by Kay Maree
“We will talk about it when we get back, first let’s get Lyric’s stuff cleared out of here, and get her home,” Blaine said as Arsen and Hale arrived in the truck ready to move Lyric’s belongings out of the house.
X wandered over to the SUV with his mind running through scenarios and ideas in how to extract revenge and take the Iron Horsemen out for good. He looked in on Lyric who was still asleep. Her eyes closed and her blonde eye lashes sweeping her cheeks, her pink lips parted slightly as she inhaled and exhaled. He turned to look around at the property. From the outside no one would be able to tell what was going on here, no one would know that there were three people dead and rotting in the trunk of a mustang locked in a garage that could be seen from the road, or that in the basement of the auto shop, in a safe was the head of the owner’s wife in a jar. X shuddered, evil seemed to pour from the very foundation of the buildings, even the land seeped with the blood and evil doings of those that lived here, and yet one blonde angel shed her light and somehow made this place a little better.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Lyric
When Lyric’s eyes fluttered open, she realized she was back in the bed that she had first woken up in. The memory of sobbing, vomiting, falling asleep encased in X’s arms filled her mind. Her mother’s head in a jar, the rotting corpses in the trunk of her father’s car. She wished for the numbness that came with sleep, she wished she could go back there, but now that she was awake, Lyric’s mind was filled with questions, and memories. She analyzed everything, all the little parts of her life, every memory from her childhood, just to give her some indication that she subconsciously knew that her father and brothers were bad people, doing bad things.
Lyric wasn’t sure how long she had laid awake in bed, when the door quietly opened, she looked over to see X coming into the room, when he realized that she was awake, his face broke out in a smile. One that lit up his whole face. He was beautiful.
“Good morning, did you sleep well?” he asked.
Lyric nodded her head and smiled, “I can’t believe that I slept for as long as I did,” she said quietly.
X chuckled, “you were out for the count, you didn’t even stir when I carried you in here from the car. You have had a rough seven months and your body is still healing, so it’s going to take some time. Take all the rest you need.”
“Thank you, I would really like to have a shower if I could please?” she asked.
X’s eyes widened and he nodded his head, “oh yeah, of course, I’ll go and get Hadley or Angel to help you,” he said turning for the door.
Lyric stopped X, “it’s alright, if you can just help me to walk to the bathroom and stand by the door, I will be alright,” she said.
Lyric couldn’t explain it, but she trusted X implicitly. He had given her no reason to trust him and she knew that it was probably naive to put her trust in a man that she didn’t know at all, but there was something about him, something that spoke to her. It was like they connected on an unseen level, deeper somehow. Lyric knew that X wouldn’t purposely cause her harm, and although he had a tough exterior, and she didn’t doubt that he had done bad things, she knew that those bad things were done for the right reason.
X seemed almost shy and coy as he helped Lyric to stand from the bed and guide her to the bathroom. He reached out and flipped the water of the shower on as the steam started to rise and dance throughout the room.
“Um, will you be okay now? I can go get Hadley or Angel if you need more help,” he said, almost shy.
Lyric giggled, she didn’t believe for a minute that he wasn’t well experienced, and she knew that he wouldn’t be unfamiliar with the sight of a female body. She shook her head, “I’m alright, if I need you, I will call out, I promise,” she said with a smile.
X nodded again, before he turned and left the room, shutting the door behind him. Lyric giggled again, before she stripped off the clothes that she had worn the day before. She noticed the stain of vomit on her t-shirt and in her hair, crinkling her nose, she stepped in under the warm water, feeling it cascade down over her body. It was exactly what she needed. Her muscles that were sore still from seven months of inactivity started to ease with the hot water. Lyric closed her eyes and allowed the water to pour down over her face, soaking up the cleansing liquid. Once she washed her hair and body, she was exhausted, she couldn’t believe how much just the act of showering took out of her.
By the time she got out of the shower and dried herself she was ready to fall back into bed and sleep for a week. Lyric wrapped the towel around her body and opened the bathroom door, she didn’t want to put on the clothes that smelled like vomit and were dirty from the day before, but she didn’t know if she had any other clothes to wear. At least if she hid under the blankets it wouldn’t matter if she was naked. She snorted at herself at the thought of feeling shame about being naked, the whole time that Gable had her, she was forbidden to wear clothes.
As she came into the bedroom, X was sitting on a freshly made bed, he looked up and his eyes widened, “oh shit, I didn’t think about clothes for you to wear. Um, Arsen and Hale, the prospects, brought your clothes back for you yesterday. They are just in boxes for now, I figured you could decide where you wanted to put them,” he said waving his hands towards the boxes. “If you sit on the bed, and tell me what you want to wear, I can find it out for you.”
Lyric nodded her head and sat on the bed, watching X as he opened the boxes that she hadn’t noticed lined against one wall. “Can I just have a t-shirt and some yoga pants or something loose fitting, even pajamas would be good,” she said grateful to Arsen and Hale for bringing her clothes back for her.
X nodded his head and found out a pair of pajamas that she loved to wear when she was at home. She smiled and took them from him, before he turned his back, giving her a chance to get dressed in the soft cotton, sleep shorts and t-shirt.
“You can turn around now, I’m dressed,” she said, as she slid into the clean sheets.
X turned around and watched her, she looked up at him and gave him a smile. “Did the police find anything? Like who those people were?” she asked.
X came and sat on the edge of the bed. Lyric flipped the corner of the blanket back and tapped the bed, encouraging him to climb in. X seemed to ponder the decision for a moment, before he pulled his shoes off, dropping them to the floor and climbing in beside her. He pulled her into him, X’s arms felt good around her and she lay her head on his chest, running her hands along the hard ridges of his abs. X inhaled a sharp breath, holding her wrist and stilling her movements. He leaned down and kissed the top of her head.
“It’s too early to know who the people were, they have to do DNA tests or something to find them, but they won’t know that for a while. Steve said that they found a lot of drugs and some other evidence of other things that were going on,” he said.
Lyric felt that he was avoiding telling her what the other things were, she looked up at him with a frown, “what other things, Maverick?” she asked using his real name.
X met her eye and raised an eyebrow and gave her a small smirk, before shaking his head, “minx,” he said with a chuckle.
Lyric giggled, using his real name had been an outright manipulation, one that he obviously picked up on immediately, “are you going to tell me?”
X sighed and ran his hand up through his hair, “it’s bad sweetheart, are you sure that you want to know?”
Lyric nodded her head, it wasn’t that she wanted to know, it’s that she needed to know, she needed to know who the hell her father was, and why Gable felt it was alright to take her and torture her for seven months.
“We found yours and your families birth certificate, yours was a fake,” he said gauging her reaction, she blinked at him and nodded her head. Lyric thought she should be more shocked, but after seeing three rotting bodies in her father’s car the day before, nothing was shocking her anymore.
X cleared his throat be
fore continuing, “we also found your mum’s birth certificate, she was Gable’s younger sister who went missing as a teenager. We aren’t sure if Gable only just found out where she was and that is what he was looking for, or if he always knew where she was.”
Lyric sucked in a breath; she was related to that piece of shit. Tears prickled at her eyes; she didn’t want to be related to him. Life had dealt her a shit hand, a hand that it had hidden for at least seventeen years, because she never realized how shit she really had it.
There was a knock on the door, before it opened slightly. Arsen stuck his head around the corner and looked in at them, his face flushed, when he saw them in the bed together, causing Lyric to chuckle.
“We are dressed,” she said.
Arsen chuckled and cleared his throat, “X, Blaine wanted me to let you know that the um,” he said glancing quickly at Lyric, obviously not wanting to say anything in front of her, “the people that we were trying to get to come, are here.”
“Thanks man. I’ll be right out,” X replied.
Arsen nodded before slipping back through the door and shutting it with a soft click behind him, “is that to do with my family?” she asked.
X looked pensive for a moment, like he didn’t want to answer her, before finally he nodded his head and kissed her on the cheek, “yeah baby it is. I’ll be able to tell you more later, but right now, I can’t say much, understand?”
Lyric frowned, she didn’t understand, if it had something to do with her family then she should know. X seemed to be able to read the look on her face, because he sighed and ran his hands up over his face before groaning.
“You are bad for my heart, baby, I swear,” he groaned again. Lyric wasn’t sure what he meant by that and shrugged her shoulder, “alright listen, if I tell you what is going on, I need you to promise me that you will stay in this room and not move from here until I say it’s safe to do so, alright?”
Lyric frowned, “are you going to do something dangerous?” she asked.
X shook his head, “no, no, nothing like that, it’s just that the people that are here, well we wanted to talk to them first, to ask them the questions we needed to find out before you saw them. If you were to see them or if they saw you, then they might not be as willing to speak with us,” he explained.
Lyric didn’t understand how it worked inside a bike club, but she nodded out her agreement to stay in the room regardless. She trusted X; she knew that he wouldn’t do anything that would put her in danger. He leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead.
“Good girl, right, well Pitt and Hawk are here,” he said.
Lyric sucked in a sharp breath and her eyes widened, “you’re not going to hurt them, are you?” she asked concerned.
Pitt didn’t do anything but save her, she didn’t want him to be hurt, he was as much a victim of Gable as she had been. X shook his head and took her hand in his.
“No baby, we aren’t going to hurt them, in fact they came here on their own when we asked. We just want to ask them questions. We figured that they would be the best bet we had to getting answers that we were stuck on, like why Gable never raped you, even though he kept threatening it and what he had planned with you and perhaps what it was that your dad and brothers were doing working for him,” he explained.
Lyric relaxed glad that he wasn’t going to hurt Pitt. She really had come to like him like a big brother while she had been in that concrete room, and Hawk had always made her laugh and she liked the way that he treated Pitt. She knew that he was protective of his brother and tried to prevent Gable from hurting him too badly. Sometimes though Gable was able to hurt Pitt when Hawk wasn’t there to protect him.
“Once we have the information we need, and I know that Pitt and Hawk truly meant to keep you safe, then we will be able to bring them to you, so you can see them alright?” X said.
Lyric’s eyes widened and her face broke out in a wide smile, “you promise?”
X chuckled and nodded his head, “yeah baby, I promise,” he said slipping out of the bed and pulling his boots back onto his feet, before going to the door.
“I’ll get Hadley to bring you in some food and maybe some of the girls can come keep you company if you like, or I’ll get one of the prospects to set your television up for you,” he said nodding his head at her television that was stacked in the corner.
Lyric smiled at him and nodded, “thank you Maverick,” she said with a giggle.
X chuckled and shook his head, “minx.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
X
When he left Lyric, it wasn’t what he wanted to do. What he wanted to do was to curl up by her side and kiss her stupid. However, speaking with Pitt and Hawk was just as or if not more important than his sex drive. He went into the small room behind the bar that they used for meetings, and saw that Blaine and Gannon were already sitting on the couches, with Pitt curled into Hawks side on the other couch. When he opened the door and walked through Pitt looked up with wide eyes. The poor guy looked terrified. When he took note, X realized that Pitt was a lot younger than he first thought, he was only a kid himself, around the same age as Lyric.
Hawk wasn’t a whole lot older, and looking at them, there was no question that they were brothers, with their stark light blonde hair and big blue eyes. X sat down on a chair beside Gannon and watched the boys. Pitt slipped his hand into Hawks and held onto him for dear life. X’s heart seized at the movement. This was a kid, scattered with bruises, his eyes were blackened, and X could make out wounds dotting up his arms, he was a scared kid that had been born into a cruel world.
“Pitt?” X said quietly, the boy’s head snapped up and he looked over at X with big eyes, his whole body was trembling with fear. “No one is going to hurt you here; we just want to talk to you. We won’t touch you and won’t let anyone touch you,” X continued quietly.
Pitt continued to tremble, but he seemed to relax slightly as X’s words sunk into him. Hawk watched X with narrowed eyes, this was a kid who had been taught not to trust and from the clutch that he had on Pitt, he would die protecting his brother.
“Why did you ask us to come here?” Hawk asked.
Blaine cleared his throat and sat forward slowly, so as not to alarm either boy, “first off, I want to thank you both for bringing Lyric here to us, we are keeping her safe and won’t allow her to go back to your father.”
Pitt’s eyes widened and a goofy smile broke out across his face at the mention of Lyric, “she is my friend, I saved her,” he said proudly, tapping on his chest.
Blaine chuckled and nodded his head, “you did, and you did the right thing.”
“Is she still here?” Hawk asked.
“Yes, she is, she is healing, she was hurt and starved, and has a long road to recovery, but she is healing,” Blaine answered as they watched Hawk take a sigh of what seemed like relief.
“What did you need from us?” Hawk asked.
“We want to find out why your dad took her? What he wanted with her. Lyric said that he planned to breed her, but he never raped her, and we don’t understand why he waited,” Blaine asked.
“Dad wanted to do bad things to her, but I wouldn’t let him. He punched her when I wasn’t allowed in the room, but I broke in the room and stopped him. I killed him,” Pitt said from where he sat tucked into Hawks side
X’s eyes widened; he had killed Gable. A sense of disappointment went through X, as much as he would be thrilled that Gable was dead, it hadn’t been by his hand. Hawk gave Pitt’s hand a squeeze and cleared his throat before sitting back in the chair and running his hands up through his hair.
“Our father,” Hawk spat with what seemed like disgust, “took Lyric seven months ago with the intention of raping her to get her pregnant. The mistake he made was letting her befriend Pitt. She became his friend, and he as a result became protective of her.”
Hawk looked over at Pitt who was staring off into the distance, before H
awk cleared his throat and turned to Pitt, “hey man, you want to put your music on for a little bit, while I talk to the guys?” he asked.
X frowned, Pitt nodded his head and gave Hawk a small smile. He seemed to know that Hawk wanted to talk to them without him hearing but was willing to do as his brother instructed without question. He slipped the headphones out of his pocket and put them in his ears, before Hawk handed Pitt his phone and he scrolled through what must have been a music app. Once Pitt was relaxed back into the couch, with his eyes closed and his head bopping to the tune, Hawk turned back to them.
“I don’t like talking about our father in front of him, it upsets him. Ever since Pitt was about four years old, our dad used rape and torture to control Pitt. It was like he knew that Pitt one day was going to be bigger than him and he needed to make him afraid before that happened. So, Pitt received regular beatings and different men from the club would rape him, some so brutally that he couldn’t sit for days at a time,” Hawk said shaking his head with disgust.
“Once I got big enough, I started taking on more of the care of Pitt, keeping him away from my dad and the other men. Anyway, when dad brought Lyric back to the club house and locked her up, he locked her up in Pitt’s room. He didn’t consider that all that he had done to Pitt didn’t turn him into a sexual deviant. Lyric and Pitt got to know one another, and Pitt became protective of her. I think dad was hoping that Pitt would rape her, and torture her to make her compliant, but that’s not what happened. Instead anytime dad went into the room and made any attempt to either beat or even rape her, Pitt would protect her. He took a lot of the beatings at first.
Then dad started locking Pitt out of the room or sending him out with me in order to beat and torture her. I don’t know why he didn’t rape her during those times, but it seemed to have become some sort of game to him. To see how far he could push her before she became compliant to him. It never worked,” Hawk said with a humorless chuckle and shake of his head.
