Page 14 of Diesel
The rot spreads deep into every corner of a place I thought of as a sanctuary. Somedays, when I’m sleepingalone knowing my wife is doing the same, I have to wonder if wearing the Sons name is worth it.
What the hell am I even fighting for with the club if I don’t have her?
I offer her my hand. Makenna drops her eyes to the olive branch I’m holding out, and she hesitates. That hurts more than any wound I’ve ever had and when she finally reaches for me there’s no relief. She doesn’t want to be here with me.
I lead her into the house and stop at the kitchen table, guiding her into a chair. I open the cupboards again, trying to find something edible while she leans her elbows on the table, her shoulders slumped, disappearing inch by inch.
“Are you expecting a five-star Michelin meal to materialise?”
I glance over my shoulder, her eyes showing just a little spark of something that’s not exhaustion. Fuck. I didn’t realise how much I needed to see that right now. I haven’t completely dimmed her spark.
“No, trying to find something that’s not mouldy or older than us.”
She snorts. “Food poisoning is so underrated.”
I yank a tin out of the cupboard, checking the date and swear. The sound of her chair scraping back has my head whipping around in case she’s making another break for it, but she’s not. She’s behind me, her perfume in my nose, her heat at my back.
“I should have stopped and got food on the way.”
She hums. “Yeah, but that would have ruined your dramatic kidnapping of me.” She gives me a smile that stops my heart for a second. Makenna’s beautiful, alwayshas been, but that cheeky little quirk of her lips is my Kryptonite. “This is fine, Zane. We’ve lived on worse.”
She’s not wrong. Images of a younger Makenna curled against the wall, her knees drawn to her chest, fill my mind. The entire side of her face is purple, her left eye swollen almost shut. I keep one eye on the cupboard and one on her, scared she’ll shatter the second I look away. She hasn’t stopped shaking since I brought her here. She hasn’t said a word either.
Two pieces of bread, both on the edge of turning, are the only thing in the cupboard that’s edible. There’s a packet of ketchup, and an almost finished bottle of hot sauce. She won’t eat the spice, so I hand her the bread and the ketchup.
She doesn’t take it immediately, but after a moment Makenna lifts her head off her knees. I hate the look in her eyes. Hate the fear I see, the despair. I loathe more than anything that I didn’t get to her in time to prevent this.
“I’m gonna kill that fucker,” I grind out between clenched teeth.
She shakes her head, wincing at the movement. “No, Zane, you’re not.”
I want to touch her face, to erase that bruise with my fingers, but I can’t. Even when it heals, she’ll still feel that scar in her bones. That’s what burns me most. Nothing bad should ever have touched her and this is the second time she’s worn his anger.
“I’m gonna make sure this never happens again,” I assure her. “You’re never gonna be in a position where you get hurt and I can’t stop it.”
Her fingers reach out, ghosting over my face. There’s adusting of stubble, not enough to grow into anything but a reminder that I’m a boy on the edge of becoming a man.
You still can’t protect her…
“You don’t have to take care of me,” Makenna whispers. “Not when you’re going through hell yourself.”
Her fingers hover over the gash just under my temple. It’s scabbed over now, but it bled so much when it first happened, I thought I might pass out.
“I can take it.” And I can. It’s not the first time I’ve been hit or hurt by someone the system put in place to protect me. What I can’t stand is seeing her bleeding and bruised.
“You shouldn’t have to, Zane.”
My throat clogs. She’s the only person who’s ever given a fuck about me, and she has no idea how much that means to me. How it cements my loyalty to her. She’s etched onto my ribs like a spell.
“Did you know that the process of bruising is similar to how bananas ripen and turn brown?” It slips out, just as it always does in these moments where I need to fill the tension with something distracting.
Her lips twitch, her eyes softening. She’s the only one who ever does when I spout this crap. “Are you saying that my face looks like a banana?”
I frown that she came to that conclusion. “No.”
She draws her knees closer to her chest. “One day, we will get away from all of this, Zane. We’ll live in a big house with doors we don’t have to lock to keep out the monsters.” My stomach twists. She has endured too much for a fourteen-year-old girl.
“Where’s this big house going to be?” I ask, going along with the fantasy she’s creating.
