A Dream of Summer (Bleeding Angels MC Book 3)

by Stephens, Olivia

  I don’t even turn around. I just keep moving forward, one foot in front of the other, her words ringing in my ears as I walk out towards the destiny that I’ve chosen.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Returning to the studio that I shared with Jake was worse than I had imagined. As soon as I set foot inside I’m bombarded with memories of the two of us there: making love in the enormous bed, laughing about his lack of culinary skills in the kitchen. He was everywhere. I had thought that being in the Summers’ home with all the photos of him and the memories was hard, but this is worse. He clings to this place like a ghost. But he’s not dead, I remind myself. He’s not gone. He’s coming back.

  I look at the bag of ruined clothes I’m still holding and memories of Ryan come flooding back. It’s as if it’s all happening again. I can feel the fear, the rage, the humiliation as it all replays in my mind. The tears rush towards me like a freight train but I’ve had enough of crying to last me a lifetime.

  “No. No. No,” I repeat to myself, feeling stronger with every word. “Don’t let him win.” The more upset I am, the more I let Ryan affect me, is the more he’s succeeded. And I won’t give him any more power over me than he already has. I won’t. I refuse to.

  I take a shower, concentrating on the heat of the water as it stains my skin pink. I don’t look at Jake’s razor that sits by the sink, last used yesterday morning. I don’t think about the time that we made love in the shower. I just think about taking the shower gel and squirting a blob onto my hand. Then I think about washing myself. Then I think about washing my hair, concentrating on the minutiae of each task. And that’s how I get through ten minutes without allowing myself to think about Jake and what’s happened to him or what might be happening to him right now.

  I have to force myself to look in the mirror as I dress. I take in my legs, my flat stomach, my breasts that come down on the small side. I look at everything, reminding myself that it’s mine, not anyone else’s, and it belongs to me. I’m taking back my body; I can’t let Ryan have ownership of me because of what he did. That’s exactly what he would want, and I’m the last person to give him what he wants.

  I slip on a fresh uniform and tie my still-wet hair up into a pony-tail high on my head. The swelling on the side of my face has already started to go down, but I don’t want to draw any more attention to myself than usual so I dab some powder on my cheek to take away some of the bruising. When I’m satisfied with the transformative effect, I give myself a once-over in the mirror.

  “It’s time to fight fire with fire, Winters,” I tell my reflection, noticing the sharpness in my green eyes. “There’s no going back until this is done. You’re going to get Jake back and you’re going to do whatever it takes.” The face that stares back at me is hard and severe. My cheekbones jut out, making me look more angular. I hadn’t realized how much weight I had lost since the day that Ryan came here to make his deal with me. It’s amazing what a little fear and loathing can do for a girl.

  I grab the bag of violated clothes on my way out. I don’t look at Jake’s leather jacket that hangs on the coat-rack or his dusty running sneakers that are sitting by the door. I make my way downstairs and think about saying something to Bill. But what would I say? I peek through his office window and see him slumped across his desk, like he’s fallen asleep despite himself.

  As I stride out of the heavy metal doors and throw the bag of clothes into the trash cans, I feel lighter. I have a plan. It’s not much of a plan, but in my book, it still counts. I’m going to the diner and I’m going to stay there until the Feds make an appearance. If it takes hours or days, I don’t care. I’m going to be there until they agree to help me.

  I walk purposefully towards the diner, the heat of the day starting to break through the cool morning. I’m completely focused on the end game, but I can’t help my mind wandering as I follow the route I last walked when he and I were together. I know that I have to try not to think about him, at least not constantly, or I won’t be able to concentrate on what needs to be done. But I can’t help my thoughts wandering towards Jake, the person that I care most about in the whole world—more than myself, more than anything. I wonder what he’s doing.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “Get up, lover boy.” The harsh voice abused by smoking too many cigarettes pierces through my dream of a girl with green eyes.

  I peer up to see Elvis, who looks like he’s already high on something despite it only being god knows what time of the morning. I look past him to one of his cronies standing by the door. The guy is built like the broad side of a barn. Any ideas that I had of making a break for it immediately disappear. Besides, where exactly would I go? Back to Aimee? No, I can’t be near her. Not for now at least.

  “What are you, deaf?” Elvis spits out. “Get up or am I going to have to get Spike to make you?”

  The massive guy that looks like an ex WWF wrestler doesn’t speak, but the name Spike is curiously fitting. Especially when I notice he has a sprawling tattoo of a spike on his forearm.

  I don’t say anything. I don’t have anything to say, and Elvis is the last person that I want to speak to. Well, maybe not quite the last. That honor belongs to Ryan, but Elvis is way down on the list. I swing my feet out of bed and grab the T-shirt that I’d discarded the night before.

  I look around for my jeans and notice Elvis hasn’t taken his eyes off me.

  “See something you like?” I ask, unable to help myself. I had always thought Aimee was the one with the “brain to mouth” filter problem, but maybe it was just this little idiot that brought the sarcasm out of me.

  “What’d you say to me?” Elvis squares his shoulders and his right hand goes straight to his waistband where I know he’s holding a knife.

  I can feel my body tensing up as the fight or flight adrenaline starts rushing through my body. I take a deep breath and do the smart thing. I break eye contact and shrug. “Nothing.” It’s more of a grunt than a word, but it seems to satisfy Elvis that he’s gotten the better of me. I pull my jeans on slowly, taking my time, proving a point. I know it’s immature, but I can’t help it. I want the Angels to know that I’m not just going to dance to their tune. I’m still me, Jake Summers. I still have an identity; I’m not just “theirs.”

  “That’s what I thought.” The satisfaction in Elvis’s voice makes me want to wipe off the smile that I know has spread across his face. “You ready to go? Or you need to do your hair?” Elvis snorts at his own joke and I feel the hackles on the back of my neck rise.

  “Let’s go,” I grunt, wanting to keep my interaction with this guy to a minimum.

  “Ladies first.” Elvis laughs and I’m pretty sure that I even see Spike crack a smile.

  I don’t trust myself to say anything, so I keep my mouth shut. Stepping out into the pale morning sun, it takes a little while for my eyes to adjust after leaving the dark box I’ve been in for the past few hours. I try not to think about how this time yesterday, I was lying with Aimee next to me in bed. I was burying my nose in her dark hair and waiting for the moment her incredible green eyes would open and I would see her first smile of the day. I try not to think about how missing her is a physical pain. I try not to think about her at all. But Elvis has other plans.

  “Must’ve really cut you up, your woman screwing around on you,” he sighs as he leads me around the Bleeding Angels complex.

  I ignore Elvis’s words and instead force myself to concentrate on where we’re going. Seeing it in the light of day makes you appreciate just how massive their base is. Their bar, Wheels, seems to be at the center of the complex with any number of outbuildings spiraling out from there. I figure I’m well on my way to being tatted and then patched. I know that there’ll be an initiation—there always is when you’re patched, I know that much. But what if they want me to hurt someone? I push the thought to the back of my head. The Angels have had so much heat on them since the shit show with the army truck, they’ll want to keep a low profile, I reason to mys
elf.

  But Elvis is clearly enjoying pushing my buttons way too much to let my silence stop him. “They’re all whores, man. You can’t trust any of them.” His bitterness makes me wonder how many times he’s been burned. But I don’t care enough to ask. We’re not friends and we never will be.

  “Aimee isn’t a whore.” I manage to get the words out through gritted teeth. I know that I should probably just have kept quiet. Elvis will exploit anything that he can.

  “You hear that, Spike?” Elvis laughs sarcastically. “His girl fucks around on him, sucks Ryan’s cock, but she’s not a whore! Let me guess, she’s just real friendly?”

  Spike makes a strangled noise that I guess is as close to a laugh as the big man is going to get.

  “Watch yourself, Elvis. Best not talk about things you don’t know anything about.” My voice is low but there’s no mistaking the threat in it. I may not have figured out yet how I feel about Aimee and what I think about what she’s done, but I’ll be damned if I let a piece of crap like Elvis talk about her like that.

  Before I know what’s happened, Elvis has rounded on me and swung at the side of my head. I duck, but not fast enough to avoid his fist completely. He knocks me on the chin. The force of the blow throws me off balance and I fall to the floor, eating dirt. Now I’m mad, but I’m also outnumbered. Spike, probably feeling left out, decides now would be a good time to weigh in and he draws his heavy-booted foot back and, before I can move out of the way, literally kicks me when I’m down.

  His boot goes into my stomach and it feels like my insides have been beaten with a baseball bat. The wind is completely knocked out of me and I fight for breath, taking greedy gulps of air as I’m face down in the dirt.

  “You don’t get to be the big man anymore, Summers.” Elvis’s face is only inches away from mine. “We own you now. You’re an Angel and you’re at the bottom of the ladder. You’re not even patched yet.” I can feel the spittle landing on my cheek as Elvis gets more and more carried away, his anger mixed with whatever today’s drug of choice is. “So you better learn some manners, son. You get me?”

  He doesn’t wait for an answer and I don’t think I’d even be able to give one yet. My stomach feels like it’s on fire and the pain is mixed with the anger that’s boiling up inside of me, getting ready to explode. I refuse to let them get the better of me. I won’t let them believe, even for a second, that they’ve won even the smallest of victories. I drag myself up from the floor and draw myself up to my full height, dusting myself off and doing my best to act like this is just another day, like I’m used to having the crap beaten out of me and I don’t care.

  “I get you.” My words come out husky as I shake off the shooting pain in my abdomen. “Now can we get the fuck on with whatever it is that we’re doing?”

  Elvis and I lock gazes and I think he may be about to decide to teach me another lesson, but for the first time, Spike speaks.

  “Let’s go. Scar’s waiting.” His words sound like they’ve come from the bottom of a well and Elvis is clearly as surprised as I am that this big man has spoken.

  Spike doesn’t wait for a response; he just trudges off in the direction we’d been heading in before they’d decided to play football with my stomach. Elvis jerks his head after the big man, indicating that I should walk between them. If he was worried about me making a run for it, he really didn’t need to be concerned—it was all I could do just to keep walking at the moment.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  We walk in so many twists and turns that I’m not sure I’d be able to re-trace my steps and find where we’d started out. Perhaps that was the point. I’d heard rumors that the Angels made the complex as complicated as possible to make it even harder for law enforcement to find whatever they might go looking for. It was a strategy that seemed to be working out for them pretty well so far.

  Eventually we end up in an open area between two buildings with a few upturned beer kegs acting as chairs. The ground is littered with empty beer bottles and metal caps, and in the midst of it all sits Scar. He’s whittling a piece of wood with a huge knife that looks more like a machete. His bare arms are covered in tattoos and there are a number of chains around his neck. He wears his signature black bandana over his head and there on his cheek is the long line of pale skin that gave him his biker name. An ugly scar that stretches from under his right eye down to the line of his jaw.

  Abruptly he looks up and catches sight of me staring at his namesake. Instead of looking away and avoiding his gaze, I stand my ground and keep my eyes trained on his. A shadow of something that looks like amusement passes across his face before he goes back to concentrating on the piece of wood he’s sharpening.

  “Here he is, boss.” Elvis states the obvious, sounding too pleased with himself.

  “I can see that, genius.” Scar doesn’t even look at him as he responds and I steal a look at Elvis’s face, satisfied that he’s embarrassed at being shown up in front of the new guy.

  Elvis looks at Spike and Spike looks at Elvis, neither really sure what it is that they’re supposed to do now. It would be funny if it weren’t for the fact that I know these men would as soon cut me a smile as they would crack one themselves.

  “Do you want us to...?” Elvis asks Scar, leaving the question open so their illustrious leader can fill in the blank with whatever it is that he may need from them.

  “Leave? Yes.” Scar continues to concentrate on his knife-work and his tone demonstrates that he’s used to people taking orders without question. That’s what it means to be the leader of the Angels—obedience without a second thought. It’s not hard to see the appeal. Who doesn’t want to have the power to do what they want, when they want, without fear of anyone telling them otherwise?

  “Sure thing, boss.” Elvis almost falls over himself to get out of Scar’s sight. For a moment I wonder if he’s going to bow. But he doesn’t. Instead he fixes me with a look that tells me he’ll be taking full advantage of my being a new patch. “I’ll see you soon, Summers,” he says under his breath as he turns to go, Spike in tow.

  “I can hardly wait,” I reply, just loud enough for Scar to hear me. I know that I need to play the game here, and the best way of staying ahead is to make it clear that I’m not someone that can be pushed around. I’m someone that will push back.

  When the other men have gone, I turn back to face Scar and stand tall, crossing my arms and wait for whatever’s coming next. Without saying anything, he motions for me to take a seat on the beer keg nearest to him. I think about resisting for a moment and standing on my own two feet, but the truth is, after the little recreational beating Spike and Elvis decided to lay on me, taking a load off sounds pretty good. I walk over slowly and sit myself down gingerly, wincing a little as a shiver of pain radiates out from my lower ribs. I wonder how long I’m going to have Spike’s boot tip imprinted on me.

  “Things get a bit rough out there this morning?” Scar asks without looking up. But it’s clear that he hasn’t missed anything. The tension between Elvis and me wasn’t lost on him.

  I shrug. I know how this works. The Angels are a brotherhood and you don’t rat out a brother, no matter what he’s done.

  Scar doesn’t push any further, but he finally puts down the piece of wood that he’s created into a mini spear. He keeps the knife in his hand and twirls it absently between his fingers as he leans back and assesses me.

  “Elvis is a punk,” he says suddenly, and it’s a statement of fact rather than an opinion. “You get them in all MCs. Not everyone is here because of the brotherhood. Some people just like to feel important.”

  “Whereas you created the Bleeding Angels for the good of humanity?” I ask, raising my eyebrows as I look at him. I know that I should keep my mouth shut but I’m not an Angel yet and, in the meantime, I’m still going to be me.

  Scar does the last thing I would’ve expected from him. He barks out a laugh and his eyes look genuinely fully of mirth. “You’re funny, kid.” His wo
rds and tone are appreciative and there’s something more in his expression, but I can’t quite figure it out.

  We sit like that for a little while, neither saying anything, just weighing each other up. I notice that we’re both sitting in the same way, with our legs spread out ahead of us. I shift positions—I don’t want anything in common with this guy, even if it’s only the way that we sit.

  “In answer to your question—no, the Bleeding Angels aren’t a humanitarian organization. This isn’t our answer to the UN.” He barks out another laugh and there’s a twinkle in his eye as he does. “We’re about freedom,” he confides in me. “The Angels are somewhere that you can be yourself, whoever that may be. You can do what you want to do, say what you want to say, and there’s no one to tell you that you can’t.”

  Scar is someone who—if you didn’t know who he is and what he’s done—you’d probably find pretty charming. He’s likable. He comes across as a guy you could have a beer with and shoot the shit. But that’s only if you don’t know him. Still, I have to remind myself that he’s a dangerous man that has damn near destroyed this town.