by Keta Kendric
He continued without giving me a chance to answer. “I knew something was up when I found you stooping over the dead man’s body, observing your handiwork. It was what you’d wanted the entire time. You’d been searching for the right marks that could bring you the death you craved, the kind of destruction you lived for. Why didn’t you kill me, huh? Why the fuck didn’t you put a bullet in my fucking head?”
The sharp sting of tears started to pepper my eyes. Was Aaron’s description of me accurate? Was I truly that fucked up?
“Answer me, goddammit!”
Aaron’s thundering voice nearly drove me out of my skin, but his side-eye glare said I needed to answer him.
“I didn’t want to kill you or any of your people. I only wanted to see how you lived, even if it meant me witnessing you killing people. I wanted to observe others that live in dangerous situations to see if I could figure out what is wrong with me. Nothing has helped me. I’m fucked up, broken, twisted in so many ways, I can’t unbend myself.”
“So, we were your test subjects? Nothing more than human lab rats to you?”
The loud boom of Aaron’s hand slamming into the steering wheel caused me to claw at the door panel.
“Why the fuck did you pick us?”
Although the door was locked, I gripped the latch as I remained pressed against it.
Aaron’s gaze was the worst I’d seen so far. Death darkened his eyes, and his body sat in a tense hunched position as he fought to hold a sea of rage in that demanded to be let out.
“And you fucked my father. I asked you, outright, if my father fucked you and your clever ass avoided the question. Was it a thrill for you? Some type of freakish conquest? Fucking father and son?”
Based on how tight Aaron’s skin stretched against his knuckles as he gripped the steering wheel, I didn’t have to guess that he wanted nothing more than to strangle me with his bare hands.
I clamped my lips shut because my words weren’t doing shit but pissing him off even more than he already was.
“You’d better fucking answer my question, Megan or Lacey. I don’t even know what the fuck to call you.”
It was difficult, but I swallowed the baseball-sized lump in my throat and answered him.
“It was the only way to get him to protect me from the rest of the MC,” I said, my voice low and shaky. Looking back at it now, I wasn’t sorry I’d slept with Shark. I’d naïvely assumed that a group known for being racist wouldn’t want to touch me sexually with a ten-foot pole, but I’d been wrong.
When I discovered that the group didn’t have a problem sleeping with an African-American woman, the quick fix was agreeing to sleep with the only man that I knew could protect me. My moral compass had clearly been destroyed along with my sanity, so sleeping with one biker versus the entire crew was the most logical decision my brain could make at the time.
Aaron reached over and groped me roughly between my legs, jarring me from my thoughts.
“Why stop at him and me? Why not go for the whole MC? Wasn’t that what you wanted, to get fucked? To fuck us and laugh at us after you’d gotten what you wanted? I fucking hate you!”
His violent voice grew quiet as his heavy breaths filled the cab of his truck. His nostrils flared as if he was preparing them to breathe fire.
“Now that I know what you are about, I’m going to fucking make you pay. I’m going to make you suffer. And your friends, your partners in crime, Beverly and Laura, are going to have to have closed-casket funerals. I killed those bitches. I let them each know that it was you who brought death to their doors.”
My head whipped around at Aaron’s deadly revelation. “Nooo!” I screamed, my voice ripped from a place deep inside my chest as tears streamed down my face. My sobs escaped uncontrollably, as agonizing hiccupping cries scratched my throat. Knowing that I had caused the death of the only friends that had looked out for me was worse than death itself. Beverly and Laura had helped me escape a situation that would have otherwise killed me.
“So, the she-devil does care about someone?” Aaron’s taunting voice sank me deeper into my despair.
“I took pictures of them for you. Figured you’d like to see more gruesome acts of death. Use that shit in your books. Now, I understand why those damn books are so good. Everything in them is probably some shit you’ve manipulated your way into seeing or have done yourself.”
My mind descended into a haze of despair so deep, Aaron’s words faded into the background. I fell against the door, shaking and crying with my head hanging low to my chest. My heart had stopped beating and blood was no longer flowing to the rest of my worthless body. The fact that my actions had led to the death of two innocent women was the worst thing that could have ever happened. My mind may have been fucked up, but I had never intended good people to get killed because of their association with me.
Beverly and Laura were the only two people who gave a damn about me when the rest of the world shitted on me. They supported me and didn’t judge me not even when I did shit that had them questioning my sanity. Once we’d become friends, they’d never turned their backs on me, not even when my mind led me to the darkened path I’d decided to walk down.
Now, more than anything, I wanted Aaron to kill me. Whatever he had planned for me, for however long he wanted it to last, I deserved it, every brutal moment.
14 Megan
At the first stop for fuel, I didn’t lift my head to acknowledge Aaron when he asked me if I wanted to use the bathroom. When he climbed back into the truck and handed me a sandwich, I didn’t reach for it. I remained slumped against the door, and my mind lingered in a tailspin that wouldn’t stop.
Why the hell did Aaron even care if I ate or used the bathroom? He was taking me someplace to murder me. I was to blame for what Aaron had done and for what he was about to do to me. It was my selfish actions that had led to this outcome. I would have to live with my friends’ deaths for however long I had left.
I hated Aaron for what he’d done. I wanted to see him suffer for killing my friends, but my fucking heart refused to let go of the fact that I still had feelings for him...feelings that I would stack into a pile on the ground and set afire if such a thing were possible.
Time passed in a blur as I sat and wallowed in my misery, not hearing or seeing the world around me. I hated myself more than Aaron ever could. I had no idea if hours or minutes were passing. I didn’t care anymore.
When my bladder could no longer hold the large amount of water I’d drunk after my evening run, I allowed my pee to flow out of me. Who cared if I was a piss-drenched mess? I’d gotten my friends killed, and I was about to be tortured and killed. I simply sat there in a catatonic state until Aaron picked up the scent of my urine.
“Megan, what the fuck!”
Aaron slammed his foot on the brake, making the tires squeal as they trembled under the weight of the truck. The sudden emergence of momentum lurched me forward. I didn’t bother resisting the force of the impact and would have likely hit the windshield if I hadn’t been snatched back by the seat belt.
Due to the dark sky, Aaron tapped the button for the interior light, flicking it on. He glanced between my legs first before his gaze followed the wet trail that led to his floor.
“Goddammit, Megan! What the fuck is wrong with you? Why did you do that?”
I didn’t answer, didn’t even acknowledge that he was talking to me. I’d heard him, but at the same time, I hadn’t heard a word.
He gripped my shoulder and shook me, but I sat there and let my body get jerked around.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he asked again as his head pivoted between my face and the pool of piss at my feet.
Aaron hopped out of the truck, leaving his door open as he jogged around to my side.
When he cracked open my door, my body slumped over and hung out of the opening. The seatbelt kept me from tumbling to the ground.
Aaron shoved me back into the truck by my shoulder. The sound of cars zo
oming by on the road through Aaron’s left open door registered, but my mind failed me and I couldn’t concentrate on anything but imagining my friends dying at the hands of a man my fucking heart refused to let go of.
“You’re fucking crazier than I imagined you were,” he said through gritted teeth.
With a firm grip on my shoulder, he shook and questioned me to find out what was wrong with me. This was how I’d handled my grief the first time I’d been raped by my foster father when I was twelve. I’d stopped talking for a month. My mind had decided to come back when it was ready.
Aaron reached across me and unhooked my seatbelt before he pulled me out of his truck.
He struggled to stand me up, when I was unable to get my mind to tell my legs to support my teetering body. He reached down to prop me up against the side of the truck after I’d let my body slide to the ground. I was vaguely aware of what was happening, but my mind was so filled with images of Aaron killing my friends, I couldn’t think straight long enough to function normally.
Aaron rummaged in the back of his truck and came out with a roll of paper towels and some type of cleaning spray. He fussed and cussed at me as he wiped his seat and floor.
“I don’t have the time to deal with a crazy-ass woman. Look at this shit. This is going to stain my seats. Fuck!”
Rubbing hard enough to shake the truck, he mumbled and grumbled as he cleaned the seat and floor with angry swipes.
“I can’t believe this shit. Out of all the shit I could be dealing with, I end up with the craziest bitch in the state of Florida.”
Once he was satisfied with the seat cleaning, he pulled out a large green blanket from the storage box in the bed of his truck and spread it across the seat. He proceeded to stand me up and deadlift me into the truck before reaching around and securing my seatbelt again. I was no help to him. My limp body slumped right back over to the door opening. Aaron gave me a shove before he closed the door to keep from slamming me in it.
He hopped back in the truck and took off. His revving engine and sharp turns helped to translate his level of anger towards me. It seemed minutes had passed when the truck slowed to a crawl. The crunch of gravel and the unmistakable ditch-deep potholes in the road made themselves known before Aaron came to a stop.
We’d ended up at Aaron’s house. It appeared he was going to bath me in acid and bury me with Chuck, Dutch, and Clint, the three men we’d killed inside his kitchen. It didn’t matter. I deserved it. Out of all the crazy messes I’d made in my life, this one was unforgivable.
I’d chosen the August Knights Motorcycle Club because nothing about any of them was innocent, so if something I did led to their deaths, I wouldn’t have cared. However, I would have cared about Aaron until now. Now, even he was on my shit list after what he’d done to my friends.
15 Aaron
I had to physically strip Megan, stand her in the shower, and bath her. She’d gone into some type of crazy-person, mute mode and was freaking me the fuck out. I didn’t know how to deal with crazy people. Had I known she was truly insane, I’d have left her alone.
“Megan!” I yelled as I shook her, attempting to snap her out of whatever was wrong with her. “Shit!” I didn’t know if I still wanted to kill her since she was obviously mentally ill. I didn’t believe she was acting either. The light in her eyes had dwindled down to barely a flicker. She didn’t look like the beautiful woman I knew. Her face was so devoid of emotion, it appeared as if some dark creature had sucked it out of her.
I put her in my bedroom. After placing her in bed, I locked her in and went down to warm her a can of soup. A short while later, I attempted to feed her, but she wouldn’t eat. She hadn’t eaten or drank anything since I’d yanked her out of her apartment. Why was she like this? What was wrong with her?
She didn’t acknowledge my presence either, not even when I’d threaten to kill her again. After forcing her to at least drink water, I made her sit on the toilet and pee before I tucked her into my bed and covered her. Other than sitting on the bed next to her and watching her like a hawk, I didn’t know what else to do.
She eventually fell asleep but tossed, turned, and yelled most of the night. She pleaded for someone to stop hurting her, and when she wasn’t pleading for herself, she pleaded for others. She’d always slept restlessly, even talked in her sleep occasionally, but it had never been this bad.
My threats I’d made on her life must have triggered something. The longer I was around her like this, the less I wanted to kill her. Now, all I wanted to do was figure out what was wrong with her.
The next morning, she rose up out of the bed, an empty vessel on autopilot. I sat at the foot of the bed and watched her shuffle to the bathroom.
She bumped into the dresser like she didn’t know it was there until she’d hit it. Her vacant eyes never focused on any specific thing. Her mind had completely traveled to another place, and I didn’t know shit about how to get her back in the right frame.
A few flickers of life tried to ease back into Megan over the next few days. Although her expression remained empty, she’d at least swallowed her food and drank water when I’d given it to her.
Afraid to leave her alone, I’d called off from work and extended my leave. Talking to Megan didn’t work because her mind had vacated the premises, and only a shell of her remained. With my threat of killing her hanging over her head, she didn’t even try to escape. Unless I pulled her up, she remained in bed, crying and staring at the walls with the covers up to her chin.
When I could no longer take the silence of the state she was in, I walked her down to the kitchen and sat her across the table from me.
“Megan, I’m not going to kill you. I don’t think I’d ever intended to. I need you to tell me how to help you. What’s wrong? Are you like this because I threatened to kill you?”
Nothing.
“Does it have something to do with your childhood in Texas?”
Nothing.
I knew from studying her past that Megan’s foster father and his nephew, her foster brother, had molested her, but I didn’t want to remind her of it since it was likely what had caused her to be this way. Maybe the fact that she’d brutally stabbed them was haunting her. Was I going to have to call Dr. Henderson? The doctor was our local fix-it man. He wasn’t a head doctor, but maybe he could give me some advice on how to help Megan.
For what seemed like hours, I sat across from her trying to figure out what could have plunged her into this state. A random, yet rational thought struck me. She hadn’t become this way until after I’d told her that I’d killed her friends.
I’d threatened to kill her, and she’d said nothing. I’d threatened to torture her, and she’d said nothing. But, the moment I’d told her that I’d killed her friends, she cried. She’d cried hard and hysterically. This had to be her way of handling the guilt she felt about her friends.
“Is this about your friends, Beverly and Laura?”
She glanced at me then with more life in her eyes than I’d seen since she’d pissed in my truck.
“I didn’t kill your friends, Megan. I only told you that to make you feel as bad as I did. I might be an asshole, but I’m not a completely homicidal maniac. If I’d known that something I could say could make you snap, I’d have kept my mouth shut.”
A few more hints of life sparked into her teary eyes, enough to put a tint of color back in her ashen cheeks. After walking around the table to her, I made her stand before I took her seat and sat her across my lap. I snuggled her tight against my chest before wrapping her in my arms. She was as crazy as fuck, but I loved her.
Words I’d never intended to say to her bubbled to the surface of my mind and spilled over my vocal cords. The truest words I’d ever spoken to anyone started to sneak past my lips and brushed over her earlobe.
“I love you, Megan. That’s why I couldn’t kill you. That’s why I can’t kill you. That’s why I was so hurt when I found out you had played my entire MC and me. And i
f that wasn’t enough, you fucked my father, and I still don’t hate you enough to hurt you. I still fucking love you.”
At those words, her arms folded tighter around my neck as her body shook against mine. Her tears dripped down my neck as she repeatedly sobbed. “I’m sorry, Aaron. I never meant to hurt you.”
Maybe Megan was playing me again. Maybe she was the ultimate manipulator that had enough practice to get what she wanted from anyone. Maybe she’d turned me into a big fucking fool-hearted idiot. I didn’t know what to believe, what to think, or what to trust about Megan.
All I knew was that I loved the damn woman, and I couldn’t overcome it. I couldn’t turn the shit off. I couldn’t beat it. She had a fucking hold on me that I couldn’t fight. My heart was so twisted over her that I’m sure it was sitting sideways in my chest.
Megan slept snuggled against me that night. I held her while she fought whatever demons were haunting her. As impossible as it was to believe, I didn’t bother her for sex. I wanted her to get better before I fucked the shit out of her again.
When I asked her to tell me what had happened in Texas, she nodded her head, acknowledging my request, but not saying anything. I figured she’d tell me the story in her own time, so I didn’t press her.
The next morning, I found my bed empty and panicked, hoping Megan hadn’t run away again. I ran out of my room, throwing a T-shirt over my head as I dashed down the stairs.
The sight of Megan standing at my stove, cooking, stopped me in my tracks. She offered a sad smile, looking up at me with those big, brown, heart-tugging eyes. I could tell she was fighting to get back to normal or at least what was considered her normal.
When she sat a plate of piping hot eggs, bacon, potatoes, and two fluffy biscuits in front of me, nothing could have pulled the smile from my face.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” she replied as she headed towards the refrigerator and poured me a big glass of orange juice.
