Fifteen

Ana

K asper means well, but the more I look at him, as he lounges against the bar, one elbow resting on the counter top, surrounded by club girls all openly flirting with him, the more it kills me inside. What happened to mama, it was my fault. I’d been attracted to Kasper, of course I had. He’s exactly my type… was exactly my type. But I look at him now and I feel sick. It was my fault. My mama was shot dead, and it was my fault. Because I wanted to be closer to him …

“You okay, honey?”

I glance up as a woman I don’t recognize sits down beside me on the battered leather couch close to the pool table. “I don’t know, to be honest.”

She takes a drag on her cigarette, turning her head away to blow smoke up at the ceiling. “I’m Cady.” She looks at me and smiles. “I’ve been away. From here, I mean. This place.” She takes another drag before offering her cigarette to me. An offer I decline. “Took a bit of a break. Spent a couple of years in Iceland, of all places.”

“What’s wrong with Iceland?” I ask, and immediately regret it. I don’t give a shit why she went to Iceland, I don’t even know why she’s telling me this.

“Nothing.” She shrugs, glancing around the unusually quiet clubhouse. But it’s the middle of the day. They’re probably all out doing something, I’m not sure I want to know what. “Just not somewhere I ever wanted to go.”

“So, why did you, then? Go, I mean. To Iceland.”

She looks at me, smiling slightly. “I wanted to hang out someplace different. Somewhere I’d never been before.”

“Okay.” I’m not really in the mood for conversation. I’m only here because Freja didn’t want to leave me home alone. She was coming here to cook up some food for yet another club party, so I had to come, too. I’m not supposed to be left alone, am I? They keep telling me it’s because they’re trying to keep me safe but I know it’s really because they know I’ll just run if I’m given the chance. And they’re right. They think if they keep it up long enough I’ll give in: accept that this is my fate, my life now. They’re wrong. I’m still getting out of here, I just need to choose my time more carefully.

“Anyway,” Cady sighs, stubbing her cigarette out in the ashtray balanced precariously on the arm of the couch. “I’ve been hearing all about you. Sorry to hear about your mama.”

I don’t respond. Don’t look at her. I keep my eyes down.

“But, you’re in a good place here. It might not feel that way right now, but you’ll get used to it.”

My head snaps up, and I glare at her, my stomach a knot of tension, anger burning through my insides. “What if I don’t want to get used to it? Have any of you thought about that?”

She takes a second before she says anything, but her gaze doesn’t waver from mine. “They aren’t keeping you prisoner, Ana.”

“It feels like they are. I can’t go anywhere alone, can’t see my friends or go back home–”

“This is your home now. There is no other option.”

I feel stupid, hot tears prick the back of my eyes and I furiously try to blink them away.

“Honey, you have to listen to me. Listen to me, Ana. It will be so much easier if you just let this all happen. Believe me, I know, because I’ve been there. I’ve been where you are, and I got through it. You will, too.”

I frown. “What do you mean, you’ve been where I am?”

She shifts her body around to face me, tucks her legs up underneath herself. “Okay, maybe the circumstances were a little different, but this wasn’t the kind of place I saw myself becoming a part of either. I came here because of Kel–”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because you need to understand that you can either fight this, or accept it. And the second option is gonna make your life so much easier.”

I turn my head away, focus on the bar where Jep’s busy unloading crates of beer. And I can smell chili and fried onions coming from the kitchen, but no matter how nice those cooking smells are, my appetite still refuses to return. How can I eat when my stomach is permanently twisted up?

“Ana, look at me, sweetheart.”

“Did they send you here, to talk to me? Try to get me to fall into line?”

“Well, I’m not gonna lie and say that wasn’t part of it, yeah. But the second they told me about you, I wanted to help.”

I look at her, and I don’t know if she’s being genuine or not, and I hate what’s happening here, but it’s not like I’ve got anything else to do. I might as well hear her out.

“Okay. Tell me your story, then. Make me believe that all of this will start to feel better, eventually, because I can’t see how it can. I can’t.”

She briefly drops her gaze, picking at the hem of her denim skirt. “Me and Kel, we were dreamers, you know? Always believing we were going to have the perfect life, and nobody was ever going to tell us what to do. But to make all of that happen, we needed money. All these people who say love is all you need, that’s bullshit.” Her eyes meet mine, and even though I want to look away, I don’t. “We were young, our families didn’t approve of our relationship–”

“Why? Why didn’t they approve of your relationship?”

“Kel was, how do you say? From the wrong side of the tracks. Not good enough for me, my father used to say. And Kel’s mom, well, she thought I was only with him because I thought being with somebody like him, someone from a whole other world to mine, she thought I saw that as something I got a kick out of. She was wrong. I genuinely loved him. He loved me. Our differences were what brought us together, it kept our relationship alive. And we didn’t give a shit what our families thought, so we distanced ourselves from them. I was ostracized, told never to come back, and Kel’s mom…” She drops her head again, drags a hand back through her red hair, sighing heavily. “She couldn’t get over his leaving. She couldn’t believe he’d do that to her, put someone else before her.” Her eyes once more meet mine, and I’m a little shocked to see a sadness in hers, one I can identify with. Because I’ve felt it, too. “Kel always thought she did it to spite him. That it was a cry for help, something to get his attention, bring him back to her, but it went tragically wrong.”

“What happened?” I whisper. Because something obviously did.

“She took too many pills. Drank too much vodka. Didn’t call 112 in time.”

“Jesus…”

Cady shrugs, composing herself, but that memory obviously still haunts her. “Kel blamed himself, for a while. And he could’ve blamed me, too, but he didn’t. In the end he blamed her, for not accepting us.” She lights up another cigarette and takes a long, deep drag. “Anyway, to cut a long story short, we were on our own and we needed money. Kel was a mechanic, loved bikes, had one of his own, so when he heard about a job going in a bike repair shop in town, he went straight there. Got the job on the spot, had no idea the shop was owned by the Viking Bandits, but it got him a foot in the door. Wasn’t long before we were a part of the club: before they became the family we needed. A new family. One that accepted us, no questions. No judgement.”

“I still don’t understand what this has to do with me.”

She takes another drag on her cigarette and signals to Jep to fetch over two beers.

“They were out on a run, when it happened. Kel was sergeant-at-arms at the time, not that that had anything to do with it, it just meant that he needed to be there. I always got nervous when they went on runs, wasn’t all that keen when Kel started to move up the ranks, but he was living his dream, you know? Who was I to stand in his way, especially when this club had given us a lifeline. Anyway…” She stops talking for a second, drops her head and takes a breath before raising it again. “He didn’t come home alive. Everyone else did, but not Kel.” She shrugs and turns her head away, and I can tell she needs a second. Because I know what she’s about to tell me now. “They’d been in the middle of finishing a deal, in a bar just over the bridge, when another gang stormed in. A gang the Bandits had had dealings with in the past. Men who were still harboring grudges over a lost business opportunity the Bandits had jumped on. From what I was told it was quick, and it was instant, and Kel was the only brother to lose his life, which made it seem so much worse, at the time…”

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper, because I am, sorry.

“I blamed the club, I mean, of course I did! If he hadn’t been a part of it he’d still be alive, that’s what I thought. It’s what you’re thinking, too, isn’t it?”

I nod as another wave of grief threatens to engulf me.

“And you’d be right, to think that. Both Kel and your mama, they would be alive today if they hadn’t been involved with this club. But shit happens. We can’t turn back time, and I know it’s easy for me to say that now, my grief has subsided. It was a long time ago, when Kel died. Your grief is still raw and painful and I have no idea when you’ll even begin to feel better, we’re all different on that score.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever get over this,” I say quietly, glancing back over at Kasper, whose eyes meet mine, but I immediately look away. And I know none of this is his fault, not really, but I desperately need someone else to blame. Shouldering all the guilt is becoming exhausting.

“Maybe you won’t. I’m not sure anyone ever really gets over losing someone they love, but these feelings will fade, believe me. The anger, the frustration, the gut-wrenching pain: the guilt, it’ll all fade. Eventually…”

“I don’t want to be here,” I whisper, looking at Cady. And she reaches for my hand and squeezes it tight, and she smiles, a genuinely warm and friendly smile. Does she really care about how I’m feeling? I don’t know who to trust anymore. Who to believe…

“You can trust Skip,” Cady says, and I want to believe her, but I can’t. I can’t do that, because it was his fault, too. That my mama died. He was the reason she came here in the first place. If she hadn’t met him… “Look, honey, I felt everything you’re feeling now, I hated this place. I fought against everything they tried to do for me, I was a bitch, you have no idea. But in the end I realized they were all I had, and I let them look after me. Let them be my family, they are good people, Ana. To those they care about. And they care about you .”

“They don’t even know me.”

“Then let them get to know you. Let that happen, because they really are all you have now.”

I raise my gaze to the ceiling, try to blink back hot, angry, frustrated tears because that can’t be true. It can’t be. It’s like some horrible nightmare I can’t wake up from.

“You left, though.” I look at her again. “Why did you leave?”

“You don’t need to know that. It’s not important. But it had nothing to do with this club or the people who are a part of it. They’ve been nothing but supportive of me since Kel died. They did everything they possibly could to make sure I was okay, and that’s all they want to do for you. Make sure you’re okay. And this can be a good life, Ana. If you let it happen.”

I find that very hard to believe. “I’ve lost everything,” I murmur as Cady’s fingers tighten around mine. “I’ve lost my mama, my business, my friends. My home. And this will never be my home, okay? It will never be my home.”

She lets go of my hand and shrugs. “There’s nothing more I can tell you, Ana. You’re just going to have to work through this the best you can, but know that there are people here who care about you. And if you need help, it’s there.”

She throws me one last smile and gets up from the couch, and I watch her walk over to the bar, Jep’s face breaking into a huge grin as she leans into him and plants a quick kiss on his cheek. I sit back and cross my legs up underneath myself. I don’t know what to do. I could go and help Freja in the kitchen, but I’m not really in the mood for that. I’m not really in the mood for anything.

“Hey. You want some company?”

I look up as Kasper sits down next to me. “You’re not really giving me much of a choice, are you?”

He just smiles and starts rolling a joint.

“Who’s she?” I ask, jerking my head in the direction of Cady, who’s now holding court with a group of club girls who’ve just arrived.

“Cady Banks. Used to be Skip’s old lady, until she upped and left one day with a brother from our Iceland chapter.”

I frown. Looks like Cady missed out a few details when she was telling me her story. “I thought she said her partner was called Kel?”

“Kel died.”

“Yeah. Cady told me all about it.”

“Her and Skip became an item a little while back. Didn’t last long, though. And it was before he met your mama. Long before that.” Kasper looks at me. “She’s okay. She’s a good person.”

“She was told to come and talk to me, though, wasn’t she?”

“Maybe.” Kasper turns his attention back to the joint he’s rolling. “But only because people care about you.”

“Yeah. I’m hearing that a lot… Was it Skip? Who sent her?”

Kasper shrugs. “Probably.” He looks at me, holding out the joint. I shake my head, I’m not touching any of that shit. Not anymore. I need to keep a clear head from now on. “You talked to Skip much?”

“No.” I haven’t spoken to him much at all, since Mama’s death. Not that I remember, anyway. It’s possible he spoke to me when I was drugged up and sick with grief, I can’t recall. “There’s not really anything I want to say to him, to be honest.”

Kasper takes a drag of his joint, his eyes scanning the still almost empty clubhouse. “He’s a good man, you know.”

I don’t respond to that. I don’t want to. I’m tired of people telling me everyone around here is “good” because it sure doesn’t feel that way to me.

“He’ll take care of you.”

“I don’t need taking care of. That’s all anyone ever talks about, me being taken care of. I can look after myself.”

“It’s not safe for you to leave here, Ana.”

“So everyone keeps telling me.”

His eyes lock on mine. “Believe them. The Hawks, they don’t forgive or forget, that’s the kind of world you’re living in now. It’s shitty and it’s wrong but it’s reality. Your reality.”

“If it’s that bad why are you here? What makes you want to be a part of this?”

“We’re all here because we want to be a part of something. We’re outsiders, and this place, it makes us feel like we belong.”

“But I’m not like you. I had a life. I had friends…” I drop my head, clasp my hands together in my lap, my shoulders sagging with resignation. “Had. I’m hearing that word a lot.”

There’s a moment of silence. Just the noise of people talking and laughing: the sound of the TV in the background.

“We could go for something to eat tonight. If you want.”

I look up, narrowing my eyes slightly. “Could we?”

“If you want to, yeah.”

“That’s allowed, is it?” I’m aware my tone is verging on sarcasm, but I don’t care. “I can leave, as long as I’m with one of you?”

“I’m not asking you out of duty or pity, Ana. I’m asking because I like you.”

And I liked him, once upon a time. Back in another life. That’s how it all seems now. Like I turned a corner and everything changed.

“I’m not all that hungry,” I murmur, turning my attention back to the group of club girls over by the bar. Cady’s still holding court, gesticulating wildly as she regales them with some story or other. She oozes confidence, this woman who tried to be kind to me. I’m just not sure whether she was being genuine, or just following orders. And that’s exactly how I feel about Kasper. Does he really want to take me out, or is it just something Skip’s asked him to do?

“Just a drink, then?”

I frown. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because I like you, Ana. I already told you that.”

“Why? I mean, look at me! I’m a mess.”

“And that isn’t your fault.”

“Why are you being so nice to me?”

“You ask a lot of questions.”

“I think it’s only right I ask a lot of questions. I have no idea who any of you are, I don’t know this place, this life. I’m scared and alone and I–”

“You’re not alone.”

“I feel like I am.”

“But you’re not.”

“Like I said, why are you being so nice to me?”

He smiles, a genuinely friendly smile that reaches his dark-blue eyes. “We’re not bad men, Ana.”

“Not until you have to be, right?”

His smile fades a little, and it’s his turn to drop his head. “Not until we have to be,” he murmurs. “Look, Ana, I know that you probably blame me for what happened, in some way.” He looks up, and for the first time in a long time I actually feel something; an emotion other than fear and anger and pain. Something lighter. Hope, maybe? No. That can’t be right, what hope could there possibly be in this situation? “You came to this place because of me. Your mama, she came looking for you, because of me–”

“It wasn’t your fault, Kasper.” Because it wasn’t, in reality. “It was my choice not to tell Mama where I was going. My choice, no one else’s. She came looking for me because I made the wrong decision.”

Another moment of silence passes, our eyes still locked. “I wish things could’ve been different,” he whispers.

“I can’t argue with you on that one,” I say, and I’m finding myself smiling at him. Lightening the mood. And it feels strange, to feel something other than empty and numb.

“So, what do you say? I know this great little pizza place in town that also serves really good beer.”

I don’t know. I don’t know whether I’m ready, I don’t think I am. In fact, I know I’m not, so I shake my head, and the disappointment in his eyes is all too obvious.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I just – I can’t.”

“I get it,” he sighs, taking one last drag on his joint before he stubs it out in the ashtray. “But if you change your mind…”

“She won’t.”

We both turn our heads to see Joel approaching, tall and imposing, his hands in his pockets, a heavy stubble now covering his jawline, his once slightly longer hair now cut into a shorter, almost smarter style, and I wonder why. Why has he done that? And then I realize I don’t care. Because I don’t. I don’t care about anything, least of all this man.

Kasper looks at Joel, frowning as he stands up. “I think she can make her own decisions, Joel.”

“Sure she can.” Joel fixes his gaze on me, raising an eyebrow. “But you’ve already done that, right?”

I nod, quickly dropping my head. I want to get out of here so bad, none of this even feels real right now. I’m still hoping it’s one long nightmare that I’ll wake up from, eventually.

“Skip wants a word,” Joel says, his attention obviously back on Kasper. I keepmy head down. I just want them all to go away, I’m tired. Of everything. “Come on. We’re getting out of here.”

It takes a second before I realize Joel’s talking to me again. And another second before I respond. Raise my gaze. Lock eyes with a man who’s always there, whether I want him to be or not. And it’s the latter. Always the latter.

“Where are we going?”

He doesn’t answer me. He just turns around and starts walking toward the door, and even though the last thing I want to do is follow him: go anywhere with this man, I get up and do just that. I follow him outside.

“Put this on.”

He throws me a helmet and climbs onto his bike, jerking his head back to tell me to get on behind him. But I hesitate. And he looks at me with a slightly irritated expression.

“Get on the bike, Ana.”

I reluctantly pull on the helmet and climb on behind him, reaching back for the grab rail, my fingers tightening around it as he pulls away. And I don’t know where the hell we’re going, but the bigger part of me still ceases to care.