Burn (9 page)

             
He stepped onto a hard dirt road and went uphill until I saw a white pickup truck. He unlocked the doors, settled me into the passenger seat and fastened my seatbelt. He went to back away and then froze with his eyes lingering on my neck. His soft, warm fingers touched around my throat. I had begun to know Remy very well. I could read the look on his face. It was sorrow.

             
“You’re hurt,” he quietly said. I felt the heat of his breaths against my face.

             
He was shirtless, wearing only his jeans and shoes minus the socks. I really should have let him dress properly.
Oh, what a needy wench I’ve become.

             
“You are too,” I whispered.

             
There were bruises all over his tattooed chest and stomach, and splatters of blood around his elbows and arms.
Not his blood, Sara.

             
“This is nothin’, Birdy.”

             
He backed away and shut the door, walking over to the driver’s side. When he got in, he turned on the heater and started the car. A few seconds later we were driving… and I knew exactly where we were headed.

*****

Of course I’d never been inside the clubhouse. Growing up, kids would talk about it in whispers, making up horror stories that had me looking at the black building as if it was a haunted mansion.

             
“Once you’re in, you’ll never come out,” they’d say.

             
My wild imagination conjured up all kinds of scary scenes in my head. I thought of ghosts and monsters and victims screaming in agony, bound and tortured. Yeah, I was a pretty disturbed kid. It’s just the MC never stood for anything good. They were a symbol of fear and power. Not even the police fucked with them. Gosnells was like the Wild West, except our cowboys were bikies with a really nasty temper.

             
Then after the night at the swings with Remy, I’d become intrigued. You could only see the structure of the building when you were at the gates. Anywhere else and it was a ten foot tall wall staring back at you. Sometimes I’d stand just far enough, in the middle of the road and make out the rooftop. The silence in the middle of the road surrounding that area was ominous, further impressing my curiosity.

             
And now here we were, at the gates, with a camera staring directly at us. After Remy pressed a button and stared directly into the lens, the gates opened. We hadn’t said a word in forever, and the ride had been forty five minutes of tense silence. I’d looked at him often, seeking some kind of reassurance that everything would be alright. He offered none, and my dependency for him scarily continued to rise. What was my goddamn problem?

             
He parked the car in a parking lot beside the entrance of the clubhouse. Motorcycles were lined up in a neat row beside us along with a few high-end cars. We stepped out of the car and Remy took me by the hand, directing us to the entrance. The physical contact was the first since the bunker, and I felt myself pushing against his side for more of his touch. I had grown incredibly attached to him.

             
In the morning light, he looked worse than I realized. The bruises were massive, decorating his torso in shades of red. One had begun to form beneath his right eye, swelling it noticeably.

             
The entrance required a key card. He must have left it behind because he ended up banging harshly against the door with his fist. It took a few minutes of waiting before it opened. A tall, fat man with long grey-black hair and an equally long grey-black beard appeared, groggy eyed and irritated. The second his eyes fell on Remy, the frown he wore washed away.

             
“The fuck happened to you, Reap?” His voice was unique; the kind of creakiness that reminded me of rusty hinges. “Saw you pressin’ the button on the gate and now you’re standing here looking like a beaten hobo.”

             
“Shit went down bad, Barge. Get the men together
now
.” Remy’s words brooked no argument. The man immediately hurried away, and we followed inside.

             
I took in the large room as Remy steered me through. There was a massive bar in the corner, stools pushed away – some on their sides – and then a huge lounge area where several large couches sat in front of a massive television screen. There were two men passed out on one couch and a half naked woman asleep on the plush rug on the floor beside them.
Classy.
Alcohol bottles littered the area around them.

             
A pool table and several other round tables sat on the other side. Gambling chips and cards were crowded on the tables along with empty beer bottles and left-over foods. This entire room seemed to be the entertainment area, and it stunk badly of cigarettes and alcohol.

             
Once we were out of the room and into a wide corridor, we passed offices and closed rooms. Remy took me up a long staircase to a second level where more endless closed doors sat. I distinctly heard the muffled sounds of moaning and the creaking of a bed spring from a room. I looked at Remy from the corner of my eye. The sounds didn’t seem to faze him at all.

             
He opened the last door and took me in. The smell of his cologne hit me hard. We were in his bedroom and it was huge. There was nothing interesting about it, mind you, just the essentials of a man who went to his bedroom solely to sleep and change clothes.

             
“Get in bed, Birdy,” he said, nudging me to his king sized bed. “You need to get some rest after this morning.”

             
He went to let go of my hand but I held it tighter. I looked at him with fretful eyes and said, “You’re leaving me here, aren’t you?”

             
He stared back, taking in my anxiety with bunched brows and flattened lips. “Sit down, Sara.”

             
I noticed that he only ever said my name in serious moments. The rest of the time it was Birdy. I did as I was told and sat down on the edge of his bed. He kneeled down in front of me until we were face to face. There was conflict in those eyes.

             
“I let you down,” he started, eyeing my throat as he spoke. “I was meant to keep you safe in that bunker, not have you in the hands of a man that was going to strangle you to death.”

             
“But you stopped it. You saved me.”

             
“And had I not gotten out of that shower, I wouldn’t have. I don’t even fuckin’ know why I did either.” He shook his head bitterly. “If I’d even been a minute late—”

             
“But you weren’t,” I interrupted. “So what’s the point of ‘ifs’?”

             
“Point is there should never be ‘ifs’, Sara. I should have taken you here instead. At least here you’re under the protection of all the Jackals and not just me. I was being selfish. I wanted you for myself and I shouldn’t have. Really fuckin’ stupid of me.”

             
“The attack wasn’t your fault. Stop making it out to be. You weren’t responsible for what happened.”

             
Though he didn’t believe my words, he nodded. “Yeah, well, now it’s my responsibility to find out who did this to you. This means I need you in here. I need you to rest so I can go and talk with the boys. I gotta figure this shit out with ‘em. Understand?”

             
I didn’t respond. He took my hand and squeezed it tightly. “Birdy, I gotta go do this.”

             
“Then let me go, too. I don’t want to be alone.”

             
“You can’t. This shit’s club business. You gotta respect that now that you’re here.”

             
With a heavy heart and a burdened gulp, I eventually nodded. “Fine.”

             
“Okay. I’ll be back soon. That’s a promise.”

             
When he let go of my hand, he stood up straight and motioned me up the bed. I obliged, moving up to rest my head on the pillows. He grabbed the covers and threw them over me.

             
“Get some rest, Birdy.”

             
I watched him leave, thinking,
Why do I feel like I’m made of glass?
I was so damn scared. I stared about the room and tried my hardest to hear sounds from
anywhere
. Hell, I’d gladly listen to the people down the hall having sex if it meant escaping silence. Because silence meant being alone, and I couldn’t handle being alone anymore.

*****

Miraculously, I’d fallen asleep. No tears shed, either. Still numbed out by what happened, I was pleased to escape the shock of it. Only my chest was evoking emotions I was helpless against. I found I couldn’t stand the stillness around me. Couldn’t stand to hear myself breathe. It was like being in the bunker again. I needed Remy’s warmth because the repetitive images of blood in my head made me cold to the bone.

             
It was screams that woke me up. My palms were sweaty, my heart was racing… What the fuck was I going to wake up to this time? Fear gripped me as the door slammed open. I sat up, taken off guard by the bronze skinned brunette storming into the room with an anger that would put the Hulk to shame.

             
“You’re a fucking mistake!” she screeched, pointing her finger at me. “Everywhere you fucking go, you make a mess of shit! Now it’s my brother?! Do us a fucking favour and just die already! If you think you’re going to take another brother away from me, you fucking bitch, you’ve got another thing coming!”

             
“RITA!” The vehemence Remy’s voice startled me. He hurried into the room with the look of wrath on his face and went to grab her. She dodged him and took a few steps back, continuing to point at me while she turned and faced him.

             
“You didn’t bury our fucking brother because of
her
?! This bitch right here?! Why do you always put her first? Always! This fucking obsession has to stop! She’s bad for you, Remy! Joanne said it herself. She’s nothing but a horrible little bitch. Why do you think she wanted nothing to do with her?!”

             
“Shut the fuck up, Rita,” Remy retorted.

             
“No! If her own mother didn’t want her, why the fuck do you?! She’s going to ruin you, Remy—”

             
“SHUT THE FUCK UP, RITA!”
He grabbed her by the arm and dragged her roughly out of the room. Her screams were heard even long after she was out.

             
“She never wanted you, even when she got better! You were never going to be let back in!”

             
Remy slammed the door shut. Chaos continued to unfold out in the hallway for a few more minutes. Then other voices, of men telling her to “shut the fuck up” or they’d do it for her. I could tell she was being dragged away because the screams grew more distant with each passing second.

             
Remy had his back to me, facing the door still, taking in absurdly long breaths of air. He was no longer bare-chested and was wearing a white plain shirt that emphasized his tanned skin. When he finally turned to look at me, I saw remorse in those eyes.

             
“I’m sorry ‘bout my sister,” he apologized.

             
I shrugged passively. “Can’t be helped. I take it she found out about…”

             
He nodded. “Yeah, she was being the nosy bitch that she is.”

             
“Then she was obviously caring for you.”

             
He walked over and took a seat beside me. “She overreacts all the time, says things she doesn’t mean. Don’t take it to heart.”

             
I didn’t try to hide the scepticism in my face. I lifted a brow at him. “Come on, Remy. Stop bullshitting me. I trust you and want you to be honest with me. Without honesty, there’s nothing.”

             
He licked his lips red, and for a split second I was reminded of the one other man who did the same.

             
“What do you wanna know?” he carefully asked.

             
“She’s telling the truth, isn’t she? About my mother not wanting me.”

             
After a few painstaking seconds, he nodded. “Yeah.”

             
“Did she ever say why?”

             
He nodded again. “She… she said you reminded her of the bad in her life. That even after she got cleaned up, she still looked at you the same.”

             
I could no longer afford any more heartbreak. I didn’t want to feel anything at all. This was all business to me.
Find out the answers and deal with it.

             
“Why?” He knew why. He was skirting around this very masterfully.