Jagger
When Jagger awoke the next morning, Abby was still sleeping, her legs tangled with his, her hands neatly folded under her face as she frowned in her dreams. He was tempted to lean in, kiss her in the middle of her furrowed brows, and make all the worry dissipate. He didn’t want to wake her. She needed whatever sleep she could get, given how draining her life had been recently between Robert’s death and her apartment burning down, not to mention the fights they’d been having. She needed her rest, so Jagger quietly extracted himself from her grasp and got dressed.
Before leaving the house, he grabbed a piece of paper and a pen from the kitchen and wrote a note for Abby to read for when she awoke. Honestly, it might have been the most romantic gesture he’d ever done for a woman he was sleeping with. Usually, it was no-strings for him. Well, except for his last girlfriend, Veronica. He’d cared about her, but according to Abby, he cared more about the arsonist than their relationship. Maybe she was right. No matter how much she complained, Jagger never cut back on his hours at the fire station. He wasn’t scared to lose her.
With Abby, every time he stopped touching her, he was terrified that he’d felt her for the last time. He was sure that he was about to blow it, completely wreck the whole thing just by saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. He and Abby seemed to have such short fuses, prepared to blow at any moment. It was a terrible, chaotic combination. Jagger knew there was no way it could work out, but he couldn’t keep himself from imagining things. Things like taking her on a real date, at a nice restaurant. Or taking her on a ride on his bike, out on the open road, where no one could find them. Or making love to her, soft and sweet, on every surface in his house. He knew it would never happen, or at least that the likelihood wasn’t good. The images flooded his brain no matter how hard he resisted. He had to think about it, even if he never got to have it.
Still, there was a little spring in his step as he left house, still high on the triumphant feeling that came after a particularly strong orgasm. When he went to stick his key in the door, he paused, suddenly conflicted. I should only do one lock today, Jagger thought. The normal one, that can lock and unlock from the inside, too. That way Abby can get out when she wakes up. But then images from the previous day flashed through Jagger’s mind, one after another. Getting shot at by Old Man Bruce. Going to Jacob’s place just to find Abby there. The anger on her face. The rage that Jagger had felt at the fact that Abby had lied to him. It rushed to the forefront of his mind all at once.
And even though his stomach turned over at the mere thought of it, he realized what he had to do.
Jagger took out the special key, the one that only unlocked from the outside, for when he was leaving the house for extended periods of time. He secured the front of the house before carefully, quietly walking around the back to secure the back door with another key, a key that only Jagger had.
He doubted himself a little bit as he walked back toward his car. On the one hand, Abby wouldn’t approve of being locked in his house, he knew. On the other hand, she was in danger and needed to stay out of the way, for her own safety. That had to come first. Anyway, Abby would just have to get used to somebody caring about her, because Jagger had no intention of stopping anytime soon, no matter how unusual it seemed to Abby.
When it came to love, it was better to ask for forgiveness rather than permission. At least, that’s what Jagger thought. He could only pray that after everything, Abby would still be capable of forgiving him.
# # #
Abby
Abby awoke to the smell of Jagger’s skin, or what she thought was Jagger’s skin, anyway. His scent must have lingered on the bedsheets, because before Abby opened her eyes she reached forward with her hands, trying to touch him. She frowned as she realized that he was gone, having left a cold spot in the bed beside her.
She bent at the waist, sitting up in bed while still cuddling the bed sheets close to her chest to keep herself warm. There was no sign of Jagger in the room, and when she strained her ears she couldn’t make out any sound in the bathroom or further down the hall that might indicate his presence. After a moment she scanned the room again, searching every detail until her eyes landed on a piece of paper under the alarm clock, right next to the bed.
Dear Abby,
I’m sorry I didn’t wake you to say goodbye. You looked way too peaceful sleeping. I couldn’t disturb you. I have to head into work today. Just sleep and relax. There’s plenty of food in the refrigerator and movies for you to watch if you want. I’ll be back around 5. I miss you already.
- Jagger
Abby smiled, tracing her fingers over Jagger’s messy handwriting. It was nice, seeing that side of him, some part of him that wasn’t completely perfect. After putting the note back where she found it, she stretched her body out, unwinding her limbs back and forth until she heard her bones crack a little in satisfaction. She still felt tired, her muscles begging her to lay back down and cuddle up against the pillow until she fell back asleep. Somehow, she knew that her brain wouldn’t allow that, still too wired from the day before to simply switch off and relax.
She threw off the blankets and swung her legs over the side of the bed down to the floor, feeling suddenly energized and renewed, as if she had slept for a whole week rather than just a few hours longer than she usually did. Abby knew what it was though. For once there was something on her mind other than worry.
She was curious. She had Jagger’s house all to herself, and there was nothing stopping her from going room by room and seeing what each location had to say about the man she was sleeping with. She didn’t know what else to call their relationship other than “sleeping together.” Abby usually wasn’t the type for casual hookups, and somehow their sex seemed a little bit too intense, a little bit too intimate and personal to be appropriately deemed “casual.” Still, it wasn’t like he was her boyfriend. Abby barely knew the guy.
Now all that was going to change. Abby wasn’t going to go digging around in his drawers or anything, but she was going to explore every last inch of this house, from top to bottom. She’d figure out what made Jagger tick, what he was really like beneath all that biker bravado. Abby smirked to herself, feeling like a secret detective on a special investigation as she walked out of the bedroom and headed back toward the main entrance, where a long dark staircase wound up, higher than Abby could even see.
Abby slowly climbed the steps, listening as they creaked. It was hard for her to admit this to herself, but she loved this place. It was dark and creepy, with dust covering every visible surface, but Abby liked that. She could get used to spending time here if Jagger wanted her around. She went all the way to the top of the steps, panting a little by the time she hit the landing, opening the door to reveal a cramped room full of trinkets and knick-knacks. Old stuff. Family stuff. Abby grabbed the first object nearest to her feet, an old wooden sled with the red paint chipping off it. There was a name written in what looked to be black sharpie on the underside. “Tyler.” Abby wondered if the sled belonged to Jagger’s brother or father or cousin. Every inch of the room was covered with stuff like this, decaying artifacts from various childhoods, toys that nobody would ever play with again. Abby felt a little sad as she touched each item, thinking about how all her own toys were either sold off after Mark stole her savings or burnt to a crisp after the arsonist attacked.
She continued moving through the huge pile of objects, smiling as she stumbled on old art projects with Jagger’s name written in the lower left corner in crayon. There were pictures of trees, his home, his family. Finally, she came upon an adorably messy drawing of a motorcycle. Abby wondered if Jagger always wanted to be a member of an MC and if Satan’s Blazes were the most important thing in his life. For some reason that thought made Abby feel uneasy, her stomach tightening a little in anxiety like it always did when she was uncertain about something. She couldn’t put her finger on what exactly was wrong.
The next moment, some strange smell reached Abby’s nostrils, turning her stomach over before she even realized what it was. That was when it hit her. Smoke.
Calm down, she told herself. You’re just having a flashback because you’re nervous. It’s okay. There’s no smoke here. She got to her feet, careful not to bump her head on the attic’s low ceiling, still gripping the picture that little Jagger drew of the motorcycle. For some reason, she couldn’t bring herself to part with it, at least not yet. She folded it up and put it in her pants pocket before heading back down the stairs, the sweat on the back of her neck beading up faster as the scent of the smoke only grew stronger. No, this wasn’t just in her head. This was real. She couldn’t see the flames yet, but clouds of dark grey smoke rose to meet her as she took the final bend of stairs back down to the main level. Her entire body was shaking, Abby took a huge gulp of somewhat-fresh air before diving into the pile of smoke, heading down the stairs as quickly as she could.
Bright red flames licked along the hallway to Jagger’s bedroom, but the path to the front door was clear. Abby bolted to the door, flinging the locks open as rapidly as she could with her trembling fingers before tugging on the doorknob.
The door didn’t budge.
Abby was panting for air as the flames in the hallway got closer. She tugged on the door again. Nothing. She must have just missed a lock or something. Maybe there was a latch that she didn’t see. She checked all the locks again, even stooping down to the ground to see if there was a secret lock that she couldn’t see right away, but everything was undone.
“Right, okay, I can do this, I can do this,” Abby said to herself, hardening her body into a stone, flexing all her muscles before throwing herself at the door, pushing as hard as her body would permit. Nothing. The door didn’t move a single centimeter. Abby couldn’t understand what was wrong. Maybe the arsonist had placed a large heavy object in front of the door to keep her trapped inside. Fine, then, she thought to herself. There’s another way out. There must be.
Abby quickly stepped back from the door and took stock of her surroundings. There were no windows around, which explained why the house was so fucking dark inside. Abby wiped the sweat off her forehead as she looked around, searching for any other door. There has to be a door at the back of the house, Abby thought. Probably in the kitchen.
She headed in the opposite direction of the front door, running into room after room, trying to find any other door to the outside. There was nothing, until the last room on the right. The kitchen. She was right. Abby felt hot tears press against the backs of her eyes, the sweet pain of relief overwhelming her. She ran to the door and turned the knob, and…
Nothing. Again. There were no visible locks on this door, but it still didn’t open. “Come on, come on, come on!” Abby yelled as she threw her entire body against the solid surface of the door, bruising her shoulder badly in the process. She didn’t care about that. She had to get out. She had to get out! She was going to fucking die in here.
“Help! Help!” Abby screamed as loudly as she could, smacking her head against the kitchen door. She tried a few more times, straining the muscles of her throat as she screamed, but she heard nothing on the other side responding to her.
The front door, then. There would be more people out in front, maybe old people walking around their neighborhood. She ran back to the front of the house, tossing her body against the front door again in a futile attempt to knock it open. “Please help me! Help! Fire! Fire! Help!”
On her right, the flames kept building, getting higher and brighter as they consumed everything in their path. They were coming for her, and there was nowhere to run.
This is how I die. This is how it happens. Alone, in the smoke. Fitting.
# # #
Jagger
Ring. Ring ring ring. His fucking phone would not stop ringing. Goddammit, Jagger thought as he pulled over to the side of the road. He was going to go try to interview one of the suspects again today before work without Abby’s interference, but his fucking phone wouldn’t shut up, ringing nonstop for the past five minutes. What on earth could be so important?
After pulling over and switching off the engine, he finally reached into his pocket to grab his phone and answer it. “What?” he asked into the receiver, his voice highly irritated. He had a policy about talking on the phone while driving, and all his friends knew to give up after one or two rings if he didn’t answer right away. Jagger was a very single-minded individual. If he couldn’t completely focus his attention on what he was doing, what was the point?
“Jagger! I—I’ve been trying to reach you!” It was the Fire Captain, Gareth. He almost never called Jagger on his personal number, and Jagger had never heard him sound so panicked before. What was going on?
“What’s up, Cap?” Jagger asked, reaching over to turn his engine back on. Somehow, he knew he was about to receive bad news.
“Your house… It’s your house this time, Jagger. It’s on fire.”
It took a moment for the words to sink in. After a few seconds, Jagger felt an icy cold sensation climb up his spine, freezing his bones to the core. His house. The arsonist. Abby! “Sir, sir, get all the trucks you can spare there as soon as possible!” Jagger shouted into the phone as he pushed his foot down hard on the accelerator, lurching back into motion and climbing back onto the main road without looking for traffic.
“They’re on the way,” Gareth replied.
“No, no, you don’t understand, there’s somebody inside, there’s somebody in my house,” Jagger rambled as he took a quick turn in the direction of his home.
“What do you mean?” Gareth asked.
Jagger narrowly avoided running over a squirrel, his tires squealing as he veered to evade it without slowing down. “Abby. The, um, the nurse I’ve been looking after since her apartment burned down. She’s inside.”
“I’m sure she’s out by now, Jagger. We’ll get there as soon as we can, and the ambulance is on its way just in case,” the Fire Captain replied.
“No, no, she’s not,” Jagger said, swallowing heavily as his mouth went dry as a desert. “I locked the front door from the outside. She’s not out, Gareth. She’s trapped.”
“You locked her in?” Gareth asked.
“Yeah,” Jagger said, and he knew he would have felt the hot burn of shame if his entire body hadn’t been shivering. “Yeah, she’s trapped. Please, please, knock down the front door, please,” he begged, not caring how pathetic he sounded.
“Okay, okay, I’ll tell them,” Gareth said before hanging up. Jagger knew he’d have to answer more questions from him later, but for now, he was focused only on getting back to his house as quickly as possible. He saw the plumes of smoke rising into the sky before he even turned onto his street. His heart pounded in his chest, so hard he thought it might break through his ribcage. Taking the final turn, his breath came faster and harder, his lungs already burning, and he parked his car in the driveway, jumping out and running toward the front door. Several firefighters, oblivious to Abby’s existence, held hoses over the top of the house, showering water down on top of the burnt husk of his attic. They noticed him running toward the front door and tried to get him to step back, but he couldn’t even make out what they were saying. The entire world had contracted, twisting in on itself, until the only thing that Jagger could see was his front door, vibrating like it had blood behind the wood. He bolted past the firefighters, shoving one he recognized from the department out of his way while his other hand fumbled in his pocket for the key.
When he touched the doorknob, it burnt his skin. The flames were right inside. Jesus fuck. She could be dead already, Jagger thought, his hand trembling as he stuck the key in the lock and turned, pushing the door open to let out wave after wave of thick black smoke. Jagger shoved his way in, even though he didn’t have any of his gear on. He immediately began choking on the smoke, huge, racking coughs leaving his lungs every few seconds. He covered his nose and mouth and looked around, trying to find any sign of Abby, but the smoke stung his eyes, and he had to blink rapidly every few seconds just to clear his eyes of tears.
“Abby!” He called out as soon as he got enough air in his lungs. “Abby, where are you?!”
There was no response.
Jagger started rushing from room to room, starting with the kitchen. Abby was nowhere to be found, even as the house started to crumble, floorboards and ceiling tiles crashing down to the ground, leaving empty spaces where the sunlight pierced through the smoke. “Abby!” Jagger shouted again, running back out to the main entrance. “Abby, tell me where you are!”
He heard a muffled sound to his left, barely audible, but he immediately followed it to its source, stumbling over fallen chunks of his home in the process. Right next to the fire, in the deepest part of the smoke, was a huddle of limbs. Abby.
Jagger went on autopilot, dashing through the smoke to grab her, scooping her up in his arms before rushing out of the house, running several yards before crumbling to his knees as his lungs gave out, coughing up a storm.
As soon as his lungs began to function again, he reached down and cupped Abby’s face with his hand, rubbing at her skin like he could restore her to consciousness with just his touch. “Abby. Abby, come on. Come on, baby, be okay, please be okay,” he whispered, his eyes painfully stinging as he stared down at her limp form.
He didn’t have time to try to breathe life back into her body, as the next second EMTs in uniform swarmed them, picking Abby up and taking her over to the nearest ambulance. “How long has she been out?” Beau, an EMT that Jagger had known for a few years, asked.
“I don’t know,” Jagger said softly, feeling the sick sinking sensation of guilt overwhelm his entire body. “I—I just got here.”
“Okay, we’ll get her to the hospital straight away, Jagger, don’t worry,” Beau said as he applied a mask to Abby’s nose and mouth. Jagger just shook his head and stepped up onto the ambulance, staring down at Abby as she twitched and squirmed. He was going with them. There was no room for argument as far as Jagger was concerned. He felt like he could never let Abby out of his sight ever again.
As soon as the ambulance shifted into motion, the sirens blaring above them, Abby’s eyelids flicked open, closing a few more times before she finally opened her eyes all the way, meeting Jagger’s gaze. He smiled weakly at her, his heart pounding up in his throat, but when she looked away a second later, a grimace spreading on her face, his heart fell to his stomach, feeling like it was being eaten alive. He deserved it. He knew he did. He should never have left her locked up in that house. It was his fault that she was in this situation. Jagger had left her utterly vulnerable to the arsonist’s attacks. He thought it would be safer in his house rather than at the compound, but that hadn’t been the case. Worst of all, he had let his mistrust of Abby take priority over her basic safety. Jagger would never forgive himself for that.
Abby was silent for the whole ride to the hospital, turning her head to cough a few times, but otherwise, she just stared in the opposite direction, avoiding him. He couldn’t blame her. If he were in her position, he would probably scream at him, tell him to fuck off. In fact, Jagger thought he would prefer that at this point, honestly, instead of the stony silence. It was what he deserved.
The ambulance pulled into the hospital parking lot, coming up to the emergency curb so the EMTs could pull Abby’s stretcher out. They rolled her into a room straight away, hooking her up to various machines to help her breathe and monitor her heart rate and other vital signs.
All the while, Abby was limp, her eyes distant and unfocused as various technicians and nurses moved her from the chair to the bed, adjusting her limbs so that she wouldn’t cramp. Jagger just stood helplessly by, watching it all happen, trying desperately to see if any light had returned to Abby’s eyes. But there was nothing. It was like she had been hollowed out like a jack-o-lantern, completely gutted of her soul. Nothing could have hurt Jagger more than the emptiness in her face, the numb way she stared up at the ceiling, blinking evenly like a robot.
What can I do? Jagger wondered, fidgeting with his fingers. He wondered if he should pull a chair up to the bed and take her hand, try to provide some physical comfort to her. Somehow, he felt that would be overstepping some unspoken boundary. Abby was pissed at him. She had to be. Nothing else made sense. She wouldn’t want him touching her right now.
In any case, he decided to pull a chair closer but still leave room in case Abby needed to get up in the middle of the night, provided that her legs had begun functioning again.
Oh, God, I hope she’s not permanently hurt, Jagger thought. Please, God, please. God, I know I haven’t prayed in such a long time, but please, God, help her. Help her. Please.
He settled in for the night in the chair next to the bed, curling his legs under his body before turning off his phone and beeper. He wasn’t going to be disturbed from this, not by anything. As far as Jagger was concerned, Abby was the only thing he cared about.
# # #
Abby
Abby felt like she was on fire. She had escaped the flames themselves, of course, but the smoke filled up every molecule in her body, making her feel like she was stuck in an oven. Her body was sweating, constantly leaking like she was still trapped in that burning house. She counted the bland white ceiling tiles of the hospital room, once, then twice, then a thousand more times until she convinced herself she was out of the house. She was safe now, right? She was fine.
She didn’t feel okay, not in the slightest. Her lungs felt like they’d been burnt black, absolutely destroyed, and the rest of her body was sore, lots of little burns lining her arms and legs. She’d stupidly tried to run through the flames in a last-ditch effort to check if there were any windows on the other side of the house. It was her own fault, really. That was the part that Abby couldn’t get over. She had stupidly allowed Jagger to take her to his house, and then instead of running away like a normal fucking person, she’d stayed and fucked him. As far as she was concerned, she had gotten what she deserved. She was being punished for her stupidity, for letting herself get attached to someone yet again. What an idiot. What a fucking joke. She had pretended to be strong for so many months after Mark left, but she wasn’t. She was still a stupid little girl who just wanted a man to love her and take care of her, and this was the result of that. It reaffirmed the lesson that she shouldn’t trust anyone, that was for sure.
She tried to move to her side, but the tangle of wires wrapped around her body impeded her, keeping her pinned in place. Abby let out a breath of frustration, and she felt a little surprised that she was even able to breathe that deeply anymore. In the back of her mind, a tiny voice popped up, telling her to stop whining. It’s not so bad, she tried to say to herself as she shifted in her bed, trying to get into a more comfortable position. You’ve been through so much worse.
And that was it, wasn’t it? Through her stupid decision-making, she’d landed herself in her least favorite place on the planet, at the wrong side of a hospital room, stuck in a bed like an invalid, yet again. It was the worst feeling in the world, as far as Abby was concerned. She’d never felt so trapped in her life as she did when she was here as a teenager, wasting away slowly, watching herself become less and less of a person with each passing day. Not this time, she swore to herself. I’m not going to stay here. I’m going home as soon as I can.
What home? Abby’s other inner voice asked. It made a good point. She had no apartment, no friends she could stay with, no money to pay for a hotel room, let alone the ridiculous hospital fees that this situation must be incurring. She couldn’t exactly stay with Jagger, now that his house had been targeted, and the compound wasn’t an option either. She couldn’t stay with him anymore. It was obvious. They were done. Finished, for good. She couldn’t afford to keep putting herself in situations like this. He’d distrusted her so much that he locked her up in a house with no way of getting out, without even telling her about it, allowing the arsonist to nearly kill her.
What a fucking arrogant prick. What a thoughtless, piece of shit, asshole, Abby thought, chewing on her bottom lip to quell the guilt that automatically sprang up in her stomach whenever she thought bad thoughts about somebody that didn’t deserve it.
But he does deserve it! Abby argued back to herself as she struggled to lay on her side. He put me in danger. He almost got me killed. He—
She finally succeeded in flipping her body over without untangling any of the wires that wound their way across her body. Jagger was there in front of her, sleeping in the chair next to her bed, a frown on his face as he dreamed. Abby didn’t know what to feel about him being there. It was an entirely new situation for her, waking up in a hospital room to find somebody sleeping next to her. She was more accustomed to it being the other way around. As a teenager, before the cancer set in, she used to sit all night in the hospital, watching over her mother while her dad was out drinking. Her mother hadn’t survived, but Abby had. That was her talent, living through terrible things. She just wouldn’t die. She wasn’t good at giving up.
Maybe Jagger wasn’t either, she thought, staring at him as his brow furrowed in his sleep. Maybe he was addicted to saving people, to the point where he put them in danger instead. It wasn’t a good trait. It didn’t make her feel warm and fuzzy, thinking about Jagger worrying about her. He’d put her in a ridiculous amount of danger, and she didn’t even know if he was sorry about it. But… nobody had ever slept in the hospital for her before, even though she’d spent over eighteen months in the cancer ward when she was a teenager. Nobody had ever even tried. Her dad never had, always leaving at the first opportunity, sickened by the sight of his daughter gripped by the same illness that had claimed his wife.
As if alerted to the fact that Abby was thinking about him, Jagger suddenly twitched himself awake, all at once, like a cat startled by a loud noise. He straightened up in his chair, gripping onto the arms of it with his large hands like he was bracing himself for a storm. “Hey. Hey. Are you…. okay?” he stuttered out a moment later.
Abby didn’t say anything at first, instead just staring at Jagger, blinking slowly to keep her eyes from burning the way they’d been doing the past several hours since the fire.
Jagger sighed deeply, dragging a hand through his thick dark hair. “Look, I—I know you have every right to be pissed at me. I fucked up. I really, really, fucked up. I—I’m sorry.” It took several moments before Abby even comprehended the words, they felt so alien and strange coming out of Jagger’s mouth. His face was wide and vulnerable, a glint of desperation in his eyes. He looked like he had been cracked open, like all his external masks were torn away, leaving his bare flesh visible to Abby for the first time.
“I—okay,” she finally whispered, unsure what she was even trying to say. She was at a complete loss for words. She just felt confused, the contents of her stomach swimming around like they were trying to escape her body.
On the one hand, she wasn’t sure she had ever felt this angry in her entire life. She was enraged, honestly, that Jagger had put her in such a life-threatening situation. On the other hand, he seemed genuinely apologetic for his actions. Abby could only shift around uncomfortably, trying to get the sore spots on her skin to stop rubbing up against the rough fabric of the bed sheets beneath her body.
“Do you want me to go?” Jagger asked, his voice coming out barely audible above the noise of the heater working overtime to fill the cold hospital room with warmth.
Before Abby could answer, a painful spasm overtook her body, her ribs painfully contracting as coughs forced their way up her throat. Jagger was on his feet in a second, reaching over her body to put a hand on her chest. “Breathe. It’s okay. Breathe with me. It’s okay, Abby. It’ll be okay. Inhale…. exhale. Inhale…. exhale.” For a second Abby just glared at him through her watery eyes, annoyed that he was patronizing her even now, but then as the coughs kept coming her annoyance subsided, replaced instead only by the overpowering desire to breathe, the instinct that overcame all else. “Inhale… exhale. Inhale… exhale. Inhale… exhale,” Jagger kept saying, rubbing the side of her head soothingly.
Abby eventually relented, sucking in air when Jagger told her to and blowing it out a few moments after that, finally overcoming the coughing fit through sheer force of will.
“That’s it, that’s it, good girl,” Jagger said before reaching over to the side table to pour her a glass of water. “Here, drink.”
Abby sucked the water down as best as she could, splattering some on her chin in the process before collapsing like she’d just run a marathon a second after the liquid coursed its way down her throat. “Jesus,” she muttered, more to herself than to Jagger, curling her limbs up as she settled into the fetal position.
“Just sleep, baby. You need it,” Jagger whispered, leaning in to drop a sweet gentle kiss on her forehead. If Abby had more energy, she might have shoved him away, told him not to touch her; but as it was, she was simply grateful to feel something other than the slick burn of flames against her skin.
She shut her eyes, staring out at the darkness of her eyelids, but her mind pictured Jagger, listening to his still, even breathing until she slipped off into sleep.
When she awoke however many hours later, she first became aware of female voices. Nurses, must be, she thought, but then they kept building on top of each other, one after another. Her room was filled with them.
It was a struggle to pry her eyes open, taking several moments to force all her energy into the action, but finally, she blinked them open. She noticed that tears had collected in her eyelashes, crusting on her cheeks. She must have cried in her sleep. That was weird. She had never done that before. Abby quickly wiped at her face, scratching at the dried tears until they fell off, before turning to look at the people that surrounded her bed.
“Hey, look, she’s awake!” a high-pitched female voice near the back of the room said. Abby couldn’t identify the source right away, as there were at least fifteen people crowded in the room. Most of them were women in tight leather clothing, with bold red lipstick spread over their lips. There were a few men, tall and quiet-looking, near the back of the room. Bikers, Abby realized. Blazes. She recognized them from the compound.
“Abby. It’s Abby, isn’t it? We haven’t been properly introduced. I’m Lucy,” the woman nearest to Abby’s bed said, sticking out her hand. Abby just stared down at it, her brain not functioning quickly enough to realize that she was supposed to accept it and shake it up and down like a normal human would.
Abby licked her dried and cracked lips, trying and failing to clear her throat before croaking out, “Um, hi,” as a response.
“We heard about what happened. I’m so sorry, honey,” Lucy said, leaning in to brush some random strands of hair back from Abby’s forehead. Abby almost cringed in response, but she had enough awareness to stop herself from flinching. She wasn’t used to being touched like this, especially not from strangers.
“Thank you,” Abby whispered hoarsely, staying as still as possible while Lucy kept stroking the top of her head and smiling sadly at her.
“Do you need anything, honey? Water, a snack?” Lucy asked. Abby was keenly aware that the rest of the room was awkwardly silent, all the other women and men just standing there, staring at her.
Abby’s instinctive response was to say no, she didn’t need anything, but somehow what came out of her mouth instead was, “A Coke? Can I get a Coke? It, um, it makes my stomach feel better sometimes.”
Lucy nodded and smiled warmly down at her before turning around and barking at one of the men. “Go to the vending machine! The one on the second floor.”
Two of the men hurried out of the room as if they’d heard gunshots. Abby figured that Lucy was the boss. She wondered if everybody answered to Lucy or just the men and women in the room. “Are you… um… Did Jagger…?”
“I sent him home to shower,” Lucy said. “But don’t worry, honey, he’ll be back.” Abby wasn’t sure what to think about that. Did she even want Jagger to come back? It was his fault that she was there in the first place. She couldn’t help but stare at the empty chair where he slept hours before. Even when she tried to tear her eyes away from it and focus on Lucy or one of the other biker women, her gaze kept slipping back to it, imagining Jagger’s missing silhouette. What is wrong with me? I should hate him. I should be spitting on his memory. I should never want to see him again.
A few moments later, the bikers returned with a couple of Coke bottles bundled up in their arms and handed them off to Lucy, who placed them on the table next to Abby’s bed. She opened one and placed it in Abby’s still-trembling hand. Abby brought it to her mouth, drinking deep, burning her over sensitive throat in the process. She drained a quarter of the bottle in one go, panting hard as she pulled the bottle away from her mouth, keeping the cold container between her shaking hands. “Thank you,” Abby mumbled, staring down at her lap. For some reason, she felt weirdly embarrassed at having this number of people come to see her. In all the time she’d spent in hospitals as a teenager, she’d never had more than one or two visitors at a time. She honestly didn’t know how to react to this.
“Would you like us to leave, let you get some rest?” Lucy asked with maternal concern written all over her face as she stared worriedly down at Abby.
Abby looked around first, observing everyone in the room for at least a few seconds, seeing how the women smiled encouragingly at her and the men fidgeted awkwardly with their hands, unsure of what else to do. “I, uh, I don’t know,” she said honestly. Abby took another gulp from her soda before looking up into Lucy’s eyes. “Um, you can stay, I think?”
Lucy smiled down at her again before settling into the chair that Jagger occupied the night before. “Are you comfortable? Do you need me to adjust the pillows or anything?”
Abby automatically said, “No, I’m fine,” then as she actually considered the question, she opened her mouth again and murmured, “Um, actually, could… Could somebody stick a pillow under my knees? I think I need to elevate them because they hurt, but I can’t reach…”
Lucy immediately turned and pointed at two of the girls that were leaning against the back wall, waving her hand impatiently until they walked forward, grabbing a pillow off one of the chairs next to the window to slip under Abby’s knees. Lucy reached over and placed one hand gingerly on top of Abby’s kneecap, tapping her skin lightly, gently, soothingly. Abby was nervous for a second, feeling a little weird, like some invisible boundary had been crossed, but then a second later she focused on the sensation itself and felt the tension start to leave from her body, little by little with each passing second.
“You want to watch some television, darling?” Lucy asked, grabbing the remote off the bedside table and pointing it at the TV. “What do you like?”
“Um, I haven’t watched television in a long time,” Abby admitted. “I haven’t had time. I work too much.”
“Jagger mentioned you were a nurse. Long hours at the hospital?” Lucy asked, a sympathetic look on her face.
“Yeah, and at patients’ houses,” Abby said without thinking. She usually didn’t like to complain about her jobs, at least not to strangers. It was important that the public trust nurses rather than worry about them. She wanted everybody to think of her as a superhuman force of nature, some caregiving superhero that never felt weak.
“You got two jobs, hun?” Lucy asked, her brows furrowing up together.
“Oh, yeah, for a while now,” Abby said with a shrug, stretching her legs out to prevent cramps.
“Why’s that?” Lucy asked. Abby wondered why she was so curious, but ultimately it was irrelevant. For whatever reason Abby felt like complaining right now, and she had an audience that was either being held captive by obligation or genuinely interested in getting to know her. So, fuck it.
“My ex-boyfriend maxed out my credit cards and cleaned out my bank account,” she said nonchalantly, even though it was the first time she’d ever said the words out loud.
“What?” one of the other women on the opposite side of the room said. “What the fuck? Really?”
Abby nodded. “Yeah. Kinda fucked me over. This was before the whole arson shit started happening, too.”
“Oh, honey, honey, no! That’s so awful,” Lucy said, dragging her chair up closer to Abby’s bed so she could take her hand. “Oh, you poor thing.”
In another time, another life, maybe, Abby would have taken offense to receiving anybody’s pity. For now, it felt good, comfortable, like easing into a warm bath. It felt like exactly what she needed, at least for the moment.
“Yeah, um, I started to rebuild my savings this month, you know, between paying off the credit cards and paying my rent and everything. But then my apartment burned down, and I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
“Yes, you do,” the woman on the other side of the room said. “You can stay at the compound. There’s tons of room.”
“I—” Abby swallowed again, trying to remove the bothersome lump that popped up in her throat. “I don’t know if I should. It feels like everywhere I go, bad shit happens. I don’t want to do that to you guys.”
“Oh, honey, it doesn’t work like that,” Lucy said, squeezing her hand more tightly. “We’re used to trouble. We’ve got tons of our own. You couldn’t do anything to hurt us, darling.”
Abby felt suspicious. They seemed so eager to help, so eager for Abby to stay with them, yet they barely knew her at all. All they knew was that she was a hardworking nurse with tremendously bad luck, bad luck that Jagger happened to be contributing to lately. Jagger… Maybe that was it. Maybe they wanted Jagger paired off with somebody who’d take care of him. Maybe it wasn’t as selfless as it looked.
“Listen,” Abby began, shifting in bed until her hand slipped out of Lucy’s. She worried that Lucy would get offended, but if she was, it didn’t show on her face. “Listen, um, Jagger and I… We aren’t together or anything,” she said. It wasn’t technically true, maybe, but as far as Abby was concerned, it had to become true sooner or later. She and Jagger weren’t together. They had no plans of become a real couple, even if they did fuck again in the future. It would be a bad idea for them to do so anyway. If she hadn’t fucked Jagger again in the first place she wouldn’t be in this position, right?
Lucy just nodded at her. “I understand that. He’s a handful. Lord knows he hasn’t been able to hold on to any girl before you longer than a few months. That’s not what this is about. He fucked up. He hurt you, but we’re here to help, however you need it. No strings, honey.”
Abby was silent for a long moment, letting the words sink in. Maybe Lucy wasn’t being honest. Maybe she had a secret motivation that she wasn’t sharing with Abby. As far as Abby could tell, even as cynical as she was, there was no ulterior motive at play here. Lucy was the type of person that seemed to give off an aura of kindness and warmth, a grandmotherly type of lady that looked like she gave great hugs. Abby found herself reaching out and grabbing her hand again, just to feel the heat of human connection.
“I think I would like to watch some TV,” Abby said after a long pause. Lucy smiled and nodded before switching the television on.
The rest of the room settled onto chairs, on the edge of the hospital bed, even on countertops so they could turn and watch shitty daytime television with Abby over the next several hours. They rushed to get her a snack whenever her stomach growled, and even opened her soda bottles whenever she struggled with them.
Is this what it’s like, having a family? Abby wondered. She always used to think that finding a family would be frightening and thrilling all at once, but instead it was just… comfortable, even though it was unfamiliar. She almost felt safe. Almost.
# # #
Jagger
As soon as Jagger got out of the shower, his beeper went off. It was Gareth, the Fire Captain, telling him to come in to the station. So now he was on his way to the fire department, even though he needed to get back to the hospital to check on Abby.
Jagger sighed and stared at himself in the mirror. Even showered up, he looked like shit. Worry was written all over his face, and it was evident he hadn’t slept in a proper bed for several days now. He didn’t know how Abby did it. After spending days spread out on a hospital bed, only getting up twice a day to pee, she looked so beautiful, even if she was worn out and worn down. He ached to return to her, to give her anything that she needed. At the same time, he was terrified. The sick sensation of guilt burnt its way all throughout his digestive track from the top of his throat to the bottom of his stomach. He had no idea if Abby would ever even speak to him again, let alone forgive him. He knew he didn’t deserve her forgiveness, anyway. Abby had been right, the whole time. He was an overprotective, possessive Neanderthal, and his refusal to trust her even the smallest amount led to Abby almost dying. She was right not to trust him. She was right not to let him take care of her. He almost got her killed. No matter what happened, Jagger didn’t think he could ever forgive himself for that.
Jagger pulled up to the fire department, quickly switching off the engine and stepping out of his car, moving quickly toward the front of the building. He wanted to get this over with, even if he knew he was going to deserve whatever lecture Gareth decided to give him.
Gareth was waiting for him in his office, his arms crossed in front of his chest, staring down at the floor like a disappointed schoolteacher. “Hey, there, J,” Gareth murmured as Jagger approached him. “Why don’t you shut the door behind you?”
Uh-oh. That was never a good sign. Gareth’s peppier conversations usually finished within a few seconds. There were never any meetings long enough to justify shutting the door. In any case, Jagger did as he was told and then stood across from Gareth, too nervous to sit down or stop scratching at his fingers with his fingernails.
“Okay,” Gareth began, clicking his tongue behind his teeth. “Um, so you know what happened this week.”
“I do,” Jagger said, aware that Gareth was referring to his house fire.
“I have to report it,” Gareth said, still not looking at him directly in the eye.
“To who?” Jagger asked, confused. Gareth was the highest authority in the county, maybe even in the state when it came to unsolved arsons.
“To the police, Jagger. Listen… The other guys…. There’s a rumor going around and I can’t have you working with us again until I clear it.”
Jagger had a suspicion that he knew what was coming. He had to hear it spoken out loud anyway. “What rumor?”
Gareth sighed, his eyes sliding left, staring out of the window where several firefighters were eating their lunch, joking around together loudly. “Some people have pointed the finger at you, Jagger. For the arsons.”
“The—the ones targeting Satan’s Blazes?” Jagger asked incredulously. “Why the hell would I set fire to my brothers’ houses?”
Gareth shrugged. “Why does anybody do anything? Why does anybody ever light fires at all? I’d have to be a much smarter man to know the answer to that, Jagger. The point is, people are suspecting you now. Even people within your MC.”
Jagger was speechless. He would never have guessed that members of Satan’s Blazes themselves might suspect him of the crimes. He’d been working so hard to help them, to protect everybody. How could his own family suspect him of something so crazy?
Gareth kept going. “It’s… The situation with the nurse. It’s bad, J. It looks like… It looks like you locked her up because you knew your house was going to be targeted.”
“I didn’t—I just didn’t want her to leave and get hurt, that’s all.”
“That might be difficult to explain in court,” Gareth said.
“Court?” Jagger parroted back, his brain uncomprehending the significance of the situation.
“If the cops pick up on it, they could charge you with attempted murder. You guys just started messing around, right? From the outside, it could look like you got mad at your new girlfriend, locked her up, burnt the place down. Maybe it could even look like a copycat thing, like you did it trying to make it look like all the rest of the arsons.”
“Gareth,” Jagger said, stepping a little closer to his boss. “Gareth, you know me. You know I would never do anything to put anyone’s life in danger, ever. You know that, right?”
Gareth was quiet a moment, but at least he finally lifted his head to look Jagger directly in the eyes. “I know, son,” he finally said after a long pause. “But I don’t know if I can protect you from everybody else.”
Jagger nodded, letting the words sink into his brain slowly. “You don’t have to, Gareth. It’s okay. Let the boys investigate me. They’ll figure it out,” Jagger said, even though he didn’t fully believe what he was saying. The boys hadn’t found the arsonist up until now; why would they suddenly be competent enough to find him now that Jagger was a prime suspect?
“I hope so,” Gareth said, as unconvinced as Jagger secretly was. “Anyway. You’re off the squad for the time being, son. Just go home and get some rest.”
Jagger wasn’t sure he even knew how to do that, but he just nodded, his eyes going unfocused as he pondered a life without the fire department. Jesus, I really fucked up, he thought to himself. If he hadn’t locked Abby in, none of the firefighters would have thought that he was capable of setting the fires. Now, he couldn’t even blame them. He’d done something so reckless, so selfish, so harmful that it wasn’t a giant leap to assume that he was capable of real violence. He thought about saying that to Gareth if only to ask Gareth to refute it, but he didn’t have any faith that the fire captain truly believed in him. Instead, he just nodded a few more times, turned on his heel, and walked out of Gareth’s office, heading back outside to his car.
He knew he needed to rest. He needed to relax, stretch his legs, get his body back together so that his brain would start working again. Instead, he sped as fast as he could toward the hospital. Even if his coworkers and MC brothers believed he was a murderer, Jagger knew he could survive. He was a loner, someone who wandered off from the pack. He could live, but he wasn’t sure he could stand to live if Abby thought he ever meant to hurt her. He had to make sure she knew. He had to.
# # #
Abby
The MC members left about an hour after dusk fell, leaving Abby in the dark. She wasn’t upset about it, though. After several hours surrounded by people, her skin started to itch in discomfort, and the room seemed to shrink around her. It still felt nice when she reflected back on the day, thinking of all the silly jokes and reassuring compliments that Lucy and the others said to her over the course of just a few hours. It was so nice, feeling like she belonged.
She still didn’t know what she was going to do about Jagger. She had nowhere else to go except the compound, and the rest of the MC seemed welcoming enough, but she still had doubts. He’d hurt her really badly, even if he was torn up with guilt over it. Abby had spent so much of her life being a victim, even if she didn’t like to admit it. The truth was, maybe a little part of her relished the opportunity to be pissed off, to have an available target on which to unleash her anger. Most of all, she was just conflicted. On the one side, she was furious, absolutely incensed that somebody had taken control of her like that, putting her in a position that could’ve gotten her killed. On the other hand, she was also so tempted to forgive him. That was the truly horrible thing. It would be so easy just to reach out and take his hand and tell him that it was okay, as long as he was sorry. Abby hated herself a little bit, for how easy it was for her to let go of it. She should have been tougher. She should have been forged out of iron, but she wasn’t. She was weak. She was soft. She relented. Despite all her performance to the contrary, she was a woman capable of love. That was the scariest thing of all.
Abby was torn out of her introspection session by the sound of her phone on the little table next to her hospital bed, shrilling loudly. Who the fuck could be calling her? She already had the nurses here alert her various employers of what was going on. Her hand fumbled on the way to picking up the phone, accidentally knocking over an empty bottle of soda in the process before successfully scooping up her target.
“Hello?” Abby half-groaned into the phone a second after pressing it up against her pounding skull.
“Is this Abby Horton?” an unfamiliar male voice said on the other end of the phone.
“Yes, who is this?” Abby replied, feeling her anxiety levels start to rise rapidly.
“I’m the Fire Captain of Northwest county. I’m afraid I must give you some concerning news. It appears that you were intentionally locked inside Jagger Caldwell’s house… by Jagger himself.”
“Yes, I already knew that,” Abby said, her tone a little irritated. Why was this random asshole wasting her time?
“Oh, um, well, he is also under suspicion for twelve… now thirteen arsons connected to his motorcycle club.”
There was a long pause, where Abby’s tongue struggled to find any words to reply to the Fire Captain. The words repeated on a loop inside her brain, getting larger and louder with each passing second. Jagger. Under suspicion. For arson. And now for Abby’s would-be murder.
“Ms. Horton? Are you still with me?” the Fire Captain asked after a long pause.
“Um, yes,” Abby stuttered, sitting up in her bed as sweat started to bead up along her scalp. “Um, why are you telling me this?”
“I just want you to take care of yourself,” the man on the other end said. “Be careful who you trust.”
Abby opened her mouth to reply, but before she could come up with anything to say she heard the line disconnect as the Fire Captain hung up. She slowly dropped her phone, letting it settle in her lap next to the television remote. She just stared down at her own hands, willing them to just. Stop. Shaking so she could do something with them, save herself with them, maybe.
Just a moment later, the silence was interrupted again as heavy footsteps approached Abby’s room. She looked up to find Jagger lingering just inside the door, his hand still touching the knob behind him as if he was about to run out again at any second. He smiled softly at her, but it was a sad smile. His eyes weren’t full of light at all. They were dark. Abby couldn’t read what was there.
“Did you try to kill me?” she asked without preamble. She hadn’t meant to blurt it out like that, but Abby supposed that was the only way she was ever going to say it out loud.
Jagger’s face fell, his fake smile crumbling like a sandcastle in a tidal wave. “No,” he whispered, shaking his head even as it dipped low, his eyes focused on the ground beneath his feet. “No, I didn’t, Abby.”
He sounded like he was telling the truth. Did Abby even know him long enough to tell the difference between the truth and a lie? Did she know him at all?
“Why did you come here?” Abby asked. “What do you want?”
Jagger was silent for a moment, leaning his head against the doorframe as his eyes stared off into the distance. “I want… I wanted to see if you were ready to come back.”
“To you?” Abby whispered, afraid to say the words too loudly, like someone else would hear them and laugh at her, laugh at the idea that anybody wanted her for real.
“To the compound,” Jagger said. “You have a place there if you want, no matter what. Lucy and the girls love you.”
It was true. The MC women had taken a shine to Abby, making her feel at home even in the hospital, her personal hell. But going to the compound… That would mean she would have 24/7 access to Jagger. They would run into each other a lot, which meant they would probably become intimate again. Abby couldn’t trust herself with that, not when every time her shield fell she was emotionally slashed to pieces. She wasn’t a glutton for punishment. She wanted it to end. She wanted it to stop. She wanted all her suffering to finally go away. She was tired of torturing herself.
“Jagger,” she said softly, watching his shadow move in the darkness in response to her voice. “Jagger, I’m sorry. I can’t. I can’t go back.”
“Okay, that’s okay, I understand. You have to feel safe,” Jagger said, nodding quickly as if he was trying to convince himself. “Where are you going to go? A hotel? I can pay for it. I owe you so much more than that, but I can start there. You can pick out a 5-star one if you want.”
Abby shook her head. “No, no, I can’t… I can’t be with you. I can’t be around you. It’s not safe, Jagger. It’s not…” She trailed off, uncertain of what she was trying to say.
Jagger sniffled a little, and Abby wondered if he had a cold or if…. She couldn’t allow herself to think of him crying because then the old instincts would kick in, the impulse she had inside of her that always made her take care of men when they hurt. She couldn’t take care of him. She couldn’t look after him, no matter how badly she wanted to. “Okay. I understand,” Jagger said.
“I need you to go,” Abby said, her voice wavering as she said it. “Please, Jagger. I can’t be around you. Please. I need you to leave. Please. Please. If you… If you ever cared about me, just go. Please go.”
Jagger nodded again, as if he was glued to the wall and the only thing that could move was his neck. After a minute his entire body went still, as if he were a painting or a shadow that Abby had dreamed up. “I do care about you. Please remember that,” Jagger said before he turned and walked out of the room, shutting the door behind him as he disappeared, out of Abby’s life.
Abby slowly lowered her body back down, flattening it against the mattress. She curled one of the pillows around to her front, while pushing another one behind her, so that she was sandwiched in the middle of them, feeling like she was being hugged by a giant marshmallow. She breathed in and out deeply, evenly, as powerfully as Abby’s lungs would allow. She waited till all the noise in the hallway dissipated, till everybody in the ward went to sleep. Then, and only then, did she allow herself to cry.