Jagger
Jagger drove back to the compound as quickly as he could, swerving in and out of traffic and causing at least two people to honk at him in frustration. He didn’t care. He had to get home, he had to get there as fast as possible, or he was going to go out of his mind.
He finally drove into the compound parking lot, rushing out of his car and running toward his bike. Several people tried to wave him over, but he ignored them, pretending that he hadn’t seen and wailing away on his bike. He knew he needed rest. He needed sleep. He needed to focus.
Fuck that, he told himself. Fuck sleep, fuck rest, fuck everything that wasn’t the investigation. Getting the arsonist was the only thing that mattered now to save, both his ass and Abby’s, not to mention the entire MC. He had no other choice, and now there was nothing else standing in the way.
Practically flying down the road, he finally arrived at the first suspect’s house, letting his engine go idle as he stopped a house’s length away. He tried to stare into the window or one of the open bullet-holes for a sign of Bruce, but there was nothing; all the lights had been turned off. Jagger considered walking up to one of the windows and trying to peek at the old man while he slept, but there was always the chance that he was waiting in the dark with that gun, ready for Jagger to come for him. It was too risky to try on his own, Jagger realized. Abby had been right; This wasn’t a one-man mission.
He shook his head, trying to clear his mind of all thoughts of Abby. It was a waste of time now. He had to stay away from her. It was what she deserved. Above anything, he wanted to help her feel safe. If the best way to do that was to ensure that he never saw her again, he’d have to deal with it. He was used to losing things.
In any case, he couldn’t do this on his own. He needed at least two, maybe three other people on hand. For one, the suspects already knew that Jagger was after them. He couldn’t easily spy on them during the day without attracting attention. The other MC members might blend into a crowd more easily, allowing Jagger to keep tabs on the two of them at once. He honestly felt stupid that he hadn’t thought of this before. He figured he’d be able to handle the arson cases himself, protecting everybody without any help. Well, that strategy was a bust. He couldn’t afford to do everything on his own anymore. As he got back on his bike and headed toward the second suspect’s house, he quickly thought up a new plan. He’d use Tony, of course, in addition to a few other guys that could be trusted, Henry, Lee and Cash, in order to keep watch on the suspects at all times.
Jagger rolled to a stop in front of Jacob’s house. He was the one that got away, alerted to the investigation due to his argument with Abby on the front lawn. This time, Jagger parked a few houses away and began walking quickly through the line of bushes on the neighbors’ property, keeping his body close to the ground.
He stayed down, crossing as quickly as he could across the lawn without disturbing the dirt too much. Jagger finally reached the old fucker’s house, flattening himself against the outer brick wall and inching along until he got to a window with sound coming out of it.
It was the evening news. By some coincidence, the news anchor was talking about the arsons. “So far, thirteen different events have been linked. The police say there are real leads developing in the investigation and cannot share the latest information with the press at this time.”
Jagger heard the old man chuckle a little.
He briefly considered jumping into the house and cracking his fists over the old man’s head, pinning him down to the ground until Jagger could call the cops. But he held himself back. For one thing, he didn’t know if the man was armed. It wasn’t safe to jump in alone, without any real protection. As much as Jagger hated himself right now, he didn’t want to get fucking killed. More importantly, he didn’t have enough evidence to justify an arrest yet. The cops wouldn’t consider his report of the old guy listening to one news broadcast strong enough to hold up in court. Jacob used to be a member of the MC, after all. He could just be concerned about us, Jagger thought, but he didn’t really believe that to be true. This was the guy. It had to be.
“I’m gonna catch you, fucker,” he mumbled under his breath. “I’m gonna make you pay for what you did to Abby.” In the back of his mind, an inner voice said, But, you hurt Abby, too. You made her feel unsafe. You made her feel weak. Jagger quickly crawled back over the lawn, breaking into a run when he hit the concrete of the street. When he got back on his bike a minute later, gliding down the road, he let his head hang low between his shoulders, allowing pain to seep into his back. It was what he deserved. It was what he wanted. To atone for his sins.
# # #
Abby
The next afternoon, when Abby’s doctor gave her the all-clear to “go home,” wherever that was, she stumbled on the way out of the room on a piece of paper shoved under the door. Abby bent over to pick it up, and a smile spread across her face as soon as she saw the name scribbled on the front.
FROM: LUCY.
Abby quickly opened the makeshift envelope, unfolding the paper to reveal ten $20 bills. “Jesus Christ,” Abby murmured, counting the bills and recounting them to be sure that she hadn’t miscalculated. “Jesus Christ, that woman is amazing.” She quickly pocketed the bills, keeping half in her pocket and half in her wallet. It’d be enough for a motel room, to be sure, but Abby wanted to save some of the cash for food before she got her next paycheck.
She walked, over three and a half miles in the winter cold, toward the cheaper section of town. It was far away from the compound, too, which was a plus, at least for now while Abby tried to get her shit together. She couldn’t afford to be distracted by anyone, especially Jagger.
Abby found a cheap motel room that allowed her to hold onto more than half of Lucy’s money, and she used random coins she found at the bottom of her purse to get crackers and a Coke for dinner. It was about all her stomach could handle at this point, anyway, and she just had to make it to her paycheck at the end of this coming week and then she’d be able to eat again, maybe even find another cheap apartment near work. She stretched her arms up and down as she settled onto the bed, shoving crackers into her mouth as if they were the Holy Communion. Her ankles and elbows popped a little painfully, but she forced herself to smile at her own reflection in the mirror across from the bed. “Things are looking up, pup,” she told herself, continuing to fake a smile. She read somewhere that smiling triggered endorphins even if you’re sad. It worked, a little bit at least, helping her to relax. Abby leaned back on the bed, fluffing up the pillows and hugging them tightly to her body. “It’s going to be okay,” she said to herself, rolling over to her side to spoon the pillow as if it were a person. “It’s going to be okay.”
In the back of her mind, however, something was nagging at her. She felt something… creepy, like there was something stuck on her back, watching her every move. She flipped around to face the main window, which had the curtains drawn. But still, she could see that there was nobody out there trying to look at her.
“I’m safe,” she whispered, dragging her nails over her arms, the way Jagger had done before, to help herself relax. She let her eyes fall shut, and out of the darkness of her eyelids emerged images of Jagger rubbing her back, Jagger massaging her shoulders and neck, Jagger kissing the top of her head. For a few moments, she fought against it, trying to shake him from her thoughts, but it was no use. She wanted him too badly. Abby sighed and sunk further back against the pillows. Maybe, just maybe, for once I can allow myself to be weak, she thought, sinking back into the images of Jagger taking care of her exhausted body. In this way, she slipped off to sleep, a smile on her face.
Abby awoke at dawn, ready to go see the few at-home patients she had this morning before her night shift at the hospital began. She got dressed quickly and hurried out of the motel, grabbing the bus across town.
Her first patient of the day was sleepy but compliant, helping Abby check all her vital signs and efficiently marking down her progress on a chart. However, on her way back out of the old woman’s house, that creepy feeling from the previous night returned, lingering over Abby like a stench, coloring everything else she saw. It felt like somebody was watching her, like someone was hanging out in the shadows, in her peripheral vision. Every time she turned around to look, she couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary, let alone a scary boogeyman from her nightmares. Even though she tried to shake it off, telling herself not to be idiotic and cowardly, Abby couldn’t quite get rid of the nagging feeling that someone was following her. She chose to ignore it, suppressing the hot sensation of fear that arose inside of her.
Abby went on to her next patient’s house, which went smoothly even though she arrived late. Yet again she got this sinking feeling that somebody was watching her, someone very close by yet out of sight. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up, lifting almost painfully, while sweat beaded beneath her arms. As she walked back out of the patient’s house, heading toward a park to maybe take a nap on a lawn before she had to go in to work at the hospital, she couldn’t help but wonder if her instincts were right. Maybe someone IS following me, Abby thought as she picked up the pace of her steps. Maybe… Maybe it’s Jagger. She’d told him to leave her alone, but he never listened to her before; why would he do it now?
Of course, it wasn’t Jagger himself, exactly. That much was evident. If Jagger were following her in person, she knew she’d be able to sense him, feel the closeness of his body to hers. He must have dispatched one of his lackeys from Satan’s Blazes to follow her around. That had to be what it was. Abby sighed as she accepted that conclusion, rubbing her arm muscles to release a bit of the tension. Why can’t he just leave me alone? Abby thought. He was making this whole thing so much harder than it had to be. She knew she had to make a clean break from him, but he just wouldn’t let go, which was making it more difficult for Abby to let go. Which was stupid and silly and wrong. She shouldn’t feel that way about anyone, let alone some obsessive biker firefighter with trust issues. She had to be smarter than that. For fuck’s sake, the cops thought he was the arsonist. He could have been manipulating her this entire time, playing some sick game for his amusement.
But… He was so sweet in bed, so surprisingly gentle yet strong at the same time. Could he really have been lying to her the entire time, playing with her like a puppet? Abby wasn’t sure.
Crossing into the park, she located the shadiest stretch of grass she could find, laying out beneath a huge tree to stretch her muscles out properly. Even though the day was unseasonably warm, the sun kissing her skin like a lover would, she couldn’t get her mind off Jagger. Behind her eyes, images flashed one after another, all depicting different angles of his body, his muscles, his skin, his sweat. Abby found herself licking her lips at the memory of how he tasted, how his scent hung in the air after they’d fucked. Goddammit, I can’t be thinking like this, Abby thought. I have to be tougher. I have to be stronger.
Or maybe, she thought a second later, she needed to be smarter. The cops seemed convinced that Jagger was at least involved, but in her experience police weren’t necessarily infallible. Maybe she needed to look at the facts herself, just as she wanted to do with Robert’s case. She needed a way to weigh the pros and cons of each option and come to the most logical conclusion. Abby sat up, wrapping her arms around her legs as she stared down at the blades of grass that stretched in front of her. I could figure it out myself, find out if Jagger is as bad as they say. And if he is, I’ll be able to forget him forever.
That settled it. Abby got to her feet, brushing the dust and dirt off her body. She knew what she was going to do for the rest of the afternoon. On to suspect number one’s house.
# # #
Jagger
So far there was nothing suspicious at either Bruce’s or Jacob’s places. They went to the doctor, to the grocery store, to pick up their mail, and then they went back inside to watch television. That was pretty much the exact routine the men had every day, as far as Jagger’s boys could tell. They all alternated each house every couple of hours, though, so maybe they were just getting them confused at this point.
However, that wasn’t Jagger’s biggest problem. He hadn’t heard from Abby since he last saw her at the hospital. He guessed he shouldn’t have been surprised at that, seeing as she virtually begged him to stay away from her. It bothered him anyway, not knowing where she was or who she was with or what she was doing. There was no way for him to protect her, no way to keep her safe from any potential accomplices of the arsonist.
Jagger had to do something about it. Again, even if he made her hate him more than she already did in the first place, it would be worth it if it saved her life. Protecting her was the most important thing, no matter what.
Jagger gathered his MC brothers before they set off on their evening missions, watching over one or both of the suspects. “I need one of you to take on a different job, just for tonight.” He paused, searching the faces of his brothers for any sign of hesitation, any sign of fear. He didn’t want them to do it if they weren’t fully committed. But he saw no signal of doubt. “Abby. Someone needs to find her, make sure she’s secure.”
After a short pause, Tony raised his hand to volunteer. “I remember her patients’ addresses from that time I took her to visit them,” he explained.
Jagger nodded. “Good. That’s good. Go there, ask her patients, see if she’s been around recently. I just want to make sure she’s okay.”
He walked off, letting each of the men go to their missions for the night. As for Jagger, he went back to his bike and started walking it along the road, but not getting on it and riding. He didn’t want to run away from things anymore. He didn’t want to focus all his energy on other people, obsessing about their safety. It was just a way to avoid dealing with himself. Abby helped him see that because she was the exact same way.
Jagger would protect her. He’d keep her safe, no matter what the price for that might be. He’d save her. Maybe in the process, he could finally save himself from the lie he’d been living, the fallacy that he was ever happy alone.
# # #
Abby
Abby caught the last bus back to the other end of town. She had only about ninety minutes to take care of business and then get to the hospital for her night shift. She was going to be up another fourteen, maybe even fifteen hours. She tried hard to keep her muscles from aching, not to permit them to give up this early in the night. She’d have to be strong for much longer than this.
She got off the bus at the right stop, breaking into a brisk walk and heading toward the suspect’s house. She focused on Jacob again this time, even though Bruce apparently shot at Jagger. That looked suspicious, but she figured she’d double-check that Jacob wasn’t a secret accomplice or something like that, just in case.
Again, that creepy feeling crawled up her back like a spider, tiny dark legs dancing all over her skin. Abby swallowed hard to clear her throat and shook her head back and forth, back and forth, side to side, trying to get her mind as clear as possible. If she was going to make a judgment tonight regarding Jagger’s guilt or innocence, she had to stay focused rather than allowing herself to sink down into paranoia.
She finally found the right house again, creeping slowly up the gravel driveway, trying not to make any noise. Abby could see him through the window, or the back of him anyway, his old spine bent over at what looked like a ridiculously uncomfortable angle. She could sit outside his window and watch him, see if he did anything incriminating, maybe even get pictures of him planning the arsons. To Abby, even that train of thought sounded too far-fetched. She wasn’t going to catch him this way.
Maybe… He just needs to be scared. The way he scared me, Abby thought, thinking about her ruined apartment, the threatening messages that had been written across the wall. She seethed with anger just thinking about it, about Robert and her apartment and even Jagger’s house with all his childhood knickknacks inside. No, this wasn’t Jagger, Abby thought. It couldn’t be. It was the man inside this house. She knew it, the way she knew that other planets were real even if she couldn’t see them. This man was responsible, no matter how old and fragile he was.
Fuck him. Abby turned around and found the front walkway, going up to pound on the door, as hard as she could. She wished she could see him react to the noise, maybe even jump in the air in alarm. She wanted him to be scared. She wanted him to feel his stomach quake with terror, totally vulnerable to somebody else. Abby distantly regretted that she hadn’t managed to get her hands on a weapon. Oh, well. She’d just have to intimidate him with her words.
The door swung open, and a small, white-haired man with a round belly answered, staring at her from beneath heavy eyelids. “What do you want, miss?” he mumbled, looking at her as if he had never seen her before in his life, rubbing his eyes in exhaustion, as if he was just about to retire for the night even though it was only 6 pm at this point.
Abby stuck her hands on her hips, trying to look and sound as much like a self-superior school teacher as possible. “Don’t give me that, Jacob. You know why I’m here.”
“Look, is this some prank? Some of the old guys at the MC sending over some broad to scare me into coughing up child support or something like that?” he asked, scratching the side of his mouth, looking completely unfazed.
“Oh, you want to talk about the MC, do you?” Abby said, stepping closer, practically inside of Jacob’s house. “How about you tell me why you started the fires, huh? What’s the big idea there?”
“Fires?” Jacob said back, still blinking slowly at her.
“The arsons!” Abby shouted back. “Do you not know what I’m talking about?”
The old guy shrugged before staring at her blankly.
For one long moment, Abby felt doubt. It squeezed at her heart like an iron fist. Maybe she’d picked the least likely candidate among the two suspects and wasted her time. She groaned a little under her breath and checked her watch. She was probably going to be late for her shift if she spent any more time “threatening” him. It wasn’t working anyway. She should have known better than to think that she could be badass like Jagger.
“All right, well, if you know anything or figure out something that you forgot or… whatever…. about the arsons, let me know, okay? I’m Abby, Abby Horton, and here,” she said, reaching into her bag to pull out one of her cards to give to Jacob. “I’ll give you my nursing card. I can come back if you need help with your back, too. That’s kind of what I do.”
Looking back on it, as she would just a few minutes later, that might have been the crucial mistake— Mentioning his back. For when Abby turned around the next second, a spiny, cold hand wrapped around the nape of her neck, yanking her back until she was fully inside the house, slamming the door shut with his free hand before pulling her up into his arms. At this point, Abby’s brain finally responded to the situation with something other than numb shock. She squealed and kicked her legs back and forth, side to side, trying to wiggle free, but the old guy was a lot stronger than he looked, probably still bearing muscles from his MC days.
“Stupid, fucking bitch,” Jacob grunted as he threw her down on a wooden chair in the back of his house, a dark room without windows. “You weren’t even supposed to get involved in this. Just had to stick your pretty little nose in where it didn’t belong, huh? Huh?!”
Abby gasped in response, an involuntary reaction that she wished she could take back as soon as it left her body. Jacob started walking slowly toward her, and every cell in Abby’s body began to tremble.
“Listen, listen, I don’t know anything. I don’t know anything about the fires,” Abby said, and she assumed she was technically telling the truth even if the next part was a bold-faced lie. “I will leave here and never tell anyone anything about you, okay? As long as you let me go without hurting me.”
“And? What if I hurt you?” Jacob said, stepping ever closer to her even as his steps slowed down.
Abby set her jaw, clenching her teeth together as she stared up at him. What could she do, instead of falling victim to him? Instead of proving how weak she truly was? What could she do? “If you hurt me,” she began, and her voice came out small and squeaky, like a tiny mouse. “If you hurt me,” she said again, clearing her throat to speak louder. “I will make it my business to hunt you down and hurt you tenfold, for the rest of my life,” Abby finished, practically hissing through her teeth by the end of her threat. Her heart pounded painfully hard in her throat, but she didn’t regret saying what she said. If she was going to die here, if she was going to suffer, she was going to scare him even if she had to turn into a goddamned ghost to do it.
“You’re a very foolish girl, aren’t you?” Jacob said, backing up and going over to the darkest wall in the room, the one to the right of the door. Abby briefly considered bolting for it, since he hadn’t tied her hands and legs up, but she knew she didn’t have time. He’d catch her and probably punish her worse. She had to wait for the right moment.
No, that wasn’t going to happen. She hadn’t told anyone where she was going. She was stuck here unless she found a way to get out of the situation herself.
Jacob returned to her a moment later holding rope and duct tape. He had evidently planned for a situation like this. Abby wondered if she was always destined to end up here, stuck in a psychopath’s house, with no legitimate hope for an escape.
Jacob had her restrained in less than a minute before he walked back over to the shadowy corner of the room where there must have been a cabinet or set of drawers where he kept his supplies. When he bent over, she noticed a withered tattoo on his upper arm, some military insignia.
Abby barely had a second to breathe and tell herself to calm down before Jacob came back again, this time brandishing a knife. All she could do was swallow and raise her head to meet his eyes, trying not to let him know how terrified she felt. “Let’s get to know each other a little bit, shall we?”
# # #
Jagger
Jagger had just gotten back from a long, fast bike ride when he checked his beeper. Several notifications were waiting for him, all from Tony. Shit. Abby.
Without bothering to read the individual messages, he opened his phone and called Tony directly to get the full story as quickly as possible. “What’s up?” he said into the phone as soon as Tony picked up the call.
“It’s bad, boss. It’s really bad,” Tony said in a rush, sounding like he was panicking.
“Slow down, it’s okay, just tell me what’s going on,” Jagger said, slowly lifting his body off his bike and walking toward his car. He had a feeling he was going to need to get to where he was going very quickly, but hopefully, if all went well, he’d come back with a passenger.
“Abby. It’s Abby. I saw her… I saw her walking into Jacob’s house. It’s bad. I think… I think he has her.”
“How do you know that?” Jagger asked, feeling his stomach acid gurgle painfully in his gut as he pictured Abby and Jacob in the same room. “Did you… Can you hear anything? Is he hurting her?”
“No. No, I mean, I don’t know,” Tony said. “All I know is her normal schedule would have had her heading to the hospital by now, but there’s no sign of her from the house, and he’s just sitting in the front room watching TV. That can’t be good. I wanted to storm in and see if I could find her, but…”
“But it’s safer if you’ve got more than one guy,” Jagger finished for him. It was a standard rule of the club: never go in without back-up. There weren’t many rules for the club. The only other one that Jagger could think of was the one that Jacob had violated all those years ago: don’t hit women and children. Robert had been one of the leaders of the club who’d pushed for him to get kicked out. Jagger should have picked up on it sooner. Jagger’s heart rate picked up, his blood rushing almost painfully through his veins as he thought of what that motherfucker could do to Abby, all because she was a strong woman who got in his way.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can. Just a few minutes, Tony, hold on,” he said before hanging up the phone, leaping into his car and backing out of the compound’s parking lot so fast his wheels kicked up clouds of brown smoke.
As Jagger sped on down the busy streets, weaving in and out of traffic, his head began to pound as if someone were using it as a giant drum. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. On a loop in his head, the rhythm pounded, his blood rushing to his extremities, which had somehow turned painfully numb over the course of just a few minutes.
I should never have let her go, Jagger thought to himself. I should have kept watch on her the whole time, no matter what she said.
You almost got her killed the last time you thought that way, he argued back to himself.
No matter how hard the various voices in his brain pushed and pulled each other back and forth, there was one truth that he couldn’t deny: he couldn’t control Abby. It wasn’t just her feistiness, or her ability to fight for what she believed in. It was how much she cared. That was the biggest thing, the real reason why she kept getting in so much danger. It was because she cared too much, far too much for one person. It was like she’d taken all the loneliness she felt as a sick teenager and reflected her frustration back out into the world as compassion. She’d turned herself into her own superhero, the person who would have saved her as a kid. Jagger couldn’t blame her for that, but goddammit, it was tempting to do so when he thought of how much danger she’d managed to get into this time.
He rolled to a stop on Jacob’s street, not pulling up to his house because he wanted to preserve the element of surprise. When he and Tony and the other boys busted in there, Jacob would have no idea what hit him. That’s the way this was going to work.
“Hey,” Jagger panted as he walked up to Tony, still hiding behind a row of neatly trimmed bushes. “Anything new?”
“No noise. He’s just been hanging out in the house, doing nothing. Maybe she left out the back or something,” Tony said with a sigh, at the end of his rope.
Jagger shook his head. “No, she would have left this way, out the front, to head toward the hospital. Or at least she would have passed you if she had left through the back. She would’ve had to walk around the house from the back to get on the street. She’s in there, Tony. We gotta break in.”
“But how?” Tony asked, desperation now tainting his voice. He must have learned to care about Abby, too. Jagger put a hand on his shoulder to reassure him.
Jagger opened his mouth to answer Tony’s question, but before he could get any words out one of the other men on the lookout team, Cash, cleared his throat to interrupt him. “Guys, we’ve got an issue here. He’s on the move.”
“What do you mean, what’s he doing?” Jagger asked, straining his eyes to peek through the holes in the bush into Jacob’s living room window.
“He suddenly sprang up from his chair like he’d been stung or something, and ran out of the room. Maybe he noticed one of us.”
“Maybe,” Jagger said, looking behind his shoulder to see if his truck was visible from that distance. He wasn’t sure if the old man would be able to make it out, but it was possible.
They inched along the bushes, trying to find an alternate view into the house that showed them what was going on. They had to have some strategy before going in, even if Jagger was coming out of his skin thinking of Abby trapped inside.
Before they could find another window, a long groaning and creaking sound caught all of their attention, causing them to stand up and stare over the bushes as Jacob’s bright red truck backed out of his driveway, out onto the street.
“Shit, shit, Abby’s in there, she’s gotta be in there, she’s gotta be,” Jagger said, turning around and breaking into a run back toward his car, Tony and Cash swiftly following him a second later.
The truck whizzed by them just as Jagger leapt into the front seat and switched the engine on. “You guys ready to fucking rumble?” Jagger said, as his car lurched violently into motion onto the rocky road, chasing after Jacob’s truck.
“For you?” Tony said, pulling a gun out of his back jeans pocket. “Anytime.”
Jagger exhaled heavily, trying to keep himself calm. Tony was right. Despite everything, despite how fucked he felt right now, he had his MC. He had his family. Together, they’d save Abby. He knew they could. He just had to fight for her, with everything he had. Jagger pressed his foot down harder on the accelerator, following Jacob down a curvy, narrow road where trees scratched along the sides of their cars.
“I’m coming for you, Abby,” he murmured out loud, not even feeling the slightest bit embarrassed about his brothers listening in. “I’m coming.”
# # #
Abby
Abby blinked several times, struggling each time to pry her eyes back open after they shut. Her brain was fuzzy as if it had been filled with static. She didn’t know what had happened. One second, she was restrained in that pokey, uncomfortable chair in Jacob’s creepy dark room, and then the next second he returned, pulling some of the rope off her wrist and sticking her with something sharp and thin and hard.
Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck, oh, fuck, oh, fuck, he must have injected me with something. Something to slow me down, make me sleep. Abby pinched the flesh of her palms, as hard as she could, desperately fighting to stay awake. I will not fall asleep. I will not fall asleep. I won’t fucking succumb to the darkness. Not again. Not ever again as long as I live.
Abby kept repeating the words, holding onto them in her head as if they were a literal lifeline, repeating them to remind herself. I will not be a victim. I will not be weak. I am not weak. I am not weak. I am powerful. He will not kill me. He will not get the best of me.
She kept pinching and scratching at her skin, biting the inside of her cheek, using the pain to anchor herself to the moment, despite the rocking motions around her that threatened to lull her into the abyss of sleep. The rocking… She was in a car! The trunk of a car. There wasn’t a ton of air in there. It felt cramped like she was back in the fire that claimed Jagger’s home. She started holding her breath longer, breathing more and more infrequently to maximize the use of whatever oxygen she had at her disposal.
How do I get out of this? How do I stay alive? Abby’s inner voice demanded to know. Even though she had never felt this sluggish before in her entire life, she resisted sinking into the warm nothingness that threatened to overtake her mind. She smacked her head lightly with her hand, hoping the stinging pain would keep her brain stabilized.
I wish Jagger were here with me, she thought out of nowhere. She didn’t mean it literally, of course. She didn’t want him to be in life-threatening danger like she was, not really, but she would have liked to have seen him one last time. He was the only man in her life that had ever stood up for her, that had ever fought for her, that had ever admitted he was wrong to her. He was the strongest man she’d ever known. She wished she had the opportunity to say that to him.
Instead, she’d accused him of the arsons, which weren’t his responsibility. Despite everything, even though she was most probably riding to her death, she felt guilty. Maybe she should have been proud of that, proud of the ability to still think of another person even when she was at death’s door. Little good it would do her now. She was never going to see him again.
No, come on, fuck that. Fuck that. You’ll see him again. You have to. You have to, Abby, she said to herself, stretching out her body to try to shake free from the remaining restraints. They loosened a little around her muscles, but they were still too tightly wound to fall off her body entirely. Fuck it. She’d just have to make do with what little power she had over her limbs.
Abby exhaled deeply, trying to keep herself steady and calm as she pushed her legs against the back of the trunk. Maybe someone would hear her, someone on the street. No, Jacob was driving way too fast for that. No one would notice anything unless she kicked the taillights out entirely.
She breathed in deep, blinking several times to focus her eyesight on the corner of the car. She’d have to push down, at an angle, to put any kind of pressure on the back lights at all, let alone force them out of their sockets. Luckily, the car looked like it was an older model, at the very least. The lights had probably already seen some action, and it might not take too much power to knock them loose if she got lucky. She still had no idea where Jacob was going. Maybe they were an hour away from their destination, maybe only five minutes. She couldn’t afford to waste any more time.
Abby braced her body against the back of the trunk, nearest to the back seat, before lunging forward and smacking her foot as hard as she could against the left corner of the other side. She heard a dull “thud” sound, but nothing to indicate that her attempt had been successful. Abby inhaled deeply again, summoning all of her willpower as she sprang her legs back out. This time she heard a distinct shattering noise. The glass of the headlight broke, even if it hadn’t been removed entirely from its place on the back of the vehicle.
She kicked at the same spot again, a little weaker this time, hearing some glass hit the road behind the truck with a crashing sound. Abby would have smiled in triumph if the world hadn’t started spinning around her, the trunk vibrating as if the very air had caught fire. Abby swallowed heavily to clear her clogged-up throat and dry mouth and cradled her head in her hands, willing the pounding and swirling sensations to stop. She couldn’t afford to rest for long. She could tell that the vehicle had sped up, the movements of the trunk around her getting rougher and more violent as the truck ran over bumps in the road, almost causing Abby to hit her head on the ceiling of the trunk.
Wherever the truck was going, it was going to get there faster than initially intended. Jacob was on a mission. Abby only had a slim chance of getting somebody’s attention on the road before they went to whatever place he’d decided on as the optimal murder location. Abby inhaled as hard as she could, hoping the extra air would empower her to kick harder or at least more precisely, as she aimed at the other side of the trunk. She kicked weakly a few times, failing to break any glass on that side of the car.
Come on, come on, come on, I can do this. I can fucking do this. I’m strong. I’m not that little girl anymore, Abby silently said to herself as she prepared to kick again.
As the familiar pull of nausea attacked her stomach, Abby realized something for the first time: she was that little girl. She was that little girl dying in a hospital bed. She always would be. That was how she knew she could do this. She’d beaten cancer. She’d beaten a family that hadn’t loved her. She’d beaten death. She could do it again. She could do this, right? She had no other choice.
Just as she was about to launch her foot forward again to kick out the other taillight, there was a loud banging noise. Maybe Jacob hit something with his car? Then a second realization hit her: gunshots. Someone had a gun and was pointing it at Jacob’s truck. That meant someone was following him, someone who knew who he was the arsonist. She still had a chance. There was hope. Abby swallowed hard, summoning up all the strength she had even though her head refused to stop spinning in circles. She pulled her leg back as far as it would go in the cramped space of the trunk and kicked as hard as her weakened muscles would allow, causing a crunching sound as her foot collided with the tail light.
She heard some indistinct noises after that: another banging noise that was probably another gunshot, but also some male voices yelling, although she couldn’t make out the words. She had to pant hard for air now, the trunk appearing to close in on itself as the seconds ticked by. Her entire body tingled with something, probably the side effects of whatever Jacob had injected into her. It was so tempting just to fall asleep, close her eyes, relax into the darkness that had wanted to claim her ever since she was a child.
As her eyes began to slide shut, some noise pierced through the fog: “Abby! Abby! Abby!” Her name was being screamed by a familiar voice, deep and throaty and desperate. Jagger! It was Jagger. He’d come after her. He’d come to save her.
First, she’d have to save herself. She’d have to be strong. He needed her. She could hear it in his voice. That was what woke Abby up, shaking her alert like she’d just had a ton of ice-water poured all over her body. He needs me, she thought. I can’t die yet. He needs me to save him.
Abby’s entire body shook and trembled as she readjusted herself in the trunk, preparing to kick again. Every muscle was begging her to stop, to rest, to let go. but she couldn’t. Not when Jagger was right there, practically within arm’s reach. She bent her leg back, breathing deeply to prepare herself again, before pushing it forward with all her might, every last drop of her energy pooled into her leg as it collided with the side of the trunk. For a second, she thought she’d failed, that her last-ditch effort had been a bust. She didn’t hear any cracking noises, any signal that she’d successfully kicked out the other light and given a sign to Jagger that she was still alive. But then a small line of light flashed across Abby’s eyes, thin and long. It was coming from outside the trunk. The trunk had popped itself open with the force of Abby’s kick.
Abby stumbled forward on her hands and knees and flung the top of the trunk all the way open, air whooshing in as she exposed herself to the open road. She stuck her head out of the trunk and began waving her arms back and forth, her eyes blinded by the sudden influx of light from the sun in comparison to the darkness of the trunk. “Help! Help me! Please!” Her arms, still weak from the sedative that she’d been given, dropped to her sides after a few seconds, but she stayed upright, even as she wavered back and forth with the movement of the truck. “Please! Help me! Save me, please!” she screamed, her voice rising above the sound of the wheels and the puffing of the truck’s engine even though her throat was hoarse and worn-out.
“Abby!” she heard Jagger scream. She still couldn’t see, barely able to keep her eyes open after exerting herself so hard, but she could tell by the sound of his voice that he was close, probably in the car directly behind Jacob’s truck. “Abby, I’m coming! I’m coming for you, just stay still, okay! Don’t move!”
She was about to ask why, but then she heard the gunshots, popping right next to her ear, banging loudly as they collided with the surface of the truck behind her. A second later, Abby’s body jerked upward in the air and slid off to one side of the trunk. One of the gunshots must have hit a wheel, popping it right away, and now the car slid to the side of the road even as Jacob kept trying to speed up and ride away.
Abby was blinking furiously, trying to get her eyes adjusted to the bright light so she could see what was going on. Even without her vision, she could tell that the truck was slowing down, sputtering a little before coming to a complete stop. She heard male voices shouting frantically and guns going off again, pop pop pop pop, all in a row, until she felt strong, familiar arms grab her by the shoulders.
“Abby, Abby, are you okay? Are you all right? What did he do to you?” Jagger asked her. Abby blinked a few more times, his beautiful face finally coming into view, framed by the sun. He looked like an angel, like he was sent from Heaven to protect her. Maybe he was.
“I’m… fine,” she said slowly, her mouth not working as well as it usually did when she wasn’t sedated. “He gave me something, though. Slowed me down.”
“Motherfucker,” Jagger grunted out, wrapping one hand around the back of Abby’s head and pulling her into his chest, crushing her against him. “Tony, you make sure he doesn’t move a goddamn inch until I get to him.”
“The cops,” Abby murmured, her mouth working of its own volition, without her brain’s contribution. Her thoughts had slowed to a stop, all tired out for the day, but she still had important things to say.
“What’s that, honey? What are you saying?” Jagger said, pulling back a little to stare down into her eyes.
“The cops. You have to turn him in… to the cops,” Abby mumbled, rubbing the side of her face against Jagger’s warm, solid chest.
Jagger was silent a moment, and Abby knew him well enough to see that he was conflicted. She knew he wanted to beat the living shit out of Jacob, not only for targeting and terrorizing Satan’s Blazes for so many months, but also for hurting Abby. Right now, she just needed the violence to stop. She needed to rest, and for that to happen, Jagger had to rest with her. It was the only way she could trust herself to relax if she knew he wasn’t going to get hurt when she closed her eyes.
He must have sensed all that because for once he didn’t put up a fight. “Okay,” he said after a minute, rubbing the back of Abby’s hair soothingly. “Okay, we’ll take him to the police. For you.”
Abby nuzzled her face against his chest, pulling at the fabric of his shirt to get him even closer. She was acting like a baby, she knew, like a bonafide toddler, but she didn’t care.
At a different time, in a different place, she would have pushed Jagger away. She would have told him not to baby, or coddle her, or do anything else that might make her feel weak. That was the scariest thing, feeling like she wasn’t tough. But for right now, she couldn’t tear herself away from Jagger’s touch. She wanted more of it. She wanted all of it, all that he had to give her. She needed to be touched sweetly and softly. She needed to be comforted. For once in her life, she wasn’t ashamed of it. She needed help, and that didn’t make her any weaker, not in the slightest. It was liberating, letting herself be taken care of.
Maybe that was what being strong was all about.
# # #
Jagger
Jagger paced back and forth in front of the hospital room, waiting for the doctors to finish up their check-up of Abby. He was only out here because they told him in no uncertain terms that they needed privacy to check on her. Jagger wanted to argue with them, but it was such a long day, he didn’t have any steam left in him. All he had was anger, anger at the doctors for being so strict, anger at Jacob for hurting Abby, anger at the universe for allowing all of this to happen.
Thankfully, it was over. Finally, finally, it was over. It was almost a little scary to think about. The investigation of the arsons had been his life for so long. It was the reason his last girlfriend had left him; it was the reason he’d grown distant from his coworkers and his MC brothers alike. It had shaped his life, however, given Jagger purpose, given him a reason to get out of bed in the morning. Now that it was over, what would he do with himself? What would he focus on?
As the doctors walked back out of Abby’s room and signaled to him that it was okay to go in, he suddenly knew the answer to his questions. Abby. Abby would become his life now; that is, if she was interested in letting him stick around. When he sat down next to her bed, he noticed that she’d fallen asleep, finally. Good. That was good. She deserved it.
If he were honest with himself, he knew that he had to sleep at some point, but he couldn’t get his brain to quiet down. All he kept thinking about was Abby trapped in that trunk, Abby trapped in Jacob’s house. He hoped to God that nothing truly bad had happened to her, or it wouldn’t matter what Abby said about the police. He’d tear Jacob apart with his own two hands if he found out that he’d disturbed even one hair on Abby’s head.
That was how Jagger spent the night, staring out into the darkness, listening to Abby’s breathing while inwardly his thoughts tossed and turned, obsessing about what he was going to do to Jacob. Hours passed that way until the morning light streaked into the hospital room through the open window, casting a radiant glow on Abby until she twitched herself awake.
“Mm, morning,” she mumbled as she opened her eyes, slowly sitting up in bed.
“Good morning,” Jagger said, and he surprised himself with how cheery and chipper he sounded, in comparison to Abby’s sleepy, grumpy tone. She rubbed her eyes and looked at him, staring at him for a long moment before saying anything else.
“Did you stay here all night again?” Abby asked after her long pause.
Jagger just nodded.
Abby bit down on her lip, her brow furrowing, and Jagger wondered what he did wrong to make her worry. He hated seeing that. He knew she’d felt enough worry to last a lifetime, maybe even two lifetimes. She didn’t deserve to feel that way anymore. She’d paid her dues. He just wanted her to rest and relax and recover.
“What’s wrong?” he finally asked, watching her chew furiously on her bottom lip and fidget around with her fingers, scratching at her nails.
“Um, nothing, nothing,” she said quickly, but it was not a genuine answer. She stared down at her lap for a long moment, looking as her nails attacked each other viciously. Jagger was tempted to reach over and pull her hands apart to prevent her from hurting herself, but he figured she’d had enough men telling her what to do lately. She needed to feel like she was in control of her own body.
Jagger just waited, allowing her to gather her thoughts. He didn’t want to push her if she wasn’t ready to share her worries with him. God knew he’d already pushed her too much during the time they’d known one another. It was a miracle that she was willing to put up with him at all.
After a long minute of silence, Abby finally cleared her throat to speak. “Nobody’s ever done that for me before, you know.”
“What do you mean?” Jagger asked, confused.
“Staying all night in the hospital,” Abby explained, still not looking directly at him. Her fingers picked up speed, scratching at each other harder like it was killing her to admit this out loud. “All that time when I was in the hospital as a teenager, nobody… ever stayed the night.”
“Jesus,” Jagger whispered, more to himself than to Abby, but it still got her to smile sadly and turn to look at him for a second before her eyes flicked back down to her lap.
“Yeah, I mean, I don’t know. I guess it doesn’t do anybody any good, does it?” Abby said softly, pushing the blanket down her body, exposing her bare legs to the air. She moved her hands down to her knees and began scratching the skin there.
Jagger finally pulled his chair forward and took one of her hands, stopping her from inflicting any more damage to herself. He held her small hand within his large one, tracing his fingers over her knuckles until she shivered. “It makes a difference, I think,” Jagger whispered. “You slept well, right?”
“I did,” Abby admitted. “I slept really well.”
“I think it helps to have someone in the room,” Jagger said, even though he didn’t know what he was talking about. “You deserved… You deserved better. As a teenager, when you were in the hospital. Your family should’ve stayed with you.”
Abby was quiet again for a moment, and Jagger half-expected her to start arguing with him. Instead she just whispered, “Thank you.”
“Yeah, no problem,” Jagger said reflexively, gripping her hand a little tighter.
“You must want to go home to take a shower,” Abby said a moment later, smiling widely at him for just a second before the façade fell from her face. He saw the worry in her expression, lingering there like a persistent shadow.
“I’m good,” Jagger said quietly. “I think I’m gonna stay here for a while if that’s okay with you.”
Abby shrugged a little, but Jagger could detect the relief that she felt, her shoulders dropping as the tension left her muscles. He smiled a little to himself, proud that he’d helped her relax even the tiniest bit.
“Is it… If I hang around for a while, not just today but, like, till you get out of the hospital, is that okay?” Jagger asked, his voice coming out a little higher and more nervously than he would have liked. He wished he was as good at pretending not to care as Abby was.
“Yeah, yeah, I’d… I’d appreciate that,” she said in response, a light blush appearing on her cheeks.
Jagger wondered if he should just stop there rather than pushing the issue, but he had to know. He had to know, goddammit. He couldn’t live in uncertainty. He’d done that for months and months during the investigation, and he was sick of it. He needed to know where he stood. “And if I hang around after you come out of the hospital, is that okay too? With you? Would you like that, too?” He hoped Abby would understand what he was trying to ask her. Can I be with you? Can I really, really be with you, all the time, whenever possible? Can we be together?
Abby bit her lip again, but she turned to face him head-on, staring deeply into his eyes, her eyes full of an emotion that Jagger recognized but couldn’t name. It scared him a little, but he looked back at her rather than ducking his head or tearing his eyes away.
“I’m going to need some time, Jagger,” Abby said softly. “To get used to the whole… You being around thing. I’m not used to men sticking around for very long, you know.”
“I know,” Jagger said, finally dropping his gaze to the ground. It was a little disappointing, realizing that Abby wasn’t ready to be his 24/7 girlfriend right away, but it made sense. She’d been through so much. “I can give you time,” he said, hoping he didn’t sound as desperate as he felt.
“That’s all I need,” Abby said softly, so soft that Jagger looked up from the floor, concerned about what he might find written across Abby’s face.
Her eyes were shining with tears, and for a second Jagger’s heart fell deep into his stomach, horrified that he’d said or done the wrong thing to hurt her. She’d been through enough, after all. He didn’t need to torture her emotionally on top of everything else. As tears fell from her eyes, streaming down her cheeks slowly, a smile spread across her face. A real one, this time. Sad, but genuinely happy at the same time. “Thank you,” she murmured, her voice full of emotion.
Jagger didn’t think. He just acted.
He leaned forward, still holding onto her hand, and pressed their lips together gently. Abby deepened the kiss, grabbing the back of Jagger’s head to encourage him on. “Thank you,” she mumbled in between deep kisses, her lips tracing their way across his cheeks and jawline. “Thank you so much.”
“No, no, it’s nothing, it’s nothing,” Jagger murmured back, stroking the side of Abby’s face as tenderly as possible. “You deserve so much more.”
“I deserve to make my own choices, Jagger,” Abby said, a little sternly now, and Jagger knew she was referring to all the control-freak bullshit he’d pulled.
“I know, I know, I’m sorry,” he replied.
“It’s okay. You were just trying to protect me. I’m—I’m not used to that,” Abby said, her face raw and vulnerable when Jagger pulled back to look her in the eyes. “But I’m willing to try.”
“You are?” Jagger asked, unable to keep the wondrous hope he felt out of his voice.
“Very willing. I’m ready… I’m ready to be… Soft, with you,” Abby whispered, leaning forward again to press her mouth against Jagger’s.
“Can I… get up there with you?” Jagger asked, gesturing to the hospital bed. Abby grinned and nodded, shuffling to the side to make room for him as he lifted himself up onto the bed.
Jagger wrapped his arms around Abby’s body, clinging to her as tightly as he could. He’d almost lost her, in more ways than one. In the process, he’d almost lost everything, but she was there. She was real, and she was willing to fight for him. More than that, she was ready to fight herself for him, to allow him to take care of her, to allow him to protect her. And that was more than enough.
“You saved me, you know,” Abby murmured into his chest, rubbing her hand against his shoulder, still trying to look after him even now. Ever the nurse, ever the caretaker.
“No,” Jagger said to her, kissing the top of her head. “You saved me.”
For now, they could agree to disagree, focusing instead on the glorious warmth of each other’s bodies, the beautiful curves, and edges and rough spots that they were finally able to show one another. Deep inside there was one simple truth that both of them knew. The life they were now going to share was going to be full of thick, dark smoke, as scary and threatening as the real kind they’d already escaped, but they knew they could handle it. Together, they were strong. Together, they could face the flames.
THE END
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