It was up to me to fend for myself.
For myself and Grouch.
And Aaron, even if he never knew how much I longed to help him.
Rooster took my silence for obedience and slid the knife from my hand to cut into his own palm. When we pressed our woundstogether the truth I’d been trying to flee from for eight years finally hit me like a slap to the other side of my face.
I’d never be able to out run the blood that flowed through my veins and connected me to this monster. And it was silly of me to have tried.
I was proven right the moment Rooster got me to the apartment he was renting thirty minutes outside of Entrance. He didn’t take me to the clubhouse right away, because he didn’t want anyone else to see how he would punish me for staying away for eight years.
It was astounding really, how easy it was to fall through the looking glass into Rooster’s version of the world again. Where what he said went and what he said about me was toxic sludge he forced down my mouth every other moment to remind me just how worthless I was without him to guide me.
All those years of independence dissolved in seconds.
But I stared at the photo of Grouch and me I kept in my wallet and told myself it was worth.
And when I closed my eyes at night, desperate for sleep to take me away, it took me straight into Aaron’s arms.
Two weeks later, when I was well enough to walk again, Rooster took me to the White Raiders MC hideout at an abandoned farmhouse they’d turned into their new headquarters. Hazard was still in Calgary, but it was a small mercy because he planned to move to BC with a fresh batch of recruits after training the new president there.
It was hell.
Pure and simple.
A life filled with humiliation and criminal neglect, but I knew what to expect. Red and Cedar, the only two men in the club I had a hope of finding refuge in, were back in Alberta with Hazard and wouldn’t ride out for weeks.
I comforted myself by remembering that this way, I could look out for Aaron. Because I knew there was only one reason Rooster Cavendish had come to British Columbia, and it was to take over the drug and illegal arms dealing trade The Fallen MC had monopolized for so long. There would be gang warfare in the sleepy streets of Entrance before too long, and I was the only one on this side of the line looking out for Aaron. So I’d be miserable, but he’d be safe. And at the time, it seemed like a good enough trade-off.
It was easy to talk myself out of longing for him after a while. There was no way a perfect night existed, that somehow despite the violence and the running for our lives, we’d had exactly that. No way a man like Aaron, leather wrapped around a core of golden goodness, would ever have lived up to the pedestal I’d placed him on by the early hours of that night.
And then, three weeks after that night, when I was just getting into the rhythm of club life and degradation, Grouch dropped off a package for me at the clubhouse. Rooster wouldn’t let him see me, but just the sight of him through the curtains made my aching heart unclench.
The prospect, Jerky, tossed the parcel to me recklessly so that it crashed into the wall above my head and then dropped into my lap.
I winced as I looked at the torn brown paper, but the moment my eye caught on the blocky script, something in my chest turned over.
Faith Cavendish, it read above the address for the clubhouse and then in small letters tucked under the larger script,Blue.
My heart beat so loudly in my chest that I felt sure the men in the room would notice and call me out on it, but I managed to slowly get to my feet and casually walk down the hall to my room without detection. As soon as I closed the door, I dragged my desk chair over to the knob and fitted it beneath as a makeshiftlock. The bed squeaked in protest as I jumped on the mattress. The paper gave way easily under my sparkly blue nails, and then, when I couldn’t open the box quickly enough, the cardboard ripped at the seams as I tore it open.
Within the mess of discarded wrapping lay a small blue box with a smiley face drawn in felt tip pen on the top.
I stopped breathing as I gently worked the lid off, and then my heart stopped beating when I saw the gift Aaron had taken pains to send me.
My mother’s sapphire ring.
The large round gem winked at me from the three diamond bands it was nestled between. It was even more beautiful than I’d remembered, so precious to me that tears started streaming untamed down my face, soaking the collar of my shirt. I lifted the ring with shaking fingers and fit it onto my right ring finger even though I’d never be able to wear it publicly without Dad beating the shit out of me.
Folded in the bottom of the box was a note.
Blue,
Got one more thing outta Otto ’fore Lion turned his crew into the cops. He sold the ring to some pawn shop in Naniamo. Had a friend’a mine look for it. He’s good at that kinda shit, and it still took him an age. Then it took a minute to find you. Couldn’t exactly look up ‘blue-eyed, blue-haired beauty who left me broken-hearted’ in my Google search. Hurt like a son’a a bitch to go back to the clubhouse and find you gone, but I shoulda knownyou wouldn’t stay. You think you’re trouble for a guy like me, and there I was spendin’ the whole night we spent together thinkin’ you’d leave ’cause I was too much’a that for you. I gotta say it, or I’ll hate myself for never takin’ the chance but, Blue baby, you’re exactly the kinda trouble a man looks for his whole damn life. The kinda trouble I’d fight an entire fucked-in-the-head club for the chance to call my own. So you ever need me, you ever want me, you know where to find me.
Never been a patient man, but I’ll be waitin’,
ABC.
