Chapter 5
Chapter Five
GHOST
It was about half an hour after my embarrassing breakdown in front of my Club President, when he reappeared, just as I was brushing the last of the dust off my jeans.
“Oh god, what now?”
He didn’t laugh, and that caught my attention.
“Oh hell, it’s bad, right?”
He rubbed his jaw, rocking back on his heels to glance out through the open doorway.
“Uh… she just showed up, and Soph’s talking to her, but she’s in a bad way.”
She. There was only one ‘she’ he’d be coming to talk to me about, and I was moving the instant I realised that.
“Whoa, hold up.” He pressed a hand against my chest as I tried to shove past him in the doorway.
“Let me go.”
“No. Take a deep breath, and drop that attitude before you get out there. She needs to see you as unthreatening and gentle. She’s fragile, brother.”
“You think I don’t know that?!”
He was still holding me back, and if he’d been anyone other than my Club Pres, he’d already be on his ass. Nobody else would survive keeping me from her, especially if she needed help. Not this fucking time.
“Brother, slow calm breaths, or I’m not letting you out there.
You breathing fire like this ain’t gonna help her, yeah?
” Fuck. I clenched my fists, my eyes squeezing closed as I tried to slow my breathing, because he was right.
I was fucking fired up, not out of anger, but fear. Sheer protective panic.
“Soph’s with her, she’s talking. She’s even let her in the car with her. Now, can you get your head straight? I’ve left Harley holding my daughter, and I don’t want her calling him daddy instead of me, get it?”
Ugh. Dickhead. I nodded, feeling like my faculties were finally coming back online as oxygen reached my brain again, and I started to see my behaviour the way she’d see it. Charging in like an enraged bull would terrify her.
“What… should I even go out there? Am I being a selfish asshole?”
Micro frowned at me, that steadying hand still holding me back.
“Your feelings for her go deeper than I think I even realised, brother. Try. Just go slow, smile, stay back, and let her decide what happens next. If she wants you gone, you get gone. She may ask Soph to stay, so don’t argue.
You good?” He leaned closer, eyeing me sharply, and I nodded.
I could do this. Just go say hi, check she’s okay, see if she needs help. Easy, right?
He backed up and offered me an encouraging smile.
“Do your club colours proud, brother. You’re with a club that matters now, and that means your actions matter too. Just like she matters.”
That was verging on preachy, but whatever. I offered him a single nod, and then I was walking. Did I mean to pick up speed, step by step, until I was almost running? Fuck no, but could I help it? No, I fucking couldn’t.
As I headed toward the car, I could see her leaning her head down to talk to Sophie, but she must have told her I was approaching, because her head shot back up and her eyes and mouth seemed to open in sync.
Panic. Was it panic? I forced myself to screech to a halt, like a fucking cartoon character.
Easy. Go gently. Don’t scare her. Leave if she asks.
“She coming in or going out?”
I ignored the prospect and moved slowly toward the car.
As I reached it, Sophie got out and walked around to the window, which eased down slowly. She spoke to her through the gap and then waved me over. As I almost reached the car, she stepped forward, a hand out to block me, never touching, just warning.
“She’s had a nasty anxiety attack, so don’t fucking upset her, or I’ll turn your balls inside out. Ask me if I’m joking.”
I held both hands up, shaking my head fast. “Nope. I get it. I can see you mean that. I just… I just want to see her. To see how she’s doing.”
She quirked an eyebrow at me. “Badly. That’s how she’s doing. How would you be doing?”
“You think I don’t see that night every fucking hour of every day? I hate myself.”
“Good. Then you can approach her, but I’m staying right at the front of the car, and if she so much as yelps, I’m dragging you back in there, and guess which part of you I’ll be gripping with my fingernails to drag you…”
Fuck me. Perfect woman to be a Pres’ old lady, that’s for damn sure.
“I promise. I never want to hurt her or scare her.”
She stepped out of my way, and my eyes instantly landed on Elizabeth, who clearly had her finger on the button to close her window, those expressive grey eyes filled with fear and hideous memories.
“I… Elizabeth…” Apparently I had a million things to say, and none of them were coming to mind. I sounded like a pathetic loser.
“I… hi.”
She spoke. She fucking spoke to me. My knees weakened as I approached her window, staying about three paces back, finally crouching so I could see her face.
“I don’t know what to say,” I finally admitted, because my brain was next to useless right now, and I was failing her by not having the right words in this moment. She deserved better than this.
“Me either,” she said softly, chewing on her lip as her eyes stayed on mine. Something about this moment, either her being in the car, or having Sophie nearby, was giving her enough strength to entertain me, and I was thankful for it.
“I’m sorry,” I said finally, “it’s not enough. It’ll never be enough. I… I didn’t know they’d… do what they did.”
She sucked in a breath, lifting her chin a little as she glared back at me.
“Rape. It’s called rape.”
The word burned the air around us, singeing the oxygen before it reached my lungs, making me choke on it.
“Jesus. I know. I wish I’d never brought you here. All I wanted was to spend time with you.”
She nodded slowly, her pale fingers resting on the sill inside the window as she stared at me.
“That’s what I wanted too. I thought I was safe with you.”
My legs shook and I dropped onto my ass on the dusty concrete.
“You were. You were supposed to be. I failed you.”
She wasn’t disagreeing with me, and why should she? It was truth. Fact. It was indisputable.
“They held me… I couldn’t get to you.”
She shuddered, her eyes darting toward Sophie, and I waited for the fallout, but it didn’t happen. Not yet, at least.
“I know.”
Wait, she wasn’t chewing me out for that pathetic comment?
“I tried.”
She sighed, lowering her eyes and hiding from me. “I know. I remember.”
Jesus fuck. Why couldn’t she get a fucking break from the universe and not remember the details? Why the hell did it even have to happen to someone so sweet and perfect?
“I’d do anything to change it.”
“I know that too!” She snapped, slamming her hand against the window with frustration.
She fumbled with the window, and I knew she was giving up on me, shutting me out, but no, wait.
She didn’t do that at all. She opened the car door.
I glanced at Sophie, who hovered indecisively by the front of the car, and then I looked back at Elizabeth who now stood over me, almost close enough to touch.
I stared up at her, wanting to stand too, but not wanting to scare her or crowd her. Right now she was in the position of power, and I was more than willing to let her take that for herself.
“Hit me if you want,” I said quietly, “kick me, knee me, whatever you need to do to take your revenge. I deserve it. I deserve to suffer for what you went through. What I’m sure you still go through every day.”
She kicked dust at me, and stomped her foot.
“How dare you try taking the high road here? How dare you try to suggest that you understand a damn thing about what happened? I was dragged from you, held down and stripped. I was raped by three strangers, while dozens of others watched and laughed. Cheered them on. Encouraged them. And where were you? ‘Held down’? I’ll tell you about being held down.
I’ll tell you about strange men touching your naked skin without your consent.
I’ll tell you about being touched all over while you beg them to stop!
I’ll tell you about feeling them force their way inside you, while you scream at them to stop! ”
She was breathing hard, her fists clenched at her sides, tears pouring down her cheeks, and all I could do was keep staring up at her.
She was right. I didn’t understand a damn thing about what she went through.
I knew what I saw, but I didn’t know how it felt.
I didn’t know how it felt to have your consent ripped from you in that way.
How she must have feared that it’d never end, that they’d keep doing it until they killed her.
She must have wondered if every biker there intended to join in.
“I’m sorry,” I choked out, and she barked out a bitter laugh.
“Oh, well as long as you’re sorry, that fixes everything.”
ELIZABETH
I had no idea where this strength had come from, or how long it’d even last, but while it did, I was riding that wave of fury and power, and letting it fuel me to say all the things I wished I could have said before.
All the things that I wished men understood, so they didn’t do those things to women.
We’re not weak. We’re not powerless. Not until men make us that way.
Not until they take everything from us, and break us from the inside out. I wasn’t weak then, but I’m weak now.
Well, not right this moment, but normally. That’s my new normal.
“Elizabeth,” he whispered, clenching his hands in front of him, like he wanted to touch me or reach for me, but was fighting those instincts. Why could he do that, and none of them could?
I lifted my head, catching Sophie’s eye, and she grinned, flipping me a ‘thumbs up’ in approval, and the young lad who managed the gate was leaning against it, watching avidly, and then I realised there were more bikers in sight.
One holding the baby, plus the president, and two others.
Watching quietly, staying back, no anger on their faces, no aggression in their postures.
Just observing silently, like ghosts. Rather apt really, considering who still sat at my feet.