by Ryan Michele
Because of me, Dagger is dead.
Nox hates me now because he sees it too.
If he wouldn’t have met me, this wouldn’t have happened and his brother would be alive.
Pain like no other slices through my chest.
I should’ve just stayed with Buck. Not called Nox to come and get me out of that hell, or I should’ve made the blade go in deeper. Then Nox wouldn’t be hurt. I’d be out of the hell I’d been in, and his friend would be alive.
Knowing this, I roll out of bed and toss on my clothes, filling my backpack with what little I have left. Checking my money stash, it isn’t a lot, but it doesn’t need to be. Making sure the gun is loaded and behind my back, I sweep my hair up into a ponytail and put my backpack on.
Looking around Nox’s room, tears fall from my eyes as the sadness grips me on what could’ve been. It’s worse to have something, know how good it is, then have it ripped from your grasp. But Nox has always been out of my grasp.
“I’m so sorry, Nox.” The whisper is quiet, holding every ounce of pain I have inside.
All of this has to end. Every bit of it.
I refuse to go back to Buck, and I also refuse to hurt Nox or his family any more than I already have. Living though, isn’t really living for me I’ve learned. Looking over my shoulder at every turn, trying to keep the appearance of normal when I’m anything but. All of it I should’ve never done.
When I was a kid, my mother would talk to me about everything that I could do with my life. Different jobs that would take me all around the country because she thought it was exciting to try new places. She had these dreams for me to make something of myself and give back to the world. Her free spirit had me believing that anything is possible.
That I could achieve any goal that I set forth in this life.
Whether it be to work at a desk job, or go out exploring. She’d opened my mind to all the possibilities.
After she died, I lost that. I lost me. Every year with Buck, pieces of me disappeared. She disappeared.
Reading her letters helped for a while. But now, with what I’ve done to the only man who’s treated me like I meant something more than an object, it crushes me in a way I’ll never recover. Ever.
I just want peace. For once in my life, I want everything to stop and allow me to breathe easy. This life hasn’t afforded me that and with having Buck out there looking for me, I know it never will. No matter where I go and try to hide, he’ll find me.
It needs to end. All of it needs to stop.
The bed stares back at me, covers messed up a reminder of what he gave me only a while ago. All of him, fully, honestly, and real. So real I felt it through the marrow of my bones and into my soul. Safe. My safe place.
His last look at me will be burned into my brain for the rest of my days. That look of betrayal. Of pain. Of hurt. Of devastation. All of it in a single look.
Never would I want him to think of me this way, but I did it without realizing it anyway.
All of this needs to end.
“I love you, Nox. Thank you for giving me what I never dreamed of and showing me what safe means.”
Wiping my face and pulling back my shoulders, I open the door and step out. The halls are quiet now, no doubt Nox went and told his brothers what I’ve said. They’ll all hate me and after they showed me so much kindness today, that devastates me. It is another scar on me, but this one will never heal.
Closing the door, I make my way down the hall into an empty clubhouse. I hear talking behind a door and a light shines underneath it. He’s probably in there, and as much as I want to tell him bye and thank him for everything he did for me, I can’t. Because I caused this, and that guilt will never allow me to breathe easy.
I hate myself. Nox was the one person to touch me in a way that was pure and kind. And I did this. I started it all because I needed one more look at him before he left.
Opening the door to the clubhouse, the darkness of the early morning hours has brought on a chill, but it’s the only thing that makes me know I’m alive.
Therefore, I don’t reach in and grab a sweatshirt; instead, I let it turn my skin cold.
Not long ago, I felt this power inside me that I could actually make a go out of this life. I thought I’d be free, even though those guys came after me; I held my ground and felt so damn good about it. Nox telling me he was proud of me made it ten times better because I did it myself. I relied on myself to get out of that situation, proving that I can.
Now, none of that matters. A man lies in the cold ground and his family hurts for him. Guilt is an emotion that hurts worse than the bruises, hits, and kicks. It’s one that will never heal. It will never fade. It will never disappear. It will always be there, and I can’t do that to Nox. Not one more second.
I turn to the right and head to the parking lot, just needing to get far enough away from the clubhouse that I won’t be heard. There’s a park not too far from here. My mom took me there when I was younger, pushing me on the swing and on the merry-go-round. I’ve always loved that place because I always felt free there.
Now, I need to be free again and this is the only way.
“Where are you goin’?” comes a woman’s voice from behind me, and I stop knowing exactly who it is. I don’t want to turn around and face her because she’ll feel the same way that Nox does. For someone who was so kind to me and accepting in her own way, I don’t want to see the pain and hurt.
She doesn’t need me around here.
“I’m leaving,” I say as I begin to walk.
“No. You’re gonna stop.”
No, I’m not going to stop and see her like this. I’m not going to listen to what a fuck up I am, because I know it better than anyone else. My feet keep moving as I hear it. A gun explodes behind me, kicking up the dirt at my feet, but I don’t jump. For once something scared the shit out of me, but I didn’t move.
If only she would’ve shot further up.
Slowly, I turn around and Princess sits on a picnic bench, gun in her hand aimed at me.
“Do I need to actually shoot you?” she asks.
“Please do.” Yep, I’ve given up. There is no more fight inside of me. There isn’t anything besides emptiness, and it needs to all stop. The hollow void in me is eating me from the inside out. I just want it to be done.
“Where are you goin’?” she asks again, not taking her eyes off me. I have my gun in the back of my pants, but I’d never use it—on her. And I don’t want to. I only brought it for one thing and one thing only.
“Leaving. Getting out of all your lives.”
“And what happens when that asshole finds you?”
“He won’t,” I answer immediately, knowing this path will be the end of it all.
“You’re smarter than that.” She’s not wrong. I am, but I also know what will be done in the next few minutes and she, nor her family, will have to deal with my wreckage. It will be over, finally.
She studies me when I say nothing and there is no more energy left in me to care about what she sees. I’m done. Over. Finished.
“Nox won’t like that.” Her gun is still aimed at me, and hope blooms that she’ll just pull the damn trigger already. It will only take the one bullet right to the forehead to make all the despair and guilt disappear. Nox, right now, doesn’t want me around him any more than the rest of the club does. “Don’t think I can let ya do that to my boy.”
Princess’ face gets blurry as water hits my eyes, and hurt is laced in my voice. “I’ve caused him, you, this entire club too much. It’s better if I just disappear. I’m sorry…” My words get caught in my throat, and I try to push down the burn that threatens to spill out. “I’m just sorry.”
“So you’re sorry and you’re gonna take off in the middle of the night? Away from my boy?” She stares me down, but I have nothing left to give. I’m empty. Void. Nothing. Back to what I was when I lived with Buck. This broke me. I’d thought I was broken before, but doing this to Nox,
to his family, is something that can never be fixed. The look of disappointment Nox had when he left me in his room will forever be etched in my brain. There will be nothing I can do to make this better, except disappear.
“It’s best I get out of his life now. Then he can be happy.” Silent tears roll down my face, and my throat begins to constrict. Yes, I’d rather have physical pain than this.
“You think he’s not happy with you.”
I shake my head. “Not with everything I’ve cost him.” The look on Nox’s face pierces through me, threatening to crack my heart further.
She slowly lowers the gun, but it gives zero relief. She should’ve just pulled the trigger and gotten it over with.
“Not gonna sugar coat it for ya. So yeah, we’re pissed. Pissed that my boy didn’t call his brothers and get them to back them up.”
I cut her off, needing her to hear me. “That was my fault too. I begged him not to, and I shouldn’t have done that either.”
“He told me that, but we at Ravage stand by one another through thick and thin. Know you haven’t had that, so you wouldn’t know. That’s on Nox’s shoulders, not yours.”
“If I wouldn’t have called him to come and get me, none of this would’ve happened.”
Princess gets up from the picnic table and makes her way over to me. My heart stays steady and my breaths calm. No matter what she does to me, it will never match the pain inside of me.
“I’ve raised my boys into men. Men who protect. Men who follow their gut. Men who respect. If my boy wouldn’t have come and got you out of that shithole when you called, I would’ve beat the shit out of him. But Nox being Nox, he did. He took you away from that hell. What he should’ve done was bring you here, but went a different way. That’s on him, not you.”
“It is on me, Princess. I’m sorry, but I need to go.” Her words cut through me, slicing me deep. All of it. Nox doesn’t need to take the fall for my actions. I just need to get out of here and get to the park.
“My boy cares about you. Deeply. And you takin’ off in the dead of night isn’t going to help him. He has work that needs to be done right now because Dagger needs justice. You runnin’ out is going to take his focus away.” She pauses and this time when she stares at me, it feels as if she’s pulling every emotion out of me. That’s when I see it. She gets me. Gets why I’m leaving. What I’m going to do once I get out of here. She sees me down to my blackened soul. I say nothing.
“That isn’t going to solve a damn thing. You think being here is gonna crush Nox? No, you leaving is going to crush him. This shit right now is deep. So deep my boys are gonna be sinkin’ for a while. You leavin’ is gonna add to that, and I can’t let that happen.”
I lose it. Not in an angry, screaming, going after her way, but in a completely and totally emotional way never to recover way. Tears fall from my eyes as sobs rack my body, filling the dark sky. My knees give out, landing on the hard ground. All the pain comes pouring out of me and onto the cold damp with dew ground.
I’ve been broken more times that I can count, but this right here—this is the worst. The kind that you can’t come back from. That sears you inside and pulls you down, suffocating you until your last breath.
Arms wrap around me, and my body tenses. Compassionate touches for me have been far and few between. Sharon loved giving it, and I got used to her. But Princess?
Looking over my shoulder, her face is very close to mine as she parks her ass on the ground beside me. “Why?” I ask, not really knowing what I’m looking for, but needing something to grasp on to.
“Because once you’re at your lowest, the only way to go is up from here.”
I’m not sure I can do that. Especially if Nox looks at me the way he did before.
27
Nox
We didn’t find shit in Cary D’s shitty ass apartment except for cockroaches and beer cans. That man isn’t worth the clothes on his back. Or wasn’t. He’s rotting in the ground.
Carsyn.
Fuck. Everything twists inside of me, each decision I’ve made coming back to slap me in the face. It’s a no-win situation that I can’t focus on right now. Finding out who killed Dagger is the priority, and Carsyn is safe in the clubhouse until I can get everything straight.
“In,” Green says after popping the lock to Big Jim’s small home outside of Sumner. The neighborhood is quiet with fucking white picket fences around some of the homes. Not Big Jim’s, but his neighbor has them along with a manicured lawn you see in those magazines.
Damn strange for a man like Big Jim living in Leave it to Beaver land.
Luckily, Big Jim’s place butts up to a culvert with some trees, making getting in through the sliding glass door at the bottom of the walkout basement easy. The daylight pours into the room, shining on gray plastic tubs. Like a hundred of those fuckers, stacked five high throughout the room along the walls. Other than the tubs, nothing. No boxes scattered around or old books—nothing. Not even a speck of dust.
Who the fuck was this guy?
He may have just been a clean and tidy man, but working with Buck and trying to take Carsyn—this place doesn’t fit him.
Stepping closer, silver duct tape surrounds the top of each box looping around several times and sealing whatever is inside, and the hairs on the back of my neck prickle. Looking over to Deke, he’s thinking the same thing as his brow tips.
“You’re the newest out of all of us,” Green says to Deke, who already has his plastic gloves on his hands, like the rest of us do. No prints. No entrance. Cops like prints. Too fucking much. We don’t fuck with cops.
This shit, though—something is way off.
“Fuck you,” Deke tells us all as he reaches up and pulls one of the totes down to the floor. The strain in his arm muscles tells me it’s heavy, only sinking my gut further down. This is bad, but how bad is bad “You sure y’all wanna do this before we search the house? Got a feelin’ once I open this, we’re gonna want to get the fuck out of dodge.”
He isn’t wrong. Seen a lot of sick shit in my life, done a lot of shit, but the unknown is not the Ravage way. We find the information and move on from there. Whatever’s in those tubs, needs to wait.
“Let’s go upstairs and search, then, before we leave, we’ll open it,” Jacks says, turning on his heel and marching up the stairs. We scoped out the place for hours earlier and saw no movement, therefore considering the asshole is dead, we thought it was safe to let our asses in.
Guns out, we move in sync through the hallway and rooms noting no one here.
“What the fuck?” Green growls, taking in the living room and I stop and do the same, puzzled. Cats. Little figurines of cats line the walls on shelves. There has to be a dozen shelves all loaded with the little things, each one pristine and without a speck of dust anywhere. There’s even a light pointed at the display, which isn’t on, but would light them up well.
Considering he’s been dead a few days, this doesn’t tell us much, like whether he lives with someone or has a cleaning lady. Hell, he could’ve done it before he went after Carsyn.
“Man likes his pussy,” Deke murmurs, tipping his head down the hall. “Take a look.”
We follow Deke down the hallway into the first door on the right, Deke stepping to the side so we can get into the space. “Jesus,” Green murmurs, looking around the room.
One wall has another dozen shelves with snow globes lining the walls. Stepping closer, every damn one of them has a cat of some sort on it. Each clean and well kept.
“This does not give me a good feeling about the tubs in the basement,” Deke says from behind us.
“Fuck, I was thinking human bodies, but this”—I wave an arm around the room—“leads me to think otherwise.”
“Alright, let’s search the fuckin’ place so we can get out of here,” Deke says as we get busy. Everything is so precise and in specific spots in this house. It reminds me of one of those homes that you’re actually afraid to live in because you
fear you’ll get something on the couch or floor.
Cold. Distant. Not a home. Rather a place to display one’s favorite shit and the only reason it’s used.
I clear out and head down the hall to his bedroom, lucky fucking me, while the others move around to other places. The damn room is exactly like the others, clean and pristine. The bed is perfectly made with the corners tucked under the mattress and the top sheet turned down. It’s like a damn hotel or something with the stark white of the bedding.
Each pillow is fluffed and has some kind of divot in the top of it, all lined to perfection. The man definitely does not like mess. He wants order and his fucking cats. I half expect one to jump out at me any time, not that I saw any cat hair, but still; that doesn’t mean there isn’t a furball in here somewhere. Man obviously has a hard on for cats.
Inhaling deep, the presence of a litter box doesn’t stand out. All I really smell is Pine-sol reminding me of the fucking hospital. Fuck. Not exactly the thought I need right now.
I take a small joy from ripping the fuck out of the blankets on the bed and tearing off the sheets, and checking the mattress for slits of cuts to store something.
We could find something, we could not. But fuck, if we won’t search every damn inch of this place. The mattress is clean and so is the box spring. Under the bed is freshly vacuumed, which is completely strange. Did he move his bed every time to clean under it? Who the fuck does that shit?
Pulling out the dresser drawers and rummaging through the closet turns up nothing. Not even condoms in the nightstand. Clean, basic, no stuff.
Entering the closet, I push over the clothes, noting several t-shirts and a couple of dress shirts. The floor of the closet is clean as well.
A loud crash comes from down the hall, and I bolt out of the room, gun drawn. Deke’s shoulders are tight as he speaks, “Fuckin’ shit.” He stands in front of the furthest door at the end of the hallway. His big frame hides whatever he’s seeing.
“What?” I bark out as Green and Jacks come up behind me. Deke steps to the side allowing us a view.
