Paul

Sitting in the sterile office, I reach over to squeeze Mary’s hand. Dr. Raynott has called us to his office to discuss Mary’s recent visit. Squeezing Mary’s hand until the point of pain, she brings her free hand to stroke mine and I release my grasp.

The doctor enters his office and sits behind his large oak desk. As he sits, the knot in my stomach drops to my feet. The pained expression on his face tells me everything I need to know.

It tells Mary too.

She squeezes my hand as I had hers minutes before. Clearing his throat, the doctor speaks, but I hear nothing. I already know the lump we found is cancer. My best friend and the most important person in my life is sick. The rock that has been sitting on my chest for the last few days gets even heavier.

What am I going to do without the other half of my soul?

* * *

Savy

The next time I gain conciseness, I’m lying on the hard, cold concrete floor. My hands are tied to my front and my vision is blurry for a few minutes as my eyes adjust to the dim lighting in the damp room. With nothing to protect me from the cold, I’m shivering. I don’t move because I don’t know where Paul is. He has to be close and I’m surprised that he took me down from the hanging position I was in previously. I assumed he would leave me hanging until my arms ripped from their sockets. After all, his goal all along has been to inflict as much pain as possible.

I hear a chair scrape across the concrete and I close my eyes again, keeping my breath shallow. “Fucking bitch. She murdered Mary. It’s all her fault my Mary is gone. She took her from me.”

I don’t dare move an inch. The punch to my head has caused it to pound so much that I can feel the blood rushing in both ears. As Paul continues ranting about my mother, his footsteps move from one side of the room to another. I count as he moves in one direction and then turns, and moves in the opposite direction.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Six.

I focus on his steps. Only six steps from one side to the other. It’s the only thing keeping me awake. I want to sleep, but I’m afraid if I close my eyes to sleep, I’ll never open them again. But I’ve lost too much blood and even the counting of steps cannot keep me awake. I fall into blackness. I’m exhausted and I pray for death. Paul has finally gotten his hands on me, but at least he’ll never get his hands on Ena.

“Get the fuck up, bitch!” Fire grows in my thighs as he snatches me up from my horizontal position. He is holding me up against a wall in the dank basement or dungeon. At this point I can’t tell the difference. His eyes are black pits. No soul, no humanity left. His eyes are unlike the black soulful eyes I look into each night.

“Are you still keeping quiet, bitch?”

This time instead of remaining silent, I let loose all the words and emotions I’ve had since I was a little girl. It’s bad enough I lost my mother in a tragic accident, but what’s worse is the treatment I received from my father, the one man I was supposed be able to depend on. I’m going to die anyway, hell I might as well tell him what I really feel about him.

“He’s going to kill you,” I say. My voice is a deep rasp. I must have been down here a long time. I just noticed how thirsty I am. Clearing my throat, I continue, “Diablo will gut you, you motherfucker!” He backhands me, my head twisting to the side, but I keep speaking, “I’m not keeping quiet any more. I’ve done that my whole life and look where that’s gotten me.”

He slaps me across the cheek again. My head snaps to the other side, but it doesn’t stop me from saying what I have to say. I’ve taken enough slaps in my life and at this point I don’t give a fuck. He can kill me, but he will listen to what I have to say first.

“Does that make you feel better?” My eyebrows are knitted in disgust. “Does hitting a woman make you feel like a real man? What about hitting a little girl? Beating an eight-year-old girl that just watched her mother die in a car accident. Is that what gets you off, you son of a bitch?”

“She’s dead because of you!”

“No!” Today is the first time I have yelled at my father, ever. He is shocked at my rage. He loosens his hold on my body, but continues to hold me pinned to the wall. “I did not kill her. It was an accident. A fucking tragic, horrible accident, but I was eight.” I let my words sink in. I think I’m getting through to him, but then I see the shudders in his eyes fall into place and his rage comes full force.

“Shut up! Shut up! You killed her!”

“No, you idiot. YOU were driving. If anyone is at fault here, it’s you.”

He lets me go and I drop to the ground with a hard thud. I can feel the dampness of my blood against my pants, but I need to keep my attention on Paul. He scrambles backwards like touching me burns his skin. I continue my barrage of words, it’s the first time I see hope that I might make it out of here alive. I don’t know where I am, or how long he’s had me locked up, but I have hope.

“You were the parent. The only parent I had left and instead of taking care of me and protecting me, you gave me to a rapist. Jon raped me every day for six years. And you knew.” A statement. Paul knew I was being molested, and he did nothing to protect me. Any normal parent would have pressed charges or killed the bastard, but Paul kept handing me over like I didn’t matter to him. I was nothing to him. “I was there the day mom died too. She fought you. She begged you to save me and what did you do?”

“I saved you when I should have saved her,” he admits. It stings. Despite all the fucked up shit he has done, he is still my father and deep down I had hoped I could forgive him, but he has sealed his fate. He is dead to me.

Forever.

“Yes, you should have saved her. And what kind of life would you have lived after that? She would have resented you for saving her instead. You bastard. You were supposed to protect me!”

“Shut up!” He slaps me hard across the face, stopping my words in their tracks. My cheeks are already burning from the other blows so I don’t feel the pain much, but the defiance is still in my eyes. He punches me over and over until I black out again.

I really wish this fucker would stop hitting me so I can think of a plan to get the fuck out of here.

* * *

Diablo

Savy has been missing for six hours.

Six fucking hours!

We didn’t find out she was missing until about ten minutes after she was gone. Tiny was sliced across the throat from behind when he was watching Savy in the field. Thankfully the fucker didn’t hit Tiny’s carotid arteries or his jugular vein. Paul did a shitty job of finishing the job. He was trying to get out of there fast and ambushed Tiny. Bo was doing a normal perimeter check when he found Tiny bleeding in the field. He’s been in surgery since the attack, but Aero tells me he will survive.

Thank fuck.

I can’t let this fucker get away with trying to kill my brother and kidnapping my ol’ lady. I need to find out where she is. I can’t lose her now. “Axel, I need everything you can find on Tyler, Kris and Paul. Fuck, put Hazel in there too. This motherfucker took Savy and I need to get her back.”

“I’ve been looking, boss, but I got jack shit!” he yells in frustration.

I feel helpless. It’s an emotion I’m not used to feeling. I’m Diablo, the devil and President of Havoc Motorcycle Club, but right now I feel like a scared little boy, much like I felt as a child. I need to do something, anything to get Savy back. I want to be out there searching for Savy, but if I become reckless, I will likely get her killed sooner. That is something I cannot live with so I sit and wait for Axel to find something.

Ena has been sitting in the main room on the couch the entire time Savy has been missing. Joss, Lexa, Hazel and the other sweetbutts are sitting around the Compound in silence. Every once in a while, Joss or Lexa tries to get Ena to go lay down or eat something. She just yells at them to leave her the fuck alone and she continues sitting, staring off into nothingness as tears roll down her cheeks.

Skull is sitting on her other side silently providing stability in an unsure situation. He doesn’t speak, just holds her hand and squeezes it to reassure her. We are all on edge. It’s a painful waiting game we must play. When I get my hands on Paul, I’m going to fucking kill him.

“I got something!” Axel yells as he enters the room.

“Church! Now!” I call.

“Kid, I’m gonna find her, you hear me?” I say. Looking Ena straight in the eyes I vow to find her sister and the woman I love.

“Yes,” she says. I see a spark of defiance settle on her face and it’s just what I need as I walk into the chapel.

“What did you find?”

“Two weeks ago, Kris called Donny. I ran her call records. I didn’t see it before because she called him at his house. Then I ran Donny’s records, and he called a Georgia phone number several times a few weeks ago.”

“Savy and Ena are from Georgia. It’s gotta be Paul.”

“Yeah, that fucker didn’t even use a burner. I have a ping on his phone right now. He’s on the Southside of town, near the old railroad tracks. He must be keeping her in a different place than he kept Hazel. We found jack shit there,” Axel says.

“Let’s go get my girl.”

We head out. We’re strapped with every weapon we have available. This is a critical mission. If Savy dies, I won’t be able to face Ena, let alone myself ever again. I hope she can hold on long enough for me to get to her.