17. Maddie
17
MADDIE
There aren’t many memories of my mother I care to keep. But as my stomach twists on itself in an effort to find something to sate the hunger, I’m reminded of my seventh birthday party.
It should have been a day to remember. A little girl’s dream come true. Yet instead of pony rides and squealing kids on the bounce house, I got abandoned at her so-called friend’s place and left to fend for myself when the woman passed out blind. Until then, I hadn’t known how to open a can that didn’t have a pull-tab. By the end of the day, I was seven years old and proficient with a can opener.
Something I could fucking use right about now.
Edging the drawer open with my bound hands, I gingerly feel the timber edges and extend my fingers to what lies inside. The first two drawers were empty, and the third contained what felt like dish towels. I hope there's something on the sharper side of blunt somewhere in this fourth lucky dip.
I lost track of time when the sun went down, and my vision darkened. After smashing my shins into the chair Ronan had used, I eventually found the window frame. Head against the ridge of timber, I pushed at the fabric covering my face and eyes, but however these assholes tied it around my head, I’ve got to give them props.
No amount of rubbing up against the window frame like a cat in heat managed to get the damn thing to shift off my eyes. The best I managed was a tiny slip low in my right periphery, giving me colors and some idea of shape.
As long as I set whatever I find on a flat surface and angle my head at forty-five degrees.
Semantics.
My fingers nudge something hard, and breath held in my lungs, I navigate the shape of the damn thing. Long and flat, it's not a knife. There's no sharp edge, no hint of a blade. But it feels thin enough that the right pressure could weaken the ties around my wrists. I clamp two fingers around the nearest end of the mystery tool and give a little tug.
The fucking thing doesn’t move. Snagged somehow.
My shoulders protest, arms pushed out as far from my back as I possibly can to reach the damn implement in the back of the drawer. My boot slips, weight shifting backward, and I curse the fucking ass my mother gifted me when my fucking glutes push the drawer closed on my wrist.
“Motherfucker!”
It takes more time than I care to admit to getting my hand free, tugging fists against the front side of the shitty old drawer to get it open again. Thin steel handles, rounded at the corners, and drawers that move on timber tracks, different from the modern plastic slides most houses have these days. Wherever I am, it's in dire need of renovation.
The crack in the timber floor told me that when I rolled to my knees and pushed to my feet earlier.
My leg still smarts where the roughened wood gouged a line.
I fuck around with the drawer again, getting it open and my fingers on the hope of freeing myself, when the distinct crunch of gravel and purr of an engine stalls my progress.
“Shit.”
I want more time. I’d hoped I had more time.
The timber squeaks as I close the drawer and turn to my right. Using the rough measurements I'd figured out in my first sweep of the room, I pace toward the end of the island and then twirl what I hope is ninety degrees to march my ass back to where Fox and Ronan left me.
My knees hit the hardwood as the front door opens, frustration a hot tide beneath my skin at getting so close. So damn close. Probably would have figured out a way out of this shit if I hadn't dissolved into tears when I found the external doors locked, only two rooms available to me to roam, and the windows boarded up, nixing my plan at smashing my way out of this makeshift prison.
Would have been down the fucking driveway and on my way back to the club if I hadn’t fallen asleep out of sheer exhaustion afterward.
No use bitching about spilled milk now, you dumbass. Can’t change the past. Can only focus on the future.
That future being the two… women?…who walk through the door. What the fuck? Not the assholes I'd expected it to be, but an older-sounding female talking a hundred miles an hour as she heads in my direction. Is that? No… It couldn’t be.
“…left it how it is since then. I’d love to fix the place up, but I never have the time, what with everything I do at the club and all.”
Fucking hell. “Sweetie? Is that you?”
The chatter stops instantly.
My heart thuds painfully large in my chest, ears aching with the pressure I have them under to figure out what goes down on the other side of the door. A resounding crash reverberates against the wall, the sharp, surprised cry of a woman—another woman—coming at the same time. Feet scuff the floorboards, somebody calls someone else a bitch, and then there’s the unmistakable bang of the door as it ricochets off the wall.
“Get the fuck in there.”
My lungs seize at Sweetie’s command.
“What the fuck is going on?” I ask, internally cursing the shake to my words. “Why are you here?”
“Love to know the same thing, bestie.”
Oh my God. No. “Rae?”
“On your knees. Just like she is,” Sweetie barks.
The even paces across the room matched to each one Rae takes paint the scene clear as day in my mind. "Bitch, don't you tell me you've got a fucking gun to her head."
“Fucking perceptive, ain’t you?” Sweetie mocks.
"Not my first rodeo." I tilt my head to the left as Rae kneels, air rushing from her lungs. "You hurt?" All I can make out is the dark denim of her jeans across her calves and boots, dusty from the yard.
“Not any worse than she is.” Pride tinges my friend’s words.
“Take this fucking thing off my eyes, would you.” I jerk my head back and forth. “Want to see what the fuck I’m dealing with.”
“Do that,” Sweetie snarls, “and you both lose a fucking eye. Move away from her,” she barks at Rae. “Don’t want you two close enough to cuddle, for fuck’s sake.”
The swish of Rae's knees as she obeys, followed by heavy footfalls from Sweetie, before I catch the rip of zip-ties applied to my best friend. "How long?" I ask.
“I’m sure you can work that out,” Sweetie sasses.
I can, but I don’t want to believe it. I often thought of our lifer as a surrogate mother in those years after the witch left. Shit—the woman bought me my first pack of tampons. “Why, then?”
“You know well as I do that the club ain't no place for a woman, least of all a woman without a man. Got to get ahead any way I can now that he's gone."
“Who’s gone? Your old man?” Rae asks. “Is that why you don’t have a name on your back?”
“Jesus,” the older woman drawls. “You ain’t the brightest fucking crayon in the pack, are you? No wonder the men went straight for you. Bet you believe all the bullshit they tell you, huh?” She mutters more to herself, moving toward the door, “Naive little bitch.”
“Fuck you.” I snap my head in her direction, glaring at the traitorous slut through the blindfold. “Don’t you dare.”
“Dare what?” she snaps. “Call her what she is? Bitch walks in here on your coattails and within weeks has herself not just one Connell man, but two.”
"Bet that ripped your saggin' panties right in two, huh?" I grin. "How many years you have been tryin' to get into my daddy's bed, huh?"
“Wouldn’t you love to know?” She chuckles. “He sure didn’t mind when I sucked his fuckin’ dick, but there ain’t no place for a woman in his bed. Oh no. Kept that bitch seat sacrosanct too. Turns out I was just too old for him, huh? Prefers his pussy barely out of nappies.”
A heavy breath eases from Rae, the hint of a growl at the edges.
“Sure gonna win his favor now,” I quip. “Dumb cunt.”
The strike sends me sprawling onto my left shoulder, head pulsing with the impact. Not that I have time to wah about it when she takes a fistful of my knotted ponytail and hauls me to my ass.
"Should cut your fucking throat right here, right now," she snarls, spittle hitting the shell of my ear. "Nobody needs you anymore. Not now that I have the golden goose over there."
“Can’t get my daddy,” I say. “So, you try for the next best thing—my uncle, huh?"
She releases me with a shove. I get back to my knees, taking the opportunity to move closer to Rae.
“What the fuck do you want out of this?” my best friend asks. “Why turn your back on the people who’ve been there for you through thick and thin?” When Sweetie doesn’t bite, Rae continues. “Because that’s what the patches on your back mean, right? Your old man left, died, whatever, and the club kept you on. Made your their property so that you can live under their roof, under their protection, all without having to whore yourself out like the lesser girls, right?" She's so accurate that it hurts. "And this is how you say thank you for that."
“Thank you?” Sweetie hacks a laugh. “For being a goddamn slave to their needs and whims? I may have a roof over my head, but I don’t have freedom. I’m tied down by their rules. Their archaic, misogynistic rules.”
“Then hand in your patch and leave,” I say. “Nobody’s stopping you.”
"I'm fifty-two years old, Maddie." The hurt is apparent in her words. "I'm too old to start over, to get myself a house, a career… a man." She sighs; the scrape of the chair legs tells me she collapses onto the seat. "I'm fucking stuck in this world, and you girls will be too if you don't get out now."
“They’re my family,” I state. “There is no getting out. They are where I belong. What I am.”
"And how about you?" she asks Rae. "Can't tell me you don't have doubts in that head of yours. Otherwise, we wouldn't be here now."
The pause places a fist around my heart. "It's natural to have doubts," Rae says carefully. "Everybody is afraid of something, and for a few of us—you included, it seems—being unloved is one of those things."
Sweetie snorts. "I don't want to be loved. I'm too old for that shit. I want to be seen .”
“And the club did that.” What is her fucking issue?
"As chattel," she snipes. "Sure. Ain't nobody in that place care about a woman's humanity, I can tell you that. We're a warm place to stick their dick and somebody to put a warm meal in their belly. That's all."
“Maybe for you.” My heart hurts a little for her. She genuinely believes the things she says because she lived it—once. “Things are different since Daddy became President. You know that. The life you talk about is what it was when Granddaddy was in charge. That time’s passed, Sweetie.”
The silence stretches on, our breaths the only sound in the barren room.
"Making a friend out of me won't change anything," Sweetie finally says, rising from her seat given the changing cadence of her voice. "Fox already knows she's here."
“There’s still time,” I urge.
“Not for me.” The woman sighs before her footfalls exit the room, the front door slamming in her wake.
There’s no crunch of gravel, which means she must be on the porch. No doubt sucking back on a cigarette to ease her nerves. Within earshot if the walls are thin enough.
“You’ve got eyes still,” I whisper to Rae. “We got a way out of here?”
She exhales. “Maybe. But it’s a long run across open farmland to get help, Maddie.”
“You got your phone on you?”
“It’s in the truck.”
"Has Turnip put the app on your phone yet?"
She hesitates. “Considering I don’t know what app you mean, I’m going to say no.”
Shit. There goes the hope of Daddy tracking her location. "We gotta get out of this Rae."
"I know." Slight scuffs sound from her. "How far away do you think Fox is?"
"If he's at home, we've got at least fifteen minutes before he arrives." I twist my lips. "But Sweetie's probably smoking, so we'll have minutes at best before she’s back on us."
Rae huffs. "We could take her down one-handed. It's the gun I have an issue with."
“She’s a dead shot, too,” I admit. “Fuck.”
“Can’t hide near the door to ambush her because she’ll see we’re not kneeling here the second she comes inside.” Rae pauses to think it over. “We’ve got to run, Mads, and hope for the best.”
“Can’t do that until you get this fucking blindfold off me.”
She heaves a sigh and then rustles around beside me. I startle a little when her fingers brush my face, clumsy and awkward, considering they'll be behind her back. Rae catches a stray lock of my hair, tugging it with the material, but she manages to get the fabric off my eyes and over my jaw.
I jerk my head around, coaxing the material down to my neck, and take stock of the room we're in.
“What do you think?” Rae asks. “We got a way out of this? Sweetie’s just there.” She nods to the left of the boarded window. “I can see her shadow in the slip of light coming through.”
My gaze locks on my best friend, stoic and calculating. It dawns on me that she hasn't broken down. No eruption of emotion at finding me alive and relatively well. No panic at where we are.
Just the cool, calm exterior of a person whose mind works at lightning speed to figure out the problem presented to them.
“I’m fucking glad you’re here, bitch,” I tease.
She smiles, lop-sided and unsure. “Could be better circumstances.”
“Ain’t that the truth.” I heave to my feet with a stifled groan and tiptoe around the room to get my bearing better now I’ve got my sight back. “Fuck, I hope he’s not bringing Ronan with him.”
The windows above the kitchen sink are clear—no boards blocking our escape. Likely why I could pick the changing hues of the day. But they're hard to get to with my hands bound how they are, and the small square panes mean we’d have too much timber to contend with should we smash them out.
“Ronan?”
No quick escape, at least.
"Yeah," I keep assessing, moving through the room. "He helped Fox get me here." I give the back door another test—just to be sure—and find it still locked. Same as last night. "We have to get past her," I say with a sigh. "Everything else is either boarded up or locked." Fucking bastard did a good job. Shit. What if this is it? What if he takes Rae and delivers her to Terry?
I sweep back into the room where she's stood near the window, peering through the thin gap between the board and the panes. The colors on her back catch my attention, the rockers stating that she's the official property of my father and uncle.
A strange pang of jealousy twists in my gut at the loss of attention from two of my favorite men. But it’s laced with a deep-set pride that swells my heart.
They’ll be good for her. And she for them.
She's found a home with us, and I love that for her.
Rae's lips roll, and she drops her chin, frowning deeply—unaware that I watch her like a creep.
“What is it?” Are they fucking here already?
"Nothing." Rae moves back to the middle of the room and drops to her knees, the same as Sweetie left us.
I don’t buy her lie one second. “Spill the shit that’s on your brain, girl.” I need her focused, not spiraling into doubt and fear.
“I feel like a fucking idiot for letting her lead me here.” Her broken tones near gut me.
"Rae." I wait until she meets my eye before I stress, "I grew up with the woman, and I didn't see it coming. Don't beat yourself up over it."
"Your Dad's gonna be so pissed." Her lips curl into a vulnerable smile, shoulders rolling. "Is it wrong that I can't wait to see what he does to her?"
I glance at where the woman waits for my uncle as though she’s visible through the wall. "Ain't wrong, Rae. It's Fox that I'm most curious about. What the fuck's Daddy gonna do to him?" He couldn't stomach giving him the full punishment when Fox was booted from the club, being family and all.
Will this time be any different?
"Guess we won't find out what he does about either unless we get out of this shithole, right?" Rae rises to her feet with a groan and assesses the doorway, then the kitchen. "Was there a back door through there?"
“Locked.” Same as every other door. “I walked this place, blind, last night. All the external doors are locked. At least, I think they were all external. I only had the mud map in my head to go off.”
I squint against the board and glimpse smoke puffing from Sweetie's direction. "We doing this bound? Or are we trying to get free of these fucking things first?" I turn to face Rae and jerk my shoulders to gesture to my restricted hands. "I got a plan, but it'll go a hell of a lot better if I can use my hands."
Rae smirks, pulling her arms around herself to show her unencumbered wrists. “One step ahead of you, buddy.”
"What the fuck?" I flick my gaze between her hands and face as she moves for me. "How the fuck'd you do that?"
“I’ll show you.” She huffs a little laugh. “I’m just glad it worked, considering it’s the first time I’ve done it.”
I stare at the dark horse, eyes wide. Who is this woman, and what the fuck did she do with my helpless Rae?
She smiles broader and shrugs one shoulder as she works my binds. “Had to find the silver lining in that shit with Connor, right? If it weren’t for him restraining me the same way, I wouldn’t have looked up how to get out of them in case he did it again.”
Motherfucker.
My girl’s getting stronger.
And I couldn’t be more proud.