Craving Resurrection
Nicole Jacquelyn
Craving Resurrection
Copyright © 2015 by Nicole Jacquelyn
All Rights Reserved.
Formatting by Midnight Engel Press, LLC
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
Table of Contents
Dedicaton
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Dedication
To my Gram,
who shared her paperback copies of the Aces with all of her friends at the Senior Center. Thanks for being so proud of me—the feeling was mutual, gorgeous.
And to the friend who spells her name wrong.
I know it was hard to read.
I know you hated it sometimes.
I also know it wouldn’t have become what it is without your help.
This one is for you.
Prologue
Amy
I wasn’t nervous as I rolled through the open gate, though I did hope that I’d followed the right directions and an axe murderer wasn’t waiting for me at the end of the lane. My new Prius was so ridiculously quiet that I could hear every crunch of gravel under the tires. I could even hear the crickets chirping out in the trees to my left—though that was likely made possible by my four rolled down windows. I hated driving with the windows rolled up this time of year. Everything in Oregon smelled so fresh in the spring with new flowers blooming and the hint of rain almost always in the air. It was so different from where I’d lived for the past twenty-odd years that I couldn’t get enough of it.
The road forked like he’d said it did, and at the end on the left sat the big building I was searching for. I took a deep breath of relief when I saw the line of bikes backed up against it. Clearly, I was in the right place. Patrick had given me pretty vague directions when we’d spoken a couple months before, but I don’t think he’d imagined me ever actually coming to his clubhouse—especially without speaking to him first.
His number had burned a hole in my metaphorical pocket for months, but I’d refused to call him. I wanted to get my life situated before I dealt with his shit, and I didn’t think that was in any way unreasonable. Unfortunately, he’d disagreed.
I hadn’t called him, but the man had been relentless, calling and texting me for months. After numerous texts that I had no hope of deciphering, I’d finally realized that his thumbs must have been too big for the tiny keyboard. Add to that the assistance of autocorrect and what I received were messages that appeared to be composed by a five-year-old, which was ridiculous considering how well read he was. It took less than a week for the messages to change from wondering how I was doing to bitching that I hadn’t contacted him. The only reason I’d even known that much was because he hadn’t been satisfied with texts; all phone calls had also been followed up with livid voicemails.
Like he had a right to expect anything from me.
I shook my head as I climbed out of my car and flipped my heavy silver hair over my shoulder. I’d pulled half of it back in a thick, loose ponytail near the base of my neck, and for a second, I wished I’d brought a larger rubber band so I could pull it all up and make it less conspicuous. A bandana wouldn’t have gone amiss, either.
God, what was I thinking?
I’d worked hard to be where I was, and I’d been comfortable in my own skin for a long fucking time. I wasn’t about to become self-conscious about something as stupid as my looks. I was strong, capable, and smart—those were the things that mattered. Besides, I looked damn good for a woman who was over forty years old. Yoga had kept me slim and good genes and clean living had kept my skin tight and my boobs perky. I wasn’t going to cower, goddammit. I didn’t cower for anyone.
There was an open door to the right of some large garage bays that were closed for the night, and I made my way there with my shoulders pulled back and my chin held high. I knew I should have been afraid of walking into a room of bikers I didn’t know, but I wasn’t.
I wasn’t really afraid of anything. I think that might be what happens when you live through something you never imagined you’d survive. Everything else seems trivial in comparison.
The place was loud, with men in leather vests peppered around the room and half-naked young women of various shapes, sizes and ethnicities sitting on laps and preening for anyone who was looking. Good Lord, it was like a frat house with old men. I’m pretty sure I saw a movie like that once…
Focus.
“Amy, you look beautiful, as always,” a gravelly voice murmured behind me, making me spin around.
“Charlie.” I smiled huge as I took in his face, so much older than I remembered. “You don’t look surprised to see me.”
“Not surprised to see you, sure as shit surprised at what you’re wearin.’ ” He answered with a grin, leaning in to kiss my cheek. “Knew he saw ya a few months back, but he didn’t say a word about the get-up. When’d you become a fuckin’ tree hugger?”
“Probably about the time you became president.”
“Fuck, that long? Please tell me you still shave your shit.” He leane
d in to lift my arm to check for armpit hair and I couldn’t help the loud, barking laugh that burst out of my mouth.
“Don’t be a dick.”
“Ah, still taking care of it I see.” He winked, squeezing my arm gently. “I remember Poet going on and on about how you shaved your pussy way back when.”
“Shut the fuck up!” God, I couldn’t believe that he could still embarrass me with a few carefully chosen words.
“Who the hell…” A new voice came from the side and I took a deep breath as I turned to take the speaker in. She was wearing a Harley tank top and blinged-out jeans and I would have known her anywhere. “Holy shit. Amy?”
“Hey, Vera.” I felt my throat get tight as her face broke into a huge grin.
“What the fuck are you doing here? Damn, you look good!” She smelled like vanilla perfume and cigarettes as she wrapped her skinny arms around me, and I couldn’t help but hug her tight. I’d missed these two. Maybe if things had been different… no, I wouldn’t think about that.
“Look at your hair!” she said, leaning back to run her fingers over my head. “Goddamn, it’s gorgeous. You here to see Poet?”
“Poet? That’s the name he uses?” I asked, rolling my eyes.
“Road name. Someone else picked it.”
“Right.” I nodded. “Yeah, where is he?”
“I’ll get him.” Charlie said quickly with a small smile.
“Slider,” Vera warned.
“Slider?” I snorted. “I don’t even wanna know where that came from. No worries, just show me where he is. I don’t give a rat’s ass what he’s doing. I just need to talk to him real quick.”
Char—Slider ran his hand over his slicked-back hair, and gave me a cautious nod before placing his hand between my shoulder blades to lead me through the room.
“You come see me before you leave!” Vera called out as we left her behind.
“Yup!”
He led me through a doorway and down a hallway that ran the length of the building, stopping a few rooms down, where I could hear someone giggling through the door.
“Poet, open up, brother!” Slider called out as I slid between him and the doorframe and pushed my way into the room before he could stop me.
Patrick must not have heard us, because he was on the bed, leaning back against the headboard with a small grin on his face as a woman in only a G-string told some kind of story complete with animated hand gestures. She was young, I could see that much, and she had a generic tribal tramp stamp on her lower back that he was tracing with the fingers of one hand.
Aw, how cute.
“‘I missed ye’ he said,” I commented loudly in a thick accent, walking into the room as his head snapped up. “How’d I live so long without ye? Come home with me. Yer beautiful.”
I sat down at the edge of the bed and sighed dramatically. “All lies.”
“Who the fuck are you?” she asked, eyes wide, while Slider laughed, making no move to leave the doorway.
“Jesus Christ!” Poet hissed, pushing the girl off his lap.
“I’ve never loved anyone the way I love ye, lass.” My voice dropped into his accent again, my tone growing more serious.
I shook my head slowly as I stood, finally raising my eyes to his and swallowing hard, letting him see exactly how I felt about the situation we were in. His jaw went tight and his eyes grew sad as he watched me, a thousand words unsaid between us.
When Slider realized the show was no longer a funny one and left the doorway, I allowed my gaze to travel over the woman eyeing me in annoyance, her long, red-tipped fingers barely covering her fake breasts. I wanted to stare right back and scoff at her gravity defying breasts and tiny hips, but I didn’t let my eyes stray from hers.
I’d shoved my way into the room, interrupting a private moment, and she had no reason to be embarrassed. I refused to make her even more uncomfortable. She seemed nice enough while she was making Patrick smile, and even though a part of me hated it, she hadn’t done anything to deserve disrespect from me.
Because of those things, I answered her as gently as I could.
“I’m his wife.”
Chapter 1
Amy
All my life I’d been ordinary. Ordinary body: medium sized hips, five-foot-six barefoot, size seven shoes, average breasts—a C-cup on my good days or after a few extra Big Macs. I was neither fat nor skinny, but somewhere in between. Ordinary features: boring brown eyes and a nose a little large for my face, fullish lips, but nothing to write home about, and one of my front teeth was a bit crooked which caused a slight overlap that I hated and, therefore, my smile in every photo from the time I was seven and got my adult teeth was closemouthed.
The only things that stood out about me—not that they were really all that interesting—were the two fingers missing from my left hand and my long black hair. I couldn’t remember ever actually having the fingers, so I never really missed them, and I’d inherited my hair from my dad. I loved it, and kept it really long. I’d never cut it much, just trims every six months to keep it healthy and so I didn’t look like some sort of cult member with hair hanging to my ass. It was shiny and thick and reached just below my bra strap, so I could do anything I wanted with it. French braids, coronets, fancy up-dos, a long, silky ponytail, I’d learned to do it all.
It was one of the only things that I had control over, and it gave me something to hide behind in every new school and new city that we moved to. I’d lived in fifteen different cities by the time I was seventeen, and the most recent was Ballyshannon, Ireland.
We’d moved to the town only a few months before at the beginning of summer, and it was safe to say it was the hardest town to acclimate myself to. I’d lived in America my entire life, but I had dual citizenship in Ireland and the US because my mother was an Irish citizen. She’d gone to school in the United States, met my dad there, and the rest was history.
I’d always known I had dual citizenship, but actually having to use it was beyond belief. I was an American, dammit. It was what I understood, where I was marginally comfortable, where I believed I’d live my entire life.
I’d started at a private, all-girls Catholic school a few weeks before and I still had no idea how I’d ever manage to pass my classes. My teachers’ accents were so thick that I could barely understand them, my peers looked at me like I was a freak any time I spoke, and the way they calculated my credits was completely different than the schools I’d attended back home. It felt like I was going to be stuck in Catholic school hell for the rest of my fucking life.
The only thing I didn’t hate were the uniforms, though the plaid skirt and white blouse uniform felt a little like I was dressing for a porn shoot. It gave everyone a sort of equality—we were all dressing for pornos—that I hadn’t had in my previous schools. It was insane the way fads changed between large schools in the inner cities and small schools in the backwoods. I don’t know how many times I’d gone to school on the first day and looking like a complete weirdo compared to everyone else. Of course, at my new school all I had to do was open my mouth and the freak flag started waving yet again.
I was walking home, counting down the 128 days until my eighteenth birthday and wondering how I could save enough cash to get my ass back onto US soil, when a voice called out to me from the steps just a few houses down from the one we were renting.
“Would ye like to come in for tea?”
I didn’t realize at first that the woman was talking to me. I’d never seen her before in my life, but when she repeated the question, my head popped up from behind my hair and she was staring straight at me.
“Me?”
“Well, I don’t see anyone else, do ye?”
I searched the quiet street in confusion, but she was right. We were the only ones in the general vicinity. I can’t lie, the first thing that popped into my head was ‘Stranger Danger!’ which was ridiculous, seeing as how the woman was inches shorter than me and skinny as a rail. I could totally take her. B
ut why the hell was she inviting me to her house?
I stepped closer to her as she sat patiently, and I couldn’t help but smile back at her when she grinned. She was cute, probably a bit older than my parents, with wrinkles at the edges of her eyes and deep grooves in her cheeks. Although she was smiling almost ear-to-ear, she looked… lonely. There was an exhaustion to her that didn’t come from a hard day at work, but from a lifetime of hard days at work.
“Do you normally ask strangers to eat at your house?” I questioned as I got closer.
“Ach, no! But I’ve seen ye around. Always with yer head in a book, always hidin’ behind that hair a yers.”
I snorted at her very apt description.
“Always had a snack for my boy when he got home from school. Young ones need that after a hard day. Thought I’d offer ye the same, if ye’d like.”
“I’m old enough to forage for my own food,” I said with a smile, thinking geez, she’s nice. “And I don’t even know your name!”
“Peg,” she answered with raised brows, waiting for me to reply in kind.
“I’m Amy. Nice to meet you, Peg.”
We both grew silent after that, at a standstill as I considered her odd request and she watched me like a hawk.
“Well,” she huffed, finally breaking the awkward silence. “How about ye make an old woman’s day and give me someone to eat with?”
I knew what she was doing, trying to make me think that feeding me wasn’t about me at all, but that didn’t stop me from nodding slowly. “You’re not that old,” I argued. “But…okay, if you’re sure.”
I wondered if she knew more about my life than she was letting on as I followed her into the tiny house, but it occurred to me pretty quickly that it didn’t really matter. My parents wouldn’t be home from work for hours still, so it’s not as if I had anyone to miss me. Plus, she seemed really nice. I’d learned over the past seventeen and a half years how to spot people with ulterior motives—it’s all in the eyes—and she really didn’t have any other reason for inviting me in. She was clearly hoping for a little companionship, and who was I to refuse that? I didn’t have anywhere else to be.