Chapter 1
Wren
Two Months Later
“Breakfast.”
“Not hungry.”
He set the plate down in front of me. “Don’t care.” His long finger pointed at the two fried eggs and toast. “You have therapy in an hour. You eat this, get dressed, and then we leave.”
“I don’t have to do what you say.”
He planted his hands on the table and loomed over me. “Are we really going to go over this every morning?”
“Yes, because I don’t know why you suddenly care.”
He growled low. “I’ve always cared.”
He was always growling at me. His voice was low and rough. I swear, he gargled gravel every night before he went to bed. “No one cares.”
“People do care, Wren. You just can’t see past the shit swirling around in your head.” He pushed the plate closer. “Eat.”
I picked up the fork and stabbed the yolk. “Your eggs suck.” Hard, rubbery yolk every morning for the past six and a half weeks was disgusting. The food in the hospital was better than this.
“Then wake up on your own, and cook them yourself.”
“That doesn’t sound like you care about me.”
He pulled out the chair across from me and sat down. “I’m sitting in on your therapy today.”
My jaw dropped. “Um, what?” Therapy was the only time I had away from Maniac. Otherwise, he was always breathing down my neck. The man never left me alone for more than the two minutes it took me to go to the bathroom. “You don’t need to be there.”
“I’m coming in with you.”
“You’re not.” What the hell was this man smoking? Therapy was private, and he had no right to be there.
“I am.”
“What do you think you are doing?”
“Helping.” This man was insane.
“How is that helping?”
“I’m the one who has spent the past two months with you. I think I should be able to be there. Besides, I have a few questions of my own I want to ask her.”
I threw my arms up. “You can ask her questions after I’m done.”
“Just let me come one time with you, Wren. It’s not going to hurt anything.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. Fine, if he wanted to be bored to death for an hour, he was more than welcome to come along. “Whatever. If you want to be there, then you can be there.” It wasn’t like I was getting anything out of the therapy besides an hour away from Maniac.
“Good. Finish eating, get dressed, and then we’ll leave.” He walked out of the kitchen and into the living room.
The damn man drove me insane. He treated me like a teenager who constantly needed watching and couldn’t think for themselves.
I ate the egg white from around the rubbery yolk and one piece of the toast. I only ate to keep up my strength to argue with Maniac. I scraped the rest of my food into the garbage and set my plate in the sink. I never did dishes. He forced me to eat so he could do the dishes then.
“Half an hour, Wren,” he called.
“Yes sir, Captain Asshole,” I mumbled under my breath.
“Heard that,” he chuckled.
Good. He needed to know I didn’t appreciate him. I just wanted to be left alone.
I just needed to convince Maniac and this damn therapist that I was fine, then hopefully, I could get the hell out of here.
Hell, I would settle for ten minutes alone.
Maniac was holding me prisoner in this damn place, and all I wanted to do was bust out and never see him or the Fallen Lords ever again.
*
Maniac
“How does that make you feel?”
If this bitch asked Wren “how does that make you feel” one more time, I was going to slit my own wrists. Christ on a cracker, this bird was whacked in the head.
“Uh, it makes me feel fine.” Wren was huddled in the corner of the couch, giving the same damn answer every time.
This was fucking pointless.
I sprung up from the couch, pulled a fifty from my wallet, and tossed on the coffee table. “We’re done.”
“It’s only been twenty minutes,” the therapist stuttered.
“Yeah, that’s nineteen minutes too long.” I turned to Wren and held my hand out to her. “Let’s go.”
She slowly unfolded her legs from underneath her and stood. She avoided my hand, walked around the coffee table, and out the door.
“Mr., uh, Maniac. I have to advise you this is not a good idea. Wren needs help.”
I nodded my head. “No shit, Dr. Phil, but your kind of help is horse shit.”
She puffed out her chest and tossed her notebook down.
I didn’t have time for whatever Freudian shit she was going to spew at me. I may not have a degree in shrinking heads, but I damn well knew the shit she was doing with Wren wasn’t working. That was why I wanted to be here today. I didn’t know what Wren had gone through, but I knew it was some fucked up shit. Asking how she felt about shit wasn’t going to help.
I jogged down the hallway and caught a glimpse of Wren’s back as she pushed out the front door.
“That was quick. Do you want me to schedule her next appointment?” The tiny blonde receptionist fluttered her eyelashes at me and thrust out her fake tits.
Under normal circumstances, I would have appreciated this, but with Wren making a break for it, I didn’t get the chance to flirt with her today. “We’re done.”
Fake tits sputtered. “But… I thought… when will we….”
I shook my head. “Not happening, sweetbutt.” At least, not in the near future. Wren was the only chick I had eyes for at the moment. Even though the sweetbutt behind the desk could entertain me for a couple of hours, I knew she wouldn’t be worth the hassle of scraping her off later. She seemed clingy, and clingy was not something I did. Ever.
I made my way out to the truck parked at the curb and was surprised to see Wren standing at the passenger door.
“Can you unlock the door?”
I beeped open the locks and pulled open her door. “I thought for sure you were going to make a run for it.”
“If I knew my way around, I would, but since you hauled us to some Podunk town I’ve never heard of before, I’m unfortunately at your mercy.” She hauled her ass up into the truck. “You can close the door.”
My gaze traveled over the pale pink sweatshirt she always insisted on wearing. “You do know it’s almost eighty degrees, right? I think you can ditch the sweatshirt.”
“You didn’t let me grab many clothes before you kidnapped me.”
“I’ve offered to take you clothes shopping.”
She shook her head. “I’m fine with what I have.” She gripped the cuffs of her sweatshirt and tugged the sleeves over her hands. “Can we go back to the cabin now?”
“We need to go to the grocery store.”
“Can’t you drop me off and then go to the store.”
I braced my arms on the doorframe of the truck. “I haven’t let you out of my sight in weeks. What makes you think I’m just going to drop you off and go to the store?”
“I really don’t want to go to the store, Maniac.”
“Why?” Most chicks loved to go shopping. At least, that’s what I figured.
“I just don’t want to.”
“I need more of a reason than that. You give me a good one, and we’ll figure something out.”
She chewed on her lip and looked out the windshield in front of her. “Can’t you order them online, and they bring them out to the truck?”
“We’re in a town of a thousand people. You really think they have that here? I was surprised they had a therapist you could go to.” Durham was seventy miles from the Fallen Lords clubhouse and about forty miles from anywhere you could order your groceries online.
“I really don’t want to go to the store right now.”
My eyes watched her hands fidget with her sleeves. “Then when do you want to go?”
“When there aren’t any people there.”
I raised my eyes and caught her looking at me out of the corner of her eye. “Darlin’, I don’t know how to do that.” She was hurting. She was so damn lost, I didn’t even know if I was actually talking to the real Wren half of the time. She got so lost in her own damn head that some of the time, I would have to call her name three or four times before she would answer me. She only left the house to go to therapy, and that was it.
Two weeks ago, Cora and Brinks had driven up with groceries and shit, but Wren had refused to even see them. Now, we were down to just half a loaf of bread and peanut butter. No way I could live on that for more than a few hours.
“Please. I don’t want to go now.”
I hung my head and sighed. “Wren, you gotta work with me here.”
“Can’t we go right before they close, or maybe to one of those stores that are open twenty four hours?”
“Killing me,” I mumbled under my breath. I stepped back and swung her door shut.
I rounded the front of the truck and hopped into the driver’s seat.
“So what are we doing?” she asked quietly.
I stabbed the key into the ignition, wishing it was my bike cranking up and not a damn truck. “Going home.”
“But I thought—”
My hand shot up, cutting her off. She shrunk back in her seat, and I cringed.
Son of a bitch. “Not gonna hit you.” I tried to keep my tone light and not growl at her. Hitting her was the last thing on my mind. I was frustrated as hell with her, but I would never lay a finger on her. “We’re going home. Don’t worry about anything else.” I wasn’t going to force her into the store. I was going to have to push her, but she wasn’t anywhere near ready to be thrown into something she didn’t want to do.
We were halfway back to the cabin before she spoke.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
I glanced over at her. “Not a damn thing to be sorry about, darlin’. We’ll figure this out.” For the time being, we were going to order pizza for dinner, but after that, I still hadn’t figured anything out.
That was life with Wren.
We figured shit out as it came.
Right now, I had to figure out how to get her in the grocery store with no other people there.
*