Tattered & Torn

by A. J. Downey

  “Shelly stop! Princess it’s me! It’s me Ghost! You’re safe! You’re safe, Baby!” I looked at him and crumbled on the inside.

  “I’m not safe… You broke my heart. You broke me Ghost,” I told him and then he was suddenly gone, yanked off me and flying backwards and I was being lifted into a strong set of arms and the familiar and really safe smell of my cousin and the wind from a wild ride wrapped around me and I don’t remember shit after that.

  Chapter 30

  Ghost…

  Reaver took her from me, and I wanted to be pissed about it but I couldn’t be. Not after those wounded sapphire eyes over all that blood looked into mine and the bitter broken truth poured from her swelling lips.

  “I’m not safe… You broke my heart. You broke me Ghost.”

  Reaver had gotten into Trigger and Ashton’s Jeep with Shelly and left his bike in my driveway. He had arrived right on my ass and Trig had pulled up with a bunch of other brothers on bikes as he’d strode from my house with her.

  I looked at the dead man on my kitchen floor and felt a surge of pride. She’d got him. Her leggings may have been down but her panties had still been in place and she’d shot the son of a bitch. Dray looked down at the body dispassionately from beside me and rattled off a string of insults in Spanish.

  “We got this,” Duracell said from the doorway. I looked up and met Blue’s eyes which looked incredibly sad and at once apologetic and I barked a bitter broken laugh. What the fuck did he have to be sorry about?

  “Jeeeeesus Christ!” Grinder said from behind the two men.

  “Come on man, I’ll give you a lift back to the club,” Dray held out his hand and I grasped it. He hauled me to my feet.

  I was numb and not quite there the whole ride to the club house. I stared out the passenger window of my truck sightlessly and wordlessly and thought about how many times I’d watched Shelly do the same. Like me, Dray didn’t press. I was first through the door at the club and walked straight into Reaver’s fist and I was okay with that, but I was also a Marine and didn’t take a beating like a fucking pussy even if I did deserve it so I swung back.

  He launched himself at me and caught me around the chest, I landed against something hard and sharp and was vaguely aware of Hayden screaming at Reaver to stop, but I’d earned this. I brought my elbow down hard between his shoulder blades and his hold on me loosened. We grappled in the wreckage of chairs and the table we smashed through. There was shouting and screaming and hands closed around my arms and my cut and hauled me back. My chest was on fire, heaving with breaths as I fought to get my wind back.

  “She fucking trusted you!” Reaver screamed. Trigger and Revelator had a hold on him. Dragon had me and a couple of the new guys.

  “I know!” I bellowed back.

  “You stay away from her!” Reaver pointed in my direction. Blood seeped from his nose and I felt a trickle of my own down my chin from what was sure to be a busted lip.

  “I can’t do that man! She’s mine!” I shouted back and Trig and Rev had to renew their efforts to hold him off of me. I was pretty sure that the only thing keeping his knives in his cut was the fact that I was his brother in leather.

  “She fucking loves you and that shit you poured on her! Pure fucking poison you cock sucker! If she didn’t love you so help me I’d fucking kill you! I’d kill you!” Trigger and Revelator hauled Reaver out the door and Dragon shoved me forward.

  “Fucking Shelly, she really knows how to cause a mess,” he commented dryly and with his typical humor but I was having none of it, I rounded and fucking cold cocked him right in the fucking mouth. A round of shouts went up and I was hauled back again. Dragon spit blood on the floor and grinned savagely at me.

  “Now I’m going to let that go, boy. Seeing as I have no fucking idea what’s going on! But somebody better fill me in right fucking now or there’s gonna be hell to pay!” Dray stepped up to his dad and spoke low. Dragon’s expression went from as hard as obsidian to resigned in varying stages, the more Dray talked, the more his expression fell until finally, he sighed.

  “That changes everything,” he said. “As soon as Reaver calms his tits, get his ass in the chapel. Time for church.”

  “Ghost!” I looked up. Chandra was standing, arms crossed in the archway leading back to the rooms. “She’s asking for you, baby. Try not to bone it any harder than you already have, okay?” she gave me a disapproving look and I heard Doc,

  “Chandra, I will slap the shit out of you I hear any disrespect come out of your mouth!” Of course he didn’t mean it. Things didn’t work that way around here. No women, no children… unlike the fags in The Suicide Kings.

  I went for my girl and prayed I could do something to fix all of this but was at a complete loss as to how.

  Chapter 31

  Shelly…

  I never actually went unconscious, I just can’t remember the car ride to the club or getting cleaned up or changed out of my bloody and torn clothes into one of Trig’s giant ass Sacred Hearts tees. I just remember the vague pinch of a needle and Doc asking a bunch of questions. I stared at him blankly for a long minute and then the horrible and stark reality crashed into my consciousness.

  “I killed him, I shot him in the face,” I said and it sounded hollow and wounded and just plain awful because I didn’t feel bad for what I’d done and I should feel bad, I mean am I right? I shot a man in the face. Ended his life, snuffed out his existence and I really should feel bad about that except I didn’t. I covered my face with my hands and cried out, it hurt! My face did.

  I looked up at Chandra, “Where’s Ghost?” I asked. I was afraid he would be mad at me, he was always so neat and orderly and I made an absolute mess of his kitchen. A hysterical bubble of laughter crawled up my throat and I bit down on it with a moan.

  I killed someone. I should feel bad about that right? Except I didn’t feel anything. Did I? I mean I felt bad about a mess in a kitchen when that mess was a man’s face that I shot off! What was wrong with me!?

  “What’s wrong with me?” I asked and Doc sighed.

  “You’re in shock honey, just give the medicine a little time to work,” he held both my hands between his and I looked down at them. He was rubbing them as if to get them warm but I wasn’t cold was I? I mean I was shaking, but I didn’t feel hot or cold or anything, I just didn’t feel anything.

  I heard a crash out in the common room and shouting. I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head which made it swim. I needed to think, I should be thinking about what to do. I killed someone. The cops, I would be arrested! Yes! That’s what happened wasn’t it? You killed someone and they arrested you. I looked at Doc and pleaded.

  “Please don’t let them take me away…”

  “Who Baby?” he asked softly.

  “The police,” I answered. I mean, he should know, I killed someone.

  “Just rest Baby Girl, no one is coming to take you away. We got things all taken care of,” he made soothing sounds and I nodded. Doc was trustworthy. Doc I could count on and always believe in. Doc and Reave and Trig and Ghost. I could believe in Ghost, couldn’t I?

  “Where’s Reaver?” I asked. I wanted, no needed my big cousin. Reaver had always chased the nightmares away, and this was what this was. A big bad dream… or at least it really felt that way.

  “Hey,” soft, so softly I looked up into eyes the color of winter being chased back by spring and I crumbled just a little.

  “I’m sorry I made a mess of your kitchen,” I said because that was important right? Ghost liked things in order. Ghost likes things orderly, except for his office. That was the only room in his house that was messy and I was fixing that for him. That room was mine now, or wasn’t it? Did Ghost still hate me for something I didn’t even do?

  “Hey no, don’t cry Princess,” he reached for me and I flinched. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be touched and I blurted out,

  “No don’t touch me! I’m not clean!” Ghost’s face collapsed into lines of ang
er and I recoiled, his expression immediately smoothed out. Doc said something or other to him, I wasn’t paying attention. Ghost sat down slowly on the edge of the bed.

  “I don’t care, Baby. You’re my girl and you look like you need a hug so can I hold you?” he asked. I nodded and sniffed back tears which hurt and reached out my arms. He murmured at me to scoot over and I did and he sat down next to me putting his feet up on the bed. He put his arms around me and I laid my head on his chest the way I had grown to like to do over the time we’d been together which was far too short and I just wanted to lay here like this for a while.

  I was certain, like all good things, that this was going to come to an end and quickly and so I just wanted to lay here for a little bit. Close my eyes and pretend that it was yesterday and that we were happy and bright and still looking forward to a future together. A future that, it was killing me, would never happen now because Ghost thought I was unfaithful, that I wasn’t his and I’d killed someone, and when you do that you have to be punished. There were only three things I cared about in life anymore. My Cousin, this club and Ghost, any of those three would be incredibly painful if not devastating to lose and I’d killed someone. I’d shot a man in the face. That meant I would need to be punished and I would lose one of them right?

  “Shhhhh, I know. Shhhhhh… It’s gonna be all right Baby,” Ghost rubbed my back and kissed the top of my head and held me against him. Whatever drugs Doc had given me were working. My senses dulling around the edges, the world becoming hazy along with my vision. I closed my eyes. Warm and safe and solid in Ghost’s arms. A hand closed around mine and I opened my eyes to the familiar face of my big cousin, his big blue eyes just like mine filled with love and concern.

  “I’m right here Shells. It’s okay,” he said and his voice sounded loud, but I was starting to drift, warm and protected and safe. I twined my fingers in his and he lay down on the floor by the bed between me and the door and Jimmy if he were going to come and try and mess with me again.

  “Jimmy ain’t here Baby Cuz. I got you,” I heard and I closed my eyes and let the comforting dark of oblivion swallow me whole.

  Chapter 32

  Ghost…

  Shelly was so much dead weight against my chest and I was almost too warm but I didn’t care. I kissed the top of her hair and held her a little tighter, afraid to let her go.

  “She’ll be all right after she gets some rest,” Doc said. Reaver lay stretched out on the floor by the bed, his hand upraised and tangled with Shelly’s where it hung limp over my body and off the edge.

  “Who the fuck is Jimmy?” I asked with a scowl. Shelly had been spouting a lot of random things, like every thought she’d been having had come pouring out of her mouth in a confused and jumbled mix of past and present.

  “Her mother’s boyfriend when we were growing up. He started coming into her room and touching her, trying to mess with her. I was fourteen she was nine. I started crawling in her window at night and doing this,” he shook his hand that held Shelly’s. “I’d sleep on the floor, her hand in mine and when he opened the door and saw me, he would just close it again quietly. He knew he couldn’t say or do nothin’ or Shari, Shelly’s mom, might ask questions,” he sniffed.

  “She comes out of this, she takes you back, you ever hurt her again I’ll fucking disappear you. You get me?” he asked coldly.

  “Man I want to disappear myself right now,” I growled and it was true. I felt like the biggest asshole in the history of, well, ever.

  We stayed silent. I stared at the water stained ceiling tiles and wondered vaguely whose room we were in but it didn’t matter really. Shelly was down for the count and I had every intention of being here when she woke up. Reaver though, he didn’t get that luxury.

  “Yo Reave, man, Dragon wants you in the Chapel,” Dray said from the doorway. Reaver nodded and carefully untangled his hand from his cousin’s. Shelly moaned and shifted a bit in her drug induced sleep but went still. Reaver gave me a look that was glacial and I nodded. I don’t think we could be what you would consider friends anymore, which sucked, hard. Reaver left with one last worried look at his cousin. I stared at the ceiling for a long time before my eyes finally drifted shut.

  I jolted awake, disoriented for a second, and realized it was the pressure from Shelly pushing off my chest and scooting a distance away that had roused me.

  “Whoa, hey, easy Honey,” I soothed but her face held none of the confusion or distress it had when I’d come in. Instead it held everything I should have expected, fear, mistrust, hurt and yes, even hostility.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked. I sighed and thought about it for half a second.

  “Trying to take care of you. Feeling like I’m always trailing seven steps behind when I should be right beside you. I love you Shelly and I am so fucking…” she stopped me, putting up a hand.

  “Save it,” she said disgusted.

  “Princess…” she threw a pillow in my face.

  “First off, stop fucking calling me that! I did just fine by myself where you left me. Second of all, I don’t want to hear it!” her expression cracked and she looked like she was going to cry but then she wrestled whatever it was back into submission and gave me a hard look, her eyes as hard as the sapphire stones they resembled.

  “You didn’t know what I was going to say,” I said and she scoffed.

  “You were going to apologize, probably because you feel bad about the poor little abused club whore,” she waved her hand up and down in front of her and turned her face to the side.

  “Just get out!” she snapped at me and I’d reached about my limit.

  “No,” I said and I captured one of her hands between mine. “I’m not going to leave you. Not now, not like this, not ever. I told you this was for good Shelly and I meant it,” she glared at me.

  “You sure, or is it only until you get jealous and decide not to believe me?” she gave me a disgusted look and I bowed my head and bit my lips together. I nodded.

  “I earned that and probably quite a bit more, got anything else you want to say?” I asked. She blinked, a bit stupefied and opened her mouth then closed it. I got the impression she wasn’t told she was right very often.

  “You hurt me,” she said finally and I could tell it cost her to admit it.

  “I know. All I can say is I’m sorry,” I sat there and looked at her.

  “What if ‘sorry’ isn’t good enough?” she asked.

  I slipped off the bed and stood up, “That’s up to you, Princess, but ‘I’m sorry’ is all I’ve got. I don’t want to lose you, Baby, I really don’t, but if I do… That’s on me and no one else. No one’s gonna blame you if you walk now. Least of all me,” she stared at me openmouthed and God she looked like hell, so swollen and bruised and it killed me. It fucking killed me that I wasn’t there to protect her.

  “I’ll go find Reaver for you,” I said and she looked up.

  “I don’t know what to do with all of this,” she said and the look on her face was so raw and stark and honest I paused.

  “Can I ask you something?” I asked softly she gave me a curt nod.

  “If we were laying up on that mountainside and a star streaked across the sky, what would you wish for? Right now?” she sniffed and the first tears spilled over.

  “I would wish for…” she hung her head, “I would wish for a lot of things, I would need more than one star,” she said and I nodded.

  “Tell me Princess,” I urged softly.

  “I would wish that this had never happened, that we were home, and still getting ready to go out. I would wish that I felt bad for killing that man, and not… I feel bad that I don’t feel bad and that scares me Ghost! What does that mean? What’s wrong with me!?” her hands shook and I went to her, I sat on the bed beside her and took her hands in mine.

  “Baby he was hurting you, you did what you had to do to protect yourself. You fought so hard and I’m so proud of you for that,” she gave a broken l
ittle sob and I hooked a hand behind her head and pulled her against me. She came into my arms willingly. Her slender ones curving around me and clinging to me.

  “I’m so sorry I didn’t protect you. That I let my past and my own hang ups…” I didn’t fucking care that I was a man and that I wasn’t supposed to fucking cry. This was my fucking fault. All of it. I held her tight and swallowed hard, choking up.

  “Never again. Never going to leave you like that again. Even if I have to spend the rest of my fucking life earning back your trust,” I vowed. I expected her to be jaded and cynical like always, I expected her to tell me to not make promises that I couldn’t keep but all she did was give me a watery and broken ‘Okay.’

  I held her and rocked her and there wasn’t a God damned thing short of the Reaper himself that was going to get me to let her go. I had been such a God damned fool and it had nearly cost me everything.

  Someone cleared their throat from the doorway and I looked up. It was Dragon, looking apologetic. I gave him a chin lift and he gave me a watery smile.

  “Sorry about the punch,” I said and he smiled a little wider.

  “Yeah we voted on that, yer fined a hundred bucks, pay Reaver by next week,” he said and I nodded. I continued to rock Shelly who had gone very quiet.

  “How you doin’ Chica?” Dragon asked and she turned, ashamed by her looks which were pretty fucking rough.

  “I don’t really know how to answer that question,” she said solemnly. Dragon looked judicious and nodded.

  “Stay as long as you need to here at the club Sugar,” he said.

  “Actually, I really want to go home,” she said and her true blue eyes met mine. I had to ask her even though it pained me to do it.