Chapter 7
SEVEN
Shae
Flynn was pacing the room, looking down at me every now and then, but he didn’t speak. He was anxious about something. Had the boys found out where he was holding me?
Ha!
He was going to get so fucked up, and I was going to enjoy watching it. He hadn’t tried to touch me, hadn’t tried to hurt me other than a few kicks to my stomach from time to time when I wouldn’t give him information.
This was purely to get back at Dempsey, not at the club. I knew that, I could see it in the way he would ask me about him but I wasn’t giving this fucker a damn thing.
“Soon, gorgeous,” he said, smoothing my braid away from the side of my face. “You’ll be released soon, and you can go on to find yourself a better man.”
“I don’t need a better man,” I spat back at him viciously.
“Well, he won’t be around much longer,” Flynn said softly, almost like he was caressing me with his kindness. I looked at him with as much venom as I could muster, drawing back and spitting in his face. Flynn’s hand fell from my face and he wiped the saliva from his face. “Charming.”
“He’s going to fucking kill you,” I said, my voice deeper than I imagined it would be. “And I’m going to be the one who drives the final blow into your chest. You’ll never see those little kids again.”
He stood over me, his boot connecting with my ribs and I felt the sharpness from it, falling to my side, unable to pick myself back up as I let the pain rip around my chest. Breathing hurt. I knew he’d cracked a rib and maybe even punctured a lung, but I didn’t care. I would get through this.
A commotion outside the room had Flynn running to lock the door, his gun pulled from his holster. My eyes flew to the door, wondering if Flynn would shoot Dempsey before he had a chance to get to me.
I tried to move my hands from my bindings, feeling the wetness pooling around my wrists. I’d broken my skin.
Fuck.
“Fuckface!” I called out to him, to distract him. He didn’t budge, but I could see he was scared. “I said fuckface!”
“Shut up!” he screamed back at me but he didn’t turn.
“I’m going to fuck up your woman when I see her,” I said with a maniacal laugh.
Not because I wanted to or was going to, but because the pain in my wrists doubled with the pain in my chest and made it hard to see straight.
I was laughing to trick my body into thinking it wasn’t about to fall to pieces. “She’s as good as dead.”
Flynn’s hand was shaking as he tried to block me out but it was no use, I was getting to him. I could see it.
“Scared little boy, aren’t you?” I laughed again.
He dropped his gun to his side and looked over at me, his fear disappearing for a second.
I didn’t have time to figure out his motives before he was crossing the distance between us and hauling me to my feet.
My chest burned from lack of oxygen as he stretched out my body.
“You’re a mouthy little bitch, aren't you?” he said through gritted teeth.
I stomped my foot down as hard as I could onto his toes.
He yelped in pain as he hobbled back, his hand going for his gun, but he hadn’t heard the door being opened behind him as he squared off with me.
Dempsey’s telltale black hair moved from behind him, his arms coming up from behind to wrap around Flynn’s neck in a sleeper hold.
Flynn battled to get away, his hands flying up to his neck to alleviate the pressure as Dempsey pulled him back.
I slumped against the wall, watching as Dempsey let him go just as Flynn fell to his knees.
Before he could reach for his gun, Dempsey unloaded a few stabs into his sides with his knife.
Flynn fell back, realising it was too late.
His hands weren’t working. Dempsey looked back at me, but everything was going dark around me.
He grabbed the gun from Flynn and ran over to me, checking me over, his hands on my cheeks, moving my hair out of my face, those molten eyes looking into mine.
“Shae.”
“Hands,” I croaked out.
He grabbed his bloody knife and cut the restraints from behind me, bringing my hands into his. He looked down at the bloody mess that was my wrists and swore.
“We gotta get you out of here,” he said.
“Knife,” I said. He handed me his knife without question and helped me to get to the bloody mess that was Flynn. He was still alive, I could see his eyes looking around, dazed, as his life drained from his body.
I lowered myself down to a squat in front of him, the pain burning through my body, but I wasn’t going to miss this.
“Karma, my friend,” I said to him as I dragged the knife across his throat, the skin opening up as the blood spewed out of him. He gurgled as life drained from him faster than before. I stood back up, staggering. Dempsey caught me.
“Take me home,” I told him. He didn’t argue, he held onto me as he led me down a long hallway and outside. Rebel and Bear stood there, taking in my mangled form with fear and concern on their features.
“Everyone’s taken care of,” Bear said.
A man I hadn’t seen before stood beside him. “My crew will clean this up. Noone will know the Rebels were down this way.”
Bear shook his hand. “You call on us anytime you need.”
The man nodded and moved out of view. Everything went dark, and I felt my body falling.
Dempsey
“Fuck,” I grunted as I caught Shae at an odd angle. She was out. “Where the fuck is the hopsital?”
“She can’t be admitted here,” Alex said. “We need to get her up the coast a little bit.”
“Why?”
“No one can know we were here,” Alex told me. “Come on, we’ll get her on the back of your bike and we ride until we get home. Morena will take care of her.”
Shit.
I picked her up and carried her down to my bike, her sweet moans almost breaking my heart. I’d never seen her this fucked up before. I knew the woman was tough, but this was something else completely.
I never liked violence, had always tried to get away without killing but when I saw what Flynn was doing to her, I hadn’t hesitated in taking his life just the way I had been trained to.
I leaned her against my bike and slapped her face. She jolted awake and I steadied her. Her eyes went from being wide to relief flooding through her.
“What hurts?”
“Ribs, wrists.”
I lifted her shirt up to see dark purple bruising over one side of her chest. Fuck.
“We gotta get you to a doctor,” I said. “Can you make it back to Kilkenny, or do you want to see someone here?”
“Kilkenny,” she said, groggily.
“Okay,” I said. “You’re gonna have to hold the fuck on then.”
She nodded. I pushed her onto the back of my bike and climbed in front of her. Wrapping her arms around me, she let out a hiss of pain which hit me right in the chest, but she held onto me. Rebel and Bear were waiting for us and I pulled out behind them as they led us back to Kilkenny.
This wasn’t over.
Not by a long shot, but my main concern was the woman desperately clutching onto me as I took her home.
Morena was waiting for us when we pulled in, ready with her nurse’s kit that she kept in the clubhouse.
I grabbed Shae off the back of the bike and hauled her up into my arms. She groaned in pain, slipping in and out of consciousness as I pulled her to the closest bed in the clubhouse.
Morena got to work as I sat beside her, watching for any sign that I’d made a huge mistake in not taking her to the nearest fucking hospital.
“Has she been…”
I looked up at Morena who seemed to be wary of asking me a question.
“Has she what?”
“Has she been touched, Dempsey?” she asked, blowing out a breath of hostility.
I looked down at her pants which seemed to be intact but that didn’t mean shit.
A fresh wave of fear lashed over me at what could have happened.
She’d been raped before and I knew how long it had taken for her to recover, we’d spoken about it when we were getting to know each other.
If it happened again, and because of me, I would unleash all holy hell on anyone I got my hands on.
“I don’t…she didn’t say.”
“Okay, well I need to do an examination just in case,” she said. “You are welcome to stay, but it can be quite confronting.”
“I’ll give her privacy,” I said, and although it broke me to leave her, I did, closing the door behind me.
I moved out into the fresh night air, my knees falling to the ground as I let out an almighty roar of pain.
My cry echoed throughout the woods surrounding the clubhouse, scaring bats and birds away from their homes among the trees.
I was vaguely aware of someone behind me but I knew it would be Alex.
“Leave me be.”
“Can’t do that,” he said. “You need help.”
“I need a fucking time machine so I can go back and kill him again,” I said, still staring out into the night’s sky, tears rolling down my cheeks.
“We got her back, she’ll be okay. It’ll take a couple of weeks to heal, but she’ll still be intact,” Alex said, his hand on my shoulder, squeezing it. “Come in, get a drink, and focus on the meet with the Reapers tomorrow. We still have a job to do.”
I nodded, and he left me kneeling on the hard ground, unable to move. This wasn’t over.
But all I could think about right now was Shae and her survival.
I went inside and sat on the couch in between a few of the Nomads who tried to take my mind off what was happening in the other room, but it was no use. Everything around me happened while my mind reeled at what I would find out.
Morena appeared at the doorway to the hall where the rooms were and motioned for me to come over.
“She’s not been touched down there,” she said.
“But she does have a few cracked ribs. I asked a doctor I can trust to come and see her tomorrow. For now, she needs to rest. I’ve given her a sedative so she should be okay, but if you can keep an eye out?
You have my number if you need me to come back up. ”
I nodded and thanked her before I moved back into the room to see her sleeping under the covers.
Pulling my boots off, and my shirt and jeans, I climbed under the covers with her and held onto her hand, whispering sweet nothings into her hair.
I didn’t think she could hear me but it didn’t matter.
I needed to say it more than have her hear it.
“You’re my soul, Shae, and I need you to be okay after all this. You’re the only one that matters to me. Please, be okay.”
I kissed her forehead and she squirmed slightly under the pressure, but rather than pull away, she cuddled into me more. I held onto her, the only woman to ever make me feel this helpless, and prayed she’d wake up better.