He let go of my hand, putting his arm around me, and holding me close. Our steps fell into synch, our hips moving together as we walked.
“There’s no hurry, Sam. No hurry at all. You just let it come naturally, and don’t worry about a thing. It’ll come when it’s supposed to.”
“I hope you’re right,”I said, sighing against his chest. His vest was smooth and cool against my cheek.
“Everything’s going to be okay, babe, I promise,”he said.
We walked in silence for another hour before heading back to the clubhouse. I was hoping for another flash of a memory, but nothing came. Just the same loop I had seen in my dream, over and over.
I stopped when we got back to the clubhouse, and turned to face him.
“Ryder,”I said,“you’ve been so good to me. I feel like I’ve known you forever. Whatever happens, I want you in my life. I know that much.”
He smiled, his hand resting on my waist and pulling me in for a kiss.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Ryder
“I found something.”
Riot was pacing around like a lion when we walked back into the clubhouse. The sun was beginning to set and the rays of light streaming into the house were filled with dust, and casting shadows on the hardwood floor.
“What?”I asked.
“Another house. I looked up 605 NE 52nd Boulevard instead of Street. I found another hit. It’s in Lincoln City.”
Sam squeezed my hand hard as we walked over to the laptop Riot had open on the bar.
“I already pulled up the street view of the house for you,”he said, moving to the side so Sam could see.
When Sam laid eyes on the house, all the color drained from her face.
“That’s it. That’s the house in my dream!”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Grace
My knees weakened when I saw the house. As soon as I saw the air conditioner, and the tear right in the middle of the screen door, I knew it was the same house.
It wasn’t bringing back any other memories, but I knew we had found something. My mind began racing again with questions.
Was my father still in that house? How far away was Lincoln City?
“I have to go there,”I said, turning to Ryder. “How far away is it?”
“About an hour,”he said, his eyes filling with concern and worry. “You sure you want to do that? That memory was from decades ago. It’s a long shot that someone there might still know you.”
“A long shot is all I’ve got,”I said.“It’s better than no shot at all.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Ryder
Sure, I was fucking skeptical, but what was I going to do - say no? Of course not. I would have done anything she wanted. Even if meant losing her. I was prepared for that. Fuck, I was banking on that.
In the back of my mind, I was counting on the fact that she had a husband and kids somewhere waiting for her. I knew she would have to leave eventually. Was I enjoying her completely in the meantime? Hell yes I was. Did I want to do everything to make her happy while I could? Fuck yes.
At the same time, I was doing everything I could to keep my heart locked up, not to let her get under my skin, for that very reason. Well, also because that just wasn’t who I was. Not since Julie.
It was not easy at all. Every single time she flashed those huge green eyes at me, I wanted to save her all over again.
“We can go tomorrow morning,”I said, her face turned up to me, her eyes sparkling with hope. Hope that was most likely going to be dashed to pieces tomorrow.
“Thank you,”she whispered, squeezing my hand, and pressing up against me. My cock hardened, just as it did every time she touched me. I had been in a perpetual state of excitement since she first woke up. I couldn’t get enough of her. All I could think about was getting her back into my bed tonight, and sinking into her again, before she figured out who I was really was and wanted nothing to do with me.
Our conversation during our walk had been a close call. She saved me from having to tell her the truth by changing the subject herself. I could have told her then, hell, I should have, but I knew that the look in her eye, the one I was quickly becoming addicted to every time she looked at me, wouldn’t be there anymore as soon as she found out that I had killed someone.
I don’t know what I was thinking. On one hand, I figured she would remember who she was and leave before she found out the truth about me, but on the other hand, I was entertaining the possibility of her just leaving without finding out at all.
Either way, I knew she was leaving. It’s not like she had chosen to be here anyway. A woman like that would never choose to be with a man like me.
I knew trying to make her happy was completely at odds with all of those other thoughts running around in my head, but there was nothing I could do about it.
I had to see this through to the end. She was like an injured baby bird that I had to make sure found a good home. I couldn’t just release her into the wild, even if I had eliminated her predator.
That night, after we had dinner with the club, and several beers later, we stumbled into my room while the nightly club party was still in full swing. I locked the door behind us, and we tumbled into the bed, kicking off our boots and knocking over beer bottles along the way.
When I finally felt her naked skin against mine, it was paradise. Her skin was like velvet, soft, smooth, and with each twitch and pulse of her body, I became hungrier and hungrier. I sank myself into her, my cock throbbing as I pushed deeper and deeper, our hands, our tongues, our limbs, and fingers, searching to get closer and closer to each other until we shuddered together, coming together, resting and then starting it all over again.
The feeling of being satisfied never came. Not during the first orgasm. And not during the fifth. By the time the sunlight came pouring in my room, we still hadn’t stopped. Sleep wasn’t even on our mind.
This might be the last night we had together.
And we both knew it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Grace
I hopped off Ryder’s bike, pulling off my helmet and faced the dirty white house. It was uglier than in the picture, a lot more run down than in my dream, but it was still there, still standing, if only barely.
“Do you want me to come in with you?”Ryder asked, his voice deep and strong behind me. I took a deep breath, trying to find strength in his confidence.
“No,”I replied. “I should do this alone.”
“Okay, babe. I’ll be right here. You just holler if you need me, and I’ll be right there.” He turned off his bike, and propped it up on the kickstand.
I nodded gratefully, my feet carrying me down the cracked sidewalk that led to the front porch. A small driveway lined the yard to my left, and two cars were parked in it. One was covered in rust, its hood up, the right passenger side tire missing, a couple of bricks holding it up under the wheel. A huge empty field of overgrown, dead weeds was on the other side of the driveway. To my right stood another rundown house, and another one after that, all forming a sad line of forgotten dreams.
I turned back, looking back at Ryder one last time. He nodded, smiling to me encouragingly. I couldn’t have been more thankful for him.
Another deep breath and a few more steps and I was standing in front of the porch steps. The air conditioning was on full-blast, just like in my dream. The same river of water was pouring out of it. The porch was littered with trash. Soggy phone books. Beer cans, coke bottles, an old clothes basket. Two black garbage bags filled with something that was leaking a gooey brown liquid out of the bottom. It smelled awful.
I thought about turning back. But I had no choice. I had no other leads. I had to go through with it. I had to at least knock.
I went up the three steps, facing the door. With a shaking fist, I banged on the screen door. It swayed back and forth, barely hanging on one hinge, squeaking loudly. My heart raced, the blood thumping in my ears as it pounded through my vei
ns.
I waited.
Nothing. Nothing but the sound of that damned air conditioner. It was so fucking loud. I raked my hands through my hair. They were clammy, sweaty. I couldn’t stop shaking.
Maybe there wasn’t anyone home.
I began to feel the first twinges of relief.
The door opened.
And as soon as I saw her face, I knew who it was.
My mother.
“Oh, my god!”she squealed, her eyes filling with tears.“It’s you! It’s really you! Oh, honey, come in! Come in!”
I let her guide me through the door, going against every instinct that was screaming inside of me to run the other way. Overwhelmed with confusion, I desperately tried to think clearly. Dozens of flashes of quick memories exploded in my head, but nothing stuck. It was like an old television set that needed the antennae adjusted. Spinning, my childhood memories bombarded me.
And none of it was good. I was dumbfounded.
I walked through the door and stopped, my eyes darting around, trying to adjust to the darkness of the house. It was filled with…stuff. I couldn’t really tell what, but there were things everywhere. Stuffed in every tiny corner, every surface covered with clutter. The smell of dog-shit hit me first, then the sickly sweet smell of rotting trash.
I looked at this woman in front of me and felt absolutely nothing for her. She was shorter than me, old, so old, and her eyes and mouth were sunken in as only age, or bad drugs, can do.
“Oh, baby. Why are you here?” Her voice was laced with an annoyingly high twang. “It’s been so long, my god! I haven't talked to you in over five years, well, my lord, it must have been twice that since I've seen you.”
I let her ramble on, trying to take it all in. Trying to stop the spinning wheel of memories in my head and catch just one to focus on.
“Where’s Dad?” The only words I could form.
She looked confused, and she started shaking her head.
“Well, what’s that, now? Sweetie, now, c’mon baby, you know your Dad died ten years ago. That was the last time I saw you. At his funeral. Well, I’ll be…”
I couldn’t catch my breath. My hand flew to my chest as I tried to focus, to just breath.
“Dead…”I repeated. My intuition kicked into overdrive and everything in my soul told me to leave. But I kept looking around, and the wheel slowed and I started to catch glimpses of scenes in my head.
“Honey, are you okay?”she was looking at me like I was crazy. But suddenly, I knew. I was the only sane one.
I was young again. Running around the house. And there was my sister. I had a sister! But she was on the ground, right there near where my mother was standing now. She was screaming, as her clothes were being ripped off by two boys, our brothers, who were towering over her as she kicked at them.
I blinked, and my gaze traveled down the hallway, knowing exactly what was there.
She was still talking but I couldn’t hear her words anymore. I walked past her, my body seeming to have a mind of its own as it carried me to the end of the hallway, to the door I knew I would find. My door.
My bedroom.
I opened it, and the filth was overwhelming, it was just as cluttered as the rest of the house. Everything was different as I stood here looking at it, but in my mind, it was twenty years ago.
I was running inside, throwing my tiny little kid body on my bed and giggling. But then someone else entered, one of the boys that was ripping off my sister’s clothes in the other room, my brother. He closed the door behind him as he began to unbuckle his belt buckle.
I blinked again, and the memory flashed.
It was pitch black, and I was under the covers, but I wasn’t alone. He had come to my bed again, and he wouldn’t stop touching me. The bedroom door opened, the light from the hallway cracking through the darkness. My mother stood there in the doorway, her silhouette contrasted against the light, reminding me of the picture of Jesus she had over the dining room table. She walked over to me. To us. She went to pull the covers up over my body, but she stopped. She pulled my white cotton panties back up. Kissed us both goodnight. And left me there. Without a word. I watched her walk out of the room.
I shook my head, bewildered.
“I was only six years old, he was sixteen…”I murmured, feeling my blood turn cold with disgust.
“I have to get out of here,”I said to the empty room. I turned to run away, quickly walking back down the short hallway, away from the memories. The woman was still talking, the shrill twang of her voice cutting right through me.
As I rounded the corner, I saw him.
This was my brother. One of them.
But he wasn’t a boy anymore. He was a man now.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
His voice was smeared with hatred, the words slithering out of his mouth. He was clearly not happy to see me.
I began backing out of the house, running into a table and knocking it over, its contents spilling to the floor around my feet.
“This was a mistake,”I mumbled, stumbling backwards, as the woman stood between us, yelling at the man to shut up. “I shouldn’t have come.”
“Damn right, you shouldn’t have come, you fucking bitch! I spent ten years behind bars because of your lies!”
“Shut up!”the woman yelled again, beginning to cry.
“You shut up!”he said to her, towering menacingly over her. My eyes darted from one to the other, and saw everything.
It was pathetic. Sad. All these years, and she was still under his thumb. The mother who would do anything for her son. The mother who would let him destroy her life, and everyone else’s lives, even her other children, while she did nothing but stand by and cower to his every demand.
I shook my head, reaching the front door and barreling through it. She reached out, trying to grab my arm to stop me, but I shrugged her off.
“Please don’t go, baby, please! I haven’t seen you in so long!”She was crying harder now. But again, I didn’t care. I had absolutely no feelings towards her at all.
I knew everything I needed to know.
Most importantly, I remembered why I left.
And now, with all my might, I wished I hadn’t fucking remembered any of this.
I ran back to Ryder’s bike, and I was thankful to see he had already started it up. He handed me my helmet, and I put it on quickly while he questioned me.
“You okay?”
“No. Get me the fuck out of here. Fast.”
“You got it, babe. Hold on tight.”
We roared off away from the house and I did just as he said, as tightly as I could with my trembling hands, and I cried all the way back to the clubhouse.
My heart broke with disappointment. There were no happy memories to remember. Except the ones with my Dad, and he was dead.
Now I knew all this awful bullshit, and I still didn’t know where the fuck I belonged.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Ryder
She looked like she had seen a ghost when she ran out of that house. I had heard a man yelling, and I was just about to hop off the bike when she ran out the door. Instead, I started it and handed her helmet to her.
When we got back to the clubhouse, she told me everything. It took all my willpower not to climb back on my bike right then and take care of that‘family’of hers. I made a mental note of where they lived. So much time had passed, a few more days wouldn’t hurt.
Right now, Sam needed my full attention. We lay on my bed, her head resting on my chest as tears streamed down her face. I let her talk, not saying a word, just gently stroking her hair, and drawing on more and more inner strength with every word that spilled out of her mouth.
She had had it bad. The youngest of four children, she was born to a promiscuous, young mother and a hard-working father who had aspirations of being a country singer. Married at fourteen, her mother was pregnant at sixteen, and the three kids after that just tied her down even more. She
found fun wherever she could, and that usually meant between the legs of a new cowboy every week.
If it weren’t for Sam’s semi-responsible father, they wouldn’t have eaten. Left to fend for themselves, the kids learned how to survive by watching the adults around them.
Her two older brothers turned into two evil predators. The only available prey was Sam and her sister.
When her sister ran away when she turned fourteen, getting married just like her mother, Sam was nine, and she was left to fend them off all alone. The torture doubled for her.
REMEMBER ME: GODS OF CHAOS MC Page 10
