Beyond the Horizon (The Sons of Templar MC Book 4)

by Anne Malcom

  We gazed at each other for a long while.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked after my heart had returned to its normal rhythm. “Did you break in? I added on an afterthought. Despite everything, my body yearned to touch him, to run into his arms. I stayed rooted to the spot, his stiff form and angry gaze communicating that he might not be feeling warm and fuzzy toward me right now.

  “What am I doing here?” he repeated. His eyes ran over me once more, and he must have seen it, whatever was painted on my face to give me away because his face softened and he advanced on me. My body immediately relaxed when it became enveloped in his musky scent, when his large hand rested on my hip, the other spanning my chin.

  “Fuck, Lily. What happened? Are you okay?” His gaze flickered over my scantily-clad body in concern, looking for an outward sign of injury. Only it wasn’t the outside of me that was bleeding, or that was damaged. Luckily even his eagle gaze couldn’t spot that.

  His eyes met mine.

  I ached to tell him. To let his strong shoulders carry the weight that settled on top of me. I knew he’d do it. Take everything off he could, carry it for miles if he had to. I knew he was strong enough to help. That he would in a heartbeat once I uttered the truth. But I couldn’t. This wasn’t his problem. It wasn’t what I wanted us to be. Him constantly having to pick up the pieces of the life that always seemed to be in tatters. He couldn’t fix this anyway.

  “Lily,” he said softly, firmly. His tone was saturated with concern, though the hard edge hinted at anger.

  “There was a small incident. At the club. Bex is in the hospital,” I said slowly, knowing parts of the truth would be the best way to go.

  Asher’s body stilled. “Is she okay?”

  I nodded. “She’s fine,” I lied. “I’ve been with her, just making sure.”

  “Who do I have to kill?” he growled. It unnerved me that he sounded serious. The gun poking out the side of his cut reinforced the seriousness. The irony of the fact there was nothing the big bad biker and his equally bad gun could do to repair this situation was not lost on me.

  “No one. It was an accident like I said. No heads for you to crack,” I told him quietly, the only honest part of this conversation. I hoped this was an accident. The bile that I tasted over the fact it could’ve been done intentionally didn’t go away with any rational thought. I focused on Asher. On getting him out of here.

  “Jesus,” he muttered again. “Why didn’t you call me? I’ve been out of my mind with worry, flower.” The hand at my hip tightened.

  My foggy mind thought back to the fate of my phone. “I smashed my phone, dropped it,” I explained, mentally groaning. There was no way I could afford another phone.

  “Payphones exist for a reason,” he shot back, an edge to his previously soft voice. “I’ve been tearing up this town lookin’ for you, babe, worried out of my mind.”

  I cast my eyes downward. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think. My mind was preoccupied,” I told him honestly.

  He looked at me, stared into my eyes in a way I was worried he’d see through all of my lies, he’d see the truth playing beyond my haunted gaze. I knew he had power, power over me, but I didn’t think that translated to supernatural mind reading abilities. Lucky. Or else I’d be screwed. The man who was quickly consuming my entire shattered soul may have been hard on the outside, but the soft center was filled with a man who wanted to protect, to take care of me. The weak girl who couldn’t even breathe without help.

  He paused. “You’re dead on your feet, let’s get you to bed,” he declared finally.

  It wasn’t lost on me that anger seemed to simmer below the surface. He had swallowed it for me, out of concern, despite his inner alpha that screamed at him to demand I tell him where I was at all times. I wanted to hate both parts of him. Instead, I loved them. Therein lay the problem.

  All I wanted was to surrender to the pressure at my hips, to crawl into bed with him and forget the world. I couldn’t. I had responsibility.

  “I think you should go,” I said slowly.

  Asher’s expression changed. “What?” he clipped.

  “You should go home. You’re right. I need to sleep, alone,” I told him firmly, stepping out of his embrace, I felt the warmth leave me, the comfort of his presence. I held my back up despite the exhaustion knowing at the edges of my mind.

  He stood woodenly, staring at my retreating form. “I thought we were done with this shit,” he uttered quietly. “That you were done running from me, from us.”

  “I’m not running,” I whispered.

  He gave me a cold glare that chilled my already frozen bones. “You fucking are,” he clipped.

  “Having one night to myself, to catch my breath, to fricking sleep, is not running,” I snapped in irritation. My emotions were raw, needing an outlet. Asher was the closest thing. “I can’t have you claim every inch of me, every inch of my time when I need it. I need some time to myself. To rebuild the remains of my pathetic life. To figure out who I am,” I yelled.

  Asher stepped forward, his face soft. “I know who you are, flower,” he began softly.

  I stepped back my emotions exposed, like a raw nerve. Everything came tumbling out. “What? Yours? Some ideal version of me you’ve constructed in your head from our time together. You can’t know who I am when I don’t even know. People keep telling me who I’m not, who I should be. I’m so tired of it,” my voice was hoarse.

  “I’m not people,” he growled. “I’m your fucking person,” he continued fiercely. “Yours.”

  I let him approach me, breathing heavily, my soul open, speaking more words than I ever had before.

  “The emptiness, I don’t feel it when I’m with you,” I whispered brokenly.

  Asher stroked my face. “That’s good, Lily, ‘cause you fill me up, to the brim. Never thought I was unfinished, till you came to complete me.”

  I ignored those beautiful words. I had to. “No, it’s not good,” I muttered, looking down a moment. I took a breath then looked into his eyes. “If I only feel whole when I’m with you, I open myself up to the emptiness whenever you’re gone, whenever you leave.”

  Asher opened his mouth to protest. I put my finger over his lips.

  “Don’t tell me you’ll never leave or any of that romance novel stuff,” I requested softly. “This is real life. Shit happens. Stuff you have no control over. You can’t make promises about that kind of stuff….” I paused, thinking of my best friend lying in a hospital bed, of her injecting herself with poison to escape the world I hadn’t even known was wearing her down. “Even if it is some kind of fairytale ending and we ride off into the sunset together, what’s beyond that? What happens after that? I can’t attach everything I am to you because I have to know who I am in order to be with you. I have to be whole myself.”

  It was the truth. The inevitable truth that I had to acknowledge. The fact my responsibility to Bex made it pertinent for this truth to come out now was of little consequence. It needed to happen. I needed to be real.

  Asher’s beautiful rugged face searched mine, his jaw turning hard. “You’re not going to change your mind,” he declared flatly.

  I shook my head slowly, battling the tears that came with it.

  Asher sighed, his entire frame tightening. “You’re so fuckin’ convinced shit’s gonna turn this sour you can’t see what’s right in front of you.” His hand tightened on my neck. “That I’d do everything in my power to make sure what’s beyond that horizon is just as beautiful as you deserve, and that I’ll be there as long as my body is taking breaths,” he murmured. “You’re so convinced that you’re some stranger to yourself, you don’t know how you’d see yourself if you just opened your eyes. Looked at yourself through my eyes. Through the eyes of your friend who’d die for you. Maybe then you’d see that you can’t search for anyone better than who you are, ‘cause that person doesn’t exist.” He didn’t wait for the sounds of my heart breaking at his words, he pressed his
mouth firmly to mine. Then he was gone.

  It was that best friend that would die for me that stopped me from chasing him. From stopping him. Instead, I sank down against the floor and surrendered to the big sad that engulfed me as soon as Asher’s presence stopped chasing it away.

  I sat a steaming mug in front of Bex. She stared at it vacantly and silently. She’d been silent the entire ride back from the hospital, the silence saying everything and nothing at once. She didn’t look like herself. Her face was pale, the sprinkling of freckles on her small nose usually covered by makeup were even more prominent on her naked face, making her look like a child. Vulnerable. The vibrancy, the presence she usually brought wherever she went, seemed extinguished.

  I sat across from her, cradling my own cup. “When did it start?” I asked, my words seeming to echo in the quiet room.

  She contemplated the cup for a second before her empty eyes moved to mine.”

  “Six months ago,” she replied quietly, shame in her usually boisterous voice. “First, it was pills, to help keep me energized. Keep me up. Then....” she trailed off.

  I sank back. Six months. I’d been blind for six months. “Why?” I choked out.

  A spark seemed to flicker in those lifeless eyes. “Why?” she repeated.

  “Why did you do that to yourself?” I asked.

  The spark that seemed to only flicker before fully ignited. “Why do I do it to myself, Lily? Why I didn’t do it a fuck of a lot sooner is the better question,” she snapped. “My life is a steaming pile of shit. Since I was born, I’ve been covered with filth. Parents that abandoned me like trash. Foster parents that in the best case, ignored me for a paycheck and worst case, came into my room late at night until I was old enough to fight them off.” Her voice was broken. “Living a life where no one cares, no one gives a shit about you apart from what they can take from you. Your childhood for a paycheck, your innocence for some fucked up perversion. I would lie in bed and promise myself that there’d be a better tomorrow. That I’d be better than the filth that clung to me, that was me.”

  Her tearstained eyes met mine. “And somehow I did it. Tricked the world into thinking that filth was gone, even though it still seeped into my bones. I got myself out with a scholarship. Somehow a fucked up childhood may have invariably damaged my soul, but it didn’t hinder my ability to do well in tests.”

  She laughed without humor and it was an ugly sound. “Then it came back, the filth. The truth of who I was. I realized it would never leave, that I’d never live the life I dreamed of.” She shrugged. “Why delay the inevitable. I traded textbooks for the pole, sold my body. The inside was so damaged I’d never get anything out of it, but my outside was worth something.”

  “You are worth something, you’re worth everything,” I said fiercely, tears running down my cheeks at the heart-wrenching story. I knew her background, but she’d told me breezily, as if it didn’t bother her. I didn’t know the extent of it. I should have known what lay underneath those joking words. Those scars beneath the surface. I was her best friend. I should have known.

  Bex smiled sadly. “Yeah, that’s what you told me. What Faith told me. The two of you, coming into my life, you’re probably the reason why I didn’t seek solace in the needle sooner,” she stated quietly. “Then it got you. Faith. Life took it away from two people who didn’t deserve it. I couldn’t handle it. I’m not strong like you, Lil. I got Dylan treating my body like it was his, Carlos profiting off it, men claiming it. I needed to escape it all. Have something that took it all away. Made me forget for a while.”

  I sat back, blinking. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked brokenly.

  Bex smiled again. “Tell my sweet little Lils that I was shooting up whenever she was at the hospital caring for her dying mom? Letting my best friend see the filth, when she was the only one who treated me like it wasn’t there? Put my problems on the girl already carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders?” She shook her head. “No. That’s not what best friends are for. They’re for taking some of that load, not adding to it,” she whispered softly.

  I stood quickly, moving to sit next to her, clutching her hands in mind. “That goes both ways you big idiot,” I told her croakily. “You’re all I’ve got. You can’t check out, too. You can’t decide you’re not good enough. You can’t put poison in your body anymore. Promise me,” I pleaded. “You’re worth so much more than that. You can be so much more. My mom knew that. She saw the real you. She wouldn’t want you to give up.” Playing the dead mom card was a low blow, but I was willing to do anything to make sure Bex didn’t meet my mom, wherever she was, anytime soon.

  Bex stared at me. “I don’t want to,” she said finally. “I don’t want to live that life. I think I realized that when I was in that stall, shooting up. It was like I was back in bed years ago. I want something more,” she whispered.

  “You’re going to get it,” I reassured her.

  Her eyes, the ones that had life in them, stared into mine. “I’m not going to some rehab where they do daily circle jerks and talk about feelings. I’m not being trapped in some state-run prison,” she stated firmly.

  “Okay,” I replied quietly. I knew the reality of what Bex could afford, which was nothing, which meant places that rivaled the foster homes she grew up with. Only the rich had the luxury of rehabs with tennis courts and spas.

  “You don’t need this,” she continued, shame back on her face. “You don’t deserve to have to handle your drug addict friend going cold turkey on heroin.”

  I pulled her chin with my thumb and forefinger. “That’s the last time you say something like that. In sickness and in health,” I told her firmly.

  She grinned. “That’s marriage.”

  I shrugged. “Best friendship is like marriage…” I paused, “and you’re my family,” I told her simply.

  “I’m dying,” Bex declared, her entire body shaking while a thin film of sweat trickled off her forehead.

  I dabbed it with a damp cloth. “You’re not,” I promised.

  “I am,” she argued, any further protest silenced by her emptying the contents of her stomach into the toilet bowl.

  I held back her hair and rubbed her back, my heart bleeding for my friend, my heart bleeding with the powerful flashback that hit me of doing the exact same thing with Mom. Only with Bex, her body was having trouble with the poison leaving her body, with Mom they were fighting her body with poison. Unlike Mom, Bex was going to win this battle. I had to believe that.

  She wiped her mouth with toilet paper, her defeated gaze turning to me.

  “I can’t do this, Lil,” she croaked.

  “You can,” I told her firmly, helping her off the floor.

  We walked slowly to the living room, Bex relying heavily on me, her body weak. Days of withdrawals had turned her into a shadow of herself, I would have barely recognized her if it wasn’t for the purple tips peeking out of her shaggy bun.

  Once I’d settled her back on the sofa and watched her curl into the blanket with a grimace, I walked into the kitchen, where I could still see her.

  I was at a loss. I had to work tonight. Had to. My funds were running seriously dry, funds that both Bex and I needed now she wasn’t working. I knew there would be no way I could have afforded a new phone to replace my smashed one. Then one had been sitting inside the door of the apartment when I got up. Someone had broken in. Someone who knew the code of the new security system we had.

  Use it. Were the words that were scrawled on the box.

  I had to ignore the pang that came with thinking of him. Of the fact, he was going to do everything he could to take care of me, even with the way I treated him the other night. I couldn’t focus on that. I had someone else to take care of.

  There was no way I could leave Bex alone. After snatching a couple of hours of restless sleep after Asher had left two days ago, I consulted a nursing friend who now specialized in treating people with addictions. Her help was invaluable, as we
re her pointers in finding Bex’s stash. I had flushed various bags of powder, hidden in spots in Bex’s room, including lipstick tubes. I’d felt like I was violating her trust, but her survival was more important to me than her trust at that moment. Though my friend had been more than willing to help in any way she could, I knew having a stranger, no matter how nice, sit with her and witness this, would send Bex into a tailspin.

  I was at a loss. Bex’s friends from the club were uncertain, considering she had told me that was where she’d first been offered the bag presenting her with an escape.

  Quite simply, I was fucked.

  Later that afternoon, after finally realizing I’d have to forfeit another paycheck and figure the repercussions out later, my problems were solved by a small and slightly crazy woman.

  “Rosie,” I exclaimed in surprise when I opened the door.

  She was clad in her normal glam. Every time I saw her, she was wearing something completely different than the last time I saw her. She was all in black. Black sleeveless turtleneck tucked into a short black leather mini and black heeled ankle boots. Her shoulder length curls were tumbling out of a messy bun. I was wearing one of Asher’s tees and leggings with holes in them.

  “Please tell me the beautiful couple I had placed all my money on isn't already dust?” she greeted, hands on her hips.

  I let out a breath, glancing back to Bex asleep on the sofa. I stepped forward obscuring Rosie’s view of our interior.

  “We’re not over,” I said slowly. “We’re just on a break,” I explained.

  Her eyes narrowed. “Ross and Rachel were on a break, look what happened to them,” she snapped, the only person that could use a Friends reference in serious conversation. “Asher’s gone from smiling like a fat cat with cake, to grimacing like a fat kid deprived of said cake,” she continued. Her eyes softened as she glanced at me. “You don’t look so good yourself, Lil. What’s going on? Why haven’t you called? I’m your friend. I want to help.”