I position my elbow on the cement and push up, my head pounding as I try to regain ground. No matter how I moved my elbow, my arms, even my hands, getting up wasn’t going to happen. Everything around me was spinning on a constant loop, and when he begins to speak, I was hearing echoes.
“Did you really think you would get away with your little outburst tonight? You were not only disrespecting me, but another charter Prez.” Rage kneels down in front of my face, twirling around what looks to be like a baseball bat. I watch as it spins around and around. “I don’t let anyone disrespect me or my brothers. Not even my fucking wife. I’m giving you the same punishment I’d give any man who challenges me, only you might get to leave with your life. I guess we’ll see how strong you really are, won’t we, baby?”
“Finnick.” I mumble Rage’s real name, breathless, the pain in my head worsening after each moment.
“Shut the fuck up.”
“Finnick, please I – “
“I said shut the fuck up, bitch!” He slams the baseball bat as hard as he can down onto my upper thigh. I scream out in agony, digging my nails so hard into the cement below me that I feel them cracking. This is worse than it had ever been before. It was almost as if I could feel my bones snap under the pressure of the bat against my body.
Rage rises from his kneeling position and runs the bat slowly along my body. I am careful to move my arms in the way of my stomach, wanting to protect my son more than anything. I was fearful that no matter what I did tonight, there was no way I’d be able to protect him from his father.
I look into his eyes, afraid of what I might find. No longer did I see the man I fell in love with years ago. He’d been replaced with something else, something inhuman. I didn’t even recognize him anymore. And I knew that I never would ever again.
He raises the bat high in the air. I could see the flicker of the post light from behind him. I watch as bugs fly against the light over and over again, hoping to get to that warm, safe place. Right now, I understood them and their need for security. The world was an ugly, awful place.
Chapter 4
One of the hardest things you will ever do my dear, is to grieve the loss of someone who is still alive. – Word Porn
Tex
I love driving all night in the fucking rain, said no biker ever. My four-hour trip back to the club takes me almost nine. It was simple, I was coming back after spending two weeks with my family up at our family vacation house in Colorado. You haven’t been home in ages, she said. Everyone asks me if you died, she said. Come spend time with your mom, she said. Don’t you love me anymore? she asked.
My ma always has a great way of getting me to do whatever the hell she wanted me to do. She knew exactly what things to say, and damn, did she do a good fucking job. I will say, after a week with that woman, I could not have been happier to be coming back into the daily chaos at the club. It was a warm welcome.
I take a left turn back onto the shitty gravel that I kept telling Rage we needed to fix. We didn’t need this shit, we needed fuckin’ pavement, and the bastard knew it. It wasn’t like the club couldn’t afford to pay for it. Our reserves were fucking massive – we could survive the damn apocalypse.
I keep going down the driveway until I pull up a couple of feet away from the clubhouse doors. I prop my kickstand, turn off the ignition, and dismount my bike. Every time I look at this club, it somehow looks different. I didn’t know why. Maybe it was the fact that every other day we were having new members join, hosting other clubs for parties. It was a lot of shit to keep track of. Half the time when someone comes up to me, I have no idea who they are, but they sure knew me. It’s been getting out of hand, way too out of hand.
I was just waiting for the day when it all goes to shit. Rage had done a decent job at club politics thus far. It won’t stay that way for long, though. He was a ticking time bomb. I was his best fucking friend, and I’ll be the first to tell you that.
Rage’s time would run out one day, and if I had to guess, I’d say that would be pretty damn soon. He’d been getting sloppy over the past few weeks. Time and time again Roman and I had to go and clean up his messes. If we didn’t, chaos would already have ensued. I’m fucking shocked that it hadn’t already.
I make my way down the gravel filled lot until I am just in front of the clubhouse doors. I was not ready to go in, to start the drink and fuck fest I know Rage would want me to partake in. He is fucking exhausting. The man knows how to party and how to fuck shit up – how he keeps the club afloat is beyond me. He only stays sober enough to bark around orders and make somewhat decent business decisions.
There was a time when I used to appreciate his input, where I could respect whatever was coming out of his mouth. Those days had long passed; he’d been going down this turmoiled shithole for the past five years. Almost everything that he says now is garbage; all bullshit and no one should listen. When I really think about it, I hadn’t respected him in a long time. It has been too fucking long since I’d taken one word that had come out of his mouth seriously.
I suppose that all started to change when he thought it was best he be the one to test the product, the coke, the women, it didn’t matter. It all belongs to him. So, he felt the need to try it all out. Shortly after that, everything else started to change. That is when he stopped fighting the boys and started laying his punches into his wife.
Roxy.
I tell myself time after time that it wasn’t my place to interfere. It is his marriage – it was not my place. But really, fuck that shit. Fuck it. I was not going to stand by and watch him kill her in front of us.
I had wondered for years why she didn’t run. I’d always fucking wondered about that, and still I somehow didn’t know. She stays, where she knows it wasn’t safe, and took every beating that she was going to get.
I’d seen men beat their wives. I’d seen men beat their wives with reasons. Was there a good enough reason to beat a woman? No. There wasn’t. It doesn’t matter, though, we are all part of the club life. There are no rules there. In a sense, we make the rules. I was making a vow to myself now to do better. To do everything that I could to make this club better, and I would.
I grab my pack of Marlboros from my back pocket, thanking the lord that none of them are soaking wet. Making my way around the side of the building, I yank out my lighter, bringing the flame to the end of my cigarette.
That’s when I see her.
She is just lying there, lifeless.
Her body is like beautiful canvas. I could see the emotion that she must have felt written on her face. Her hair was flowing around her head, her body limp from exhaustion. My eyes flicker to something moving. I instantly become enraged as the blood flows from under her. I don’t think – I act.
I rush over to Roxy and scoop her body into my arms. She feels lighter than the last time I had to do this and take her to the hospital; she’d lost fucking weight since I’d been gone. I glanc down to her face, her eyelids softly fluttering.
“Ssssh, I’ve got you firefly. I’ve fucking got you,” I whisper softly to her as I jog over to the back of the clubhouse where my room is. I didn’t know how I got so lucky to end up with the only room that had a back entrance. I scoop my room key out of my pocket and open the door quickly, searching for the keys to my truck. It only takes me a moment until they are in my grasp.
Now, I am just hoping I was not too fucking late.
***
The doc tells me I got her to the hospital just in time. After years of living here and Roxy’s usual beatings, they’d come to know her, and fall in love with her spirit like we all did. This means that they’ve come to know us as well. All of us. The ones who pitied her for staying. The ones who didn’t stand up and do a damn thing to protect her.
I was tired of being one of them.
I was the reason she was here. She joined our senior class a week before homecoming. I knew the girl didn’t have any friends, so I asked her to go with me. It didn’t hurt
that she was naturally beautiful, she still is. Her lightly bronzed skin made her look like she was kissed by the gods, and that straight flowing brunette hair paired perfectly. She was beautiful in her own unique way.
We ended up dancing two times at homecoming, both agreeing it was a dump. I’d bought my first Harley back then and offered to take her for a spin. Little did I know that the bike ride would turn into the beginning of her abuse. My father had just walked out on my mom, and mom didn’t know how to handle any of that shit, so she went north, and I didn’t blame her at all for making that choice. She wanted an escape. After she left, I had practically nothing. I had an opportunity to go with her, but I declined. I wanted to finish out my school year there – at home.
I wasn’t worried about a place to stay, a roof over my head, or even feeding myself. I knew that I’d be fine. I had Rage, my best friend, my brother. He’d watched out for me when we were kids, and I did the same for him. Our bond was to never be broken, we’d always be there for another.
Rage and I had been friends for ages, he’d dropped out of school and started the Demons of Hell MC. I was his first patched in member, his VP, his second hand.
He gave me the sense of family that I didn’t have at home – the club gave me the brotherhood I needed when everything was falling apart.
I never would have had imagined that the small biker group we created about would turn into this. Our numbers were growing day by day. We instilled fear into many who opposed us, and even the ones that joined us.
Roxy and I had two dates after our homecoming dance. We’d talked and laughed like we were long lost souls. I saw something with her. That is, until Rage stole her away from me. He scooped her up out of my grasp like I didn’t matter. I’d said the hell with it and let it happen. A girl wasn’t worth losing my friendship, or at least that’s what I told myself.
I blamed myself for this, for everything. This was all my fault, and I couldn’t sit here and deny that it wasn’t. If things had just gone differently… I think of what I could have done, if I had just stayed away from Rox – if I didn’t even blink in her direction, she wouldn’t be here today.
It was no matter, though. This shit wasn’t going to keep happening. I didn’t give a shit anymore. Yeah, Rage was my best friend. Even being my best friend, it didn’t give him a right to be doing what he had been doing for years. She was so close to death this time.
The docs wouldn’t tell me shit because I was not family, but I was no idiot. All that blood, her eyelids fluttering that entire time. It was close. Too fucking close for comfort. She’d been down that road so many times. I thought long and hard, still not able to understand why she never tries to leave, why she’d always stay. I didn’t want to think that Rox has a death wish, but she may have.
There is no way to say for sure what fucking happened before I came back home. I just knew that no matter what, she wouldn’t tell me. I doubt that she was going to be honest with the doctors who were treating her. Every time this has ever happened she stays quiet, not speaking of her abuse, not letting any of us in on what actually happens. I witnessed some of her beatings myself, clenching my fists and grinding my teeth. I was a coward, I was the man that should have defended her. Instead, I did nothing.
Rage has done a lot of shit to Rox. Public beatings, beatings behind closed doors, offering her body up to anyone who wanted to use her in any way. It was sickening. If I had a wife, I would not be fucking offering her up to anyone who wanted her. She’d be mine – off fucking limits. Rage though, he didn’t care. I wonder if that was how he views her, as a thing bound to him; as a piece of property that he holds all rights to, or as a human being.
I’d have bet on the first half.
“Mr. Carmichael?” I turn to look at the blonde woman who is walking towards me in the patient seating area. After Roxy becoming a frequent of flyer here, I knew almost every doctor, nurse, and tech that was on payroll here. But this woman? She was new blood.
“That would be me,” I tell her as I get up from my seat. I extend my hand and flash the smile that I knew turned all women into mush. She shakes my hand for just a moment before she began to speak to me. I could tell by her tone of voice and body language that things aren’t good.
“Mr. Carmichael…” She pauses midway through speaking and goes silent. I don’t miss the way she stares at me, chewing her bottom lip like she wants to say something to me, but was refraining from doing so.
“Cough it up, doc. What’s going on with Roxy?” I urge her to tell me what I wanted to know. I was not her enemy, I just hope she could see that.
“I know you aren’t family. I know that, and I’m risking a hell of a lot by telling you any of this. The nurses here seem to trust you, they seem to think that you are the only decent human being besides Roxy that lives in that fucking motorcycle gang. I’m telling you this because I trust my team. If they trust you to be a decent human being, then I do too. Do you understand?”
“Loud and clear.”
“Follow me, then,” she orders. I follow close by as we walk past the nursing station and down a long hallway filled with rooms for patients. She opens a doorway into another room which looks to be a small office, flicks the light on, and shuts the door behind me. “I shouldn’t be fucking doing this. I could lose my medical license for this.”
“I got it, doc. You won’t lose your medical license. Tell me what’s going on.”
The doc scoffs at me, like what I said to her is insulting. I supposed it is. Who am I to promise her that she won’t lose her medical license? “Roxanne Stevens is lucky to be alive tonight. She was on death’s doorstep when you brought her in. I thought that girl was going to be in a fucking body bag, do you understand? That’s how far gone she was. She’s stable. For now. I don’t know what’s going to happen, I can only tell you that if something like this happens again, she will die. She is not strong enough to keep taking these god forsaken beatings over and over again. This time, she lost her child. I don’t know if she’ll bounce back like she has before. This time, it’s different.”
This time she lost her child.
My mind is repeating it over and over again in my mind. I wanted to think that I misheard her, but I knew I didn’t.
“She was pregnant?” I ask, looking at the doctor to confirm what I thought I heard.
“It looked like she was around five months. I’ve already completed her DNC, she’s had two blood transfusions, and I’m keeping her hydrated, on antibiotics and painkillers. I’m doing everything that I can to give her a fighting chance. I need you to do the same thing.”
“Heard loud and clear, doc,” I mutter, knowing exactly what I was going to be doing.
I was giving her a fighting chance.
Chapter 5
The heart gets confused when it’s constantly told I love you by the same person who destroys it… -R.H. Sin
Roxy
I couldn’t get over the beeping. It just keeps beeping and beeping and fucking beeping over and over again.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
It was then that I realize where I was. A feeling all too familiar washes over me. It was the fear, which quickly turns to acceptance. I’d been there too many times before. I supposed now I could call the hospital my home away from home. I was definitely here enough to call it that.
I move my arms under my body and position myself so that I could sit higher up on the hospital bed, a position that I thought would give me more comfort, but instead, it just gives me agony. I feel as if my insides have been ripped out of me, and the pounding in my head wasn’t helping one bit.
“The monitor doesn’t lie. She lives.” I take a look at the doorway of my room and see Hal, the nicest nurse and the only one who wanted to be in a room with me. The rest feared that they’d be taken, beaten as badly as me, or perhaps, turned into a drug mule. The list could go on and on. Hal though, nope, he was my buddy.
“No one’s gonna ever knock m
e down. Don’t you know that by now?”
“You, my dear, got your ass knocked down, and you needed some help getting back up,” Hal chastises me. He enters the room and shuts the door slowly behind him. He takes a good look at me before he is right next to my bedside. He keeps himself busy by changing the bag of fluids that was hanging to my left.
“It was the worst this time, you know. You coded twice on us,” he whispers, looking down at me.
I shut my eyes tightly and try not to think of the horror I know I’d endured. I try to think of anything else; rainbows, puppies, those stupid little kitten happy birthday cards you see at the store. Not about what Rage said, not even about the look on his face as he did what he did to me.
He loved every second of it.
“My son died, didn’t he?’ I ask, praying to God that what I knew in my heart wasn’t true. I didn’t want it to be true. I wanted my son. I wanted some shred of happiness, not that place, not the fucking nightmare that I chose to live in.
“You and I know both know that boy is better off anywhere other than that club. If Rage didn’t do this now, he would’ve done it after he was born.” I listen to Hal, knowing that what he said was nothing but the truth. If Rage did this to me, I knew that it would have happened to our child as well. It would have only been a matter of time. Deep down, I knew that, but it didn’t do anything to console the hurt in my heart.
Rage is a monster, through and through. Some part deep inside me knew that when I first started dating him. I hoped I could change him. I thought we were like a fairytale. I was the sweet Army brat who just wanted to settle down. He was the man with the broken past. If only I had known then what I know now. Even back then, I knew about his demons, about his tendencies, and still I chose him. I tried my hardest, but in the end, I couldn’t change one part about him. Thinking back, I was a dumb girl. Hell, maybe I still am.
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