When Tex finally stopped the bike, Jessie got off so fast that she fell in the sand. She’d stopped crying a while back, a little while after she’d stopped screaming. It hadn’t made any difference. Whatever had taken hold of Tex, it wasn’t letting go yet. He’d driven like a demon, racing through turns faster than he’d ever taken them, shifting with the bike like it was part of his body. She’d thought she’d been getting good at this whole passenger thing, but she hadn’t had a fucking clue. She’d done her best, but she’d been convinced at every corner that this would be the time the bike finally keeled over, taking them both out, and it would be her fault. Completely her fault.

 

She managed to wrestle the helmet off her head, then stayed bent in the sand, on her hands and knees, waiting to see if she was going to puke or not. Her stomach was almost too tight for her to be sick, twisted and aching. Thank God she’d only had half the beer before — shit – whatever had happened had happened. It had been all too obvious that Tex had been triggered by something, though she had no idea what had done it. A bunch of toughs came into a bar and started being assholes; that wasn’t anything new, even in coastal California. Maybe it was the fact that all the toughs were wearing leather, clearly members of another motorcycle club. Maybe a rival club? Were rival clubs really a thing?

 

Maybe they had something to do with the Racketeers that Tex had mentioned in passing?

 

She looked up at him, collecting herself slowly. He was still astride the motorcycle, his hand stroking the throttle somewhere between compulsively and obsessively. His eyes were blank, flat, and he’d chewed his lower lip until it had started to bleed. Jesus. Her anger at the way he’d hauled her out of the bar with no explanation was replaced with fear that something was seriously wrong. She’d been in therapy for years after Danny was murdered, and she’d had some passing experience with PTSD. She knew a lot of veterans came home with mental health concerns, and he’d referred obliquely to his time in the service, but turned away any direct questions. And, from what he’d said, he hadn’t been all that stable after Danny died, though his parents had ignored it.

 

She’d been on the receiving end of panic attacks more than once, but she’d never been around anyone else who was coming down from — or in the throes of— one.

 

“Hey,” she said, keeping her voice low and her hands visible, like she would if she were addressing a strange animal, liable to bite. The comparison made her wince, but then, panic attacks were all about the more animal parts of the brain. It made sense. “Hey, Tex.”

 

He blinked. He blinked, and his hands slowed. He went painfully still for a long moment, then finally kicked the bike down and dismounted. He took two steps, then went down into the sand. He threw up violently, heaving like he was coughing up something very dark and dangerous, more bitter than stomach bile. She moved close to him, and put her hands near him, but she didn’t touch him. Not yet. When someone had touched her too soon, it was like being stabbed with a thousand needles, and it made everything so much worse. She could wait.

 

He was muttering something, quiet and soft. She moved a little closer. “What’s wrong, love? You can talk to me.”

 

He turned blank eyes to her, then blinked, and it was as if his soul came back from wherever it had been wandering. “Jessie?” His voice was both hopeful and afraid.

 

“Yeah,” she said. She put her fingers right next to his, and when he shifted to cling to her hand, she felt gratified. Like she was doing the right things, and they were moving in the right direction. Like he would be okay. “Yeah. I’m here. Tex. Can we talk about what happened?”

 

He shook his head. “Not much to tell. Saw the Racketeers, knew I needed to get you out. Instincts…took over. I’m sorry. It got bad for a minute.”

 

It had been bad for a lot longer than a minute, but pointing that out felt like very much the wrong move. “It seemed like it was pretty hard.” Validate and normalize, that was what her therapist had taught her to ask for. Agree that whatever feelings the person was expressing were real, and don’t make it a big deal. Don’t add to the guilt and shame the person is already feeling.

 

He was quiet for a long time, clinging to her hand. “I was on meds for a few years,” he said, after a while. Jessie made a non-committal sound. She was still on one, managing the ongoing anxiety that she’d never been able to shake after her rocky childhood. “I could hold down a job, but I was a fucking zombie. Vanessa convinced me to quit them, tried pot instead. I guess it works for some guys, but it made me a zombie who couldn’t get an erection.” He gave her a smile that was shaky, but wry, and she loved it. She squeezed his hand gently. “So I quit both, and things got really bad for a little while. Doctors just wanted to give me more drugs, but I couldn’t get an appointment to see a shrink anyway, so what was the fucking point? I just stopped. And things were okay. Everything’s been fine. I haven’t had a…bad time in more than a year.”

 

“But tonight, seeing the Racketeers come into the bar?”

 

He shook his head. “Whatever. I would have helped the bouncers take care of them. I was worried about you.”

 

She felt her brows climb towards her forehead, and anger bubbled up through her filters again. “You were worried about me? Excuse me?”

 

“I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

 

“You didn’t—” she forced herself to take a long, deep breath, count to 10, and then tried again. “So instead of telling me what was going on, using your goddamn words, you kick down a fucking door, shove me on a bike, and peel out of the parking lot before I even get my damn helmet fastened? Yeah, great job protecting me, tough guy.”

 

In the moonlight, she could see his expression had twisted and sickened. “I—oh shit.”

 

“Yeah. If you’d dumped the bike on one of those corners, I’d’ve been toast.”

 

She saw the tear before he wiped it away, but he didn’t do anything else. She wanted to growl, wanted to hit him, wanted to make him listen. But none of that would make any damn difference. She stood up and walked away from the little cabin on the beach, where he’d fucked her senseless that first time, where he’d driven without even really thinking. “Come on,” she said, fishing her helmet out of the sand and settling back onto the back of the bike. “You’re taking me somewhere.”

 

“Jessie, I—”

 

“Quit your bitching and get over here.”

 

“I don’t know if I can right now.”

 

She waited for a little while, until he lifted his gaze back to her. “Ready?”

 

“Yeah,” he said. He stood on legs that were shaking, but by the time he mounted the bike and put his own helmet back on, he was moving steadily. He carefully stepped them out of the sand and then put the bike back into gear.

 

“Head south,” she said. “I’ll direct you as we go.”