11

As soon as I woke up, I knew I'd had an episode of night terror. My body felt drained, my throat was scratchy, and my eyes burned. My face was sticky as if I'd been crying, and fuck, my nails hurt. I opened my eyes and brought my hands up. My nails were chipped, and a few had bled.

Where am I?

I sat up, my body stiff from the unfamiliar, cramped space. I'd found a closet this time. One that was empty of clothes. A thick comforter lay beneath me, providing a soft place between me and the floor. Another lighter blanket lay over me, and pillows buffeted me on either side.

Who…?

Of course. Logan sat sleeping up on the opposite side of the closet. Unlike me, he had no sheet covering him, no pillow to cushion him. Had he fallen asleep watching over me?

My heart pounded as I imagined what could have happened last night. I never remembered, which I always preferred. Who wanted to know what their possessed subconscious did when going through an episode? But I would have given anything to know about last night. How bad had I been? Did he think I was crazy now?

Since we both ended up in the closet, it couldn't have been a peaceful night.

I swiped a hand over my face. Today marked the first of November. I hadn't expected it to hit so hard right away. I had milder months, but this didn't seem as if it would be one.

At least I hadn't wet myself. I flung the blanket off me to check. Relieved, I heaved a sigh. I should disappear and never see him again. He knew firsthand now that I was unlovable. Nobody loved a monster.

Breathing hard, I stared at him, my chest squeezing painfully. He'd brought me home to fix my leg. He'd scolded me to take better care of myself. He'd rearranged his closet to make me comfortable. I'd been right about him all along. He was a good man. The best man. The only man.

But now what? How could I face him, not knowing what I'd done while he had all the memories?

Resisting the urge to climb onto his lap and wrap myself around him, I slowly climbed to my knees and crawled out of the closet, then got to my feet by bracing my hand against the wall. My leg was throbbing. A quick check showed I hadn't ripped the stitches in my mania last night, but the relief was short-lived. Dr. Collier's bedroom was a disaster. So unlike him. Clothes were dumped on the bed, and his shoes were scattered on the floor.

One night. I'd spent one night with him and had turned his bedroom into a disaster. I stepped carefully over the objects and hobbled as fast as possible back to the guest room, where I should have been sleeping last night. How had I even made it into his bedroom?

I quickly used the bathroom and dressed. My clothes were crummy, especially with the dried blood on the pants, but I had no option. I snuck down the stairs and headed straight for the front door. I punched in the code I'd seen Logan use last night and breathed a sigh of relief when I stepped outside.

This wasn't how I'd imagined my first sexual encounter with Logan to end—me sneaking out of the house as if I were a thief because I was too much of a coward to look him in the eyes and see disgust or, worse, pity.

A cold misty wind brushed against my face, and I turned my collar up against it. I selected Winter's number. The fucker owed me one. I crossed my fingers that he wasn't shit-faced somewhere sleeping off a hangover.

"Hello."

"Winter?" The voice sounded unfamiliar but not so distinct I could tell. Depending on what Winter was on, he could sound like anything. But the person drawled his speech, sounding as fucked up as Winter did when he was on some serious shit.

"Nah, man. It's Poe."

"Poe? Who the hell are you? Where's Winter?"

"Don't worry, man. I'll send him back to you when I'm done with him."

Motherfucker hung up on me. Gritting my teeth, I dialed Saint's number. Crowe was the ideal person to call, but he would be up my ass about me hounding the doctor, and I didn't want to deal with his shit. Not when I was in such a foul mood.

"Bloom, where the hell are you?" Saint demanded. "You didn't sleep in your bed last night."

"I'll send you the address. Pick me up."

"Where's your ride?"

"Back at the clubhouse."

"I don't understand. What the hell's going on?"

"Just pick me up. We might have to bail Winter out of whatever shit he's in too."

"On my way. Send your location."

I hung up the phone. Of all my brothers, Winter got on my nerves the most. He was messy, and his drug addiction made everything rough. When he was sober, he was a decent guy, but we'd had to bail him out of countless messes when he was too coked up to protect himself. Crowe worried about him. Hell, I worried about him. Winter might be a gigantic pain in the ass, but he'd helped save me.

Gritting my teeth, I scaled the gate and slipped out onto the sidewalk. My stitches were still intact. Thank fuck. I limped away from Dr. Collier's house as fast as my throbbing leg would allow. I kept my head down, not wanting to draw attention to myself. In a neighborhood like this, I would be lucky not to get picked up by the cops.

Would Logan be pissed that I hadn't said good-bye? Maybe he'd be relieved. Fuck. Fuck him! I clamped my lips together to prevent the scream that was scratching the insides of my throat from being let out.

He made me feel insecure all over again—vulnerable—but what scared me the most was the way I craved being with him still. Like I'd been waiting all my life for him. Someone I was comfortable being myself with. Someone other than the brothers who accepted me for who I was. Other people feared me, scorned me, or pitied me.

I stopped walking to avoid the pressure on my leg. Logan wasn't likely to come after me anyway. The more I thought about it, the more depressed I became. I watched the street—for signs of Logan or Saint I wasn't sure—but I might have felt a twinge of disappointment when Saint rolled up in Dove's car.

"Thanks, man." I got in and slammed the door shut, then sank in my seat.

"Which one of these houses belongs to the doctor?" he asked.

"What?"

"Come on. You had to have spent the night with the doctor."

"Says who?"

"You gonna deny it?"

"Shut up."

"You're in a shitty mood for a guy who lost his virginity last night."

I shot up in my seat and punched him in the shoulder. "I did not!"

"Ah, that explains the shitty mood. No way you could have gotten railed last night and still be so cranky. But if you didn't get fucked, why are you walking so funny?"

"I hurt my leg, asshole. Why would I be walking funny if I had sex?"

"Jesus, I forget how little you know sometimes. Did we ever have the birds and the bees talk?"

"Didn't need it. I've seen you all fuck way too many times and wasn't interested in it either."

"True, but there's a difference between seeing and taking part. I'll remind Crowe he needs to give you the talk."

"Don't you dare. I don't want Crowe back on my case about the doctor."

"You know he's just worried about you."

"Yeah, well, there are certain things he can't help me with, and this is one."

"But—"

"I don't want to talk about the fucking doctor anymore, Saint. Let's go find Winter."

"Why do you think something's wrong with him?"

"I called him before you."

He glanced at me, his eyes wide. "You did?"

"Figured you'd be with Dove, and I didn't want to disturb you, but from the sounds of the guy who answered the phone, Winter's out of it right now."

"Track his phone. We'll find him."

Saint's teasing was gone as his tone shifted, the worry clear in his voice. As much as we bickered and fought, the bond between us brothers was unshakable. Winter might have been a constant source of trouble, but he was our trouble. No one else got to give him shit. We were there for that.

I quickly got to work, tracing Winter's signal. Given how much danger we usually faced, we all had trackers on us. More than once, we had used it to find Winter when he was stoned.

"I got a hit."

Saint drove with a steady hand, taking one sweeping turn after another through the dimly lit rundown part of town where drugs got passed around like a bowl of sweets on Halloween. He was quiet, a rarity for him because he was always cracking some joke or making light of a situation.

Had Logan realized I was gone yet? Was he disappointed?

Saint stopped at a house even shabbier than the rest in this forsaken district. The peeling paint and boarded windows screamed neglect. A flickering neon sign advertising some defunct business tilted dangerously on the rooftop. A rusted metal gate led to an equally decrepit yard littered with discarded items.

"Jesus, Winter." Saint unbuckled his seat belt. "What the fuck have you gotten yourself into this time?"

I slowly followed Saint into the yard, careful not to put pressure on my leg. Winter's hog wasn't parked anywhere, so maybe he wasn't here after all.

"I don't have my knives." That's the last time I remove them, even for a formal event.

"Here." Saint thrust his knife into my hand. His gun was tucked into the waistband of his jeans. "Do not act unless I give you the go-ahead."

"Well, this ain't gonna be fun, then."

"I'm serious, Bloom!"

I rolled my eyes. "I won't kill anybody unless you say so."

Maybe.

Saint knocked on the door, then pounded when no one opened it.

"Hold your horses." The door swung open, revealing a tall, thinly built man with a goatee, sallow skin, and the flesh under his eyes sagging. Bruises from needles peppered the inside of his arms to the extent they were almost black. Apart from the needle marks, tiny sores dotted his hands.

"We ain't got no drugs left." He raked his gaze over my body with a predatory leer and grinned, displaying a mouth of missing and some rotted teeth. "But for you, I may be able to part with my personal supply."

I withdrew my knife. "Now can I kill him?" I asked Saint.

"Not yet." He pulled a pair of disposable gloves from his pockets and handed them to me. "For safety."

I frowned but took the gloves and slipped them on. First we had to find Winter and get him home.

"Wait, what the hell's this?"

Saint pushed his way into the house, and the man backed up so fast he stumbled. "Are you Poe?"

"Yeah. What of it?"

"We're looking for our friend. Tall, big guy, long blond hair. Know him?"

His eyes shifted to the right as he shook his head. "No, I don't know anyone fitting that description."

"He's lying," I said.

Saint carefully pulled his gun from beneath his cut. With deliberate movements, he retrieved a suppressor from his other pocket and deftly screwed it onto the gun's barrel. The man's eyes grew wider, darting between the weapon in Saint's steady grip and the knife in my hand.

"If you lie to us, we're gonna make a game of who can kill you faster."

I grinned, perking up. "That's a good one, Saint. We haven't played in so long. Last time I was up thirteen to one."

"I let you win because I knew you were a whiny ass baby about losing."

"You lying motherfucker—no disrespect to your lovely mother, of course." She was the one who'd mainly treated me after all. Without her patience, I would still be the mute, feral boy who'd stayed alive by eating rotten food and drinking my urine. "Then let's play for real this time."

"Nonononono." Poe held up his hands. "Please don't kill me. It was his fault. I didn't do anything he didn't want me to do."

"Where is he?" Saint demanded. "Show me."

Poe led us to a living room, a drug addict's paradise, the air thick with the sickly sweet smell of burned plastic and meth. Dim orange light from a dying bulb flickered over a nest of empty liquor bottles and discarded food containers. A half-empty bottle of lube sat on the floor next to a foldout couch bed where an enormous figure lay motionless, naked from the waist down, with his jeans around his ankles. The long, blond hair was unmistakably Winter's, even though I couldn't see his face.

My chest rose and fell. He wasn't moving. Was he…?

Saint strode over to the couch bed, yanked the sheet over Winter's waist to cover him up, and brushed Winter's hair away from his face.

"Win?"

Silence greeted us. Saint leaned closer, pressing his hand against Winter's neck. "He's still breathing. Barely. I'll call 9-1-1."

"You can't call 9-1-1," Poe cried. "Let me get my shit out of here first."

I laughed, the sound ringing through the dingy room, filling it with the bitterness inside me. The lube…Winter's nakedness…I wasn't as na?ve as Saint had implied earlier. I knew enough that a man in Winter's position could not consent to sex.

"You don't have to worry about the authorities. You'll be dead long before they arrive."

"They're on their way," Saint said. He lashed out his hand, smacking the gun across Poe's face. The man crashed to the floor with a strangled cry.

"It's not my fault!" he groaned. "He doesn't know when to stop. I told him he'd had enough, but he kept shooting up."

"So you fuck him while he's unconscious?" I stomped on his face, his jawbone cracking under my boot. A splash of blood sprayed across the grimy floor, pooling beneath his distorted features. "Instead of getting him help, you use him, humiliate him, over and over again? You fucking pussy!" I plunged my knife between his legs, the blade slicing into his cock with accuracy.

A guttural scream echoed through the room, bouncing off the grimy walls as the man writhed.

Even though I wasn't looking at him, Winter's naked body, used and left to die like an animal, was seared into my mind. I didn't care how many drugs he took or how irresponsible he was. None of that mattered. No one had the right to hurt him this way. No one had a right to hurt us, to make us fight dogs for food, to make us sleep in boxes and on the cold, hard concrete. No one should treat us like we were subhuman, like we deserved all the rotten things they did to us because we were weak and helpless to know better.

"Bloom!" A sharp slap to the face brought me back from my thoughts. In the distance, a siren wailed, getting closer and closer. "Fucking shit."

I stared at the dead man on the floor, his body mangled from multiple stab wounds and my knife still buried in his neck. The gloves on my hands were covered in blood, as were my boots.

"The ambulance is here already." He glanced from Winter, who was convulsing, to the body on the floor. "We can't hide the body. It's too late."

I yanked the knife out of the man's throat, even though I didn't recall burying it there. Slowly I climbed to my feet. Was it normal to feel this sense of calm and peace after taking a life?

"You can't stay here, Bloom," Saint said. "You have to leave. Now."

Outside, the ambulance pulled up. I shook my head. "No, I'm not leaving you." All my life, they'd protected me. Now that Winter needed us, I wouldn't run. "Brothers till the end. That's what we pledged."