Page 78 of Deserter

Why hadn’t I bought her a goddamn mini mansion near the country club?

Wolverine had held onto it for me; thought I’d want it someday. They might’ve ripped out the carpet and bleached away the blood, but this place was always going to be a graveyard. Hadn’t I known that?

Grey was gone, replaced by a scared sixteen-year-old kid again.

“Celia?” I pushed the bedroom door open and the copper scent of blood immediately hit my nostrils. Something was wrong.

Something was very wrong.

The baby’s cries were coming from the bathroom, but I didn’t want to go in. I knew that whatever was behind that door was going to fuck me up. I wanted to run from this house and ride around the city until I found Celia, but a part of me knew that she was here.

She’d always been here.

I turned the handle and the baby’s wails turned to little gasps as she looked up at me. She was mine; I could tell just by looking at her big blue eyes and blonde hair. I was so focused on her that I almost missed Celia.

Almost.

I dropped to my knees with a cry and the baby climbed onto me, clinging to my kutte. Celia was leaned up against the wall near the shower, looking just like Ma had that night.

It was as if my heart had been ripped from my fucking chest. Her skin was a canvas of black and blue bruising and dried blood. I shifted the baby and pulled Celia’s body into my arms, the three of us rocking on the floor.

Blood began to pour from between her legs and I made a noise that didn’t even sound human. Her belly was still swollen, but our child was gone. Just like she was.

“Celia!” I screamed and the baby began sobbing again. “Celia!”

“Jamie, wake up!” A voice whispered near my ear and I shot up with a gasp, colliding with a warm body. “Ow.”

“Celia?”

She groaned in response and I patted along her body. “Did I hurt you?”

“Little bit. You’re a lot harder than you look. It was just a nightmare.” Her long hair tickled my face and neck as she crawled into my lap and settled against my chest.

I’d seen a world where she no longer existed, and I realized that I’d never survive without her. I’d been convinced that I was breaking her down and molding her into what I wanted her to be, yet she’d shown up tonight with a sledgehammer and taken down walls I hadn’t even known I had.

I took the weapon from her hands and demolished the door to a room I’d kept locked up for nine years. “My ma—” My throat tightened, doing its best to keep me from entering my past.

Celia’s arms tightened around my neck. “You can tell me. Don’t be afraid.”

I wanted to tell her that I wasn’t afraid of shit, but sitting with her in my lap, surrounded by darkness, I found that I didn’t have to be tough.

She needed me.

The real me.

“My old man was a piece of shit.” I threaded my fingers through her hair, needing the distraction. “He, uh, he wasn’t the same after coming home from Vietnam. He smacked Ma around a lot. When he joined Wolverine’s club, I thought things would get better. He’d get out of the house and she and I could get back to the way things were before.”

My voice didn’t sound like mine. It was slow and methodical, like an actor on television. Celia burrowed her face into the side of my neck, her hands softly stroking my back.

“Ma fell for another biker in the club and got knocked up.”

Her hands stopped moving and she sat up slowly. “Your ma got pregnant by someone else? Was he—was he a good man?”

For the life of me I’d never understand why Wolverine had allowed it to happen. I’d seen Ol’ Ladies discarded by their men and they were still off-limits to any other brother in the club. Club whores had been sent packing if they came between two brothers, yet Wolverine had turned a blind eye to Angel and Mary.

I wondered how different our lives would’ve been if he hadn’t.

I clenched my jaw and nodded. “Yeah, Angel was a fuckin’ saint compared to Donald. Obviously, my old man assumed the kid was his, but that didn’t stop him from beating the shit out of her anyway. She lost the baby on a fuckin’ motel bathroom floor.”

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