to eat something? There’s donuts in the tin.”
I try a donut. It tastes like chalk, but I force it down.
She nods in approval. “If you’ve got questions, now is the time to spit them out. I’ve got shit to do.”
I’ve got plenty, but am smart enough not to ask some of them.
I squint at her and try to figure out if she’s for real. “You running a halfway house or something?”
“Not exactly.” She thumps her mug down on the Formica. “A place for girls like you,” she tells me, then shrugs. “Well, not just girls. Anyone running from the wrong people.”
“So I’m in another club’s house?”
“We’re not running guns or whores or any of that shit anymore. That’s old-school. These days I run a half-assed rehab. Keeps noses clean. The fuck do you think you're doing here?"
“What am I supposed to do here?”
“You want a bed and food, you’ve gotta put in hours. If you think you’ll just sit around and pet the damn cats, you can tell Big Daddy or Hector, whichever you answer to, why I let you starve.” She grins at me as she ashes her cigarette into the sink.
Hector. My skin goes clammy at the mention of his name.
“How do you know him?”
“Gotta be more specific. I know lots of people.”
I start with the safer choice. “Big Daddy.”
She makes a sour face. “My baby brother. Half. Wiped his ass as a kid, and now he thinks he can boss me around.”
I study her face, looking for any resemblance between them. She certainly has the same tough attitude.
“He said you’d keep me safe from Hector.”
“No one is safe, pumpkin pie. But you’re less likely to get sold to a coyote or wind up dumped in an abandoned mine.
Depends on your attitude.” She gives me the mother of all up-and-downs.
“Right now, you look like Hell’s anchor.
Not gonna fly.” She leans across the table, voice dropping. “You ever worked a regular job?”
I want to laugh, but my throat’s too tight. “Define regular.”
She makes a tsk noise, but I ignore it and ask the other question burning at the back of my mind. “How do you know Hector and why did he want me to get sent here?”
“Now we’re getting somewhere. I’ve got something he wants. Information about a certain someone.”
I nod. That’s what he told me.
“Question is, what are you going to do when you get what he wants?”
“I don’t want to give him anything. I want to kill him.”
Hot Mama smiles. “My little brother was right about you.”