Trix had made friends with some of the club kids, giving us more to do during the day, as old ladies and their children stopped by to play. Casper still spent time watching out for us when Dragon wasn’t home. Dragon didn’t feel comfortable leaving us alone until the dust had settled on the custody battle, but Trix and I didn’t mind. Casper was becoming the brother I’d never had; he was a part of our little family, and we loved having him around. It was everything I’d been looking for when I left the club. It was a community where Trix and I felt comfortable, where we could have play dates, and I could chat with other mothers without worrying that I would let something slip that would give a hint to our home life.
It was amazing to me, the difference in my perspective from a child of the club to an old lady of one of the members. I had been so sure that the life I’d wanted was outside the gates of the club where I didn’t have to worry about the stares of outsiders. I had taken for granted the community I’d grown up in. Like an extended family, there was always someone to listen or help out. I’d been so anxious to leave that I hadn’t realized what I was leaving. I was sure that there was a sense of community on the outside, that there were people living the straight and narrow who had the connections I’d wanted, but I’d never found them. The club was where I was comfortable. These were the people I trusted, and I was finally finding my place.
While lying in the grass one day with Trix asleep next to me, I realized that the traits I so dreaded in a man from the club weren’t present in Dragon. He didn’t sleep around. I didn’t always know where he was, but I was learning that I didn’t need to know. He had business that I wasn’t a part of, and I was perfectly fine with that. He didn’t party long into the night and come home smelling like club whores the way I’d envisioned in my nightmares. I knew he was doing things that could get him put away for a long time, but I trusted him to be as careful as he could. He’d never jeopardize our little family if he could help it. I figured it was a lot like a military wife must feel when her husband was out doing things that she knew put him in danger. Thinking about the dangers didn’t do anything except make her miserable. We had to make the best of a shitty situation. It made them who they were. Of course, military wives had husbands on the right side of the law…but who was I to quibble over semantics?
When I realized that this was where we were supposed to be, I felt a peace that I’d never felt before. Everything became simpler. The obsessive compulsive cleaning jags stopped almost completely, and dishes in the sink became just dishes in the sink, not a mountain I had to climb at the first possible instant. I was feeling comfortable in my skin again, free to be myself, the self I’d lost so long ago.
Dragon noticed the change in me, and it changed the way he acted toward me in simple ways. He pushed me. He teased me, knowing I wouldn’t burst into tears at some perceived slight. We fought. He didn’t hold back when he was pissed, and for once, I didn’t either. We never crossed any lines, emotional or physical, but we fought, balls-to-the-wall arguments, which usually turned into the best sex we’d ever had.
Dragon became messier, and it was then I knew that he’d been on his best behavior before. He left shit all over the house that I’d find throughout the day—socks by the couch, a grease rag hanging on the back of a kitchen chair. He wasn’t tiptoeing around the house anymore; he was leaving his mark, mostly in the form of dirty laundry. All of his furniture was still in the apartment he’d shared with Kendra, but I didn’t care. I didn’t want any of that stuff in my house. The thought of sitting on a couch they’d had sex on made my stomach turn. So, we made a home with the hand-me-downs and castoffs we’d accumulated, and I loved it.
Life was good.
Until it wasn’t.
Dragon left early in the morning on the Friday after the barbeque. It wasn’t normal for him to leave before the sun came up, but it wasn’t abnormal either. I stayed in bed with Trix, snuggling up close next to her, her breath hot on the side of my neck. These were some of my favorite mornings, the ones where I was just barely awake as Dragon kissed me slow and deep before he said good-bye. It left me in a half-dreamlike state where everything felt cozy and warm. I relished the feeling of kissing my man good-bye as I cuddled our baby close. I fell back asleep not long after I heard Casper pull up, the roar of Dragon’s retreating bike fading in my ears.
My phone woke both Trix and me up at eight that morning, making me groan in frustration, as she jumped out of bed to grab it.
“Hi, Papa!” she answered and then paused for a moment. “Nope, we were sleepin’. Mama’s still layin’ in bed. She looks mad!” She giggled for a minute and then handed the phone to me.
I’d noticed that she started using Dragon’s mannerisms the week before, dropping her Gs and gesturing with her hands as she spoke. She’d never before been so animated.
“Hey, babe,” I mumbled into the phone as I watched Trix bounce out of the bedroom.
“Hey, baby. Sorry I woke you up.” I could hear the laughter in his voice.
“It’s not funny! Someone kept me up late last night.”
“Yeah, and you loved it,” he answered me. “Got the results back this morning.”
I sat straight up in bed, his news waking me up instantly. “What does that mean? I mean, I know what it means, but what do we do now?”
“Well, we do nothin’. We wait to hear from the lawyers. But I’d feel better if you and Trix got up and got dressed,” he informed me, sounding distracted.
“What’s going on? Why do we need to get dressed?” I asked, climbing out of bed to follow his directions even though I didn’t understand why I was doing it.
“The douche just got papers in black and white that say Trix isn’t his to fuck with. He knew it, but now, the courts know it. Man’s like a cornered animal now, yeah? I’d feel better if you two were awake and dressed. That’s all I’m sayin’.” The tone of his voice never changed, but it was almost as if I could feel the tightness of his body from across the phone.
“All right. I’m getting dressed now. I’ll go help Trix in a minute. Are you at the clubhouse? Should we come over there?” I asked, beginning to feel a sense of urgency that I didn’t understand but didn’t fight.
“Yeah, baby. Do that. I’m here. No need to worry,” he soothed. “Everything’s fine. You’re fine. If I thought you weren’t, I’d be there. Casper’s out front. Let him know when you’re heading over. Okay, Mama?”
Mama was a new endearment he’d started using last week, and every time I heard it, my stomach filled with butterflies.
“Okay,” I told him quietly as I pulled my jeans up my legs.
“You take that test before you leave. No more puttin’ it off. I wanna know what it says when you get over here,” he told me before he hung up.
Last week, I’d noticed that I hadn’t had my period since the first week I’d been at the club. It hadn’t concerned me for a while because the thing came and went with no rhyme or reason. But by last week, my boobs had started magically growing, and I’d seemed to be popping out of my bras. When I told Dragon, he’d given me a small smile and then dragged Trix and me into town. We grabbed a pregnancy test at the drug store that day, but I’d been putting off knowing for sure until this mess with Trix was finished. I didn’t want anything else clouding my head, and I was sort of hoping that all of our good news could come at once—after the stress was gone. Obviously, Dragon had a different opinion, and my reprieve was over.
While Trix played quietly in her room, I went in the bathroom to take the test. Morning pee was apparently the best, and I’d been jumping around while getting Trix her breakfast, trying to hold it, until I had a minute to get to the bathroom. I took it and set it on the edge of the tub, pulling my hair into a ponytail and brushing my teeth while I waited. The sense of urgency that had plagued me during my conversation with Dragon never left, and I found myself pacing the bathroom. Two steps forward and two steps back—there wasn’t much room to lose my mind in the tiny room. I final
ly decided to dress Trix before I came back to check, and I left the bathroom, shutting the door behind me as I went.
She was sitting on her floor, playing with some little plastic horses, when I got to her room. I overlooked the toys spread across the floor as I grabbed shorts and a shirt out of her dresser and tried to remember where she’d put her sandals the night before.
“Trix! Where are your purple sandals?” I asked her as I pulled clean underwear and shorts over her tiny little bum.
The horse distracted her, and I quickly snatched it out of her hand and flung it on the bed. The hair on my nape was standing straight up again, and my stomach was in knots for a reason I couldn’t figure out. I was starting to feel panicked, and there was no clear reason for it.
“MAMA! Why’d you throw my horse?” she sniped at me as I tugged her T-shirt over her head. “I was playing with that! I don’t throw your stuff!” She stomped one foot. “It’s not nice!”
I was strung so tight, spots of sweat were standing out on my forehead. “Baby, I’m sorry. Mama’s in a hurry. Now, where did you put your shoes?” I asked her urgently as we heard a car pull out in front of the house.
Her face was screwed up in confusion, her skills at reading my body language impaired from the peace we’d lived in these last couple of months.
“Someone’s here!” Trix told me as she ran to her window that faced the front of the house. “Whose car is that?” she asked as I came up behind her at the window.
Before I could answer, the sound of a silenced gunshot pierced the quiet morning, followed by something big hitting the front porch. Hard.
I didn’t know why they said that a silencer lessens the noise of a gunshot. It didn’t. The shot I’d heard was by far the loudest thing that had ever reached my ears.
Chapter Twenty Seven
Brenna
In the movie The Matrix, the fight scenes slowed down to an impossible level, so you could see every single movement. I’d always thought when movies slowed it was for the viewer’s benefit, a chance to see all of the action in perfect detail. What I hadn’t known, what I wish I’d never learned was the fact that it happened in real life.
As soon as I heard the sound on the front porch, I slammed my hand over Trix’s mouth and dragged her away from the window toward her bedroom door. Once I knew she would be quiet, I let go over her mouth and lifted her up into my arms and squeezed her tight. Her little body was trembling in fear, but there was no time for me to comfort her, except to make small noises in my throat as I rubbed her back and hurried across the hallway.
My mind raced.
In a split second, I remembered that the front door was locked. Dragon always locked it when he left. It didn’t matter if Casper was on the front porch or not. He always locked it. It was an assurance of at least a couple more seconds of time.
I carried Trix into my room, knowing I had less than a minute before Tony shot the deadbolt and got inside. I could hear the beat of my heart in my ears as I set Trix down in front of the open window next to our bed. I was glad that Dragon hadn’t gotten around to fixing the screen even though we’d had a fight about it the day before. He slept really warm. This meant that without air conditioning in our room, we had to sleep with the window open, or we’d both wake up in a pool of sweat. I had bitched that he was letting bugs in, which he was, and he’d told me to stop bitching because he killed all the damn bugs anyway, so it wasn’t like I had to do anything.
Fortunately, this meant that the window was completely open to the outside, and it was only about six feet off the ground.
Every mother plays the what-if game. What if a car ran over my child, and I had to lift it off her? What if my house got broken in to, and I had to hide my child somewhere? Where would I hide her? What if my car crashed into a river? How would I get my child to the surface? What if there was a national emergency? How would I keep my child safe? What if? What if? What if?
My what-if was happening.
I’d thought about it. Of course I’d thought about it. I’d had escape plans hatched in my head since before we’d left Tony. They’d changed depending on where we were, but they were always there in the back of my mind. What if? What if? What if?
How would I keep her safe?
Doing the thing you know is best doesn’t make it any less scary. I was terrified as I kissed the silent tears on her face, memorizing her. I knew I had only seconds before Tony made it in the door, so I quickly explained to her what I needed her to do. I grabbed the sides of her face with one hand, so she knew I meant business, and then I started to speak quickly and quietly.
“I’m going to drop you out the window.” I shook my head at her as she whimpered. “You’ll be fine, baby. It’s not very far. As soon as you hit the ground, you start running for the clubhouse. Do you understand me, Trix?”
She sobbed as I jerked her once and then kept on with my directions. “You DO NOT stop. Understand? I don’t care what you see. I don’t care if you step on a rock. I don’t care if you’re afraid. KEEP GOING. You absolutely do not stop until you get to Papa, Gramps, or Vera. Do you understand?”
The heartbeat in my ears was growing louder by the second, and I was terrified that Tony was going to barge in, and all this would be for nothing.
“I love you to the moon,” I told her fiercely as I propped her on the window ledge, kissing her once on the lips. I heard the gun go off again as I leaned out the window as far as I could, pried her arms from around my neck, and dropped her to the grass.
“Run, baby! Go!” I whispered urgently.
I had only a moment to make sure she was okay and running before I spun around and walked toward the bedroom door. I made it all the way into the hallway before I saw him. He was standing in the living room at the end of that hall, looking around in disgust. I’d known it was him, but the shock of actually seeing him after all that time must have caused me to make a noise because he immediately swung the gun in my direction.
“Wife.” He nodded, moving the gun in a come-here motion like he saw me every day, and he didn’t just break into my house.
“What are you doing here, Tony?” I asked him, sliding forward slowly, trying not to antagonize him.
I knew I didn’t have a chance. He was here, pointing a gun at me, and my guard was on the front porch with a bullet somewhere in his body. As I got closer, I prayed that I was giving Trix the chance she needed to get away. I prayed feverishly that she wouldn’t stop, and that Tony wouldn’t look out the window and see her running to the clubhouse, her hot pink shirt like a beacon in the tall grass. I couldn’t even think of Casper.
“It’s time to go, Brenna. You’ve had your fun. Get Trix. We’re leaving.” He spoke to me like a parent to a child, both frustrated and amused.
“Trix isn’t here, Tony. She stayed the night at a friend’s house,” I told him calmly, hoping he couldn’t see the artery fluttering quickly in my neck.
He didn’t notice my panic, but it didn’t matter. He didn’t say a word. He just calmly punched me in the face hard enough to shatter my jaw. I saw stars, but I didn’t fall down. The pain was excruciating, and I could no longer move my mouth. I grabbed the back of the couch for support as the agony in my face threatened to drop me to the floor. It couldn’t end this quickly. Trix couldn’t be to the clubhouse yet. I needed to keep him inside until I knew she’d made it. Then, he could do whatever the hell he wanted.
“Don’t lie to me! She told me you and Trix were home with the spic last night!” he yelled at me, spit flying from his mouth and landing in my hair.
“Who told you?” I mumbled, trying to keep my eyes on him as my vision clouded. It was a mistake.
Tony always had a pet peeve when we were together. He didn’t like to be questioned. About anything. He expected his word to be law. This meant that I was expected to keep my questions to myself; he wouldn’t clarify things for me. If I had the audacity to question him, I was always sorry for it. I’d learned to nod politely while my mi
nd raced with questions.
My confusion over his informant must have triggered his ire because the next thing I knew, I was cowering against the couch as he punched me repeatedly in the chest, stomach, and back, asking over and over again where Trix was.
I was beyond any sort of control of my body and curled into a ball as he hit me. I whimpered repeatedly that Trix wasn’t home, begging him to stop until I lost consciousness.
Chapter Twenty Eight
Dragon
I was sitting at the bar inside the clubhouse when I heard one of the boys yell my name from the forecourt. Normally, it wouldn’t have made me leave the conversation I was having, but the tone of his voice was off, so I immediately stood up.
“Kendra, I’ve told you. You can stay there a couple months, but you need to be lookin’ for some place to move.”
I was so fuckin’ annoyed at the bitch. If Brenna saw her hanging around here, she’d flip her lid. We hadn’t heard anything from my ex until last week when she was supposed to move out of my fuckin’ apartment, and instead, she’d started showing up at the club with a couple of the other women that came for a good time. I had no interest, but that didn’t seem to stop her from eyeballing me whenever she was anywhere in looking distance. She was being passed around like a pool stick, and every time she headed toward someone’s room, she turned to look at me like I was going to stop her.
“Stop fuckin’ comin’ around. No need for you to be whoring yourself out in some twisted way to get at me. I. Do. Not. Care. Fuck anyone you want. It doesn’t make a damn bit of difference to me,” I told her as I walked toward the open door.
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