Burn

by Jc Emery

  “You don’t belong here, so get the fuck out!” He’s still shouting, but it’s not as unnerving now. My ears have adjusted to his volume pretty quickly. He places his hands on either side of my, cupping the ledge of the bar top, his knuckles turning white from the effort.

  The volatility of his words make me feel about two inches tall. I’ve spent the better part of a year wanting this man. He’s the only reason I’m not still freaking out over every sound, every touch, and every single fucking thing in life that normal people manage with ease. He’s everything to me, and if I don’t have him anymore, what do I have?

  I have nothing.

  “Fuck you,” I scream back at him like my life depends on being heard by a rescue team miles away. I’ve lifted my butt off the stool and am unsteadily standing on the foot rest, leaning into him with my nose touching his. “I’m not leaving!”

  I hear people rushing in but can’t see them. I don’t care who they are or what they have to say about what’s going on between us.

  “When are you going to get it through your fucking head, huh? I’m not a good guy. I like being Forsaken. I get a fucking hard-on when somebody misses a payment, because it means I get to break their face open. And don’t even fucking ask me how many men I’ve taken out, because I don’t count the bodies.”

  I press my nose into his harder now, my body shaking with anger. How fucking dare he. He keeps talking about how I don’t want him or this life, but it’s like he’s rewritten my history in his head.

  “Who the hell do you think you’re talking to? I’m the dirty junkie, remember? You don’t want to know the shit I’ve done to score. It would turn your stomach if you knew the disgusting things an addict will do for their next fix. I’m a twenty-four-year-old widowed junkie. And in case you fucking forgot, my pussy is tainted because a couple of fucking animals raped me.”

  I’m going strong until the very end where my voice breaks. I don’t normally use the r-word because it’s too on point. I don’t feel comfortable with it. Saying you were assaulted is always followed by a victim label. I don’t want to feel like a victim anymore. I spent long enough feeling sorry for myself over Heath and then the drugs and drinking that I can’t stand the idea of feeling victimized by another awful fucking thing happening in my life, even if this one wasn’t my fault.

  Ian moves to wrap his arms around me, but it reeks of pity and churns my stomach. I don’t feel very good now, but I’m too angry to admit any weakness. I was weak for months after the . . . after it.

  I’m not going to be weak anymore.

  I won’t be.

  So I shove Ian out of my way as hard as I can and hop down off the bar stool. Ruby and Jim are standing near the hallway that leads down to the private bedrooms and the Chapel. Duke and Jeremy are at the pool table watching us but trying to look like they’re not. I see Chel in the distance with a half-naked woman I don’t know and Ryan and Diesel by the front door. I lower my head as I run around the corner and into the bathroom just off pool room, slamming the door behind me.

  Inside and alone, my hands shake and a lump forms in my throat. Everybody was just standing there as I unleashed my most private shame on everyone. I didn’t give details, but it was enough. I said the one thing that I’ve spent the last six months trying not to think.

  Rape.

  My arms are wrapped around my torso, like I’m trying to give myself a hug. Tears fall down my face in a blurry rush, and I walk in circles in the sizeable room. With every lap I take, I feel the burn of my nails dragging down the flesh at the back of my arms even harder. I don’t know how many laps I’ve done or how long has passed, but there’s what I think are tiny drops of blood on my fingertips. I’m freaking out in an epic way, worse than anything that’s come before it. I’m not back in Eileen’s office this time, and I’m not remembering every vile way they violated me. No, this time I’m hearing the EMTs talk to one another. They’re checking me out before they load me on the stretcher. Ian’s nearby and is helping the EMTs give me privacy before they cover my lower half with a sheet to spare me my decency.

  While making my circles, I snort at the memory. What fucking decency? I had none left. I had nothing left. Ian’s wrong. There’s no good left in me and no way for me to make any because they stole that from me, and it’s not something I can get back.

  Raped.

  Excessive force.

  Foreign object.

  Blood.

  So much blood.

  The only word that stands out to me, though, is the one that I can barely bring myself to think.

  Raped.

  It’s not like I don’t know what happened to me. It’s just that putting a label on it makes me feel like a statistic. I grew up hearing grown women talk about things I didn’t understand. Women in big cities talked about not going out after dark, living by a “rape clock,” carrying pepper spray with them, and how something like one in every six American women will be raped or nearly raped at some point in their life. Being a rape victim is like being a breast cancer patient. Everybody either has suffered from it, knows someone who suffered from it, or they’ve come close to suffering from it. Worse than being a fucking victim is being a fucking statistic.

  A guttural, violent, crazed scream flies out of me. It’s not fearful like it always was before I started working through my damage. No, it’s angry and hateful and just plain fed up. I scream like it’s a battle cry and I’m about to rush into war without an army to back me up. My feet move quicker now, in their infinite, dizzying circles, until I have to stop or fall over with the room spinning.

  In my last crazed loop around the bathroom, I stop at the sink and grab hold of the edge of the countertop. On both hands, my fingertips are covered in a mix of fresh and drying blood from my arms, but I can’t bring myself to care.

  Blood.

  So much blood.

  Raped.

  Everything around me is like a backdrop of a picture perfect landscape that doesn’t really exist. Tears still fall down my face, and I’m hiccupping now and even more frustrated because I hate having the hiccups. The woman who stares back at me in the mirror is a pathetic bitch with red, puffy eyes and tear-stained cheeks. She’s practically hyperventilating, and there are a few streaks of blood on her collarbone just above where her T-shirt hits. I don’t remember touching my collarbone, but it doesn’t matter because the evidence is right there.

  There’s a knock on the door that I ignore. And then another. And another. But I don’t give a single fuck.

  I can’t stand to look at her anymore, so I slap my hand against the mirror right where I see my face reflected back at me. I hit the mirror harder than I intend to, and the impact makes my palm tingle. It’s not quiet painful and it’s not enough, so I do it again, this time harder. When I remove my hand from the mirror, I realize that I must look almost as bad as I looked when Ian got into the room and tried to block my exposed body from being viewed by the entire club as they barged into the room to rescue us. I haven’t been knocked across the face today, nor have I been choked or kicked, but I look pretty bad, and I hate my reflection all the same.

  “Go away!” I’m screaming into the mirror as I slam my fists into the reflective glass, wrists side first. For half a second, I’m terrified it’ll break under my assault, but then when it doesn’t, I’m disappointed. The knocking on the door turns to banging, which turns into something heavy being slammed into it. There’s yelling on the other side, but I don’t care.

  I was raped.

  I slam my closed fists into the mirror again and again with all my might until it starts to crack under the pressure. The door behind me is broken open just as the glass shatters against my fists. Ian is yelling behind me and pulling me away from the mirror just in time for me to see my handiwork. My wrists are covered in blood, and they throb from my fingertips straight up my arms. I can feel wedges of glass caught in my skin. It’s painful, to say the least, but also kind of exciting. Finally, I have a physical p
ain that’s the closest to what I remember feeling back then. Still, it’s nothing compared to detoxing, which I thought was going to kill me.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Ian asks with a strained voice as he pulls me into his body and slides down the wall. I’m tucked into his lap with his face buried in my neck. He’s holding one of my arms and inspecting the damage. I don’t know how he can see anything through the blood that’s streaming down to my elbow and onto our clothes.

  “I was raped,” I whisper. The tears start again, even more fiercely now. Before they were a steady stream, but now I’m wailing. My grief can’t be contained any longer. My entire body shakes in Ian’s steady, firm hold as I scream and buck against him, shouting the only thing I can again and again until I’m no longer doing anything, no longer aware of being alive or dead. The world doesn’t melt away—it just drifts, and a black void takes its place.

  I was raped.

  Chapter 17

  “It’s okay. you’re okay.” My words are meant to reassure her, but I’m doing a shit job of it. It doesn’t feel okay, and with the way she’s sobbing in my arms right now, she doesn’t feel like she’s going to be okay either.

  I don’t know how we got here, but we’re here, and there’s no going back. I should have left her alone after her attack. I should have respected her father’s wishes and not forced myself on her and her family when she was in the hospital. I shouldn’t have shown up at her house the day she went home, and I shouldn’t have shown up every day afterwards for months on end. I should have left her alone, but I’m a selfish bastard¸ and I didn’t want to be away from her for too long. But then I left her anyway, and by that time, it was too late.

  Getting close to people only leads to pain. It starts out innocently enough. You meet someone, you like them, they like you, and next thing you know you’re stuck cleaning up their messes and dealing with their crap. I have enough relationships within the club and my own fucked-up makeshift family. It’s not like I need a relationship for sex, and even if I did, I wouldn’t go after Mindy for that. At least, I’ve tried to keep the two separate. Mindy would run a mile in the other direction if she knew half the shit I think about doing to her when she’s being cute. She’d probably run straight out of the county—and with how fast she can run, it wouldn’t take long—if I told her what I want to do to her when she’s being ornery. Maybe I should have shown her that instead of forcing myself to be gentle. But now isn’t the time to think about Mindy being ornery¸ because she’s in my lap and hysterically crying. And I fucking refuse to think about whipping her when she’s this upset.

  “I’m taking you home.” My voice is gruff but low. I don’t want to upset her any more than she already is. When she nods her head, I rearrange my feet beneath me and stand. It’s not easy, but I’m careful not to jostle her too much in the process, keeping one arm under her legs and the other behind her back. Firmly held in place against my chest, she lies motionless, as if unaware of what’s going on around her. She’s not unaware, though. I can tell by the way her heartbeat speeds up when we rise from the floor and then breaks out into a frantic pounding when we walk out of the bathroom and past the small crowd that’s gathered.

  My brothers are a bunch of nosy fucks, but the looks on their faces don’t display an insatiable curiosity. Instead, I see worry and sorrow marring their features. Even Ryan, who by all accounts is as self-consumed as our grandfather, Rage, stares at the woman in my arms with a sadness in his eyes. It’s the same look he gets with my sister. He loves Alex—I have no doubt about it now. I’m just continually being surprised by his growth over the last year. Before Alex stormed into our lives, he would have walked away from Mindy’s freak-out, telling everybody, including her, that the “bitch needs to get her shit together.” He’s fucking lucky he’s grown up since those days. Asshole knows how I feel about that shit, and I’d hate to make Ma bury her favorite son. Well, he used to be her favorite, but with Michael in the picture now, he’s probably second in line.

  Ma nods her head at Chel, who’s closest to the bar, and retrieves Mindy’s wallet-wrist-strap-thing—what the fuck is that thing even called?—and her keys. I stretch out the index finger of the hand that’s holding her back up to make a hook. Chel hangs the wallet and keys on my outstretched finger and gives me a sad smile. Like everybody else, Chel likes Mindy. She’s hard not to like.

  Rink is at the front door, propping it open for me as I walk us into the parking lot. Mindy’s car is a little white Acura that’s about as old as she is. It’s way too small for me to be able to lower her into it. Damn it. Maybe I should have grabbed Ma’s keys and taken the Suburban.

  “I’m going to set you down so we can get in the car.” I lower my face so I can see her eyes. They’re glassy and red, and her mascara is smeared. Black lines trail down her cheeks from the makeup she’s cried off.

  I did this to her.

  But I can’t think about that now, so I set her on the ground and don’t let go of her torso until she’s steady enough on her feet. Once she’s in the car, I walk around to the driver’s side and eye the seat’s position—way too close to the steering wheel. Without even trying to see if I’ll fit, I slide the seat back as far as it can go and then get in and adjust what I need to. The drive to my house is quick. I’m pleasantly surprised to find that the little coupe has a good bit of pickup and handles well. If it weren’t such a chick car, it might be fun to boost up the engine, slap on some new tires, a few roll bars, and a harness and race this baby down the backroads.

  We get to the outskirts of town, heading down Sherwood Road, on the same path I’ve taken to get home for the past four years. If I pass up the little dirt road that splits Ma and Pop’s property from their neighbor’s, I’ll end up on the wrong side of the woods and at my parents’ place. Technically it’s not a real road, but it’s the only legit means of getting to the cabin from Sherwood. So I’m careful not to pass it up but end up taking the turn a bit fast. The car responds well and purrs like a dream as I pick up speed again and keep a casual eye on my surroundings. Things have been quiet for a while now, and they should remain that way for a bit longer, but that doesn’t mean shit. Everything was fucking peachy before Michael and his buddies got to town and kidnapped Alex. Shit can always go wrong, and it can go wrong quick, regardless of what’s going on around you.

  The cabin’s address is technically on Cypress Road, on the opposite side of the Noyo River from Sherwood Road, but the cabin itself sits on the Sherwood side, and the old wooden bridge to get from Cypress to the cabin is a fucking disaster. I’ve been patching it here and there, but it’s not my responsibility, and the city hasn’t done shit about it, so instead of wondering when my Harley and I are going to end up under water, I just take the alley road to get home.

  Near the back of the property, just a few hundred feet before I reach a smaller wooden bridge that brings me directly to Cypress, I veer off the dirt road and through a break I created years back in the property’s fencing. I’ve driven through here so many times that the dirt and grass is so flattened it almost looks like a sectioned-off path. I haven’t brought anything but my Harley through in a while, though, and the grass along the sides of the car is getting pretty high. I can’t even see the river over the grass, which is fucking dangerous. I’ll have to do something about that if Mindy’s going to be here for long.

  And she will be here until I know she’s safe and being responsible with herself.

  By the time I make it through the clearing and into the woods, Mindy’s eyes are closed. She’s not sleeping, I don’t think, but she probably should be. I try to ask her if she still has the sleeping pills they gave her at the hospital, but she doesn’t respond, which is fine. The more exhausted she is, the less likely she is to fight me on getting the fucking glass out of her arms. I wish I could say I don’t know what she was thinking, hurting herself like that, but unfortunately I have a pretty good fucking idea what’s going on in her head. The signs are all ther
e, and I of all people should be able to recognize them. I was too much of a bastard, focusing on the shit I shouldn’t have been instead of making sure she’s stable. No, I was focused on her smell and the way she smiles. She’s gotten this sassy walk in the last several weeks that she didn’t have before, not even before her attack.

  I park the car in the small clearing in front of the cabin and get out. Mindy’s eyes shoot open at the sound of the driver’s side door shutting. She looks around for a moment before getting out herself and checking out her surroundings.

  “This isn’t home,” she says quietly. She moves to cross her arms over her chest but stops when her face screws up in pain. Her pale blue shirt is smeared in dried blood, and her arms have small streaks of blood still seeping out. It’s not much, so she should be fine, but if any of the slices are too big, she might be better off getting stitches at the hospital. Lowering her face, she lifts her arms and gapes at her arms and shirt. Her face screws up again, and I shake my head and signal for her to come to me with the crook of my finger.

  “It is now,” I say and hold her eyes. It takes a while, but when we finally get into the cabin, her eyes dart around at everything around her. It’s a small place, so there’s not a whole ton for her to look at, but she takes the time nonetheless. The cabin really only has four rooms—the living room, which we’re standing in now, and the kitchen, just beyond the wall in front of us. Aside from the wide doorway to the kitchen, the only other door in the living area aside from the front door is the one to my bedroom. I point at the open door and wait for her to move. She barely looks at me as she leads me in, her eyes way too distracted by the “dated décor” as Ma calls it. I haven’t done anything with the place and never cared to until now.