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I could feel him watching me, but I didn’t make eye contact. I was confused and angry and hurt, not just physically but emotionally as well. I was drained mentally, tired of trying to survive. I just wanted to live, not have to worry about looking over my shoulder.
I drank half the bottle and he took it from me, putting the cap back on and setting it on the bedside table once more. And then we stayed there for a moment not speaking, the thickness of the air in the room increasing. I had a lot of questions, but the thing that overrode all that was the fact that I felt safe.
I felt safe with Butcher. I shifted slightly again and looked over at him now. He was towering over the bed but finally walked back to the chair, as if he knew to put a little bit of distance between us, as if I needed a little breathing room to get through this.
“What happened after I passed out?” I remembered hitting the ground and then everything else went dark.
He lifted his hand and ran it over the back of his head, his dark hair a little on the longer side, getting messed up as his fingers moved through the strands. “Not much.” He cleared his throat and leaned back in the chair, the wood creaking slightly. “I ended up carrying you out to my SUV and taking you to the clubhouse. I had Doc look you over. Thankfully, it’s nothing a little rest won’t cure.”
In just a short amount of time, I had to meet the MC resident doctor twice. I didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing.
“So I’m at your… clubhouse?”
“Yeah. It’s the safest place for you to be while we work on bringing this fucker down.” The way he said that last part had my heart racing.
It was said with so much venom, so much anger, that I actually felt it, as if it were icy fingers skating down my arms.
I didn’t say anything for a moment, because I didn’t know what to say. But I forced myself to find my nerves, needing to know what was going to happen, how this would go down.
“When you say ‘work on bringing this fucker down,’ what does that mean exactly?”
He didn’t speak for long seconds, just stared at me from over in the corner, one of his elbows propped on the armrest of the chair, his hand curled into a fist as he rested his chin on his knuckles. He didn’t have to answer for me to know what he was talking about, but I wanted to hear him say it.
This sick part of me wanted those words to move between us, for me to really let them be absorbed. For them to be reality.
“What do you want it to mean?”
I didn’t know if it was a challenge from him or he was genuinely curious, but my first instinct was to say I wanted Henry in the ground. I curled my hands into tight fists underneath the blanket, kept my emotions in check, and stared at Butcher right in the eyes.
“He hurt me.” I let those three words hang between us, watched the rage cover his face before he masked it quickly.
Whatever was going on with Butcher, what was painfully clear was that he was protective of me. He’d saved me twice now, but I didn’t know if that protection also had something to do with him wanting me, wanting me more than either of us probably needed to delve into.
“He watched my mother die. He let her die. He did nothing to help her.” I pictured Henry standing above her, just staring down at her as she slipped away into oblivion, as she disappeared forever.
Butcher didn’t say anything, but I could tell his attention was trained right on me, every single word I said being absorbed, catalogued away. I swallowed, my throat tight and dry, emotion threatening to spill forth.
Although my mother hadn’t been good, hadn’t been decent, she had still been my mom. And a part of me did feel that missing piece now that she was gone. But I wouldn’t mourn her, wouldn’t cry over the life she’d led, which ultimately took her away. It was what it was.
“What do you want it to mean?” Butcher asked again and leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs, staring at me intensely.
I leaned forward as well so my back was no longer up against the headboard, showing him that I was strong no matter what. I didn’t know why I needed him to know that, but I did. I needed him to see I could hold my own, that I wouldn’t shy away, wouldn’t cringe in the face of reality, of death and violence and everything he stood for.
