Crap, now I really feel bad. I’ve been here over a month, I’ve known him for seven years and pulled pork is the first real truth he knows about me. Eli and I...maybe we also need time.
A knock on my open door and Oz enters the room. “Cyrus is asking for you, Eli.”
Eli glances over at me as if he’s weighing telling Oz no, but then Oz adds, “I’ll stay with her.” He rests a hip against the door frame of my room with his hands shoved in his pockets and eyes me in a way that suggests he’d like my help.
“I’ll be okay with Oz.”
Eli’s eyebrows pull together in worry, but he quickly stands and kisses the top of my head. He then goes to Oz, cradles one hand around the base of his neck and says, “I owe you.”
Oz nods, Eli leaves, and we study each other. Men in black vests float like ghosts along the hallway. For as many people as there are in the house, there’s only a low mumble of conversation. An occasional distinct voice here and there. No panic. No hustle. No phone call to 911 or distant wail of an ambulance.
Oz watches me as if my gaze on him is the sole thing keeping him upright. Through my window, the clubhouse is lit up and beams of motorcycle lights flash into my room as more people arrive. The roar of engines the lone sound that resembles the actual chaos inside me.
“Why aren’t they taking her to the hospital?” I whisper.
Oz’s head falls back until it hits the door. “Because Olivia has made it clear that she wants to stay here.”
“What? But she needs help. She needs a hospital. She—”
Oz cuts me off. “She wants to die here.”
My mouth drops open, but no sound comes out. Dad’s mentioned this before. Hospice, I think? It’s care for people who are dying. For people who have exhausted all medical options. “But she seems so...alive.”
“Get some jeans on,” he says. “Then meet me outside.”
“Don’t you want to stay? If she’s dying, don’t you want to be here?”
“Do you?” he asks.
No, I don’t and from the way Oz’s blue eyes are begging me to move, I guess he doesn’t, either.
“Where are we going?” I inquire.
Oz glances down the hallway toward Olivia’s room. “Away from here.”
Oz
MY MOTORCYCLE RUMBLES beneath me as Emily and I race along the road away from Olivia’s. Just like we raced out of the cabin as the guys from the club asked if we were okay. Just like we raced past my mother as she tried to talk to both of us. Emily opened the door to her bedroom, I offered her my hand and we ran.
Wind whips through my hair as we head deeper into the woods. The road narrows and we pass the clearing of land where I should be living now.
This was supposed to be our last year in the trailer. We were supposed to build a new house. Just like Olivia was supposed to be better with this new treatment. Just like how the treatment before was supposed to defeat the cancer.
My life has been full of supposed-to-bes and I’m tired of nothing working out.
From behind me, Emily edges closer. Her arms tighten around my waist as her fingers clasp over my stomach. Her body is wedged into mine with her head burrowed into my back.
Emily’s frightened and that causes me to fly faster into the night. It could be the bike, but I don’t think it is. She loved it when we first rode. She was flying in the seat, but this time she’s trembling.
I let go of a handlebar and lay my hand over hers. A silent gesture to reassure her that she’s not alone.
Emily
THE VAGUE MOONLIGHT disappears and a cooler patch of air drifts along my arms. The night grows darker and clouds drown the light from the moon. The fierce wind that had woken me up earlier tonight returns and batters me, slapping my cheeks.
A chill within me forms ice in my bloodstream. I was so cold in that hole as a child that I shook uncontrollably and I couldn’t stop. My teeth chattered and my fingers became numb. I thought I’d never be warm again. That I’d be frozen forever.
Heat rolls off Oz and I press into him as if there was space left between us. I’m not trapped in a hole. I’m here. It’s okay. Everything is okay.
The motorcycle slows then Oz eases it backward with his feet as he parks. He slips off the bike and offers me his hand. I accept it and this time I swing my leg out so I don’t touch any burning part of the engine.
“Good girl,” Oz says.
“For what?”
He inclines his head to the bike. “For not hitting the exhaust. It’d be a shame for you to burn your leg again. Too many burns and you’ll get a Harley scar to match mine.”
“I’m a fast learner.”
“Yeah,” he says as he squeezes my fingers. “You are.”
Attempting to ignore the darkness and the claustrophobia it creates, I strangle Oz’s hand. “Are you okay? With what happened with Olivia?”
A shadow darkens Oz’s face and I immediately ache with his pain. “I brought you here so we could escape. Is that okay?”
Meaning he doesn’t want to talk about her. “That’s okay.”
Oz flips off the headlight and a small dim light emerges to the left. It barely highlights a door to a trailer. My expression falls and I try desperately to hide it, but the annoyed set of Oz’s jaw informs me he caught it. “Let’s go.”
Oz drops my hand. He walks forward and I sprint to catch up. It’s too dark out here. Too many unknowns. Too many ways to get lost and never be found. We climb up a small wooden deck of a porch and the graying wood beneath my shoes appears to be fraying on the top layer.
Oz sorts through his keys and with each second we remain in the open my senses heighten. Hair stands on my skin as if the bony fingers of the night are reaching out to snatch me, as if they’re begging to suck me in and imprison me. I twist my fingers together, silently willing Oz to move faster. He’s already unlocked the dead bolt, now he’s undoing the actual handle.
Please hurry up, please hurry up, please— The lock gives, Oz places his hand on the knob and I push open the door, practically jumping over Oz to enter.
Inside, a clock flashes on a microwave. Little red-and-green lights twinkle, indicating electronics, but it’s not enough. Not nearly enough. “Turn on a light.”
With a flick, he does and I find myself in the middle of a tiny living-room-slash-kitchen combo. Keeping those curious blue eyes on me, Oz shoves his keys in his front pocket. “You’re weird.”
A bitter smile creeps along my face. “Seriously? You carry a gun and a knife and I’m the weird one?”
“Yeah. That sums it up.” He shuts the door behind him. “Who said I carried a gun?”
“I saw it when I went to shut my window earlier. Tucked near the small of your back. Sound familiar?”
“It was dark and you didn’t see a thing,” he says. “You have an overactive imagination going on in that pretty little head.”
“I don’t have an overactive imagination.”
“Funeral home. You. Olivia. Zombie attack. Sound familiar?” he mocks.
“So if I looked under your shirt what would I find?”
Oz steps toward me and lifts the front of his shirt. Sweet home Alabama, those are some serious and glorious abs. “Is this what you were looking for?”
My mouth dries out so responding immediately is a problem. A quick swallow helps, but Oz drops his shirt as he strides into the kitchen.
“Lift up the back of your shirt.”
“Not a good idea.” Oz rifles through the fridge. “If I take off my shirt, you’ll want to take off your shirt, and then the two of us will be distracted and end up in a bed.”
My heart beats, falters, then picks up again at a rapid pace. “You’re avoiding the question, which is the same as lying.”
“There’s no gun on me.?
??
“Don’t take a lie detector test. You’d fail. It exposes those integrity issues we’ve been discussing. Have you found a lawyer yet? It’s probably nice to have those things taken care of before you go to jail.”
He barks a short laugh. “I don’t do illegal shit and if I did, the club has a lawyer.”
“Of course you don’t and of course they do.”
“Don’t complain about things you don’t understand. You’re safe, aren’t you?” His eyes meet mine and I shiver with the unspoken threat that Dad claims doesn’t exist.
“Am I really in danger?” I ask.
Oz pops open a bottle of beer and takes a drink. “You want one?”
I shake my head. “I don’t appreciate you drinking and driving.”
“We’re staying here tonight,” he says. “I had already cleared it with Eli before everything went to shit with Olivia.”
My eyebrows furrow together. “Why would you have done that? And you haven’t answered my question.”
“I am answering it.” Oz pulls a long draw off the beer and then sets it on the small bar separating the living room from the kitchen. “The Riot was spotted thirty miles north of Snowflake. That isn’t their territory and Eli liked my idea of moving you in case they decided to stop by for a visit.”
I shrink into the sectional couch that encompasses most of the space in the room. No wonder my mother is a train wreck. It’s almost easy to believe everything Oz is saying. Almost easy to believe that it’s true. “Do you get tired of living this way?”
“Which way is that?”
Delusionally? But it’s not my intention to argue with Oz. Especially when he’s hurting.
“Which way, Emily?” There’s accusation in his voice. I may not be looking for a fight, but Oz is.
“Have you ever thought of a life outside of the club? You know, get an office job, settle down in a nice neighborhood, have two point five kids and a dog named George. Maybe a goldfish or two?”
“If I get a rope and tie it around my neck, will you help push me off a cliff?”
“I’m serious,” I say. “I don’t understand why you want to live like this. You’re supersmart and superawesome when you want to be. I’m just saying that the rest of the world isn’t cloak-and-dagger. It’s easy and peaceful.”
Oz scratches the sexy stubble along his jaw. “Know what I don’t have to deal with in my world?”
“Sanity?”
He grins. “I could say the same about your world, but listen up.”
Oz drags a chair from the small table in the kitchen area into the living room and straddles it. His biceps flex as he crosses his arms over the wood of the chair and when I tear my gaze away I find amusement flickering in his eyes.
I’ve been busted. “I never said you weren’t pretty.”
“You lied, Ms. Integrity. You are bold. And if we’re swapping compliments, you’re fucking gorgeous.”
Heat flashes on my cheeks and I immediately look down.
“Don’t do that,” says Oz.
“Do what?”
Strong fingers underneath my chin and I swear it’s harder to breathe. Oz lifts my head so that we’re staring at each other again. “Don’t deny a true compliment by looking away. You’re braver than that.”
I bite my bottom lip and Oz swipes his thumb over my mouth, causing me to let it go. His thumb stays at the corner of my mouth and I swear he must feel my pulse pounding in my veins.
He lowers his hand and I clear my throat. “I believe we were talking.”
“Yeah,” answers Oz.
I search frantically for what we were discussing. “You were going to give me some great insight into your world.”
“Yeah. That. In my world, we don’t have to worry about half the shit that you do.”
This I have to hear. “Like?”
“Backstabbing. Trust issues. The Terror is about family and loyalty. When someone says they’re going to do something they do it. When one of us has a problem, every man in the club will drop whatever they’re doing to help. I’ve seen how the rest of the world works and I don’t care for it. Everyone out for themselves. Shoving knives into each other in order to reach another rung on the ladder. Lying to save face. Once you’re in the club, you have a family you know won’t abandon you.”
My mind wanders to the countless relationships I’ve had over the years with girls who swore to be my friend one minute and then wouldn’t speak to me the next. The hours of gossip that fill my school day. The lying, the manipulation, the constant power struggle between social groups.
And then I go home and listen to my parents talk about the same issues, but in adult terms. How someone cost Mom her spot on the PTA board. How another doctor lied to my father and took credit for research he had accomplished.
Me, Mom and Dad—we have each other, but how many times have I felt hollow because the three of us were outnumbered?
Oz’s words sound seriously pretty, but it’s easy to disregard the ugly when it doesn’t fit your argument. “Eli left me and you’re currently lying to me. The club can’t be as perfect as you think.”
Oz reaches behind him and my eyes widen when he produces a very real, very terrifying handgun. I draw my feet onto the couch and scramble back, but only end up a few inches farther from the weapon.
“Calm down, I’m not going to shoot you.”
“That’s a gun. It could go off and kill me. Those things happen. I’ve seen it on the news.”
“The safety is on. Look.” He tilts the gun and slides his thumb over something, shifting it toward him. “Safety off.” Click. “Safety on, but if it will make you feel better...”
A louder noise and out pops a part that I assume contains the bullets. He holds up both parts in the air for me to see then rests them on the end table at two different corners. “I’m carrying a gun. See—I told the truth.”
I slowly edge my feet to the floor as if I’m testing the temperature of the water surrounding us. “Why tell the truth now?”
“Because when it comes to the club, I won’t be the one to put a bad taste in your mouth. Yeah, I haven’t been completely honest with you, but it’s either because I’ve been ordered to keep my mouth shut or I’ve been doing it to protect you. I didn’t tell you I carried a gun because I knew it would scare the shit out you. It’s nice to see I wasn’t wrong.”
“So if someone from the club orders you not to tell me something, you won’t? Isn’t that the same as lying?”
Oz’s jaw ticks. “You’re not a brother and as a woman you will never be, but you are important to this club. We will protect you. There isn’t a need of yours that won’t be met if you allow us in, but my obligation is to the club before anyone else.”
“If that’s the way it is,” I hedge, “then why don’t you wear one of those vests that everyone else is wearing?”
“I was supposed to start my initiation period, become a prospect and get my cut the night of Olivia’s party, but you showed and messed everything up.”
“How?”
“My job was to watch you until you stepped on the plane, but then I fell asleep in the parking lot at the motel. I woke up as you walked out of your room.”
“I’m not the one who fell asleep,” I say. “So I’m not seeing how this is my fault.”
“You’re right.” Oz cracks his head the side. “You coming to Snowflake changed everything, but I’m the one that fucked up and I can’t tell you how sorry I am. Scares me more than you know that they could have taken you—that my mistake could have hurt you.”
I pause at that. A few minutes later and how different would my life have been? Would Dad have been right? Would I have bought my water and returned to the room, and I would now be home getting ready to attend Blake Harris’s next party? Or would
my mother and Eli’s fears have come to life and I’d be a pawn between two groups of men who detest each other?
“Am I in danger?” I ask again as a whisper.
Oz is quiet. Maybe thinking or fighting internally, I don’t know, but either way his answer could change everything. “Eli says you are.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, but I trust Eli and if I didn’t, I like you too much to take the chance.”
I rest a hand over my heart as if that could calm the frantic beating. “Dad said I’m safe.”
“You are,” Oz says. “I swear nothing will happen while you’re with me.”
“No.” My lungs constrict. “Dad said that this whole thing isn’t real. That you guys are playing games and that you take things too seriously and that I shouldn’t be afraid. That’s one of the reasons why I stayed—because I wanted to prove to myself that there was no reason to be scared.”
Oz slips out of the chair and is immediately on his knees in front of me. His hands cradle my face and his warmth sinks through and combats the fear chilling my body. “Do you trust me?”
“You’ve lied to me.”
His eyes search mine and the silence surrounding us sucks the air out of the room.
“Honeysuckle Ridge is a safe house ten miles north of here. You can only get to it by bike and then you have to hike the rest of the way. It’s a cabin smaller than the one at the pond, but it doesn’t have shit within it. Sometimes guys from the club use it for hunting, but no one else goes there without club permission. No one beyond brothers and immediate people with the club are supposed to know it exists.”
“What does Honeysuckle Ridge have to do with Mom and Eli?”
“I don’t know.”
My head attempts to tip back, but Oz’s strong grip prevents me from completing the motion.
“I don’t know,” he repeats. “Whatever it is, it couldn’t have been good, but the truth is your mom would have known about it because she was Eli’s old lady.”