Cassie

by deMora, MariaLisa

  He hadn’t, either. With Sammy, like with her dad, Faith never wondered if she was loved. She flinched at thinking of that word in association with Jonny. I don’t have to wonder if he loves me, because he’s made it clear that is the furthest thing from his mind. Puffing air to fluff her bangs, she tucked that stubborn strand of hair behind her ear again. I don’t want him to love me. I’d settle for him leaving me alone. Besides, I have Drago.

  Eyes to her reflection, she stared into her eyes. Liar.

  “Faynez.” Her name was accompanied by a pounding on her bedroom door. Garrett. “What’s wrong?” The doorknob rattled, but she’d flipped the latch when she’d shoved it shut after her escape.

  She and Garrett had been thrown together by their joined families in the club for so many things, they might as well be siblings. Faith shook her head. Of course he wasn’t in cahoots with Jonny. She had just pushed back from the counter, turning to let him in when the door behind her opened. Whirling to see who’d come in through Sammy’s old room, Faith took a step backwards when Jonny’s broad shoulders filled the doorway. He didn’t say anything, just stared at her.

  Behind her, Garrett knocked again. “Faynez? Let me in.”

  Faith swallowed hard as Jonny’s face turned red and knew she flinched when, voice deep and rumbling, he muttered, “Gonna let your boy in, squirt?” It was the verbal jab that did it, pushing her over the edge and into anger, the word that pointed out she was never his equal and never would be. Squirt, short stuff, kiddo, cupcake, midget, scooter. She hated every one of them when spoken her direction by Jonny. Drago never talked to her like that.

  “Why are you like that?” Faith felt her bottom lip quiver and bit down hard, trying to stop the pain and embarrassment from sounding in her voice. Anger fueled her resolve. “Why are you such a jerk to me?”

  “Know what? Forget it,” Jonny said, lifting one hand to push aside the chaos of makeup on her counter. He made a small space and plunked a bottle of water down. “You don’t want nice? Okay.”

  “Why would you change?” Faith heard her voice speaking words, but hadn’t given her mouth permission to say anything. It felt like she was floating, above everything, watching as the scene played out. “You’ve always been about staying on the mean end of things. Why bother to change now?” Pulling in a deep breath, she lifted her chin, watched as his eyes tracked across her face and down to her mouth, then, seeming like it took some effort, back up to meet her eyes. “Wouldn’t want to confuse things, would ya?”

  “Faynez?” That was her dad’s voice, and she realized Garrett had gone silent a while ago. “Everything okay, honey?”

  She’d turned to look at the door and was just twisting back when movement in the mirror caught her attention. Jonny was gone, the door to Sammy’s room closing slowly, the latch quietly clicking into place. Staring at that blank surface, she blinked, forcing back the tears that had sprung to her eyes. “Yeah, Daddy, I’m okay.”

  Silence for a moment, then her dad’s voice, soft and sweet. “Okay.” More silence, then a quiet reminder. “Love you, Faynez.”

  “Love you too, Daddy.”

  ***

  Sammy

  Sammy sat as he had so many times, his view of the grounds interrupted at intervals by the jutting granite stones. A known skyline, stretching to the city gates. A city of dead, he thought, shifting, trying to find a comfortable position. Leaned as he was against the headstone, there wasn’t much comfort to be had, so he gave up, settling back and slouching low, losing himself in contemplation of life, loss, and growing up without someone you loved.

  A nearby noise pulled him out of his thoughts and he twisted in place to peer around the cold stone behind him. A car was pulling through the back gate. He watched as it traveled the lane slowly, a small road separating what he’d come to think of as the old-timers, the graves that were more than a decade old, where he sat, and the new graves, those people lost in most recent years.

  It was not a car he knew, and he had spent a lot of time here growing up, knew the other mourners who visited their lost loved ones, and this wasn’t a vehicle he recognized. Most of the folks like him, who came here with regularity took to parking in the caretaker’s lot, the walk in a way of setting your mind to whatever it was you came to ease. The lane wound through the cemetery, gentle curves making it easy to trailer heavy equipment in and out, giving careful entrance to the vehicles bearing their precious burdens.

  Only twenty feet away at the nearest point to where he sat, he watched the car roll slowly past. The windows were darkened just enough to obscure the driver, but he could see only one head in the front seat. The back was filled with movement, jostling forms that he couldn’t make sense of.

  The car glided to a halt about twenty plots from where he sat, and he waited, watching, as it took a while for the driver to exit. Finally the door opened and the first thing that popped out was a white balloon. That was followed by a giggle, a sound so out of place in this place of silent dead that it captured his entire attention. Feminine and soft, it lifted over the graves in a way that made him feel light. So much lighter than he had in years.

  The driver climbed out, but wasn’t much taller than the car, so the only thing he saw at first was the top of their head. Blonde hair, parted in the center. He lost even that when they opened the back door, leaning in, more balloons popping out into the air overhead. Then the mass of balloons was on the move, traveling away from him, the car between them. A ritual he recognized, one that he and his dad had performed more than once over the years. First for him, and then for Faith, his sister who had no memories of the beauty that had been their mother.

  So he knew what was coming, knew what would be next. Wishes and thoughts and dreams lofting overhead, carried on the scant wind. If that tiny breeze hadn’t been coming from the just-right direction, he wouldn’t have heard the words spoken in the giggler’s voice.

  “Miss you, Mitch.”

  Those words held pain, a pain he knew and recognized, because it was the same that lodged in his gut. A pain that never ended, having found its way there when he was yet a teen. Just a child when the pain came to stay, because his mother went away.

  Soft, feminine, quavering in grief. “Miss you so much, sometimes it feels like I can’t breathe.”

  He knew that pain, too. So heavy on your chest that just taking the next breath was beyond what you could do.

  “Everyone’s telling me it’s time to move on.”

  He understood what it was like to be surrounded by people who loved the one you loved and have their pain added to yours. Their worry for you and what came next. Their ignorance about grief and how it looked for different people, how you didn’t advance at the same pace. How they got impatient when you didn’t follow a path that seemed reasonable to them.

  “I love you.”

  The first balloon launched, the bundle of bobbling white jostling as it slipped free.

  “So much, Mitchy.”

  This was an intimate moment, one he felt wrong about listening to, but there was no graceful exit yet. The next balloon lifted, followed quickly by a third.

  “Wanted you back, still do. I’d take you any way I could have you.”

  A pause, then, “Wish you peace. Hope you find it, honey.”

  A harsh sob came then, followed by a dozen more, raking through the air with the agony of loss, slowly falling until they were soft and muffled.

  “I hate you.”

  Released from her hold, the next balloon floated, then hesitated. Driven down by an errant draft, it circled her then drifted sideways and a hand appeared, fingers batting it away.

  “I hate you.”

  The balloon, caught in the draft of her movement, danced away and then back again.

  “Hate you so much.”

  Another circle, and this moment so pain-filled, so evocative of how nothing ever seemed to go the way it was needed, Sammy hated he was a witness.

  “I hate you. Hate you.”
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  Balloons all lifting, rising in a mass, released at once so she could combat the one that persisted in pestering her.

  “Hate you. Hate you. I hate what you did. Hate you didn’t talk to me. Hate you didn’t trust me. Hate you didn’t trust yourself. Hate you didn’t love me. I loved you so much, Mitch. Why would you take that away from me?”

  Sobbing, screaming, she battled the balloon.

  “Why did you do it?”

  White dancing just out of reach, she was jumping, trying to hit the balloon.

  “Why? Why didn’t you love me?”

  The wind finally cooperating, it swept the white balloon up and into the sky about ten feet. In her pursuit of the balloon, she’d moved sideways, and Sammy could see her now, head tilted back, blonde hair trailing down her back. Thin to the point of frail, she stood and watched as her balloons made their way into the sky. All except for the one which seemed to be stuck in a holding pattern overhead, wavering left, then right, then left again until finally it drifted with more purpose, caught by a guiding wind. Directly towards him.

  She turned, eyes only for the balloon, tracking its progress. When taken in feature-by-feature, she wasn’t pretty by popular standards, but Sammy found he couldn’t take his eyes off her. Strung tight, she could serve as the anchor point for high-tension wire. Classy and well put together for a trip to the graveyard, she had on a tight skirt and heels, and looked like she could hold her own in a conversation. Looked like she would be up for a debate over coffee, or wine. She probably went to fancy cafés, listened to poetry read aloud, and probably had never been to a metal concert or a hockey game in her life. Maybe no sporting events, ever. She could be a librarian, or a congressman’s aide, a sex kitten teacher. What she wouldn’t be was a hockey player’s girlfriend.

  Her eyes dropped from the balloon and he saw they were filled with tears, tracks leaving a gleaming swath down her cheeks. As her chin dropped, she finally noticed him and her entire body locked into place, growing so still he was startled to see her hair still moving with the wind, strands lifting to blow around her face untamed. She seemed stuck, so he lifted one hand, waved, and offered a lame, “Hi.”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, and the way her face changed with the words tore something loose in his chest, so he couldn’t do anything except whisper in response.

  “I’m sorry, too.” Bizarrely, astonishingly, one of the balloons floated across between them and her eyes snagged on it, watching as it moved away, rising finally and making its way over the fence and towards the fields in the distance. “I’m here”—her gaze flicked toward him, then back to the balloon, then back to him in the space of an instant—“for my mom.” He thumbed over his shoulder at the granite headstone that marked his mother’s resting place.

  “Mitch,” her voice was quiet, above a whisper but only barely, “my fiancé.” All kinds of pain. “My mom’s still alive.”

  That stung in a way he didn’t expect, so his words weren’t considered when he said, “Never had a fiancée.” When she flinched at the sure knowledge that she’d had one and now didn’t, he followed up with, “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “Yeah,” she whispered again, him more reading her lips than hearing it. “Me, too.”

  Someone has her

  Cassie

  The phone she’d laid on her nightstand rang, and she lifted her head from the pillow and eyed it suspiciously. This wasn’t the first time Hoss’ phone had rung since she’d found it buried in her couch days ago, but this was the only early morning call.

  She leaned over and picked it up, studying the screen. It announced Faynez as the caller, and her stomach dipped. Without hesitation, Cassie quickly accepted the call. “Hello?”

  Silence, then a man’s gruff voice asked, “Who the fuck is this?”

  “Whom were you calling?” Her polite genes kicked in and Cassie rolled her eyes at what the man must think.

  “Callin’ Hoss. He there? You his woman?” Such a charged question and Cassie’s stomach dipped alarmingly at the idea of not being able to confidently answer it. Before she could pull herself together to respond, the man continued. “Give him a message for me. Tell him we got his girl, and if he’s a good boy, he might get her back in one piece. I’ll call again in thirty minutes, and he better have the right answers for my boss.”

  “What?” Cassie’s voice was shrill, echoing off the walls of her bedroom, folding back on top of her in a smothering wave. “You’ve got Faith? You’ve got her? What does that mean?”

  “Thirty minutes, bitch. He better be there.”

  “He’s not here!” Her shouted response sounded flat, distant to her own ears. The call had already disconnected. Frantically, she pressed the button to reconnect with the caller, but it clicked once, and the call went directly to voice mail. She tried again and screamed when a girl’s sweetly lilting voice sounded through the phone’s speakers. “Not here right now, leave me a message.”

  Cassie rolled out of bed, grabbed her phone and called Hoss. Her muscles went rigid and she screamed when his phone rang, rattling on the nightstand while the caller ID showed her listed as My Cassie. “Jesus fucking shit. Stupid.” She tried Tugboat and got voice mail. Deke was the same, and that was the extent of her contacts for Hoss’ friends in the Rebels. The business phone for his agent sent her to voice mail too, and she looked at the clock on her phone, realizing it was barely 5:00 a.m., much earlier than she’d thought when first awoken.

  “Someone’s always at the clubhouse.” The shop would be closed, but the club’s command center was a large house they’d converted to communal housing and use, and there were always men hanging around there. Even if they were all asleep, at least there she’d be able to pound on a door until someone woke up, not like the phones, where technology shifted her around until she couldn’t reach anyone she needed to. She glanced at the clock again and stifled another scream as she realized another three minutes had rolled past. “Thirty minutes.”

  She yanked jeans up her legs, not caring for the burning scrapes left behind in her haste. Boots in hand, she raced down the stairs and slid to a stop in the kitchen, threw herself to the floor, forced her bare feet into her boots, jerking at the zippers and ignored the pinch as metal teeth raked her skin. Phones shoved deep into her pockets, she was up again, grabbed her keys, and barreled through the back door, slamming the door open wide on her way into the garage. She had the bike started before the overhead finished seating in place, and roared out of the enclosure, not bothering to close or lock anything behind her.

  Once on the streets, she angled her way through intersections, cutting seconds from her trip every chance she had. Minutes later, she rolled up in front of the clubhouse, sliding to a stop in front of the closed gate. Without a word or signal, it groaned and then eased open at an agonizing pace. Once there was enough room to scrape through, she cracked her throttle, roaring into the parking lot. As soon as she had the kickstand down and bike killed, she jumped off, running to the door. Fist raised, she pounded hard against the wood, calling out for Hoss.

  She lurched forwards, falling inside off balance when the door opened, and a man’s hand caught at her arm, shoving her roughly back outside. “The fuck you want, bitch?”

  It was not a face she knew, so she looked beyond him at the dark hallway. “Hoss!” Cassie shouted, arms rigid at her sides, his phone locked in the grip of one hand. “Hoss, I need you.”

  “Fuck, bitch, you don’t need anything here.” The man put a hand on her belly and shoved her back. He wasn’t rough, but his touch was firm as he forced her to put three steps between her and the doorway. He pulled it shut behind him and leaned against the jam, arms folded across his chest. “Get.”

  “Hoss. I had a call and Hoss needs to know about it.” Shaking, she fought against the terror bubbling up through her throat. This stranger had touched her, twice, and she felt the heat from those connections like a sunburn, fear bleeding into her from that chance contact. Cassie
tried to lift her gaze from his chest, losing the battle as her panic swelled through her like a flood. God, no. Please. Not now. “Hoss. He needs…” She swallowed and held up the phone. “A man called.”

  “Pretty as you are, I bet you get a lotta that. Don’t mean shit, woman.” He bent forwards at the waist and told her firmly. “Now get. Go on.” Unfolding his arms, he made a shooing motion with his hands. “Get outta here.”

  “Hoss needs to know.” She drew the tattered edges of her courage around her like a cloak, throat clicking as she tried to swallow. Her tongue felt two sizes too large for her mouth, dry as a desert, and Cassie felt her chin tremble. “The man said something important.”

  “Don’t do that. Don’t cry. Just go, honey. If Hoss wants you, he’ll call.”

  She held the phone up and felt the first tears slide down her cheeks. “He can’t.” She glanced at the clock on the screen and realized twenty minutes had passed since the call. “He’s going to call in ten minutes.”

  “You aren’t making any sense.” The man’s voice had softened from his first angry reaction, and Cassie felt his pity like a blow. “Hoss’ll call if he wants you.” He shook his head. “Go on, get off Rebel property. Go home. Go home and wait. He wants you, he’ll let you know. You don’t belong here.”

  She whirled and ran to her bike. In a moment, she was headed out of the parking lot and back onto the streets. You don’t belong here. She might not know where Hoss lived, but Tug had shown her his house more than once on their rides, so she aimed her front wheel in that direction. She wouldn’t stop just because some stranger passed judgment on her based on nothing more than a two-minute encounter. Oh yes, I do.

  ***

  Hoss

  Arms over his head, he stretched until his shoulders and back popped, the cracking of tendon and muscle sounding like gravel bouncing off a tin roof. Hoss yawned and rolled to one side, peeling one eyeball open to check the time. Six in the morning after a late-evening blowout with the club is way too early to be up and cogitating. But today was the day he would get Cassie back, earning his way back into the core of her. Gonna make it so she’s never alone again.