by Deja Voss
“Do you want some company tonight?” She’s grabbing at the waist of my jeans, pulling me into her soft body that’s pressed against the hallway wall. “What’s all this blood, baby?” She takes my bleeding knuckles and eyes them suspiciously.
“You know better.” She might be a nice warm place to stick my dick, but she’s not entitled to old lady stuff.
“Fine, fucking bleed out,” she says with a shrug. “Let’s go back to your house and get the sheets dirty.” Her breath is hot on my neck and she grinds her hips up against me. I know she’s trying her best to get me hard, but that just ain’t going to happen tonight.
“I can’t,” I say, pushing her away.
“Brooks,” she says, not quite whining, more like scolding. “You know you can.”
“No, I actually fucking can’t. I got shit to do tomorrow and I got a kidnapped girl I need to take care of.”
“The fuck was that last part?” she stammers, pushing me away.
“Never mind.”
“She out there?” She peeks her head around the corner. “Brooks, she looks like she’s fourteen. Did you give her a fucking black eye?” She’s shaking her head and holding her hand over her mouth like she’s going to throw up. “I know you’re going through some shit, but…”
“Her dad’s a scumbag. He didn’t deserve to have her anymore.”
“So you adopted a teenage daughter?”
“No,” I say.
“Listen, you know I like fucking with you Brooks, but I’m not trying to co-parent some random kid with you. I didn’t sign up for that shit.”
I look over her irresistible body, but the thought of her being anything more than a woman I take my urges out on is revolting. I don’t care if Esther “approved” of her before she died. She’s just like the rest of them, and will never be a part of my world.
“Good,” I say, pushing her out of the way. “It’s none of your business anyway. Don’t you have somewhere to be? Shouldn’t you be out looking for a street corner or something so you can support yourself?” She scrunches her nose up like she is going to spit in my face, but I know she won’t. She has it good. Esther left her a nice chunk of change, and she gets to fuck the president of the most powerful motorcycle club in the entire state. She doesn’t get to ask for anything, and I don’t have to give her anything. Not a future. Not an explanation. I don’t even have to acknowledge her existence if I don’t feel like it.
And that is all there is to that.
Never in my life did I see myself becoming that guy. I’d always had a good relationship with the ladies, even before I finally ended up with the woman of my dreams. My dad taught me to treat them with respect, and even if I was just screwing around with a girl, it was always in good fun for the both of us.
This thing with Jasmine though… I feel like I do it because it’s what Esther wanted. I know she just wanted what was best for me, but all I want is to still feel connected to her. Jasmine doesn’t scratch that itch. She just makes me feel like a dirty animal.
I walk out into the bar, and everyone goes silent again. It’s nothing unusual as of late.
“Time to go,” I say to Josie, grabbing her by the sleeve of her shirt. “I’m tired.”
“Why doesn’t Josie just stay at my house?” Olive says sternly. She’s looking at me like I’m a crazy person, but I’m starting to get used to that look. “I promise I won’t let her run away.”
“Come on, Josie,” I say. “Get your shit.”
She doesn’t say anything, just shoves the rest of her sandwich in her mouth in one bite before jumping up from the barstool. She slings her backpack over her shoulder and looks up at me with frightened eyes.
I hear everyone whispering as we walk out the door together. I know I’ve been erratic lately. They can whisper as much as they want. This is as much me protecting this girl as it is showing my club who’s in charge. This is as much me asserting my power as president as it is doing a good deed that my dead wife would’ve wanted me to. Two birds, one stone.
“Let’s just walk,” I say. I had a couple beers and normally wouldn’t think twice about riding my bike the quarter mile home, but I don’t want to do it with the kid on the back. It’s dark as hell out, but I know these roads up and down. This is the place I was raised, and the place I’ll die. I try to keep focused on the road ahead when we walk past the trailer Esther used to live in for all those years, now occupied by my brother, Micah, and his fiancée Amber.
In my mind, that will always be Esther’s trailer.
I notice I’ve lost the kid. Maybe I’m walking a little fast for her to keep up. She is probably half my size.
“Where’d you go?” I ask, stopping to look behind my shoulder. She’s crouched down in the driveway to the trailer.
“This isn’t an outside kitty,” she says. She’s petting Mr. Gingerbread, Esther’s geriatric orange cat. He’s taken to breaking out of the house lately and going to the trailer. I’m sure he’s looking for her, too. He’s just as lost as I am without her in his life.
Josie scoops him up in her arms. “You’re a big boy, huh?” she says, hugging him tight. He purrs, pawing at her face.
“That’s my wife’s cat,” I say. “You wanna carry him home?”
We continue the walk down the dirt road, Gingerbread in tote.
“Mister Brooks?” she asks in a sad little voice as I start up the steps to my porch.
“It’s just Brooks,” I say, fumbling around in my pocket for my keys.
“What happened to your wife?” The way that little redhead is standing there hugging Esther’s cat with her black eye and bruised neck makes me feel like I could throw up. Gavin was right. She is a little mini Esther.
“She got cancer. Then she got shot.”
She follows me into the house and Gingerbread leaps from her arms straight to the kitchen countertop, pawing at the cupboard where I keep his food. I dig around in the fridge, looking for something that a teenager could drink, and realize I’m going to have to send Trixie downtown for groceries tomorrow.
I open up the cupboard while Gingerbread howls and paws at me, waiting for me to fix his disgusting canned food. He can’t eat anything else because he’s lost half his teeth. I swear he’s older than I am, and he’s probably going to outlive us all.
“Is this when we have sex?” she asks.
I drop the can of the food to the floor and spin around to stare at the sheepish girl standing there in my kitchen.
“Are you out of your mind?” I ask. “First of all, you’re a child. I’m old enough to be your father, and I’m not into that shit. Second of all, if I want to do that, I don’t have to kidnap someone.”
“I’m not a kid,” she says. “I’m nearly legal.”
“Get this in your head, Josie. We will never have sex. I don’t care if you’re forty and I’m eighty. That’s not why I brought you here.”
“Are you going to kill me?” she asks, picking up the can of food from the floor and scooping it into Gingerbread’s bowl while he tries to knock it from her hands.
“No.”
“Why did you bring me here, then?” she asks. “Usually guys don’t talk to me unless they want something from me.”
“Because your dad is a piece of shit, and I wanted to hurt him,” I say. “He took from my family, and I wanted to make him suffer.”
“You know he won’t care, right?” She sits on the floor next to Gingerbread while he eats, glued to that damn cat like it’s the only thing she has in the world. The same way I imagine Esther did when she was living at her sick grandma’s house all those years ago. Except I wasn’t planning on selling this girl into a life of sexual slavery. I wasn’t going to turn her into a pawn for my motorcycle club.
“Did he do that to you?” I ask, pointing at her black eye.
“Why didn’t you just kill him?” Tears start to run down her face. “You could’ve killed him and you didn’t.” I don’t know why I didn’t just finish the fucker off
when I had the chance. I guess I wanted him to have to live knowing what a piece of shit he was. I have a feeling by the way she’s talking, the sentiment was probably going to be lost on him, though.
“Don’t cry,” I say. “You’re safe here. We won’t make you go back there, but if you’re going to live in my house, you gotta live by my rules.”
She stares up at me, unblinking, still hugging that damn cat.
“No boyfriends unless they’re your own age. You don’t know what these men up here are like, and I’m not dealing with the mess. Stay out of Esther’s stuff. Don’t ask too many questions, and keep your mouth shut. And you need to go back to school and finish. Stay out of my beer, stay out of my drugs.”
“I don’t want to go back to school. The kids are mean to me, and you know they’ll ask a lot of questions.” That, and I didn’t feel like driving her to school every day. I’m not exactly drop-off dad material.
“You can do cyber school. You gotta do school, though.” Knowing where this girl came from, she’s destined for a life on the stripper pole otherwise.
“Can I use your phone?” she asks. “I need to call my sister or she’ll be worried.”
“You got a sister?”
“She’s old. She doesn’t live around here. I just talk to her every night. Don’t worry, I won’t tell her anything. I’ll just tell her the phone got shut off and I had to use the neighbor’s phone.” I know this girl isn’t trying to leave. I know she’s not trying to call the cops. If her sister was that concerned about her well-being, she wouldn’t have been living in that shithole trailer with that douchebag dad, anyway.
I hand her my cell phone and I stand there and watch, just to be on the safe side.
“Helena, it’s me, Josie. I’m sorry I’m calling so late. I just wanted to say I’m okay and I love you! I had to borrow a phone because ours got shut off, but I’ll try and call you tomorrow. Bye.” She hangs up and hands the phone back to me. “She doesn’t answer random numbers.”
I grab some blankets from the hallway closet and toss them on the couch.
“Bathroom is over there, help yourself to anything in the kitchen, watch whatever you want. I’m going to bed.” I double-check the lock on the front door, and she’s already wrapped up in a pile of blankets on the couch, her eyes closed. I wonder when was the last time she had a good night’s sleep. Part of me wants to leave right now and finish what I started with her dad. Her piece of shit sister has something coming too. I’d never put my hands on a woman, but I know plenty of people who will. It was time these people learned a little bit about family, Mountain Misfits MC style.
I go up to my bedroom and lock the door. It’s time for my nightly dose of staring at the ceiling, rambling out loud to Esther, trying to summon her by praying, smelling the pillow I refused to wash since the day she died. Only tonight, I know she’s here with me. I don’t need to say a word. I can feel her. Maybe she’s happy that Gingerbread has a friend. It makes me smile for the first time in a long time, thinking about her watching us from wherever she is, urging me to kidnap kids so they’ll play with her nasty old cat.
That’s so Esther, though.
Always taking in strays. Always looking out for the weak. Always making me do crazy things just to make her happy. She always had this big master plan that never made sense, but I’d follow her down any rabbit hole she wanted to take me. For some reason, I feel like today is just one more piece of that puzzle that she’d always been trying to build. In the darkness, I can see that patch of freckles on her shoulder that I loved to get lost in when I spooned her close at night. I close my eyes, and for the first time in as long as I remember, I don’t even have to pray for sleep to come.
CHAPTER 6
HELENA
F irst thing in the morning, I pack up my suitcases and take one last look around the apartment. The little spare bedroom I have set up for Josie sits there untouched, the dresser gathering dust. I don’t know why I didn’t just force her to come with me when I moved down south. She’s just a kid after all. She shouldn’t have a say in stuff like that. I know what’s in her best interest, better than what our father knows at the very least. I don’t know if I’ll ever come back here again, but if I do, it won’t be alone.
My phone has been ringing off the hook since the second I woke up. The sheriff wants me to come down and talk to him. The girls at the station are making sure I’m alright. I’ve gotten some anonymous text messages filled with hateful slurs towards women that I hope these little boys at the station have the balls to use in the wrong one’s face. A beanbag to the crotch will probably look like a love tap.
I turn my phone off and toss it in my purse and put my music on shuffle. Driving north always sucks all the wind out of me. It is so much easier to avoid my past and pretend like it doesn’t exist, but every time I hop on that highway and head home, my senses are overloaded, I feel this overwhelm, like I am drowning in a sea of bad memories. I spent my life hiding in books and just trying to blend in. Kids were cruel, but I purposely didn’t let anyone get close to me. If they knew what was going on in my home, they’d make it even worse. There’s so many people up north that I don’t want to run into ever again. Even now, now that I’m ‘successful.’
Except, I’m not successful anymore. I’m unemployed and not sure what my next move is. I should be looking ahead, not taking a drive down memory lane. I just need to go get Josie and we can decide what our next move is together. Neither one of us needs to be alone in this world. I need her as much as she needs me.
The trailer park looks the same as when I left it, about thirty years behind the times. I wonder how many people have taken their last breaths in these very trailers since I left. Most people who move here never leave. It’s not because it’s such a lovely place to live, it’s just that when you hit rock bottom, it’s a lot easier to make your life around that than it is to move up. The people who live there aren’t aware of that, though. They’re ignorantly blissful, building their lives around this community of scumbag neighbors who are quick to lend you a cup of sugar in exchange for a rock of crack.
I’m glad the sun has set. Word travels fast around here, and I’m not really interested in getting barraged by the welcome wagon. I don’t feel like answering questions. I just want to grab Josie, take her to a hotel with me for the night, and sort out the details from there. I’m fully prepared to grovel. If that doesn’t work, I’m hoping I can bribe her with a cell phone and a pair of those two-hundred-dollar jeans that have the rhinestones on the ass. I think teenagers like those these days. Whatever it takes, I’m not leaving this town without her.
All the lights are out in Dad’s trailer except for the one in the kitchen and the soft glow of the TV in the living room. I can smell the stench of black mold and old newspaper before I even hit the steps to the porch. That smell used to follow me everywhere I went. I feel a migraine coming on as I knock on the door. My stomach churns.
“Dad! I know you’re in there!” I shout, pounding on the door. “Josie! Come on! It’s me!”
I press my ear to the door, the only sound inside the hum of the television. I try the knob, but it doesn’t turn. At least he keeps the doors locked at night, I think, trying to reassure myself that everything is going to be alright.
“I’m coming!” he shouts. “Hold on!” I stand on the porch in the darkness for what feels like an eternity. I try to rehearse everything I need to say in my head, but all I can think of is busting in there, grabbing Josie, tossing her in my Jeep without a word, and going from there. My dad isn’t a man to be reasoned with. He might have been able to use brute force on me in the past, but I’m not that girl anymore.
He opens the door just a crack. “You here to arrest me or something?”
“Dad,” I say, “I’m here to check on you and Josie. I just want to make sure everything is alright. Your phone’s not working.” I’m greeted with silence, but he shuffles off, leaving the door open. I take that as my cue to enter.
“Where is she?” I ask, following behind him as he walks towards the kitchen. There’s a limp in his walk that I hadn’t seen before, and it looks like he’s using the walls to brace himself. He’s breathing heavy, and my eyes grow wide when I hit the kitchen tile.
“Dad! What the fuck happened here? It looks like a murder scene!” The kitchen table is flipped on its side, and there’s blood and broken glass everywhere. “Where is Josie?”
When he finally turns to face me, I gasp. His face is bruised, his lip swollen, and there’s dried blood down the front of his t-shirt. A lot of dried blood. Where is all this fucking blood coming from? A “good” daughter might insist that I take him to the hospital right now. I don’t think I fit that bill, though. A “good” daughter would call the cops. A “good” daughter would be crying, doing whatever she could to tend to him.
He hobbles through the glass and straight for the fridge. “Want a beer?” he asks.
“No!” I stand in the corner, afraid to move. If this is a crime scene, I don’t want to taint it. “I want to know where Josie is! What did you do, Dad?”
“She’s fine; I mean, I think she is. This is all me.” He thrusts a beer can in my hand. “Your old man can still throw down, you know.”
“Josie!” I scream. I need to see her. Even if she wasn’t a casualty in whatever the hell this is, she’s gotta be traumatized.
