Zeb…

She was a right mess. Completely munted on her sorrow and I didn’t blame her one bit. She sat on the floor in the middle of the bustling hallway and screamed and I just went to the floor with her, wrapped my arms and legs around her and held her. I let her have her total meltdown and waited for her to finish, more than a little brassed off at the whole situation.

She wept bitterly against me and I looked up at the ceiling, glancing at Dragon who stood near us to fend off anyone that might try to make us move or have something to say about my girl’s apparently packing a sad in the middle of the hospital hallway. Fuck them, anyhow.

He put his mobile to his ear and said into it, “Yeah, Doll, get me Reaver on the line.”

It was all I needed to hear. This would be taken care of, and my brothers and I would see it through, but right now my girl needed tending and that was something only I could do. It hit me then, that I had completely fallen in love with her. Not only that, I realized that I was it, now. The only other person she really had in this sad, lonely little life she led had just completely carked it.

Bugger all.

“Take my truck, take her home to get some of her shit, and take her to the club,” Dragon ordered and handed me down a set of keys. I handed up my own in trade.

“Motorbike is by the front doors.”

“Yeah, I saw it. Damn rat bike of yours,” he frowned but gave me a wink.

“Ain’t got to be flash, just has to run, eh.”

“Get you gone, motherfucker. Take care of your woman.”

“On it, boss.” I got up and picked Tiffany up completely, one arm behind her back, the other beneath her knees. She let me, face buried in the side of my neck, arms around it, clinging to me tightly.

I went out and found Dragon’s old truck, which was just as beat-up and sad-looking as my bike was, and unlocked the passenger door, opening her up. I tucked Tiffany in and pulled back, cupping her face with one hand.

“I don’t know what to do from here,” she said, her face red and tear-stained. I’d never seen her cry like this before. A few stray tears here and there, but this desperate and devastated weeping scared me a bit.

“You leave that to me, eh? She’ll come right.”

She visibly crumbled, everything about her expression screaming that she wanted to believe me but that she just couldn’t right now. I can’t say I blamed her for the notion, either.

“What do I do?” she cried, panic making her eyes go wide, her voice rising, and tears spilling. “What do I do?”

“Shhh, shhh,” I leaned forward and pressed my lips to hers. She quieted, freezing and her eyes drifted shut. When I knew she had a bit more of a grip, I drew back and said, “You trust me, that’s what you do.”

She nodded and pressed her lips, biting them together. I gave her a nod and shut the door on her, quickly jogging around the bonnet and getting in on the other side. It felt wrong, still. Driving on the wrong side of the road I’d grown used to, but on the wrong side of a cage, I still had issues. I wasn’t used to shifting with my right hand, still.

“Have to forgive me, I’m still not used to driving a cage in America,” I told her, firing up the truck.

She huddled miserably on the seat and said, voice far away as she stared at the hospital through the windscreen, “I’ll forgive you on account of being warm.”

“Thanks,” I said, and ground gears, working the unfamiliar pedals to get us out of there on our way out to the wops where she lived. It’d been too long since I’d driven a cage. It’d like to make me crazy.

I drove us in silence. To be honest, I didn’t know what to say and she wasn’t talking and that was okay. Sometimes words weren’t needed. Sometimes you just needed to be there. When I wasn’t shifting gears, she held my hand tight on the seat between us.

I didn’t like driving the truck. I kept sliding and was so used to the motorbike that I didn’t feel like I had the right amount of control on four wheels that I had on two. Funny that, eh?

I made the turn into Tiffany’s lot and cut the engine, turning to look at her. I sighed and told her the truth.

“The rules of the game have changed, you get that, right?”

“Yeah, yeah it’s kind of hard not to get it,” she said back and looked so tired, so miserable, so completely wrung out and brittle, I was afraid my strong brave girl was going to give up on me.

“We’re gonna take as much as we can, throw it in trash bags if we have to and right into the back of the truck.”

“Okay,” she agreed, nodding somberly. She had to know her place here was compromised for sure.

“Okay, come on, then.”

I went around and took her hand and we went up the stairs. I stayed out in front and couldn’t help but swear when we got to her door, “Aw, shit, no.” He’d nailed her cat, fur slick and dark with blood, to her door, guts spilling out onto the ground.

I heard her gasp and I turned right around, pulling her into my chest, pressing her face into my shoulder as she shuddered and hushing her. “Shh, don’t look,” I said. “I’m so sorry, Wahine. Don’t look.”

She was trying so hard not to fly apart, she was being so brave, but this? I don’t know how she did it. How she held it together.

“Let’s just go inside!” she cried and I nodded.

“Gimme your keys.” She fished them blindly out of her purse at her side and shoved them into my hand. I turned around and she hid against my back as I worked the locks and tried not to get anything on me. I opened the door and shoved her through, once I knew there was no one inside and followed her in, shutting the horror back out on the other side.

“Max?” she muttered in disbelief. Her damn cat stretched on the bed, kneading the covers with her paws and meowing quizzically. “Max!” she cried and I felt my muscles loosen.

“Thank fuck,” I muttered and set about moving around her kitchen, looking for trash bags.

“Oh my God, thank you,” she said, and held the displeased animal tightly to her, kissing her between her ears.

“You got something to carry her in?” I asked.

“Pillowcase if I have to,” she said, tears leaking from her eyes.

“Clothes and essentials in here,” I said. “I’ll take care of out there.”

“O-o-kay,” she stammered and reluctantly put her cat down. Fuck, I can’t say how happy I was to see that insane furball.

We made quick work of her place. I bagged the dead animal, a different stray from the neighborhood, I reckon, and threw it in her apartment’s dumpster. We loaded her clothes, Mad Maxine, and her laptop and school books into trash bags, pillowcases, and a knapsack, as much as we could carry in one trip between the both of us.

One trash bag held the cat’s food and dishes, another her litter box and such. It was heavy, but we managed it all in one go, which we needed to do. She set the hissing, growling, struggling cat between us on the flat seat of the truck and the rest went in the back.

“Where are we going? Your place?” she asked.

I shook my head and said, “Someplace safer,” and headed for the clubhouse.

She was shaking, but not from the cold. She kept murmuring to the damn cat who wasn’t having any of it, and it all just broke my damn heart.