and off to the side down a hallway. Moose went with us, bringing up the rear and pushing away others who tried to get to me. So far, no one was trying for Taylor. I looked back to find Heather, but I couldn’t see her. There was just a mass of people fighting.
“Come on.” Chad shoved open a door, and we saw an egress window. He pulled out the screen and climbed out, then ripped through the covering. He lifted Taylor and tossed her out onto the lawn. I was next, falling half on top of Taylor. We rolled to our feet quickly, and Chad and Moose climbed out behind us.
“Let’s go.” Chad pointed to the cars and started running, holding Taylor’s arm.
I began running with them, following Moose. They could get Taylor to safety, but I had to go back to find Mason and Logan. I knew they were here; Mason’s black Escalade was parked on the lawn. Moose fell back, glancing at me.
I waved him on. “I’m right behind you.”
He nodded, and the three of them ran faster.
I couldn’t wait any longer. I turned and sprinted back for the house.
“Sam!” Taylor yelled after me.
I kept going, shouting over my shoulder, “Mason and Logan are here. I have to!”
I heard a smattering of curses and knew at least one person was coming after me. An arm wrapped around my waist, and I was suddenly in the air.
“No!” I began fighting. I needed to get free.
“Fuck’s sakes. You’re insane.” It was Chad. He grunted, evading my legs. “Okay, okay. I’ll go with you if you stop hitting m—” My elbow smacked his chin.
“Oh.” I cringed. “I’m sorry.”
“Stop, okay? Stop.”
I nodded, waiting till my feet were on the ground. He set me down and backed away with his hands in the air. “I’m not going to stop you, but I have to go with you. Okay? I have to. Channing told me to protect you.”
I nodded again. “They’re my family.”
“I get that.” He glanced at the house. The fighting had spilled out to the yard. He cursed, then yanked off his sweatshirt. He held it out to me. “Put that on.” As I did, he pulled the hood forward. “Maybe this will help camouflage you a bit.”
I pulled my hair forward, too, and started running ahead. Chad caught up and ran next to me, and we began shouldering our way back inside.
There were more screams, more shouts, more everything.
I could smell blood in the air. Blood and sweat.
Then everything slowed down, and I watched my nightmare come to life. I couldn’t get to Mason and Logan. They were going to be hurt, and I couldn’t do anything to stop it. I was pushing, pulling, and clawing my way through, and still I couldn’t see them.
Then, suddenly, there was a clearing in the crowd.
I saw Mason and began to yell his name—
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Three shots rang out.
MASON
“Mason!”
I turned, hearing my name, and there was Sam. She stood in the back, next to a guy I recognized as one of Channing’s friends. The guy I was holding threw a punch, and I caught his arm. Twisting it backward, I heard a satisfying pop and knew he’d be useless for the rest of the night. I clipped him across the face, just enough to daze him, and shoved him into another group of Caldron’s friends. Logan was exchanging punches next to me.
When we heard the gun, we both froze a moment, but it seemed to have come from a ways away, so we kept going. That was when I heard Sam yelling for me, and seeing her now, I grabbed Logan and yanked him with me.
“Hey!” He snarled until he realized it was me. “What are you doing?”
I pointed. “It’s Sam. Let’s go.”
We took off, back the way we’d just come. Some guys tried to rush us, but we dodged and punched, or evaded and caught them, tossing them to the side.
“What about Channing?” Logan asked as we went.
“Channing’s fine. Caldron wants our heads on a platter, not Channing’s. We have to get Sam and Taylor to safety.”
Then we were out, and Sam began running ahead of us. The guy with her helped push our way through. Logan and I joined him to encircle Sam and form a barrier. She could just run and not have to worry about fighting.
I reached out once, my hand sliding over hers. I couldn’t help myself. I needed to reassure myself she was safe. She was, and her hand squeezed mine as we kept running.
“Taylor.” Logan spotted his girlfriend ahead, waiting inside my Escalade.
I recognized Moose with her and glanced around. No Nate. I stopped. “Wait.”
“What?”
Logan hurried forward, climbing inside my vehicle and hugging his girlfriend. Sam and the guy who’d been helping her stayed back with me. Once Moose saw Taylor was fine, he headed over to us.
I looked at Sam. “Nate’s not here.”
“Was he in there with you?” the guy asked.
I shook my head. “The fighting was already happening. Two guys were shoving each other when we went in through the basement door. I looked back, but it was only Logan with me. I don’t remember Nate at all. I thought he went in with us?”
Sam slipped her hand in mine, but I was already looking back.
I had to go in again.
“Wait.” The guy touched my shoulder. “Let me and Moose go in. I’ll text Channing and Heather, let them know you guys are good, but we’re searching for Nate. Monson, right? That’s his last name?”
I nodded, scanning the house. People were beginning to run out, heading for their cars. Some were just running down the sidewalk.
“Hey!” Logan shouted from the vehicle, waving his phone in the air. “It’s Matteo. He and Nate are headed back to the house. They’re safe.”
“Matteo?” Sam asked.
I didn’t care. That was enough for me. I swung back around, my hand out. “Thank you for watching Sam and Logan’s girl.”
The guy shook my hand, a strong, steady grip. “No problem. I know you’re good with Channing. That makes you good with me. I’m Chad, by the way.” He nodded to Moose. “And this is—”
“Moose.” I held my hand out to him, too. “Thank you. I remember you from the fight night. Thank you for helping then.”
“Oh yeah.”
Another strong handshake.
“We should go. Cops are going to show up.” Chad started to head for the street, and Moose went with him. “I’ll be in touch with Channing,” he added before they left. “We need to find out who got shot, if anyone.”
A guy running past us stopped. His chest heaved for breath, and he raked a hand through his hair. “It was two bikers from rival clubs. They saw each other, and one pulled a gun.”
“Are you serious?” Chad frowned.
The guy started to run off, but Chad grabbed him and hauled him back. The guy nodded. “Yeah.” His eyes were wild. “I saw it myself. I was smoking up.”
The sound of sirens had him jerking around to see where they were coming from. “I gotta go.” He pawed at Chad’s hand. “If they arrest me, they got more than just fighting on me, if you know what I mean. Let me go, man!”
Chad released him, and the guy scrambled, darting through people and disappearing into the crowd.
Sam pulled on my hand. “Let’s all go. We’re all okay.”
I heard the urgency in her voice and pressed a quick kiss to her forehead. Nodding to Chad and Moose again, we went our separate ways. Sam settled into the front seat and pulled out her phone as I started the engine.
Her phone buzzed a moment later as I turned down the street, and she let out a long sigh. “Thank God. Heather’s fine. She said she’ll call later.” She lifted relieved eyes to mine, giving me a shaky smile. “She’s okay. Everyone’s fine.”
SAMANTHA
Everyone was fine.
I kept telling myself this on the drive home, but had something been different, everyone might not have been fine. Someone could’ve been hurt. People I loved were so
mewhere that a gun was shot. A different person, maybe a different time, or even a different place, and we might not have been driving home with everyone. I couldn’t shake that thought, and maybe everyone else had it, too, but I didn’t want to sit around, have some drinks, and bullshit the night away. I didn’t want to hear Logan’s jokes or even sit in Mason’s stoic silence. I wanted touch, and I wanted to remember we were alive.
As if sensing my needs, Mason took my hand once we were home. Nothing was spoken, but we went to our room, which was exactly what I needed. My hands were on him the second the door shut. His mouth was on mine. He pressed me into the door, and the need was deep. It was primal. It was now.
I needed Mason now.
We made love like we were never going to be able to touch again.
I arched underneath him as he slid inside of me, but even that wasn’t enough. I needed more, and Mason began to thrust. Deeper and deeper. He kept a hand on my waist to anchor me, but I wanted his hands all over me. I wanted his mouth everywhere. I needed so much more than what he was giving, and as if sensing that, he pulled out. My eyes snapped to his. What was he doing?
He turned me over, and I gasped, pressing an arm against the headboard. My hand wrapped over its edge, because I was going to have to hold on. I felt him behind me, and then he was inside.
I was alive.
I was awake.
God, this was exactly what I’d been yearning for.
He set the pace. It was a medium rhythm at first, something I would normally love and gasp for, but I groaned. My head fell back. His hands caught some of my hair, and he wrapped it around his hand. Yes! My breasts began to graze the headboard. He pulled my head back, just slightly, but I shifted back farther, pressing into him as he thrust inside of me. I met him hard as he kept moving. I could feel him. My walls tightened around him.
More. Still more.
I needed to feel pain. Maybe. Maybe it would help remind me we were alive even though someone had been shot tonight.
I looked back. I wanted him to see the hunger in me, and as he did, his eyes darkened. He began going harder.
Still more. Still harder.
“Mason!”
His hand flexed on my ass, and he slammed into me.
This was what I wanted—rough, savage. I wanted it so many different ways, so many different positions, and so many different times. I wanted to remember we weren’t dead. None of us. That gunshot hadn’t been intended for any of us.
We pounded this truth into my body, into my brain, and after we were both spent, I curled up next to him.
I still wanted that feeling out of my head—the moment I’d heard the gunshot and couldn’t get to Mason. But as his arms encircled me and his hand caressed my breast, I knew I’d never be free of it.
I could’ve lost one of my own tonight.
I slid from the bed a few hours later.
Mason was sleeping, and he rolled over as I moved. The arm that had been holding me now lay empty on the bed, his hand and fingers pointing toward me as if asking me to come back. I couldn’t.
I had a nightmare, and hearing those three gunshots all over again had woken me. I’d been trembling in bed, and I still was as I dressed for a run and laced up my sneakers. I grabbed my phone and earbuds and stepped into the hallway, but my hands weren’t strong enough to press them into my ears. They kept falling out.
I cursed under my breath, and I felt a hand on my elbow. I almost screamed, but it was Taylor. She looked haggard and pale, and as she caught my earbud and pressed it into my ear for me, I caught a whiff of throw-up on her breath.
After both earbuds were in place, she stepped back. We looked at each other. I didn’t ask if she was sick, and she didn’t ask why I was going running. We understood each other perfectly.
I slipped out the door, and I glanced back to see her going to the kitchen. I had no doubt she’d be sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee untouched in front of her when I came back.
But I couldn’t think about that. This need to cry, to rage, to laugh—it bubbled inside of me, and I only wanted to suppress it.
I started off down the driveway and turned onto the sidewalk.
I didn’t want to warm up this time. I started out hard, and I knew I would keep the same pace until I collapsed somewhere.
I didn’t want to feel this morning.
LOGAN
I woke alone, and after going to the bathroom, I knew where Taylor would be. I could smell the coffee, and sure enough, there she was—perched in a seat at the kitchen table, her coffee getting cold in front of her. One of her arms rested on her knee, her hand touching her face like she was trying not to cry as she looked out the window.
I waited a full thirty seconds, but she never moved.
“Can’t sleep?” It was meant to sound casual, but it came out like a bad joke. I winced, sitting down across from her.
She looked over, the agony in her eyes centered right on me. I felt like there was a damned hot poker stuck in my chest, burning me from the inside out.
“Are you fucking serious?” she asked, anger and exhaustion lacing her words.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that the way it came out. I just—”
“Just what?”
I suddenly placed the weird smell from the bathroom. “You threw up.” I fell back against my chair.
“I sure did.”
And then even more dots connected for me. I silently cursed my stupidity. “Your mom.”
“The entire time I kept trying not to think about it.” She looked back out the window, her words softening. “I wasn’t in the house tonight, but I heard that gun. Three shots. Three times someone pulled that trigger.”
I knew where this was going, but I couldn’t stop it, even though I wanted to. I couldn’t take away her past, no matter how much it haunted her. I was helpless except to sit and listen, so I did.
“I ran into Sam earlier,” she said, still looking outside. “She was going for a run. I know she runs. I know you said that’s what she does to cope, but I didn’t get it. I mean, I get it. I’ve been at the house when she left to go for a run and when she came back. I know how long she goes for sometimes, but it wasn’t till this morning that I really understood it.” She looked back to me now. “She looked as haunted as I feel. She’s going to run until she doesn’t feel, just like I threw up, but it never matters. The feelings always come back. Maybe I should try it her way. I bet she doesn’t feel for a couple hours after she’s exhausted.”
“What Sam does—” I leaned forward, making sure I was speaking gently. “—isn’t healthy. She’s just trying to run from the feelings.”
“Literally.” Taylor laughed, shaking her head. “But that’s not what she’s doing. She’s not trying to hide from her stuff. She’s trying to control it, suppress it so she can get a handle on it. That’s all she’s doing.”
“Look.” I spread my hands on the table. I itched to go to her,