Exposed_A Bad Boy Motorcycle Club Romance

by Sophia Gray

  - Jagger

  Abby smiled, tracing her fingers over Jagger’s messy handwriting. It was nice, seeing that side of him, some part of him that wasn’t completely perfect. After putting the note back where she found it, she stretched her body out, unwinding her limbs back and forth until she heard her bones crack a little in satisfaction. She still felt tired, her muscles begging her to lay back down and cuddle up against the pillow until she fell back asleep. Somehow, she knew that her brain wouldn’t allow that, still too wired from the day before to simply switch off and relax.

  She threw off the blankets and swung her legs over the side of the bed down to the floor, feeling suddenly energized and renewed, as if she had slept for a whole week rather than just a few hours longer than she usually did. Abby knew what it was though. For once there was something on her mind other than worry.

  She was curious. She had Jagger’s house all to herself, and there was nothing stopping her from going room by room and seeing what each location had to say about the man she was sleeping with. She didn’t know what else to call their relationship other than “sleeping together.” Abby usually wasn’t the type for casual hookups, and somehow their sex seemed a little bit too intense, a little bit too intimate and personal to be appropriately deemed “casual.” Still, it wasn’t like he was her boyfriend. Abby barely knew the guy.

  Now all that was going to change. Abby wasn’t going to go digging around in his drawers or anything, but she was going to explore every last inch of this house, from top to bottom. She’d figure out what made Jagger tick, what he was really like beneath all that biker bravado. Abby smirked to herself, feeling like a secret detective on a special investigation as she walked out of the bedroom and headed back toward the main entrance, where a long dark staircase wound up, higher than Abby could even see.

  Abby slowly climbed the steps, listening as they creaked. It was hard for her to admit this to herself, but she loved this place. It was dark and creepy, with dust covering every visible surface, but Abby liked that. She could get used to spending time here if Jagger wanted her around. She went all the way to the top of the steps, panting a little by the time she hit the landing, opening the door to reveal a cramped room full of trinkets and knick-knacks. Old stuff. Family stuff. Abby grabbed the first object nearest to her feet, an old wooden sled with the red paint chipping off it. There was a name written in what looked to be black sharpie on the underside. “Tyler.” Abby wondered if the sled belonged to Jagger’s brother or father or cousin. Every inch of the room was covered with stuff like this, decaying artifacts from various childhoods, toys that nobody would ever play with again. Abby felt a little sad as she touched each item, thinking about how all her own toys were either sold off after Mark stole her savings or burnt to a crisp after the arsonist attacked.

  She continued moving through the huge pile of objects, smiling as she stumbled on old art projects with Jagger’s name written in the lower left corner in crayon. There were pictures of trees, his home, his family. Finally, she came upon an adorably messy drawing of a motorcycle. Abby wondered if Jagger always wanted to be a member of an MC and if Satan’s Blazes were the most important thing in his life. For some reason that thought made Abby feel uneasy, her stomach tightening a little in anxiety like it always did when she was uncertain about something. She couldn’t put her finger on what exactly was wrong.

  The next moment, some strange smell reached Abby’s nostrils, turning her stomach over before she even realized what it was. That was when it hit her. Smoke.

  Calm down, she told herself. You’re just having a flashback because you’re nervous. It’s okay. There’s no smoke here. She got to her feet, careful not to bump her head on the attic’s low ceiling, still gripping the picture that little Jagger drew of the motorcycle. For some reason, she couldn’t bring herself to part with it, at least not yet. She folded it up and put it in her pants pocket before heading back down the stairs, the sweat on the back of her neck beading up faster as the scent of the smoke only grew stronger. No, this wasn’t just in her head. This was real. She couldn’t see the flames yet, but clouds of dark grey smoke rose to meet her as she took the final bend of stairs back down to the main level. Her entire body was shaking, Abby took a huge gulp of somewhat-fresh air before diving into the pile of smoke, heading down the stairs as quickly as she could.

  Bright red flames licked along the hallway to Jagger’s bedroom, but the path to the front door was clear. Abby bolted to the door, flinging the locks open as rapidly as she could with her trembling fingers before tugging on the doorknob.

  The door didn’t budge.

  Abby was panting for air as the flames in the hallway got closer. She tugged on the door again. Nothing. She must have just missed a lock or something. Maybe there was a latch that she didn’t see. She checked all the locks again, even stooping down to the ground to see if there was a secret lock that she couldn’t see right away, but everything was undone.

  “Right, okay, I can do this, I can do this,” Abby said to herself, hardening her body into a stone, flexing all her muscles before throwing herself at the door, pushing as hard as her body would permit. Nothing. The door didn’t move a single centimeter. Abby couldn’t understand what was wrong. Maybe the arsonist had placed a large heavy object in front of the door to keep her trapped inside. Fine, then, she thought to herself. There’s another way out. There must be.

  Abby quickly stepped back from the door and took stock of her surroundings. There were no windows around, which explained why the house was so fucking dark inside. Abby wiped the sweat off her forehead as she looked around, searching for any other door. There has to be a door at the back of the house, Abby thought. Probably in the kitchen.

  She headed in the opposite direction of the front door, running into room after room, trying to find any other door to the outside. There was nothing, until the last room on the right. The kitchen. She was right. Abby felt hot tears press against the backs of her eyes, the sweet pain of relief overwhelming her. She ran to the door and turned the knob, and…

  Nothing. Again. There were no visible locks on this door, but it still didn’t open. “Come on, come on, come on!” Abby yelled as she threw her entire body against the solid surface of the door, bruising her shoulder badly in the process. She didn’t care about that. She had to get out. She had to get out! She was going to fucking die in here.

  “Help! Help!” Abby screamed as loudly as she could, smacking her head against the kitchen door. She tried a few more times, straining the muscles of her throat as she screamed, but she heard nothing on the other side responding to her.

  The front door, then. There would be more people out in front, maybe old people walking around their neighborhood. She ran back to the front of the house, tossing her body against the front door again in a futile attempt to knock it open. “Please help me! Help! Fire! Fire! Help!”

  On her right, the flames kept building, getting higher and brighter as they consumed everything in their path. They were coming for her, and there was nowhere to run.

  This is how I die. This is how it happens. Alone, in the smoke. Fitting.

  # # #

  Jagger

  Ring. Ring ring ring. His fucking phone would not stop ringing. Goddammit, Jagger thought as he pulled over to the side of the road. He was going to go try to interview one of the suspects again today before work without Abby’s interference, but his fucking phone wouldn’t shut up, ringing nonstop for the past five minutes. What on earth could be so important?

  After pulling over and switching off the engine, he finally reached into his pocket to grab his phone and answer it. “What?” he asked into the receiver, his voice highly irritated. He had a policy about talking on the phone while driving, and all his friends knew to give up after one or two rings if he didn’t answer right away. Jagger was a very single-minded individual. If he couldn’t completely focus his attention on what he was doing, what was the point?

  “Jagger! I—I’ve been
trying to reach you!” It was the Fire Captain, Gareth. He almost never called Jagger on his personal number, and Jagger had never heard him sound so panicked before. What was going on?

  “What’s up, Cap?” Jagger asked, reaching over to turn his engine back on. Somehow, he knew he was about to receive bad news.

  “Your house… It’s your house this time, Jagger. It’s on fire.”

  It took a moment for the words to sink in. After a few seconds, Jagger felt an icy cold sensation climb up his spine, freezing his bones to the core. His house. The arsonist. Abby! “Sir, sir, get all the trucks you can spare there as soon as possible!” Jagger shouted into the phone as he pushed his foot down hard on the accelerator, lurching back into motion and climbing back onto the main road without looking for traffic.

  “They’re on the way,” Gareth replied.

  “No, no, you don’t understand, there’s somebody inside, there’s somebody in my house,” Jagger rambled as he took a quick turn in the direction of his home.

  “What do you mean?” Gareth asked.

  Jagger narrowly avoided running over a squirrel, his tires squealing as he veered to evade it without slowing down. “Abby. The, um, the nurse I’ve been looking after since her apartment burned down. She’s inside.”

  “I’m sure she’s out by now, Jagger. We’ll get there as soon as we can, and the ambulance is on its way just in case,” the Fire Captain replied.

  “No, no, she’s not,” Jagger said, swallowing heavily as his mouth went dry as a desert. “I locked the front door from the outside. She’s not out, Gareth. She’s trapped.”

  “You locked her in?” Gareth asked.

  “Yeah,” Jagger said, and he knew he would have felt the hot burn of shame if his entire body hadn’t been shivering. “Yeah, she’s trapped. Please, please, knock down the front door, please,” he begged, not caring how pathetic he sounded.

  “Okay, okay, I’ll tell them,” Gareth said before hanging up. Jagger knew he’d have to answer more questions from him later, but for now, he was focused only on getting back to his house as quickly as possible. He saw the plumes of smoke rising into the sky before he even turned onto his street. His heart pounded in his chest, so hard he thought it might break through his ribcage. Taking the final turn, his breath came faster and harder, his lungs already burning, and he parked his car in the driveway, jumping out and running toward the front door. Several firefighters, oblivious to Abby’s existence, held hoses over the top of the house, showering water down on top of the burnt husk of his attic. They noticed him running toward the front door and tried to get him to step back, but he couldn’t even make out what they were saying. The entire world had contracted, twisting in on itself, until the only thing that Jagger could see was his front door, vibrating like it had blood behind the wood. He bolted past the firefighters, shoving one he recognized from the department out of his way while his other hand fumbled in his pocket for the key.

  When he touched the doorknob, it burnt his skin. The flames were right inside. Jesus fuck. She could be dead already, Jagger thought, his hand trembling as he stuck the key in the lock and turned, pushing the door open to let out wave after wave of thick black smoke. Jagger shoved his way in, even though he didn’t have any of his gear on. He immediately began choking on the smoke, huge, racking coughs leaving his lungs every few seconds. He covered his nose and mouth and looked around, trying to find any sign of Abby, but the smoke stung his eyes, and he had to blink rapidly every few seconds just to clear his eyes of tears.

  “Abby!” He called out as soon as he got enough air in his lungs. “Abby, where are you?!”

  There was no response.

  Jagger started rushing from room to room, starting with the kitchen. Abby was nowhere to be found, even as the house started to crumble, floorboards and ceiling tiles crashing down to the ground, leaving empty spaces where the sunlight pierced through the smoke. “Abby!” Jagger shouted again, running back out to the main entrance. “Abby, tell me where you are!”

  He heard a muffled sound to his left, barely audible, but he immediately followed it to its source, stumbling over fallen chunks of his home in the process. Right next to the fire, in the deepest part of the smoke, was a huddle of limbs. Abby.

  Jagger went on autopilot, dashing through the smoke to grab her, scooping her up in his arms before rushing out of the house, running several yards before crumbling to his knees as his lungs gave out, coughing up a storm.

  As soon as his lungs began to function again, he reached down and cupped Abby’s face with his hand, rubbing at her skin like he could restore her to consciousness with just his touch. “Abby. Abby, come on. Come on, baby, be okay, please be okay,” he whispered, his eyes painfully stinging as he stared down at her limp form.

  He didn’t have time to try to breathe life back into her body, as the next second EMTs in uniform swarmed them, picking Abby up and taking her over to the nearest ambulance. “How long has she been out?” Beau, an EMT that Jagger had known for a few years, asked.

  “I don’t know,” Jagger said softly, feeling the sick sinking sensation of guilt overwhelm his entire body. “I—I just got here.”

  “Okay, we’ll get her to the hospital straight away, Jagger, don’t worry,” Beau said as he applied a mask to Abby’s nose and mouth. Jagger just shook his head and stepped up onto the ambulance, staring down at Abby as she twitched and squirmed. He was going with them. There was no room for argument as far as Jagger was concerned. He felt like he could never let Abby out of his sight ever again.

  As soon as the ambulance shifted into motion, the sirens blaring above them, Abby’s eyelids flicked open, closing a few more times before she finally opened her eyes all the way, meeting Jagger’s gaze. He smiled weakly at her, his heart pounding up in his throat, but when she looked away a second later, a grimace spreading on her face, his heart fell to his stomach, feeling like it was being eaten alive. He deserved it. He knew he did. He should never have left her locked up in that house. It was his fault that she was in this situation. Jagger had left her utterly vulnerable to the arsonist’s attacks. He thought it would be safer in his house rather than at the compound, but that hadn’t been the case. Worst of all, he had let his mistrust of Abby take priority over her basic safety. Jagger would never forgive himself for that.

  Abby was silent for the whole ride to the hospital, turning her head to cough a few times, but otherwise, she just stared in the opposite direction, avoiding him. He couldn’t blame her. If he were in her position, he would probably scream at him, tell him to fuck off. In fact, Jagger thought he would prefer that at this point, honestly, instead of the stony silence. It was what he deserved.

  The ambulance pulled into the hospital parking lot, coming up to the emergency curb so the EMTs could pull Abby’s stretcher out. They rolled her into a room straight away, hooking her up to various machines to help her breathe and monitor her heart rate and other vital signs.

  All the while, Abby was limp, her eyes distant and unfocused as various technicians and nurses moved her from the chair to the bed, adjusting her limbs so that she wouldn’t cramp. Jagger just stood helplessly by, watching it all happen, trying desperately to see if any light had returned to Abby’s eyes. But there was nothing. It was like she had been hollowed out like a jack-o-lantern, completely gutted of her soul. Nothing could have hurt Jagger more than the emptiness in her face, the numb way she stared up at the ceiling, blinking evenly like a robot.

  What can I do? Jagger wondered, fidgeting with his fingers. He wondered if he should pull a chair up to the bed and take her hand, try to provide some physical comfort to her. Somehow, he felt that would be overstepping some unspoken boundary. Abby was pissed at him. She had to be. Nothing else made sense. She wouldn’t want him touching her right now.

  In any case, he decided to pull a chair closer but still leave room in case Abby needed to get up in the middle of the night, provided that her legs had begun functioning again.

  Oh,
God, I hope she’s not permanently hurt, Jagger thought. Please, God, please. God, I know I haven’t prayed in such a long time, but please, God, help her. Help her. Please.

  He settled in for the night in the chair next to the bed, curling his legs under his body before turning off his phone and beeper. He wasn’t going to be disturbed from this, not by anything. As far as Jagger was concerned, Abby was the only thing he cared about.

  # # #

  Abby

  Abby felt like she was on fire. She had escaped the flames themselves, of course, but the smoke filled up every molecule in her body, making her feel like she was stuck in an oven. Her body was sweating, constantly leaking like she was still trapped in that burning house. She counted the bland white ceiling tiles of the hospital room, once, then twice, then a thousand more times until she convinced herself she was out of the house. She was safe now, right? She was fine.

  She didn’t feel okay, not in the slightest. Her lungs felt like they’d been burnt black, absolutely destroyed, and the rest of her body was sore, lots of little burns lining her arms and legs. She’d stupidly tried to run through the flames in a last-ditch effort to check if there were any windows on the other side of the house. It was her own fault, really. That was the part that Abby couldn’t get over. She had stupidly allowed Jagger to take her to his house, and then instead of running away like a normal fucking person, she’d stayed and fucked him. As far as she was concerned, she had gotten what she deserved. She was being punished for her stupidity, for letting herself get attached to someone yet again. What an idiot. What a fucking joke. She had pretended to be strong for so many months after Mark left, but she wasn’t. She was still a stupid little girl who just wanted a man to love her and take care of her, and this was the result of that. It reaffirmed the lesson that she shouldn’t trust anyone, that was for sure.