2. Reed

Reed

2

Voices make their way into my subconscious, slowly snapping me out of my haze. I'm standing in the middle of the bathroom, and it's still warm from my shower. Wiping my hand across the foggy mirror, I blink myself into focus. I was staring at myself when I started to blur. Tracing the cuts and bruises, like the longer I survived looking at them, the easier it will be to understand why they were there.

But I must have slipped into another dark corner in my mind because one minute there was me, and then it was all foggy.

After my shower, Mason knocked on the door to let me know my brother was here. He said Sage was making a phone call downstairs but that he'd be right up.

Mason stayed to clean my wounds with antiseptic and check to make sure I didn't have a concussion before finding his way back to the kitchen. He's so thoughtful and careful, when right now I'm not in the headspace to process that.

My face hurts bad. My head rings. My skin feels like its own being, throbbing and pulsing all over me.

I barely remember how I got to Los Angeles or to this apartment because time started skipping.

Everything after hopping on the bus in San Francisco is a blur. I remember shoving my driver's license and cash into my back pocket before walking out of the apartment I share with Carter, but that was it.

The bus driver looked at me sideways. She didn't ask why I was bleeding or crying, and I appreciated that. I hid in the back until we stopped in LA.

Logically, I know how I got here—to this apartment.

But how did I get here—in my life?

My father raised a fighter. Not the weak girl I've become.

I was born and raised on the Twisted Kings motorcycle club compound. I learned how to fight when I was nine years old, and how to change a tire at ten. I've worked hard my whole life, and I'm capable of supporting myself. I can kill someone with a pocketknife if it comes down to it.

Still, I let him do this.

Another tear slips down my cheek, and I hate that I'm crying. I hate that he's made me this person who no longer recognizes the girl in the mirror. I'm twenty-six and more lost than I've ever been. It's pathetic.

Slowly, I make my way out of the bedroom, my head pounds harder as I move through the tunnel that is the hallway. I step into the living room, and it moves on its axis, flipping around like I'm on some funhouse roller coaster. I flatten my back to the wall and press my fingers to my temples, closing my eyes and trying to find my balance.

"Careful."

I blink my eyes open to see Sage kneeling in front of me. I'm sitting on the floor, not remembering getting here.

Time is skipping again.

My vision is blurring.

I didn't hear Mason and Sage stop talking, but the room is silent as my brother looks me over. A slow pulse throbs between my temples with my heartbeat.

How did I get here?

"Reed." Sage tips my chin up, and I'm met with his dark eyes.

Every year, Sage looks more and more like our father. Or maybe I just think that because I don't remember Mom outside of photographs. She died from breast cancer when I was two years old, so all I'm left with are the stories.

But Sage has Dad's dark eyes and strong facial features. And as I glance down and see his new vice-president patch on his cut, he might as well be my father's legacy come to life. He fought it for a while, but he found his way because it's who he was always meant to be.

"Are you with me?" He scans my wounds, and I swear they hurt more when he looks at them.

"Yeah." I press my lips together and try to find my center. "Sorry, you're probably busy. You got here so fast."

"I was downstairs at the shop when Mason called."

"You didn't have to leave work for me."

Sage shakes his head, and he's calm to the point of it being a little terrifying.

I know my brother, and while most people are familiar with his carefree side, that's not the side of him that's revealing itself now. This is his calm before the storm. Protective rage threatening to boil to the surface.

Every time his gaze moves to one of my cuts or bruises, I sense him on the verge of snapping, and I'm overwhelmed with guilt.

Sage went through so much when Lyla was taken when we were younger. He suffered for years, feeling like he had failed her. I didn't want to add to his list of burdens. Which is why I hid Carter's escalations from him.

It's not Sage's fault.

There's nothing he could have done to stop it when I let this happen. But I don't think he would agree as evidenced by the way he looks at me right now.

The truth is out in the open. There's no more hiding.

"Don't apologize. The shop's closed for the night and not important. You're my sister. Of course I came."

"Where's Lyla?" I glance around when Sage lets go of my chin.

"She headed home. We didn't want to overwhelm you when I wasn't sure what I was walking into."

"Home?" I look around and remember rushing Mason at the front door before burying my face in my hands. "That's right, you moved."

Everything is so blurry.

I talked to Lyla on the phone last week. She and Sage were officially moving to the compound to be closer to the club, and Mason was going to continue renting Sage's old apartment.

Sage rests his hand on my shoulder. "You've had a long night."

Long night.

Long month.

Long six years.

I tip my head back and catch a glimpse of Mason staring in my direction from across the room. He took care of me when he could have sent me away. More than that, he made me feel safe when it didn't feel possible.

And now he watches me.

He towers, and it's pronounced with the low ceilings.

His eyes pinch with worry, and I'm reminded how kind he is. How thoughtful and funny and beautiful. Every inch of his body is carved from his biceps to his jawline. He's over a foot taller than me, and his blond hair is the perfect mess of highlights and dark streaks on top of his head.

Mason could be cut from the cover of a romance novel, and I'm the disaster curled in a ball in the corner of his living room because I let the man I love do this to me.

"I need to know what happened." Sage shifts, worry clear in his eyes.

He's using a tone I haven't heard before—slipping into his role at the club and out of the one that's my brother. After everything that occurred recently, I don't blame him. He's probably worried it's club-related retaliation.

"It's not what you think."

"So, Carter isn't a dead man walking?" His voice drops.

Maybe it is what he thinks after all.

I glance from Sage to Mason, and he doesn't look any more pleased than my brother. The first time I met Mason, he seemed so carefree, even if the demons in his eyes gleamed when he thought I wasn't paying attention.

"We got into an argument. And…"

And what? He lost his fucking mind because I caught him texting with another woman. He reminded me it was my fault for not being enough for him.

Does anything come close to excusing his actions?

"Maybe if you weren't such an uptight bitch, I wouldn't need anyone else."

"You don't mean that."

Carter closes in on me, and I'm overwhelmed with the smell of whiskey and cigarettes. His dark hair is messy, and there are red splotches on his neck from someone else kissing him.

"Don't I?" He grabs my chin so hard it clicks.

Ever since he "accidentally" threw a book at my face three months ago, my jaw has acted up on occasion.

"Please, Carter. You can't—"

He releases my face and backhands me before I can finish my sentence. Fighting back only makes this worse, and I know that. Still, I can't help but try every time.

Carter pushes me to the ground when I try to shield myself. He kicks me in the stomach before leaning down to roll me on my back and look me in the eyes. His fingers are so cold where they're wrapped around my throat.

There's no winning, but I try to peel him off me. I fight the man I wish I didn't love. Staring him straight in the eyes.

Eyes I used to trust.

Eyes I used to believe.

He holds me down until my vision clouds, and I'm struggling for air. Lowering his face when I start to struggle more.

"You don't get to tell me what I can and can't do, Reed." He tightens his grip, resting his knee on the center of my chest, and I think maybe this is the time he'll finally put an end to this for both our sakes. He doesn't. "Clean yourself up. I'm going out for a bit."

Carter slams the back of my head against the floor as he releases my neck. My mind is spinning in circles as he climbs off me. The floor vibrates with his hard steps, and I don't breathe until the front door closes behind him.

It didn't begin like this, but somewhere over the past six years, I forgot to keep track of how things started changing.

Control turned into comments, and then came the violence. Most of the time he avoided my face because I couldn't be seen with him in public when I had bruises, but even that started to change recently.

It takes everything in me to climb to my feet, and when I do, my head spins again. I hurry to the kitchen sink just in time for it to catch my vomit.

I can't keep doing this.

Everything aches as I pull my driver's license and cash from my purse. But I don't bother taking my phone because Carter will just track it.

I can't risk it.

Not until I'm gone.

Not until I finally disappear.

"Reed." Sage's eyebrows are pinched as he holds my jaw.

"I'm fine." I shake my head, lying to both of us.

Who knows, maybe it's partly true, given I've been through worse and survived.

At least today, Carter cut himself off after smacking me around. Which is better than when he gets turned on by it. Those nights I really do wish I was dead.

Sage glares at me, and I know he doesn't believe the words I'm saying. But nothing I admit will turn back time. The state of my cuts and bruises is all the justification my brother needs to do something—with or without me explaining the gory details.

"I wish you'd come to me, Reed." He frowns.

"It wouldn't have done any good."

"I could have—"

"Don't finish that sentence." Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath. "You couldn't have done anything, okay? That's not how this works."

He doesn't understand that in order for him to help, I'd have to let him. And if he makes me face the fact that I've been na?ve in thinking I could make this better on my own so I wouldn't lose the man I love, I might fall apart completely.

"Please, just let it go right now." I open my eyes. "For me."

He nods, but tension rolls off him in waves.

"Why don't you get some sleep." Sage glances over at Mason. "Is she good?"

"No concussion. I checked."

Sage's jaw ticks, even though that's good news.

"Come here." Sage stands, holding out his hands for me.

I'm not stupid enough to think he's letting this go, but right now, I'm tired and don't have the energy to argue with him. I knew that by coming here, my brother would be pissed. That he'd want vengeance. But that's not happening tonight, no matter how much Sage might want to act on it.

Carter isn't like the guys the Twisted Kings are used to dealing with. He's rich and powerful. If he was dragged into a horse stall on the Twisted Kings compound and disappeared, people would notice.

So if sleep is what Sage is offering, I'll take him up on it.

"Thanks." I lift off the ground with Sage's help, bracing myself on the wall to maintain my balance.

"Lyla's still remodeling the house, so it's kind of a mess, but there are a couple of spare bedrooms in the clubhouse."

"The clubhouse?" The thought of going back there has my stomach twisting.

"If that's okay?"

"She can stay here," Mason offers.

It might be out of courtesy, or he might have noticed my hesitation; either way, I appreciate it.

"She's safer at the compound."

"I'm fine here." I glance from Sage to Mason. "I don't need you watching out for me."

Neither of them seems to believe that.

Do I?

"I'm used to crashing here when I'm in town." My focus returns to my brother. "It's more comfortable."

The clubhouse is an endless party. And even if it's quieter upstairs, it's the last place I want to be right now.

I know Blaze and Sage have been turning things around at the club these past eight months, so it's not the chaotic hellhole it was when Kane was in charge, but it's still a motorcycle club and a work in progress.

"Please, Sage."

He looks from me to Mason, worry etched in his expression as he thinks it over.

"All right. If you're more comfortable here, and Mason's fine with it…" Sage rakes his hand through his hair, glancing at Mason.

"Of course it's fine."

Mason might be saying that out of pity or protectiveness, but I'm too tired to care.

Sage nods, turning back to me. "Lyla said she'll come and see you tomorrow if you're up for it. She's worried about you."

"That would be nice." Lyla is like a sister, and that might be exactly what I need right now. "I'm going to lie down."

I reach in for a hug, and it takes Sage a moment to process what I'm doing. Frustration comes from him like it's a physical being, and I get it. There's nothing comforting about things being out of your control. I've lived with that for years now.

Finally, Sage uncrosses his arms and lets me in. He hugs me tight, and I wish it was as simple as when we were kids. When a hug could solve all our problems because they weren't so big.

Pulling back, I start toward the hallway, glancing up at Mason as I walk past.

"Thanks."

He nods, once again not saying anything in return.

Making my way down the hall, my side starts to pulse again where Carter kicked me. I rub the raw bruise and hope it goes away quicker than it did the last time when he broke a rib.

I take a deep breath and remember how my face looked when I was staring in the mirror earlier. I'm already mentally planning how to hide the gashes with makeup, and I really shouldn't be so good at this.

Never again.

Carter will never hurt me again.

I just hope I can find the strength to mean it this time.