Between Brothers: The Sacred Brotherhood Book IV

by A. J. Downey

  No one knew. Not even my dad… I wouldn’t tell anyone until I could tell Blue or Cell and I’d never had the chance… I’d only taken the test and found out two days before...

  I’m going to be a single parent. He’s abandoned you… my mind whispered and I faltered, the tears pouring from my eyes, body shaking with the sobs I tried so hard to suppress but couldn’t.

  Melody and Dani both hugged me and tried to console me but I needed Blue…

  “Nobody’s heard from him, but it’s Blue… his whole world revolved around Cell, until you,” Dani said kindly.

  Everett came near with her brand new baby boy in her arms, standing near and delivering the message…

  “He’s here, he just walked in.”

  I looked up hopeful, but the look on her face, it wasn’t a good one. If anything it was downright tempestuous. I stood up and looked past her at Blue… but he wasn’t my Blue.

  His hair was unkempt and he wore the same clothes that he’d had on in the hospital four days earlier. His eyes were red rimmed but whether it was from a lack of sleep or drugs I couldn’t tell and it did look like he was on something…

  I felt my shoulders drop and I shook my head.

  I couldn’t… I couldn’t tell him, not when he was like this. I wouldn’t tell him. Not if this was how it was going to be.

  I pressed my hands to my stomach and made a hard decision right then and there. I would do this alone. I couldn’t and wouldn’t expose a baby, my baby to Blue. Not when he was like this… drunk, strung out… I loved him, I loved him with everything that I was and I didn’t want to lose him, but the way he looked at me, seeing me without even really seeing me told me that this was a lost cause… at least for now.

  “Hayley?” he asked, his voice dreamlike and far away.

  I closed my eyes, took a moment and just breathed.

  “Melody,” I said, voice hollow, “do you think Archer could take me home?”

  “Yeah, honey… two seconds.”

  Dani looked at me with deep empathy and stood with me.

  “Don’t worry, this isn’t the end…” she said and I sniffed hard. I so desperately wanted to believe her, but looking at Blue, the way he was now… I wanted to help him. I didn’t want to give up and I didn’t want to walk away. I wanted to go to him and weather the storm with him but… but the baby…

  Two of his brothers, Trigger and Reaver stood in front of him, protecting me from him so I could make a clean run for it and I realized that Blue was dangerous like this. Unpredictable, and scary, like Cell had been sober.

  Archer was standing near me and grasped my elbow gently. I looked up at him and he asked with kindness in his eyes, “You want you should say one last goodbye?”

  He jerked his head in the direction of Cell’s open casket and I nodded. He let me go and I went to the glossy black box that held my lover’s body, fresh tears falling. I smoothed my hands back and forth over the satin and heard Blue, growing more agitated behind me.

  “I love you,” I whispered, and bent, lightly pressing my lips against Cell’s cold and waxy ones. One last goodbye.

  “Hayley!” Blue cried.

  I let Archer lead me away, to the back door and Blue shouted at my back, “I folded them, but they were his words!”

  I swallowed hard and marched out, the sounds of a scuffle breaking out behind me. I needed to wait until he was sober. I needed to wait… I needed to wait but I needed him now. I needed him to put his arms around me and I needed him to hold me, but Blue just wasn’t there right now.

  I didn’t know who that was.

  “It’ll be okay. Not the first time it’s happened… We’ll keep him here, let him finish out his fuckin’ bender, and when he’s sobered up and himself again, he’ll come a crawlin’. I seen it a thousand times.”

  “I don’t know that I can do this…” I said honestly.

  “You ain’t gotta do shit except breathe, baby girl. Blue ain’t himself. You ain’t yourself, and no one expects either one of you to be… Not after something like this. I know it hurts like hell, but it’ll get better. Just let the club do what it’s supposed to do. Let it look after y’all until you can look after each other.” I turned to look at who’d spoken and found Dragon standing outside the back door. I hadn’t even known he’d followed us out.

  “He’s gonna need you, just as surely as you’re gonna need him, especially with that.” He pointed and I looked down to realize I’d pressed my hands protectively to my stomach again.

  Tears tracked down my face and I nodded, looking back up. Archer took a step back and was smiling, a ghost of a thing.

  “Well ain’t that some shit?”

  I sniffed and shrugged, “Judge me if you want, but I don’t know whose it is…”

  “Who cares,” Archer shrugged. “It’s a baby, a life, and that’s precious.”

  “Ain’t our place to judge, sweetheart. Arch, you go on and get Ms. Hayley home… you an’ Mel look after her. She’s family now.”

  I let Archer lead me away and for the first time since this nightmare began… I felt hope and like I was on solid ground again. Blue’s words echoed in my head for the entire drive back to my house and I went straight for my studio and my loft. I kicked off my heels inside the door and went straight for the ladder, hauling myself up into the loft.

  I paused, heart thundering in my chest and reached out for the first folded bit of beautiful hanging from my ceiling and plucked it from its fishing line. With shaking fingers, I carefully picked it apart and when I unfolded it all the way, I turned it over to the blank side of the receipt… except it was just as Blue had said… it wasn’t blank.

  “I’m getting to adore the way you walk across this place. I can’t help but watch you, coming or going… I know that’s probably creepy as fuck, but I don’t care. Call us...”

  The lines ended in Duracell’s phone number. I stood there trembling, reading the lines over and over again before the slip of paper fell from my fingertips and I reached for the next… desperate to read what he’d said. The words like an echo, almost making me believe he was still here.

  Chapter 33

  Blue

  Dani set a steaming black mug with the club’s logo down in front of me and I reached out with shaking hands to grab it. The tape holding the IV Doc had running into the inside of one of my elbows pulled and I winced.

  It was just fluids, and I think some antibiotics seeing as I’d more than likely had unprotected sex somewhere on my coke and booze fueled misadventure somewhere… I’d be getting a full panel and I’d have to come clean with Hayley about it – that is, if she even wanted to ever see me again.

  I took a slug of the straight black coffee in the mug and winced. Dani took the seat across from me and looked me over, both worried, but with that neutral look that said she was trying very hard to hide what she was really feeling and thinking.

  “Whatever it is, just tell me,” I said miserably.

  “Just know I say this with love, but you really are an asshole this time.”

  “I know.”

  “I want to chew you out.”

  “Please do.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Yes.”

  “You really sure?”

  I contemplated her for a moment, one dark brow elegantly raised and Shelly dropped into the seat next to Dani’s.

  “Too late, I’m on it.” she said to her then looked at me and said, “Just what the fuck were you thinking?” I grunted and slid my eyes to the side and to the floor.

  ”That’s just it, I wasn’t.”

  “No, you weren’t and who do you think got to suffer for it?”

  “Shells, go find yer ol’ man. Dani, you too.”

  Oh shit.

  The girls wordlessly got up and disappeared and I sat waiting. There was the click of a zippo cap and the familiar fwoosh! of it lighting up. The cap clicked shut and it was the ominous echo of boot heels against concrete as Dragon circled aro
und and came into view.

  “You look like hell,” he said and I nodded.

  I didn’t say anything. I mean, what was there to say?

  My president sighed and said, “Yer gonna have to find yer voice this time. Ain’t no one left to speak for yah.”

  I gripped the coffee mug between my fingers until the nailbeds turned white and sucked in a breath. The dig had hurt. It hurt like hell, but he was right… Cell was gone.

  “I’m on my own.” I hadn’t meant for it to come out like that… out loud, but it had and Dragon huffed a derisive laugh.

  “Is that what you really think, boy?”

  I looked up sharply and he narrowed his eyes, dropping into the seat Dani had vacated and kicking back. He ashed his cigarette into my coffee and I relinquished the cup. He slid it closer and burned a hole in me with his gaze.

  “I asked you a question,” he said and I swallowed hard, shaking my head. He raised his eyebrows and I sucked in a deep breath, the air, tainted by his cigarette smoke, gave me the courage to respond. He smoked the same brand as Cell…

  “I didn’t think so, until just now…” I said honestly and he gave a nod.

  “Good answer, and yer right on both accounts. Yer not alone, that’s what being a member of this club is. Cell may be gone, but you’ve still got the rest of us. You know… your brothers, who I might add, have been lookin’ after yer girl for you while we been waitin’ around for you to pull yer head out yer ass.”

  “I don’t even know what day it is…” I said honestly.

  “Funeral was six days ago, and while you’ve been wallowing in your own self-pity? Your woman’s been handling it all on her own.” I met Dragon’s disapproving gaze and he heaved a heavy sigh.

  “She okay?” I asked.

  “What d’you think?”

  I wanted to ask him to cut me a break, but I was well aware I didn’t deserve one. I sighed and swiped a hand over my face and told the truth, “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Man the fuck up. Take a fuckin’ shower, clean yourself up and go see if you got a relationship left with that girl to save.” He eyed me up and down and added, “No matter what the outcome, stay out of the fuckin’ bottle for a while. Seriously, surprise yer fuckin’ liver and drink some fuckin’ water.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Dragon sighed heavy and said, “You need to tread lightly when it comes to that girl, she’s stronger than you know and she’s got some shit to fight for. Don’t expect it to be an easy row to hoe. She dumps yer ass, you’ve fuckin’ earned it. Just know that even if shit goes south between you an’ her, the club’s gonna be there for her. We know she was with both of you, but we’re treatin’ her like the ol’ lady of a fallen brother. She’ll be looked after the rest of her days. Always has a place to go.”

  I nodded, tears collecting in my eyes. I was grateful for that. The club didn’t have to do that. Not when neither Cell, nor I, had claimed her as our property. I wanted to, now… I just may not have a choice in the matter.

  “Go on, git. Take that fuckin’ thing with you. I suspect you’ll feel more like yerself once yer cleaned up.”

  I nodded, “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me. All the shit we done so far has been for yer woman.”

  I searched Dragon’s face and saw nothing but tough love there. He may have said it was for Hayley, but it’d been just as much for me, too. I sucked in a deep breath, in through my nose and out through my mouth and got my ass up, griping the IV stand I was hooked up to and rolling it towards the back door so I could go do what I was told.

  The IV bag was damn near empty and I still didn’t have to piss. I wasn’t exactly a hot mess anymore, thanks to the care of my brothers and best friend… I guess I was just more like a giant steaming pile.

  I sure felt that way anyways.

  Chapter 34

  Hayley

  Three days after Duracell’s wake, two days after we’d buried him, and still no Blue. My father had forbidden me to work, Melody was picking up my day shifts and the girl that’d been on days with her while I’d worked nights had gone to night shift.

  I’d been through every single bit of origami hanging from my ceiling and had lain among the drifts of scraps of paper for over a day, hugging that damn stuffed unicorn from the Harvest Festival that Duracell had won me; wallowing in my misery until my morning sickness had forced me from my bed and down my loft’s ladder.

  I was trying to force myself to eat, but wasn’t hungry. I wanted to do everything right by the baby but I felt frozen. Scared to death of telling anyone. I hadn’t even told my father.

  It was late and I was sitting in front of my latest project. An abstract, classic Victorian stained glass round window that was meant for no one in particular. I typically sold pieces like these on consignment at a local antique and gift shop but the joy in my work had left me.

  I was oscillating wildly between bouts of tears, rage, and pain and I hated it, but I didn’t dare start taking the anti-depressants again. I’d started forgetting to take them when I’d been with Cell and Blue… hadn’t taken them at all since before Christmas and now… now I couldn’t take them. Now, I had to be strong on my own and you know? I could do that.

  I closed my eyes and tried to take a deep breath around the crushing weight of grief that’d taken residence on my chest and the rage bubbled to the surface. The helplessness, the powerlessness rising hot and fierce with it and I snapped. I swept the window off my worktable and let it crash to the floor, screaming wordlessly into the dim light of my studio in the only way I had left to just let it out.

  It was cold comfort. All of it. It also left a giant mess for me to clean up.

  I got up from the stool I was sitting on and stepped right on a piece of glass, screaming “Dammit!” to the high ceiling.

  “Stupid, Hayley!” I berated myself. “How could you be so stupid!?”

  I didn’t know if I meant the glass, or if I meant falling in love with them… I guess it could mean either or both at this point.

  I sat back up on the stool and carefully pulled the broken shard out of my foot, staring at the red coated glass as blood pattered to the cement. So red, like heart’s blood…

  I closed my eyes and looked at all of the broken shards as another thick drop landed on another shard of glass and took a deep breath and let it out.

  I knew, not what I wanted to do, but what I needed to do…

  Chapter 35

  Blue

  I still had a job. I couldn’t fucking believe that one… but I did. Maybe because losing two of us had been pretty damaging, or crippling. Who the fuck knew? All I knew was that I went back to work to see if I could get my job back and the foreman had grunted and said I’d never lost it and welcome back from my fuckin’ vacation.

  When I’d stood there dumbfounded he’d told me how many hours of vacation I had left and to get to it before he changed his mind.

  I went back to the club, cleaned up, and now I was on Jake and Hayley’s doorstep, my heart pounding in my chest, terrified that I wouldn’t even be allowed to see her. He opened the door at my knock and grunted.

  “What do you want?”

  “I was hoping to see Hayley.”

  “What if she doesn’t want to see you?” he demanded and he had every right to be pissed.

  “Then I’ll leave her be, but I would really like to hear that from her if it’s alright.”

  He looked me over and sighed, nodding. He opened the door wider and let me in the house, shutting it behind us.

  “She’s in her studio.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me. If it were up to me I’d ‘ve shut that door right in your damn face, but it ain’t up to me and I’m scared for my little girl again.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  He sighed and said, “She’s gone quiet again. Won’t even talk to me, barely even comes in the damn house. Just stays out there all day and all night. I can’t
get her to take her pills, I can’t get her to talk, or go out, and I don’t want her coming back to work… not yet. I don’t know what to do…”

  “Let me try?”

  He harrumphed, “Not sure what that’ll do; you dropped her like a bad habit. She not only lost that friend of yers, she lost you, too. At least as far as I’m concerned. Leaves me asking myself what yer gonna do when the going gets tough in other ways.”

  “That’s fair,” I agreed, nodding.

  “You hurt my little girl,” he accused. “Can’t say I’m ever gonna let you come back from that. Not after how many times she’s been hurt before.”

  I tried not to let my irritation with people get to me, I mean, I lost my best friend, my lover and love, too. Losing Cell had hurt me bone deep…

  Losing Cell had hurt Hayley, too. Losing you, what do you think that did? My traitorous mind whispered.

  “You better go on, before I change my mind,” Jake said and I nodded and went through the house and out back. The lights were on inside her studio, the crickets chirping lazily out here, my heart picking up and keeping pace with them as I crossed to her studio door.

  I opened it up on silent hinges and stopped cold, staring at her in a white high-low dress, her bare feet poised on the bottom rung of her stool as she bent over her work, a curl of smoke rising from the solder she laid.

  She called over her shoulder, “Dad, in or out please. I don’t want moths coming in.”

  I stepped in and shut the door, clearing my throat. She looked up, blowing her bangs out of her eyes, her braid slipping over her shoulder to lay along her back and she froze.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked and it wasn’t unfriendly, but it wasn’t friendly either… if anything, it was cautious.

  “Came to see you.”

  She bowed her head and switched off her soldering iron, setting it aside. She got to her feet and I eyed a bandage around one and took a step forward.