Page 61 of What Lies Within

Bless his soul.

"Like deeper mood shifts." I close my eyes and press the heels of my hands into them. I always hate voicing this bullshit when I'm in the thick of it. "For a week or so each month, my brain convinces me it'd be easier to die."

The silence is telling.

Regret sluices through my veins, the insatiable need to disappear.

To not burden people with the truth.

The trickle crests my cheekbones, and I let the fucking silent tears run until my ears fill with the salty moisture. Until it slows and dries as fast as it started.

Until I numb out once more.

“Rae.” Tyke’s gentle use of my name sets a weight in my chest that I can’t explain. “Look at us, please.”

Nostrils flaring, I fight down the surge of despair. Of hate and regret. Of grief.

For the girl, I could have been.

For the future that I'll never have because of this.

"Why?" If I lift my hands and remove the pressure, I can't guarantee I can stop what comes next.

The breakdown. And the inevitable recovery.

“Because I need you to.” His voice has shifted. Closer. In front of me.

I draw a deep breath and drop my hands, brushing the left against a leg that wasn’t there before.Digger?

With a swallow, I crack my eyes open and nearly fall apart at what I find.

Tyke stands over me, legs wide to straddle mine. His hands are braced on the sofa back on either side of me, but it's not the fact I never noticed him shift that spears me in the heart. It's the softness in his gaze, the tenderness and warmth that shines in those brown hues as he slowly lifts one side of his mouth in a lazy smile.

"I care about you, baby girl," he states. "Fuck. Think it makes more sense to say I love you.Welove you.”

“As you are,” Digger adds, sweeping the loose strands of hair behind my ear. “No other way.”

“Whatever shit you gotta go through with this thing,” Tyke says, imploring me with his dipped chin and wide eyes. “We’ll walk it with you.”

“I don’t fucking deserve you,” I choke. “Either of you.”

Digger’s fingers weave through the hair at the back of my head as he pulls me closer to press a kiss against my temple. “Tell myself the same damn thing every day.”

25

TYKE

I'm a cunt. An absolute motherless asshole of a fucking bastard. My soul weighs heavier with every word as Digger and Rae recount what happened while I was talking shop with Marco. How a woman I respected as a part of the club for life used the opportunity to fucking take what's ours and then try to fuckingkillher.

If Sweetie's body weren't already lifeless, I'd be fucking making sure it was. Shit. Almost want to raise the dead so I can throttle the fucking bitch myself. But then a pride swells in my chest when I think about what my girls did. What my beautiful daughter and incredible old lady did.Old lady.Shit, yeah. Rae’s my fuckin’ old lady—as much as she’s Digger’s—and I fucking love the sound of that.

My phone vibrates against my hip, and I slip it free far enough to check the screen while Digger still talks. He stalls, noting what I do, and jerks his chin my way. “What’s it say?”

"Update from Minion. They're tracking Fox." I pull the phone out of my pocket and open the unusually long message. "Fucker spooked when they got to Sweetie's house before he did." Ithumb back a reply, asking if Marco's boy has caught up with their group. The response is immediate.

“What?” Digger slides forward on his seat beside Rae, hand woven with hers.

"Deo's not with them." The father in me itches to call Marco and give him the update. But the leader in me knows Marco should already monitor his son's movements.

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