Damon:A Bad Boy MC Romance Novel(75)

26





It had gotten mighty dusty mighty quick. Stupidly, I turned on the  windshield wipers, but they did nothing to dispel the blowing dust.  Leaning forward, I squinted through the haze.

As the dust seemed to settle a bit, I noticed something glinting on the  road before me; in the hazy heat waves baking off the tar, it was  impossible to tell what it was, and to be frank it didn't really make me  think twice. I wish it had. When I look back on everything, it's one of  the things I can't seem to stop fixating on: if I'd slowed down, if I'd  realized, if I'd been more aware …

Reign says not to beat myself up about it. No one in my position would  have done anything different. They make those things specifically so  that you can't tell what they are. They wouldn't be very good tools if  anyone could just tell they were there.

But you can't help what your brain decides to latch on to when it comes to regrets.

At any rate, I didn't slow down. I didn't know what was coming. Even  when I got closer and saw the truck pulled off to the side of the road;  what did I know, then, about who was waiting in that truck? Why would I  believe it was anything except a guy checking his voicemail, or a family  of three consulting a map?

I just sped on, feeling low and like crying despite the image I was  putting out into the world: I looked like Thelma, or Louise, driving off  to freedom with the wind in her hair. I felt like hell.

Though, to be fair, I can't say I didn't also feel a little bit better  by virtue of being back on the road; the directionless terror and  anxiety that had taken up residence in my stomach seemed to be abating  with each mile I put behind me. But Reign's smile kept flashing in my  mind, and with it I'd feel something new (and awful) in my stomach.

A falling feeling, like a dream you know you can't wake up from, a dream  where you're tumbling headfirst into nowhere with nothing to stop you  or slow you down. All I knew was that I was leaving behind the first  thing that had made me happy in years, and I was leaving it behind for a  future that was uncertain at best.

But all those thoughts would be cut short soon. Does it sound crazy if I  say that it was almost a relief when I heard the awful popping noises,  and suddenly felt my new car skidding, veering wildly? At least it was a  respite from my thoughts, of Jeremy and Reign and everything in  between. I only felt fear, mortal fear, temporary fear.

In a panic, I clutched the steering wheel, reality still elusive, my  mind fixated on nothing but keeping myself from turning the car over and  being crushed into the dirt. What the fuck, I thought as I heard the  terrible screeching of metal against pavement, my car slowing even as it  slid across the dusty road, my heart falling as the panic was replaced  by a sense of hopelessness. I still thought that it was just bad luck; a  flat tire caused by some act of fate, a way for the universe to punish  me, a sign that nothing would ever be easy, nothing would ever come  cheap.

The Mustang finally came to a screeching, painful stop  –  in the middle  of the highway. I was done. I hunched forward, my forehead meeting the  front of the steering wheel. I bet you've found yourself doing the exact  same thing at some point or another: groaning, two hands still on the  wheel, rubbing your forehead against the leather, back and forth, hoping  that when you come back up and open your eyes and look around  everything is, somehow, better.         

     



 

Of course, sticking your head in the sand has been proven to work zero times out of ten.

At least there's whoever's in that truck, I suddenly thought, happy to  at least not be all alone. I heard the sound of slamming doors from  behind me. I was so thankful. I was so stupidly, naively thankful that I  wasn't going to have to try and push my car off the road by myself,  that maybe someone would keep me company while I waited for a tow truck  in the blaring heat. Maybe they could help me put on the donut that had  come in the truck, and I wouldn't need a tow at all …

"Looks like you've got yourself a bit of trouble, miss," someone said.  Not just someone. I knew that voice. I knew that voice when it yelled,  when it whispered, when it cursed, when it said "I love you." I knew  that voice better than I knew my own.

My heart went cold, my blood stopped flowing, and my stomach packed a  bag and took a flight straight up my throat. My mouth felt dryer than  the air around me. No, no, no, no, I thought, unable to lift my head  from the wheel, trying frantically to tell myself it was just a trick of  my addled mind. I knew it wasn't, but it was all I could do to keep  myself from pissing my pants.

It was impossible. It couldn't be. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair, it  wasn't fucking fair! He couldn't be here! He couldn't have found me, and  he couldn't have fucked up my car, and he couldn't be standing beside  my passenger-side door, and he couldn't be there! If he was, it just  meant that I was destined for misery, that I would never have a good  thing in my whole entire life, that I must have been some sort of awful  in a past life and was paying for it now.

There was silence for a long moment. A silence that felt heavy, full of  things that were going to be said, full of words waiting to be screamed.  There was only one way to confirm what I knew to be true, or to prove  that I was just experiencing some sort of desert psychosis. Slowly, with  my breath still trapped in my lungs, as though if I didn't breathe it  would stop happening, I began to raise my head.

I didn't make it very far.

My forehead hit the steering wheel again, this time with the help of a  strong grip on my hair. I heard a crunch as my skull met the leathery  surface, and my last thought before everything fell into a world of  painful red flashes was that I'd been asking for this. Maybe since I'd  left, maybe since I'd married him, maybe since the day I'd been born,  I'd been asking for this. Pain unfolded inside me like a snake that had  been waiting to strike. The world dissolved. After that, there was  nothing but pain.





27





Silas grimaced. The sound of flesh hitting flesh seemed to ricochet off  the endless sky. From a distance of about fifteen feet, he watched as  his client unleashed his rage, in earnest, on the girl. He'd pulled her  out of the car by her hair as she screamed and kicked, and now held her  against the car door as he screamed obscenities and continued to assault  her pretty face.

Silas wished, vaguely, for a cigarette. He felt unusually uncomfortable  watching the violence before him; typically, nothing bothered Silas  much. He'd killed enough men  –  and women  –  on his own, in brutal enough  ways, to be immured to watching anyone suffer. He could sit through a  snuff film with a large popcorn and a soda and not feel squeamish.

But he felt a little bad for this one. The metal on the side of the car  must have been hot enough to scald, which was bad enough without having  your husband give you a five-finger talking to. Her face was starting to  look a bit like hamburger meat, blood smeared across her cheeks and  bubbling around her lips, opened in a soundless screech. He looked at  his watch; Jeremy had been going at it for two minutes now, and his wife  was starting to slump against the side of the car, the strength to  stand being siphoned away.

"Think that's enough, partner?" Silas asked, raising his voice to be  heard above the sound of Jeremy's fists. The cop didn't seem to hear.  Silas walked forward; the cop caught sight of him and raised his face, a  snarl across his mouth, splatters of his wife's blood on his lips.

"You want her walking and talking enough to keep making you dinner,  don't ya?" Silas said, his tone normal now as Jeremy's arms ceased their  wild flailing. Jeremy turned to him, panting, and slowly wiped at his  brow with his forearm. His eyes were inhuman, his face sweaty and red.  He mumbled something unintelligible, but clearly malicious. But he kept  his hands away from Gabriella, who had crumpled to the ground, still  shielding her face, shaking and whimpering.

"Alright," Silas said, walking closer. Jeremy seemed to be deflating,  his shoulders falling, his breathing becoming steadier. "Let's get her  in the truck."         

     



 

"In the truck? I'm driving her home," Jeremy said, his voice strangely soft after all his screaming.

"We still have a few details of our arrangement to work out, if you  recall," Silas said, his eyebrows rising. His gaze settled on Jeremy's  eyes, which were fading fast. Jeremy, in turn, looked down at the  cowering Gabriella. He seemed like a different person than he'd been  just moments before, a flicker that could have been regret coming over  his eyes. Silas walked towards the two figures and bent down before the  girl, who was emitting a series of puppy-like noises. He reached out for  her, meaning to lift her, but Jeremy pushed him away.

"Don't touch her. I'll do it," Jeremy growled, looking protectively at  Gabriella. Silas wasn't surprised, and backed away with his hands up.