by Drew Elyse
Shit.
I shook off the sleep and went into the hall just as Ace approached.
“Guess she’s up,” I muttered.
“She’s gonna hurt herself the way she’s running on that door,” he said.
The piercing screams weren’t relenting at all. On the contrary, they seemed to grow sharper as the seconds wore on. With the thumps and scratches sounding through the door, she was going to fight until it gave way or her hands did. No part of the clubhouse construction was cheap, that door included. The fucker was solid oak. She’d destroy her hands long before she made an impact.
“I’ve got her,” I told him before turning back to my room. I threw on a shirt and my cut, and grabbed the key Slick had given me from the bedside table.
I slid the key in the lock, but didn’t turn it. Instead, I pounded my own fist full force against the door.
“Back up,” I ordered.
Her cries broke at the sound and her assault on the barrier halted. I turned the key, but lifted my arms to block my face. In my experience, women went for the face first. She didn’t have a weapon, but nails and eyes were a bad fucking combination.
I was right to brace. The second I swung the door open, she attacked. Unfortunately for me, I was wrong to block upward. She didn’t pounce like a cat with claws bared; she went right for an uppercut to the gut. It was smart—smart enough to outmaneuver me. In my moment of hesitation after the blow, she threw an elbow right at my sternum.
It was coordinated, practiced. She knew what she was doing. Despite her small size, she managed to get momentum behind the blows. With that surprise on her side, she would have been able to take down most men.
I wasn’t most men.
As her left arm pulled back toward her body and her right arm began to swing forward, I recovered. Then, she was fucked.
Her right fist never made contact. I got my arm beneath hers mid-swing and forced it off course. The pull of her own movement sent her listing. She were a dude, I would have used the moment to return the favor with a fist to the abdomen. A girl that size, I could do some irreparable damage with a move like that. Instead, I grabbed for her left arm, getting a hold she wasn’t going to be able to break on the slim thing. In one yank, I had her back to me, and grabbed hold of her other arm. I held her tight, but far enough away from my body to make a head-butt out of the question.
“Let me go!” she screamed, trying to shake me off.
“I’m not gonna hurt you,” I told her. “Not the one who took you. Just trying to figure out who the fuck you are.”
That seemed to grab her attention. She pulled away, and I let her. Her ice blue eyes were wild and surrounded with what I hoped were dark circles, not bruises. She looked me over with more than slight speculation in her gaze until she took in my cut. Her eyes stayed on the Savage Disciples patch for a long moment.
“You’re a Disciple?” she asked.
I gave her a jerk of my chin in answer and braced for the freak out to continue. As much as I loved my cut, it might’ve been best to leave it in my room. She might have named the club to those fuckers, but that didn’t change the fact that most women weren’t going to be real comforted in her situation by realizing they were in the hands of an MC.
She wasn’t most women.
Her knees gave out and I had to move quick to keep her from slamming to the floor. On a broken exhale, she whispered, “Oh thank God.”
That was when the tears started.
Shit.
I didn’t know what to do. She was going into a full breakdown, but unless I was very mistaken, it was from relief. Sobs racked her body as she held onto my cut with a death grip. If that shit wasn’t genuine, she was the most talented actress I’d ever seen. It seemed maybe she really did have ties to the club.
As much as I wanted to find out what those were, there was no getting that kind of intel out of her in the state she was in. I couldn’t exactly blame her. However she had gotten here, it had not been a good journey. Honestly, the fact that she held it together until she seemed to think she was safe was impressive. She was strong. Had to give her that.
When the sobs lost some of the power—something I figured had more to do with exhaustion than her calming down all that much—I wrapped my hand around the back of her head, trying to get her attention focused on me. The moment I did, she let out a sharp cry and flinched away. Looking down, I noticed the blood on my hand.
I twisted her torso so I could get a look. There, in the somewhat matted tangle of her hair, was red. There were flakes of dried blood littering the spot. It must’ve happened before she was brought to us, but the strain of the fight opened it back up.
“Ace!” I bellowed toward the open door.
His hurried, but uneven footfalls proceeded him. “Yeah?”
“Call Doc. Keep ringing the fucker ‘til you wake his ass up. Get him here ASAP. Girl’s got a head wound.”
He ran off to do just that and I carried the girl to the bed. I pulled a chair back in the room and sat beside her. Someone had to make sure she didn’t hurt herself until Doc could take a look at her. He’d be able to tackle it, or tell us whether we needed to get her to a hospital. Doc got his road name because he’d been a surgeon for years before he walked away from medicine to join the club.
She kept crying quietly, a mix of pain and relief, I figured. Life had given me enough lessons to teach me to trust my instincts, and they were telling me she was no threat. She seemed like she needed protecting.
The club could do that, protect her.
The club, not me.
Jamie had always seemed like she needed protecting.
I hadn’t done that. Maybe it hadn’t been my job, but I hadn’t protected any of them.
Mom.
Dad.
My sweet little Jamie.
I wasn’t taking on that kind of job again.
Doc came in an hour later. He didn’t even make it through the doorway before he stopped dead.
“Ember?” he asked, shocked.
She stirred on the bed, having dozed off half an hour before. She rubbed at her red eyes before focusing on Doc. “Uncle D?”
Uncle?
“What the fuck is going on here?” Doc roared, surprising me. The brother was a crotchety fucker, but he was usually pretty quiet.
“You know her?” I had to clarify, if only because I had no damn clue how we’d gotten here.
“Know her?” he asked, like I was fucking dense. “She’s Roadrunner’s fucking daughter!”
Well, shit.
Doc surmised the wound was minor. Shit bled a lot, but I knew as well as anyone head injuries did that. He decided it didn’t even need stitches, just to be cleaned and looked after.
Good news.
And speaking of news…
“You ain’t said much, Jager,” Doc pointed out as he drew some of her blood. He was going to take it to a friend at the hospital, make sure we weren’t looking at any lingering issues from whatever they drugged her with.
For whatever reason, Ember wouldn’t let me go far. While Doc had examined her head, she’d held onto my arm to keep me close. Doc’s eyes lingered on that hold more than once, his face tightening beneath the white beard. He could say something if he wanted. It wasn’t like I was inserting myself there. Fact was, I was happy to get some space, but I wasn’t going to do anything to push her back into hysterics.
She’d been through hell. I could deal.
“Don’t say much a lot,” I answered.
Ember’s lips kicked up at one corner, but I didn’t give her anything.
“You reach out to the boys last night?” he asked.
I shook my head. “They’re due back any time now. Wasn’t going to get them here much faster. Figured there was no point.”
Doc nodded. “You didn’t want to spook anyone.”
Exactly.
Silence lapsed, broken only by the sounds of Doc messing with his equipment. It reigned until he stood, announc
ing, “Going to run the sample to the hospital, try to beat them back here.”
He wanted to be here when Roadrunner found out what happened. Seeing as he was one of the only people who had been around Ember before, that was a good call.
After he left, Ember seemed to become aware of the way she was holding on to me. Her eyes settled on her hand on my arm, roaming up and over me, before dropping. She pulled her hand away and brought both arms in tight to her body.
“Sorry,” she muttered.
“No problem.”
“What’s your name?” she questioned.
It hadn’t occurred to me that that shit hadn’t come up sooner. With everything else, it hadn’t been important.
“Jager,” I answered.
She nodded in response, but said nothing else.
So there it was again, the silence. I preferred it that way. I wasn’t one for talking just to fill the void. She seemed to feel differently. When Doc had been checking her over, he’d talked more than I was used to hearing. She was more at ease then, whereas now, she was curling in on herself.
“You okay?” I asked. A fucked question, I knew. Physically, she already laid it all out for Doc while I was right there. Mentally, there was no way she was copacetic at that moment.
“Why haven’t you asked?” she shot back instead. We both knew what she meant. Neither Doc nor I had posed a single question about what happened to her. Even while Doc was checking her over, he didn’t ask how she got hurt, just stuck to how she was feeling.
“Your dad’s going to want to hear it himself, not have one of us relay that to him. Not about to make you relive it more than needed,” I explained.
“Oh.” That was all she gave in response, but I wasn’t looking for more.
After a few minutes, she shifted gingerly, until she was lying on her side, curled up like a child. Her head was flat on the mattress a few inches from my legs. Stripping the room meant Ace had taken the pillows out. I considered going to get her one since she clearly wasn’t a threat, but I stayed put. Despite Doc telling her she was safe at the Disciples’ clubhouse, her eyes kept shifting to the door nervously. I didn’t think leaving her alone was the right call.
Her head moved around, trying to get her neck comfortable. Only a short pause passed before she did it again. By the third time, I was done watching her squirm. Snaking my hand beneath her arm, I pulled her toward me, lifted her head gently, and laid it on my thigh. I wasn’t going anywhere, might as well give her that.
She settled then, and within ten minutes, fell asleep.
I stayed awake, as always, listening for the roar of tailpipes while wondering if the Disciples were headed for war.
The sound woke me—a low rumble from a distance. It was a sound I knew, one I learned to love when I was just a little girl. No one in the neighborhood I grew up in with Mom had a motorcycle. That roar meant one thing: my dad was there.
I used to spend all day listening for it when I knew he was coming. Just then, I knew this sound meant the same thing and tears pricked at the back of my eyes.
Doc’s arrival hadn’t made that kind of sound. If it were him coming back, I wouldn’t have heard it. This was several bikes, their engines making enough noise to carry through the walls.
I sat up and Jager stood once I was out of the way. I couldn’t read him, not that my mind was clear enough to read anyone. I wasn’t sure whether he had been waiting for me to release him all morning or preparing for Dad to come in. He didn’t give anything away. Even when I attacked him earlier, his face had been stoic.
And what a face it was.
I was so past the point of being able to deal, I wasn’t really feeling anything. It was like a wall had gone up in my head so I could exist without feeling everything it was containing.
Still, I had enough headspace to notice Jager. I might’ve had to be dead not to. He was so there. His presence was something that couldn’t be ignored, even if it seemed he was happy to fade into the shadows and observe.
He looked like he could belong in the shadows.
It wasn’t the black clothes, exclusively black and grey tattoos, or even the black leather cut on his shoulders that I knew as well as anyone meant he wasn’t rainbows and sunshine.
It was his eyes. They weren’t dark in color—they were actually an amazing grey I wanted to get a closer look at—but they were dark, nonetheless. There was pure shadow behind those irises that somehow permeated out of him. If he managed to make a room darker by entering it, I wouldn’t be surprised.
He had a face and body that could make a woman want to give living in the dark a try—at least for one night. Tall, not dramatically, but definitely tall even for a man. Muscular through both arms in a way you could tell it continued throughout his body. It wasn’t just about show or getting women either. He radiated power. His body was a weapon more intimidating than the gun he probably carried.
I’d been intent on taking all of this in, even knowing I was doing it to distract myself. Jager made a good distraction, even if he wasn’t an active participant in that goal.
I looked to the door again—something I couldn’t seem to stop doing. I knew why. I’d seen them in the doorway to my room when…
Nope. No. Not going there.
Instead, I focused on the sound coming through the doorway. The engines had shut down and voices were carrying, becoming louder as they came inside.
“Shouldn’t you…” I trailed off, indicating the hall with a tilt of my head.
“Ace is handling it,” he answered.
He wasn’t leaving. The breath that left me at his answer told me I wouldn’t have been able to let him go.
The voices quieted. I barely picked up one speaking to the others, but wasn’t able to catch any of what was said. It went on for a while, which surprised me. I figured Dad would be rushing right through the building. Unless Ace didn’t start with me being there. Maybe he was telling them about last night. I didn’t remember any of it, but something had to have happened to get me from the cell I’d been in when I’d woken up the first time to being in a room at the Disciples’ clubhouse.
Then, there was a yell. “What the fuck?”
That voice. I knew it. My heart soared at the same time my throat closed to the point where I could barely breathe.
Loud, fast footsteps sounded, getting closer and closer until he was standing there. He froze in the doorway, staring at me with wild eyes.
“Daddy,” I whispered as tears spilled over.
He had me in his arms a second later, holding me close and squeezing me tight. That wall my mind had built came crumbling down and I fell apart, feeling the security only my dad’s arms had ever given me.
“Ber-bear,” he said in a gruff voice against my head and I completely lost it. He was here. I was with him. He would keep me safe.
I cried for what felt like hours, Dad moving only to situate us on the bed so I was in his lap, my face pressed to his chest and soaking his shirt.
Somewhere in my mind, I knew it was killing him. He’d never been able to handle my tears. I could still remember how he reacted when I’d broken down crying as a little girl because I fell off the first bike he got me. One of the training wheels had come to a complete stop when it hit a pebble on the ground. He’d thrown the whole thing out, bought a new one, and wouldn’t let me ride it until he’d checked over every piece with his mechanic’s eye, tested it, and swept the driveway and sidewalk.
Seriously, he got out a broom and swept it.
All because I’d shed a couple tears over a little road rash.
Seeing me falling apart like that, he was going to lose it.
It was that thought, the knowledge that he was suffering too, that eventually gave me the strength to rein it in. He heard it, felt it, and gave me time to get myself under some semblance of control. Only then did he ask the question I knew he’d been dying to get an answer to since he walked in.
“What happened, baby girl?”
&n
bsp; Through hiccupping breaths, I settled myself on the bed beside him and forced out the words. “It was really late. I was asleep. I didn’t even hear them until one knocked into one of the picture frames in the hall. It was too late by then. By the time I realized what was happening, they were already at my bedroom door. I went for the gun, but one of them got a hold of me before I could get it and release the safety. They stuck me, I felt the needle, and whatever they gave me knocked me out.”
The anger radiating from Dad made me stop there, but he insisted, “Keep going.”
With a sigh, I continued, telling him the whole thing. The sobs came back, even though I had no more tears left. I had to stop frequently, unable to get the words out. Dad didn’t pressure me, and neither did the other men I could tell were in the room even though I hadn’t looked around. In fact, Dad didn’t say anything else until I explained how I told my captor about the club.
“That was good, baby girl,” he assured me. “That’s what got you home.”
Home. Good God, I hadn’t known whether I’d ever be able to return anywhere that could be a home.
I nodded at his assurance. “The guy, he locked us back in and came back with someone else. He was in a suit. I told him the same thing. They both left, then came back a while later with a syringe. They put it into my IV and I went out again. That’s the last thing I remember before I woke up here.”
Reading that I had nothing more in me, Dad moved and again pulled me into his arms.
“You’re here now. We’ll keep you safe,” he promised.
I sighed. I had no idea what was coming or why life had led me here, but I knew, with absolute certainty, that he was telling the truth.
When Ember was done telling her tale, we got the fuck out of there. Roadrunner needed time with his daughter and neither of them wanted us standing around like a nosey fucking audience.
“You recognize the two who brought her here?” Stone, the Disciples’ president, asked me.
