Page 16 of Where We Ended

She pulled the Jeep over, dust flying as she did it.

“Silas Damion Silva,” she snapped, pulling her shades off. “Don’t you ever speak to me that way!”

“You nearly died, Mom! Several fucking times in case you forgot.”

“Don’t speak to me about what I went through.” She pointed at her chest, her voice shaking. “You saw a fraction of what happened and while you don’t like it, this is my life and Dempsey is a safe choice.”

Tears burned the backs of my eyes. I hated this. I hated her for allowing it. I just wanted a normal life, one with a mom who didn’t have scars on her stomach from when my father held a blow torch to it just to send a message. One who didn’t have to teach me a second language that no one used just to be able to have conversations that didn’t get us killed.

“I don’t want him near Natty.” I looked off to the side, clenching my jaw.

Mom was quiet for a second when she finally let out a sigh, turning the engine over.

“Natty doesn’t come around the club often; she comes home at night, stays for her morning lessons and then she leaves. She doesn’t like being there without you around.”

I didn’t reply, but something in my stomach felt like it had finally unwound.

Relief.

We drove back in silence. Once we hit the dirt road leading to the clubhouse, my stomach tightened again in dread. I hated this fucking place.

Mom parked outside the small house off to the side. She was able to grow vegetables and keep chickens that cut on food costs for the club, so they gave her, her own little two-bedroom house. It was old and weathered, but at least it wasn’t inside the clubhouse and it gave her the chance to have a tiny bit of privacy.

The engine cut off and there was already someone yelling and laughing off to the side of the club with two members drinking while working on their bikes. One of them leveled me with a glare as he sipped on an amber bottle of liquor. The cut over his chest told me this man was going to be a problem I had to solve.

Dempsey.

He stood and tossed the bottle, heading over toward my mother.

I grabbed my duffle, clenching my jaw again as I bit back all the words I wanted to say to him. The threats that he better treat my mother right would all be wasted on any member in this club. They had no code they lived by, no morals; they were just like my father.

Soulless.

I ignored what I heard as he pulled my mother into a hug and started up the porch steps, shoving in through the front door of the house.

The house was old, the floors withered and brittle. They creaked under my boots as I walked, and the doors were barely holding together, the glass knobs loose as I turned mine. A bed barely big enough to hold me sat against the far wall, a simple gray blanket was tucked nicely around the single mattress. No one had touched it since I left a month ago.

My eyes fell to the floor, seeing the small bedroll still laid out, a red sleeping bag over it with a flat pillow at the head. Natty had been sleeping on my floor, but not my bed.

I let the duffle slip from my shoulder and land on the floor then found the loose floorboard near my desk. The board came up easily as I gripped it with my nails and then found the small white note tucked inside.

There was a circle drawn with two t’s inside it. Which meant she was in the grove.

Shoving the note in my pocket, I set the floorboard back and then grabbed my notebook.

The clubhouse was surrounded by barren, flat ground with dead grass and tumbleweeds that littered the dirt. The sky was hazy and hot as I trekked down the canyon and stared at the green water filtering through it. Across the bridge and up the other side of the hill, there was a small patch of forest that offered lush green grass, privacy, and shade. It was a nice hiding place for Caelum and me when we wanted to train or just to talk.

The shade from the tall trees hit my neck and face as I entered the grove. The grass was soft and silent under my boots, and the t-shirt against my back almost felt too thick as I pushed in farther. I knew where she liked to go and where I would find her, so I went until I found the small pond we used to visit when we were kids. There on the dock, where she used to catch bullfrogs, she sat with a book in her lap.

Her golden hair blew behind her in the small breeze that wafted over the pond, sending scents of honeysuckle and cedar over my senses. I tried to memorize every flyaway strand of her hair that blew in the breeze, the way her sun-kissed shoulders looked in that dress and walked closer to her.

The thud of my shoes hit the bridge, but Natty didn’t turn, and that was something I liked about her. She was so calm and unassuming; she was the last rays of a sunset that kissed the world before dipping into starry oblivion. Since I was about nine years old, I realized I wanted to be the kind of person who could be compared to galaxies, like her. But as I grew up, all I found in my chest was a black mass. A void where nothing could survive.

Finally, lowering myself next to her, letting my feet dangle, she turned her face toward me. Green eyes, glittering and rimmed by thick, black lashes. Her lips spread wide in a smile that made something in my stomach swoop painfully low.

“You’re back.”

Words wouldn’t come so I lifted my finger to grab a piece of gold as it flew around her face. I wrapped it around my finger as I watched her eyes examine it.

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