Chapter Twenty-Three
Lance
It was the longest half hour of my life. More like twenty minutes at the speed I was keeping. It could have been a year for all I knew. It stretched out forever. Every minute that passed was one more minute when Gigi could’ve been taken away. When Jamie could’ve been taken away. I couldn’t go fast enough. I had to go faster.
For some reason, the face I thought of when I rode wasn’t Jamie’s, or Gigi’s. It was my foster mother’s. Shit, when was the last time I thought about her? Years. Probably not since right after I left that terrible place. She was a religious woman. She always wore a cross around her neck, always went to church. I remembered walking past her bedroom door sometimes at night, before bed. It would be open, and she’d be kneeling at the side of it. Saying prayers. That was after she knelt next to me at my bed. She taught me all the prayers and even talked about getting me baptized since I never was.
She would always pray for her husband. I remembered that especially clearly. She’d pray for his soul. At first I wondered why she did it. Then he hit me for the first time, after beating her. Then I would wonder why she prayed for him instead of leaving him. She would never leave him. She wasn’t the kind of woman who did that. All she did was kneel by the side of her bed or go to church. She didn’t do anything to stop him from hurting her or me.
I never prayed again after I left that house. I didn’t see the point—it didn’t do any good. God and I weren’t on tight terms after that. I thought there couldn’t be a God since he let something like what happened to me happen in the first place.
On my way to the motel, I said the first prayer in a long time. God, please don’t let anything happen to them. They never hurt anybody. Do it to me. I would deserve it, not them. Just let me get to them in time. Don’t punish them to punish me. It’s not their fault. I just found them. Don’t take them away.
I was sure it wouldn’t do any good, but it couldn’t hurt. I was desperate enough to try anything that might have helped them.
I loved my little girl. And I loved Jamie.
I wasn’t sure which of those two feelings surprised me more. I never thought I would love either of them, or anybody. I loved my club, but that was different. I used to love Rae, but that feeling was getting smaller every minute. The person I used to love was dead. She died years before.
Even so, I never loved Rae more than I loved myself. I never loved her more than I loved the club. She was third—a shitty thing to admit to myself, but it was true. She never came first. I knew when I rode to the motel that if Jamie and Gigi were the only two people left in the world, I would be all right. I’d find a way. That was how I knew it was real love.
I was about to lose it.
No! The thought was as clear in my head as if I screamed it out loud. I wouldn’t lose either of them. I would search until the day I died for them if I had to. I’d kill anybody who got in my way, too.
I thought about Gigi. Her little face was clear in my head. The day she came to the clubhouse. The way she looked when she saw the gun in her face. The way she cried. The way she grinned when she kicked ass in poker. The way she looked when she slept, with her arms around a stuffed animal. How it felt to hold her in my arms, so light, when she told me about cooking with Jamie. She was always ready to laugh, or sing a song, or play a game. She was the bravest kid I knew. Abandoned by her mom, but she made the best of life with me. She tried so fucking hard to be a good kid. It ripped my chest, thinking of her. I thought my heart would break. She was mine. She needed me.
And Jamie. I would’ve closed my eyes if I wasn’t on the back of my bike. I thought back to earlier that day—had it only been hours earlier? In bed together, just the two of us. The way I felt when I was inside her. Like a king. Like I could do anything. Breaking her, making her scream, making her mine. She was mine, nobody else’s. I remembered touching her, tasting her, the sounds she made. How hot and tight she was, how she clawed at my back when I drove myself into her. How she rode me, so hard, so fast. The prim, sweet girl who didn’t like using bad words, bucking like a cowgirl on my cock. I needed more of that, more of her. I couldn’t have her taken away so soon, not when I knew how good it could be.
I winced when I remembered laughing off her premonition. I didn’t want to admit at the time how freaked she made me when she told me how scared she was. She should’ve been scared. Hell, I should’ve been scared. I should’ve said goodbye to Gigi before I left, too. I had just walked out without thinking about it. What the fuck was wrong with me? I might never see her again, and I had been so fucking thoughtless.