by Hart, Eve R.
Iron called my name as if he knew I was right there.
A couple more shots rang out just before I vaulted over two slumped over bodies and busted into the room behind him.
The sight in front of me was something I knew I’d never forget.
I never imagined something so horrible in all my life.
As I raised my gun at the guy sprawled out already dead next to Claire, I couldn’t help but put a few more in him.
That was when I realized who it was.
Arnold Trewin.
Maybe if we’d moved a little bit faster, this wouldn’t have happened to her.
But there was no time to beat myself up about it now.
So I tucked my emotions away and went to the woman that was a bloody mess and whimpering on the floor.
Yeah.
My fucking heart broke then.
And I could hear Prez barking off orders, but I couldn’t comprehend any of them.
Because even though we’d been working long and hard to get Keften, nothing mattered to me more than getting to her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Claire
“Oh, you’re back,” Monty said in a bored tone.
“Yeah, I’ve been looking for you guys. This place is new,” I responded ignoring his asshole attitude.
I don’t know how I found them. I sort of just started checking places that seemed like the right fit for where they’d be and ended up here.
I found them in an old, abandoned building near dead row.
“Where’s Sketch?” I asked because I didn’t want to deal with Monty right now. I was tired. I’d been wandering around for days and since I was alone, I had to constantly look over my shoulder.
I only took naps during the day, finding spots that weren’t so hidden away in hopes that if someone did try to mess with me that there would be enough people around to maybe help stop it. But drifting off for twenty minutes at a time didn’t really leave me feeling recharged at all.
“He’s gone,” he said.
I stopped dead in my tracks. The little glimmer of happiness from finding them slipped away. I could hear the truth in his tone, that Sketch wasn’t just out for a little while. That he wasn’t going to get food or finding ways to get a few dollars.
Sketch was gone.
Like gone, gone.
“W-what?” I asked and the shock was clear as day in my voice.
“He’s fuckin’ gone.”
“Where?” I asked because I needed to know. I needed to find him.
“Don’t know. Don’t fuckin’ care.”
“But…” I said.
He said he’d always be here. He said I always had a home with him here. That no matter what, I could always come back.
I didn’t think I had any part of my heart left to break but hearing that proved that I was wrong.
My legs threatened to give out and I had a stinging in my eyes.
He was coming back, though, right? He had to.
But I felt the coldness seep in all the way through to my bones.
Sketch was gone.
Wherever he’d found himself, whatever he’d stepped into, he wasn’t coming back.
I could only hope that it was a better life than the one he’d had.
That he’d found a way to pull himself up and out of this not-so-great life.
Out of all of us, I thought he deserved it the most.
“You can stay if you want,” Monty said and as I turned my eyes to look at him, something hit me right away.
This was his kingdom now.
Only, I knew he wouldn’t take the throne the same way Sketch had.
Monty was selfish most of the time, only seeming to care about one thing other than himself. One person, really.
And like she’d heard me thinking about her, Vass floated into the room.
Damn.
She was almost unrecognizable.
She still had the same hair. Same eyes. Same perfectly shaped lips and tall, waifish body.
But there was a brokenness to it all. Like some of the life in her eyes had been snuffed out. And her smile wasn’t as bright as it had once been.
I feared to see what else had changed in my absence.
I started to wonder if this was even a home for me anymore.
“You can stay,” Monty said like he didn’t really give a fuck what I did. “Or you can go. But if you stay, no one will be taking care of you.”
He walked by me and out of the room. I was a little shocked to see Vass following behind him like a puppy. But whatever. It was her life.
I stood there for a long moment.
The world seemed to have turned upside down in a matter of months.
How long had I been gone?
I couldn’t even remember at this point.
I searched for Sketch, starting with the places that we’d stayed and moved out from there. I found nothing.
Sometimes, he left his drawings and sketches tucked away in one of the shipping containers even after we would leave. I figured if they were gone, then he must really be too. I’d heard that some new biker club had moved in and had taken over the old container wasteland. So even though I went in the dead of night and had my hood pulled over my head, I still got spooked at the first sound I heard. I ran off without any kind of answers. I didn’t know anything about this club and I sure as fuck didn’t want to.
The old man that ran the pizza shop in the middle of nowhere was my last stop. The last place I told myself that I’d look. After that, I was done because it would be clear that if I got nothing then Sketch was done with us and never coming back.
“You hungry, kid?” the old man asked as I lightly knocked on the back door. I was filthy and tired so I didn’t want to go in the front and scare his customers away. Not that he really had any.
“No,” I said softly and shook my head. I was, but that wasn’t the point of me coming here. “I’m looking for Sketch.”
The old man knew who I was talking about because he often let Sketch work for a few hours just to get some money or even some food. He also turned a blind eye when at the end of the night, some of his kitchen staff would throw together a few things and leave them out back for anyone that might need a little something to eat.
I didn’t really know him all that well, but in my mind, he was a pretty good guy for doing that.
“Come on. Let me get you a slice and I’ll tell you what I know.”
So he did, giving me something that could have easily equaled two slices.
As he talked, I realized that there was so much that Sketch kept hidden. I didn’t have the first clue why. It only left me with more questions than answers and I still didn’t have a clue where he went. I only got the feeling that he had found a way to climb himself out of the only life he’d really known.
I should have been happy for him.
I should have looked to him as an example and really pushed to find my own way.
But I just fell further down instead. All I could think about was how he was gone. How he’d left without even a word or clue.
He left me behind.
What the hell was that noise? It sounded like gravel popping under tires, only louder.
I shook off as much of my haziness as I could at the moment. As I opened my eyes, I still felt like I couldn’t see clearly.
There weren’t that many people in this room just a few minutes ago, were there?
No. I had to have been seeing double or something.
“Claire!”
Why did I recognize that voice?
It was there, in the back of my head but I just couldn’t place it.
“Claire,” it said again.
Male. It was definitely male. Raw. Young almost. A voice that somehow I sensed a playful edge to even though the tone was clearly laced with panic and anger.
“I’ll always be here.”
But he wouldn’t.
No, he left. He left me.
“Pull it together
,” another voice said. This one I didn’t know, I was sure of it. “Help B-ry.”
It held a sense of order and maybe even authority.
“Cable!” the voice called out again somewhere above me.
“Shit.”
That was someone else.
Why couldn’t I focus?
“Get this shit off of her!” the last voice roared. Something about it caused a warmth to spread through me like I somehow subconsciously knew that I was safe. “Motherfucker.”
The tape was ripped away from my lips and before I could blink, the fabric was pulled out of my dry mouth.
A scream ripped out of my throat. It was loud and unforgiving like it had been building up and waiting to be set free. It rang out, piercing my ears, and didn’t seem to stop until my throat felt so raw it gave out.
The weight fell away from my wrists.
I was free.
But not really.
I knew I’d never be free from the things I’d been through.
The nightmares that had been made in this room.
I’d never be free again.
“I’ve got you, Claire. They’ll never hurt you again.”
How did he know my name? I was sure I didn’t know his.
Strong arms slid under me and then I felt weightless as he lifted me up. A whimper escaped my lips as my head fell against his shoulder.
“It’s okay.”
I wanted to believe his words so badly. But I feared there was no okay after what had just happened to me. After all the poison that had been forced into my veins. After all the flesh that had been torn open. After all the girls I was helpless to save.
I didn’t have a clue where he was taking me but it wasn’t like I could form words right now to find out.
Moments later, he lowered himself down like he was sitting. His hold on me never eased and for some strange reason, I was fucking grateful for it.
“Every day is a fresh start, Every morn is the world made anew,” he whispered so low I wasn’t sure I really heard it.
That was the last thing I remembered before I finally gave into the dark silence.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Cable
You wanna know something fucked up?
As I sat there cradling Claire in the back of the SUV, I claimed her.
Yep.
I sat there and whispered words that I hoped would help her make it to welcome the next day. And then in my mind, I said she was mine.
It wasn’t even anywhere close to being right because she was so fucked up. But something in my heart pulled her in and closed up tight. Something in my soul let her leave a mark on me.
Maybe I was fucked up, too.
When I’d walked into that house, I hadn’t expected anything like this.
It was horrible enough to bring a man to tears. And I was sure that we would all be scarred by this night for a long time to come.
But we had him.
Keften was still alive and would soon receive everything he deserved.
My fucking God, what a mess.
I was still trying to process it all and I had a feeling I would be for a while.
Right now I couldn’t think about it. We had to get Claire and the other girls to the hospital. It was only a small ray of light that we’d managed to save them. Six, to be exact, if you counted Claire.
One of them looked as bad as Claire, maybe even worse. The girl clearly had been taking a beating for a while now and I feared that she might not make it. There wasn’t an inch of her skin that was normal looking. She was black and blue from head to toe and I couldn’t even begin to list off all the different marks on her body. It looked like she’d been burned and cut, as well as beaten. There was no telling what kind of internal injuries she might have or how much damage had been done.
“We gotta move now,” Lake said as he jumped into the driver’s seat and fired up the SUV.
He wasn’t wrong. I heard the sirens off in the distance.
“I’m going with them,” Iron said through the open window. “Drop and go. Understand me?” He tilted his head to the side and pinned me with a hard look.
I didn’t like it.
But I understood the reasons behind it.
“Got it,” I replied back.
The girls had been loaded up into two of the SUVs. Iron was with Keften in one of the other ones and no doubt headed to the old shipping containers. More specifically, one of the ones that we had all fixed up and ready for situations like this.
“Sketch!” I heard Iron bark out as I saw the tattooed brother standing just outside of the SUV looking in like he was about to murder someone. I wondered how long he’d been standing there. “Get in the last one. Now. We don’t got time for this shit.”
Sketch looked torn for a split second. His nostrils flared as he looked up at me, and then he was moving on down the line.
I couldn’t tell anything from his expression but now was not the time. Sketch may not have gotten why Iron wanted him away from Claire right this moment, but he would. And it wasn’t to say that he’d never see her again, he would just have to wait until things calmed down.
Then we were rolling and not a minute too soon. We just barely turned off the street before I saw the glimpse of flashing lights flickering in the side rearview mirror. In a matter of seconds they’d be pulling up in front of the hell house we’d just left behind.
“You alright?” Lake asked a few minutes later.
I took my attention off Claire just long enough to meet his eyes in the mirror.
“Fuck no,” I breathed out. I didn’t give a shit if it sounded weak. Or that a couple of my brothers were around to hear it.
“Not something you should ever be alright after seeing,” Seven said from the back corner.
“Yeah,” I said softly as I looked back down at Claire’s face.
I wanted to cover her with something. It wasn’t right the condition that she was in and being carted around naked as if she wanted that. But her body was so badly cut open I was afraid that it would be worse if I put something over it.
So I held her because I didn’t know what else to do.
I stroked her hair even though she seemed to be unconscious and probably not even aware that I was there.
I held her hand even though it was limp and weak in mine.
I did everything I thought I could do because I felt so fucking helpless right now.
“We’re here,” Lake said and I hadn’t even noticed that the SUV had come to a stop.
The door pulled open and I jumped like I was ready to attack.
“Relax,” mother fucking Detective Mullins said with raised hands like he was fucking surrendering to me. “Iron called and thought you might need some help. You don’t want anyone questioning why you’re showing up with a bunch of girls. Someone might call the cops.”
He gave a flash of a smug smile but that was all.
“I gave them the heads up,” he said as a few nurses and whatnot came out prepared to get the girls inside.
“Careful with her,” I barked at the guy that was trying to pull Claire out of my lap. “Move.”
“I’ve got it, sir,” he said with a calmness like he was used to dealing with people that didn’t trust him.
“No, I’ve got her. There’s another girl in the backseat.”
It felt almost sick talking about her like that. I didn’t have a name for any of the other ones and honestly, I hated it.
I got out, careful not to jostle Claire around too much. She let out a whimper that broke my heart as I laid her down on the gurney.
“Thank you,” I said to the nurse that hadn’t tried to get in my way.
With a nod, she was rolling Claire through the automatic doors and out of my sight.
“Come on,” Lake said with a hard pat on my back. “Got shit to take care of.”
I knew it. Didn’t mean I liked it.
I hopped into the passenger’s seat and Seven crawled into the back aga
in.
I popped open the glove box and fumbled around until I felt the roll of duct tape beneath my fingertips. I probably needed Charming to stitch me up, but this would have to work for now.
“You got hit?” Lake asked me as his eyes slid to the side to look at the wound when I pulled up my shirt.
“Just a little scratch,” I replied as I smoothed the piece of duct tape over my wound and tried not to hiss. Damn, it might have been worse than I thought. Hoped to hell the tape held, but then again, I wasn’t going to let it slow me down if it didn’t.
We drove in the direction of the compound. Eventually, we kept going straight while the SUV behind us turned off and headed for home. Another five minutes and we’d reached our destination.
Lake wove around the rows and rows of shipping containers with ease in the darkness of night. Didn’t surprise me since he spent a lot of nights out here on patrol.
There was a group of brothers standing outside the first container. My guess, each and every single one of them were waiting to get their turn with the man inside. This wasn’t going to be pretty. It wasn’t going to be nice. I’d seen firsthand the things that B-ry was capable of. Oh, and how could I forget the rumors of what happened to Axe when he went dark?
Screams and grunts echoed out through the night. I wasn’t worried about anyone hearing because there wasn’t anyone around for miles. And now that Lake owned the house across the way, there was even less to worry about.
Iron headed in my direction just as I caught sight of Keften tied to a chair, slumped over and coughing up blood.
“Hey,” he said in a tired and dark tone. “Handled?”
“Yep,” I answered.
“Got something for you.” He started walking over to the next container.
I took one last glance at Keften, then followed my Prez.
The door creaked and squealed something awful as Iron opened it. I shifted my head but couldn’t see anything in the pitch black box.
For a split second, I wondered if this was a trap.
He reached in and hit the switch. A second later, the lights we’d installed on the sides lit up the whole space.
