Starla (The Ladies of Karnage Novella Series) (7 page)

“Give this to William.” He shoved the bag at me and I grabbed it, dropping it to the floor from its weight.

“Who are you?” I called out to him as he quickly made his way back down the stairs and disappeared. “Johanna!” I yelled toward the back, looking one more time for the man, but he was gone.

“Aye? What you need, love?” Johanna appeared with a box in her hand full of baby clothes. “What’s that?” She eyed down at the duffle bag that was resting on the floor at my feet.

“I don’t know. Some guy just showed up and said to give it to William. It’s too heavy. Help me get it up on the table.” She set down the box and made her way to me, eyeing the bag suspiciously as we lifted it onto the table.

“Do you think it’s some tools or something he’s been waiting for…” I unzipped one end of the bag and then let out a blood curdling scream. From the hole in the bag I could see Mulligan’s eyes staring up at me from his disembodied head. I grabbed for the counter and missed, collapsing onto the floor as Johanna rushed over to me. I felt like I couldn’t catch my breath as I gagged and wretched onto the floor.

“What the fuck?” Johanna looked around, “Are you ok?” She stared at me waiting for an answer
, but I couldn’t speak. Slowly she made her way to the duffle bag and opened the hole that I had unzipped. She jumped back away from the bag as if something had bit her and then ran to the door and screamed for William.

My heart was pounding in my chest as I gasped for breath, but with each breath I took in I could smell the sweet putrid smell of Mulligan’s decaying flesh. I felt like I was being smothered
and then suddenly something felt wrong. I could feel my back and stomach tightening and the pain that was now washing over me was worse than anything I had ever felt before. I was a little over two months away from my due date, but I had the strange sense to start pushing. I tried to stand from the floor, to get out, away from the body parts in the bag on the table in front of my, but I collapsed back down in pain.

I could feel something wet
under my dress and started screaming. The pain shot up my back and down into my legs. I looked down and below me was now a puddle of blood. “Johanna! Come help me! Johanna!” I screamed into the now vacant doorway. Something was wrong and I didn’t know what was happening to me or to our baby.

I heard the familiar rumble of the pack of motorcycles pulling into the yard and then heavy boots running up the wooden stairs outside. William came into the door, his face covered in panic as he ran to me. Johanna came in the door behind him and then Charon, Knox, and Jameson was last.
“Johanna, call Doc in here!” William shouted up to her as she stood frozen, staring down at the blood that was pooling around me. “Now, Johanna!” And she disappeared out the door once more.

Jameson made his way to my other side, “Baby, its ok. Just breathe. Just breathe, baby.”

I choked on a breath as the pain shot back through me and I let out another scream. “Something’s wrong,” I cried out, grasping Jameson’s hand as the tears started rolling down his face.

“Doc’s on his way, emergency is coming. Just try and take a deep breath. It’s gonna be ok,” he said, trying his best to keep his composure.

“It hurts so bad!” I screamed out, trying my hardest not to move.

“I know, I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere,” he reassured me as Doc came running through the door, his medical bag in hand.

He made his way over to me and knelt between my legs. “Everyone out,” he said, looking up at Knox, Rage, and Johanna. “And get that fucking bag out of this fucking room!” I could hear the scrambling of feet as the room began to spin. “She’s lost a lot of blood,” he said to William and Jameson “Starla, you gotta stay awake, love. I know it hurts. But you gotta stay awake.” I could feel Doc’s hands at my knees. “Jameson, she’s going to have to deliver today. She’s in labor.”

“But it’s too early,” I said, trying to find my voice as my body rang out in pain.

“I know, love. But we will get you fixed up.” I could feel hands and then pain, “She’s dilating already,” Doc said to Jameson and William. “Starla, I know you feel like you want to push, but you can’t do that right now. We have to get you to the hospital.”

I let out another scream as another contraction ripped through my body. “You remember the first night we met?” I could hear Jameson’s voice now and I tried to focus on it as hard as I could. “I pulled up in front of Ana’s and you came walking out, almost couldn’t breathe you were so beautiful.” I tried to take breaths as he spoke, doing my best to stay in a rhythm that would hold off the contractions. “That whole night I couldn’t keep my eyes off of you.” His voice was shaking now and I could hear the sadness in his voice as he looked down at me, scared of what was going to happen next. “Love you, baby. No matter what happens, I want you to know how much I love you.”

“I love you too, Jameson.” I tried looking up at him, searching desperately for the eyes that I loved so much, but the room went dark around me and I could no longer hold on.

The ambulance arrived shortly after and I was rushed to the hospital. I came too with a doctor and nurse scrambling around me to get my IV’s and monitors hooked up. William was on one side and Jameson on the other, both of their faces scared and over their leather pants were make shift scrubs. Every time I think back to that day, I can’t help but smile at the two bad ass bikers dawning seafoam green scrubs. Shortly after they got me stabilized I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy named James Allen MacDowell Jr., after his father.

He was tiny when we held him for the first time, and was quickly whisked away to have tests done to make sure he was going to be ok. They kept me in the hospital for a few days and then released me to go back home. I was pretty sure they were tired of all the bikers coming in and out to make sure that I was ok. Jameson stayed by my side the entire time, yelling at my nurses if I needed more pain medicine or if I needed something to eat. I cried when we had to leave James at the
hospital, but after another month and a half he was finally released to come home.

“Ok, son. You have to be good for your mum. Daddy has to go on a run this weekend, but I promise I’ll be back soon.” I could hear Jameson from inside of James’ room as I stood on the other side of the door smiling.

“What are you up to in here?” I pushed the door open as I brought the basket of laundry in to fold.

“Just asking him what kind of motorcycle he is wanting when he grows up,” Jameson said, smiling up at me as he held James in his arms, James sound asleep.

“I think he might need to get a little bigger first. He’s only seven weeks old, he can’t even hold up his own head,” I teased.

“I could get
a side car for him, he could ride with me everywhere,” Jameson joked as he stood from the rocker and placed James down in the crib that William had made us. “William will be by this evening to check on you.”

“He doesn’t have to do that. We will be fine,” I countered.

“Aye, but you know he likes coming to spend time with James. He doesn’t think Knox will ever have children.” Jameson wrapped his arms around my waist, I could feel his erection rubbing against my ass through his leather pants. “You wanna start on number two?”

“You’re insatiable,” I teased as I turned to him and he picked me up, wrapping my legs around his waist and carrying me off toward our room.

Eight months later we got married, in a beautiful little ceremony at the cottage. My parents had been able to fly in, and so did Joni and her new boy toy. As I said I do, I was already pregnant with our second child, another boy, who made it much easier on me when it came time to go in labor. Over the years we had weddings, including Johanna and Doc, and Ana and McGee, a lot of new faces, including a quiet girl named Quinn, but our James and William were the only babies. They were spoiled terribly by their aunts and uncles at the club. William took to Knox, following him around everywhere he went. If Knox wore a certain color shirt, William wanted one exactly the same.

William Sr.
loved the boys as if they were his own grandchildren, and he was very adamant about paying for my parents to fly in to visit them often. Which was nice for the boys, but it made it hard to come up with what the club was actually up to. Business was good and the talk of expansion became more and more prevalent. After the birth of our third son Charles, Charlie for short after my dad, it became more than talk. Retaliation from the IRA was happening more often than we were buying milk. Aside from Mulligan, we also lost two of our prospects and three members from the Dublin chapter to retaliations.

So a vote was made and it was unanimous that we would be heading to the States as a club.
We said our teary goodbyes and a few months later we were packed up and moving to Coker Creek, a sleepy little town in Tennessee. I was happy to be back home, but a part of me would always miss Ireland. My parents and sister were close to us now and they loved being able to spend time with the boys. The club got off to a rocky start, running into a local MC that had already been calling Tennessee home for quite a while. The guys tried their best to smooth things over with the local club, but there always seemed to be some kind of tension.

I watched as all the boys I once knew started growing into men. Men who were leading us into the right direction and making sound decisions and not just off the fly. Jameson and I had dropped the boys off with family and headed to Knox’s cabin when we ran into Butcher a
nd one of the club lays Chloe. She wasn’t my favorite, but I was an adult now and after spending a day wrangling three rowdy boys and their father, I didn’t have the energy to care. But later that night Knox and Rage arrived, both with beautiful women on their arms. I couldn’t help but blush in excitement for Knox and the fact that maybe he’d actually found a girl that would be around for a while.

I had known Knox long enough to know that he wasn’t into the random hook-ups. So when I saw him doting on Ani like he was, I knew that it was the real thing. I smile looking back, watching as Ani came into the room, flustered and blushing. She was the same girl I once was when I first came out of the hotel doors in Ireland and saw Jameson for the first time. Sometimes you just know when something is right. It doesn’t
always have to be love, it just has to be right and if it is, love will come later.

We all fight our battles, its part of living in the club life. You have to be strong enough to not let it get you down. If I had given in every time the shit got deep, I wouldn’t be standing where I am right now, surrounded by three beautiful children and a husband who has supported me in ways I could never have imagined.
The demons get us all. They aren’t prejudice, they don’t pick and choose, if you’re breathing, you’re fair game. But you have to look inside of you and figure out what kind of person you are. I stand here now, surrounded by my friends and family as one of our own lays in a casket in the next room. I have watched Ani every day for the past week, watching the demons eating away at her. She is carrying a weight on her shoulders that would break any other person. But I see that same fighting spirit in her eyes that are in my own. It’s going to be hard, and there will be times that she wants to give up, but we won’t let her. We will stand united with her as a family and help her through it until the end.

The day I was picked to do a report on Ireland, was the day that changed my life. I met the man I would love unt
il the day I die, became family to people I had never imagined I would be close with, I’ve held the hand of my husband when we thought we would lose our first born child, and laid some good people to rest, but having been through all that I know that there is nothing that this world can put me through that I can’t overcome. When you have good people by your side, people who will always pick you up when you fall down, you can make it through anything. And though these next few months may look dark, I know that if we stick together, we will find the light at the end of the tunnel.

“The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life.” – Richard Bach

Stay tuned for the upcoming release of the following Ladies of Karnage Novellas:

Starla

Johanna

LuLu

Quinn

Chloe

Kate

Also coming this Spring:

Tame Heart

Book Two of the Wild Heart series.