When I woke up, my head hurt more than anything else had ever hurt in my life.
Except maybe my heart.
“Cade, sweetie, you okay?” Arianna was sitting next to me. She was blurry and seemed to be made overlapping circles. One minute her hand was on my face, holding something soft and cold, the next minute, she was standing across the room, pouring me a glass of water.
“What the fuck happened?” I blinked a few times and stared right into Arianna’s pretty, sun-browned face. The longer I stared at her, the more in focus she appeared. “Did I pass out?”
Arianna shook her head and gave a nervous chuckle. “Honey, someone came in and started shit with you,” she said. “You had the edge, at first, although you were so piss drunk by that point. I have no idea how you managed to land a punch!” She laughed again, more genuinely this time.
When I licked my lips, I tasted blood. Slowly, shards and fragments of the night before were coming back to me. “That asshole knocked over my bike,” I sneered. “And he came in here, calling me a fucking faggot! Do you believe that?”
Arianna snorted. “Honey, I get all kinds of riff-raff in my bar,” she said softly. “Here, take this.” She handed me a cold compress and I pressed it against my jaw. I could tell that a couple of my teeth had been knocked loose, my jaw ached and the skin felt hot to the touch. I put the back of my hand against my forehead and figured that between the insane hangover and the fight, I probably had a little fever going on.
“Sorry about that,” I muttered. “I’ve been going through…some shit.”
Arianna eyed me sympathetically and clucked her tongue at me. “I get that, sugar,” she said softly. She handed me a glass of ice water. “Don’t drink this too fast,” she warned. “I don’t want you puking everywhere.”
When I glanced around, I realized that I was in the back room of her bar, on the pullout couch. Through the windows, the full moon gleamed and I felt the sense of tugging emptiness return. It was everything I wanted, everything I felt I deserved. Without Vanessa, I knew that the rest of my life would be miserable.
“Thanks,” I said. I took a few greedy swallows of the icy water, then remembered Arianna’s words and slowed down. My stomach rolled and twisted like I’d eaten something rotten, and the urge to vomit passed over me like a tidal wave. I closed my eyes and breathed through my nose until it passed.
“So, what happened?” Arianna took the glass from me and set it down on a small table to the right of the bed. “What put you in such a fighting mood, mister?”
I sighed. “That asshole kicked my bike over,” I said. “Wouldn’t that be enough for you?”
Arianna laughed uncertainly. “I know you’re pullin’ my leg,” she said softly. “I know it ain’t just that. If everything was goin’ right, you wouldn’t be in here in the first place.” She raised her eyebrows and looked at me as though she were peering over a pair of reading glasses. “And don’t tell me that ain’t the truth. I know you, Cade. I know your habits by now.”
I swallowed another sip of water and glanced down at the grubby, thin carpet spread over the floor of the back room. The water was starting to make me feel just a bit better, but my head was still throbbing.
“It’s a girl,” I said darkly. “This girl, Vanessa, I was seeing her. She’s a college kid, goes to UW Madison.” I glanced away. “I don’t really wanna talk about it anymore.”
Arianna clucked again. The sympathy was emanating from her in great, motherly waves and I felt almost comforted as we sat in silence.
“And she dumped you?” Arianna eyed me.
I bit my lip. “Yeah,” I said. “More or less.”
Arianna raised her eyebrow. She got up and came back with a box of water crackers. “Honey, eat some of these,” she said. “You’ll feel better when you get something in that great big stomach of yours.”
I rolled my eyes but reluctantly took a cracker and nibbled the corner, like I was some anorexic girl. “Right,” I said. “Anyway, yeah. I asked her to marry me, and she said yes. And then she changed her mind.”
Arianna patted my hand. “Honey, lots of women don’t get your lifestyle,” she said softly. “You’re gonna have trouble meeting someone, especially some college girl.” She shook her head and I felt a lecture coming on. “Those girls are the kinds of girls who want the world at their feet, honey. They don’t wanna be trapped in some little town like Madison.”
I shook my head. “It wasn’t like that,” I said. “She…she’s different. She came from a real different background, Arianna. Real educated, real smart parents who were controlling but only because they wanted her to be a good girl.” I shook my head. “The first time I met her, she showed up at a Bleeding Prophets party wearing a pink cardigan. It was embroidered.” I gestured over my chest. “With flowers.”
Arianna laughed. “And lemme guess, she took one look at you and decided that you were the bad boy of her dreams? The kind of guy she wanted to cut her teeth on?”
I snorted. “Not exactly.” Talking about Vanessa like this was painful, but not as painful as thinking of how she’d ended things. It was almost fun, now, to think about how cute and innocent she’d been when we first met.
“Then what?”
I shrugged. “I gave her the bug, I guess,” I said sadly. “And then she decided that she couldn’t make me give this up for her.”
Arianna stared. “She’s a smart girl,” she said softly. “She’d never be able to fit into your lifestyle, Cade. Enjoy it while it lasts, that’s what my poor father used to say. Just enjoy while it lasts and keep your real life in mind at all times.”
I didn’t reply. Arianna’s words had somehow soured the fun of reminiscing. I realized with a lump in my throat that I didn’t want my life anymore. Not if it meant living without Vanessa.
# # #
After Arianna and I talked for a while, I’d gone back to sleep. I’d dreamt of Vanessa. They were good dreams, too, the kind of dreams that would have made me call her up afterwards or go into the shower so I could jack off. But I couldn’t do that now—it would hurt too much. I felt like a real pussy: I’d never been able to not jack off before, and now I was wondering if I’d ever be able to do it again without thinking of Vanessa.
The pullout couch in the back of The Last Haul was lumpy, and after a while, I had to get up. It was dawn, the first pink and orange streaks were making their way across the sky and filling the horizon with a gorgeous warm rainbow. I blinked as I stepped out into the sunshine and righted my bike before climbing on and turning back towards town. It looked okay—there were a couple of scratches that I could buff out, but nothing too severe. Still, I was pissed. I didn’t know who that mystery asshole had been, but he should have known better than to fuck with random bikes. If he’d been a Demon Catcher, he would have been killed for pulling that shit.
The Demon Catchers. Just thinking of those cocksuckers put a bad taste in my mouth. As I steered my bike back towards Madison, I felt an anger seep through my veins and cells. Suddenly, I didn’t care about feeling better and getting on with my life. I wanted those assholes to pay. It was their fault for all of this. If they hadn’t fucking outed me for pushing pills at their club, then Rudy never would have told me to stay away from Vanessa. If it wasn’t for the Demon Catchers and their asshole behavior, I’d still be happy as a clam, buried to the hilt in the most perfect woman I’d ever met.
My hands tightened their grip on the handlebars and I sped up, steering towards the clubhouse of the Demon Catchers. I knew that what I was doing was dangerous. It was against all of the unwritten MC rules: don’t go fuck with another MC just because you want to. But I did want to. I wanted someone to pay, I wanted someone to hurt as badly as I was hurting when Vanessa left me.
My lips twisted into a scowl as my bike sped up to over ninety miles an hour. The road disappeared under me and I felt powerful as the engine between my legs thrummed with a comforting sensation. I’d been riding bikes since I was a kid, and somehow I’d never felt as determined as I felt in this second.
By the time I got to their clubhouse, I was so worked up that I could hardly even sit still. I expected them all to be out front, waiting for me, but then I realized a second later that my arrival was a surprise. I grinned to myself as I climbed off the bike and strode up to the building.
I frowned when I saw that all of the lights were off. It looked empty, like no one was home. Licking my lips, I walked back to my bike and pulled out a flask of bourbon from one of the saddlebags. I’d been carrying it around for emergencies for months, and this was the first time that I could think of that really qualified for its use. Settling down in the growing heat of the day, I leaned my back against my bike and pulled the stopper out of the flask.
The bourbon was warm, but it tasted delicious going down my throat. I closed my eyes and drank greedily, until the threads and veins in my head were throbbing with alcohol. I knew that by this point, I had to be dehydrated as fuck but I couldn’t make myself give a damn any longer. I wanted to suffer; I deserved to suffer. It wasn’t everyday that a girl broke my heart, after all.
By the time the Demon Catchers had pulled into the parking lot of their clubhouse, I was drunker than I’d been the night before. I could tell they were all surprised to see me—their Italian skin couldn’t hide that much about how they felt. When I began walking blearily towards them, I saw Dante and Bruno exchange dark looks.
“Hey, Mitchell,” Isaac, the lieutenant, barked. “What the fuck are you doing here? You get kicked out of Madison or some shit?”
I stepped closer. Without responding, I curled my hand into a fist and swung my arm back. My fist connected with his nose before he even had a chance to see what was coming. I felt something smash and break underneath my fingers—when I pulled them away, they were dripping with blood.
“What the fuck?” Isaac growled in surprise.
I reacted by lowering my body and charging him like a bull. Isaac went flying backwards and I stumbled, barely managing to catch my balance before falling hard onto my hands and knees. Isaac was still laying on his back and I crawled over to him, throwing punches left and right. I could hear the rest of the Demon Catchers screaming and yelling behind me, but curiously, they never came close enough to pull me apart.
By the time I’d finished with Isaac’s face, he looked like a bloody pulp. Hauling myself to my feet, I stomped hard on his upper arm until a crack rang through the air. Isaac screamed and clutched his arm to his chest. I glared down with a smug expression on my face. Finally, I’d done enough damage to really mean something. The Demon Catchers gathered around him and hoisted him up into the air as I crawled back to my bike, feeling the sun’s merciless heat beating down on my exposed face. The alcohol was throbbing in my veins and I climbed on the back of my bike, swaying and almost falling off as I drove out of the parking lot.
“It’s your fucking fault!” I screamed over my shoulder as I sped up, swerving out of oncoming traffic. My vision was blurry and I could feel the booze pounding through my body but I didn’t care. For the first time since meeting Vanessa, my body was filled with exhilaration and the sense of justice.
I knew what I’d done was wrong, but I couldn’t help feeling like I’d finally done something right after all.