Long Way Home

I’ve always been able to do this. Be aware when I’m dreaming, but there’s a cost to it. Sometimes I become paralyzed. Powerless to move my body. My mind awake, my muscles asleep and I’ll panic at the thought of never being in control again. To never speak or walk or run.

I hope this isn’t one of those dreams. To be sure it isn’t, I focus hard and I’m able to twitch a finger—not in the dream, but in reality. Coldness rushes into the heat of the day and I pull back from my conscious mind and return to the dream, but a sense of dread washes through me.

“We aren’t safe,” I say to Chevy. “I shouldn’t be asleep.”

“I first kissed you here,” he replies like that’s an appropriate response, but it’s a dream and I go with it.

“We did a lot more than just kiss here.” Happiness swirls within me at the memories of stolen moments I thought would last forever. We did a lot of firsts in this back field. Too many to count. None of it rushed. All of it slow. Teeny, tiny baby steps because I was never ready for too much too fast and Chevy was patient, always patient as if he was just as scared as I was to go any further than we had before.

Chevy’s smile widens and it’s that mischievous dimpled one that continuously dared me to go along with one of his crazy schemes. Smuggling hot cookies out of Olivia’s kitchen when we were seven. Lifting Cyrus’s Reign of Terror cut when we were ten. Pickpocketing Eli’s keys so we could go joyriding in his truck before we had our licenses.

Can’t take much credit. Chevy was the mastermind with the fast hands. I was the lovely assistant who helped with the distraction, but I loved being part of the action.

I reach out, stretching because I miss touching him so much, but his smile fades and his expression darkens. “Violet, wake up.”

Fear seizes my lungs as storm clouds gather in the sky. Chevy grabs ahold of my arms and yells, “Wake up!”

My eyes snap open, a haze of morning light barely lightens the basement room and the air is knocked out of me as I’m being shoved to the concrete corner. Scuffed black boots in front of me, and when I look up, Chevy has his back to me, arms out, the handcuffs dangling from his fingers.

Nausea races up my throat. They’re returning and this is all Chevy has for weapons.

I push off the floor, and as I stand, Chevy presses back so I’m flush against the wall. “Stay behind me.”

I rub my eyes to wake myself as four men enter the room. All of them from last night. Fiend marches in behind them like a victorious general. Two men fan to the left, the other two to the right. Fiend stays near the door in the middle and sizes Chevy up. “I heard you were wily, but I had bet you couldn’t bust out of cuffs. Guess I was wrong.”

Chevy says nothing and Fiend makes a show of leaning as he looks at me. “Have a nice sleep?”

I don’t break eye contact as I follow Chevy’s lead on staying silent.

Fiend hikes up the waist of his pants. He has a belt on, but his gut is overbearing. “This is how it’s going to play out. McKinley, you’re coming with us. We need to talk about your club.”

“I’m not a member, and even if I were, I don’t speak for the Terror.”

“Your grandfather is the president of the Terror. I have faith you can handle this negotiation.”

“Nothing I do or say holds any weight in the club.”

“I disagree. President’s grandson does hold weight. Especially when it’s his life on the line.”

“You got something to say, say it,” Chevy spits out. “But I’m not leaving her.”

Fiend’s eyebrows rise. “You mean Violet? We know who she is and who her father was to your club. Just like we know who you are and what she means to you.”

My gaze snaps to Fiend’s and he catches it, then winks. Chevy shifts, obviously uncomfortable with the exchange. Uneasiness gathers in my stomach in rolling waves. In the car, Fiend kept reaching over like he was going to pull down my shirt. Twice he almost succeeded. He stole my bracelets. Stole my necklaces. Stole Dad’s watch. Touching parts of me I wished he hadn’t in the process. I suck in a breath in order to contain the dry heave.

I went full-on crazy when he touched me and I kicked the hell out of him. Then Fiend hit me. Several times. I tried to fight back, but he was bigger than me and I thought he was going to keep going until I died, but the man in the front seat barked an order at Fiend to back off, for me to shut up, and the asshole retreated to his side of the backseat and went silent.

It’s funny how my body throbbed, but I felt no pain. How blood trickled against my skin, but there wasn’t an ache. I don’t know what any of that was about, but I do know both men scared me, I’m still scared and I want more than anything to go home.

I didn’t tell Chevy all that really happened. He’s already sacrificed enough to save my brother. I’m not sure if I’ll ever tell Chevy. Not sure if I make it out of this I’ll ever tell anyone. I just want to leave here and pretend none of this happened.

“This can be easy,” Fiend says. “You come with us and she stays here. If it becomes hard, it’s because you made it hard. Anything that happens to you is by your choice.”

Such a bullshit answer. “My choice is to leave.”

Fiend offers me a fake sympathetic shrug. “Not my call to make. But I’ll tell you what, if it makes you feel better, I’ll stay behind to keep you company. Finish what we started last night.”

Heat rushes to my face, dizziness overwhelms me and, this time, I bend over when I can’t contain the dry heave. An arm around my waist, and when I glance up, dark concerned eyes meet mine. It’s Chevy, and as he takes in my reaction, stone-cold anger replaces the concern. He quickly returns his attention to the men who stepped closer at the lowering of his defense.

“I’m okay,” I whisper and shove him away from me. To protect him. To protect us.

“Let’s go, McKinley,” Fiend demands.

Chevy stretches out his arm again. “No.”

Fiend nods, the men are in motion and Chevy backs up, pinning me to the wall again. Fiend reaches to his back and all the air rushes out of my body. There’s a gun in his hand and he’s pointing it at us—at Chevy.

“Move or I’ll shoot you,” Fiends says like he’s bored. “That leaves her alone with us. Your choice.”

My pulse pounds violently in my veins. Chevy promised to protect me, but I don’t want him dead. “Go with them.”

“No.”

“Go with them, Chevy,” I say through gritted teeth.

“I’m not leaving you alone.”

And I need him alive. If he cooperates, they’ll let him live. It’s obvious they have a message for Chevy to give and I’m just the person they’re using to control him.

The guy to the left lunges at Chevy. He raises his arm to fight, leaving an opening, and I watch as Fiend keeps the gun trained on Chevy, but aims it lower, to Chevy’s leg. Maybe Fiend’s going to injure Chevy, ruining his chances of walking, playing football, and if that doesn’t bring him to submission, Fiend will then torture me to make Chevy break.

I’m stronger than this. Bigger than this. If this is how it’s going to be, I’ll go down fighting. I’ll be the wild and crazy girl my father loved. My throat burns at the thought of him. At the thought of leaving behind my mother, my brother. Not sure how the two of them will exist without me there to push them along.

The club will take care of them. The club might never let them learn how to survive on their own, how to be their own person, so my mother and brother will never thrive, but they’ll eat, they’ll sleep and I hope to God the club will learn their lesson from what happens to me and Chevy and they’ll protect the people I love the most.

Chevy’s throwing punches and they’re throwing punches back. He’s losing, he’s bleeding and he grunts in pain. Chevy hits a man so hard that he falls limp to the ground, but then two other guys tackle him and Chevy’s head hits the concrete. His head rolls forward with the impact and there is red streaming from his skull.

The blood drains from my face, but I push my feet forward, toward Fiend. Hoping somehow I’m faster. Hoping somehow I can turn the tables.

Fiend’s eyes widen as he realizes I’m heading for him, and he turns the gun—in my direction. Chevy screams my name and right when my eyes close, as I understand I’m not going to be fast enough, there’s a loud bang and I suck in a breath.

Then oddly I let out that breath in the silence. My heart beats in my ears. Again and again and again and I inhale, the air feeling cold in my lungs. I reopen my eyes and look down at my body. Expecting to see blood, waiting for the pain, but there’s nothing.

“What the hell is going on?” a raspy voice demands. An older man with gray hair, a real-life Mack truck with legs, barrels into the room. He heads toward another new man with a scar on his face who has Fiend pushed up against the wall. His hands around Fiend’s throat like he’s willing to crush the life out of my enemy.

The gun is out of Fiend’s hand and the man with the scar offers it to the older man.

The old man points the gun in Fiend’s direction like it’s a finger and not a loaded weapon. “Did you just shoot a gun at her? Are you insane? She’s Frat’s girl.”