I heard a crashing sound from somewhere in the bar but it didn’t stop me. I got one of my arms free and clawed at the man closest to me. He released my other arm and I jerked myself upright and hastily ripped the ropes from my ankles. It didn’t occur to me that the men weren’t fighting to touch me anymore. I was just focused on getting free.
“Run!”
I jerked at the deep command barked from next to me. I looked over, expecting to see one of the awful men, but instead, I had a moment of confusion at the face in front of me. Even more panic threatened to cripple me. I worried that I’d died and was seeing things. Although, I couldn’t for the life of me understand why I’d be seeing Jackson Alexander.
“Are you deaf? Run the fuck out of here! Now!” He spun, narrowly avoiding a fist to the head and slammed a big guy’s head into the side of the pool table.
I looked around finally and saw that fights had erupted all over the bar. I could see brothers from the Wolves tangling with men I didn’t recognize and I didn’t understand what was happening, but I was glad for it. I moved to the end of the pool table and was about to jump down when Stone appeared in front of me.
“No you don’t, bitch. Whatever you and Raptor had planned isn’t going to work. I’m keeping you.”
I was tired of being called bitch. I was tired of men in gangs thinking they could maul me and try to possess me. There was a pool stick next to my right foot. I grabbed it and held both ends while slamming my foot in the middle, snapping the stick into two sharp pieces. I only needed one.
I jumped off the table, into Stone, sharp end pointed at his head. His eyes went wide and he tried to move out of the way, but he wasn’t fast enough. The splintered wood went into his shoulder and he let out a wild cry.
I landed roughly and then yanked the stick from his shoulder. “I’m not something you can keep, asshole.”
Jackson nodded to me and then nodded to the door. I didn’t need to be told again. I ran towards the door, avoiding men throwing themselves at each other. As my fingers touched the door and I pushed, I heard Raptor screaming at me from somewhere deeper in the bar.
I didn’t stop to ask what he’d said. As soon as I sucked in a fresh breath of air, I was running. It didn’t matter where, as long as it was away from that bar.
“Get on.” Jackson stopped next to a large motorcycle and threw his leg over it. It roared to life under him and he revved the engine. “Soon would be nice.”
It was oddly calming that he was still the asshole I’d known as a kid. I didn’t know what he was doing there, but he seemed to want to rescue me and I was due for a rescuing. I climbed on behind him and barely had time to wrap my arm around his waist before he took off. I wasn’t complaining.
He drove like a bat out of hell, leaning into turns that I would’ve preferred he slow for on any other day. I held on and couldn’t help the insane laugh that bubbled up out of my throat. Freedom. At the hands of my childhood tormentor. What the hell.
He glanced back at me, his eyes just as dark as they’d always been. In the darkness surrounding us, they almost matched the night sky. “Okay?”
I nodded. It was surprisingly the truth. I was sure I’d have issues from that experience eventually, but in that moment, I was free. I was okay. Better than okay. I could make my way to Micah.
He drove faster, his eyes back on the road. The wind whipped around us and the night seemed to try to eat the path his light made on the road.
I chanced a look behind us and the darkness that swallowed everything behind us was equally comforting as it was terrifying. If I didn’t know there was a bar back there somewhere, I’d think we were at the edge of the earth, trying to get away from it before everything crumbled over the side. I turned back to the front and forced myself to keep my eyes open, even as they wanted to close when the relief of getting away washed over me.
“Where are you going?” My voice sounded strained from all the screaming I’d done and it had to fight the rushing of the wind, so I wasn’t sure he’d hear me.
He didn’t look back, but his body stiffened, like he’d just remembered I was there, and he shrugged. “Figured just getting away from that place would be good enough.”
His voice was all growl. I remembered it from when I was a kid and involuntarily shivered. Jackson Alexander had been a bully and a real piece of crap to me. Six years older than me, I’d hardly been big enough to fight back against him. That didn’t mean I hadn’t tried. He probably still had scars from some of my wilder days.
The memories weren’t ones that I liked to relive, so I shook my head to clear it and focused on the present. Which, all things considered, was looking pretty good.
I finally closed my eyes and relaxed into the ride. Wherever he took me, it had to be better than that bar.
*
Jackson slowed down finally when we got to the outskirts of a small town. I had no clue where we were or how far we’d driven away from that hellhole.
The smell of grilled meat filled the air and my stomach started growling immediately. The lights from a small diner chased away the darkness and called to me like a beacon.
Thankfully, it seemed Jackson had the same idea as me. He pulled into the lot and parked around the side, so far back that no one would be able to see his bike unless they made the extra effort. It reminded me that things weren’t as okay as I’d been pretending.
When he shut off the bike, I climbed off and wrapped my arms around my waist, aware that I was overly exposed. I didn’t know what to say to him, so I just stood there, feeling uncomfortable and weird.
He looked back at me and sighed. “I’m going to make a call and a friend of mine is going to meet us inside. You can tell us what happened back there. Initiation gone wrong or whatever. He’ll be able to help you.”
I took a step back. “It wasn’t an initiation. It was almost a rape. I wasn’t trying to get into their gang.”
He looked at my outfit and raised a thick eyebrow. “No?”
I wanted to slap the stupid look off his face. He assumed that because I was dressed like I was, I couldn’t possibly be innocent. “No. I was a trade. Someone wanted something and they were paying with me. Not that it matters. None of it matters, anymore.”
“Whatever. We’ll figure it out when my friend gets here. Come on. Let’s go inside.”
I took another step back. “I’m not going in there. Do you see what I’m wearing? This isn’t decent.”
His black eyes moved over me again, but I didn’t sense anything sexual in it. It was just an assessing stare, one meant to process anything and everything it could. “It isn’t decent?”
I had to stop myself from rolling my eyes. “No, there are children in there. I’m not going to prance around in front of children in this.”
He reached into the saddlebag on his bike and pulled out a button-down flannel. “Will this do?”
I barely had time to catch it as it came flying at my face. “I guess so.”
I shrugged into the big shirt, aware of the scent of cloves and pine. It smelled like the Bounty man had just taken it off and I found myself comforted by it. It came to the middle of my thighs and was still inches longer than the shorts. I rolled up the sleeves and then buttoned it so I was mostly covered.
“Thanks.”
Jackson nodded and then gestured to the front of the diner. “Go on.”
I trudged along, fiddling with the buttons over my stomach. “Why do I need to talk to your friend?”
A heavy sigh was my only answer. It seemed the older Jackson wasn’t much for conversation. It was just as well. The younger Jackson had had a snake’s tongue and was always ready to strike out.
I pulled open the diner’s door and sucked in a huge breath of deliciously scented air. Steak with an undernote of the sweetened crust of a pie. My mouth watered and my fingers itched to find the source of those smells. I missed working in a kitchen. I missed good food.
In my stunned stupid stillness, Jackson had already moved around me and was loping towards a table in the back of the place. His gait was slower, more easy predator than lanky boy. Every part of him seemed to move together with a fluidity that I would never possess. I had curves and bits that moved in whatever way they wanted, but I had to believe that even if Jackson ever got fat, even his fat would move in perfect symmetry with the rest of him.
I followed him to the table and sat facing him, the light finally showing the differences on his face and body. He’d grown up and out, all over. He was tall enough to make me feel tiny and I was just three inches from six feet myself. His body was massive, with muscles pulling his t-shirt tight across his chest. The black eyes were the same, but one had a thin scar that cut through his eyebrow and dipped into his cheek. Thick eyebrows were always slightly furrowed as if the world was just a burden that he had to deal with.
The sides of his head were shaved and the top was a wreck. The black strands went everywhere, some falling into his eyes and others sticking straight up. While I watched, he reached up and shoved it off of his forehead, standing even more up in the process.
He’d been looking around the diner, checking everything out, clearly uninterested in me, but when his eyes finally moved to my face, shock shook the normal annoyed look from his face. For a second, his jaw went slack and his eyes widened enough for me to see the white all the way around the darkness of his eyes. Then, he somehow managed to look even more annoyed.
“What the fuck?”
I frowned at him and reached up to touch my hair. “What? I didn’t choose the hair, either. Or the makeup, before you ask. I am the victim of this whole getup.”
“Camila Vaughn.” His mouth twisted like my name tasted bad. “Fucking great.”
My cheeks heated and I looked around to make sure no one was hearing how distasteful he found me. Even with my hair curled up like a cheap poodle, I didn’t want to appear that awful. “Jackson Alexander. There. We got that out of the way.”
“It’s my fucking luck that the club slut I save is fucking Cammie Vaughn.” He tugged at his hair and then, like he realized he was showing an emotion, lowered his hands and just frowned.
I bit my tongue to keep the rude things I wanted to say from coming out and instead just gently shook my head. “I’m not a club slut. I was the chef at the Wolves club. Had been since I was fifteen.”
He gave me a deadpan look. “The chef?”
A waitress appeared at our table and her eyes landed on my hair with all the subtlety of a flashing neon sign. A frown marred her cute face but she shook it off. “What can I get y’all to drink?”
Jackson shook his head and gestured to me. “Get whatever you want.”
I looked at the vintage chalkboard sign boasting fresh milkshakes. “Can I get a peanut butter milkshake?”
She smiled and nodded. “That’s my favorite, too.”
Jackson ordered a beer and waited until she left to continue his thoughts about me. “I’m remembering you at ten and eleven and having a hard time imagining that you’ve just been the chef for all these years.”
I gripped the worn vinyl seat beside my thighs and shrugged. “That’s all I was. Did you have a call to make?”
He stared at me for a few more seconds and then stood up. “Order me a burger if she comes back.”
I didn’t watch him leave and I had no intention of ordering him anything. Jerk.