AllFreeNovel
Share Us
AGE 18
I heldCallie in my arms as my phone buzzed in my pocket.
Somehow I knew it was Killian calling, regardless that we’d come home without a trace of another member trailing us.
Callie ordered me to explain what happened the second we climbed into the truck and began driving home. So, I did. Slowly, cautiously, and leaving out the part where I joined the club.
Now, we were in the cabin, and she was awake, lying against my chest as the small television on our dresser played some sitcom on Netflix. Neither of us were watching it. Tears kept hitting my bare stomach as she sniffed every so often, wiping at her eyes with the edge of the sheet.
“Did they get the guy who hit me?” she finally whispered after about an hour.
Not fucking yet, but I would.
“Don’t know…your dad is handling things,” I said instead.
She swiped her finger over one of my abs, and let out a tiny shudder. “Who got me out? I mean, if my dad is still dealing with it, and Kill, then who brought me out? How did you find me?”
Fuck.
Hitting pause on the television, I gently pushed the hair off her face and asked her to sit up.
“I need to tell you something. You can get mad…you can hate me.” My voice broke as I pushed a lock of hair off her face. “Just don’t fucking leave me.”
Her hazel gaze searched mine for meaning.
I pushed away the trepidation in my gut and let the confession fall from my lips.
“I got you out. It was me who went in and discovered where you were.”
Her brows caved as her head shook with confusion. “But how did you know where I’d be?”
I stroked her jaw as a pained rasp left my chest, “Hamish told me.”
She immediately retreated from the bed, and her face twisted with anger. “No, because the only way he would tell you is if you were one of them. That’s how it works in the club. You can’t know anything at all, even if a life depends on it, unless you’re patched in.”
She shook her head adamantly, almost as if she were convincing herself.
I slid slowly off the bed, tugging the cut out from under it.
Holding it out to her, I knew right then and there I’d never get the look on her face out of my head, not for as long as I lived. Not the way tears coated her lashes as she gently took the leather from my hands, not the way her lip wobbled as she traced my name, nor the way she sobbed as her nail passed over the fox patch.
My throat grew tight as I worked up a response. “River, I’m so—”
“No!”
She stepped forward and hit my chest, tears streaming down her face.
“You promised me!” Her slaps turned into fists, pounding against my chest.
I walked forward, absorbing the hits, and wrapped my arms around her, sinking to the floor as she cried.
“They can’t have you. They can’t take you from me.”
I rocked her on the floor until she eventually passed out, and even then, I stayed there, terrified of what this would mean for us.
* * *
“You wanted to see me?” I asked, approaching Simon while he worked on his bike.
