“I’ve got this!” I reply, narrowing my eyes on Jay as he looks behind me, trying to see Faye. “Nothing to see.”
“Jay, what the fuck is going on?” comes a dark, rumbling voice. I hear another bike cut off, and then a huge shadow blocks the lights of the cars. “You heard him, go,” he orders the gang members, and they do, leaving us alone with the bikers. I stare at the huge shadow. He’s easily over six feet, maybe nearly seven. Clearly he’s muscular and strong. I can’t see his face, but Jay snaps to attention, still smiling.
“Nothing, Prez, just Crew’s girl, making sure she’s okay.”
“Are you?” the dark, low rumbling voice questions, and then I hear Faye storm up to me and I sigh.
“Listen up, assholes, let us go!” she yells, obviously thinking we’re in trouble. “I’ll kick your asses, I don’t care how many steroids you shoot up!”
“Faye,” I interrupt with a laugh, taking her hand. “They are friends, and we are leaving, night boys.” I drag her back to the car as she grumbles under her breath. Once inside, she locks the doors and places her hands on the wheel, and then the man finally moves from the light so I can see him, and when I do, I hear Faye suck in a breath.
“Who’s that?” she whispers reverently, and I see him giving her the exact same hungry look through the window.
“Trouble, let’s go,” I demand.
“Yeah… yeah, go,” she mumbles, blinking like she’s in a daze before she starts the car and begins to back away—not without one last look at Jay’s prez though. Fuck, why does she always want the bad guys? And from the look of him, he wants her too.
Shit, and I thought I was in trouble. At least he might be able to actually handle her.
* * *
Faye drops me off at home, and luckily the guys aren’t here. I wave goodbye and head upstairs, flopping onto my bed. I’m exhausted after the day I’ve had, but I can’t stop thinking about what they did for me.
They killed for me.
Someone else did that once, but it wasn’t the same. They didn’t kill to keep me safe, they killed to keep me, to trap me, scare me.
They did something he thought he was doing—protecting me.
Even thinking about him has me sitting up, shuffling to the back of my headboard, and wrapping my arms around my legs.
He’s locked up; I’m safe. He’s rotting in prison like he deserves. I know that, and we even moved away, but it doesn’t stop the fear and pain I feel at the reminder, at the memory of all the lives he took, and the way he destroyed mine... all while trying to make me his.
Closing my eyes, I try to remember good times. Not him, not that night, or all the nights spent in terror before and after. Not the stalking, the flowers, the messages, or the cameras. Not the times spent crying in Lucas’s arms out of fear, wondering why me or who was stalking me. I didn’t know then. I was so innocent as he wiped my tears and told me they would never hurt me.
He was wrong.
So were the police when they told me there was nothing they could do. The fucking useless assholes basically threw me at him and left me to fend for myself. Yet they took no responsibility when more lives than mine were ruined. It didn’t matter, people still decided it must have been my fault. Even as a teenager, I must have been encouraging him, tempting him, and he couldn’t control himself.
Bullshit.
He was a fucking psycho, and I know that now.
I know I did nothing wrong. I was just trying to live and he was trying to clip my wings. To put me in a cage and keep me until I wilted and died.
My hand drifts to the almost invisible scars circling my wrist, which mirror the scars on my other wrist, from the bindings. I fought hard with everything in me, and it still wasn’t enough to stop him.
To save them.
My friends.
My family.
Lucas…
The only fucking people that ever gave a shit about me. My mum certainly didn’t, but them? They fed me, made me smile, and showed me what living was about. They let me stay over, and we spent years together, making memories and dreaming of our future with no parents. Then, suddenly, in one night, it was all gone, wiped away by his bloodied, monstrous hands. I was left alone in the world and so fucking angry it warped me.
Why me?