Before I Wake: A Kimber S. Dawn MC Novel

by Kimber S. Dawn

  The old motherfucker who’d been keeping her in nice digs and new rides wasn’t her fucking father. No way in hell. I don’t know how Ilsa pulled that shit off. I’m not sure what that woman held over him. Hell, maybe he was as thick into the skin biz as me and Pops were. I don’t know. But there’s no way in hell that albino-looking motherfucker had anything to do with Eden being conceived. As dark as that girl turned out? Nope. I didn’t raise a damn fool, like I said.

  “It was yours, you fucking crazy asshole,” my little, caged animal muttered, rolling onto her side.

  Her angry words fuel my excitement, causing it to flood my belly.

  “Oh my god, it hurts—” Her shoulders shook and her head bowed as she came up on all fours.

  But I didn’t give a shit. Let her cry. Hell, she should have been fucking crying.

  “I cleaned up your vomit, you nasty cunt. Don’t think I’ll do it again, either. I’m not your fucking maid!” I spat the words at her and turned to move, but the dark circle or stain I spotted growing beneath her stopped me and caused my brow to furrow. I stepped back towards the bed and shoved her. “Move! What’d I just fucking tell you!?” I screamed at the bitch. “Are you pissing?!”

  “Ben, there’s something wrong. Please.” Her words were pleas and all muttered around her sobs. She was barely able to pull air in and out of her lungs when whatever the hell was happening must have finally stopped. Whatever had seized every muscle in her body moments before released its hold.

  When she was as still as I’d ever seen her, my eyebrows crept up and I nudged her.

  “Hey. Get up. I’m not cleaning up piss. From now on, if you make a mess, you clean it up. I’m not having you releasing yourself all over the place. That’s fucking disgusting.”

  “Please.” When her pale face rose, her eyes met mine.

  Even though she was still, I knew she was hurting. The look on her face alone told me that something really was very wrong, and I would've probably felt an inkling of remorse had I not held a thousand other crying women prisoner before.

  This wasn’t my first rodeo. Why the hell do you think I’m so fucking good at it?

  “Get up, bitch. Or I’ll hose you where you lay!” I shouted before snatching her up. I ran my hand across the stain on the bed and then sniffed it as I carried us through the RV, towards the lighted sitting area.

  Once I’d dropped the wet bitch in the chair next the kitchenette table, I grabbed some clothes out of the K-Mart bag I’d brought earlier and quickly changed her clothes for some dry ones.

  “What the fuck? It’s not piss…” I muttered, stripping the damp clothes from her legs and smelling the crotch. “It’s clear, whatever it is.” After throwing the offensive, wet material on the floor, I slapped the fuck out of her across her face with my hand and then finished dressing her “You pass back out?” I chuckled when her only response was to dribble a little bit of drool.

  Yup. I sighed as I stood to my full height and glanced around the RV. How long had it been since I had taken her from outside her father’s hotel? I did the calculations in my head, and I figured she was well over seven months pregnant—so it very well could be her water broke, but I didn’t know what the fuck to do with that. So, after I’d gotten the place as cleaned as I could, I scanned the small confines of the vehicle and the surrounding campsites. Once all the evidence of me had been erased, I set up a few of my own triggers and traps. Just in case.

  I snort, remembering my frame of mind prior to the fucking triggers going off. I’d thought we were in the clear. All I had to do was find out how to get Rox back. The triggers were just for precautions, a lot like the fucking traps I set out. I was expecting a goddamn deer on the camera screen feed on my cell. Not Jacques fucking Cain! How the hell had he found me? The guy from the online store said the fucking phone Rox had given me was trace-proof! It’s fucking worthless if it’s not.

  The piece-of-shit cell phone rings in my hand, pulling me from my thoughts. When I look at the time, I curse and answer it.

  “Fuck! I say we pull the plug. Take the bikes tonight, open the boneyard, and pull out every fucking one. Rox put the bike keys in our safety deposit box, the ones from the file she jacked from Jacques’s room.” I chuckle, suddenly proud of her for her braveness that night months ago.

  Then the same familiar pang hits my chest, reminding me how much time has passed since all of this shit started.

  We knew we’d get separated. We knew the time apart would suck, but we’d made our peace with it. It was for the greater good. I know she didn’t like the fact that Jacques would finally and eventually have to be taken out. And there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.

  I don’t know how much longer she’ll believe that that’s the endgame, either. But that fight is for another day. Like, maybe the day after the day I find her. Alive and safe, if Jacques hasn’t turned into a goddamn liar.

  “...then Keane and Gordy left. There’s only me and Jeff here in New York. You sent everyone home after we r-r-rounded up King’s pregnant kid—just like you promised.”

  The stuttering bastard? REALLY? Gordy left this motherfucker in charge when he left?!

  “I-I need more men, boss. Have you t-talked to Gordy, by the way? H-he was looking for y-you.”

  “Look, stuttering Shawn, I don’t want to hear anything about what you need. I want your plans. I need this shit fixed! Do you hear me! She’s GONE!” I finally tell him.

  “Sh-she? Sh-she who, boss—”

  “Vagabond, you fucking idiot!” I scream into my phone. “Call the brothers. Tell them there’s a mandatory meeting tomorrow night and whoever isn’t at my condo in upstate New York by five p.m. is out!”

  “V-vagabond? You mean the g-girl?” he asks.

  But I just can’t. Not with stress this high. Nuh uh. I click end on my phone and settle both hands on the steering wheel before focusing back on the road.

  I’m trying to decipher why exactly the fucking punk called my phone in the first place when my mind decides to get hung up on a way to fix the shit I’m in. I don’t know if that’s even a possibility. Not now. And what sucks more than anything is, six hours ago, I was on top of the world.

  I will never be used to the breakneck speed of life. Never.

  I’ve heard other people describe time as moving slower when they were young, but that never was the case for me. My childhood—really, my whole life—can’t be similarly described to anyone else’s I know. Because, unlike Eden, I was raised by my biological father. And, if anyone knows Chase Cain, it’s me—his son.

  The youngest Cain brother was always referred to as the odd one. He grew up being told everyday by Archer Bishop Cain the first, “You’re a fucking weird one, ya know that, kid?” So the writing was on the wall even when my pops was knee-high to a grasshopper. And, if your brother was also Arch Cain the second, not only would you introvert and learn to hide your failings, but you’d probably fall further towards the dark side too.

  Chase Cain’s brother continued to set his eyes on the next step, not only succeeding at every feat, but breaking records in sports and going on to do shit like graduate from high school even though it wasn’t necessary—not for kids who lived our lifestyle. We didn’t have to abide by the rules of civilization. None of us did.

  None of us do, even now. But you can’t tell Jacques Cain that shit. No. Not with all of his rules.

  I wasn’t even old enough to know what was going on the first time I walked in and realized my father was Satan himself. I couldn’t have been twelve; I’m certain of it.

  My stomach had hurt all night the evening before, but still, when my pops told Jacques and me that it was time for bed, I headed upstairs. But that was one of the first nights in the beginning when Jacques’s mother was sick. It was like she got a cold one day and it just kept getting worse. Until she never got better, and then she couldn’t breathe anymore, so she died.

  Jacques usually came up to the compound on weekend nights and wou
ld stay overnight with me, sleeping on the top bunk. But, that night, he was too worried about his mother, so after tossing and turning for a while, he ended up calling his dad, who picked him up.

  I thought, after he and his dad had driven off, that was it—I took off for bed. It was almost one a.m. when my uncle’s brake lights lit up before he took a left out of the parking lot.

  I’d made it through the boneyard and crossed the threshold of the ground floor’s entrance when several bikes and a van pulled up. Even though I’d ducked, it hadn’t been fast enough. The van’s headlights shone through the bushes, and a split second later, a car door slammed.

  “Saw ya, kid. Get out of the fucking bushes.”

  The sound of the older man’s voice was my first wholesome taste of fear, and some might argue that this is where my mental downfall began. At twelve and a half. I’m not certain I’d claim that. However, we’re nowhere near the end of this story, so only time, I guess, can tell.

  Another man’s voice shot through the night. “Wait. His kid is cool, right? Chase’s kid?”

  “Yeah. Was he redheaded? Or did the little fucker have black hair?”

  “I dunno. Kid, get the fuck up! Or I’m gonna start popping some bullets in that bush...”

  The fear in my gut mixed quickly with the burning bile, turning it to lead. I abruptly stood, and after awkwardly holding my hands up, I apologized.

  “I’m sorry. I’m just trying to go to bed. My cuz—I mean, my friend just left. Right before you guys pulled up.”

  Someone must have switched the lights to high beams, because suddenly, I went from hardly being able to see to not being able to see the hand in front of my face when I brought it up to block the light.

  “I’m sorry. Please don’t tell my pops. He just got back in town today, and I really don’t want to piss him off!” I whined as my nausea worsened and the bile began climbing up the back of my throat.

  I dropped my hands out in front of me and wobbled forward, making my way through the bush, towards the sound of their laughing and taunting. They knew my uncle; everyone in a mile radius of this club knew him. So surely they wouldn’t hurt me. My pops wasn’t a saint by any means, but I definitely wouldn’t have called him Satan. At least not that night.

  No, that knowledge—the knowledge of my father not only being capable of doing the devil's work, but also being evil enough to fill his shoes on his days off—I learned over the next few months.

  As the wheels on my stolen Cadillac slow to a stop on top of the gravel outside the old rickety barn on a piece of Gordy’s property, my gaze follows the roof line of the house I came to learn so well as a child.

  Thanks to my father and his unhealthy proclivity to capture and torture young girls and women, I was shoved into a Hell I didn’t understand at an age much too young. Then the realization hadn’t set in that they were waiting…all those girls and women. Just waiting until it was time for them to earn their stay or be transferred to a permanent home. The first victim of his I stumbled across was so much younger than I was at the time. She couldn’t have been more than five or six; she was too small. And I should have said something to someone. I know I shoulda let my uncle Arch know or mentioned it to Jacques because the whole thing was sketchy. The girl... The way my father hovered over her but remained defensive. Screaming at me to get the fuck out.

  “Get the fuck out! Shit, why do you have to snoop so goddamn much, kid?! Ya just can’t mind your own business like your cousin, can you?”

  My father pushed himself off the small girl huddled on the raggedy, sheet-less mattress, and I’ll never forget the look on his face before he struck me. Never. I didn’t even let it leave me while I blew the back of his head off last spring. I’ll always remember when I first realized my father, Chase Cain, wasn’t just a good man edging on bad. He was a bad man pretending to be good. My uncle Arch—he was good man. I’d seen it in his acts of daily kindness. The way he treated his club members. The way he carried himself with pride even though he knew he had flaws. And, up until that night when I was twelve years old, I’d always thought I wanted to be a good man. Like my uncle and my father.

  But, like I said, there’s another part of this story…

  One I’m not certain I can trust you with yet.

  When I awoke the morning after I’d unknowingly smoked a drugged cigarette, not only did I have to burden the memory of smoking, but I was also in the grips of preterm labor. And no one will claim what prematurely ruptured my membranes or caused my water to break too early in the pregnancy, but the bottom line is that my child, it seemed, was already receiving the short end of things because of my deeds and sins. Had I asked Bentley Cain to kidnap me, drug me, or do whatever in the hell he did to my body to leave the marks that were left behind? No. I did not.

  I just knew, without a shadow of a doubt, if my child and I made it out of this alive, I would run and never let any of this touch my precious baby again.

  At first, I believed I was at the compound. I think I remember seeing Butch, SOS’s doc, but I can’t be certain. I do remember not being able to breathe. I recall fear, feeling like I was suffocating, and then I think I remember my father resting his hand on my forehead before telling me to breathe. That he’d take me to a real hospital. Then I don’t remember anything. Not a single thing.

  Other than waking up on the labor unit at Mt. Sinai and the petite, blond doctor from before leaning over me, glaring knives at me.

  “What are you trying to do, get yourself killed? You already signed out of my care against medical advice once with this pregnancy. In this very same hospital to boot! I shouldn’t even be in here.” She flips a chart open and thumbs through it. “You’re not even term. Your water broke, you were in preterm labor, but thankfully, we were able to slow it with the proper medications. However, the damage has been done. You’re practically a ticking time bomb now, so any thoughts you may have this time on skipping out need to stop immediately. This is your child’s life you’re risking, Ms. O’Malley.” She slams the file shut and pins her gaze to mine again.

  But I can’t even tell you what color they were. I was crying too hard. “I know…” I sobbed.

  Have you ever cried so hard that, when it’s time to breathe, you swear every inhale is cracking your heart open even more?

  ’Cause that’s what was happening inside my chest as this woman practically told me that I’d failed as a mother to a child who wasn’t even born yet.

  “I fucking know…” I muttered around the tears and sobs.

  I cried. She cried. We cried for forever. And I knew, to the marrow of my bones, two things: I trusted this woman, and I trusted her to take care of me and my baby. I wasn’t leaving her until we’d both made it safely out of this pregnancy.

  And, after the tears had all dried, we settled on counseling, I promised to stay under her care and not attempt to sign out against her advice, and she would discharge me when the baby and I were in the clear.

  And, if you’ve learned anything about me, it’s that I may be a woman who has to learn things the hard way, but I’m at least a woman of my word—’cause I kept every single one of my promises to Dr. Lily. I kept my counseling sessions, not that I could skip the damn things. They came to you at Mt. Sinai, especially when you’re in preterm labor. They don’t like women who can possibly birth another human being at any given moment on the behavioral medicine floor.

  Over the last few weeks of my pregnancy, goddammit, I talked. I talked to anyone and everyone. And not because I wanted to, but because I was forced to. I talked to family. I talked to friends both old and new. I talked to doctors. I talked to drug counselors, who thankfully verified I am not an addict. I’ve just been roofied an obnoxious amount of times with the good shit. I talked to my mother, I talked to my father, and I talked to Philip—that sneaky bastard. He is in deep shit, and not only with my father, but me. When I can freaking do something about it, anyway.

  I also talked to Ty and Lauryn. But those we
re good talks. Those conversations built me up. They made me feel almost whole again. They didn’t make me question myself to the very core. Not like the ones with my family. And Dreads—God, I fucking hated the counseling session with Dreads.

  You wanna know why? ’Cause that was the session I was supposed to meet with the father of my child. Okay, maybe not meet. Maybe confront is the more accurate term. However, it’s like Dr. Lily explained. It was mine. It was my session to bring up issues, issues only Jacques could help me resolve, and he took it from me. He sent Dreads in his place, said if there was anything I needed to know, Dreads could provide the information—but that he was too busy. “Club shit,” he claimed in his text just before I deleted not only it, but his name and number as a contact.

  Meaning he was too busy to be bothered by me or even try to remember why he would be bothered by me…

  My stomach ate my heart the moment Dreads walked in and Jacques really wasn’t behind him. I couldn’t even swallow the lump in my throat. And I tried. I’m telling you I tried.

  “’Sup, Pipsqueak. You look like a million fucking bucks, ya know it! Pregnant and everything. Dayum, girl.”

  I was facing the window when he walked in, ’cause even though I was in preterm labor, I couldn’t stand to stay in bed. Plus, Dr. Lily said that it was better for me to move around and I was far enough along anyway.

  “Dat ass though!” He chuckled.

  But the longer I waited, peeking over my shoulder looking for Jacques to follow in behind him and he didn’t, the faster the funny wore off Dreads’ comments. The smile took no time at all to slide from my face when I finally settled my eyes on Dreads.

  “He’s not coming, is he? Is that why you’re complimenting me so much? It can’t be ’cause you missed me. You haven’t been here. None of you have. Other than DDDs…” I’m not sure why this fact hurt at the time, but it did.

  Even after I’d made peace with the knowledge that I couldn’t continue weaving the threads of my life with Jacques Cain’s anymore, it still hurt. If our child wanted that, then they would have to be the one to initiate it. But it wouldn’t be my doing. Or my undoing. He just simply wouldn’t be. Not anymore.