Didn’t we just have this fucking stupid conversation? I thought.
He looked at me, and I saw doubt in his eyes.
He looked down at his hands.
“I do shitty things. I’m a shitty person. Sometimes, I hate me,” he said.
“You took care of Catalina and Lupe,” I insisted. “You took care of me.”
It was my turn to lower my voice.
“You could have left me there,” I said.
He finally met my eyes.
“Never,” he spat. “It was my fault you were there, it was all my fault.”
We did. We did just have this stupid fucking conversation. I shook my head, trying to deny what we both knew was at least a little true.
“You didn’t make them kidnap you,” I said.
“If you’d never met me, they never would have,” he said.
I needed to squash this, once and for all. “Yeah, but,” I said, finally starting to smile, “If I’d never met you, I’d have had the worst Prom, like… ever. That’s very important.”
For just a moment, he stared at me as though I’d grown a second head. Then his lips, too, started to twitch.
“My dress was all dirty, and I didn’t even have a handkerchief,” I said. “Grody, right?”
“Right,” he said. He was smiling in earnest now. “I can’t believe you didn’t even have a damn tissue. What’s the point of those silly little purses if you don’t keep useful shit in them?”
“They’re cute,” I said. “Like you. You’re cute.”
He rolled his eyes at me, but he was relaxing. A little.
“Seriously,” I said. “You didn’t force me into any of this.”
He opened his mouth, but I kept talking.
“Look. We keep going round and round this, and I want to stop. You… you offered, okay? Like you offered me the hankie. If I’d asked you to go away, or even just not talked to you, you’d have left me alone, right? I mean, no way I had to have breakfast with you,” I said.
He nodded, but he still looked troubled.
“Hey,” I said. “Don’t argue with me. I’m the boss, right?”
He rolled his eyes again. That was starting to seem like a habit.
“If you’re the boss of me, and I’m the boss of the Night Horses, what exactly does that make you?” he asked.
“The real boss of the Night Horses,” I said immediately. “Hear me, and obey, all ye who wear black leather and are out at night.”
“That’s goths,” he said. “You’re the leader of the goths?”
“Sure,” I said. “That’s me. Secret leader of the Night Horses, goth branch. I should get business cards.”
“Secret leaders don’t have business cards,” he said. “That’s your first lesson.”
“Okay,” I said. “How do you network at secret leader meetings, then?”
“Well, obviously, you don’t,” he said. “You just let it be known that you wanna make a connection, and if someone has the skills you want, they let it be known that they might be willing to bargain.”
“Are you serious?” I asked. “You run the club through… gossip?”
“Sure,” he said. “What else is business? How do you think I knew where to find you? El Jefe’s man sold some meth to one of Jackson’s buddies and said something about a pretty gringa tied up in the basement. He told Jackson, Jackson told me, and we all went in there hell bent for leather to get you out.”
I digested that.
“If you guys didn’t gossip during drug deals, I’d still be there?” I asked.
The thought made me sick to my stomach. If I’d stayed there any longer, even a day, even a few hours, they would have raped me, I was sure of it. A few days, and they would have started selling me as a whore.
“No, I’d have still found you,” he said. “It just would have taken longer. The indirect way can actually be faster than the direct way. You just…”
“Let it be known,” I finished for him as he spread his hands helplessly.
“Exactly,” he said.
I sat back. I had a lot to think about, a lot to digest.
I enjoyed the warmth and closeness of Merle’s body, but I didn’t try to seduce him. That moment seemed to have passed.
The heat and desperation were fading from my body.
It was a pity.
I needed the time with him, though. I leaned over and rested my head on his shoulder. He petted my hair absently and we both leaned close to each other, lost in thought.
The club didn’t exactly run like I’d always expected.
I mean, not that I spent a lot of time thinking about how bikers organized themselves, but I read books and watched TV shows, and I guess I always figured that they were more… dramatic.
The more time I spent with Merle, the more I thought that they were a business like any other.
I almost made myself believe it.
If it weren’t for my nightmares about being locked in a tiny windowless room, about the smell of branding and blood, about the shrieks of a terrified girl, a man in pain…
No, I could never completely forget that these were dangerous men who did dangerous things.
Was Merle a shitty person, like he said?
I thought about it.
It was hard to deny that he could be violent. The way he’d beaten Bill and the other man, sent them out of the club with brands on their arms…
More telling, though, was how he acted when no one else was around.
The handkerchief he handed me the night we met.
The over-large tips he always left waitresses.
The soft look in his eyes when he smiled at me in the mornings.
All of these things meant more to me than what he did because he had to.
He’d made tough choices, okay. He’d rose to the top of the gang, and I wasn’t going to pretend that he did that with a bloodless… I don’t know. Merger and aquisition.
When he had the option, though, I always saw him take the kind way out.
No, I couldn’t agree with him.
He wasn’t a shitty person.
He was wonderful, he was charming, he was hard, he was mine.
I loved him.
I knew that, finally. I had danced around the subject to myself for long enough.
“Hey, Merle?” I said, my voice hardly disturbing the peace of our moment together.
“Yeah?” he asked.
I paused a moment. I could hear the murmur of the group by the bonfire. Talk, laugher, occasional yells.
I’d never done this before. Never opened my heart like this.
“I love you,” I whispered.
He paused a long moment.
I started to squirm in embarrassment. What if he thought I was a silly kid? What if he didn’t say it back?
“I love you too,” he said.
That was it. No explanation, no qualification.
No judgement.
“Okay, good,” I said. “I mean, if I’d said that and you hadn’t said that back, that would be pretty embarrassing, right? But I love you and you love me and we’re in love and that’s pretty great.”
“It is, isn’t it?” he said.
“You betcha,” I said, and then wanted to kick myself. Who says “You betcha?!”
Why wouldn’t the earth do me a favor and swallow me up?
I settled for hiding under the blankets.
Merle didn’t try and stop me.
He joined me.
-------------------
School was still rough.
I tried to remember that I didn’t have to be everyone’s friend, but it was still… hard.
It was hard to hear myself talked about that way. I didn’t know what else to say about it.
I avoided being alone with any of the teachers so they could lecture me again.
I did my work.
I kept my head down.
I didn’t really talk.
Unfortunately, that didn’t keep me sa
fe from gym. I hadn’t taken it as a freshman like most of my friends, so I had to take it now or I wouldn’t graduate.
Most of my other teachers seemed to think that my unusual absence was not a problem, was something that we should all just move past.
Not Coach B.
He seemed to want to punish me every fucking day for it.
I thought about skipping his class sometimes, but that would just make it worse.
At least it was the last class of the day. I could change and then sit and read a book or do my homework until the last bell, and then take an out-of-the-way route out of the building. That way, I could avoid him cornering me to lecture me.
At least some of the time.
None of the other girls stayed as long as I did. That was a plus. I felt safe, alone in the big room, brightly lit and quiet. It was the only peace I got at school.
Sitting on the big wooden benches wasn’t super comfortable, but it wasn’t any worse than my seat at the laundrymat, and I was used to that.
I had changed back into my shirt and jeans, but hadn’t bothered to put my hair back or anything.
I heard the door open.
At first I didn't think anything of it. I mean girls forgot stuff and came back for it all the time. It wasn't like it was my own private locker room.
It wasn't until I heard the low male voices that I grew a little concerned. I mean, it was the girls locker room. There shouldn't be any men or boys in here, even coach B, without anyone else.
I stood up and slid my book back into my backpack.
There were at least two of them.
I picked up my backpack as quietly as I could and made for the door. Rounding the corner of the row of lockers I saw two of the assholes who had been harassing me.
Shit.
This was just what I needed.
The bigger blond boy was Chad, and the slightly shorter redhead was William. I nodded and smiled at them. if I acted as though this or normal maybe they would just walk along. Whatever they were up to in the living room, they would move on and do it and leave me alone.
It's not like Coach B. would do anything about it if I told him that his golden boys vandalized the locker room anyways.
Unfortunately, I wasn't going to be that lucky.
Chad punched William in the arm and said “Hey, she’s here.”
Shit.
They were here for me.
Whatever they wanted, it couldn't be good.
“So, Megan,” Chad said. “I hear you'll give it up for anyone.”
I looked away and lifted my backpack higher on my shoulder.
I wondered whether I should say anything to them or just try to leave. Surely they wouldn't try to stop me from leaving the locker room.
When I took a step closer to the door, Chad took a step closer to me and William headed back to the door, shutting it and pulling the large hamper for school gym towels in front of it. It wasn't heavy, but I knew it would slow me down.
This just got worse and worse.
They were looking for me, they knew I'd be alone, and they didn't want me to leave the room.
I started to feel closed in.
This couldn't be happening again. I couldn't be trapped in a room with horrible guys who wanted to hurt me again. Not here. Not at school. Not where I should be safe.
Fear and resignation settled on me like a blanket.
There was nothing I could do.
If I yelled, no one would hear me. Students poured out of the building as soon as they could, and the girl’s locker room wasn’t near enough the guy’s that anyone would be nearby. There were no girl’s extracurriculars today. No reason for anyone but me to be anywhere near here.
There was nothing that I could do to protect myself.
I had to try, though.
Didn’t I?
Somehow I wasn’t sure. They seemed to take my lack of movement as a good sign, prowling forward towards me.
“Yeah, you’re a little slut,” Chad said. “You’ll suck our cocks right here, won’t you? Nate said that on prom night, you were practically gagging for it. Begged him to fuck you.”
William didn’t say anything, but his quiet assurance, his determined gaze, were even scarier.
Some small, angry part of me, some kernel of defiance shrieked at me to run, to fight, to scream, to do anything but stand there like a lump.
When they were almost in arm’s reach, when Chad reached his hand out to me, I broke and ran.
I tried to dart between them and get to the door, but the space was too narrow.
There was no way.
Chad loped a few easy steps away, putting himself between me and the door.
William grabbed me around the waist from behind and held me against him.
I struggled and squirmed like an angry cat, dropping my bookbag and trying to pull away, but William was really fucking strong, the asshole.
He locked his hands together in front of me, holding my ass against his crotch.
I could feel his hard dick.
Sick fuck enjoyed this, enjoyed me cussing at him and trying to get away.
“Go ahead,” he said quietly. “Wear yourself out. Take all the time you need. This is happening.”
“No,” I spat. “No way. Fuck you. Fuck you both. I hate you. I’m not a slut and I’m not going to suck your tiny dicks.”
“Yeah?” Chad asked. “That’s not what we’ve heard.”
“Don’t believe everything you hear,” I said. “It’s really fucking stupid.”
I took a deep breath, ready to scream, to yell desperately and hope that someone could hear me… but William was too fast. He jerked his hands up and rammed them into my stomach, knocking the breath out of me, leaving me winded and gasping.
Chad was in front of me then, grabbing my arms, holding them together behind my back.
Merle. I thought. Merle, Merle, Merle.
I repeated it like a prayer, like my only hope of salvation.
He had to save me.
...Why? I thought.
Why did he have to save me? Why did I have to rely on him? On my parents? On the teachers? On anyone?
Why couldn't I ever just fucking save myself?
I had to try.
I stopped fighting for a moment.
William and Chad were both surprised.
The guy behind me loosened his grip, just enough, just barely enough for me to wrench away from them.
“Get the fuck away from me,” I said. My voice was clear and strong. “I already said it. I’m not your whore. I’m not anyone’s whore. I’m not a slut, and even if I was, I wouldn’t fuck either of you if you were the last dicks on the planet. Just fuck each other like you clearly want to and leave me alone.”
Okay.
Maybe that went a little too far.
Maybe, instead of a dramatic monologue, I should have run when I had the goddamn chance.
I was so fucking stupid.
William was back on me in a moment, his face contorted with rage, knocking me to the floor. For the second time in two minutes, I had the breath knocked out of me by that asshole.
“Just shut the fuck up,” he muttered at me, kneeling on me and pinning my shoulders to the floor. “Worthless bitch.”
I caught a glimpse of Chad staring down at me before William’s mouth was on mine.
I don’t want to call it a kiss. It was nothing like what I shared with Merle. It was an assault, a disgusting invasion.
He was too smart to try to shove his tongue in my mouth, I’d have bitten him.
As I struggled, he was kicking my legs apart, kneeling between them, grinding his jeans, his shaft hard through the denim, against my sweatpants.
He took one hand off my shoulders to grab my breast and maul it through the thin cotton of my t-shirt and bra.
Why had I changed into something so soft, so easy to be touched through?
Within Sight (New Adult Biker Gang Romance) (Night Horses MC Book 5) Page 3
