I’d helped enough to loosen the killer’s arms against Remy’s neck. He was fighting back now, but they were still tumbling around, heavy grunts in the air, fists against flesh. What the fuck could I do except try again? I painfully got back up and jumped back on him, screaming wildly as I dug my fingernails into his face again. One went into his eye and I could feel a squishy, wet sensation as I continued to bury it in there.

He hollered loudly and I felt him take several heavy steps back. Cold hands grabbed at my own and twisted them roughly off his face. A force knocked against him and he fell back, me along with him. Air escaped me as I fell to the cement ground with him on top of me. I could hardly breathe and flailed wildly beneath him, searching once again for air.

I saw Remy suddenly hovering over him, lifting him to a sitting position. There was a piece of mirror in his hand. I backed away just as he slashed him deeply into his throat. Loud guttural noises erupted from the killer, and I shut my eyes as Remy continued to work the mirror into his neck, moving it from ear to ear. The look on his face pierced me to the bone – the flat pressing of his lips, the anger in his eyes, the calmness in which he commanded the piece of mirror he was using to kill him.

Blood splattered everywhere, over his body and over mine. I wasn’t even aware I was still so close until Remy let go of the man, and he slumped to the ground a foot away from me, a river of blood flowing from his almost decapitated head.

This wasn’t like Brett.

No tears escaped me. Just wild shakes from head to toe, my eyes now wide as saucers, taking in the sight before me – of a man that had taken merely seconds to die at the hands of the man I’d been seeking warmth from all night.

“Stop lookin’,” came Remy’s voice.

Arms wrapped around me. He picked me up and carried me into the bathroom. I looked over his shoulder, at the puddle of blood and the lifeless, pale man slumped on his side.

Dead.

“Stop lookin’, Sara,” Remy repeated roughly.

He sat on the toilet seat and cradled me into his chest, but I wasn’t even there to feel him. My mind had long separated from my body; self-preservation at its best steering me away from the horror of what just happened. I couldn’t stand to feel. I needed the numbness, wore it desperately to keep the shock at bay.

I didn’t stop to care for his reaction. Though he was calmly holding me, I heard frantic movements and felt the shaking of his shoulders. I opened my eyes and searched the noise. He was wiping away the blood from his hands vigorously with toilet paper. His skin looked raw at how hard he was scrubbing. The blood still caked between the indents of his skin, and I could hear his unsteady breaths echo in the bathroom.

After a while, he stopped. I figured he didn’t want to get the blood on me, but I was covered with it. This was odd.

“Look at me,” he then said, softly. He moved me away from his chest and brought a hand to my chin, craning it up to meet his eyes. He looked into mine for a few beats and shook me lightly, “Sara, look at me. Stop it.”

I was looking right through him, and he knew it. After several moments, he brought me back to his chest and held me tightly to him. I buried my face into him, clutching him as hard as I could around his arms.

“He’s gone. You’re fine now, Birdy. You’re fine. Don’t think about it. Don’t stop and think about it. It’s over. It’s done.” He kept saying these words to me, as if any second they’d hit me and I’d rouse out of my numbness.

I didn’t. I was very quickly losing myself.

Six

He wanted to keep me in the bathroom while he sorted the scene out, telling me not to step out no matter what. When he made to leave, I gripped him as though he was an extension of me. Panicked, I begged him not to go. That I needed him. That he couldn’t leave me alone.

“I need to get some reception, Birdy. Give me fifteen minutes to make a call—”

“No! You can’t leave me!” No, no, no. He couldn’t go. He grounded me. Kept the bad thoughts away. If he left, I’d feel the shock of what happened and would lose all sanity.

“Birdy—”

“You’re not leaving me!” I shrieked into his chest and dug my nails into shoulders, refusing to budge on this.

He exhaled deeply and stroked my hair. “Alright,” he finally said. “But you’re closing your eyes. You got it? You will not open them.”

I nodded frantically. Whatever he wanted, I’d do. Just… Just…“Just don’t go.”

He carried me back out into the room and bent down to grab what felt like clothes. I hadn’t stopped to consider he was still in the nude. Any nice person would have allowed him some privacy to change. But fuck nice people. He could change with me gripping him like a vine. The man was capable enough.

I kept my eyes shut even when we left. The light of dawn pierced through my eyelids, and when I finally opened them, I watched tree after tree pass on by. He was carrying me through heavy bush, stepping over large fallen branches. I peered down at the ground and saw a thin sheet of frost the sun would soon melt. This was my first time outdoors since…since… well, how long now? Four weeks? I was finally breathing in fresh air, feeling wind against me, and the chill that winter bore quickly reduced me to shivers in Remy’s strong arms.

He stepped onto a hard dirt road and went uphill until I saw a white pickup truck. He unlocked the doors, settled me into the passenger seat and fastened my seatbelt. He went to back away and then froze with his eyes lingering on my neck. His soft, warm fingers touched around my throat. I had begun to know Remy very well. I could read the look on his face. It was sorrow.

“You’re hurt,” he quietly said. I felt the heat of his breaths against my face.

He was shirtless, wearing only his jeans and shoes minus the socks. I really should have let him dress properly. Oh, what a needy wench I’ve become.

“You are too,” I whispered.

There were bruises all over his tattooed chest and stomach, and splatters of blood around his elbows and arms. Not his blood, Sara.

“This is nothin’, Birdy.”

He backed away and shut the door, walking over to the driver’s side. When he got in, he turned on the heater and started the car. A few seconds later we were driving… and I knew exactly where we were headed.

*****

Of course I’d never been inside the clubhouse. Growing up, kids would talk about it in whispers, making up horror stories that had me looking at the black building as if it was a haunted mansion.

“Once you’re in, you’ll never come out,” they’d say.

My wild imagination conjured up all kinds of scary scenes in my head. I thought of ghosts and monsters and victims screaming in agony, bound and tortured. Yeah, I was a pretty disturbed kid. It’s just the MC never stood for anything good. They were a symbol of fear and power. Not even the police fucked with them. Gosnells was like the Wild West, except our cowboys were bikies with a really nasty temper.

Then after the night at the swings with Remy, I’d become intrigued. You could only see the structure of the building when you were at the gates. Anywhere else and it was a ten foot tall wall staring back at you. Sometimes I’d stand just far enough, in the middle of the road and make out the rooftop. The silence in the middle of the road surrounding that area was ominous, further impressing my curiosity.

And now here we were, at the gates, with a camera staring directly at us. After Remy pressed a button and stared directly into the lens, the gates opened. We hadn’t said a word in forever, and the ride had been forty five minutes of tense silence. I’d looked at him often, seeking some kind of reassurance that everything would be alright. He offered none, and my dependency for him scarily continued to rise. What was my goddamn problem?

He parked the car in a parking lot beside the entrance of the clubhouse. Motorcycles were lined up in a neat row beside us along with a few high-end cars. We stepped out of the car and Remy took me by the hand, directing us to the entrance. The physical contact was the first since the bunker, and I felt myself pushing against his side for more of his touch. I had grown incredibly attached to him.

In the morning light, he looked worse than I realized. The bruises were massive, decorating his torso in shades of red. One had begun to form beneath his right eye, swelling it noticeably.

The entrance required a key card. He must have left it behind because he ended up banging harshly against the door with his fist. It took a few minutes of waiting before it opened. A tall, fat man with long grey-black hair and an equally long grey-black beard appeared, groggy eyed and irritated. The second his eyes fell on Remy, the frown he wore washed away.

“The fuck happened to you, Reap?” His voice was unique; the kind of creakiness that reminded me of rusty hinges. “Saw you pressin’ the button on the gate and now you’re standing here looking like a beaten hobo.”

“Shit went down bad, Barge. Get the men together now.” Remy’s words brooked no argument. The man immediately hurried away, and we followed inside.

I took in the large room as Remy steered me through. There was a massive bar in the corner, stools pushed away – some on their sides – and then a huge lounge area where several large couches sat in front of a massive television screen. There were two men passed out on one couch and a half naked woman asleep on the plush rug on the floor beside them. Classy. Alcohol bottles littered the area around them.

A pool table and several other round tables sat on the other side. Gambling chips and cards were crowded on the tables along with empty beer bottles and left-over foods. This entire room seemed to be the entertainment area, and it stunk badly of cigarettes and alcohol.

Once we were out of the room and into a wide corridor, we passed offices and closed rooms. Remy took me up a long staircase to a second level where more endless closed doors sat. I distinctly heard the muffled sounds of moaning and the creaking of a bed spring from a room. I looked at Remy from the corner of my eye. The sounds didn’t seem to faze him at all.

He opened the last door and took me in. The smell of his cologne hit me hard. We were in his bedroom and it was huge. There was nothing interesting about it, mind you, just the essentials of a man who went to his bedroom solely to sleep and change clothes.

“Get in bed, Birdy,” he said, nudging me to his king sized bed. “You need to get some rest after this morning.”

He went to let go of my hand but I held it tighter. I looked at him with fretful eyes and said, “You’re leaving me here, aren’t you?”

He stared back, taking in my anxiety with bunched brows and flattened lips. “Sit down, Sara.”

I noticed that he only ever said my name in serious moments. The rest of the time it was Birdy. I did as I was told and sat down on the edge of his bed. He kneeled down in front of me until we were face to face. There was conflict in those eyes.

“I let you down,” he started, eyeing my throat as he spoke. “I was meant to keep you safe in that bunker, not have you in the hands of a man that was going to strangle you to death.”

“But you stopped it. You saved me.”

“And had I not gotten out of that shower, I wouldn’t have. I don’t even fuckin’ know why I did either.” He shook his head bitterly. “If I’d even been a minute late—”

“But you weren’t,” I interrupted. “So what’s the point of ‘ifs’?”

“Point is there should never be ‘ifs’, Sara. I should have taken you here instead. At least here you’re under the protection of all the Jackals and not just me. I was being selfish. I wanted you for myself and I shouldn’t have. Really fuckin’ stupid of me.”

“The attack wasn’t your fault. Stop making it out to be. You weren’t responsible for what happened.”

Though he didn’t believe my words, he nodded. “Yeah, well, now it’s my responsibility to find out who did this to you. This means I need you in here. I need you to rest so I can go and talk with the boys. I gotta figure this shit out with ‘em. Understand?”

I didn’t respond. He took my hand and squeezed it tightly. “Birdy, I gotta go do this.”

“Then let me go, too. I don’t want to be alone.”

“You can’t. This shit’s club business. You gotta respect that now that you’re here.”

With a heavy heart and a burdened gulp, I eventually nodded. “Fine.”

“Okay. I’ll be back soon. That’s a promise.”

When he let go of my hand, he stood up straight and motioned me up the bed. I obliged, moving up to rest my head on the pillows. He grabbed the covers and threw them over me.

“Get some rest, Birdy.”

I watched him leave, thinking, Why do I feel like I’m made of glass? I was so damn scared. I stared about the room and tried my hardest to hear sounds from anywhere. Hell, I’d gladly listen to the people down the hall having sex if it meant escaping silence. Because silence meant being alone, and I couldn’t handle being alone anymore.

*****

Miraculously, I’d fallen asleep. No tears shed, either. Still numbed out by what happened, I was pleased to escape the shock of it. Only my chest was evoking emotions I was helpless against. I found I couldn’t stand the stillness around me. Couldn’t stand to hear myself breathe. It was like being in the bunker again. I needed Remy’s warmth because the repetitive images of blood in my head made me cold to the bone.

It was screams that woke me up. My palms were sweaty, my heart was racing… What the fuck was I going to wake up to this time? Fear gripped me as the door slammed open. I sat up, taken off guard by the bronze skinned brunette storming into the room with an anger that would put the Hulk to shame.