Briella shakes her head in horror. “I don’t know who you are anymore.”
She turns and walks off, and the moment I’m alone, I slam my fist into the motel wall so hard it shatters and a gaping hole appears. I roar with rage. I’m trying to do what’s right, I’m trying to fucking protect this club. I never wanted to fucking hurt her, not once. She was right, when we turned around and went out the way we came in on the dirt road, they were gone.
If she was setting it up, they would have been there waiting.
She made sure we got out safe.
I don’t know what I fucking believe anymore.
I want to believe in her, but I’ve seen the hatred in her eyes, the broken soul of a girl I once knew.
I let her down and, deep down, she wants me to suffer for that.
I can’t trust she hasn’t got a plan.
I just fucking can’t trust that.
“Everything good, brother?”
I turn and see Mykel standing by the door. He looks concerned, like he’s worried for my fucking mental health or something like that. He shouldn’t be, I’ve handled far fucking worse than this, and I’ll do it again.
“I’m good, brother. Briella was just rippin’ me a new one, nothin’ to worry about.”
Mykel walks in and leans against the doorframe, crossing his arms. “She’s worried about her friend, can’t blame her for that.”
“Never said I was blamin’ her, but she’s gotta know we’re doin’ what’s right here. Nobody particularly likes it, but we have to be careful. We don’t know what Aviana has planned.”
“We’ve checked through her phone, nothin’ at all in there. Ever think maybe she’s tellin’ the truth?”
“About not givin’ them the location? Yeah. About everything else? No. Trust me when I say that girl has a problem, rightfully so, but it’s eaten away at big parts of her and she wants to make us suffer for it. I’m not takin’ the risk that she won’t inform someone where we are.”
“Well,” Mykel says, pushing off the wall, “either way, Alarick has uncuffed her so she can sleep. She’s not goin’ anywhere, we’re keepin’ a watch on her. She’s all scratched up, but she won’t let anyone help her.”
I stand, walking toward the closet and jerking it open, pulling out the first-aid kit I always take with me when I’m not at home. I turn and say, “I’ll sort it out.”
“Be careful, brother. You ain’t her biggest fan.”
“I’m not bothered. Her bark is worse than her bite.”
“I hope so, for your sake.”
It’ll be fine.
It fucking has to be.
We’re running out of time.
12NOW – AVIANA
Cohen opens the door and walks into the room where I’m sitting at the end of the bed with Kendric watching me like I’m some sort of fucking terrorist. They’ve even got him sleeping in the same room as me. What the fuck do they think I’m going to do? Murder them all in their sleep? For god’s sake. One thing is for certain, though, I’m getting out of here tonight. I’m going to escape this and never look back.
They don’t deserve my god damned help.
Without me, they’ll never find what they’re looking for.
Without me, they’re fucked.
Gone is the need for vengeance.
No, my vengeance will be knowing that they can’t get what they need when I’m gone.
My favor to them is that without me, they’ll fall.
They can all go to hell.
“I’ve got this covered for a few hours, go and eat, do what you gotta do. Call Zariah, see how she’s holdin’ up,” Cohen tells Kendric, who nods and stands, walking out of the room.
Cohen looks to me, and I stare at him. I refuse, outright refuse, to speak to him. I will not give him another ounce of myself. Not a fucking ounce. I sit on the end of the bed, eyes on him, rage pouring out of them. I don’t need words—he can see exactly how I feel about him in the depths of my angry glare.
“You need to clean those scratches or you’re goin’ to get an infection. You either sit there and let me do it, or I cuff you again and do it anyway. The choice is yours.”
I stand, never breaking eye contact. I strip every item of my clothing off until I’m standing before him, fully naked. He looks stunned for a minute, but quickly returns his face back to that empty, stony expression. If he wants to make my life hell, I’ll return the favor. Let’s see how he likes having to sit with my naked body for a few hours.
I stay standing as he walks forward with his first-aid kit and places it down on the bed, pulling out some white cloth, some sort of spray, and some bandages. He sprays the cloth and then steps over to me, murmuring, “This’ll sting.”
He pats the aching wounds on my back from where I fell onto the dirt as he captured me. They aren’t deep, but there are a lot of them and they’re sore. I grit my teeth and stare straight ahead, trying to fight back the urge to cry out in pain when he continues to clean them up.
“Didn’t mean to hurt you so bad,” he says, moving around my body, finding all the locations where I’m hurt.
He stops when he reaches my hips and his fingers run over the skin there. I shudder and jerk away, knowing what he can see. Scars, plenty of them. All the years of abuse left behind their marks. The whipping, the hitting, the kicking, there was no way they were going to let me walk away without forever being reminded of the damage they did to my body.
I have a deep scar on my hip from a gash that was given to me by a very sharp knife when I was fighting to get away. It wasn’t intentionally meant to hit
