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  He ran his fingers along the scratches. They were crusted with old blood and pained him at the touch. He stared at the flakes of his blood on his fingers in disbelief. She had hurt him so fucking much. He should go right in there, pack his shit and walk the fuck out. Everything rational in his brain was telling him to do this. It said, Sara is one fucked up bitch and she will only get worse, and you will only get hurt. Walk the fuck away.

  But love isn’t rational. It’s a fucking mess, that’s what love is. You can’t control the way you feel. If that was the case, he would have never wanted her in the first place. He’d have gladly sister-zoned her the day he rescued her from Jade Smith’s bullying hands. He’d have kept her at a safe distance and never have opened his heart to her.

  Love was a different entity altogether. It picked and chose what it wanted. It disregarded logic – hell, it shat on logic – and then it buried away the pain and embraced the heart with feelings so euphoric, you’d forget all the bad just to feel it, even for a minute.

  Sure, he deserved better. But he didn’t want anyone better. He wanted Sara in all her flaws and all her anger. That was a part of her that could be healed. After all, she had never been this way.

  She was his one weakness, stripping him of all his strength until he was nothing but a fucking puddle in the palm of her hands. Whether she wanted that puddle to slip through her fingers didn’t matter. He would fight with all of him and get his Sara back – the real her.

  He stepped out of the car and hurried inside. Just a few moments and she’d be in his arms again. Just a few…

  Two

  I told him everything.

  Everything.

  Like he promised, he kept to his word. Didn’t touch me, didn’t even swear. His passive eyes watched my mouth until the last words fell. Then the silence filled the room, and it took everything in me not to ask him what he was thinking. He possessed the kind of patience I’d never seen before. It’d taken me forever to get the words out, and now all I wanted was for him to say something.

  Anything.

  Finally, he rose up from the bed and quietly said, “I need to go. I’ll be back in the morning with some stuff for you. Try and get some sleep.”

  Then just like that, he was gone.

  I felt a stab of pain in my chest as I tried to decipher Remy’s lifeless face. I learned from Jaxon that a man with a stone face like that was hiding emotions even from himself. Was Remy hurting? Of course he’s hurting! He just found out his brother is dead!

  For the first time in hours, I climbed out of bed. My legs wobbled on my way to the steel door. I put my hand against the cold surface, held my breath and rested my ear against it. I could hear nothing from the other side. Where the hell was I? Wherever it was, I felt completely isolated.

  I knew before I tried that the door would be locked, but I checked anyway.

  Yep, locked.

  I dropped my hand from the handle and turned back around, staring at the room with much more clarity. Now that I was alone, coherent, and able to rationally put two thoughts together, I could really take a look around and see all there was before me.

  The room was bare. The cement walls gave me an entrapment-like feeling, as if I was standing in the centre of an inescapable void. I wasn’t claustrophobic, but I wasn’t a fan of being so alone. I’d always had my phone attached to my hip because even a voice can chase away the forlorn thoughts that I’d have otherwise drowned in.

  The room wasn’t scary in any shape of form. The blue bed sheets had smelled clean and unused. If this was Remy’s room, he didn’t use it often. Was it a guest room? There was only a bed and a dresser on either side… My eyes widened and my heart skipped a beat at a door in the corner against the same wall of the bed that I had overlooked.

  I rushed to it and turned the handle. It opened freely and I was hit with a septic smell that sometimes accompanied a bathroom. Thank fuck for that! My bladder was a dam that was about to explode.

  It was a tiny bathroom with a shower stall on one side, toilet and a small sink on the other. There was a white brick looking thing that I assumed was a bar of soap that hadn’t been used in about a century. No shampoos or towels. Please God, if you’re there, give me some toilet paper at least! Yes, there was a god. A stack of toilet paper rolls sat beside the toilet.

  I gladly went about my business, splashed water on my face and rinsed my mouth. The taste of dried blood had me feeling around the inside of it for a moment until I hissed at a pain in my right gum. It had stopped bleeding at least, so it mustn’t have been serious. I’d have given anything for a mirror to see what I looked like.

  Alas, exhaustion prevailed, and I meandered back to the bed, tripping over the same thing I’d tripped out of on my way out of it earlier. I looked down at a pair of black boots. I bent down and shoved them under the bed, cursing under my breath that even in guestrooms men had to find a place to dump their shit.

  I paused just then, kneeling down to take a proper look under the bed. There was a small, brown box against one of the bed legs. I grabbed it and set it on the night table, and then I lifted the lid and peeked inside.

  Uneasiness gripped me at the revolver and switch blade that sat within.

  I hesitantly picked up the revolver and inspected it, turning it over in my hands. Was it loaded? Mesmerised by the simplicity of such a deadly weapon, I studied it for some time. It was a six cylinder, this much I did know. I’d watched enough Western movies as a kid with Jaxon to also know that to shoot you needed to pull the lever back and squeeze the trigger.

  I quickly put it away before my sleep induced thoughts tried to convince me to meddle around with it. I didn’t want to know if it was loaded. Who the fuck cared? I wasn’t intending on shooting anyone, much less Remy.

  I inspected the switch blade next. It looked rustic with a brown, worn out handle and a silver button. I pressed the button on the end of the handle and the blade jerked out. Huh. Its blade was only a few inches long, enough to do damage if you stuck it in the right spot. I folded it back and set it within the box, and then I slid the box back under the bed where I’d found it.

  I climbed into the bed and wrapped the ultra-warm doona around myself.

  It took me forever to fall asleep.

  All I thought about was Jaxon.

  *****

  The noise of the door opening woke me up. I knew before I opened my eyes that it was Remy, and after a lonely night, I was thankful for some company.

  Wearing the same clothes, he strode in looking worse for wear than yesterday: jeans and a black long sleeve shirt with his patched vest on. His face was paler, his eyes dimmed out by exhaustion, and his movements were slower. I watched him set some things down. The smell of food wafted into my nose and my stomach tightened in hunger.

  “Morning,” he said, setting a large brown bag on the bed beside me. “Grabbed some breakfast.”

  I sat up and rested my back against the headboard. “Thanks,” I said.

  He nodded in return and began unloading the bag. Unloading… and unloading. Christ, there had to be a bottom to that bag eventually. My eyes bulged out of my head as I took in the containers of pancakes, bacon strips, hash browns, scrambled eggs, bagels and sausages.

  “You really went all out,” I remarked dryly.

  He nodded again without a word and handed me a paper plate and a plastic spork. Then he sat down on the edge of the bed, and his tired eyes watched me unwaveringly, taking in my every movement.

  I won’t pretend that this wasn’t awkward. It was insanely fucking awkward. Why was he watching me like I was some lab experiment? I cleared my throat and looked on at all the food, trying my hardest not to feel the heat of his stare as I reached over for the pancakes. I placed two on my plate and then shovelled on some eggs and some sausages and… well, I managed to put everything on that damn plate. I was starving, my eyes bigger than my stomach, and the smell of it all had been too much to resist.

  “You should eat, too,”
I said, motioning to the food.

  No spork and plate needed, he grabbed a sausage and devoured it in two bites, and then he went for some more. We ate in silence, and the awkwardness no longer bothered me because I was feeding my face with the greasiest of foods. Greasy foods and me meshed well. A happy woman is a full woman, right?

  “What’s your favourite out of all this?” he randomly inquired, chewing quietly as he regarded me.

  “The food?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Right now I’m loving the hash browns.”

  “What do you usually have in the mornings?”

  “Cereal.”

  He stilled for a moment and his jaw tensed. “I didn’t get you cereal. How the fuck did I miss that?”

  Was he seriously hating on himself for that? I pressed my lips down hard to fight my smile. “It’s no big deal at all. This is actually a nice change. I’ve barely found time in the last week to even have breakfast.”

  He continued eating, and his eyes continued to roam me head to toe. Though he was impossible to read normally, I knew I saw the look of fascination in those dark irises of his. What he could possibly be fascinated about, I had no idea.

  “You look shattered,” I commented, trying to inject some conversation between us.

  He nodded. I wish he’d stop with the damn nods and just speak! He’d been attentive and talkative last night. Now he was silent and flat. Did he hate me after I’d come clean about his brother? Was this fascination really just abhorrence? Shit, did he blame me for his brother’s death?

  I looked down at my food nervously and said, “You know, about last night… The things I told you... I understand if there’s animosity. I don’t expect you to be nice or understanding after what I told you happened–”

  “No animosity whatsoever,” he interrupted firmly. “You did nothing wrong. What happened was Brett’s fault. Not yours. Understand?”

  “Yeah.”

  He leaned over and pushed my plate further into me. “Go on. Keep eatin’, Birdy. You look just as exhausted.”

  My nerves died down immediately. I looked at him curiously, a certain repeated word of his getting the most attention in my thoughts.

  “Birdy. Why do you call me that?”

  He smirked like the question was amusing to him and stopped picking at the food. Giving me his undivided attention, he replied, “I’ve been calling you that since you were three. When the folks were busy and you were bein’ an annoying little shit, I was thrown in your play-pen to calm you down.”

  I couldn’t resist my ear to ear grin.

  “Toys did nothing for you,” he continued, face softening with his words. “You used to throw them out of your pen and scream like a chimp on fire, bangin’ the bars and shit ‘til you were purple in the face. The only thing that’d shut you up was a book, and the only reason I learned that was because you stole my favourite comic out of my hands once and tore it to pieces. But you did it quietly, so that was a fucking breakthrough.”

  I laughed lightly. “Oh, my God. Was it a good comic?”

  “It was ‘The Spectacular Spider Man’ comic with the Kraven on the front or some shit. My favourite at the time.”

  “Oh, no. I’m sorry.”

  “You should be. That shit was hard to come by for me. Had to pay a Jackal thirty cents for it.”

  “A whole thirty cents?”

  “All my money at the time.” He smiled widely at my laughter, and it was a nice smile at that. The kind that brightened his otherwise stern expression.

  “Anyway, I started reading to you. Tried gettin’ you to actually talk because you’d just scream and never use words. Your favourite was this animal safari book, and it was the saddest lookin’ thing you’d ever seen, pages worn out and tattered. It was probably from the fuckin’ dark ages or somethin’.

  “So, I’d point to every animal on every page and read them out to you. You were too fussy to repeat the names and more intent on listening. I’d re-enact the sounds they’d make, and you’d laugh up a storm, looking at me growlin’ like a fucking lion and bear and shit. Could never get you to do it until one day you just picked up the book yourself and flicked through the pages, looking for something. You stopped and pointed at a bird and screamed, ‘chirp, chirp,’ over and over again. You were damn proud of yourself too, chip-chirping like a possessed toddler; nobody could get you to shut up after that. I called you ‘Birdy’ because that was the only animal sound you’d make, and you responded to the name like it was your own.”

  My heart squeezed in my chest and my cheeks went hot. It was so bizarre for a stranger to talk about a moment in my childhood I couldn’t even remember. It was also soothing. Mom had never talked to me throughout the years. Never brought up my childhood, the day I was born, what I was like… She’d remained a shadow, preferring to distance herself from me.

  “So that name stuck, I guess,” Remy said with a shrug. “If you don’t like it–”

  “I like it just fine,” I interrupted with a convincing smile. “I don’t know anything about that time in my life. I remember nothing. You telling me about it helps. Thank you.”

  Cue the nod. “S’alright.”

  When we finished eating, we began packing the trash into the paper bag. It was then I took full notice of the bags on the floor beside the door.

  He followed my gaze. “I brought you some supplies.”

  Supplies? I got out of bed and walked to the bags. I bent down and looked into a few. I found clothes in one bag and hygiene products in another with… Were those pads? What the fuck?

  I confusedly turned to Remy. “How long are you going to keep me here?”

  He was wiping his hands with a few napkins and not meeting my eye. I didn’t feel good about this.

  “There’s some heat on you,” he muttered, throwing the napkins into the bag.

  “On me? Why?”

  “Come have a seat.”

  I sat back down with my back against the headboard and warily watched him fiddle around with the trash bag.

  “I struck a deal with the Scorpions,” he then said, finally tossing the bag on the ground before meeting my eye. “Spoke with Jaxon…”

  My insides seized at the mention of Jaxon, and I went rigid. He noticed it and eyed me carefully.

  “He killed my brother, Sara.” His voice was low, unreadable. “He crossed the line.”

  “He saved me,” I whispered, eyes watering at the pain that was re-surfacing. “I told you that.”

  “Regardless, there are consequences–”

  “Don’t hurt him!” I interrupted hysterically. This is what I feared would happen and why I initially didn’t want to tell him about Brett in the first place. “Please, don’t do anything. Please.”

  Remy pursed his lips, displeasure clear in his tense demeanour. “What he did is grounds for retaliation, Birdy. Something I chose not to do in the end.”

  Now I was even more confused. “What was the deal?” If it meant there was heat on me, then it had something to do with me.

  “You.”

  Me? “What do you mean?”

  “Told Jaxon to steer clear from you. That you were a Jackal. That you don’t deserve the kind of lifestyle they would have offered you. The heat is knowin’ Jaxon might not follow the rules if you’re back out there, and if he doesn’t follow the rules, shit’s gonna get ugly. There’s not much peace between the clubs as it is. One blow up like this can end badly for everyone involved. I need you here ‘til it cools.”

  He spoke to Jaxon? When? I’d only been taken last night!

  “Jaxon came for me,” I stated quietly, looking down at my hands now. That was the only explanation.

  “Yeah.”

  Oh, Jaxon.

  All I wanted was to see his face, to feel him wrapped around me. My chest constricted so painfully, I had to put my hand against it. Heartbreak all over again, and once again it was my fault. I wanted him. I wanted him so fucking badly, but I knew the choice had been rig
ht. I couldn’t be involved in the seediness of his gang, and yet now I was being forcefully thrown into another.

  “I don’t want to be here, Remy,” I told him, meeting the darkness of his eyes once again. “I just want to go home. You can take me to Winthrop, can’t you?”

  “No. This is where you belong.” His words, firm and resolute, were emotionless too. He looked away from me and got up, kicking away the garbage bag as he reached for the bags beside the door. He picked them all up and threw them roughly on the bed. I watched him closely, the way his brows furrowed together and his jaw tensed. Anger.

  Still unsure of the way he handled his behavioural shifts, I quietly took the clothing bag, emptied it and dispersed all of the clothes over a part of the mattress. High-end tops and silky pyjamas and jeans that were a size too small – where had he found all of this?

  When I looked back at him, he was already on his way to the door. Panic gripped me immediately. “Are you leaving?” I didn’t want to be alone in this room another minute.

  “Go and shower,” he replied, back against me. “I’ll be settin’ the room up for you.”

  He unlocked the door and left me. Why was he so bloody angry? What had I done?

  Fuckin’ men, I thought bitterly while picking an outfit to wear. I grabbed a bag filled with shampoo, a razor, body wash, and an absurdly fluffy pink towel. At least I’d be in this prison looking clean and smelling fresh.

  It’s the small things.

  Three

  I betrayed him. Promised him I’d stay. Bolted when I realized otherwise. Did it ever occur to me that perhaps there was an out to the way the Scorpions treated their women? Remy had said that Jaxon was second in command. Surely that yielded powers that might have exempted me from being tossed around like a prostitute without pay. This was hopeful Sara, trying her hardest to think positively.

  He should have told me, goddammit! Should have come clean to me about what he was involved in. I sat down on the rough, uneven ground and watched the water disappear down the drain. Pitiful Sara emerged and was looking at the drain thinking, how fitting to watch my own life disappear, too, down the shit drain of life.