Chapter Ten.
Kendara
I winced and bit my bottom lip all the way back. Smokey took it slowly and tried to avoid the dips and bumps in the fields, but fuck, it hurt all the same. I was worried about how I looked because the arriving brothers had all appeared horrified when they looked at me. Every single one that turned up and five more had, had all bellowed at the boys, who were now in tears. Even worse, their fathers hadn’t turned up yet.
By the time Smokey got to Rooster’s house, Rooster had arrived and was pacing outside. The kids had been made to walk their dirt bikes back by the side of the four-wheeled drive I was in as their starting punishment. Most of the brothers stayed to oversee the fire and prevent its spread .
By the time we arrived, my entire body was throbbing, and tears were trickling down my face.
“Put those bikes away and get your asses to your rooms, and don’t come out until I say so!” Rooster yelled with barely contained fury. He hurried down the steps and froze as I climbed gingerly out of the car.
The expression of sheer horror crossed Rooster’s face. “Oh baby, what did those little fucks do to you?” Rooster crooned as he approached carefully.
“You got her, dude?” Smokey asked.
“Yeah,” Rooster said softly as he rubbed a hand over my arm. I didn’t want to tell him even that gentle movement was painful. “Get Clio to fill my bath with a shitload of Epsom salts.”
As we slowly entered the house, Rooster hovered. He wanted to pick me up but couldn’t because everything hurt so much.
“I’ve called Doc Gibbons. He’s coming to check Kendara over,” Big Al said from somewhere.
“Thanks, brother. I’m not sure whether to take her to the emergency room,” Rooster admitted.
I went to tell Rooster I didn’t need a hospital when I caught sight of myself in the mirror. A scream escaped my throat as I gazed at my reflection. No wonder everyone looked horrified. Shit, even I didn’t know where to start.
My hair was a tangled mess, and there were burnt patches. I had no eyebrows left, and my face was shiny red. There were scratches all over my face and body, with streaks of dirt, blood, and tear tracks. There was debris in my hair, which would never be a smooth bob again, in my opinion. Blood streaked my right cheek from a deep cut on the right side of my face. Great, I’d have matching scars. My clothes were torn and filthy, and you could practically see my bra where a large tear exposed it. There were cuts and bruises forming all over my arms and, no doubt, across my back, too. Basically, I looked like the survivor of a bomb blast. Oh, wait, how ironic I freaking was!
“It’s okay, baby. We will get you cleaned up,” Rooster said frantically.
“Rooster, I’ve got no eyebrows. How on earth can we fix that?” I wailed.
“We’ll find some fake ones,” Rooster babbled, and I stared at him in disbelief. You couldn’t buy fake eyebrows.
Behind Rooster, someone snorted, and then Clio was there. She was doing her best to hide her own horror, but it leaked out.
“Come on, Kenny, let’s get you in the bath,” Clio said gently. She began leading me upstairs with Rooster plastered to my back. I winced with every step but managed to make it. Once I reached the top, I could hear Sallie-Anne absolutely bawling Troy out in a bedroom somewhere. To say she was beyond pissed was an understatement. Sallie-Anne stormed out of a room and froze when she spotted me.
Sheer sympathy swept across her face and then Sallie-Anne was at my other side and helping me into what I could only assume was Rooster’s room .
“Rooster, I have some evil punishments planned if you can’t think of any,” Sallie-Anne said as she helped me sit on Rooster’s bed. Clio rushed off to check the bath, and Sallie-Anne began undressing me.
“Babe, I can leave, and this isn’t how I first wanted to see you naked, but you’re going to need help to get into the bath,” Rooster stated.
I shrugged. Right now, I was beyond caring. Behind that door, heaven awaited me.
The three of them quickly undressed me, and then, apologising, Rooster swept me up into his arms and carried me into the bathroom. There, heaven indeed did wait. The bath was massive and filled with bubbles, and I prayed for Epsom salts, too. Rooster gently lowered me in, and I sighed in relief as hot water enclosed my body.
“Thank God,” I murmured somewhat happily.
“Call me when you want to get her out. Meanwhile, I’ve got three sons to kill,” Rooster snarled, and I was glad I wouldn’t be on the receiving end of that lecture. Rooster left, and Clio sat on the edge of the bath.
“Oh Kendara, your hair and eyebrows. I’m calling Thalia. She’ll know someone who’ll come out,” Clio said.
Sallie-Anne sat behind me on the edge of the bath and gently pushed me down, so I was lying. “Kendara, I’m going to start to clean your hair, but I think we’ll need to condition it several times before I run a brush through.”
“Whatever, ladies. I’ve got no dignity or shame left. Just do what you gotta do,” I whispered and closed my eyes.
Clio spoke quietly on the phone to Thalia while gentle hands shampooed, rinsed, conditioned my hair and repeated. Once done, Sallie-Anne began tugging a comb through to remove the last of the debris. Gently, they repeated their actions and then sat me up and handed me a towel to cover my bits before emptying the bath.
Clio refilled it with lavender foam and Epsom salts and began to gently wash the sticky mud off my body. From somewhere close, Rooster was yelling so loud I thought they’d hear him in the state over. Clearly, Banshee had arrived because he was also bellowing.
“I love my boy, I really do. But I hope to hell Shee rips him a new one. Playing with fucking dynamite! What next?” Sallie-Anne exclaimed.
“Well, this has got to beat anything the Hellions have done at Rage,” Clio muttered as she gently washed my legs. Even those were scratched to pieces.
“Could you imagine Eddie…? No, don’t go there,” Sallie-Anne said with a shudder that matched mine. Even I knew of Eddie’s exploits against her brothers and cousins.
Salle-Anne emptied the water again and re-filled the bath a third time. I relaxed back, and my body shook with aches and pains.
“Thalia has a beautician heading out to us,” Clio announced after roughly fifteen minutes.
“Woman needs to be a miracle worker,” I muttered .
“Clio, Doc Gibbons is twenty minutes out. Ladies, we gotta get Kendara out,” Rooster called through the closed door.
“Ten more mins?” I begged. I didn’t want to leave and face the chaos outside. Especially looking like this.
“Okay, baby,” Rooster agreed. “Babe, I’ve made your favourite coffee, and it’s on my bedside table with some painkillers.”
“Thank you,” I replied and relaxed back into the bath.
The hot water and Epsom salts had done wonders, but I still moved like I had a stick up my ass. My entire body screamed to stop moving as I tried to climb out. After a minute of enduring my whimpers, Rooster stormed the bathroom and picked me up gently in a thick towel. He set me down on the bed carefully, let Sallie-Anne and Clio dry me off, and tugged one of his tees over my head.
Rooster then slid his arms under me and laid me down. It was seriously the most amazing mattress I had ever laid in. Contented, I sighed and closed my eyes in happiness. Sadly, my desire to stay here forever would be denied.
Doc Gibbons, a lovely man I’d met at Rage several times, arrived and checked me head to toe. He said I would be fine but would have a mass of bruising, and he prescribed some cream for the multitude of scratches. Doc Gibbons told Rooster to keep me in bed for a few days and looked for signs of an increasing concussion. Doc also told Rooster symptoms to watch out for, that meant Rooster should call 911 immediately.
Once Doc left, the three of them made me comfortable and left me in peace. More than slightly scared, I closed my eyes and wondered what shitstorm would hit next.
Rooster
Christ, Kenny’s poor face. She’d be black and blue by the morning. Kenny’s eyes were already swelling, and her face was a bright, shiny red. It had terrified him. Doc Gibbons confirmed the blast had burned her, but not to the extreme she needed hospitalisation. However, Doc said Kenny was going to suffer a very uncomfortable sunburn-like pain for the next few days until she began to heal. He’d left her a script for strong medication, antiseptic creams and a sunburn cream.
Rooster was torn between kicking the boy’s asses and hugging them to death. When Kit had called him screaming that they’d blown Kendara up, Rooster’s heart had sunk. Rooster had seen flashes of his boys growing from babies to present day and knew he could have lost one. Banshee had been even more rabid. Shee understood what it was like to lose a child, having lost Troy for four years. Both fathers had been scared shitless when they arrived.
There was no doubt the kids had learnt a lesson, but Rooster’s heart was still pounding. He had been lucky not to get a ticket as he’d raced home, and when he’d seen his boys alive and unhurt, relief had swept through him. However, it soon dissipated when he saw Kenny moving like the walking wounded.
Reassured Kenny was safely tucked in bed, Rooster paced back and forth in the living room as Shee slumped on a sofa with a cold beer.
“Can you believe those little shits?” Shee complained.
“Fuck, yeah,” Rooster said. “The Hellions would have done that. Clearly, the Terrors have been around them for too long.”
“Good point there. Well, they won’t be mixing much for the foreseeable future. Did you decide on a punishment?” Shee questioned.
Rooster chuckled darkly.
“Did you hear Sallie-Anne’s?”
“About mosaics?” Shee asked.
“You know Sallie-Anne has those four large tubs of mosaic pieces that she uses in her crafts for school? The boys have gotta sort them out by colour and clean them before putting them into new containers,” Rooster said.
“Fuck, they’ll be bored stupid within an hour,” Shee commented.
“Yup. And they’ve also got to scrub the swimming pool at your house with toothbrushes. Sallie-Anne’s having it emptied tomorrow.”
“Hey, that’s punishing me!” Shee complained.
“Use mine. Because my little shits ain’t going anywhere near it. I’ve decided that they can sort and clean all the nuts, bolts, and screws out in the garage.”
“There’re thousands of those fuckers,” Shee exclaimed, and Rooster nodded. It was a bad habit they just launched spare bolts etc, into a trunk, and the damn thing was full to overflowing.
“They are also gonna stain/varnish/paint all the porches and decking we have with little kids’ paintbrushes.”
“They won’t have much spare time. And I’ve decided they can fill in the hole caused by the explosion with kiddie’s beach shovels. And then once done, they’ll rake each yard with a comb,” Shee said.
“Seems like they’ve got plenty to keep them out of trouble,” Rooster agreed.
“Damn right,” Shee replied, and swallowed a mouthful of beer.
Kendara
“It hides the burns and your shiny nose,” Alice said the next morning after the beauty therapist had come. She’d taken one look and gone into overdrive. My hair had been washed again and then cut even shorter than usual. Honestly, I hated it, but the burnt, frizzy ends had to go. Now I had an elfin style, and… it didn’t suit me. I kept glowering at the mirror, but it was better than fried strands .
The therapist applied a light foundation on my face to cover the burns. Considering I had to administer burn cream three times a day, it seemed pointless, but I appreciated her efforts. She’d shown me how to draw eyebrows on, so I didn’t look as much as a freak as I did without them.
“Are you for real, Alice?” I demanded and sighed.
For the next week at least, I was resigned to looking like a weirdo. The therapist sent me a sympathetic smile as she packed her stuff away. She’d also done my nails after mine had broken in the explosion.
“How much do I owe you?” I asked.
Clio shook her head. “This was Rooster’s treat.”
“That’s nice,” I said. It wasn’t Rooster’s fault the kids had tried to blow me up. They were all in my bad books, but when their punishment had been explained, I decided not to dish any more out. The boys certainly were being put through the wringer.
To make matters worse, Brax seemed determined to get revenge. He was eyeing his brothers and Troy with vengeance all over his face. Every so often, Brax would huff the word ‘zombie’ and glower at them. He was seriously pissed.
Rooster had explained that the kids had assumed they’d killed me, and then Finn thought I’d come back to life, but he couldn’t find a pulse. Therefore, they believed I’d been a zombie who wanted revenge. Which meant they wished to bash my brains in. Hell, I remembered that part. I didn’t understand how they went from ‘I’m alive to being a zombie’. But Shotgun was going to make them practise first aid until they could perform it in their sleep. No more bashing an innocent person’s head in.
Rooster had marched the three miscreants over to the clubhouse to start their punishments by cleaning the bikes. He’d put Wraith in charge of them, and Bunny had reported he was barking orders like a drill camp sergeant. Yet I couldn’t muster an ounce of sympathy after looking at my eyebrows again.
Rooster had been out this morning and bought my favourite foods. Mac had given him a list, and he was expected soon. Apparently, Mac hadn’t taken it well that the Holy Terrors had blown me up. Which meant Mac, Casey, and Blue were on their way to check I was okay.
The door opened, and three subdued little boys entered. I guess it was lunchtime. Bunny sent them a stern glare.
“Wash up and then sit quietly. Do not disturb Kenny. She needs rest after what you all did to her,” Bunny ordered firmly.
“Stay here. I’ll prepare lunch. And then you’re straight back out there,” Clio said, getting to her feet.
I had to hide a smile at the hangdog faces that peered at me, but I wouldn’t give them an inch. They had badly hurt me but could have killed themselves. They had to learn some restraint. Or, God forbid, they might kill someone next time.
A car pulled up as Clio brought me lunch. I was curled in Rooster’s big, comfy armchair, supported by soft pillows and a blanket over my lap. I was in agony, so trying not to move much, but occasionally, a hiss escaped when I jolted myself.
The door opened, and I frowned at the sound of high heels clacking on the wood.
“Huh, I thought everyone was here, unless that’s Mac and Casey,” I said to Thalia, who looked puzzled as well.
Scowls descended across the women’s faces when Sadie stormed in.
“Where’s Rooster?” Sadie snapped, her gaze sweeping in the room.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Clio demanded, storming in.
“I want to speak to Rooster without everyone interfering and making him do things he doesn’t wanna do,” Sadie snarled.
“Huh?” I asked rather eloquently.
“What are you doing here? Trying to steal my man?” Sadie sneered, and my drawn-on eyebrows shot upwards.
“Rooster ain’t yours, darlin’,” Madisen drawled.
“That’s where you’re wrong. See, I figured out what was happening. You lot don’t like me, so you’ve been poisoning Rooster against me,” Sadie stated.
“Oh honey, you did that when you said you didn’t want a cripple as a baby dad,” Thalia snarled, folding her arms across her chest. Sadie’s eyes drifted to Thalia’s hand, where she was missing her little finger, and then slid away.
“Fuck off, skank, no one wants you here, and you’re not allowed in this house,” Tati ordered as she texted someone furiously.
“You can’t talk to me like that, I’m Rooster’s baby mama,” Sadie stated.
“Is that so? You ain’t nothing else, though. Not Rooster’s woman, his old lady, or his wife. You’re someone who trapped him. You ever thought about his other kids?” Clio attacked.
I could tell by Sadie’s blank look she’d not considered Kit, Finn, and Brax.
“What about them?” Sadie demanded.
“Jesus. What do you mean, what about them? You’re saying you’re Rooster’s baby mama, great! You prepared to be a mom to those boys?” Madisen asked, complete disbelief at Sadie’s lack of awareness in her tone.
“Hell no, I didn’t sign on for that,” Sadie said.
“What’s your plan for the boys?” Thalia inquired.
“They’re not my issue. Someone else will have to take care of them,” Sadie suggested. “They can go and live with their mom.”
“She’s dead,” Kit announced, entering the room.
Sadie stared at him. “Grandparents then.”
“Don’t have none,” Finn announced as he entered. Brax followed and turned his nose up at Sadie.
“Yeah, you ain’t getting with my dad. You’re not my Kenny,” Brax added and came across to my armchair, where he curled up on the arm.
A warmth rose inside me. Shit, despite the fact they’d blown me up, I loved these boys.
“Your Kenny? If you want to keep her as a babysitter, sure,” Sadie said. “I’ll be too busy. ”
“Bitch, you don’t get it. Unless at school, these kids are here permanently. There is no ignoring them. They hate you already, how do you think living with them will be?” I exclaimed.
“If Rooster wants this baby, he’ll make me happy no matter what,” Sadie replied.
“Are you high on something?” I asked, peering at her.
“What happened to you? Why are you all shiny and scratched up, anyway?” Sadie demanded.
“Honey, these kids like me, but they blew me up. What would they do to you, Sadie, who they hate?” I questioned with a grim smile.
“They did what?” Sadie screeched, and I winced. God, her voice was like nails on a chalkboard.
“ Blew me up . You know, with dynamite,” I added.
“Why would they do that?” Sadie demanded, appalled.
“Because boys blow shit up,” Clio said, grinning.
“And they’re Hellfire kids, which means they love to dismantle things. Like that shiny car outside. If that stood still for two hours, they would be under the hood, taking it apart to see what makes it work,” Chey added.
“And Kendara is right, they love her, but they blew her up. I can only imagine what they’d do to you,” Sallie-Anne murmured. Bunny and Alice laughed.
“Jesus, it would involve more than dynamite,” Alice drawled, her eyes alight with mischief.
“That may be the one time we’d encourage you guys,” Tati mused, her gaze on Sadie .
Sadie tossed her hair, and I longed to rip it out by its very roots.
“Bitch, you’re not wanted. Now fuck off,” Bunny said, stepping up. Madisen was beside her.
Sadie smirked and waggled a finger at us. “You’re gonna have to be nice to me when this baby is born and I live here.”
“I’d burn the house down first,” Kit threatened, and the menace in his voice made us all look at him. “You think I don’t know what you said to Dad? How he’s a cripple and not worth your time.” Kit stepped forward, and Tati moved behind him, putting her hands on Kit’s shoulders.
“Shut up, you mean nothing,” Sadie retorted, but Kit wasn’t shutting up.
“Who the hell do you think you are to walk into my home, my safe haven, and act like the skank you are? Bitch, I heard you with Dad that day, how you don’t want a cripple as a baby daddy. Well fuck you! My dad’s a fucking brilliant Dad. He nearly died, we could have lost him, and you call Dad a cripple? I’d rather Dad lost both his legs than just one and still have him. Because even if Dad is a damn cripple, he’s better than you!” Kit screamed at Sadie.
Tati wrapped Kit up in her arms as Brax burrowed into me as tears leaked down his face. Finn was grabbed by Sallie-Anne, who pulled him up tight.
“That was the final straw. I’ll be serving an injunction against you tomorrow and filing for custody of that child. You are fuckin’ high. Who do you fuckin’ think you are, showing up here in that condition? I’m taking you to the hospital, and you’re getting a drugs test done. And let me tell you right now, Sadie, if you don’t do it, I will be locking you in a cage until this baby is born. Then I’ll leave you there to rot,” Rooster growled in a deadly voice.
We all spun around to face him.
Sadie turned around, and her smile faded at the look on Rooster’s face. There was no doubt he meant it.
“I’m leaving,” Sadie snapped.
“Not without a fuckin’ drugs test. Do not push me. Because I swear to God, you’ll regret it,” Rooster said and grabbed her by the arm.
“Don’t bruise her!” I warned.
“She’s gotta prove it’s me that put them on her,” Rooster snarled and dragged her out.
Alice glanced around and focused on the boys.
“Back to work, let that dull your minds, and your dad will talk to you when he returns,” she said softly.
“Meant it,” Kit stated, approaching me. “Kenny, I’d burn the house down… but make sure she was inside and you were outside.”
I reached out and hugged Kit tightly and then sent him on his way. Finn and Brax both wanted similar hugs and soon it was just us women.
“Never a dull day here, is there?” I said and laughed.