by Violet Blaze
Fudging fuck.
Mom's worried about Kailey damaging her old table with a hot cheese casserole.
I've now killed more people than I can keep count of.
How our worlds have changed.
But … I like their naïveté. I want to protect it, keep it safe. I really hope Heather Shelley comes through on this one.
“Did you break up with Royal?” Kailey whispers theatrically, tossing her blond hair like she's in a movie or something—one where she's the main character.
“Oh dear God, please say yes,” my mother says with a shake of her head, fetching a salad bowl and some rolls before barking orders at Kailey to help out.
“I'd like to eat dinner before I talk, please,” I say, starting to get annoyed as I tug a place setting in front of me and unfold my napkin in my lap.
“Then let's eat,” Philip says, gesturing for my mom and sister to sit down. “Shall we say grace?” I sigh and try to stay positive through his prayer, one that sounds more like a political speech than a thanks to God. But sure, whatever works.
The room is quiet but for the sound of clinking cutlery while we dish up. That's how it's always been in our family, really. A lot of silent meals. It's part of being in a group of people who don't know how to express themselves properly.
“Now, Lyric,” my father asks after a few more minutes of quiet eating. “What's this all important announcement about? And please tell me it's you accepting the business proposal I laid out for you.”
“Actually,” I begin as I dab at my lips with my napkin, smearing red lipstick across the white cloth. I stare down at it and suddenly, all I can see is blood. My heart starts to race and sweat beads on my forehead. This, this is just one of the many reasons I need to get out of town and away from Royal. “I'm not going to be running for mayor, Dad.”
“Lyric—” he starts, but I hold up a hand to silence him.
“Please let me get this out because it's not easy to say.” Deep breath, Lyric. You can do this. “Tomorrow morning, I'm getting on a flight to Washington, D.C.”
“Whatever for?” my mother asks, putting a hand to her chest like she's a Victorian noblewomen about to pass out onto a fainting couch.
“I've got a job interview lined up with Senator Davis' office.”
Dad frowns.
“Isn't she some kind of leftist nut?”
“I've got an interview,” I continue, ignoring him, “but even if I don't get that job, I'll look for another.”
“What are you trying to say?” Sully asks me with a frown. “That you're moving?”
“That's exactly what I'm saying,” I tell him, looking around at the four stunned faces sitting at the table. “I'm moving to Washington, D.C., and I'm going to need some help getting my affairs in order here.”
Kailey tears up immediately as my mother stares at my dad, pleading with her eyes for him to do something.
“You can't move to D.C. and leave me here,” Kailey wails dramatically, latching onto my arm like she did that day at the police station. I realize then what I think I've always known: Mom and Kailey are weak. It makes me feel sad for them.
“Philip,” Mom says as Sully just stares across the table at me. Dad says nothing, looking down at his plate while I contemplate how pissed off he's going to be exactly. “Philip.”
“Hush, Marian,” he says quietly, turning the volume off on the entire table.
After several long moments, he looks up at me and … for the very first time in my life, my dad looks at me like he's proud.
“You don't have to do this, you know,” Sully says later as I'm sitting on the living room couch alone, wondering why I agreed to stay over here my last night in town. But in my heart, I know why.
I'm afraid.
If I go home, there's a very good chance Royal will show up, and if I see him … if he comes to me in my bedroom and strips my pajamas off with strong, sure fingers then … I won't be able to leave.
“What are you talking about?” I ask with a frown, looking up from my Kindle and the book I absolutely wasn't reading. “I thought you'd be happy about this, about me leaving Royal. You're the one with all the connections anyway, so why don't you run for mayor?”
Sully sighs and rakes his fingers through his dark hair, sitting down in the green upholstered chair next to me. He's wearing those stupid blue and white striped pj's again. I almost smile.
“Happy? Why should I be happy when you look like you're about to throw up? Lyric, I know what you're thinking and under most circumstances, I'd agree.”
“Um, explain?” I ask as I set my Kindle aside and tuck my knees up under my blanket, the tiniest, smallest, least sad part of me enjoying sitting in the living room with my brother and talking like we're back in high school again.
“You don't want to change your life for a man, I get that. You don't want to give everything up for some guy and then see your life disappear in an instant.”
I purse my lips.
Yeah, that's pretty much exactly what I'm thinking. That, and I don't belong here getting my hands dirty and covered in blood and wondering why, when I could've changed the world, I decided I didn't want to.
“Moving to D.C. would open up a lot of doors, a lot of opportunities.”
“I'm still missing the part where I 'don't have to do this',” I say, making quotes with my fingers. Sully sighs under his breath again, adjusting his cast and mumbling something that sounds an awful lot like I can't believe I'm doing this.
He stares at the white fringed edges of the carpet under the coffee table and then back up at me, mouth tight.
“If you go, I know you'll be successful. Whatever you do, Lyric, you're good at it. But you won't be happy.”
“And why's that?” I ask, raising a brow and waiting for my brother's sudden insight into my soul. I never really gave that much thought to Sully's and my relationship, but lately, I can see plain as day that he loves me. A lot. And maybe all this time when I thought I was scrambling around for his attention and his approval, I already had it.
“You've … got a free spirit that I don't think even you know about.”
“A free spirit, huh?” I ask with a small smile. “So you think I should stay here under Dad's thumb, marry into a motorcycle club that sees my vagina as a physical disability? That would make me feel free?”
“Don't be like that, Lyric,” Sully says with yet another sigh. “You sound so cynical—like Dad. Like me. And you're not at all like either of us.”
“Then tell me, Sully. What am I supposed to do?” I hold my arms out at my sides, wishing and hoping and praying that my brother has some magical solution to all my problems. But in my heart, I know the only person that can make this decision is me.
“I have no idea, but … going to D.C., that won't make you happy. Figure it out, Lyric. I have a feeling you're only to get one chance at this.”
Sully stands up with a groan and lifts his good arm, putting a hand on my shoulder for a comforting squeeze as I drop my own arms to my lap and watch him pull away, heading out the glass fronted French doors and listening as his footsteps climb the stairs.
One chance, huh?
That sounds awfully ominous.
Hopefully I won't seriously fudge this up.
Monday afternoon.
It should feel like a fresh start. Instead, it feels like the end of my life.
My throat gets tight as I drop my carry-on onto the pavement and fight back a sudden rush of emotion, putting my hands on my hips and trying to breathe through the pain.
When I got up this morning, the first thing I did was race to the window and throw it open, staring through the gray drizzle of rain for Royal and his bike. But it wasn't him outside waiting for me, just another nameless faceless Alpha Wolf with a leather cut that distinctly didn't say President over the pocket.
I dialed him up three times before we left the house, too, and didn't press send on any of the calls. How could I? What would I say? Good-bye and I
love you? Are you waiting at the courthouse for me? How long will you wait there and hope? How can I possibly leave you when it feels like my soul's being ripped out of my chest?
I stand on the wet pavement for a long time, too long, all the while wondering why I decided to drive out here by myself. I told my family that I needed some time to think through my plans, but really, I don't know why.
I lean back against the car in a pair of jeans and a Wolf Cycle Service and Repair tee, my leather riding boots on my feet. My dad definitely quirked an eyebrow at my outfit before he left the house early this morning. But he was glowing with pride, cupping the side of my face and looking at me with such joy that I didn't care that he disapproved of my outfit.
For years, I was under the impression that he didn't want me to leave, that he'd bred and raised me to be some sort of eternal yes-woman for him. But like with Sully, I think I seriously misjudged him.
I lift my left hand up and stare at the ring Royal gave me, wondering why I'm still wearing it. I guess I really will have to mail it back later. Or … I could leave it in my car and have Kailey somehow give it back to him when she comes to pick it up later?
My eyes swing back to the bullet hole riddled sedan behind me, and I smile sadly.
Yep.
I have to go.
I head inside, dragging my bag behind me, and check in at the single counter of the Arcata-Eureka Airport. Despite our recent population boom, this is the only airport for miles, and it's dinky as hell. One flight at a time, and mine's already delayed.
Fantastic.
I head upstairs to the one and only lounge, settling in with a mimosa and trying to act like I'm celebrating something.
Absently, my finger traces the rim of the glass as my heart pounds a broken, staccato rhythm in my chest.
Royal.
I glance at my phone, staring into the bright surface of the screen until the images go blurry and the waitress is tapping my shoulder, asking if I want another one. I glance up suddenly and realize I've somehow finished my drink.
“I'll take one more,” I say and she nods, moving away as I turn my phone over and look out the window at the airstrip, the pavement dark and glossy with rain, the clouds obscuring any hint of blue sky. It would've been nice to leave on a bright, shiny day with glimmering beams of yellow sunshine lighting up my departure, but life's just not fair like that, is it?
My mind drifts back to Heather Shelley and the words she spoke to me at the hospital, the words that spurred this whole forced decision thing into motion. I twist and turn and twine them through my brain, trying to understand them. Trying to understand myself.
“Lyric, sometimes what we think we want and what we really want are two different things entirely. We all end up with these silly expectations for ourselves of who and what we should be, what constitutes success in our own minds, but there's always something deeper. Whether it's a desire for power or money or respect, there's usually a driving force. Maybe that's what you need to do, dig deep and identify that force first because whatever it is, it's there and waiting. If you figure that out, everything else will fall into place.”
Beautiful words. So beautiful that I remember them almost perfectly. But what do they mean really? What the hell is my driving force? It's sure as hell not money. And doesn't everyone want respect? As far as power … I don't need or want absolute power. All I want is to not feel powerless, like I did when Mia and her girls held me down and cut my face and hair.
“Here's your mimosa,” the waitress says, setting the orange bubbling liquid in front of me. I pick it up and down it before she even leaves the table.
“Another, please,” I say and catch the tail end of a raised eyebrow as she disappears again.
I drag the white cocktail napkin closer and get out a pen from my purse.
Driving force.
I write the words in scrawling cursive and stare down at them.
Driving force.
Something that moves and motivates, something that gives me a reason for leaving the only man I've ever loved, the only person I've ever felt such an instant connection with. Not a friend nor family member in all my life has made me feel as understood as Royal McBride.
I'm staring at that napkin and wracking my brain when my phone rings. Checking the caller ID, I see Agent Shelley's name, but I can't talk to her, not right this second. I'll call her back before I get on the flight.
“And another,” the waitress says with a tone so snide I'd probably ask to speak to her manager if I wasn't so enthralled with my own thoughts. “Anything else?”
“That's it,” I say because I just need her to go away and leave me to sit alone in that gray drenched lounge with windows on all sides, rain pelting the glass in a musical requiem.
I put the pen to my lips and trace the carved shape of the words in the napkin with my finger.
If not power, and not money, and not respect then what? What am I looking for? Beyond all the coulds, and woulds, and shoulds of going to D.C., what's there for me that I feel like I'm lacking in my life? That I need more than the arms of the one person in this world that gets me, really truly gets me.
My phone rings again, but it's Kailey this time.
I ignore that, too.
And then I hear the call for boarding for my flight over the loudspeaker.
Crap.
I crumple the napkin up and shove it in my pocket, tossing back the mimosa and throwing some bills on the table before I rise to my feet, smiling tightly at the rude waitress on my way out of the lounge.
That's when I see it, in the most ridiculously obvious way.
There's a sign in front of me that says Free Checked Baggage on all Domestic Flights.
It's a stupid fucking, fudging bullshit ad with a stock photo and admittedly awful typography, and I'm just standing there with the rain pelting the glass in front of me and my eyes getting big and round, my heart pounding in my chest.
Free.
That's it right there, so blatantly obvious that I want to kick myself with Royal's gifted riding boots.
“Freedom.”
That's my driving force, the reason and the motivation behind everything that I do.
I just … want to be free.
I'm standing outside the courthouse smoking a cigarette, Dober casting me these long, seeking glances that make me want to start a fight for no reason, right here on the steps surrounded by cops. I want them drag me off to jail and lock me up for a night before I do anything else I might regret.
“Aren't you supposed to be happy today? You look—”
“Like I'm about to have kittens?”
“No. What the fuck? Who the fuck says stuff like that? Jesus, that better be a British saying or some shit because I'm gonna have to kick your ass if it isn't. What the hell is the matter with you? It's your wedding day—your wedding day to a girl that you just had to have, consequences be damned. A girl we all warned you about getting involved with.”
“Are you bloody done yet?” I ask, standing up and turning towards him, pointing the burning cherry of my cigarette in Dober's direction. “Because I'm running low on fucking patience today.”
I hear the deep rumbling growl in my own voice, but I don't know how to stop it. I don't want to. Last night, I headed over to Lyric's parents' place and sat outside like a fucking asshole, hiding in the shadows on my bike and knowing she was in there because of me, because she was afraid of what would happen if she saw me. If I touched her. Kissed her. Fucked her.
Selfish prick that I am, I almost went in there and did it anyway, shackled her to me and to this place and cut the wings off that beautiful bird. I'm such a goddamn monster.
But I didn't. I love her too damn much. Instead, I watched all night and waited and this morning, I followed her to the airport and then … I left and came here. Maybe I should've made it easier on myself, cancelled this whole stupid thing with Dober and Janae and given myself a fucking break. But no. Lyric planned this so that they'd
see her for a monster, so that they wouldn't blame me even though this whole thing really is my fault.
So here I stand, alone and seething, my heart aching and my soul just this much closer to snuffing out, like Glacier's. Going emotionless and plastering a mask over the hurt that almost everyone can see through whether they like it or not.
“No, I'm not bloody done yet,” Dober scoffs, tossing his fag into a puddle and running his hand over his beard. “I have a right to know why you look like a drowned cat when you're marrying a girl that could've cost you everything you have.” Dober pauses, but before I get a chance to tear his head off with a right bollocking, he adds, “a girl that I actually like.”
I raise an eyebrow.
“You like her?”
“She's alright,” he says grudgingly and then smiles, that way he only does for his old lady. “You're late,” he barks gruffly, but Janae ignores him, ascending the steps in a pale pink dress that falls to her knees and shows off her legs.
My heart clenches tight with jealousy as they kiss, Dober's hands resting on Janae's hips and pulling her close enough that her breasts press into his chest.
Bleeding hell.
My hand twitches at my side while the other pinches my cig between tight fingers.
“Is Lyric here yet? Oh God, did she dress up? I want to see her dress,” Janae gushes as she sighs and steps away from Dober's arms, glancing over at me and smiling. The expression fades from her face as soon as she looks at me. “What's wrong?”
“Maybe you can figure that out because I'm sick and fucking tired of looking at his mopey ass face. Are you having second thoughts, Pres? Because if you are, that's goddamn bullshit.”
“Dober, stop,” Janae says as she takes a deep breath and absently reaches up to touch the gunshot wound on her ear, like she's summoning Lyric's spirit just by placing her hand there.
This is for the best. I let her go. I love her so fucking much that I watched her walk away and didn't fight. That makes me a better man, doesn't it? To watch the woman I love be happy. Fuck, because all Lyric makes me want to do is be a better man. A better person.
