Echoes of Silence (Unquiet Mind Book 1)

Kill’s place will always be with the club, the voice told me. Where does that leave you and your dreams of exploring the world?

  I swallowed the ugly thought and turned back around quickly. Any effort to rid myself of such thoughts paled in comparison to what stripped any cohesive stream of consciousness from my brain.

  Killian shirtless.

  He had come home to change before the party, and I had caught him right in the middle. His muscled back was corded and defined. Broad. He turned around and faced me, a shirt in his hand. He froze when he saw my gaze.

  I gulped as the air seemed to turn thick enough to chew. Killian and me. In his bedroom. With a closed door. With a bed. With a shirtless Killian gazing at me like I was dinner and he hadn’t eaten in weeks.

  I swallowed roughly. We had never gone further than making out. A lot of the time it was very intense making out, but just making out. He hadn’t even tried to go to second base. He seemed to sense my resistance, my need to go slow. I was split in two. I wanted more. Craved it. Even dreamed about it and woke up with pulsing blood and sweating. But I wasn’t ready. Not for that. I was scared, terrified in fact that he’d get sick of waiting. Someone like Kill... with all of his experience. He’d get sick of waiting.

  Then there was the other side of the coin. What if I gave into those fears? Conquered the fear I had of going further? What if he really did walk away after that? The logical part of me knew he wouldn’t. I knew how much I meant to him, even if he didn’t return those three little words. I knew. But it wasn’t logic. It was pure terror. Because I was certain, more certain than I had been about anything in my life, if he walked away, he’d be leaving me in pieces at his feet.

  Killian had been watching me this entire time. His eyes still held that hunger, but his brows furrowed in confusion as if he was trying to read my mind. He shook himself out of it and yanked his white tee over his head while walking to me. Safely clothed, he brought me close to his body, his hand under my chin, tilting my neck up.

  “You look terrified, Freckles,” he murmured, searching my eyes.

  “I am,” I admitted. I couldn’t lie to him. Not in here, surrounded by his memories.

  “I’ll never hurt you, Lexie. You know that, don’t you?” he asked softly. “It would be impossible. To hurt you would be to end me,” he whispered. He cupped my cheek. “That means I’m never gonna pressure you. You’re never gonna feel that with me. I’ll wait for as long as you want. Forever if need be.” He smiled against my mouth. “Though I don’t like to think what state I’d be in at the end of forever.” He paused. “I’d be okay as long as you’re by my side.”

  I stared at him, licking my lips. “You don’t—you won’t want... more?” I croaked out. “You won’t get sick of having... less?”

  Kill’s hands tightened at my neck. “You are not less,” he declared in a rough voice, his eyes burning into mine. “I’ll never want more, ‘cause I’ve got more. Okay?”

  I gazed back at him, looking for a lie in his eyes. I couldn’t find one. “Okay,” I whispered.

  Kill kissed my head. “Good. Now let’s get out of here before my mom jerks out of her stupor,” he said, his face shuttered once more.

  I clutched his hand. “You know I’ll have to meet her sometime, right?”

  He regarded me. “Sometime,” he agreed. “A sometime I plan on being far in the future,” he declared, opening the door.

  We walked past the door with the thumping music; this time it was ajar.

  I heard Kill’s curse in front of me. As we entered the living room, his whole body went tight. His hand squeezed mine hard enough to hurt. I didn’t say a thing, mostly because I was staring at the woman standing in the middle of the room swaying.

  She blinked a couple of times in our direction. “Killian,” she almost spat out his name.

  Kill yanked me to his side, positioning me slightly behind him as if to protect me from this skeletal woman.

  “Liz,” he bit out.

  The woman in front of us looked nothing like the photo in Kill’s room. This was a shadow of her. The living corpse of her. I could only recognize her from the eyes. Killian’s eyes staring at him, though they were clouded and full of contempt. The woman in the photo had been hard, that was for sure, but she was pretty, in that rough sort of way. This woman could not be called pretty. She was... I couldn’t even find the word. Her yellowed hair was lank and in need of a major shampoo. It hung in greasy clumps around her face. Black regrowth spread over almost her entire head. Her eyes were smudged with hastily applied kohl. A smoke hung out of her lipstick-smeared mouth. She had on a white, stained, lace-trimmed camisole, exposing bony arms with red splotches all over them. Gray sweatpants hung off her bony hips.

  “Who’s your friend?” she asked in between cigarette puffs. Her eyes ran over me. “She’s pretty,” she added. It wasn’t a compliment; it was an accusation.

  Kill held me so tight I feared my fingers might break. Luckily, he let out a huge sigh, and the pressure relaxed a little. “Liz, this is my girlfriend Lexie. Lexie, this is Liz,” he bit out.

  She stepped forward, dropping ash on the floor as she went. She didn’t even notice. Kill stiffened even more as she came closer to us.

  “Liz?” she spat out finally. “You’re not even going to introduce me as your mother?”

  Kill glared at her with a look so full of hate I almost didn’t recognize it. “No, I’m not because you’re not my mother. Haven’t been for years,” he growled. “We’ve got somewhere to be.” He dragged me toward the door.

  Liz stepped slightly in front of us, crossing one hand over her stomach, the other going to her mouth, casually taking a puff of the cigarette.

  “Get out of the way, Liz,” he ordered, his body shaking with rage.

  “You ashamed of me? That it? You don’t want me to spend time with your pretty little girlfriend?” she asked bitterly.

  “Yes,” Kill replied. “That’s exactly it.”

  Though her eyes narrowed, I thought I glimpsed hurt beneath those features. It disappeared quickly. She shook her head. “You think you’re somethin’,” she hissed. “Somethin’ ‘cause you hang around with that... club,” she spat the word, “that killed your father. Let me tell you something, they’re just a pack of losers. That’s what you are too, for spending your time with them.” She moved her venomous gaze. “I was young and pretty like you once. Then I made the mistake of attaching myself to his father. Ruined my life. Stole it. Stuck me here in this shithole of a town. Get out while you can. That’s my advice,” she said, taking another smoke, almost leisurely.

  In an instant, Killian was gone, his hand no longer in mine. He had advanced on his mother. He didn’t touch her, but she backed up to the wall all the same. Her forgotten cigarette crunched under his motorcycle boot.

  “You will never compare yourself to Lexie again,” he hissed, getting in her face. “You don’t even deserve to exist in the same species as her, a fuck up of biology. And you never speak about my father again or the club. Don’t blame them for turning you into what you always were.” He looked her up and down in disgust. “You do, I’ll make sure I stop payin’ our fuckin’ bills, move into the clubhouse, and make sure you ain’t got nothing,” he threatened.

  She glared at him. “You’re my son,” she accused.

  Kill turned his back on her, reaching out for my hand. I gave it to him immediately.

  “Another fuck up of biology,” he said harshly, opening the door and yanking me out behind him. He made sure to reach around and slam the front door before taking us to his car. He opened the door for me.

  I paused. “Kill—” I started in a soft voice.

  He didn’t look at me. “Get in the car, Lexie,” he commanded in a harsh voice. Nothing like the hate-filled one he spoke to his mother in, but one that made me flinch just the same.

  He slammed the door of the car, his hands white as he gripped the steering wheel so hard. “Seatbelt,” he barked at me.

&
nbsp; I jumped again, doing as he commanded. The moment I clicked, he put his arm at the back of my seat and reversed out the back of the driveway at a high speed. He was not wearing a seatbelt. We pulled away from the house with a screech and drove toward the outskirts of town to the clubhouse in silence. Not comfortable silence. Stifling silence. Full of fury. I didn’t know what to do. What to say. I’d never seen Kill like this.

  He wasn’t even looking at me. His furious gaze was locked firmly on the street leading us toward his club. The only family he had. I completely understood that now. His hands were tight on the steering wheel. He never had both hands on it. When he drove me anywhere, which was almost every day, one hand was always intertwined with mine or resting lightly on my thigh.

  I gingerly reached my hand over to land it on his knee. “Kill—” I tried to break the silence again.

  “Don’t touch me, Lexie,” he bit out, still not looking at me.

  I jerked my hand away like it had been scalded. Tears burned at the back of my eyes. Not at his anger, not completely at least. Mostly it was the anger, the pure fury balled up so deep I hadn’t noticed it. At his mom. The look he had given her, the way he had spoken to her, it shocked me. I didn’t doubt from what I’d seen that she’d deserved it. The way she looked at him, spoke to him, sickened me. I thought of my mom treating me like that and I tasted bile.

  “Fuck,” Kill hissed under his breath. He slammed on the breaks and pulled off onto the shoulder. We were almost at the club now. There weren't any residential areas around, and we had parked on the side of a vacant, overgrown lot.

  Kill didn’t waste any time. As soon as the car was off, he was out. I jumped as the door slammed and he strode off into the middle of the lot, his palms on the back of his head.

  I watched him for a moment then got out of the car. I slowly walked to where he was standing, stock-still. I knew he heard me approach, but he didn’t turn, didn’t speak. I waited.

  “You see?” he rasped finally. He turned and I almost flinched at the blank look on his face, the pain only I could see underneath it. “You see now?” he asked, keeping the distance between us. “What I come from? The filth?” He shook his head. “My mom spouts that evil stuff on the regular, Lexie. I’ve come home multiple times to her on the edge of OD. More often than not with some loser there too.” He sucked in a breath. “That’s my mom. And your mom... she doesn’t even fuckin’ curse,” he half shouted, shaking his head. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered. “Might be an evil bitch, but Liz, she’s right, you’re too good for me—”

  “Stop talking,” I commanded, stepping forward, putting my hand to his lips. “If your care at all about me, about hurting me, you won’t say another word.” I waited a moment, my hand still at his lips before moving it down. He stood motionless, staring at me.

  “You thinking so little of yourself, it breaks my heart,” I whispered. “Your mom is not you. That”—I threw my arm out in the direction we came from—“doesn’t mean a fricking thing.” I stepped even closer and put my hand on his heart. “This does. What’s in here is what matters. What’s in those photos you’ve saved of your dad. You’re not your mom. You’re not even him. You’re you. And you’re amazing. I’d wager your dad had a lot to do with building that foundation. But you’re the one responsible for the skyscraper.”

  Kill was frozen for a second. His hand moved to cover mine. “No,” he murmured, “if anyone’s responsible for building me that high, I’m looking at her.”

  I gave him a long look. “Agree to disagree.”

  To my complete surprise and utter delight, Kill grinned and pulled me into his body, kissing my head.

  “Let’s get you to the party,” he murmured finally, after he’d held me in silence for a moment. “Not scared of much, Freckles,” he informed me, letting me go and grasping my hand to walk back to the car. “But I am afraid of Gwen if I make the lead singer late to the party.”

  I laughed. It was easy, genuine. At that moment, I knew everything would be okay.

  Who knew how very wrong I could be about that.

  ****

  I was floating, soaring higher than the clouds. We had just absolutely rocked this party. We even had the bikers dancing. Bikers. Big bad Cade even came up. Granted he just held his pregnant wife tight and swayed to the music, but I’d take that. Mom had gotten up and danced with Gage, one of the men I’d met today. He was big, menacing, and hot like most of the other men. Though his muscled arms were riddled with scars, and something was unnerving about his eyes. Not in a bad way, at least not the way he directed it at us. He was easy and friendly. I had a strange feeling those eyes could change with those he didn’t consider friends or family.

  Looking out at the crowd beyond me, I knew that’s what this leather wearing group was. Family. My eyes touched on Zane, who was sitting at the very back of the picnic tables, not talking to anyone. He certainly wasn’t dancing. I doubted anything would make him dance, not even Mom, no matter how much he cared about her. Which, by the way he was glaring at Gage laughing and dancing with her, was a lot. I met his eyes and grinned while I sang “Scar Tissue” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He didn’t grin back, of course, but I was almost certain the sides of his mouth turned up.

  We were rocking. The best we had sounded. We should be, considering how much we’d practiced.

  Sam had been like a drill sergeant. “Dudes, these are the most baddest of all badasses in the state, maybe in the country. If we fuck this up, I may as well get myself a banjo and become a country singer. I’ll never be able to be a self-respecting rock star,” he had told us.

  It was safe to say he was jerky with nerves as Kill and I had arrived, hand in hand. I didn’t even have time to meet anyone before he pounced on us.

  “Detach, lovebirds,” he ordered, yanking my hand away from Kill, who glared at him. Sam, to his credit, ignored this or was too distracted to notice. “You’re coming with me,” he announced, “to go over last minute set lists and sort your tuning.” He yanked my guitar from Kill’s shoulder. “You”—he pointed at him—“will go far, far away where you can’t distract Lexie. You may be scary as shit when it comes to her, but don’t test me when it comes to my music.”

  I cracked a small smile.

  “This isn’t funny,” he snapped at me.

  I nodded somberly. “I’m sorry, you’re right,” I agreed. “It’s not like this is, I don’t know, a party or anything.”

  Sam did not find me funny, but luckily my boyfriend did.

  Kill chuckled and kissed my head. “I’ll come find you soon,” he promised, turning away.

  “No, you won’t,” Sam called to his shoulder. “She’ll come see you when I say she can.”

  Kill ignored him and I snorted with laughter. Sam took me by the shoulders and maneuvered me through the group of mostly unfamiliar bikers, though a few gave me chin lifts. I smiled at them all.

  “Bro, take a chill pill. You bump into one of these guys, you can kiss your nads good-bye,” Wyatt warned, looking up from the guitar he was tuning.

  He put it down to lean in and kiss my cheek. “Hey, babe,” he greeted with a grin.

  “I will not take a ‘chill pill’ or any mind-altering substance that hinders my godlike ability,” Sam hissed at him.

  “Godlike ability?” Noah repeated, jumping down from the makeshift stage and knocking his fist with mine. “Good to see you’re keeping humble, Sam,” he remarked dryly, slinging his arm around my shoulder.

  Sam scowled at him. He then proceeded to order us around and make sure everything was perfect. We had just enough time to talk to Gwen and for all the boys to droll at Amy before it was time to start our set.

  We started with old school rock, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, and then moved on to some other stuff. Kill sat in the front of the scattered picnic tables, chatting to men, sometimes playing with kids, but his eyes always seemed to be burning into me. I smiled at him, big and wide, as often as I could and sang every word to him. Music
could cure anything. I hoped it would help chase away his demons.

  It was getting to our last song. Sam had violently insisted we don’t play any “pussy shit” that would damage our precious street cred. But Gwen had specifically requested the song, and he turned into a puddle at her feet, pregnant or not.

  “It’s the accent,” he said afterward. “She could ask me to chew off my own fingers in that accent and I’d do it.”

  So that was why I starting singing Ingrid Michaelson’s “You and I.” It was perfect for the sunny day. I was happy, deliriously so. The black mark on the day from Kill’s mom melted away with one of the most beautiful songs ever. My mom was happy, dancing and throwing her head back laughing. Zane wasn’t happy watching Mom dance with another man, but he was happy with her.

  My eyes rested on Kill.

  I was happy.

  Deliriously so.

  Then the world exploded.

  I hadn’t even noticed the bikes fly into the parking lot at the edge of the grassed area where the party was being held. Had I, I probably wouldn’t have thought anything of them. There were bikes everywhere. I barely saw them.

  I saw these ones the moment they started shooting, opening fire on the crowd. The crowd with little children, with families. My family. I watched, paralyzed in horror as bullets flew through the air, hitting people. People must have been screaming, I guessed, but I couldn’t hear them. I couldn’t hear anything but the shots.

  I kept staring at those men on the bikes. The ones with the guns.

  This must be a dream. This can’t be happening. Stuff like this doesn’t happen, I thought dimly.

  Something whizzed past my cheek and I realized this was real. People were shooting. People were dying. Right in front of me. I was standing in front of it watching.

  Then I wasn’t standing anymore. Suddenly, I was on the stage, flat on my back, Killian was on top of me, covering every inch of me with his body, his hands circling over my head.

  “Get down!” I heard him roar to someone behind us.

  My boys, I thought. Oh my God, someone was shooting.