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“I’ll be fine,” I tell him as my mother comes to stand by his side, resting her hand gently on his shoulder. His pleading look at her as he silently asked for her help was downright gut-wrenching.
“She will be fine,” Mom tells him. “You know she will. She may look like me, but she’s your daughter through and through.”
She’s been saying that for years, ever since I can remember actually, and I always liked hearing it, always knew she was right, and was always proud of it.
Until now.
My father, Scar, is a high-ranking member of Devil’s Nightmare MC, an outlaw biker gang of notoriously cold-blooded and ruthless killers. And he isn’t just a member, he’s the one who tortures people to get the information they need. He’s feared far and wide, not just because of the large, jagged scar covering half his face, but also because of his mercilessness.
That’s not the man I know him to be.
Sure he’s tough and strong, but my dad is also a kind man who has always, without fail been there for me and my mom. She’s a former beauty queen him and the rest of his closest Devil’s Nightmare MC brothers saved her from a life of sexual slavery a long time ago.
I’ve always known what they were, these men who are as good as blood to me too. One of my actual blood relatives, my uncle and Scar’s brother, is the man responsible for the jagged scar on my father’s face and my mother’s nightmares. And they saved her from that.
But I’ve never actually seen them live up to their dark reputation.
Not until they killed a hundred men like it was nothing.
In revenge, sure, and well-deserved revenge at that.
And not exactly like it was nothing.
I’ve never seen such deathly coldness in any of their eyes as I did after it was done. Or felt such freezing nothingness coming off them.
Truth is, I can’t stand to be around them now.
Not after almost losing Hunter, the son of Devil’s Nightmare MC President, and one of my closest, dearest, and oldest friends. And especially not after Jax, the man I chose, the man I still know I can’t live without, left me last fall. Not after finding out that the men I loved as uncles really are ruthless killers and that murder truly does take away a part of your soul. Because it does. It ripped their souls apart and I hope souls heal. Because right now I can’t look at any of them the same way.
Hopefully I just need some time away from it all. Hopefully everything will be back to the way it should be by the time I return. I’m afraid it won’t.
As things are, I can’t write new songs, I can hardly sing the ones I have already written and I’ve forgotten what joy feels like.
So yes, I have to go.
And no, I can’t explain all that to my father. Or my mother.
They’d just worry and fret worse if I tried.
So I just finish off the rest of my coffee from a bubble gum pink mug with my name spelled in neon green letters—my mom made these for us in her pottery class a very long time ago—and stand up.
“I should hit the road,” I tell them. “Please stop making it so hard.”
Mom smiles, which makes her pretty face even more beautiful and nods. Dad just sits there with his mouth slightly ajar like he’s about to say something to stop me. But he closes it as my mom squeezes his shoulder and stands up too.
He offers me his hand. “Good luck then.”
I take his hand and he pulls me into one of those giant bear hugs that only he can give perfectly. But even that’s not the same anymore. All that death they dealt out hangs over everything and everyone like a widow’s veil and the sadness shrouding everything is on par with that image.
Mom gives me a hug too, her clear, flowery perfume that’s mostly just her natural scent exploding all around me. She wipes away a tear as she lets me go and I almost say I’ll stay another day.
She’s worried too, I know she is, because she knows exactly how cruel and merciless the world can be to a beautiful young woman alone. But she’s hiding it and I’m grateful for that. I postponed going on this tour for years, knowing how she felt about me being out in the world on my own, how scared she is that what happened to her will happen to me too. But I’m ready now and if I wait any longer, I might never do it.
She’s devoted her life to raising me and making sure I was always protected, but she’s been going to her ranch up in the hills more and more lately. It’s a sanctuary for horses and she loves working there, loves taking care of those animals no one wants, and that’s the one thing I could never share with her. Horses and dogs terrify me, always have. But she finds peace there. And I hope she will after I’m gone too.
Truth is, Jax was supposed to come with me on this tour. I’ve been planning it for over a year now without telling anyone. And I wouldn’t have to worry about a single thing if he was with me. Not one. Never.
But Jax changed his mind. About coming with me on the tour, and about being with me in general. Said a bunch of stupid things like that he’s no good for me, that I’m better off without him and that he’d only hold me back. That my songs will only get better with him gone from my life. Stuff he’s told me every time he left before. I thought we’d gotten past all that and we were finally both sure that we’d found our home in each other. I was sure of it.
