Cease (Bayonet Scars Book 7) (2 page)

"It's Ian," is all she says, but it's enough. I scramble to get away from Tiny Dick, but he frantically grabs for my hair and pulls it hard, keeping me in place. Instead of helping or saying anything, Gem stands in the doorway, watching Tiny Dick slam into me, his portly body shaking in the process, as he rides out his orgasm. I should feel humiliated, disgusted with myself. Instead, all I can feel is fear. Gem wasn't all scratched up when I left Ian at the motel with her. She seemed fine, chill even, despite Ian's mood. Now she looks like she's been through hell and back. Even her once perfectly-applied makeup has taken a beating this evening. Thick black smudges surround her eyes, and her bright pink lipstick is worn off, though only halfway.

When Tiny Dick finally finishes, he pulls out and shoves me forward onto the floor. I land awkwardly, my shoulder hitting the wood floor first. I force myself to ignore the pain as I scramble into my jeans and top, totally ignoring my underwear and only grabbing my bra as an afterthought. As I dress, Gem tells me that she left Ian in the motel room by himself. That she didn't know what to do. That she was close to calling an ambulance.

"We leave at eight," Tiny Dick says as I rush out of the room and toward the motel as quickly as I can. I don't even stop for my shoes--a cheap pair of dollar sandals I bought at Goodwill in the last city we stayed in--and run out of the clubhouse barefoot. It's close to midnight, but thanks to record highs, the ground is still warm to the touch. I stumble just slightly as I step into the busy road but don't let myself fall. Correcting myself quickly, I dodge an oncoming motorcycle and run at full speed across the hot blacktop, over rocks and other sharp objects I can't see, through the motel parking lot, and up the stairs to our second-floor room.

I stop only when I'm at the open door. I should run in. I should ignore the desperate cries and the crashing sounds. But I can't. Ian's moods range from sweet and quiet to destructive and insane. He's been through hell, and he's not quite back yet. I can't blame him, but I know better than to barge in on him when he's losing his shit. The last time I got him to a doctor, they said he was tall for his age. That was a while ago, and it's been at least six months since I needed to get him back in. It's not easy finding a free clinic to check him out when we have no permanent address and my driver's license is from New York and has been expired for a year.

Slowly, I walk into the room and call out to my boy as I survey the damage. The two bedside lamps have been knocked over, one completely broken and the other just tipped. The Bible that sat in the bedside table is scattered around the room, the back and front half of the book on the floor near the TV, with the rest of the pages covering the floor and the bed. I notice the word
sin
scrawled in Ian's messy handwriting etched into the pages. And on the white walls. And even on the dresser, though it's hard to tell there since all he had handy was a black ballpoint. This is everything I fear but nothing surprising. Six months we've been doing this--cycling through one meltdown after another--and no matter what I do, it's never enough. One psychologist said my boy needs to be hospitalized, but we tried that and he only regressed. They wanted him to talk about his trauma, to explain in detail what happened to him. Fuck them and their bullshit. My boy won't talk about it, and I won't make him. It's bad enough he had to live through what that sick fuck did to him. They always want to know where his scars come from. I always want to ask which ones they're talking about--the ones they can see or the ones they can hear.

It's bad enough that I can't down enough Jack or take enough dick or do enough lines to block out the memories of that bastard touching my son. I won't make Ian talk it out with a goddamn stranger, even if it means we handle this on our own and in our own dysfunctional way.

I stop just before I reach the closed bathroom door and try to get Ian's attention again. He's still screaming, frantically, at the top of his lungs. His voice is hoarse, but he doesn't stop. He never does, not until he's good and ready. Knowing this could be a while, I take my place on the other side of the door and clear my throat. This is our routine--the only way he'll recognize me when he's like this. I start to sing. It's a stupid little song about bunnies in the forest, and I think its message is about not being a bully or some shit. I don't know, but when Ian was in kindergarten, he taught it to me, and he likes it when I sing it to him. In the last year he started telling me he likes the song because it's about getting back at someone. I don't think it is, but I let him believe what he wants, even if it is totally fucked for an eight-year-old to believe in vengeance. I should be teaching him better, I should be giving him more. I should be doing a lot of things, but instead, I just sit on that dingy motel carpet and scream-sing at the top of my lungs. Eventually Ian's voice falters and lowers, though he doesn't stop. I'm coughing through what I think might be the hundredth rendition of the song when Ian quiets and then stops. I lower my voice but keep singing. Tears sting at my eyes, but I hold them back when he opens the door and crawls out of the bathroom. His brown eyes are filled with tears, and he's got bright red, raised streaks across his cheeks and arms. My heart sinks at the sight, but I only bumble the words a little before I get back on track and force myself to keep singing. If I get too upset, he'll turn around and go back into the bathroom, and then it'll take another hour to get him out. This isn't about me--this is about a little boy who's scared and traumatized and doesn't know how to express any of it, so he just flips out and destroys everything, including himself.

When he's finally in my arms, I hold him tight against me, barely giving him room to breathe. Even when he pushes against me, I don't let him go. I just tell him what he needs to hear, never stopping until he takes a deep breath and drifts off to sleep.

"Clean, clean, clean," I chant as he dozes off as if saying the word will erase the sin he feels in his heart. Once his breathing has stabilized, I haul him into the bed and go about cleaning up the room. I get as much antiseptic on his scratches as I can, but he stirs too much, so I save that for the morning. When everything is as tidy as it's going to get, I crawl into the bed and wrap my body around my poor, broken little boy and cry as silently as I can so not to wake him.

"Tomorrow we leave for California. Things will be better there," I whisper through the sobs that rack my body. "It'll be better. It will. I promise."

CHAPTER 3

Jim

Fort Bragg, California

March 1997

My eyes scan the main room of the clubhouse, surveying the sea of leather crowded inside. There's a tightness in my chest with this many guys in here, and it doesn't help that more than half of them aren't even Forsaken. Fucking Arizona shows up with the whole goddamn charter in tow. These bastards need to learn that their dick size doesn't mean shit this far north. I have to tolerate them, though. Rage gets his prick hairs all knotted up if we start shit with other clubs for "no reason." Like having a bunch of orange, leathery-looking bitches up in my space isn't reason enough for shit to hit the fan.

"Don't like seeing this many strange fucks in my clubhouse." Sterling Grady, our newest patched member, walks up to me. His eyes slide from one side of the room to another, and the corner of his top lip is curled up in disgust. The kid is barely twenty years old with more brawn than brains and an attitude to match.

"
Your
clubhouse, Sterling?"

He doesn't take the bait--something he's never done before--and it leaves me on edge until I follow his gaze across the room. Chief, Grady's surrogate dad, who's really better aged to be an older brother figure, is staring him down and shaking his head. Only person who can give this prick any kind of perspective is Chief, and thank fuck for it, too. Otherwise I'd have choked him by now.

By Chief's side is his wife, Lona, who has an arm wrapped protectively around their daughter, Elle. Chief gives Lona a quick nod, mutters a few words, and sees them to the door. Right on their heels is my fucking kid. Ryan's just turned nine, and he's already hard up for Elle, who's just two years older than he is. I ignore the kid as he follows them out the door and decide to actually take care of shit so these assholes can get out of my clubhouse.

I'm in the middle of finalizing a deal with one of our visitors when Ryan runs back into the room shouting, "Dad! Dad! Dad!" at the top of his lungs. My entire body stiffens at the noise. As it is, Rage doesn't like having him around all the time. Don't know what he thinks I'm going to do with his grandson if I don't have him at the clubhouse, but whatever. It's called parenting, and it's not like I have Ryan's whore of a mother hanging around to make sure the kid eats and doesn't chop off a limb or something. Sensing Rage's agitation even from across the room, I stop what I'm doing and head toward my son. The moment he realizes I'm heading his way, he rushes back out the door. Fuck. The kid gets himself in more trouble than any other kid I know. At least when his friend Josh is around, my boy is less likely to do something to get his ass sent to juvie.

Once I'm outside, I find Ryan standing on the bench of one of the wooden picnic tables that sit between the clubhouse and the fence separating our private parking lot from the Forsaken Custom Cycle lot out in front. A woman stands in front of him, bouncing nervously from foot to foot, and she's got a kid hiding behind her. Ryan doesn't seem to notice or care about the kid. He's all smiles and attitude with the woman. I can see what he sees in her. She's short, but probably not so much for a woman, and she's got long reddish-brown hair that hangs over her shoulders in waves. Even from here, I can see the way her old, worn jeans cling to every curve. She's young but not young enough to cause me problems, so that's a good thing. Despite her small figure and slight curves, she's got a healthy set of tits that look like they're threatening to escape her faded and torn black tank top. The top hangs loose everywhere but her chest, and fuck me if it ain't a sight for sore eyes.

The mystery woman turns her head toward me and blinks rapidly, shock registering on her face before she composes herself and musters up a fake as fuck smile. I know that smile. Ryan's mom was a pro, so I recognize when I'm being played. I try not to let it get to me, but I fail miserably. When her big brown eyes land on mine, she doesn't let go. Latching on to me with her gaze, she stands a little straighter, forcing her tits to strain against the top even more than they were before.

My feet manage to carry me two steps closer to her before they falter, and I stand there in place. I'm so tired of the lost girls we have here. We've been needing fresh meat for a while now, and the way my dick is reacting to this new bitch is proof the situation is worse than I thought. In an attempt to force my dick to chill out, I drag my nails over the scruff on my face, trying to distract myself from how much I like the way this strange woman looks, but it doesn't work. Her eyes catch the move, and her mouth falls open slightly. I watch as her tongue peeks out before she tries to cover her reaction by dragging her teeth over her bottom lip and clearing her throat.

"Sorry for being back here. The kid, uh, Ryan, kind of dragged us," she says. Her voice is soft but purposefully so, with smoky, sultry undertones that I can fucking guarantee come out during sex.

"Dad, she's from Arizona!" Ryan shouts. I ignore him.

"Not a problem. You got a name, beautiful?"

"Ruby."

Fuck me. I even like her name. Within seconds, I'm at her side and staring my kid down like he's the competition. He still hasn't stopped talking even though she's barely listening.

"We always need hotties to clean up around here," Ryan says. My eyes widen and I redirect my attention to him. He doesn't look my way. Instead, he keeps focusing on Ruby. Is my kid . . .

He can't be doing what I think he's doing.

"Take the job, honey. I'm sure we can work out some form of . . . compensation . . . later." My nine-fucking-year-old son winks at Ruby like he's grown or some shit. Before I can stop myself, I reach out and grab my kid behind his neck and yank him off the bench. He hunches over and turns his face to me, giving me a downright dirty-looking glare. Little asshole.

"Shut up while you have the option," I bark loudly in his face. Fucking kid just stares back at me. Doesn't even blink or shriek back from how loud I'm being. Slowly, a shit-eating grin creeps to his lips. There's a twinkle in his eye that hasn't been there since the last time I busted him trying to light an M80.

"It's okay," she says quickly. Her body curves inward and her torso bends slightly toward my boy. Her eyes dart from me to him and back to me again. "I don't want any trouble. I'm just looking for a job, but if you're full up, it's fine."

"You got any skills?"

"I can clean, tend bar. I'll do whatever."

Somehow, by the grace of God or some shit, I manage to not ask her anything crude. I deserve a goddamn medal or something for it, too. The way she looks at me, all serious with a side of desperation, is like catnip for my dick or something.

"Clubhouse is filthy. Pay is shit. You'd be around a bunch of assholes all day."

I don't know a single thing about this woman, aside from her name, and I'm offering her a job. Rage would be taking a swing at me right now if he were out here. I could always sacrifice the kid to him when he finds out, since it was Ryan's idea after all.