Vindication: A Motorcycle Club Romance (49 page)

When
I was with Iris, I felt invincible. Like nothing could ever go wrong.

Looking
back on it, that kind of idiotic thinking was probably what jinxed us.

~
THIRTEEN ~

Iris

I was still reeling from getting
fucked in half sideways when my phone began to ring. I totally wasn’t ready for
it, either. I was sure I couldn’t stand, let alone try to talk to someone.
Besides, it was probably my dad, and he was the last person I wanted to talk to
with Slade’s cum dripping out of me.

He’d left the bathroom door open and
I peeked in from my position on the bed, watching him wash himself behind the
glass shower door. There was only my stuff in there, so I knew he’d come out
smelling like me, which didn’t bother me one bit. It felt like I was staking a
claim to him, in some way.

My phone was ringing again. Shit.
Whoever it was, they were awfully persistent.

I picked my phone up off of my
nightstand, pushing my wild hair out of my eyes and squinting at the number. My
jaw sagged. Holy shit. It was Kellan.

I sat straight up in bed, all the
leadenness lost from my limbs, that pleasant spinning sensation dissipating
from my brain, and picked up the call, thankful he hadn’t quit after the first
time around.

“Kellan! Jesus Christ, where have you
been? Are you okay? Are you hurt? Do you need me to come pick you up?”

Kellan laughed. It was a harsh,
choking sound. He sounded like he’d been smoking since he was three, and not at
all like the boy I’d grown up with—my baby brother. “Shit, sis, no. I’m good.
Just wanted to call and say what’s up.”

I wrinkled my nose. “‘What’s up?’ Uh,
what’s up is that you left home almost two weeks ago and nobody’s seen you
since. That’s ‘what’s up.’” Then I stopped myself. Yelling at him would just
make him hang up. I couldn’t let him do that, especially not before I’d told
him that everything our stepdad had said about Slade was wrong. “Listen, I have
something I need to tell you…”

“I got something to say, too,” Kellan
told me, but then didn’t say anything, so I cut him off.

“What Dad told you about Slade—about
me and Slade—it wasn’t true, Kellan. What we did was consensual. I know it
sounds weird, but… we were in love.”
Kinda,
I added inwardly.
One of
us was…

“I wanted to say I’m sorry,” Kellan
said, as though I hadn’t even spoken at all. He sounded bleary, like he was
just waking up, or like he hadn’t slept in days. He probably hadn’t, knowing
him. “I’m sorry for everything. For all the times I ran away. For failing you
and our family. I suck, Iris. I just… suck. There’s no getting around it. I’m
useless and… and you’re all better off without me.”

I frowned. “Jesus, Kellan, that’s not
true.” My stomach felt sick. What the hell was he talking about? Where was all
this coming from? “We love you. We just want you to come back home.”

“You remember when we were kids,
Iris? How we used to talk about growing up, and what we were gonna be, and we
were both gonna be, like… really awesome? Well, only you turned out that way.
I’m not awesome. I’m not awesome at all.”

Kellan cursed. It sounded like he’d
stumbled over something, or maybe a lot of somethings, because the noise echoed
for what seemed like forever. “Where the hell are you, Kellan?” I asked him.
“Please tell me you’re not in that crackhouse.”

“It’s not a crackhouse,” he
protested. “I don’t do crack, Iris. Is that what you think? You think I’m a
crackhead now? Maybe I should be. Already fucked up so much that, hey, might as
well…”

“Just tell me where you are,” I
repeated, anxiety grasping my chest tighter with each passing moment. “I’ll
come get you. We’ll talk about how much you suck in the car. It’ll be fun.”

“I’m with friends,” he muttered, then
groaned like he was lying down. “But not for long. Soon I’ll be far away, and
nobody will have to worry about me then, because I’m leaving, Iris. For good.”
He laughed bitterly. “Hey, just like Dad did, right? Dear old Dad. Pops. The
absentee father. How long did we play hide and seek with him? You can come out
now, Dad! Shit, how many years…”

I heard Slade shut the water off. “So
you
are
at that crackhouse—or whatever, right? You’re there with those
guys you hang around with?”

“I’m nowhere,” Kellan mumbled.
“Nowhere and no one. See you around, sis. I love you. Be good, okay? Be good
for Mom.”

“Kellan, wait—” I began, but he had
already hung up. I tried calling him back, but his phone went straight to voice
mail.

“Fuck!” I hissed, slamming my cell
phone down onto the bed and burying my face in my hands. What the hell was
wrong with him? Why was he doing this to me? Why was he putting our family
through this shit? He had to be strung out. There was no other explanation for
it. He hadn’t even been listening when I’d told him about Slade. The only way
Kellan was ever going to come to terms with what I had to say—or hear it at
all—was if he was sober. I fell back onto my pillow and groaned as I realized
Slade and I were going to have to go to that damn crackhouse.

I heard the bathroom door open and
looked over to see Slade, still damp and with a towel wreathed around his
narrow waist. He grinned as he looked me over—I’d thrown the covers off and my
breasts were exposed, not to mention it was a little chilly in here.

“Now
that’s
what I like to
see,” he murmured, letting his towel drop. I sat up as he climbed onto the bed
beside me, snaking his hand up to cup one of my breasts, but he stopped when he
saw the look in my eyes. I thought I saw a flash of fear cross his face.
“You’re having regrets again, aren’t you?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head so hard
I thought my brains would come spilling out my ears. “No, it isn’t that. At
all. I just got a call from Kellan. He sounded… weird.”

“Kellan’s a junkie,” Slade said, as
if that was the only explanation my statement warranted. When I shot him
another, more withering look, he shrugged. “Okay. Weird how?”

“Well, you’re right. He was high. He
must have been. Or he was coming down. Either way, he was babbling about being
a failure.” I was reminded instantly of Slade’s confession the previous night.
“I think he’s feeling pretty guilty. He said…” My throat tightened. “He said he
wasn’t coming home this time, Slade.”

Slade frowned. He released my breast
and sat up straighter, his brow furrowed pensively. “What
exactly
did he
say, Iris?”

His tone worried me even more than I
already was. Fuck, my nerves were frayed. “He talked about our childhood some,
how Dad left. Then he said he was sorry for being a fuck-up and that he was
going to stay away for good this time. That he was no one, and we were all
better off without him.” I cocked an eyebrow at him. “Almost sounds familiar,
doesn’t it?”

Slade didn’t answer. His brows had
knit together, casting shadows over his eyes. “What is it?” I asked him.

“We’ve got to go find Kellan,” he
said, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and searching for his boxer
briefs. “Right now. You said you knew where he was, right? Or at least, you
thought you did?”

Dread slithered through my veins, icy
and heart-stopping. I felt like my stomach had fallen out at my feet—like I was
plunging into the Arctic Ocean from a great and terrible height. “Slade, talk
to me. What’s going on?”

“Those things Kellan said,” he
answered, pulling up his jeans, “I’ve heard them before, from junkies, from
straight-edge guys, hell, even from new moms with the ‘baby blues.’ It never
ends well.” When I just stared at him, he pressed his lips into a grim line. “I
don’t mean to scare you, Iris, but that’s the kind of shit people say when
they’re gearing up to kill themselves.”

My head spun. Slade might as well
have punched me right in the gut. “No… no, that’s not possible. Kellan wouldn’t
do that to us. To me. He…”

Slade strode to my side of the bed
and grabbed my hands, yanking me to my feet. As I looked up at him through my
tangled hair, he cupped my face and said, “He’s in pain, and he’s stubborn, and
he’s stupid, and I’ve seen it too many times. I’ve seen it go right, I’ve seen
it go wrong, and no matter the case, I end up talking to some grief-stricken
family who just lost one of the most precious souls they’ve ever known. So we
need to find your brother, Iris.
Now.”

Oh, God. Slade was right. In my
heart, I knew he was. I pulled away from him and grabbed my clothes, my hands
shaking, my stomach lurching so hard I thought I would be sick. All I could see
was Kellan’s face, his sweet eyes, his dumb, lopsided smile. Only this time,
when I conjured his image in my mind, he was lying on a gurney in the county
morgue.

~
FOURTEEN ~

Slade

“You
shouldn’t be going in there with me,” I told Iris as we sped toward Hawthorne
Grove in my new rental car. I paid very little attention to traffic laws as we
went, blowing through stops signs whenever I thought I could get away with it.
I wasn’t about to let some stupid traffic cop stop me from saving the only
brother I had. “These junkies aren’t afraid to hurt people. One of them pulled
a knife the last time I was there.”

“I’ll
be fine, Slade,” Iris said, rolling her eyes. She dug into her purse and pulled
out an oddly shaped black rectangle. With a pointed glare in my direction, she
pressed down on a button on the box’s side, and a crackling arc erupted between
two prongs at one of the taser’s ends. Then she shrugged. “Dad gave it to me
when I went to college.”

I
started to protest again, but knew my concerns would only fall on deaf ears. If
Iris planned on going in there with me, then there was nothing I could do to
stop her. Admittedly, that stubbornness of hers only served to turn me on.

“So,
what’re you supposed to defend yourself with if things get bad?” she asked,
throwing a skeptical side-eye my way. “You don’t look like you brought a gun,
or even a knife.”

“I
took boxing in college,” I said, trying to brush the subject off.

“Well
I’m sure they’ll be very intimidated with your Harvard boxing cred,” she said,
shaking her head with a wry smile.

“When
you put it like that, sure, it sounds stupid,” I shot back, trying to defend my
pride. “Don’t worry about me, okay? I’ve been in more than a few fights.”

“Whatever
you say,” Iris replied, clicking down on the taser’s button to drive the point
home. Truth be told, between her and a junkie, I had my money on Iris.

The
two of us pulled into the familiar driveway of 204 Baxter Street, where only a
few days ago, Kellan had been hiding out with God knows how many other
strung-out junkies for company. We hoped that Kellan had decided that this
place was as good as any to commit suicide—we could only pray that we had
gotten here in time.

“It’s
dark as hell in there,” I said, putting the car in park and switching off my
headlights. “I have no clue just how many there are, but I know we’re
definitely outnumbered. Keep your taser stowed until you need it. We don’t need
some twitchy meth-head jumping the gun and getting you hurt.”

“Works
for me,” Iris said as she pushed open the passenger side door and stepped out.
“I just hope Kellan’s still here.”

The
inside of the foreclosure was exactly how I’d left it before, only with
slightly more trash and a much stronger smell of shit and piss. All that had
really changed since the other day was the arrangement of all the addicts, some
of whom were much more alert than they had been last time I’d stopped by.

“Kellan?”
Iris called, looking around the room desperately in hopes of seeing if any of
the sprawled out men on the floor looked like her brother. “Kellan where are
you?”

“Kellan!”
I called, my voice much louder than Iris’, startling a few more junkies awake
from their drug-induced stupor.

From
a corner of the room, I heard a high, nervous laugh that didn’t sound anything
at all like our brother. I turned my gaze toward the sound, finding a thin,
scraggly looking man sitting on a mat with a pipe in his hand. He was staring
right at me.

“Your
friend Kellan’s not here anymore, pretty boy,” the junkie said, his hyena-like
laugh permeating every syllable. “He left a
long
time ago, said he had
somewhere really special to be.”

“Where
did he go?” I asked, drawing myself up as much as possible. “Tell me, or I’m
going to make your life hell.”

“I
don’t think I will,” the junkie laughed again, biting down on his lip as he
bounced in a kind of manic excitement. “And you ain’t so tough that you can
take us all down. Only reason we let you slide on by is because you and our boy
Kellan were tight…
once
—but now Kellan ain’t here, is he?”

“Slade!
Watch out!” Iris called, but it was too late. I felt something hard come down
on the back of my neck, nearly dropping me right to my knees. Everything seemed
to close in for a moment, the edges of my vision darkening as my world started
to shrink.

Pull
yourself together
, I thought, trying to
push through the oncoming blackout and get back onto my feet.

I
heard the sound of garbage rustling behind me, as threatening as a
rattlesnake’s tail, as someone moved for another hit. I ducked to the side and
narrowly missed another strike from the wooden baseball bat that had struck me
before. I moved quickly, grabbing the bat and yanking it out of the addict’s
grip while shoving the butt of it up into his stomach.

The
junkie let out a strangled cry as he fell onto his side, grabbing at his gut. I
got up as fast as I could, taking the bat and using it to swing into the side
of another junkie that ran toward me, this one with a piece of broken glass in
hand.

Behind
me I heard the crackling sounds of Iris’s taser, followed shortly after by the
shrill squeal of yet another one of the addicts. I turned toward her, making
sure that she wasn’t in too much trouble before I heard more garbage moving
next to me, signaling another attack.

I
turned my head to get a look at my attacker, only to find a scrawny fist
sailing right toward my eye.

I
snarled, dropping my bat out of reflex as I stumbled back a step. For a bunch
of scrawny bastards, they sure could throw a punch. I’d seen more than my share
of junkies “hulking out” in the ER, but I’d never had to deal with being on the
receiving end of it. It wasn’t fun. Suddenly, I didn’t envy EMS one bit.

When
I could finally see which of them had hit me, I recognized him immediately as
the hyena-looking bastard who’d taunted me before. The only thing that came to
my mind as I stared into his gleeful, beady eyes was that this bastard knew
exactly where Kellan was.

All
the while, I heard the sounds of Iris’ taser and screams from another two of
the junkies.

“Hey!”
I shouted, a loud, barking sound that made the hyena man jump and turn toward
me. “Where’s my brother, you piece of shit?”

I
advanced toward him, my fists up and ready to go at him, only to watch the
scrawny bastard collapse in on himself, falling to the floor, his hands over
his head in a pathetic attempt to stave off whatever assault I intended to deal
out on him. It was almost comical.

It
took me a moment to realize how quiet the room had gotten all of a sudden. I
glanced over my shoulder, hoping to God that Iris hadn’t gotten herself hurt
too bad.

“Iris?”
I called, kneeling down to pick up the baseball bat I’d dropped moments before.
“Are you all right?”

For
a moment there was only silence, the sounds of the still-sleeping junkies and
groaning addicts that had made the mistake of trying to take me on the only
aberrations in an otherwise quiet room. My heart skipped a beat and my stomach
clenched as I waited with bated breath for some kind of sign from her.

“I’m
fine,” she called at last, the sound of garbage and refuse being kicked aside
reaching me from the entryway. I breathed a sigh of relief as I saw her come to
my side. “I almost got ran out the door. But I’m all right. I was just a little
out of breath.”

Aside
from her clothes and hair being a little ruffled, the only sign that Iris had
been in any trouble was a nasty-looking cut on her otherwise perfect cheek. I
winced as I saw it, drawing her gaze away from the junkie on the floor.

“It’s
fine,” she said, shrugging. “You should see the other guy.”

The
two of us turned our attention back to our only remaining source of
information. I knelt down and grabbed the scrawny piece of crap by the scruff
of his shirt and lifted his underweight body into the air before pushing him up
against a peeling wall.

“I
asked you a question before,” I growled, putting his face level with mine.
“Where is
Kellan?”

“Okay!
Okay!” he squeaked, flailing like a panicked mouse. “He said he wanted to go to
that old nursing home—the one where they kept all the sick people who was about
to kick it.”

“A
hospice center?” I asked.

“Yeah!
Yeah!” the junkie said, his manic excitement returning alongside his desperate
desire not to be hurt. “The old one that they don’t put people in no more. He
said that he wanted to go there for some special reason. Said it was
meaningful, or some shit. Anyway, here’s there.”

“You
know it?” I asked, turning to Iris. “I don’t remember any abandoned hospice
centers nearby.”

The
look on Iris’ face was a haunted one, as though the very thought of the place
was enough to strike a nerve in a deep part of her psyche.

“Yeah,”
she said after a moment of silence. “I’ve been there once, but I never thought
I’d ever have to go there again.” She looked up at me. “Come on. Let’s go. And
after that blow you took to the head, I think I’ll drive.”

“Fair
enough,” I muttered, rubbing the knot forming on my skull, “but that cheek
needs tending to as well. You drive, and I’ll patch you up—I saw a First Aid
kit in the glove box of the rental.”

Iris
grabbed my hand as we navigated the human debris field together. “Deal,” she
said.