“Let me have a look, you stubborn fucking bastard,” Skins laughed, earning him a glare that could have melted the face off a Barbie doll.

He hobbled over to the bed, his muscles clenching and his eyes locked on me as he did.

I just wanted to touch him, to feel him.

I was fucking done hurting.

I needed to feel something. I needed to know things could be okay between us, and we would be stronger now. If I was some kind of religious person, I’d probably ask for some kind of sign from the big man up above, something to remind me of why Ham was always the one.

“Fuck,” Ham hissed as Skin’s peeled back the bandage with a sadistic grin on his face as if he enjoyed causing his friend pain. “Aren’t you meant to rip it off fast? Isn’t that meant to hurt less?”

“That’s the theory,” Skins agreed as he continued to pull at the medical tape torturously slow. He took a quick peek underneath the bandage and examined the area. It only took a moment before he nodded and began to replace the medical tape. “It looks okay. But you need to fucking slow down. Give the stitches time to do their job.”

Once everything was back in place, he took a step back and grabbed his medical backpack.

Ham groaned and threw himself back on the bed, his jeans riding deliciously low on his hips and exposing something I’d never noticed before.

A tattoo.

“What is that?” I asked, climbing off the chair and taking a couple steps toward the bed.

They both looked up at me, but I could tell by the way Ham’s pursed lips turned into a delighted smirk, he knew exactly what I was talking about.

“It’s a tattoo. If you hadn’t realized, I have quite a few.”

I didn’t appreciate the sarcastic tone, folding my arms across my chest and popping my hip. “When did you get it? And what is it?”

Skins moved to the side as Ham unbuttoned his jeans and shucked them onto the floor, giving me a perfect look at the intricately drawn dove which was situated on his hip bone. The strokes, the patterns, the shading and line work I all recognized.

It was all mine.

 

“Meyah,” Hadley said quietly. “Run.”

I didn’t waste a second, digging my feet into the gravel and turning on my toes back toward the clubhouse. I made it through the space in the fence that led out back before the gunshots started.

The first one made me jump, and I tripped, falling onto the patio and skinning my knee.

Then came the rest.

One after another after another.

I forced my shaking body to its feet, diving for the patio door handle and yanking it open. I tried to stem the tears that were streaming down my face, tried to keep the sobs from leaving my mouth as I ran up the stairs, my feet catching on every other step, in my mind searching the clubhouse for a place to hide.

There were a million places, different rooms, different closets and cupboards, all places I could easily slip inside and hopefully be concealed until someone else got here.

But I didn’t actually need to think.

My feet carried me, my mind forgotten.

There was one place I just felt like I needed to go, where I felt like nothing would hurt me.

I turned the handle to Ham’s room and pushed the door open, quickly closing it behind me and throwing myself back against the door. I’d never been in there before or even seen inside since the door was always closed, but I didn’t have time to look around.

My heart thumped hard in my chest, and I searched the room, licking the salty tears from my lips as I tried to take in deep breaths and keep somewhat calm. I was scared. That man, Jayla’s granddad, he wanted to take me away from the club and use me to hurt them.

I needed to hide.

I needed to stay away from him, so he couldn’t do that.

So he couldn’t hurt me. Or the people I loved.

I ran over to the bed and dropped to my knees, lifting up the comforter and seeing there was just junk underneath, but that I could fit and the blanket would hang down the sides and keep me hidden.

I lay flat on my tummy. My breathing uneven and erratic as I clawed my way under the bed, working my way toward the middle and then grabbing whatever boxes and bags there were under there, and trying to shift them around me so if someone looked, they would just see a whole lot of junk.

I held my breath with each movement, things scraping and scratching on the wooden floor as I shifted them into place.

I tried not to think about why Hadley hadn’t come to find me yet. Or Kev. Or why I hadn’t heard the roar of motorcycles coming back to the clubhouse. Everything was dead quiet, and with every breath, I waited for footsteps, or for the door to open or for someone to grab my leg and drag me out from under the bed like in those horror movies that I fucking hated.

More tears streamed down my face.

I cried silently.

I wanted to be brave and climb out and find Hadley, make sure she was okay, scared that he’d hurt her and that those gunshots were his, not hers.

But I wasn’t brave.

I just wanted to feel safe. I wanted to make it through this, and I wanted to stay right here where I felt like no one could hurt me, and where I knew that when the club came, Ham would find me.

I just needed to keep calm.

Looking up, I spotted a pen which looked like it had fallen down the back of the bed. Instinctually I reached out for it, stretching my body, not caring how dirty or dusty it was under there. My fingers itched so badly, I wanted to draw, disappear into that world where I could create something else, be something else—a bird that could fly away, get help.

Suddenly, I remembered I had something, and reached into my back pocket, pulling out a napkin that I’d tucked in there while I was at the football game today.

I flattened it out on the floor.

And I drew.

I allowed myself to leave this world and move into another, focusing on the lines, the shades and the strokes that all came together to form the picture. I escaped, my tears drying up on my face, the fear melting away as I became the white dove on that dirty, bumpy, imperfect piece of paper. My wings were strong, they could fly me out of here. They could get me somewhere to find help.

The dove was beautiful, free, proud.

And even as the shadows fell around it, nighttime setting in, it still stood out in white against the darkness.

“Meyah!”

The pen fell from my hand, and I held my breath, reality coming back like a smack in the face.

“Meyah!”

I heard the bedroom door swing open, slamming back against the wall. My hand covered my mouth when a gasp built in my throat.

I knew it was him, but I couldn’t move.

“Baby girl,” he murmured, his footsteps coming to the side of the bed. He crouched down, his shadow falling in front of the small bit of light which was coming in. Just enough to allow me to draw. “I’m here. Nothing is gonna hurt you. You just gotta give me your hand, and I’ll pull you out.”

I’m here.

Nothing is gonna hurt you.

I slowly reached out, pushing a small box to the side, cringing as it scraped loudly against the floorboards even though I knew it didn’t matter anymore.

He was there.

He found me.

Like I knew he would.

 

“That…” I narrowed my eyes as I took a seat on the bed next to where he lay.

Skins smiled shyly and lifted his hand. “I’m gonna let you guys have your space.”

I nodded, still stunned as I sat there, tracing the outline of the tattoo on Ham’s hip with my finger in disbelief that my artwork was actually on someone’s body.

Not just someone’s body.

His body.

The door to Ham’s room clicked closed, and we were alone. My eyes moved from the tattoo up to his eyes. He lay on the bed, looking up at me, his eyes watching me carefully as if he was waiting for my reaction, unsure of what it would be.

“I can’t believe you found it,” I whispered.

“I was a little confused at first, but I instantly knew it was yours,” he explained, sitting up in the bed so his gaze was level with mine. “You did it to keep calm until someone could find you, right?”

I cleared my throat. “You knew.”

“That you loved to draw?”

“No, not that I loved it. That it made me feel calm,” I explained, feeling tears burn my throat and eyes.

He reached out and brushed my hair behind my ear, allowing his hand to linger on my cheek. “There were days you would come in after school, looking like you were going to cry, tossing your backpack around,” he explained, smiling like it was a fond memory for him to see me agitated and annoyed. “Then you’d pull out your sketchbook and start with just a few lines, and instantly, it was like you were letting your worries out through your hand, out through each swipe across the page.”

He knew me.

He honestly knew me.

Drawing was my release, it was my escape and the way I found beauty.

I had no idea how long it was between when I crawled under that bed, up until Ham showed up—it could have been minutes, it could have been hours. That dove was the only thing that got me through and allowed me to keep some sort of semblance of sanity.

That, and him.

“You know,” I started, but had to clear my throat as I began to get choked up. “That was one of the scariest days of my life. Knowing someone could have hurt Hadley and Kev. That he could have taken me away. That he could have done God knows what.”

Ham shook his head. “I would nev—”

“Don’t say you wouldn’t let it happen,” I interjected instantly annoyed by how he tried to play it off. “Because in this life, you know it could. You know someone could try to hurt me. That someone could use me against you. That’s exactly why you tried to push me away.”

“Fine,” he responded, looking me directly in the eye. “Yeah, there could come a point where someone might try and hurt you. They might try and use you to get to me. They might be trying to hurt the club.”

My stomach twisted, and I climbed off the bed, taking a step back.

He followed instantly.

There was no running away anymore.

I moved. He moved.

I looked down at the tattoo that sat proudly on the lower part of his hip, a white dove in flight, its wings spread, its tail fanned out and dark shadows surrounding it. My work. On his body. His eyes followed mine, and he tugged his briefs low allowing the entire picture to show.

“Shit happens, Meyah. And in this life, that shit can be scary and sometimes deadly. But do you know what this is?” he challenged, pointing to the bird. It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t exactly right. But it was something I did while hiding from a madman in order to keep myself sane.

“It’s a rough sketch,” I answered, but he shook his head.

“No, this is a promise that I will always find you. That I will always come for you. That no matter if you’re hiding under a bed, or halfway around the world, I will be there.”

And there it was.

The words that I had no idea I needed to hear.

He came forward, his hands framing my face. “No more fucking running. No more hiding from your problems. No more thinking you can’t trust me. We face everything together.”

A few months ago, I’d thought I was stronger because of the club and because I had Ham beside me, helping support me, lifting me up when I felt like I couldn’t do it myself.

I was wrong.

I just needed time to find that strength within myself without my mom, or the club, or Ham trying to protect me or shelter me. I needed to take time to find my own strength, my independence, so I could be the Old Lady Ham needed, and that I saw in all the women at the club.

Things had changed now. It wasn’t that I couldn’t do it without him. It was that I didn’t want to.

I looked up into his eyes and smiled. “We face everything together.”

A wide grin grew on his face, but before he could kiss me, I held up one finger.

“Out of all the things I drew, you couldn’t have chosen something I didn’t draw on a napkin while I thought I was going to die?”

He laughed softly. “I thought about it, but everything came back to this.”

“Why?” I asked with a raised brow.

“Because that was the day you chose me, and the day that I decided I wasn’t ever going to let you go.”