Trip

 

She was gone.

 

She was fucking gone.

 

There was blood smeared all over her room, splattered across her windows. It painted everything in the dainty little space that she used to occupy, but there was no body. There was nothing left of her amid the overturned lamp with its bulb shattered on her floor or her bed, messed up like someone had fought her in it. Even her curtains were torn from her windows—and she wasn’t there to witness the aftermath of whatever the hell had gone down.

 

But fuck, there was blood. A lot of it. More than there should be to hope that she would be alive. There was a trail leading out her door like she’d been dragged out and away.

 

I paced around the fucked-up room, my boots thudding against her floor. When I stepped in a pool of blood and nearly slipped, it clicked that it was hers. I grabbed her dresser in a white-knuckled rage and slung it across her room. It crashed, scattering lace and silk that I’d gotten to peel off her body to worship what was beneath too many times to count.

 

“Fuck!”

 

“Trip. Trip! Calm down, man—”

 

There was a hand on my shoulder and I flipped out. I swung around to face whoever the fuck thought they were gonna touch me while I had to look at her blood all over the damn place, knowing that she was gone and that I was never going to see her again. I couldn’t see anything but red, but I felt the hands on my arms as I fought against them.

 

I struggled until there was no fight left in me. I struggled until my face was on the floor and the wood pressed into my skin. I could still smell her perfume in the air, even with the blood. The wood didn’t mask that, and as the fight started to leave me as I sagged against it, and I didn’t know how I felt.

 

I was numb.

 

It was those Jackal bastards, over the border. I knew it, and I knew my boys knew it too. They were the only ones who left blood baths like this. They thought they were untouchable. They knew a few names—thought they’d take a few of ours for themselves. We wouldn’t let them.

 

“It’s gotta be retaliation. Gotta be retribution.” It was what—barely a week ago we made it firm that we didn’t do business with Jackals—not now, not ever. I bet that had made them mad as all hell. When the Pride backed an MC, it was known it was always smooth sailing from then on out.

 

“Jackals, those damn Jackals …”

 

“Trip?” It was Brig. “Trip, man, you gotta breathe normal or something man. Come on.”

 

I couldn’t.

 

There were voices coming from the other room. Big John. I knew his voice; Misha’s daddy. He was like us once. He hadn’t wanted her around us or me—me especially. Too much bad news, and I guessed he was right about that, since I had dragged his little girl into this world.

 

“Trip, if we let you go, you gonna be good?” Brig asks with a shaking voice; that’s right—he’s never been fond of blood. Must be woozy.

 

I didn’t answer, and the arms didn’t let go of me. I thought they probably thought I was going crazy again; I might. I almost wanted to laugh, that’s how crazy I felt. That would be a hell of a lot better than just the nothing that’s settled.

 

I heard heavy footfalls, and I didn’t move, not even when it was a foot falling on my skull, followed by Big John’s shouts. There was so much ringing, I could barely hear a damn thing over it, but I heard him calling me every name in the book like I deserved it. Like it was my fault that he had walked into his little girl’s room to find it like that.

 

Maybe it was.

 

Who was at fault and who was not, though, didn’t really matter when I knew whose hands Misha’s blood had drenched when they killed her.

 

I was gonna ruin every last one of them.