He put his phone away and reached out with one hand and brushed a wide thumb lightly over her sore lip. “I’m sorry, little one. So sorry. Go back to the house. I got this now.” Taking the zip-ties from her hand, he knelt and began binding a still-unconscious Badger.
“No. I want to come with you. I want to try to explain what happened.”
His head jerked up and he met her eyes again. “You got nothing to answer for here.”
“I know. But he didn’t mean it. I know he didn’t. I know it.”
He shook his head, but he said, “Okay. Come on, then.” With that, he stood and pulled Badger up and carried him over his shoulder to the van.
~oOo~
Show threw Badger in the back of the B&B van—the cargo section—and led Adrienne by the arm to the front passenger seat. Though she hated to see Badger treated that way, she knew better than to say anything. Show was in a dark place, his body stiff and his expression black with anger. Yet he was gentle with her. He held her hand as she climbed in, and, before he closed the door, he reached in and cupped her cheek in his palm. His eyes were filled with regret, and she didn’t understand that.
“We’ll get you some ice at the clubhouse.” She nodded, and he leaned in and kissed her cheek.
Show had checked the office and seen the powder residue and the rolled-up bill. On the way to the clubhouse, he made a few calls, calling Dom to come search the office for Badger’s stash, bringing Kenny in to take care of the horses, letting Vicki know that Adrienne had left, and telling Shannon that he and Adrienne were going to ‘run a couple errands’ together. When he got off the phone, Adrienne turned and asked him a question that had occurred to her.
“How did you know to come? Why were you there? I thought Vicki was scared of you.”
He answered without taking his eyes from the road. “Looking for him.” With a backward nod of his head, he indicated Badger, still out in the back of the van. “He got hurt last night—”
“Yeah, I could tell.”
Show glanced at her, then back at the road. “I went to his folks’ place to make sure they didn’t…weren’t worried, but they said he hadn’t come home. ‘Cept I dropped him home. So I went looking. Good thing I did.”
“He wouldn’t have hurt me.”
“Sweetheart, he already did.”
“But—”
“Listen up, little one. You can tell us what you know. But then I am taking you home. And you are staying away from him.” He turned to her. “I mean it, Adrienne. Whatever is going on with him, you stay away. He doesn’t get a chance to hurt you again. I am dead serious.”
There was too much going on in her head to form a reasonable rebuttal—and at the moment she wasn’t sure why she was trying. Badger had hurt her. Twice. And he’d been mean more than that. But she was sure he wasn’t himself. Now more than ever, she was sure. She didn’t understand everything, but she felt sure about that.
However, she also felt sure that there was no argument in the world that would have set Show back, and honestly, she was a little intimidated by him just now. She’d seen a side of him she hadn’t seen since their first meeting. So, as he pulled into the clubhouse lot, she nodded. “Okay.”
Isaac and Len were standing outside the door, waiting. Adrienne thought that was not a good sign for Badger. She was worried about what would happen next.
“That a promise?” He parked and sat back, studying her.
She wouldn’t make a promise she knew she couldn’t keep, so she studied him right back.
Finally, he laughed a little, a dry, humorless huff. “I am not fucking around, but we’ll talk later. You go on in.”
She did what he said and went into the clubhouse, which was almost completely empty, except for a Prospect—Double A, the one with the great smile—and Tasha, who had her doctor’s bag with her.
Tasha saw her split lip and came over. “Let me take a look, hon.”
But Adrienne pushed her away. “I’m okay. I don’t want a fuss.”
With a little smile, Tasha nodded. “Enough fuss already, huh?”
Definitely.
The door opened, and Show came in, carrying Badger again over his shoulder. He crossed the room and deposited him roughly on one of the couches.
Isaac turned to Tasha. “Can you check him, see if you can wake him up?”
“Yes,” Tasha answered. “But Isaac, dumping him around, tying him up—this isn’t going to help him. He’s already hurt. And you know what this is. I told you what could happen. You know why it’s happening.”
“And you didn’t see it.”
“No, I didn’t. He hid the signs well when I saw him. And he never came to me seeking anything other than what I prescribed to him. But you saw him more.” She looked at Show and Len as well as Isaac. “You see him every day. I told you what to look out for. Nobody saw any signs?”
None of the men said anything.
“Right.” Tasha sighed. “Okay. I can ease him through the withdrawal, give him something to alleviate the symptoms.”
“No.” That was Show.
Tasha turned to him. “What?”
“He put hands on Adrienne. He lied to us.” Show’s gaze moved to Isaac. “He does this the hard way, Isaac.”
Adrienne had no idea what “the hard way” meant, but it scared her. Then Isaac turned to her, and she was more scared. He was even bigger than Show, and although he’d been only nice to her, right now, he scared her. They all scared her.
“Tell us what happened, sweetheart. That’s why you’re here, right?”
She thought about changing the story, making it not so bad, but she didn’t know how much Show had seen, and she wasn’t sure of anything, including why she was thinking about covering for the guy who’d punched her in the mouth. For whatever reason. Plus, she had a split lip, and it wasn’t like she could hide that.
“Adrienne.” Show’s voice was a gentle warning. So she told them.
Isaac’s brows drew together as she talked. She ended with, “He’s been struggling for a while, but I didn’t understand what was wrong. He needs help. Please help him. I know he didn’t mean to hurt me. I know.”
His forehead still tightly creased, Isaac nodded. “Yeah. Hard way.” He turned back to Tasha. “Wake him up, make sure he’s not gonna kick. Then tell us what we need to do to keep him alive through it. But he does this cold turkey.”
“Isaac, that’s bad medicine. I can—”
“I don’t give a fuck, Tash. He’s got a lesson to learn. Wake him up if you can.”
Tasha was going to say more, but Len put his hand on her arm and nodded toward the couch. “Easy, everybody. No need. He’s back.”
Everyone turned to see Badger struggling to sit. Adrienne stepped back as Show and Len went and grabbed him up and dragged him over. Len pulled out his knife, and Adrienne’s heart leapt into her mouth, but he only cut the bonds around Badger’s wrists and ankles. Then he grabbed Badger’s kutte by the back of the neck and yanked it down and off.
Badger shouted “No!” and, at the same time, Adrienne almost screamed. Len had grabbed his shirt, too, tearing it open as he yanked, exposing part of Badger’s torso. He was covered in scars. Or one enormous scar, like a burn or something. Her hand went to her mouth.
But no one was paying her any mind. She wasn’t sure they even remembered she was there. Len shoved down on Badger’s shoulders, forcing him to sit. And Isaac stood in front of him. “No lying junkie wears the Flaming Mane. You want that kutte, you get your ass clean. And we’re here to make sure that happens. You leave this clubhouse one of two ways—clean or dead.
“Isaac…” Tasha stepped forward.
Len’s head jerked her way. “Shut up, Doc. Stay out of it.”
Adrienne barely heard any of that. She was staring at Badger, and he had turned his head and caught her eyes with his.
The pain she saw in them made her weak.
CHAPTER FOUR
They’d taken his kutte.
They’d taken his kutte.
Isaac was in his face, snarling at him. Len was holding him down, his hands pressing heavily on his shoulders. Cold rage blasted out at him from Show’s eyes. But he didn’t care about any of that, because Adrienne was there, too. Adrienne. He didn’t understand how or why she was there, but she was standing there, so delicate and pretty, and her lip was cut and swollen.
He’d done that. The whole—morning?—was a blur, and he didn’t know what the fuck was going on except that everything was falling apart, but he did know that he’d done that to Adrienne. He could still feel the soft skin of her face giving against his knuckles. He’d hit her. He’d bloodied her. Oh, God.
God, why didn’t they just kill him already? It would be so much better if they’d just kill him.
“Just kill me. Just kill me. Just do it. Please. Please, just kill me.”
“Badge, no.” Adrienne’s voice was little more than a gasp, but it stabbed at him nonetheless.
Isaac looked over his shoulder. “Show—get her out of here.”
“Come on, little one. Let’s get you home.”
“No, I…”
“Let’s go, Adrienne.”
Badger watched Show take her by the arm and escort her out. And then he was alone with Isaac and Len—and Tasha, keeping her distance at the bar.
“Just please. I can’t deal anymore.” He couldn’t. He was more tired than he had ever been, and he hurt. He hurt all the fucking time. It was just too much.
Len’s hands eased off his shoulders, and then he was squatting next to the chair they’d shoved Badger onto.
“You can, little brother. You can. We don’t take the easy way out. We fight. We survive. Time to remember how strong you are. Come on.” He grabbed Badger’s arm and lifted him up to stand. Then he led him back to the dorm.
Badger didn’t quite understand what was going on, but he was too exhausted to resist.
They’d taken his kutte.
They might as well have taken his life.
~oOo~
They were killing him. Jesus Christ. They were just killing him slowly, letting his body turn itself inside out while they sat by and waited. Jesus.
They had him locked in his room, but they’d taken almost everything out of it. Even the fucking lamp on his dresser. The only light in the room was the overhead, which burned his eyes like the damn sun was bolted to the ceiling.
The second time he shat the bed, they took his linens. Now he had a plastic pillow and a rubber sheet. When he got the chills so bad he thought his teeth would rattle right out of his head, they gave him a blanket back.
And they had the goddamn girls coming in. As if they’d been instructed not to, they didn’t look at him or talk to him. They cleaned up after him and brought him food and drink. Which he couldn’t keep down. He puked and puked, whether he had food to lose or not.
It was fucking humiliating.
He had no television, no book, no anything but his misery. He lay; or, when his legs would not keep still, he paced; or he sat; or he curled up on the floor. And he let his head torment him. Everything hurt—every inch of his body, inside and out, was being pulled apart, set on fire, eaten alive—but nothing hurt as much as the anguish in his head.
None of his brothers—former brothers—came to see him. He had been forsaken.
When he could sleep, the dreams were more terrible and vivid than ever, his mind showing him again and again that day with the Perros, making him relive what they’d done to him. When he couldn’t sleep, his mind showed him all the ways he’d fucked everything up, how he’d exposed himself for the weak suck he’d always been. He’d failed everybody. He’d hurt Adrienne. He was a worthless sack of fucked-up flesh.
Tasha came in at some point—Maybe the fourth day? The fifth? Only the third?—when he had lost the ability to bear up silently and had spent hours weeping and moaning like a little girl. She hooked him up to an IV. He thought maybe he was going to get some relief, but she told him it was just fluids.
Keeping him alive longer, prolonging his agony and the inevitable conclusion of it.
She stayed with him while the bag drained into his vein. He lay on his fucking rubber sheet with his eyes closed, wearing nothing but his boxers and a t-shirt, and tried to pretend he was already dead.
But then he started to feel a little better. The weed-whacker in his head slowed. The reaching tendrils of pain settled. His stomach eased. He opened his eyes, and Tasha smiled at him. Then she put her finger to her lips, and he understood. She was helping him. He wondered if she was helping him live or die.
“You should be through the worst of it now, Badge. Where you are now? This should be the bottom. Okay? You made it through the worst of it.” She put her hand on his face and brushed his hair back. Her hand was soft and cool, and it was the first time someone had touched him with kindness since Adrienne had roused him in his office.
He didn’t even try to be strong. He just wept.
~oOo~
The first Horde who came to see him, the day after Tasha had helped him, was Isaac. Badger was just clear enough again to be scared, and just strong enough again to manage to hold it together. He was still practically naked, and Isaac walked in wearing his kutte. Of course he was wearing his kutte—they were in the clubhouse. But it hurt so bad to see it.
Davey came in carrying a straight-back chair from the Hall. Even Davey’s Prospect kutte gave Badger a pang of loss and jealousy.
When Davey left, closing the door behind him, Isaac brought the chair closer to the bed, where Badger was sitting, and sat down. “Badger.”
“Isaac.”
“You look like shit.”
“Yeah. Feel a little better, though.”
“Good. You ready to talk?”
No. No, he was not ready to talk. He did not want to have this conversation. He was straight enough now to know that they weren’t going to kill him. Well, not to know for sure, but to be able to work out that if they were going to kill him, they probably would have already. But he also knew that he was out of the club. And he didn’t know how to live outside it. He’d given himself over to the Night Horde a long time ago. He’d done things in the name of the club that would have horrified him in his earlier life. He’d seen things, felt things, experienced things that were nothing but insanity without the frame of the club and the support of his brothers. So he did not want to have the talk with Isaac that would conclusively end that support. He was not ready at all.
But he met Isaac’s eyes and said, “Yeah. I’m ready.”
“You lied to us, Badger. Every day. You lied straight to my face.”
There was no way to explain everything that had been in his head, that still was in his head, no way to make anybody understand the hole he’d been in. Was in. Certainly not Isaac, whose will was stronger than anybody’s Badger had ever known. Badger couldn’t believe Isaac had known a second’s weakness in his entire life. Not even when he was paralyzed. Fuck, he was sitting right in front of him. He was riding. And he’d been paralyzed. How could somebody like that understand a pussy like him?
Without any way of making Isaac see, Badger just dropped his eyes to his lap and nodded.
“We can’t have that, Badge. As brothers, we have to be straight with each other. Always. Trust is all we’ve got, and it’s been in short enough supply. You understand?”
Again, still staring at his limp hands, Badger nodded.
“So what are we gonna do about it?”
“What you have to. I understand. I’m not cut out for the Horde. Too weak. I know. I’m sorry I let you down.”
Isaac didn’t answer. He was quiet for a long stretch, but Badger kept his head down.
Eventually, Isaac spoke again, his voice softer than before. “When we took you on as Pro
spect, you were a pimply-faced little shit. Skinny as fuck. And you’d quake in your boots if a patch so much as looked at you twice. Len fought for you when he brought your name to the table, and he convinced us to give you a chance. But I was sure a puny little pup like you would wash out fast.”
He leaned forward, his hands on his knees. Badger looked up then and met his eyes. He saw no condemnation there, and the lack of it stunned him.
Isaac went on. “But then the Ellis shit got hot, right after you came on, and you were in it, Badge. You were in it. You didn’t back down. You took a fuckin’ bullet guarding Lilli, and you came right back. You came out of that Perro hell alive. You’re not weak, little brother. You’re not. You’re tough as fuck.” He took a deep breath. “You know, I know about wanting to quit. Wanting shit to just end. There were lots of times when I was laid up that I just…wanted it over. Especially when I didn’t even have my hands. Those days, if there’d been a way, I’d’ve checked out. So I understand feeling too weak to face what we have to face. I got through it because I wasn’t alone. I had Lilli and Gia, and I got through my shit because they still needed me. They wanted me. I couldn’t do it alone, so I didn’t. I leaned on my family.”
The thought of Isaac wanting to end things boggled Badger’s mind, but it wasn’t the same. Isaac had lost almost everything. Badger merely couldn’t deal with the pain and fear he’d been living with since the fall. He wasn’t man enough to overcome it. Show and Len had. He was the only one not strong enough.
“It’s not weakness that’s the problem here, Badge. It’s trust. You are not alone. You fell because you’re acting like you’re alone. You didn’t trust us enough to let us hold you up. And you lied. You put us at greater risk every time you went on a run fucked up.” He leaned forward even farther and wrapped his big paw around Badger’s arm. “Did you go on a weed run fucked up?”
Badger’s first inclination was to deny it, to lie. But he paused, took a breath, and nodded.
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