Not that I’d change them.
I loved them so much and I might never get to see them again.
Ever.
My bottom lip trembled and tears began to roll down my cheeks. The liquid burned the raw skin beside my nose before it was caught by the fabric covering my eyes.
I’d known Aaron a long time ago. Hadn’t really spoken to him that much, but he’d always been popular among the biker brats, as we were known. Then his momma had taken him away, stolen off ‘like a thief in the night,’ as my daddy Flame had phrased it, and I hadn’t seen him again.
Until three days ago.
I’d thought I was having a bad dream. Waking up to see someone standing over me, someone who wasn’t my momma or my daddies. But I’d seen his face and had known him instantly. Just as I was about to whisper his name, his fist came out of nowhere.
The pain exploded through my nose and as blood bubbled and fell, I’d felt a weird buzzing in my brain as dots sparkled before my eyes.
The next thing I’d known, I was being hauled into this room.
It was dark, dirty, and Aaron kept saying things that scared me.
He was muttering to himself as he paced back and forth. I didn’t have to see to know that was what he was doing. His motions were jerky, erratic, and the squeaky floorboards beneath his feet creaked every time he moved. It was like a horrible language I was starting to understand.
“Gillipollas think they’re fucking kings. They ain’t. I’ll show them—”
“—I’ll make them pay. Those hijos de puta—”
“—bastards need to be shown they messed with the wrong Sanchez—”
He kept repeating that, over and over and over, until I thought I was going to go mad from hearing it.
I didn’t know what my daddies had done to make Aaron hate them, but I knew I was being punished for something he was blaming them for.
Did it make me mad?
Yeah. It did. I hadn’t done anything wrong. I was a good girl. I tried never to get into trouble, tried to always stick to the rules because Daddy Ryan had asked me to. When he went to heaven, he’d whispered to be a good girl because my momma needed me to be that. And I listened.
I always listened.
Even to things I wasn’t supposed to hear.
But even though I’d been a good girl, I was being punished. It wasn’t fair. But then, life wasn’t, was it? My Daddy Ryan had died when I was little, and he’d left me and Momma to be all alone until she’d brought us home where my other daddies lived. Then my baby sister, the one that had never left Momma’s belly, had gone to heaven too.
I didn’t like heaven. I didn’t understand why it kept taking the people I loved from me, but I had a feeling I was going to come face-to-face with it, because I knew, no matter what Aaron had said during that phone call to Daddy Wolfe, he wasn’t going to let me live.
My hands were tied to the chair I was sitting on, my feet too. They kept getting pins and needles, and when I tried to wriggle them, my wrists and ankles rubbed against the rope. I could smell blood, could feel the ache of the rope’s kiss on my skin, and now it was starting to itch.
But the worst thing of all, worse than having no food and no sleep, the aching body and the bleeding wrists and ankles, was that he never let me up.
Never let me move.
Even now, though he hadn’t let me have anything to drink, I needed to pee. So bad. So, so bad. But there was no point in holding it. Not really. I’d already had to do this several times, and the smell of pee was making me feel sick. I didn’t know what to do, but I knew he’d slap me again if I asked, but God, I needed to—
“Baby, not long now.”
Everything inside me tensed at that voice.
A voice I hadn’t heard since forever.
My dry mouth seemed to dry out even more as I processed the fact I could hear Daddy Ryan.
In my head.
It was wonderful to hear his voice, wonderful, but I was so scared because I knew he was in heaven.
And his words…
Did that mean I was going there too?
Not long until what?
I didn’t know how to answer him, how to speak with him, but maybe knowing wasn’t important, because he answered, No, baby. You’re not coming to see me. Not yet. And not for a long time. Just stay strong.
Don’t leave me! I cried, certain he was about to leave, about to abandon me again.
Never. I promise.
Why are you only talking to me now?
It was harder to get to you.
Why?
I don’t know. He sounded sad. Time?
Time? What did he mean by that?
I didn’t understand, but I didn’t need to. I just needed to know he was there. With me. That I wasn’t alone. That one of my most favorite people in the whole world was there with me.
I love you, baby. You’ve been so good. So brave. So strong.
Daddy?
Yes, sweetheart.
I need to pee. So bad.
You do what you need to, baby. His voice changed, deepened. I knew what that meant, had heard Daddy Wolfe go from amused to angry in the blink of an eye. Never at me or Momma, but usually at my brothers.
Like that time Seamus had decided to climb onto the clubhouse roof. He’d been amused until my momma had come out, seen him, then dropped to her knees and started sobbing. Daddy Flame had hushed her, even as Daddy Wolfe, seeing her distress, had screamed at Seamus to stay put, not to move ‘a goddamn motherfucking inch.’
My daddies swore a lot.
I was used to it.
Shame filled me as I allowed my bladder to release. It hurt. That was how long I’d been holding it. It burned so badly, but there was also a sweet relief. It felt so wrong. I hadn’t wet myself since I was a little girl, and to do this now? When Daddy was there? I bowed my head, utterly miserable, not just from where I was and who had captured me, but because I had wet myself like a three-year-old.
The floorboards creaked and I tensed, knowing full well what that meant.
Aaron was capable of a stillness that went on for so long, it creeped me out. Maybe he was sleeping in those long stretches of time where there was no sound, but I heard no change in his breathing. Nothing that told me he’d begun to rest.
Mostly, he was all over the place with his movements, and the floorboards told me where he was, if he was close or far.
Now?
He was close.
My heart began to pound as terror flooded me.
“Dirty bitch,” he howled as he tugged the blindfold down to my chin so he could glower at me. “I just stepped in it!”
My mouth quivered as I stared up at him. The only reason my eyes didn’t ache was because it was so dark in here, so dark that there was barely any difference between having my eyes covered up and exposed.
When his fist came again, I screamed as the pain hit me. He’d already hurt my nose twice, but this time?
My scream was a mixture of my terror, bewilderment, and agony, and when I released it, it was like that was the trigger for my salvation.
Even as tears flooded my eyes, making my vision blurry, I saw him. He came through the window, rolling through it like some kind of ninja from one of those stupid cartoons Jamie liked watching.
One second, Ink was rolling onto the ground, and the next? He was there. With barely any squeaking from the floorboards, he was behind Aaron, holding a gun to the temple of the boy I’d known so long ago and now didn’t know at all.