TWENTY
Digging Up Old Graves
Seven
Blood.
Bodies.
It was all I could see as I closed my eyes. Tonight had been terrifying. Seeing the Phantoms like that only made me wonder how Indy had managed to stand up to them. When I realized they planned to rape me, the last bit of hope I had of surviving this night vanished until Lucky showed up.
After that, I needed to know everyone else was safe, starting with G. The moment I saw him alive and well, tears of relief sprung. Glory MC had assured me that Trey and Toni were also okay, having found them when they made a thorough search of the factory. Knowing that my friends were safe and unharmed, I finally allowed Lucky to take me home. Nothing would stop me from falling straight onto my bed as soon as we reached the front door.
“Come on,” he said as the engine cut off and he moved to get off his bike. “Let’s get you fed and cleaned up. Then you can go to bed.”
“Sleep,” I muttered. “I just want to sleep.” The adrenaline had finally passed through my system, leaving me drained. I might as well have been blind with the way I navigated towards the front of the house, but Lucky’s hand shot out and I stopped.
“Hold on. Something’s wrong.”
Wrong? What could be worse than what already happened tonight? When I opened my eyes, the answer was obvious. The front door was ajar.
“Stay here,” Lucky ordered. Not a chance in hell. This was my home! As I followed him, he drew his pistol and entered the house. He did a double take when he saw me standing behind him. “I told you to stay outside.”
But it wasn’t my own safety that I was worried about. What if Lennon and Dex had been home? Oh God. Another spike of fear lanced through me.
“Stay behind me at all times. If I tell you to run, you run.” Before proceeding, Lucky pulled out his phone, no doubt calling Glory MC for backup.
As he headed for the stairs, I braced myself for signs of destruction. Living in the post-flare world meant that people were getting desperate. I wasn’t sure what would be left.
Yet the house looked the same as always as I quickly took it in. Nothing seemed out of place or missing. I stood there waiting in fear for something to pop up and make me scream, but when Lucky came back a moment later with his pistol holstered, I realized that maybe whoever had done this was gone now. “Are you okay?” Lucky asked me. Although I nodded, confusion was clear in my eyes. “Do you notice anything missing?”
My tired eyes once again scanned the area around us, looking for something misplaced or damaged, but in the darkness, everything looked exactly as it was supposed to be.
That was odd. Why break in and not steal anything?
The look Lucky shot me didn’t ease the panic inside of me. If anything, it only put me back on alert. After everything that happened today, my body didn’t seem like it could take any more. The room did a fast tilt and Lucky rushed towards me. “Whoa, whoa. Why don’t you sit down?” As he led me to the couch, he dropped to his haunches before me, giving my hands a squeeze. “It’s all right. We’ll figure this out.”
The sounds of motorcycles outside alerted us that Glory MC had arrived. “What happened?” Hastie asked as he approached.
“Someone broke in.”
“Anything broken? Missing?”
“Nothing I can tell,” Lucky reported. “But it’s probably not safe to stay here tonight.”
The vice-prez’s green eyes slid to me, shining with sympathy. “You can stay with us.” As soon as Hastie said it, I knew it was exactly what I needed to hear after a night like tonight.
* * *
“Who could have done it?” Indy asked later as we congregated in her living room.
Lennon and Dex arrived as soon as they got word of what happened. They seemed completely shocked and spooked as I was. Lucky turned to his sister. “Did you tell anyone you were coming here, Lennon?”
Lennon shot her brother a confused look. “No. Why would I tell anyone that I was visiting my brother?”
“I’m in a motorcycle gang,” Lucky said matter of factly. “The people you hang out with may know that and want to exploit it.”
“The people I hang out with? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Does your dealer know?”
As soon as Lucky said it, I knew it was the wrong thing to say. The color drained from Lennon’s face, but all she did was she shake her head. “I haven’t seen him in a long time.”
“Would he have sought you out? Maybe he was trying to get you to buy.”
“He wouldn’t come all the way to Ward Four to do that,” she snapped.
“Look,” I said, stepping in before things got out of control. “It might not even be about Lennon.”
“It has to be.” Lucky’s tone hinted at his exhaustion. “We never had any problems before tonight.”
I was tired too, but we couldn’t point fingers without thinking about it first. “Are you going to blame Lennon for what happened at Giovanni’s too?”
Lucky glared. “Why would anyone break into your house and not take anything then?”
That was the million-dollar question, wasn’t it? If the person who broke in didn’t find anything of value inside, then it had to be that they were looking for someone who lived there.
“The Phantoms?” Hastie asked when I told them this. “How could they have known Lucky was staying with you?”
Lucky shook his head. “It can’t be them.”
“So it has to be you,” Dex announced and all eyes bounced to me. My lips pursed together in a thin line. That was what I feared. But who would do this to me? And why? When Lucky repeated my thoughts aloud, I realized just how similarly our brains worked.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. My past was filled with so many shady people that the idea that someone had sought me out now frightened me. I was already so damned tired of feeling this way.
Was that the reason for the paranoia I was feeling these past few days? Had my gut known something was wrong before it even happened?
“Any enemies, friends you’ve lost touch with, or psycho ex-lovers we need to know about?” I looked up at Lucky, expression worried. Daniel wouldn’t do this, would he? While he was capable of hurting himself, my ex was by no means a violent person, especially to others. “Come on, Seven. If you think there’s someone, you have to tell us.”
“I had an ex,” I began.
“Of course there was an ex,” he said with a roll of his eyes. I ignored his nasty tone. Everyone was tired tonight and we were all trying our best.
“He was the needy kind,” I continued. “When I left him, he became suicidal. But I don’t think he’s capable of this.”
“What’s his name? I’ll have Angel look into him.”
“He’s not violent.”
“He’s our only lead, Seven. We just have to make sure.”
Fear buzzed in my veins. As much as I wanted to keep my past a secret, I understood that this wasn’t just about me. More than my own safety was at stake now. As I rattled off his name and any details I could remember of him, Lucky sent a text with all the information to Angel.
Lucky
“Is there anyone else from your past that you think could do this?”
Seven’s gaze met mine briefly before turning away. I knew there was something going on in her head, but with so many people in the room, she may not want to divulge the secrets of her past. Hell, I knew the feeling.
“Look.” Dex stood. “We’ll leave so you guys can work this out privately.” After quickly saying good night, he and Lennon returned to Neptune’s where they would be staying the night.
As soon as they were gone, my eyes settled once again on Seven. “Come on. I know you’re not sharing everything with us, but if we’re to figure this out, you can’t keep secrets. Whatever it is, it won’t change how we see you.”
“You don’t have to tell them,” Indy said softly as she stood by her best friend. By the angry look Seven shot me, she clearly didn’t like being pushed.
I wasn’t enjoying this either. But someone had broken into her house, for God’s sake. “I’m only trying to figure this out.”
“No, it’s fine,” Seven said on a breath. “If it helps, then I don’t care.”
“I wouldn’t push unless I thought it would help.”
Seven nodded, taking a deep breath of courage. My body tensed. What was she going to tell us? “When I was seven, my mother took my sister and me to a Wal-Mart to get some groceries one day. Every time we went, we were allowed to pick one junk food each. I always grabbed potato chips. I loved them,” she added. “Ainsley liked those sour peaches things.” Her lips pulled into a small, sad smile before her expression darkened.
“Everything was fine until Mom’s eyes got big and she said she forgot something in the car. She said she’d go back and get it right away. She told me to guard the cart and keep Ainsley safe. So that was what I did.”
Seven paused, inhaling deeply. I could tell that this was a difficult story for her, so I stayed silent, waiting. “She told me she would be right back. So . . . we waited. It could have been minutes. Hours. I don’t freaking know! After a while, Ainsley tugged on my shirt and told me she was hungry. Of course I didn’t know what to do so I opened the bag of sour peaches and gave her two pieces to munch on until Mom came back.”
Her eyelids fluttered down, weighed by the memories. “A store clerk came by and asked us if we were lost. I told her I was supposed to stay. I had to guard the cart and protect Ainsley until our mom came back.”
When Seven paused again, I was starting to think that asking her to spill her secrets was a bad idea. I had no idea Seven had a sister and getting her to tell me this story was clearly hard on her. Her body was trembling now. I shared a concerned look at Hastie and Indy wrapped an arm around her, offering comfort. Memories could do that sometimes. They could consume you, take over your entire body. I itched to reach over and comfort her, but she pressed on before I could.
“When she left, Ainsley got restless and began taking things out of the cart, throwing them on the floor. I picked them back up and placed them in the cart, but she’d just keep throwing them out again.
“Later, a man came up to us, saw the mess of groceries on the floor around us and asked if we were okay.”
Her eyes lifted to meet mine then and I took a moment to take in the emotion swimming in them. “The man was so kind to me and soon a lady appeared with him. His wife, I presumed. She had a bundle of new towels tucked under one arm. I was so tired by then. And so hungry. Ainsley had already fallen asleep, leaving me all alone. When the man opened his arms, I don’t know why I stepped right into them. I don’t know why I felt a moment of relief.”
My body tightened but Seven trundled right on as if a dam had broken and the story of her past was now bursting free. “The woman placed the towels in our cart and steered us to the cashier while the man carried me in his arms all the way to the car. I don’t remember much because I slept through the whole ride.”
When she stopped, she looked to me to gauge my reaction. “Did they hurt you?”
“No. They were good parents. They took us to school. Fed us. Raised us well. But then I turned eighteen and that changed.
“Money was always sparse. We couldn’t afford a lot of things. I turned eighteen and they expected me to help pay the bills. I couldn’t find a stable job. So they made me sell my body.”
“What?” Hastie looked just as shocked as I was. Beside her, Indy had gone pale. Was this the first time she was learning of this, too?
“They whored us.” Seven’s voice came out flat. Emotionless. “Told us that we owed them for taking us in all those years ago.”
“Even your little sister?” I couldn’t believe any of this.
“Ainsley stayed out of it until she turned eighteen. They said that they weren’t complete sickos and wouldn’t make her a whore at fifteen.” She sent me a sad smile that made me growl. “By the time she turned legal, I was three years in.”
I ran my hand through my hair, shaking my head. My mind refused to accept this. Seven never once let on that she was anything other than content with her life. When she first came knocking at Glory MC’s door, tagging along with Indy, I had always assumed that her life was all rosy.
The situation she was forced in to was far from it. It would’ve made a lesser person suicidal to have to do that night after night. I would’ve expected her to act more like her ex, Daniel, who seemed to have abandonment issues. Not be a well-adjusted person like she was on most days. So hearing this story made it hard to believe that she had been forced to do that by her own guardians just to survive. The situation was strange, uncanny, and sad.
Seven watched me this whole time, her eyes raking over me as she frowned. “Lucky, are you all right?”
I didn’t realize it at first, but I was standing, brought to my feet by the raging emotions within me. Nothing enraged me more than forcing sex on innocents. “What happened to your sister?”
“She couldn’t take it. She hated herself. Her body. She committed suicide.”
Oh God. “I’m sorry, Seven.”
At the sound of her name, Seven winced as if I had slapped her hard across the face. Her voice was barely above a whisper. “They called me Seven to remind me of where I came from. I was the girl whose mother abandoned her in aisle seven of Wal-Mart. I’m reminded of what I owe them every time they call my name.”
My stomach dropped out from underneath me. My God. It was worse than I thought. “They had no right to make you do those things.”
“I never said my past was pretty. Are you glad you got that story out of me now?”
“No.” The ragged profession surprised even me. “I would never wish that upon my greatest enemy.”
“Is that a heart you’re showing, Lucky?” she teased, trying to lighten the atmosphere a bit. This conversation had turned too serious, too fast.
I met her tired eyes. “As much as I act like I do, I never actually hated you, Seven.”
The teasing smile disappeared from her face. “I never really hated you, either.”