Footsteps down the hallway and the man with the scar emerges. Violet limps in behind him. I stand so quickly that the legs of the chair bounce against the floor. She glances over at me and the lost expression on her face is worse than any punch.
Nausea twists my gut. She was alone with him and I fell for it. Skull waved his right hand in order for me to lose focus on his left. “You okay?”
She nods.
“Did he hurt you?”
Violet shakes her head and it bothers me she’s gone mute.
I set my sights on Skull and make it perfectly clear we’re done talking. “Call Eli now, get us home or I swear to God I’ll make each of you bleed before you get a chance to put a bullet in my brain.”
Skull laughs like I told a joke, but stands, pulls his cell out of his pocket and slides it to me. “Once you get ahold of Eli and tell him you’re okay, give the phone to me and I’ll tell him where to pick the two of you up.”
Violet
I’M BLINDFOLDED AGAIN and I’m handcuffed. The car is different, but my placement in the backseat isn’t. This time it was Chevy who placed the cuff on my wrist, then folded the bandana over my eyes. He did both with such care, touching me like I was on the verge of shattering, looking at me with such tender eyes that I wanted to weep.
The blindfold was a “request” from Skull, but the one wrist handcuffed was Chevy’s idea. He didn’t trust them to blindfold us and keep us together. I still don’t trust that they’re taking us to Eli, that they’re taking us home.
Before Chevy did either, he whispered, “Do you trust me?”
Of course I did. Trusted him to be the first boy to hold my hand. Trusted him to be the first boy I kissed. Trusted him to be the first for so many things. Did I trust him with my life? I held out my wrist, then stepped closer so I could allow him to blindfold me.
More than the car is different. The backseat doesn’t smell of rotten food. The material of the seats isn’t torn. The engine doesn’t roar. This ride is quiet. No radio. No one talking. The engine barely a purr.
This time Chevy sits with me in the backseat. Our legs are pressed tight together and he hooked one of his fingers with mine. He continuously slides his finger up and down in a reassuring caress. Not too fast, not too slow. It’s like a heartbeat.
A promise.
We’re going home.
He’s here with me.
It’s going to be okay.
I want to believe him, but I’m not sure if I can. There’s a nagging sensation that we’re reaching the end and not as in the they-all-lived-happily-ever-after, but as in the tragic finality of a nightmare.
My mouth is dry, my blood feels funny as it courses through my veins. Never thought much about breathing until this all happened. How air feels so good coming into my lungs and refreshing as it leaves. How each inhale and exhale is a gift.
Never thought too much about how a comforting touch from someone you care for is a blessing. Chevy is a blessing. Breathing is a gift. My heart beats a bit faster. I could be on the verge of losing both.
The car leaves the smoothness of a paved road and Chevy and I jostle into each other as the car dips and rocks. We’re on a dirt path. A knot forms in my throat. Not good. Not good at all. My stomach flips, and I breathe out to try to calm my nerves, but it doesn’t help.
Chevy shifts, his head near mine, his breath warm on my ear. “You and me, Violet. We’re going to get through this. Just do what I say when I say it.”
I nod. Together. We’re going to survive this together.
The car slows to a stop, a door opens and my heart beats in my ears. Chevy fidgets next to me, leaning forward. There’s a click, and a loosening of the handcuff and then the blindfold is lifted from my eyes. I blink at the brightness and snap my head in Chevy’s direction when his door opens. Both of his hands are free, the handcuff still on my wrist, but I’m not bound to anyone or anything anymore.
Chevy slides out and I scramble across the seat to follow. Frantically, I glance around, searching for Eli, but besides Justin, there’s not another living soul. Trees. Lots of trees. Trees full of colored leaves and the sunlight filtering through the thick branches, but no Eli.
They lied.
A hollowness in my stomach and the world tilts. Chevy grabs my hand and yanks me. “Run, Violet!”
He shoves me away from the car, away from Justin, away from him, but instead I reach out for Chevy, to force him to come with me. I will not abandon him now.
“Eli’s at the other end of this road,” Justin says in such a calm way that it’s frightening. “A half mile. I didn’t bring you out here to kill you, I’m sending you home.”
I grab on to Chevy’s wrist. He readjusts, taking my fingers with his.
Justin sets his hard glare on me. “I already explained we want peace. Me and Eli in the same breathing space means war. Safer for both of our clubs to drop you off here.”
“Then get in the car and leave,” Chevy says.
Justin glances over me, as if he’s trying to judge whether or not I’ll do what he’s asked. As a reminder of what they could do to my brother and mother if I don’t.
Without another word, Justin returns to the car. The world has an unreal quality to it, as if I’m watching a movie, as he U-turns and drives back the way he came.
We’re free.
Yet the adrenaline coursing through my veins doesn’t feel like relief. My back itches like someone is watching, my entire body vibrates with the sense we’re about to be ambushed—as if I’ll never be safe again.
The wind blows through the trees, making a clapping sound, and the breeze is cold against my cheeks. Chevy’s hand is warm and strong. We watch Justin’s car leave. Rocks cracking under the pressure of the tires. Dirt blowing up as a cloud in the wind.
The dust settles, the car retreats around a bend, the sound of the rocks being driven over and the purring engine fade yet we still stare in the direction Justin disappeared. As if we’re both frightened to turn our backs and tempt fate to drag us back to the basement prison.
Chevy pulls on my hand. “Let’s go.”
He steps forward, I walk with him and unbelievable pain shoots through my knee. I falter, clinging to Chevy as I try not to fall to the ground. The pain then leaks into my blood and every bruise, every cut throbs in agony. I gasp, confused how I had gone from no pain to sheer torture.
Chevy steadies me. “You okay?”
I nod, but I’m not, and from the sympathetic way he looks at me, he’s aware. With a sturdy arm around my waist, we go forward. Each step causes my muscles to twinge, my knee to give, bringing me to a new level of exhaustion, but each of those steps brings me closer to home, brings Chevy closer to home, and he needs to be home.
He needs stitches for the gash on his head, he needs a doctor to look at the eye that’s so swollen I’m sure he can barely see and he needs to be safe and secure and as far from the Riot as possible.
We hobble up a hill and that’s when we see them—Eli, Cyrus, Pigpen and a whole group of men. They’re leaning against their motorcycles, but the moment they see us, they straighten and some of them are on the move in our direction. Chevy’s grip tightens on me and I lean into him. My eyes water and it becomes too blurry to see. We made it. We’re going home.
Chevy starts down the hill, but this time when my knee gives, I go down with it. The hard ground is honestly a blessing and my fingers touch the grass and dirt like it’s a pillow and a bed. I don’t hunker down, but I consider it. Dream of resting my head and going to sleep. Then I can begin to pretend this was all just a bad dream, an awful dream.
“We’re almost there.” Chevy crouches beside me.
I’m too tired to talk. Too afraid if I do, then I’ll discover that this part of the nightmare—the part where it might end well—w
as a dream. I’ll twitch my finger, awaken and be back in the basement. I glance up at Chevy and the sun beaming behind him hurts my eyes.
“I’m not going without you.” Chevy slides his arms under my knees, along my back, and lifts me, cradling me against his chest as he walks toward his family. I’m too exhausted to argue. Only have the strength to slip my arms around his neck and rest my head in the crook of his neck.
“We’re almost there,” he says again. “Almost home. They see us and they’re coming for us now. We’re going to be okay.”
Okay repeats in my head, circles over and over again. Somehow I don’t think Chevy and I will find a way to be okay again.
CHEVY
THE NURSES SEPARATED me and Violet in the ER and I’m about to lose my mind. Being wheeled from place to place, IV in my arm keeping me grounded most of the day, too much time wasted in an MRI machine searching for a concussion that didn’t exist. Five staples in my head later and I’m wheeled back to my room with promises of being discharged.
The nurses are pissed Pigpen gave me a fresh pair of jeans and a T-shirt to change into. The hospital gown wasn’t cutting it.
I did allow the staff to numb my head for the staples, but I’ve refused pain medication. Don’t need my brain fogged. Need to think straight. Need to be in control.
I’m seventeen, which means pediatric ward, and I’m having a hard time digesting pictures of clowns holding kittens. I’ve had a gun held on me by an illegal motorcycle club. While having the hell beat out of me, I caught glimpses of the only girl I’ve ever loved running into the line of fire...for me.
When that bang reverberated against my skin, my soul crumbled because I thought she was dead. I thought I was dead. And if I wasn’t dead, I wasn’t sure how I could go on living without her. Kittens and clowns don’t make sense to me anymore. Feels abnormal in dark reality.
The aide turns the corner and outside my room are men in Reign of Terror black leather cuts and my mother. From the way she’s shaking her head and finger, black hair swinging from side to side, she’s furious and she has a right to be. I went missing, I scared her and Mom doesn’t handle scared well.
“I want you out of his life.” Mom points in the direction of the elevators. “I want you gone. I want all of you gone.”
“I understand you’re upset, Nina.” Cyrus holds up his hands in an act of submission. “But I have every right to be here.”
“Right?” Mom’s eyes bulge from her head. “You have no rights.”
Not in the mood to play referee, I place a hand on the tire of my wheelchair. The aide looks down at me and I say, “That’s my dysfunction in the hallway. Mind leaving me here for a few?”
He’s a young guy, probably in his twenties. With an expression of you-would-have-fared-better-being-born-to-wolverines, he backs me up without the beeping and offers me a weak fist bump before heading to the nurses’ station.
I’m angled so they’d have to really search to see me, but I can watch them.
“He was kidnapped!” Mom leans into Cyrus like she’s willing to punch him in the gut. “Do you even understand what that means? He was held against his will. My son had an MRI performed, is getting staples in his head because a rival motorcycle gang you have a problem with took him against his will and hurt him. As far as I’m concerned, you lost the right to see him the moment they laid hands on him.”
“He’s my grandson,” Cyrus states calmly, and I swear Mom’s hair stands on end.
“And he’s my son. Not yours. You lost yours and don’t you forget I know why you lost James. Not many people in town can say that, can they? But I know and I will not make the same mistakes you did. Leave now or I’m telling the police to shove you out.”
The area near the staples in my head pulses. James. My father. The Riot said he was a traitor. The pulse turns into a pound and I rub at my head, trying to avoid the cut. What did Skull mean by traitor? What does it mean for me, if anything, if he was?
Thinking of what Skull told me about my father, my mind wanders. I’ve never questioned anyone on my father’s relationship with Mom or his family. Felt the tug-of-war strings being pulled at an early age, so I decided to stay neutral. Bringing up my father meant inviting people to make me choose a side.
“Excuse me.” A nurse in Hello Kitty scrubs who couldn’t weigh a buck twenty wet enters the fray and cracks a clipboard against the wall to gain everyone’s attention. According to her name tag, her name is Becky. “All of you need to either take this outside, away from the hospital, or stop. This is a hospital, a children’s floor for that matter, not a bar.”
I wince on Mom’s behalf.
Nurse Becky scans Cyrus, then my mother. “I don’t have a problem calling the police on either of you.” She then surveys the rest of the guys in the hallway. “Or on any of you. That was your first and only warning.”
Becky walks away, Mom and Cyrus communicate through glares and my aide returns. “That help?”
Yes. No. “For the short-term.”
“Pain meds, bro. It’s the way to handle the long-term.” The aide wheels me back around the corner and this time Mom, Cyrus and the rest of the crew hanging in the hallway notice. Most of the guys offer some sort of greeting, my grandfather looks at me like he’s proud and my mother smiles in sadness.
They create a clog my aide won’t push through and I’m stuck in the hallway. Mom on one side. Cyrus on the other. Tug-of-war.
“You okay?” Mom’s face turns an ugly shade of gray as her eyes wander over my head. On top of scared not being her thing, neither is blood.
“Yeah. Where’s Violet?” Not being near her is a crazy itch that needs to be scratched.
“They’re taking a look at her knee,” answers Cyrus. “Running some tests. Eli’s promised to stay with her. You did good looking after Violet. Let us take that burden now.”
Mom coughs in disgust, Cyrus’s eyes narrow on her and I push the wheelchair forward on my own. Mom and Cyrus are smart enough to move out of the way.
Footsteps follow me into the room and a glance back verifies that Cyrus, Pigpen and Mom are the only ones who come in. Good thing they’re also smart enough to stay away as I stand and then sit my ass back onto the hospital bed. One more person tries to help me and I’ll be throwing punches.
Outside, the lamps to the parking lot are lit and headlights go up and down the main county road. I’m lost as to what time or day it is. Lost is a great way to describe everything.
“I want to see Violet,” I say, and nobody argues with me. Nobody says shit, but nobody argues. Maybe they all went deaf. “I said, I want to see Violet.”
“After she comes back from the tests, I’ll see what I can do,” Cyrus says.
I don’t like that answer and I don’t like how Cyrus paces to the window to look out, turning his back to me.
“She okay?” I press.
Like a fucked-up checklist, I go through our time with the Riot. Relive in rapid succession every hit, every punch, every slap she took—I relive the gunshot and I flinch. Everyone notices, but no one says a thing. As if maybe if they do speak, I’ll explode.
Mom crosses the room and sits on my bed next to me. She wears the same clothes as when I dropped her off at work on Friday night. Same tank, same jeans, same earrings and that’s when I notice she’s not just gray, she’s exhausted. Black circles under her eyes and pronounced worry lines.
She reaches out, brushes my hair away from my forehead like I’m a child, then takes my hand. I let her but then flip them so that my hand covers hers—so I’m the one offering the comfort. I don’t like it when Mom’s scared.
“Jenny said Violet’s not talking,” Mom says.
Jenny. Violet’s mom. The pounding in my head ceases, but it’s an insane silence that follows. “What do you mean not talking?”
“Violet nods and shakes her head,” Mom continues. “Verifying information only through that show of a yes or a no. Violet seems to understand everything that’s being said to her and she seems lucid enough through the painkillers they’ve given her to respond to difficult questions this way, but it’s scaring Jenny.”
It’s scaring Mom. I glance around. Neither Cyrus nor Pigpen will meet my gaze and the two grown men wearing black leather cuts shuffle their feet. Must scare them, too. Got to admit, I don’t care for the unsettling happening within me.
“The police want to talk to you and Violet,” Cyrus says.
“Okay.” No news there. Two undercover officers were with Eli at the end of the dirt road. The Terror involved them from the start. We haven’t been questioned yet, though, and I’m guessing that’s because we were bloody, bruised, and Violet has a busted knee. “But I’m asking about Violet.”
“Before they talk to you,” he continues, “I need to know—with how she’s acting. Did they...”
My skin prickles as a darkness rolls through me. I know what he’s asking. The same thing I asked Violet in the basement.
“Did they hurt Violet?” Pure menace leaks from Cyrus’s voice.
Cyrus, Pigpen and I talked not long after I was admitted. That dead period after the hospital figures out you’re not dying but still need tests. Mom left to fill out paperwork and I told them as much as I could. The play-by-play and who was involved.
They listened, grimly nodded as I gave them the down low, but I didn’t get beyond the head of the Riot showing up and explaining it was all a mistake. Mom returned and I didn’t want her involved in the details. Don’t want her sucked into any of this nightmare.
Pigpen readjusts on the wall he leans against. “We know she was hurt, but—”
“I know what you’re asking,” I cut him off. “She was alone with the Riot in the back of the car.”