“Breathe,” he says, tilting his head to the side. His shaggy hair falls and covers one side of his face.
No fucking shit. Who’s the doctor again?
I close my eyes and inhale through my nose, calming myself and letting my emotions take a back seat, so logic can take over. Instead of explaining, I only say one word, “Joanna.”
Tongue’s menacing eyes, usually narrow and hard, carrying a dark void, lighten. He’s surprised, but he doesn’t ask questions. He nods and jogs toward his hog that is four rows down. He doesn’t bother with a helmet, he never does; no matter what I tell him about injuries, he always grunts and shrugs.
He cranks his bike and backs it out, keeping his feet balanced on either side. For a minute, I’m confused about what he’s doing. When he turns his head over his shoulder, the skull on his cut matches the threat etched in his jawline, and I realize he’s coming with me.
I don’t have an issue cranking my bike now that I have my shit together. A few more guys come out the front door, and Reaper hurries down the steps but stops when he sees that I’m not going to explain myself. My engine grumbles as I peel out of the dirt parking lot, kicking dust into Tongue’s face.
Braveheart opens the gate when he sees me, and the heavy iron creaks as it swings wide. Tongue stops next to me. His handlebars are much longer than mine, along with his front wheel. His bike is custom, fresh out of the shop. The body of it is a skeleton, and the head has a tongue sticking out of it as if it is manic. It’s fucking badass.
“You don’t have to come,” I say.
“I know,” he clips, revving his engine. I wait for him to say more, but he doesn’t, which isn’t new. He isn’t talkative. His actions speak louder than his words, and the fact that he’s coming with me tells me he’s always going to have my back. His knife glitters against his hip as we ride forward.
I gun the gas, swerving in and out to miss the damn potholes Reaper refuses to fill. He says they will ‘slow down the enemy’ but honestly, they’re slowing me down from getting to Joanna.
When we get to the end of the dirt road and the pavement is a tire roll away, I think about the last time I saw Jo. Patrick was in the hospital, and I was so fucking worried about her. I hadn’t asked her what was going on because I thought she needed space. I let her go to school while I went back to work for the club, and I regret it.
If I had given in to what I really wanted to do, maybe this wouldn’t have happened.
I turn right and head down Loneliest Road. I peek in my rearview to see Tongue behind me, but I hear a few more bikes. Tongue moves to the side, and that’s when I see four more men following me, all Ruthless Kings, my brothers.
They have my back, and they will have Jo’s. They don’t even know why they are following me. The guys know something is wrong. I heard the wheezing in her voice, the pain, the defeat, and the way she sounded was the way I felt for so many years. When my dad died, my nightmare ended, but the memories couldn’t be forgotten since I had dozens of scars on my back to show for them.
She and I have way too much in common when it comes to pain. I’m not afraid to admit that the thought of loving someone, letting them inside and taking root scares me. Someone will own my soul and then tear it to shreds; isn’t that what love does? It fucks you up, makes you second guess everything, makes you want more of this fucked-up merry-go-round of abuse. It’s a form of enslavement to want the love of the person who loves you the least. No matter how hard you try, no matter the good you do, at the end of the day, their love comes with terms and conditions.
It’s the fine print you forget to read before jumping in with two feet, but by the time you want out, it’s too late.
I’ve been stuck in the abusive loop before, and I refuse to make myself weak like that again. I’ve bowed down, I’ve kissed ass, and I’ve begged. I’ve thrown my dignity out the window to gain a minute of peace only to be cut in the next minute.
And you think, maybe tomorrow. Tomorrow, I’ll be better. Tomorrow, they will love me more. There’s always a tomorrow.
And adding a wound to the wounded is unnecessary roughness.
That feeling when your gut is screaming at you to get out, to leave, that tightness gripping your insides and twisting—listen to it. It’s never wrong. The longer someone waits to save themselves, the deeper the scars will become.
Her school isn’t far, and while she doesn’t come home often, we haven’t bothered her because we thought she was living her best life, away from the club, away from the reasons she’s in pain. We wanted her to get back on her own feet.
A fucking mistake on our end. We gave her too much space when we should’ve been holding her close.
When I should’ve been holding her close.
The thought brings cramps in my chest, but at least in my arms she’d be safe, and she wouldn’t be alone.
Jo, what are you thinking? What did you do?
I tighten my grip on the throttle and speed up, the exhaust popping from the power coursing through the engine. The lone red light comes to view, and we all roll to a slow stop. The desert is a sea of nothing on either side of us, cacti, rocks, snakes, and a few other creatures that I wouldn’t want to come across.
Peering to my right, I see the Vegas skyline and the bustling strip that parties twenty-four hours a day. It’s a fun place to be, a good place to blow off steam, to get laid, and to get drunk. I think back to when we were supposed to go out for Sarah’s birthday, but we never did because shit went down.
Shit is always going down.
“Doc!” Tongue yells at me when the light turns green.
I shake my head and accelerate, letting the wind slash against my cheeks, bringing me to the present. I check my rearview again, and the bikes are closer for me to decipher who it is. Badge, Tank, Slingshot, and Tool.
Five minutes later, I’m pulling up to her apartment and park in the nearest spot. It’s the nicest, safest complex we could find. I put my bike in park and jab the kickstand down on the fresh pavement.
I don’t wait for the guys to park. I throw my helmet down, smashing it against the ground, and I run. I jump over the hedges, landing right before the staircase. I grip the rail and take the steps at lightning speed. There are scratches against the steps, scuffs against the walls from people moving furniture in and out. When I get to the top, I use the rail as leverage to swing myself around and sling myself down the hall. My breath is coming out in short pants, and I can hear Badge on the phone with 911 requesting assistance and an ambulance. I don’t know how he knows that. Maybe it’s the cop in him; all I know is that I’m thankful because every second matters.
Her door is the last one on the right, and when I get to it, I don’t bother grabbing the frosted silver handle or knocking. I lift my leg and shoot it forward. My boot connects with the wood right next to the lock. The door shatters. Pieces of it fly and hit me in the face. The hinges groan, trying to support what’s left of the door. I step inside, the silence worrisome.
“Jo? Jo, are you here? Talk to me,” I call out, my boots crunching against the debris on the floor as I step inside, waiting for her sweet, quiet voice. I glance around, looking for some sort of intrusion, struggle, anything that might tell my instincts that this isn’t what I think it is. But as I head toward the bedroom, an invisible wall of what smells like blood smacks me right in the face. “Jo,” her name leaves my lips as a realization hits me. I launch forward and push the door open, and what I see almost has me crumbling to my knees.