Chapter 2
Chapter Two
GHOST
It was her, I know it was her. I barely noticed the other guys in the pub, nor did I taste the beer, because I’d just had a blast from my past that left my heart burning in my chest. Elizabeth.
I hadn’t seen her since that night. That fucking night. Every time I wondered if the Rogues deserved to be wiped out, I reminded myself of that night. One of many where they did things I was horrified by, but unable to prevent, made complicit by my presence, and inability to do anything about.
Fuck me. I downed the beer, and got up to go to the bar. I needed something stronger. Anything.
“Whoa, he’s in a party mood,” I heard Simon saying behind me, but I ignored him, because he couldn’t be further from the truth. The last thing I wanted to do was even think about partying. That’s how it all went so wrong. It was my fault, and I could never undo that fucking night. Ever.
“Brother, you look like you saw a ghost, no pun intended,” Micro said, leaning against the bar beside me, nodding to the bartender for another of whatever the hell he was drinking. Not beer, but something soft.
“It’s nothing.”
He shook his head. “Nope. Not buying that. I caught that little moment there, and you both recognised each other. What happened?”
I slammed my glass down, grabbing the whiskey I’d ordered, knocking it back in several agonising gulps of fire.
“It’s none of your business, okay?”
He waved the bartender off when I tried to order another.
“Am I your Club President?”
Jesus. I leaned heavily on the bar with one hand, fighting the urge to flip him off with the other.
“Please. Don’t push this. It’s in the past.”
“Looks very much like it’s eating at your future. You dated her?”
Fuck this. I slammed a tenner on the bar, and turned to walk away, determined to walk this fucking fog off, and get back out of here and off his radar.
He followed me though, because I just wasn’t lucky enough to catch a break right now.
“Pres, leave it. I’m asking you.”
He stepped outside with me, and I swear a hint of perfume lingered in that doorway and immediately brought to mind those panicked grey eyes.
Eyes I saw showing such terror and pain the last time I saw her.
Fucking hell. It was like being back there.
Hearing her screams, trying to get to her.
I fucked up that night. I failed her. And her reaction to seeing me was abject horror.
She looked like she was about to pass out. Just from seeing me. I did that to her.
“Dammit, brother. I’m talking to you.” He grabbed my arm, I threw a punch, and the result was me being slammed face first against the club van, his firm grip around the back of my neck.
“Don’t try it. I’m not backing off until you tell me, so you better get on with it.” He released me, and I spun in place, leaning heavily against the van, my cheek and nose stinging from the impact.
“Fuck. I can’t. I can’t talk about… I… FUCK!”
I turned again, slamming a fist against the metal panel of the van, pain ricocheting up my arm.
“You trash the van, you’re fixing it,” he said wryly, turning to lean beside me, waving off Simon, who’d stepped outside to check on us.
“Pres, please.”
Micro groaned. “You know, I did a lot of bad things in my time. You know about all of it. You know I hurt people, terrorised them, even. I stabbed my best friend literally in the back. I’ve had to own up to all of that, live with the guilt, and make amends with every person I hurt.
It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. ”
I shrugged, leaning beside him again. “Yeah.”
“So how arrogant are you? You think you get to hide from your misdeeds? You think you don’t have to make amends? The first step is admitting to the shit you did. I get it, the club before we showed up was a bad fucking place. Did she go there? Was she hurt there?”
After that, it was embarrassingly easy to let it all out, to spill every secret, and horrifying truth.
To spell it out for him, tearing the sickness from inside of me, and putting it out there for him to see.
If he didn’t boot me from the club for this, could I even respect him as the president I thought him to be?
His response? “Oh.”
ELIZABETH
A week of extra therapy sessions. It took a week of those just to stop me going into panics again every time I had to step outside. I’d been doing so well, and then there he was. Was he back in my nightmares again? Had he ever left?
My progress was disappearing by the day, just from having seen his face again, those beautiful blue eyes staring into mine. My god. He’d been my biggest crush, but I’d been a fool, because I didn’t realise the evil that was buried deep within him.
“Miss?”
I lifted my head, halfway through using the self-checkout, and completely zoning out.
“Do you need help?”
I shook my head, scanning my last few items of shopping, and making payment. I must have looked like some kind of weirdo, but my brain tended to go off on tangents like that, and I lost track of everything when it did.
I started striding through the shopping centre, wanting to get to my car, and home, before I panicked.
It’d taken me more than six months to be brave enough to do things like this alone.
Honestly, I still wasn’t, but if I hadn’t started making progress, I’d still be reliant on everyone else.
I’d been starting to feel like I was in control, but seeing him had brought it all back, and now I was seeing shadowy figures stalking me again.
I was catching glimpses of black leather when nobody wore any, and I always felt like there were eyes on me. Predatory eyes. Cruel eyes. Blue eyes.
“Elizabeth,” a soft male voice said as I stepped outside onto the concrete walkway to the car park. I froze in place, as if icy fingers had locked around my throat, and my air felt trapped within.
He stepped out of the shadows of the porch surrounding the double doors, and that breath I hadn’t been able to achieve suddenly choked me, leaving me gasping raggedly as I backed up toward the doors again.
Why had I shopped late in the day when it was emptier here?
I knew better than that. Shop early in the day, fight through crowds, and be safe with people all around me.
“No,” I whispered, and sorrow filled his blue eyes.
His hair was longer than it’d been back then, grazing the tops of his shoulders, and it was scruffy, as if he’d dragged his hands through it multiple times.
Those hands. Hands I’d loved to see, to feel cupping my cheeks as he kissed me.
Hands that literally delivered me into evil and pain.
“Elizabeth, please.”
I shook my head, backing up as my bags slipped from my fingers, and spilled packets of pasta and other essentials onto the pavement.
“Jesus,” he murmured, squatting immediately to gather up my supplies, and stuff them back into the bags.
This was my moment. My chance to escape him.
I didn’t run back into the shopping centre, which was the smartest thing, because they had security officers.
No. I ran for my car, which was parked as close to the entrance as possible.
My car was my safe place. It’d deliver me home, and away from him.
I could drive straight to a police station if he tried to follow.
“Elizabeth!” I heard him yelling my name as I broke into a run, his heavy boots pounding the street as he pursued me. Oh god. No. Please no. Not again!
I tried to glance over my shoulder, wanting to know he was far enough away that I’d make it, and that was my dumbest move yet.
My foot caught an uneven piece of paving, and I went flying, landing hard on my hands, as my knees crashed against the concrete, and my forehead slammed down as I turned.
From there, everything seemed to continue happening in slow motion, my fall having appeared to happen over the space of an hour, rather than seconds, and now, everything was dragging.
Time slowed. My eyes moved sluggishly as I tried to blink, and everything hurt.
I heard people, voices, movement, but my focus was narrowed completely on pain, and the darkness that was starting to fill my vision. No…