by Vivian Lux
I summoned everything I had and let out a scream.
There was a shout, and suddenly the hands were gone. I heard several dull thuds and some cursing, but I was just grateful to be allowed to sink to the ground and press my overheated cheek against the cool cement wall. Everything slowly swam into view. I was in the doorway of a student housing high-rise, and my would-be assailants were running away from me. I couldn't figure out why.
"Lexi? You okay? They hurt you?"
I blinked and try to focus. His dark brows were furrowed in concern. He looked different with his knit cap and leather jacket on. But his dark blue eyes were the same, and that was how I recognized Crash as my savior.
I tried to speak, but that same slurring noise was all I could muster.
"Okay, you need to sleep."
"Need… Go home…"
"You're not going anywhere like that, too dangerous."
"Where… So tired…"
"Shit, I'm sorry Lexi. This is my fault." And with that I felt myself hauled to my feet. I wavered unsteadily and nearly pitched forwards, but his strong arms gripped me like I weighed nothing and suddenly I was aloft, cradled in his arms like a baby. "I live half a block down," he muttered.
"Not… Can't… Going home with you…"
His face swam into focus as he looked down at me. "I may be a complete asshole, but I'm no rapist, Lexi. You can sleep on my couch. I promise you'll be perfectly safe."
I had no choice but to trust him. There was no way I was going to be able to get home safely. I drifted in and out, the rocking motion of being carried lulled me like a baby being soothed in her mother's arms. I blinked back into focus when he opened the door to a small apartment. I wrinkled my nose when the smell hit me; that unmistakable scent of man. But when I sniffed again, I discovered that the combination was not entirely unpleasant.
Crash lowered me carefully onto his battered old couch, I heard a few doors slam, then felt the slight jostle and warmth of him tucking me in with a scratchy blanket. There was the tug of my boots being removed, and then he lifted my head. When he laid it back down I felt he had put a pillow behind it.
"Sleep it off, you'll feel better in the morning." He paused. "Or way worse," he chuckled.
As I laid there on the unfamiliar couch, my thoughts too disjointed to dream, I remembered Crash's lips on mine. His strange mixture of roughness mixed with gentleness reminded me of someone I had lost. I felt something on my face, and when I touched it my fingers came away wet with my tears.
Chapter 18
Case
"What are they?" Teach prodded the little white pill with a mixture of fear and disgust.
Case leaned back in his chair. Being in Teach's office always made him feel like a bad kid. He liked it better when they discussed business out in the clubhouse, but this was too delicate a situation to have out in the open. "Pain pills mostly," Case wasn't sure of the name. "Bruce says he can cut us in to his supply chain pretty easily."
"I don't like having to depend on a middleman like that," Teach sniffed.
Case shook his head. "Neither do I. I've already started putting together a list of distributors. Get our own team going. Nobody said we had to depend on Bruce for the rest of our lives."
"I don't know. I still don't like drugs. Seen too many good brothers get fucked up too quickly on that shit."
Case smiled. "You know, I figured you might say something like that. Which is why I thought we might write a new section of the bylaws. No touching the merchandise." Teach nodded as Case went on. "We sell, we don't use."
"You give any thought to the penalty for someone get caught using?"
"Well I thought that would be your job, as Prez."
Teach looked at him cagily. "Gonna have to be something you enforce…"
Case let out a whoosh of breath. "Fine, first offense is a black eye, second offense…"
"Second offense you turn in your colors."
Case startled. That was way harsher than what he would have come up with. Teach wasn't fucking around. "So be it, then. Second offense you lose your colors."
"You can enforce that?"
He thought for a moment. None of the brothers ever really used anything stronger than weed. Alcohol was the drug of choice amongst the Sons of Steel MC. Case couldn't imagine a situation where he would have to actually enforce these new bylaws. "Yeah," he said slowly, nodding. "Yeah, I got this."
Teach nodded, then folded up the little baggy Bruce had provided, then wrapped it back up into the bar napkin. "We run it by the group of course. Everyone should know about our new business venture." Teach smiled at Case. "And I want you to get the credit for bringing this to our attention. More money, more respect."
"That's what I'm aiming for," Case nodded.
At the club meeting the vote was unanimous. The changes to the bylaws were accepted without hesitation, with even Dr. D, who used to write prescriptions for the very same medications, saying that there was really no way they could go wrong. Pills were a lot easier than the hard shit, like cocaine or meth. You had less chance of dealing with some hopped up asshole with an itchy trigger finger for your customer. And the people on the front end of the supply lines were much more likely to be former cancer patients, than cartel members. Simple and sweet, he declared it, and the rest of the club took him at his word.
They celebrated hard that night, Case flush with triumph. In the back of his mind he was already spending all the money he knew would be rolling in. He would use his cut of the profits to hire a lawyer, or maybe a private investigator, with knowledge of the system who could maybe track down the foster families of his brothers. He just needed to know that they were happy. He just wanted to say hi, at least once. To look them in the eye and tell them that he had tried his best by them. That he was sorry he wasn't able to keep them safe.
"You missed a hell of a party last night." Case shook himself from his reverie when he heard Crash.
"Oh yeah?" He smirked. "I figured it was worth missing for the chance to bring in some new business."
"Bullshit," Crash snorted. "This shit fell into your lap and you know it."
Case grinned. "Okay fine, but at least I was available to take advantage of the situation."
Crash looked thoughtful for a second. "I had the ability to take advantage of a situation of my own last night, but I didn't. Had a drunk as shit girl on my couch, and I barely even touched her. She had great titties too."
Case rose to the bait. He was feeling celebratory, may as well let Crash spin one of his wild stories. "What was a drunk as shit girl doing on your couch?"
"Well, her being drunk as shit was partially my fault."
"Oh only partially?"
Crash cocked his head to the side. "Well she didn't have to swallow it while I poured the bourbon down her throat."
Case laughed. "Oh so that's how you get them. Mystery solved." He raised his voice. "Hey everyone! I found the secret of Crash's pussy chasing success!"
"Hey cut that shit, I felt bad." Craft shook his head and grinned ruefully. "It was a new feeling, I'll admit, this whole guilt thing. But there is something about this girl, something different. She wasn't like all the rest of the little skanks."
"And she had great titties too, huh?"
Crash's eyes gleamed. "Oh man and these lips, I ain't never seen lips like that on a white girl before. You know I like my señoritas, but man she almost qualified. And she had this red hair…"
"Red hair you say?"
"Yeah you like the redheads don't you?"
Case shook his head, trying to dislodge the memory. "They remind me of someone, someone… Special I guess."
Crash nodded. "First love, I hear you," he paused. "They told me I had one of those, back before, you know, the whole nearly dying thing. She came to the hospital. Said we were a couple. Said we were in love and all this flowery shit, and I just looked at her. I had never seen her before in my life."
Case was startled. "You sure about that?"
/>
"Positive," Crash nodded. "She was a complete stranger. Except she sure as fuck didn't think so. Made her cry. I felt kind of bad for a while. I tried… Tried to pretend like I was her boyfriend and shit, but it just wouldn't work anymore."
Case paused, unsure of what to say. It always made him uncomfortable to hear of Crash's life before the club. From what little he knew, he came from a comfortable home, raised by doting and loving grandparents. But he didn't talk to them any more. The accident had robbed him of his memories, as well as his old personality. He had people who were waiting for him to remember them. But the new Crash, the post-crash Crash, didn't recognize them anymore.
Losing people like that, the very thought of it, plucked at something deep and essential in Case's heart. It made him practically panicky to think of his brothers searching for him, but him being unable to recognize them as Hunter and Jonah.
Or Lexi. He was startled when her name came unbidden into his brain. Lexi, Lexi, it clanged through his addled head like a bell.
It was because Crash mentioned red hair, he thought pushing her face from his mind. That was the only reason he was thinking of her.
Lexi with the flame red hair, those wild curls that so suited her temper and stubborn nature. Those velvety brown eyes, warm and soothing like cinnamon. Those delicious freckles that so completely covered her body, that from far away she looked like she had a tan. It was only when you got close to her, only when you brought your gaze right up to her creamy skin that you could distinguish the pale white glow that lurked underneath. He could spend a lifetime staring into the universe of that skin.
And for many a languid afternoon, he did just that. Sitting at the foot of her tiny, ridiculously ruffled twin bed, listening to her talk, her words just spilling over him in a wash of comforting noise, as he relaxed into the rhythm of her completely normal house. This was how it was supposed to be. With a father who stuck around, working an admirable job, and doting on his three daughters with overbearing love. A mother who dressed and showered every day, and cared for her children with motherly concern that seems to bother everyone but him. He loved it when Mrs. Delaney clucked over him. He loved being told to stand up straight, to cut his hair, to tuck in his shirt.
Of course he had to keep his secrets around them. He could never let down his guard, not even for one minute. Mr. Delaney was a cop, the enemy. One false move would bring a swarm of social workers through his mother's door, wrenching his brothers free and scattering his family to the four winds. It was a betrayal of his brothers for him to even hang out at the Delaneys' house. He knew that if they got home to the house before he did, he wouldn't be there to protect them if his mother was in one of her rages. So his eye was always darting to the window, looking for their little blond forms in their subsidized school uniforms, as they walked the mere mile it took for them to come home from the Catholic school down the street. Mac had helped him get them registered this year. Mac had walked into the administrative offices, his hair neatly combed for maybe the first time in twenty years, pretending to be the grandfather to the three Ericsson boys. His intervention had got them the first stable school year in Hunter and Jonah's young lives, and they were thriving. Case swore he would pay back for the tuition, and Mac nodded like he was taking him seriously.
The work Mac had lined up for him was interesting. He would come over after school, on days when he wasn't at Lexi's, and Mac would show him how to dismantle an engine piece by piece. When they would finish a bike, Max sometimes let him take it up their quiet street. At first he would go slow, so slowly he almost would fall off. It was a weird sensation to feel the wind hit his face, and the first time a June bug thwacked him in the forehead, he had a bruise for a week afterward. The old man had laughed at him for a very long time, longer than he had ever seen him smile since he'd started coming around, and Case had grinned too, in spite of the pain. He understood why the old man loved motorcycles, loved biking, loved the art of repairing something with his bare hands.
"Yo, where did you go?"
Case turned slowly, surprised to see Crash still standing there. The alcohol had gone to his head, forcing him to relive old memories both good and bad. "Sorry, he shook his head. "What were you saying?"
Crash sighed. "Okay, I can take a fuckin' hint."
"No man, I'm sorry." Case smiled, trying to feign nonchalance. "Redheads man, you got me thinking about one in particular."
Crash bounced slightly, clearly happy to be back on less serious ground. "Yeah, she was something else. When I left her this morning, she was still sprawled out on my couch. I'm kind of hoping she's still there when I get back."
"Yeah man, I hope so too," Case said encouragingly. He had never seen Crash so excited about a girl before. Usually they came and went, blinking through his existence like a passing breeze. Maybe this would be the one who stayed, like Emmy was for J. His brothers were starting to pair off around him, and he was still alone. Still stuck in the past with a pair of cinnamon colored eyes and all the pain and sorrow they had brought him.
Chapter 19
Lexi
I should get up.
I had no idea what time it was. My cell phone was in my purse, which was somewhere in this apartment. At least I hoped it was. I had no recollection of having it on me last night. I barely had any recollection of last night.
Only a vague sensation of something happening, or almost happening, and then being prevented by the sudden reappearance of the shorn headed biker who had gotten me drunk in the first place. Drunk on bourbon and his kisses.
I didn't know where he had appeared from. Was he following me? Why was he on the street in the first place?
My natural suspicion fought with my gratitude. Because if he hadn't shown up, I had no idea what those frat boys might have done to me. This was what happened when I tried to be a new Lexi. This was the consequence I faced for trying to step out of my comfort zone.
I knew I needed to get back to my house. Or more likely, given the angle of the light that shone through the grimy window onto this soiled, smelly carpet, I needed to get right to class. My exam.
Holy shit, my fucking exam.
I sat up way too quickly and the whole room shifted sideways. I had to swallow several times to keep from vomiting onto Crash's coffee table. Wave after wave of nausea hit me and I groaned out loud. My mouth felt like an old dirty gym sock. My head pounded like a gong, sounding and clanging over and over. Punishment that suited my crime.
With a muffled groan I sank back into the couch and closed my eyes. It was better to just stay here until the room stopped moving.
When I woke again, the patch of light on the carpet had moved considerably closer to the window. I sat back up again, this time much more carefully, and tested my limbs. I felt dried up, and worn out, but my head no longer pounded like a jack hammer, and I could move slightly without worrying that I would keel over from the nausea.
It was only then that I noticed that I was alone. "Hello?" I called into the empty apartment, feeling foolish. And also slightly indignant. He must have heard my groans, if he were here. If he were in my house, I would have a least brought him a glass of water. "Hello?" I called again.
Nothing.
Well that answered that. He left me alone in here.
I guess that's the best I could hope for. After all he really didn't know me. He only knew me as some girl who got too drunk, kissed him, then ran away and nearly got herself yanked into an alleyway by a bunch of assholes. For all he knew I was an ax murderer. For all I knew, he was something similar.
The slight fear this thought brought to my brain forced me to stand up, leaving the safety and sanctity of my nest on his couch, with the pillow that smelled strangely soothing and similar. It was the smell from long ago, something that tickled my brain and the deepest recesses of my memory, but I couldn't identify. All I knew was that it smelled like comfort, like home. Like the smell of someone close to me.
But if the person were close to
me, why couldn't I identify it? I leaned over gingerly and sniffed. It wasn't a shampoo, or a body wash. It was an elemental scent, the smell of a person in their purest form. It made me smile, and it made me sad, and I didn't know why.
I stepped reluctantly away. I needed water and my phone in that order.
Crash's kitchen was barely more than a cubbyhole, but it was surprisingly clean. I felt a small rush of affection, and gratitude to see my purse sitting on the counter. I quickly rifled through it and found my phone, and when I did my heart dropped straight to my shoes.
It was 11:21 AM. My exam had started twenty-one minutes ago.
I tried to move in several directions at once, and only succeeded in shuffling awkwardly in the middle of the curling linoleum. There was no way I could get myself down to CCP in time. There was no way I could make it to the exam, and even if there was, there was no guarantee I would be allowed to step in so late. There was nothing I could do, and yet I still continued to flutter my hands in desperate flapping motions as I willed myself to teleport into the lecture hall. My heart pounded in my throat. My parents were going to kill me. I was going to kill me. Ingrid would only laugh and laugh and laugh, she would never stop laughing. In the end I would have to kill her too.
Slowly, ever so slowly, my panic subsided. I located a glass in the cupboard next to the sink, and ran the tap.
If there was nothing I could do, then I was free to do nothing. The thought was oddly elating.
I sipped my water slowly, letting the cold rush down my throat, feeling my cells returned to life. I sit and stepped, staring fixedly at a point on the countertop. There was a mark there, some scuff or an old settled in grease stain, and it annoyed me. I turned in a slow circle, wondering foolishly where Crash kept his cleaners, before I finally chuckled out loud. Grabbing the dried-up sponge that sat on the side of the sink, I wet it and turned it to the side with the scrubber. All it took was a little elbow grease, and a lot of dish soap, and the marks succumbed to my treatment.
