Fearless
by
Priscilla West
Copyright © 2014 Blackbird Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Copyright © 2014 Blackbird Publishing
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Chapter One: Run
Chapter Two: Damaged
Chapter Three: The Morning After
Chapter Four: The Show Must Go On
Chapter Five: Wait
Chapter Six: Doctor's Orders
Chapter Seven: On The Road
Chapter Eight: Change
Chapter Nine: Nightfall
Chapter Ten: Storm
Chapter Eleven: In The Dark
Chapter Twelve: Doubts
Chapter Thirteen: Take Care
Chapter Fourteen: A Loss
Chapter Fifteen: Anarchy
Chapter Sixteen: Losing It
Chapter Seventeen: Disorientation
Chapter Eighteen: Burnout
Chapter Nineteen: Moving On
Chapter Twenty: Fuck
Chapter Twenty-One: It's a Boy
Chapter Twenty-Two: Fearless
Epilogue
Chapter One
RUN
Vicious scrapes covered my arms and legs. Pain throbbed steadily in my left cheek. Dull shockwaves pounded against the inside of my skull like someone repeatedly hitting my brain with a hammer. But worst of all, my eyes stung.
The tears threatened to fall, and I couldn't stop them. It was all so out of my control. All of it. The whole situation.
Everything was broken.
As my rock star boyfriend, Jax, leaned his chest against my back on the rumbling motorcycle, his soft, irregular breaths blowing against my ear, I knew nothing would ever be the same after tonight. If only we could rewind everything, to go back to that beautiful night in Las Vegas when it seemed like our world was unshakable.
I reluctantly brushed my cheek with the back of my hand, sweeping away the tears along with my hopes.
We can't go back. Not now. Not after what had happened.
My mind flashed back to how that ruthless biker gang, the Reapers, spit on Jax while he laid on the ground, broken and bloodied. They were led by Darrel, Jax's father—the monster who had beaten Jax as a child so many years ago, leaving him scarred, on the outside and the inside. I couldn't begin to imagine what it would be like to grow up with an abusive parent. To be small and helpless against the one adult who was supposed to love and protect you. He was the reason Jax walled himself off from everyone. He was the reason Jax holed himself off in his room, the Fortress of Solitude, escaping from the world through writing music.
And after all these years apart, he had beaten Jax again.
My hand tightened around the throttle as my sorrow boiled into anger. White-knuckled with my teeth clenched, I struggled to contain the storm brewing inside my chest until I couldn't anymore. Liquid fury rushed through my veins. They hurt him. They hurt Jax.
No one was going to hurt the man I loved and get away with it.
No, this wasn't fucking over yet.
In the driver seat, ready to go, I secured Jax's arms around my waist and raised the flaming bottle above my head.
"What are you doing?" Jax managed. His voice lacked the strength I'd grown accustomed to over the course of the tour, and I could barely hear him over the rumbling of the motorcycle.
My heart breaking for him, I lifted his bruised hand to my mouth and kissed it tenderly. "Burning away the past."
My fingers gripped the bottle hard. With the burning blouse sleeve hanging out the top beginning to singe my hand, I cocked my arm and heaved the bottle at full strength toward the house.
The bottle spun wildly, the flame at its tip lighting up the darkness as it ascended into the night sky. For a brief moment time stood still. All the anger. All the frustration. All the pain disappeared—eclipsed by one beautiful image—a jagged orange streak suspended above a row of rusty trailers stitched together like segments of a decomposed centipede.
That squalid hovel had been Jax's home, once. A house full of demons. He'd brought me to this place to show me his pain, to share with me the ugly scars he'd hidden from everyone else around him. It meant so much to me. It meant more than I imagined anything could.
Silhouetted against the blackness, the bottle flipped end over end as it began to descend, ushering a surreal silence in its wake.
The sound of my own heart pounded in my ears as an electric numbness washed over my body. My eyes widened in anticipation as the bottle fell toward its target.
This was it. The moment we fought back.
With a crash, the bottle struck a tree branch belonging to a gnarled cypress overhanging the driveway. Glass and alcohol exploded in a shower of fire, raining tiny orange-red comets onto the grass and asphalt below, shattering the stillness.
The street erupted into fast-moving chaos. Liquid flames sizzled out into the lawn, igniting the dry California grass. Fire crackled around Darrel's Cadillac and the bikes nearby, sending tendrils of hazy smoke into the air.
My stomach knotted with sudden, spiraling fear.
Oh God. What have I done?
I'd been stupid for boyfriends before. I'd done things I shouldn't have. But I'd never done anything like this.
Jax's mouth was open. His half-swollen eyes were wide. Dancing red-orange flames reflected off his dark irises. I tried to read the emotions I saw in the hard lines on his sculpted face, but his eyes were somewhere else.
Then, something charred and acrid stung my nostrils. My heart pounding, I shot a glance at Darrel's Cadillac parked in the driveway and saw the tires melting into the asphalt, bubbling up clouds of black smoke.
My limbs froze as I stared with horror at the growing inferno.
Through the haze, something shifted. The sound of rusty hinges creaking pierced through the crackling fire.
When I realized the source, my heart raced faster.
The door to Darrel's trailer.
"What the fuck?" A deep voice cried out. "Hey, boss, the bikes are on fire!"
I couldn't make out through the smoke who was talking, but then an unmistakable second voice boomed above the first one. "I'm gonna get that little punk!" Darrel growled. "And his bitch girlfriend, too!"
The situation hit me in full force. Darrel and his gang had let us go. We'd been free to leave, wounded with our tails between our legs, but free nonetheless. But now, after what I just did . . . A series of sobering realizations bombarded me in a sudden, sickening rush: Could I drive this motorcycle? Did I even remember how to get us out of here? What the hell was I thinking?
My stomach coiled viciously. I wanted to vomit.
We might not live through tonight. And it's all my fault.
The smoke rose in black plumes, burning my nose as I breathed in, making me gag, but I managed to stop myself from heaving.
Then I saw where the flames had spread, and my eyes widened in horror. Crackling at the underside of the black Cadillac—Darrel's car—not far from the gas tank, the flames licked against metal.
"Hang on!" I cried to Jax frantically. "I'm getting us out of here!"
Jax moaned a wordless reply and I twisted the throttle. The engine growled in response, sending the bike speeding along the asphalt. We shifted precariously from side to side, Jax's wei
ght on the back throwing the bike off-balance. Heart pounding against my ribcage, I turned left at the stop sign, hoping to god it was the way out.
Behind us, the Reapers shouted to one another.
"Get a fucking hose!" one bellowed.
"Our goddamn bikes!" another shouted.
As I turned the next corner, their voices began to fade. A feeling of thankfulness slipped into my chest, momentarily placating the fear and anxiety that had lodged there.
We were out. We were going to make it.
Suddenly, the ground shook beneath us.
BOOM!
What sounded like a missile exploding thundered somewhere from behind us. My grip on the handlebar jolted.
The gas tank of the Cadillac.
The bike careened off course toward the side of the street. The wrecked car I'd seen earlier stood directly in our path.
Screaming, I yanked the handle and jerked us back to the road—narrowly avoiding a head-on collision, but knocking off the right rear-view mirror in the process.
I righted the bike, managing to go straight ahead for the next few blocks without crashing. Barely. I wanted to stop, but I couldn't. I knew they'd be after us. I needed to get us as far away from this place as possible.
The cold wind whipped my hair wildly and raised goosebumps on my skin. I briefly clasped my hand over Jax's hand around my waist, ensuring he was holding onto me. His arms squeezed against my sides weakly.
"Stay with me, Jax," I cried. "Just stay here with me."
My mouth felt like I'd been eating cotton balls. Fear gripped my insides. The orange glow of the streetlights shimmered above us as I turned onto a four-lane road.
"Jax?" I shouted out. "Is anyone following us? Can you see anyone?"
Behind me, Jax moved slowly. After a few seconds, he called back: "No. No one. Not that I can see, anyway . . ."
The Reapers were probably busy putting out the fire, giving us the head start we so desperately needed. As the sign for the freeway approached, I quickly turned onto the ramp, hoping the extra speed would lose them for good.
I pushed the throttle higher, propelling us toward the traffic on I-5. The cars whizzed by like bullets, leaving a draft in their wake that teetered the bike dangerously. Too scared to go faster, I found myself in the right lane, being passed in a blur by the traffic around me.
BEEEEEP!
A sharp horn blast from behind nearly made me jump off the bike. As I checked my mirror, I expected to see Darrel preparing to ram us. Instead, there was a teenage kid in a Honda Civic, passing us on the left like we were standing still.
"Learn to ride, asshole!" the kid called back, his mop-top head momentarily jutting out from the driver side window.
"What's going on?" Jax said, sounding dazed. "Why are you going . . . going so slow?"
I checked the speedometer, expecting to see the gauge at highway speed, but it was barely reaching forty. "It's hard to keep control of the bike! I don't want to go any faster than I'm going right now!"
"Faster is easier. More momentum . . . just . . . try faster. You'll see. Trust me."
I wanted to object, but feeling stuck between a rock and a hard place, I mentally crossed my fingers and pushed the throttle higher.
The engine growled as the bike picked up speed. Oncoming wind whipped my hair back and forced me to squint my eyes. The wobbling began to fade, and within moments, the bike seemed to stabilize.
Suddenly, a car lurched into our lane, cutting the bike off, and stopping my heart.
Clenching the handlebars in a death grip, I swerved, feeling the bike tilt beneath me.
"Fuck!" I screamed, zipping through a space between a car and a pickup truck.
When the offending car passed us, I broke into a cold sweat. But judging by the "I
Jesus. That prick could have killed us.
As I tried to calm my frantic heartbeat, I saw something beautiful just a little further ahead: six lanes of middle-of-the-night, empty, black Los Angeles freeway, just one blue Ford pickup truck away. A surge of adrenaline coursed through me as I pushed the bike past eighty.
"Eat my dust!" I cried to the truck, releasing newly pent-up frustration toward California drivers. The driver of the pickup flashed his middle finger at me as I watched him fade out of sight in the rear-view mirror. The further we went, the clearer it was getting that wherever the Reapers were, they hadn't followed us onto the highway. Their bikes were huge—and loud.
Before I could relax, I felt Jax's grip around my waist loosen.
"Keep talking to me, Jax," I called back to him nervously.
His arms squeezed tight again. His fingers were tense this time, almost clenched. From pain? I didn't know.
Finally, his words came out. "Just . . . get me home, okay? Take me home."
I shot a quick glance back at him with narrowed eyes. "But you're hurt!" I cried.
"I'm fine. Had worse nights than this." His voice sounded like he was gritting his teeth.
"Jax, I think we should take you to—"
Red-and-blue lights flashed in the mirrors, and a siren blast echoed through the night.
Oh god. No. It was the worst case scenario.
"Shit! The cops are right behind us!" I shouted to Jax.
I'd been so scared about the Reapers that I hadn't even thought about the police. But it all made sense. I'd committed arson and destroyed property. I was a criminal. A fugitive from justice.
But I couldn't go to jail. Not for this. Not now.
I pushed the throttle.
As the bike picked up speed, Jax grabbed my waist sharply. "No!" he shouted, more forceful than I'd heard him since his last interaction with Darrel. "Pull over to the side. Let me handle it."
Behind us, the sirens were close and getting closer. My head swam with terror. The world was collapsing around me, and there was nothing I could do about it.
Tears streamed down my eyes as I started pulling over to the side of the road.
This is it. End of the line.
My career was over, and so was Jax's. We'd be humiliated, disgraced in the tabloids. I'd have to move back in with my parents . . . if they'd even take me in after finding out their daughter was an arsonist. I'd get one phone call. I tried to remember Kristen's number. Could she bail me out, hire a lawyer? It would be mortifying to call her and Vincent, but they were my best hope.
As I slowed down, the sirens got impossibly loud and close behind me. Then a pair of cop cars sped past us like we didn't even exist. They zoomed off, chasing a red sports car further down the road.
I took a long, deep breath, trying not to sob with relief. What was I thinking? The Reapers were a biker gang. They'd probably committed worse crimes than arson. They probably wouldn't call the cops on us even if their lives depended on it—at least, I hoped not.
Releasing a breath of relief, I revved the engine. Feeling a little more confident on the motorcycle now, I found myself zipping deftly to pass cars and trucks. As I steered the bike off the interstate, I started to recognize the area near the Roman, where the bus was parked.
And that left just one obstacle: the guard at the gate. I breathed deep, trying to keep my emotions under control as I slowed down to stop at the security booth.
"Beautiful ride," the guard said, looking the motorcycle over from top to bottom. He was muscular, broad-shouldered, and his bronze nametag said "Gus." I tried to keep my hands from shaking as we idled in front of him. "You're from the Hitchcocks, right?" he asked.
"That's right," I said. Good thing he recognized us. I didn't have any ID on me, and I had no idea if Jax had brought his.
"Geez," Gus said, taking a long look over Jax in the dark. "He looks like he had a long night."
I gulped. "He, had a couple drinks too many," I said, surprising myself with the sudden lie. "Fell down on the sidewalk."
Gus shot Jax a knowing smirk. "I hear that, man," he said sym
pathetically. "I used to be a bouncer."
Even though it seemed like the coast was clear, I couldn't shake the prickle at the back of my neck. "Has anyone come around looking for us?"
Gus's face suddenly looked concerned. "Looking for you? Like who?"
I froze. "No one. Forget I said it. Everything's okay here, though?"
Gus bent out of the security booth, using his flashlight to peer at Jax and me carefully. In the harsh glow, I could already see angry bruises forming on Jax's face.
"Are you sure you two are okay? He looks pretty beat up."
Jax put his hands over his face, shielding his eyes from the flashlight's glare. "We're fine! Stop shining that thing in my goddamn face, will you?"
My eyes widened. I hadn't expected Jax to be so coherent. Or so angry. "I'm sorry," I cut in quickly. "It's like I said, he's been a little overserved. It's been hard enough just getting him back home, so if you could do us a huge favor and just . . . don't tell anyone we were here. We just want to get some sleep."
Gus's face softened, and he shook his head with a smile.
"I guess you're only young once," he said, a conspiratorial gleam in his eye. "Don't worry, your secret's safe with me. Have a good night, you two."
Numb from the shock of the night, all I could do was nod and smile weakly.
Gus pressed a button on the panel in front of him, and the gates opened wide. "Make sure he drinks plenty of water," he chuckled. "The morning after's a bitch!"
I looked back to give him a half-hearted grin, then turned to see where we were going.
It was only as we saw the bus across the lot that I finally felt my sense of impending doom lift. There it was, in all its glory: a triple-decker touring band's dream, complete with rooftop hot tub. When we drove behind the bus and saw the black-and-gold storage trailer, I realized I could finally feel my hands again.
I'd been taking things a moment at a time since getting on the bike, but the enormity of what I'd done hit me with full force as my breathing started to return to normal. God, it could have been so much worse. If the flames from the bottle hadn't reached the Reapers' bikes or the car . . .