Page 77 of The Devil's Scars

“Please…”

“No.”

And when she watched him walk out this door, this time, she knew that he was gone. That she’d really made sure that he was gone.

And unlike the other times that she’d driven him away, she didn’t even try to justify her behavior with the reasons she’d been holding close and tight for the past six years. Her reasons were crap, she saw now, they were uttercrap, and they were nothing but excuses for her to run scared.

Zoe remembered something that she’d had to read back in high school English lit class, an absolutely torturous book with endless individual stories written in Ye Olde English. There was a dragon in one of the tales, and the dragon clutched its grievance and rage to its chest, and chewed on its maw, night and day, getting sicker and more twisted with each passing year. It stubbornly held onto its resentment and harmed itself – and never once did the dragon think to just express what its goddamn problem was. To set itself free from its own misery, using its own voice.

For six years, Zoe had been chewing on her maw, clutching the events of that night to her breast in a death grip – and not once had she talked to Scars about any of it, told him how it had colored and tainted her views on him.

Scars was right. She was a coward.

Worse, she was a coward who’d punished a man for things that had literally nothing to do with him.

Scars hadn’t been in the bar back room that night six years ago. He’d been in the MC, of course, been one of their ilk, but they’d never even laid eyes on each other back then. And if Zoe were being honest with herself, she knew that if Scars had stumbled upon that whole awful, terrifying scene, he’d have stopped his fellow MC members.

Yes, he would have. He’d have protected her, a total stranger. He’d have roared at them to get off her, and he’d have covered her with clothes off his own body. He’d have chosen decency over brotherhood. Just like Wolf did.

Wolf. I need to talk to Wolf. It’s time.

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