Kid: Cerberus MC Book 2

by Marie James

  I’m worried about her safety. I tell myself this over and over as she leaves the park and walks toward the long bridge on the far side of the park.

  I plan to keep my distance from her. The last thing she needs is some stranger confronting her about drug use on such an emotionally exhausting day. Plus, by the way she’s tripping over her own feet, she wouldn’t retain a word I say.

  I see her reach into her pocket again, pull something out, and stare down at it. I watch her shoulders slump, clearly frustrated with whatever it is she’s looking at. With her back to me, I don’t fully understand until she lowers her hand and a flash of orange falls from her grasp.

  The lidless pill bottle falls to the ground; the low thud more like a shotgun being discharged.

  My mind races as I quicken my step to grab the bottle from the ground. My normally steady hands shake slightly when I turn it over to read the label. Zolpidem? Sleeping pills? People don’t take sleeping pills to get high. Oxy. Hydro. Now that I would understand.

  Realization slams in my chest just as I look up to see her grasping the railing on the bridge. Her foot slides off the edge as if she doesn’t have the strength to lift it up high enough to get over the top, which is clearly her goal.

  “Hey,” I shout, hoping to get to her in time.

  I watch in horror as she somehow manages the strength she wasn’t showing a few seconds ago and begins to throw her leg over the railing. Jesus, right here in broad daylight, less than a quarter of a mile away from a benefit being held for her deceased fiancé this chick is going to kill herself.

  I wish I could say this is the first time I’ve been forced to intervene in a situation like this, but it’s not. War fucks people up pretty bad. I force the thought out of my head and focus all of my attention on getting to her before she can make the plunge.

  The height of the bridge isn’t enough to kill her, but the rushing water under the bridge from storms from the last couple of days combined with God knows how many pills she has in her system, won’t make for a successful outcome. Well, maybe successful in her eyes, but I’m not letting that shit happen today.

  I close the distance between us rather quickly and grab her around her waist. The action causes me to stumble back even though she feels as if she weighs next to nothing. We crash to the ground with me holding her close to my chest, cushioning her from the fall as best as I can.

  My heart is pounding, blood rushing through my veins. I look down at her half-lidded eyes.

  “Just let me die,” she whispers before her body goes limp in my trembling arms.

  Chapter 3

  I don’t know exactly where I am when I wake up, but without opening my eyes, I know where I’m not. I feel a tear roll down my cheek at the realization. I’ve been a failure all my life. Why should my suicide be any different?

  I continue to let the tears squeeze past my closed eyelids. I should be dead. That was the choice I made. I was willing to deal with the consequence. I’m not a religious person, but I know the Bible sees suicide as a mortal sin, casting me straight into Hell. Fire and brimstone don't seem as bad as facing the world without Alec. Eternal damnation would at least get me out of the shithole that is Farmington, New Mexico.

  Regaining more of my senses, I’m certain I’m in a hospital. I can smell disinfectant, the mattress I’m laying on feels like a board, and the fabric against my skin is harsh and scratchy.

  I can tell by the static in the air that someone is in the room with me, even though I’ve not heard a sound other than the rumble of distant traffic. I don’t want to open my eyes. I don’t want to look in the face of another person disappointed in me, or worse the disdain I’ve seen on too many faces in my life to count.

  “Hey,” I hear a gruff, unfamiliar voice say just before I feel fingers on my cheek sweeping hair away. “You awake?” he continues.

  I swallow roughly, wincing at the incredible soreness in my throat. I feel as if I’ve ingested a bucket of glass.

  “Where am I?” Even to my own ears I sound like a three pack a day smoker. I try to reach my hand up to clasp my throat, but a hand stops me.

  “Open your eyes,” the man insists.

  Why I obey, when all I want to do is crawl inside of myself, I’ll never know. Heavy eyelids keep me from opening them all the way, but I find myself staring into deep, dark brown eyes.

  “Take a drink,” he says, and I see him holding a small, plastic cup near my mouth. I take a sip, never taking my eyes off of him. The cool water soothes my injured throat for the seconds I’m drinking, but then the pain returns.

  I’ve never seen this man before, but somehow his beard, strong brow, and mesmerizing eyes give me a sense of familiarity.

  “More?” he asks softly placing the straw near my lips again.

  I drink, not wanting to refuse his kindness.

  A throat clearing from the other side of the room draws both of our attention. He stands from his crouched position near my head and stiffens. A quick glance at the door heats my blood near to the boiling point.

  I look back at him and for the first time notice the leather cut he’s wearing. A biker. I remember seeing lots of guys wearing them at the memorial. I close my eyes, suddenly recalling where I was before I ended up here. I sat alone in the park watching Alec’s parents from a distance, internalizing their hate as I downed pill after pill.

  The leather-clad stranger begins to walk away, and I grasp for him. He pats the top of my hand and winks at me before pulling away and stepping out of the room.

  “Well that didn’t take long,” my foster dad says coming closer to the bed. “Straight from the faggot to the criminal I see.”

  I look over at my foster mom, hoping she’ll say something. I know she won’t. Warren Stevens is as mean as a damn snake, and it’s clear his wife, Joan, learned not to cross him some time ago. She’s by no means nice, but she would never say such a hurtful thing, well, not in public at least.

  I cut my eyes back to Warren. “What are you doing here?” I don’t even try to hide the hate in my voice. Three years I’ve been forced to live with these people. Three years I’ve never felt more alone, even around a houseful of people.

  “What did you expect? You think the hospital is just going to release some kid after they had to pump her stomach?”

  I reach my hand up to my throat, realizing now why it hurt so much.

  “I’ll be eighteen in a month,” I sneer at him.

  “Don’t I know it! But you sure as shit ain’t eighteen now.”

  I turn my face away from them, unable to look at them any longer. This wasn’t how things were supposed to be. I was supposed to be dead. I didn’t swallow a bottle of pills for attention; that’s the last thing in this world that I want. I’ve always done my best to stay under the radar.

  “We need you to come home,” I hear Joan say.

  “You need a babysitter,” I say bluntly. “I haven’t stepped foot in your house other than to grab clothes in weeks.”

  “Well, I can’t have you running around town stirring up trouble,” Warren grunts. “The last thing I needed was to get a call that you’re in the damn hospital.”

  “I’m not going back there.” I cross my arms over my chest. I know it’s petulant and not very adult-like, even though just a few minutes ago, being near adulthood was the premise of my entire argument.

  “I’ll call your caseworker,” He says as if that’s enough to argue with.

  I smile. “Good. I’m sure she’d love to hear where I got the pills.” I cut my eyes to Joan. I watch her face lose color.

  “Big fucking deal,” he spits. “Foster kids steal shit all the time.”

  I chew the inside of my lip, pissed off.

  I raise an eyebrow at him. “Let’s not forget about the illegal grow house you have in the basement.”

  It’s Warren’s turn to go ghost white.

  “I have an idea. Why don’t you leave me the hell alone? Collect that check you get for me every mont
h and just leave it be. I age out next month anyway.” It sounds reasonable to me.

  Warren begins to regain his composure. “You little bitch.” He’s seething. I watch his chest heave up and down. He’s filthy as usual. His shirt is stained, and I’m certain he hasn’t bathed or bothered to shave in a week. It’s amazing the low standards the state has for foster candidates.

  I wish I could cower away from him. His face has gone from white to a bright shade of red. I wonder if this will be the time he finally snaps. He loves to yell, verbally degrade, and insult the foster kids in his home, but he’s never raised a hand or hit one of us. I always believed it was because bruises were harder to hide from the caseworker that came out often.

  Not mine, of course. I was lucky enough to get the laziest one of the bunch. She’ll call on my cell phone and get updates rather than getting her fat ass out of her office to actually see me for herself. I wonder, looking at him, if this will be the moment that he finally snaps.

  “You breathe a word about my basement…” he points his nasty finger near my face but leaves the threat open-ended.

  I see Joan tugging on his arm to try to get him to back off. The last thing they need is to get busted growing marijuana in a foster home. There’s a lot of crime and drugs coming in and out of Farmington. Marijuana is the least of the police’s worries when meth is taking over the town, but they wouldn’t be able to turn a blind eye to a home where the state is housing kids. At a minimum, their license would be pulled, and they’d be forced to get jobs. Actual work is like a death sentence for both of them.

  “Don’t bother coming back to the house to get any of your stuff,” Warren says as a parting blow.

  I watch, relieved, as they leave the room. I haven’t had anything of mine in that house in weeks. All of my belongings were at the apartment Alec and I shared; the apartment his parents will be cleaning out. I can kiss all my stuff goodbye, knowing they will throw it all in the dumpster.

  Chapter 4

  I, by no means, have any type of claim over that girl in the bed, but it took everything I had to walk out into the hall when her parents walked in. Where the fuck had they been? I’d been sitting with her for hours, which is not including the time it took to treat her before she got a room.

  Her dad looks beyond livid, and I can’t say I blame him. I’d be upset if I heard that my child just tried to off themself, too. I’m not sure anger would be my first emotion though.

  “Straight from the faggot to the criminal,” I hear him spit.

  What. The. Fuck?

  First off, it makes absolutely no sense, but who in the hell talks to their child that way when she’s clearly going through some rough shit?

  As they bark back and forth at each other, I’ve quickly come to the conclusion that she’s a foster kid. That’s the only thing that explains the talk of case managers and aging out of the system.

  Eighteen in a month. Almost legal.

  I slip my phone from my pocket and hit the internet app. She’s seventeen, which according to the internet is the age of consent for the state. I smile, but then see that there are other states in the US that have eighteen as the age of consent. Makes no fucking sense for there to be any difference.

  I know deep down that if it were a consistent age then more than likely it would be eighteen.

  I hang my head. What the fuck am I even thinking? This girl just lost her fiancé, and I’m on my damn phone trying to figure out how long it will be until I can fuck her without going to jail. Not to mention the simple fact that I’m attracted to an underage kid. I need to head upstairs to the damn psych department because clearly my head is fucked up.

  I smile when I hear her threaten him with reporting his basement grow house. He shuts up almost immediately after that. This chick has ammunition she’s not afraid to use.

  I was friends with several foster kids growing up. I didn’t form super close bonds with them because they move around a lot, but I’ve heard a few stories about just how bad some of these places can be. Before long, they know how to work the system. If a house isn’t where they want to be, or if the conditions are so bad they don’t want to stay, they just do shit to get them moved. They’ll commit crimes, destroy property, and even sometimes they’d hurt themselves. The families will file for an emergency removal, and they’d be shipped off to the next home, hoping it’s better than the last.

  I know nothing about the girl on the other side of the wall, but I’m concerned. She wants to be left alone, her fiancé has died, and clearly she has no family. All of these lead me to believe that her unsuccessful suicide attempt was just that, unsuccessful. The only thing standing in the way of her ultimate goal today was me.

  Grateful I was there is an understatement. The knowledge that if she wants to die, she’ll try again niggles in the back of my head. She has to find a reason to live. She needs to know there is always another path she can take when things get dismal and ugly. I only hope I can make her see the light at the end of the tunnel before the darkness takes her under for good.

  The foster parents finally leave her room, sneering at me like I’m the Devil himself as they walk by.

  “Deviant,” her coward of a foster dad says as he walks past. The grip he has on his wife’s arms looks painful, but that fucked up situation is the least of my worries.

  I wait a few minutes longer before turning back into the room. I want to make sure that asshole doesn’t come back and try to upset her again. I’ll be damned if I let him back into her room tonight.

  Satisfied that they’ve said their peace and heeded her threats, I darken the door of her room once again. I plaster my best smile on my face as I walk toward her bed. It’s not a hardship to smile when looking at her. I can see the anger in her eyes as she looks up at me. She’s even more adorable when she’s mad.

  Sitting in the twin-sized hospital bed, she looks almost like a pixie. She’s small, yet seductive with her hair all around her shoulders. Her frame may be petite, but her body looks nothing like a child. She’s stacked, and it makes me think of dynamite. The way she spoke to her foster parents, I’m sure, is only a hint at how feisty she can get.

  “Who the fuck are you?” She asks as I cross the room and stand at the end of her bed. Yep, this girl is going to be a handful.

  “Kid,” I answer.

  “I’m not a fucking kid,” she spits, already riled up and defensive about her age.

  I chuckle. This firecracker is going to be the death of me. “I go by Kid. It’s my road name.”

  She looks at me as if contemplating the situation. “Okay, Kid. Thanks for that little tidbit of information. But who the fuck are you? Why are you here?”

  I hold my hands out in offering and put a sexy smile on my face. “I’m your knight in shining armor, baby. Well,” I say looking down at my cut. “Leather.”

  She raises an eyebrow at me, clearly not impressed. I drop my hands and clear my throat. My confidence falters. That usually works on women. I’m not a complete asshole; I know some women aren’t attracted to me. I just figured they were older, married, or lesbian. I never considered for a second a woman would be looking at me like this girl is. She seems… indifferent.

  Evidently, my charm isn’t going to be the way to pull her from her deep, dark, depressed thoughts. The idea is unnerving because honestly, I had no plan B.

  “What’s your name?” I counter.

  She drops her chin to her chest and gives her head a small shake. I wait her out. “Khloe,” she finally manages.

  Her hair falls around her face, becoming a curtain for her to hide behind. I want nothing more than to go to her and pull it back, beg her not to hide from me. That would be weird, though. She probably wouldn’t be comfortable if I put my hands on her. I am a complete stranger after all. I held her hand the entire time she was asleep, but she doesn’t need to know that.

  My fingers tingle with the need to touch her again, even if it is just her incredibly tiny hand in mine.


  “That’s a pretty name,” I tell her, hoping she’ll lift her eyes to mine.

  She huffs, her hair blowing away from her face from the sudden gust of breath. Okay. Not impressed with my smile, doesn’t take compliments well. What other problems am I going to have with her?

  I walk around the end of her bed and sit back down in the chair I was occupying before she woke up.

  “I saw you in the park,” she says from behind her hair.

  My muscles tense. She was so out of it earlier, I had assumed she wouldn’t remember our intense eye lock.

  “I watched you for a long time,” I confess. “I saw you take a couple pills. It wasn’t until you stood up and staggered away that I realized you’d taken more than just a few.”

  “Not enough, apparently,” she says coldly.

  “I followed you,” I continue, ignoring her jab. “I saw you drop the empty pill bottle. I saw you climb up on the rail of the bridge.”

  I shake my head at the images that have been running through my head the last couple of hours, images I’m sure are going to be around for a while.

  “I pulled you off the edge,” I say.

  I give her a weak smile when she lifts her head to look at me. “You should’ve let me jump.”

  Chapter 5

  I watch his handsome face fall.

  I have no clue why he’s still here. I mean, I get why he pulled me from the ledge. I guess it’s what almost anyone would do if they saw someone about to jump, but I have no clue why he’s stuck around. He seems friendly enough, but the last thing I need is someone hanging around out of pity, or worse yet, obligation. Everyone leaves eventually anyway, so there’s no sense in investing one second of my time into him.

  He holds my gaze as if he’s trying to get a better read on me.

  What you see is what you get, is what I want to tell him. He’s looking for something though. A spark of life maybe? An ounce of care for my life? Keep looking, buddy. You won’t find that shit here.