Chapter 3

The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone.
– infj.feelings.tumblr

Roxy

Rage tells me to get the fuck away from him shortly after my difference of opinion. Given that first opportunity, I slide away from him as quickly as possible. In the back of my mind, I keep thinking that at some point, while I’m at the party, he is going to come up to me and show me exactly who is in charge – him. I even go as far as to think what he’d do to me, even the things he has done in the past. Over the years, there has been so much that was done to me that nothing truly surprises me anymore.

There are times when I think that maybe I deserved the things that he’s done. I’d told myself that for a long time, and somehow, I still believe that to be true. I know that it wasn’t, but that didn’t take away the feeling, how no matter what – it felt true. I think that in the back of your mind, when something is repeated over and over again, you eventually start to believe it. That’s what happened to me. I started to believe it, even though I knew better.

Rage had caused me so much pain. His name was a warning, and I didn’t listen. I thought I could help heal the broken man that was before me. I didn’t know back then that he was a lost cause. I learned that shortly thereafter. To sum it up, I learned that far too late.

He beat me time and time again, sometimes with his fists, one time with a log he found out behind the clubhouse. There was another time where grabbed a few of the boys, tied my wrists and ankles to where I couldn’t move an inch, and tore my clothes off me with a hunting knife, leaving me completely exposed, telling the brothers to have their fun with me. I remember the look on his face as he left me in that room to be raped over and over again. That was the first day I can truly remember hating him.

After every beating, I found a way to forgive him for his abuse. But that day, the day he destroyed my trust by putting me in a situation where I’d be hurt by others, that was the day that I found a new feeling for him – hatred.

I knew that I was hurt physically by him but allowing others to do that to me was something else. I’d learned so much that day. That my husband truly didn’t love me. That each day my time here was dwindling down to nothing. That everything would change one day soon, I just didn’t know when that would be.

I leave the party with Quinn. She offered to take me back to her and Roman’s place a few miles back, and I accept. I don’t feel like being at the party where I knew that they’d be plotting on how to kill a mother and her two small children. It made my blood boil and my stomach churn. I knew some things were necessary, but was that?

The answer was no. There is never a reason to take an innocent’s life, and certainly not those two little girls.

“What do you have running around in that windmill of yours?” Quinn asks me, bringing me back a glass of water. She sits down next to me on the couch, with Damon, her son bouncing away on her lap.

“Nothing important,” I lie as I stare into the dark chocolate eyes of the baby boy sitting on his momma’s lap. Right now, I wonder if my son would have my brown eyes, or green eyes like his father. He might inherit my dusty brown hair, or his father’s black as night locks. I didn’t know much about pregnancy, or about being a mother, but what I did know was that my son would be so loved by me. He’d be my greatest accomplishment.

Quinn catches me staring at Damon. His smile radiates through the room, and I couldn’t help but grin as I look at him. Babies are such a joy, even though they drool, vomit, and poop on everything around them. That is the part I was least looking forward to – all the gross stuff. “In a few months, you’re going to have one of your own to look after.”

“I know,” I say to Quinn, smiling and reaching my hands out to Damon. He reaches back, and Quinn helps him get settled over onto my lap. He gives me a toothless smile, drool spilling out over his lips, giggling up at me.

“You’re going to be great at it, being a mom, I mean. I know I don’t say this kind of stuff all the time. Let’s face it, I can be a heartless bitch.”

“That you can,” I agree, interrupting her.

“Hey!” Quinn tosses a throw pillow at me, making Damon squeal out in excitement and then horror as the tears crash out over his cheeks.

I bounce Damon on my lap until he startes to settle down. Quinn watches us both the entire time. “You have a way with kids, I knew that from the first day I met you. I’m a little upset though, why couldn’t this little nugget be a girl? I could see it, Damon and Kathryn.” Kathryn was the name I would have used if my nugget was a girl, but he was most definitely not.

“It would’ve been cute, that’s for sure,” I agree, smiling down to the little man on my lap and thinking of the little one inside of my belly.

“Did you decide on a name yet?”

“Aaron.” I say the name with such pride. Aaron meant a lot to me. It was my father’s name. The best man in my entire world.

He was killed right after we moved. It was an accident on the army base. No one could have seen it coming. There was no indication that the bomb would have went off. That’s what they told me. I think it was to make me feel better, but I was a sixteen-year-old girl who’d just lost her father. Whose father just came back from overseas – from serving his country. If anything was supposed to happen, it wasn’t supposed to be back here in the States. It was supposed to be on enemy grounds, in foreign territory.

I’d lost my father at such a young age, an age where I needed his advice more than anything in this world. Maybe if he wasn’t killed, things would have turned out a lot different for me. It was stupid to think about the maybes now, though.

Rage and Tex were both there for me right after my dad died. They offered me a place to stay – a roof over my head, food, clothes. They gave me everything that I needed. That was a time when Rage stood by me, for anything that I needed, from a shoulder to cry on, to money for my high school prom.

“He would’ve loved that.”

I silently agree with Quinn, trying not to let my tears fall. These pregnancy hormones are no joke.

“Who would’ve loved what?” I hear Rage’s voice right behind me, when I turn, I see him. He looks at me and then to Damon on my lap, spitting bubbles and laughing. Damon was lucky, he didn’t know the terror that was in the room with us. Quinn and I though, were a different story.

“My dad would’ve loved if I’d gone to college like he’d have wanted me. Quinn and I were just talking about him.” I shut my eyes for a moment, careful to not let my emotions get the best of me. It was no matter, a tear slid down my face, and I was reminded of how much I missed him. He was the closest family I had. I had two half-brothers who I hadn’t seen in years. Lloyd and George always made it a point that if I needed them they’d be right there. I was their baby sister, their pride and joy, they always made sure that I knew that. I just hadn’t needed them enough yet, I guessed.

“Your pops is dead, it doesn’t really fucking matter what he wanted for you. I wasn’t gonna pay thousands of dollars for you to go to school when you needed to be at home. What were you gonna do anyway, be a damn school teacher?”

No. A nurse. I wanted to snap my answer back out to him. I wanted to help people, to make a difference in someone’s life. The anger boils up inside me, I was so close to bursting, but the motherly instinct inside of me told me to stay quiet, to not do anything that would anger him any further than I already did tonight, and I listened. I shut my mouth, knowing very well that I was already treading on thin ice.

“Get up and put that little shit down. We’ve gotta go.” I hand Damon off to Quinn who holds Damon close to her as she stares at Rage. He begins to walk to Quinn and Roman’s front door, and I follow closely behind him, down their front porch until we are both on the stone path that leads to their gravel driveway. Rage didn’t mutter a sound, and neither did I. Both of us were walking in silence until we reached his Harley. He positions himself over the seat and waits for me to sit behind him. I wrap my arms snugly around his waist as he turns the ignition on, barely allowing the engine to start before we were on the way back to the club.

The drive was short, and bumpy, but in no time, we were back. Rage and I had a house that wasn’t too far from there. I was wondering why he even drove us back. We could be staying at his room in the club tonight, it wouldn’t shock me if we did – we do this every once in a while, especially when visitors are in town.

“Get off and stand by the fucking door.” Rage points to the club. I use his shoulders to help steady myself as I walk towards the door of the clubhouse. I didn’t have to know that something was wrong to know that I was in deep shit. Like that nervous feeling you get right before something bad is about to happen, you just know. And I knew that something very bad was about to happen.

I hear his footsteps before I see him. When I turn to face Rage, my face collided with something cold and hard. I crash to the ground below me, my body hitting it like dead weight. I feel everything, yet I feel nothing. I was in some sort of limbo, maybe even an out of body experience. My hands push against the cement below me, trying to pull myself up. I flex my hands, opening and closing, as I watch them, I notice how slow they were moving, even as my mind was telling them to move faster.

I position my elbow on the cement and push up, my head pounding as I try to regain ground. No matter how I moved my elbow, my arms, even my hands, getting up wasn’t going to happen. Everything around me was spinning on a constant loop, and when he begins to speak, I was hearing echoes.

“Did you really think you would get away with your little outburst tonight? You were not only disrespecting me, but another charter Prez.” Rage kneels down in front of my face, twirling around what looks to be like a baseball bat. I watch as it spins around and around. “I don’t let anyone disrespect me or my brothers. Not even my fucking wife. I’m giving you the same punishment I’d give any man who challenges me, only you might get to leave with your life. I guess we’ll see how strong you really are, won’t we, baby?”

“Finnick.” I mumble Rage’s real name, breathless, the pain in my head worsening after each moment.

“Shut the fuck up.”

“Finnick, please I – “

“I said shut the fuck up, bitch!” He slams the baseball bat as hard as he can down onto my upper thigh. I scream out in agony, digging my nails so hard into the cement below me that I feel them cracking. This is worse than it had ever been before. It was almost as if I could feel my bones snap under the pressure of the bat against my body.

Rage rises from his kneeling position and runs the bat slowly along my body. I am careful to move my arms in the way of my stomach, wanting to protect my son more than anything. I was fearful that no matter what I did tonight, there was no way I’d be able to protect him from his father.

I look into his eyes, afraid of what I might find. No longer did I see the man I fell in love with years ago. He’d been replaced with something else, something inhuman. I didn’t even recognize him anymore. And I knew that I never would ever again.

He raises the bat high in the air. I could see the flicker of the post light from behind him. I watch as bugs fly against the light over and over again, hoping to get to that warm, safe place. Right now, I understood them and their need for security. The world was an ugly, awful place.