Page 29 of Where We Ended

There were nights I could tell Sasha wanted the house to herself, or to spend time with Dempsey without me around, so I’d go down to the lake and sleep on the dock, staring up at the stars. Occasionally it would be too cold, so I would go inside the club and find the smallest possible corner and use a blanket to hide while I dozed off. I repeated this process enough times that Sasha had noticed, and one night, discovered my little spot while the club was having a huge party. The blanket covering my tiny oasis was ripped from me, while Sasha’s face came into view.

I had a pair of headphones on, some I had found in her son’s room. I slowly slid them off.

“What are you doing in here?”

The lights from the club made me wince, and the music from the club pounded in my ears.

“I’m sleeping.”

Sasha glanced around quickly, seemingly worried with her dark brows drawn in tight.

Her hand shot out and pulled me up. “We have to get you out of here before someone sees you.”

I wasn’t sure why she was so panicked, considering I had been around this club all my life. Even longer than Sasha and Silas had been. They arrived when I was just six or so and by then, I had already seen a world full of horrors someone as good as Sasha couldn’t protect me from.

I stood quickly, grabbing my bag and blanket, trying to follow her through the rear part of the club. We had bypassed a few couples, and one round of pool when my mother suddenly appeared. She had a tray full of shot glasses balanced on her palm, and a sour look stretched across her face. Her blonde hair was curled and lifted into a pretty updo. Her makeup was thick, and her clothes skin tight.

“The fuck you doing in here, Natalia?” she spat.

She may have been speaking to me, but she was glaring at Sasha.

My mouth parted, ready to answer, but Sasha just continued pulling me behind her, eyeing the approaching group headed our way. Sasha tried to divert us, so we’d head in a different direction, but my mother was suddenly there again, stopping me by digging her fingers into my arm.

“No, let him see her, Sasha.” She yanked me so hard, I faltered backward, and I saw Sasha’s eyes get big as fear stamped out all that usual confidence she carried.

I tried to track what was happening but within seconds, my mother’s arms had pushed me hard enough that I wavered forward, and I was running directly into someone’s chest.

A gruff laugh escaped the man’s chest, his fingers were on my upper arms and then his whiskey breath, laced with weed covered my face.

“Who the fuck do we have here?” He laughed, so did a few men around him, and then my mother smiled, and I realized what had just happened. She’d found a way to secure herself a useful position in the club.

While her looks were fading, her hair thinning and her hips diminishing—She was becoming irrelevant, and I was her ticket to remaining flush with drugs.

“This is my daughter, Natty.” She spoke loud and proud as if she were truly a mother. As if she was the one who had helped me when I’d gotten my first period, or who shopped for my first bra. Like she was the one who helped me learn to read, or how to write.

Sasha was fuming behind me, and I knew she was going to fight my mom again. She’d done it before, punching her square between the eyes when she caught her trying to hand me off to someone who wanted to touch me as payment for the drugs she craved so badly.

This was no different except I was bigger, and Sasha had less ability to control what happened to me, and Silas wasn’t here.

Pain radiated up my arms as the man holding me squeezed, forcing my eyes up.

I knew who the president of the club was. I had been watching him from afar my entire life, but I had managed to escape his attention for sixteen long years. Now, unfortunately it seemed my mother had effectively ended that as Dirk seemed to stare with vicious intent.

Sasha stepped up next to me, gently pushing me to the side, and I knew in that moment as Dirk’s hands left my arms, that Sasha would do anything for me. She would die for me, take a bullet, but I also knew beyond a shadow of a doubt this wasn’t about me, it was for her son. She knew Silas was attached to me, in some capacity…I was his favorite thing about life right now and while I knew it would pass, his mother would do anything to keep me from falling to pieces.

I was a glorified teddy bear to her, and merely a golden egg to my mother.

There was no one that wanted me to stay in one piece simply because I was me, and it was the right thing to do, except for maybe Silas.

I didn’t hear what Sasha had promised Dirk, or the way she had flirted, nor did I pay attention to the way my mother pinched the back of my arms, hissing threats in my ears.

Within mere minutes, Sasha was walking us into the night air, the stars hanging overhead as if there wasn’t a whole house full of sinners just existing right below it. A crater in the dirt, full of raiders who worshiped death.

“What just happened?” I was breathless as fear clung to every syllable I managed to get past my teeth.

Sasha didn’t reply until we had crossed the club yard, the garage and a few spare houses. Not until we were pushing through her front door.

“Dirk knows you exist, Natty. That’s what just happened.”

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