Loving Me, Trusting You (2 page)

“And Gaine, I can see your Goddamn hard-on. It's pointing straight at my fucking face. A little respect here? I'm hurting and you want to dive into my vagina. Piss off.” I roll my eyes and try not to get mad. If I do, it'll just start this fire between us that I'd rather not have burning. Mireya can turn any fight into a brawl, any brawl into an all out war. I keep telling myself that it's a defense mechanism, but my tongue's got a life of its own sometimes.

“You know what I want, Mireya, and it ain't just your pussy.” Beck whistles, and some catcalls pass down the line, but I ignore 'em, watching Sawyer's beautiful bronze face squinch up in distaste.

“Really, Gaine? You want a happily ever after? Is that it?” Mireya smiles wicked nasty, grabbing her helmet and jamming it onto her skull like she's trying to punish herself for something. She lifts her visor up to glare at me. “Well, keep searching cowboy, because you're not going to find it here.”

Mireya starts up her bike with a roar, drops her visor, and disappears down the highway without another word, leaving the rest of us to catch up behind her.

Gaine Kelley is such an asshole. He doesn't know that he is, but he is. The biggest fucking asshole to ever walk this earth. I don't want to look at him. I don't want to see his face. And most especially, I don't want to hear him say it again.
I love you.
I don't love him. That's for sure. We've fucked a couple of times, so what? If he expects me to give him the key to my heart, he's going to be sorely disappointed. That crusty, old organ was chained up and locked away a long time ago. And I threw away the key when I saw Austin look at Amy for the first time. I knew it then, just knew it. Winning him back was never an option. I knew, but I still tried, and I failed. And now …

Now, I have blood on my hands.

I swallow hard and pull myself together. When you're flying down the highway at seventy miles an hour, the wind in your face, nothing between your body and the road but a bit of denim and leather, you've got to pay attention or you'll end up as roadkill. I've seen it happen before, and I'm not willing to end it that way. If I'm going to go, it's going to be spectacular. I deserve that at least, don't I?

I leave the intercom off in my helmet. I don't want to hear what any of them have to say, and I sure as shit don't want to listen to Nickelback. If Austin tries to play that crap again, I will kill him.
Like you did Walker.
I try to convince myself that I should feel bad, but I don't. I don't feel a lick of guilt for putting that fucker down. When I slid that blade across his throat, I cried tears of relief. Call me sadistic or mental, I don't care. He hurt me in ways that may never heal. I have to learn to live with the scars, or I won't survive. So I killed a man and I don't feel the way I should about it. This is my cross to bear. This is my trial to overcome, to accept that I am a monster because they made me that way.

My next step is to figure out where I go from here, how to find something out there worth living for. Austin was … I guess he never really was that thing for me, but he was something, someone to hold onto at night, someone to run to during the day. But he wasn't that perfect, special something we're all searching for, that thing that Gaine believes he's found in me.
Too much responsibility,
I think as I hit the corner and take it hard, tilting my bike so low I could brush the ground with my fingers, taste the concrete and watch it wear away at me. For a split second, I almost let it, almost drop through that last bit of space and watch myself spin away into nothingness. But then I pull my bike back up and rocket down the empty, flat stretch of road towards the sunset. If anything, there are a few people left in this world that owe me a pound of flesh. I don't want to go to the grave with a debt hanging over my head.

Another motorcycle whips up beside me, and I don't even have to look to know that it's Austin's. I can tell by the sound of the engine, that's how familiar it is to me, how much it used to mean. I know he wants me to switch to the intercom, but why? So he can bitch at me? Tell me to fall back in line?

Fuck this.

I will never again allow a man to control me, whether directly or indirectly. This friggin' community is full of misogynistic bull from both sides. I've got girls from other gangs telling me I'm not worth anything but the heat between my legs, that I should be a good old lady and hop on the bike of a person with a penis. My response? You ain't never seen this bitch ride.

I give Austin and Amy a one fingered salute and gun it, kicking up dust in my wake and scarring the road with rubber. The good thing about being in a fake ass MC is that nobody really cares what kind of bike you ride so long as you ride one like a God and have respect for the machinery. Me, I can outrun Austin's custom clunker any day. I've got a Triumph Bonneville. This baby could run circles around him.

I speed up and hit a small crest in the road, launching myself high, silhouetted against the sky for the rest of Triple M to see, a dark shadow bathed in light. When I crash to the pavement again, the air kisses my skin and steals away my pain, hiding it in the rush of wind and the sizzling heat for a few, brief beautiful moments.

See, some people, like that stupid bitch, Amy Cross, they like to bury their noses in books to escape. Me? I like to straddle my bike and find a new place, somewhere I've never been so I can see something I've never seen. That's what I live for, that's my escape. I hide in experiences and lose myself in air and mileage and the scent of gas, shiny alloy wheels, stainless steel headers, chromed upswept silencers.

So when that beauty is threatened, I get upset. Really upset. Livid even.

I swing around the corner, past a genuine freaking cactus, and spot a smattering of people in the distance, dark against the sunlight. They've got bikes aplenty and they're using them to block the roadway.

Ay, Dios mio. What the fuck is this shit? Malditos estúpidos.

I know I'm getting pissed because I'm starting to pull out the Spanish. I only do that when things get rough. And things are going to get
really
rough. I mean, I knew that. We all knew that. We've been lucky to get as many days without being accosted as we've had.
Might have to move back to Spain with my broke ass mother.
Ugh. Even the thought makes me shiver.

I hit the brakes and slow down, so Austin can catch up to me. I can
feel
his glare through the helmet, but I ignore it, sliding back into the ranks with Beck and Kimmi. I can't look at Gaine right now, but I do flick on my intercom.

“You disobeying the new Pres on purpose, Sawyer?” Beck asks, chuckling.

“Shut your fucking mouth, Evans,” Austin snaps back at him. “Deal with outer turmoil then inner, you know that.”

“Aye, aye, Captain!” Beck chortles, not at all worried about the cluster of shadowy figures. Why should he be? The man is absolutely insane. He's the perfect soldier, capable of downing a dozen men by himself. I've seen it many times.
Brawn over brains
should be Beck's motto.

We start to slow, filling the road with shining helmets and beautiful bikes, works of art in metal and chrome, curious faces and nervous twitching. You don't mess with another gang and walk away, no matter what they did to you. I don't even have to see their colors to know who we're up against.

Bested by Crows.

Great.

Suddenly, I feel my chest tighten and my mind start to spin. With my thoughts rocketing into space, drawing me away, clouding me in blurry stars of distant memories, I almost miss the sound of a loud pop. Seconds later, I lose control of my bike and hit a dusty patch on the road with my wheels spinning every which way. The bike starts to roll and my mind goes blank.

I remember leading the women out on a pride parade, flaunting that inner beauty and that hard wiring that all women have inside themselves somewhere. Tray never let on to me that he was going to take our bikes away, never even hinted at it. And then he caved to peer pressure and everything just went to shit. I remember pulling into the garage with the other girls, how my cheeks felt flushed, the smile on my face.

And then I remember the pain. The violation. The horror.

My bike slides out from under me and goes spinning, rolling down the road like a boulder in an avalanche.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.
It turns and scrapes along the pavement, smashing and sliding and grinding until it hits the row of motorcycles in front of us, slamming into a sexy little custom deal with a crunch and a violent screech.

I expect to go down after it, get trampled by the roaring rush of tires behind me, torn to pieces by my friends and family.

That doesn't happen. Instead, I end up in front of Gaine, smashed against his chest with my mind running in slow motion, imagining faces I knew and trusted leering over me. My mind goes blank again, totally white, and I slump against the handlebars while we roll to a stop.

I hear people shouting over the intercom, but I can't be bothered to listen to them. Vaguely, I recognize the voices, but I'm still lost in time, drowning in emotion. Each and every spot on my skin where Walker's blood touched me burns like fire, sinks into my flesh and poisons my bloodstream.

“Bastard took a fucking shot at her!”
Kimmi.

“Which one?”
Austin.

“Guy in the front with the beard. Shot out the front fuckin' tire. Austin?!”
Gaine.

“I got him. Keep Amy safe.”
Austin.

“No worries, Pres. Watch your woman, I'll blow his friggin' head off.”
Beck.

“Keep it tame for now, Beck.”
Austin.

Gaine is shaking me, flipping up his visor with one hand and cradling my waist with the other. I have no idea how he grabbed me mid-fall like that, but it's impressive. Maybe later, I'll remember to thank him for it. But that's pretty doubtful.

“
You gonna be my Old Lady or not, Sawyer? I ain't got time for uppity bitches.”

Walker is dead, but I can still hear his voice. A decade later and I can hear it in my ear, unwanted, burrowing into my brain and scarring me in irreparable ways.
Why, why, why?
I'm tired of being the victim though. Thoroughly fucking
exhausted
by it.

“Mireya! Wake the hell up!” Gaine grabs my helmet and tosses it to the pavement where it bounces and skids to a stop just inches from the boots of the man who fired a gun at my fucking bike.

“I've always said it, but nobody listens,” the man in the front says. Will Walker. My mind goes white again, tries to cover up the pain and the hate and the anger. “Bitches can't ride. It's just a biological fact.”

There's something inside every one of us that will make us snap, that will turn us from people into animals. For me, it was this. My rapist, the brother of the man that betrayed me, is standing up in front of my MC telling me I can't ride? Without a second thought, I'm pushing away from Gaine and spinning off his bike. I see Austin and Kimmi, guns raised, faces stoic. Beck stands perfectly still, a smile on his sweaty face, no weapons in his hands. He doesn't need 'em.

Surreptitiously, I slip my fingers into Gaine's saddlebag and lift out the tire iron he keeps in there for emergencies. And this, this for sure qualifies as an emergency.

“State your business or get the fuck out of our way,” Austin says, standing tall and sandy haired, so beautiful I could cry. He was
mine
for awhile. Maybe not as often as I wanted or as deeply, but he used to belong to me. And now … My eyes shift back to Amy. Her eyes are wide, but to her credit, she doesn't look afraid. A religious Southern girl yanked out of the bible belt and bent over a freaking pool table now looks perfectly at home standing in the center of a ring of bikes, the people looking on all covered in tattoos and piercings, leather and hard lives. I hate her so damn much, but I respect her, too. The guy in front of me, Will, I just loathe the bastard.

Will just laughs and shakes his head like he can't even believe he's having to stoop to answer our Pres's question. This sort of disrespect has to be taken care of now, before word spreads and we end up the hunted rather than the hunters. I move a step forward and Will's greasy eyes swing to my face, glistening like old oil on pavement. I want to kill him, too. I won't lie. Taking this tire iron and bashing in the front of his skull would make my life damn near complete.

“Business? Austin Sparks, the brand spankin' new president of Triple M, has the audacity to ask me that stupid fucking question?”

“I think what he's trying to say, rather politely, I might add, is that you better get up and fuck off before we blow your Goddamn brains out. How's that sound?” Kimmi asks, not caring that her breasts are holding center stage, bulging out the top of her leather corset and bouncing when she takes another step forward. I love that woman. Bravest damn bitch I know. She thinks I hate her, but that isn't true. I just want her to think I do. Don't ask me why. I don't give out my secrets.