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I knew that I had to figure out what to do next – to think, to plan, to rise above this misery.
All I could think about was the diary I’d hidden in the attic when I was ten.
There was no way that they could have given me that, was there? No way that I could get that memory back, that moment back?
I’d been so proud of her hiding spot, too.
I’d been so happy.
I knew that I had to pull myself together, but I wasn’t quite sure how.
Without a word, the men loaded up the car.
“Come on,” Merle said, finally.
I was still standing there, still numb, still staring ahead at the house in which I’d grown up.
I thought that I saw a flicker of movement, a curtain swaying, perhaps.
Were they there?
Were my parents inside, watching me, refusing to come out and even have the – the – the fucking balls to answer to the pain on my face?
Were they?
I had to know.
Merle reached for me, but I moved too quickly, I startled all of them with my explosion of rage.
I startled myself.
Before I’d realized I’d made the decision to act, I’d crossed the lawn. You could see my footprints in the grass. It was supposed to be perfect.
Fuck that.
The door was heavy wood, and I knew that it was hard to hear knocks on it in parts of the house. I alternated, pounding desperately on the door and pressing the bell over and over, hearing the ringing chimes disrupt the smooth perfection of the orderly lives within.
Fuck them, fuck them, FUCK THEM.
“Megan, hush,” Merle said, coming up behind me and putting a hand on my shoulder.
I hadn’t realized I’d been yelling.
Shit.
What must I look like?
They were afraid I was some sort of drugged-up floozy, some out-of-control teen who needed a stern lesson in consequences.
The thought that that was exactly how I looked took the wind out of my sails.
I sagged.
I let Merle steer me back towards the car.
I sat down, I buckled the seatbelt.
I didn’t speak.
Finally, the men stopped trying. They stopped trying to convince me to talk, or join in.
The car fell silent.
It wasn’t natural, I knew. These men would normally be talking to one another, chatting, playing loud music and letting off steam.
I’d ruined that. Everything I touched was breaking.
I couldn’t even really bring myself to care.
I missed my house.
I missed my dog.
Merle helped me get set up in a studio apartment.
I asked him how much a month it was and he waved it off.
“Don’t worry about it until you graduate,” he said. “I’ll run some money through that needs to get clean, it’ll show up that you paid. It’ll build up your credit score and everything.”
“Who cares about my credit score?” I asked with a laugh.
“Oh, you should,” Merle said. “Most of us can’t get a loan, how can we run a business?”
“Why do you care about running a business?” I asked him.
“Breaking the law is one thing, but, damn, you don’t want to fuck with the IRS,” he said.
I looked for a hint of a joke in his eyes.
“You’re really serious,” I said.
“Hell yes,” he said. “Half the drug runners are behind bars because of tax evasion, not selling dope. I’ve gotta be careful.”
“That’s not… My father is an accountant,” I said.
“Man, I have a great accountant,” Merle said. “Bastard gets a tidy sum with no risk. I should have been an accountant.”
After a few more minutes, he left me alone in the apartment, alone with the echoes of our conversation.
I had never been alone like that, never spent a night without someone else.
My parents. My friends. Merle.
They were all gone.
I was alone, truly alone, for the first time in my life.
I curled up on the bed and pulled the blankets over my head and cried. As I cried, I cursed Merle, I cursed my parents, I cursed everyone.
Merle had told me that he couldn’t have me living with him and going to high school. I’d be too easy to follow. Too easy for someone else to find how to enter the biker compound.
If I stayed with him all the time, I’d be bait.
I didn’t want to be bait.
The apartment was nice. It was a little bare, the walls were a little thin, but it was clean. The cockroaches I feared were nowhere in sight.
I had a bed, a small fridge, a microwave and a hot plate. A couch, even. Merle had made some guys haul up a desk and a chair for me, somewhere for me to do my homework.
I almost cried.
They were rough men, they cussed and smoke in the apartment, they leered and scratched themselves and joked about slapping my ass – but I liked them.
When I thanked one of them for hauling it up, he grinned at me.
“Shit, girl,” he said. “I fucked up in every class I was ever in, and if I could, I’d beat the shit out of myself when I was fifteen. You’ve gotta get that fuckin’ piece of paper and get the fuck out of this shithole.”
The other guys nodded.
“Merle wants to fuck you, but he doesn’t wanna fuck your life up,” another said, nodding solemnly.
I blushed bright red and Merle socked the guy in the arm.
“Enough,” he growled. “I can’t take you motherfuckers anywhere.”
School was hell.
No, school was worse than hell. School was purgatory.
I shuffled from class to class. I did my work.
I didn’t talk to anyone.
When teachers asked me questions in class, I stared at them until they called on someone else. When they held me after class and tried to talk to me earnestly, I nodded at what they said and walked away while they were still talking.
I excelled on every test. Got A’s on every paper.
There wasn’t a whole hell of a lot to do in my tiny apartment but study.
Even with my collection of F’s in class participation, I wasn’t worried about passing.
Merle stopped by a few times to take me out to dinner or hang out on my couch and make out, but he was clearly distracted.
When I asked him what was wrong, he’d just smile thinly and say that there were some issues that only he could work on right now.
Gang stuff.
I thought about pressing the issue, about telling him that I was brave enough and strong enough to handle that part of his life.
The trouble was, though, that I wasn’t.
I didn’t want to know.
I wanted to pretend that everything was okay, that I hadn’t been kidnapped by a different gang, that my boyfriend didn’t sell heroin and brand people and live in a world of violence.
Sometimes, it even worked.
Only during the day. At night…
At night, I woke up screaming.
It took almost three weeks to start coming out of
my haze.
Finally, when a teacher spoke to me out of class, I looked at her. I listened.
“I’m okay,” I finally said, interrupting her.
Two months ago, I’d never have interrupted a teacher like that.
Two months ago, I was a very different girl.
I didn’t expect the reaction I got.
A long look. A small nod.
“Yeah,” she said, finally. “Yeah. If you’re not, you will be.”
“I hate this place,” I said.
Her eyes softened.
“What happened?” she asked.
I was abandoned on prom night. I met Merle. I got kidnapped, almost raped. I escaped. I spent an amazing night with a biker. I got kicked out of the house. I got an apartment.
“My parents kicked me out for dating someone they didn’t approve of,” I said, very carefully.
“That sounds like a brilliant way to deal with it,” she said, acid coating every word. “Very compassionate. Extremely effective, obviously.”
The grin on my face felt… unfamiliar.
Welcome.
The bell rang. Neither of us moved.
“It’s my work period,” she said. “If you want to stay, I’ll write a note.”
I shrugged.
“It’s just gym,” I said.
“Coach Bost won’t dare say boo,” she said. “I finally got our mysterious girl to speak.”
“What, was there a bet in the staff room?” I asked.
“Pretty much,” she said.
I didn’t know what else to say or do. I’d never talked to a teacher like that, like an equal.
I slid into the cold metal seat of the desk nearest hers.
“I can still graduate, right?” I asked.
“As far as I’m concerned, you’ll pass my class. I don’t exactly have any control over the rest of it,” she said.
“What would you do, if you were me?”
“If I were a teenage girl who disappeared from high school for almost a week, who refused to talk for almost a month, who may or may not graduate, who has a mysterious unsuitable boyfriend who is probably way too old for her?”
I shrugged.
She leaned forward and looked me in the eye.
“I’d shape the hell up. I’d walk at graduation. I’d smile. I’d cross my T’s and dot my I’s and not draw any more attention to myself,” she said.
I heard the warning in her words and the iron in her voice.
“Who are you?” I asked her.
“I’m a teacher,” she said. “I’m from this town. I went away to college, met some crappy people, made some crappy choices, came home.”
I eyed her.
She sighed.
“When you came back, when you didn’t talk… I’d seen that look in your eyes in the mirror.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“I had a really, really lousy roommate in college,” she said.
I almost saw the story sketching out around her. I was sure it was as long as the story I’d not told her. Maybe longer.
“Get some work done,” she said.
She sat behind her desk and pulled a stack of grading to her.
Our talk was over. She was the teacher again, with a gulf between us.
She was right.
I hadn’t noticed, but the whispers… they followed me like a wake behind a canoe.
A boy coughed and said “Slut,” behind his hand.
A girl said “God, she’s weird.”
What was who I was to these people now. I saw it in their eyes. I was strange, foreign.
Some kind of slut.
Three periods of being aware of what they were saying, aware of their gazes, was almost more than I could stand.
I didn’t trust myself to speak.
As soon as the last bell rang, I was the fuck out of there.
I cut through the woods and made it to my little apartment in twenty minutes.
Merle showed up after I broke the third glass.
“I hate being a fucking landlord,” he said, shutting the door behind him and re-locking it. “People texting me about someone throwing shit at walls.”
I picked up another glass and eyed him.
I didn’t throw it at him, but I threw it on the floor.
Neither of us flinched at the shattering noise.
“Come on, sweetheart,” he said. “What happened?”
“Why the fuck are you here?” I asked him.
He shrugged.
“I figured I’d take you out,” he said. “Good thing I was in the area. Got some pissy texts from your neighbor.”
“Oh, so you figured you could take me out now? I’d just come when you called, like I was at your beck and fucking call?”
The irritated knocking on the wall didn’t get me to stop shouting. Even the pained look on Merle’s handsome face.
He sat on the couch, my couch, and crossed his arms.
“You done?” he asked.
“Fuck you,” I said. “Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you. Fuck all of them. Fuck those stupid fucking assholes.”
“Ah,” he said. “Bad day at school?”
“Oh, can it,” I said. “You’re not my fucking parent.”
“No,” he snapped. “I’m sticking with you. So stop attacking me, okay?”
That hurt.
I sighed.
I sat down next to him. I didn’t reach out to him, but I was there.
“I hadn’t realized what people were saying about me,” I said.
He winced.
“Bad?” he asked.
“Slut, bitch, all that shit,” I said. I tried to keep my voice steady. I tried not to yell, to attack him, to break everything within reach.
My hands were in fists on my legs, my back was ramrod straight, but the dishes were safe.
For now.
Merle didn’t try to touch me. I was grateful. He was always good at that, at knowing when to touch me and when not to, knowing when to give me space.
I needed that from him. I needed him. My heart ached when I realized how much.
I felt my body start to relax. I was finally letting go of this anger.
For now, at least.
“I’m sorry, Merle,” I said, looking up at him from under my lashes. I couldn’t help it. I wasn’t trying to be flirty, but I was too embarrassed to look at him straight on.
He reached over and squeezed my shoulder.
“No harm done,” he said. “Well. No harm done to anything we can’t replace.”
“I need a job,” I announced.
“Hey, you have one. You’ve gotta finish school.”
“Seriously,” I said.
“I’m serious, I want you to finish high school before you have to worry about anything else,” he said. His dark eyes were intense and wonderful. I felt like I could lose myself in them, but I knew I needed to hold myself steady for a bit.
“Merle. I need a job. I can’t just… just live off of you like this. Like you’re my… my dad, or my sugar daddy, or something,” I said.
“I feel responsible,” he said.
“Bullshit,” I told him, jabbing my finger at him. “That right there is some goddamn bullshit.”
He glared.
He crossed his fingers over his chest. Hah! I bet he wasn’t used to people calling him out like that. He was so fucking handsome, girls probably fell all over him.
Well, I was definitely falling all over him, but I wasn’t going to let that be all I did.
“I knew my parents would be upset if I went out with you. I knew they’d be pissed if I didn’t check my phone. I did it anyways. I made that choice. You don’t have to protect me from the fallout of my decisions. I’m not your child,” I repeated.
His hands were strong and calloused against mine when he reached out to me.
Within Sight (New Adult Biker Gang Romance) (Night Horses MC Book 5) Page 1
