Page 2 of Lost Soul

The way Jessie changed around me hadn’t gone unnoticed. My fourteenth birthday had just past, and with Jessie turning seventeen only a few months before there was a new awkwardness between us now. For so long it had seemed like he couldn’t stand to look at me, yet lately I felt him watching me more often.

I like the way his attention feels, I crave more of it. So much so that I’d started carelessly leaving the bathroom door unlocked when I was taking a shower in the hope he might walk in accidently. I made sure my newly developed curves were shown to their full potential by wearing revealing tops, the kind my daddy would strike a match to if he ever saw me in them.

I wasn’t the only one who had grown up over the past few years, Jessie was even taller now and he’d filled out perfectly. He wasn’t too big like some of the other guys at the club were, but every inch of him was solid. His hair was longer than most boys his age, hanging just above his shoulder when he wore it down, and he’d grown an impressive covering of sandy colored facial hair that I really liked too.

It hadn’t come as a surprise when Daddy made him a prospect on his fifteenth birthday. Jessie hung out at the club every chance he got, and the club owed it to Jessie’s daddy to take care of him, and they always took care of their own, it was their way.

Since Jessie had become a prospect, the brothers Chop and Skid had given Jessie a part-time job at the club garage. It sucked because he spent all his time there these days. I hardly ever saw him, which meant I really had to make the times we were together count.

Today he must have come home after school instead of heading straight to the club like he usually does. I was making my way across the hall from the bathroom to my bedroom with the smallest towel in the house wrapped around my chest. It only just covered my ass cheeks, and it wasn’t even intentional on this occasion, because seeing him caught me completely by surprise.

The timing is perfect, I couldn’t have got it better if I tried, and when he steps onto the landing from his room the shock on my face is genuine and I almost drop the towel completely.

My stomach somersaults as his eyes search me over, and I can’t help but smile when his lips lift into a smirk. I love Jessie’s smirk. I’ve seen it so many times before when he’s offered it to the older girls at school, but here, today, that smirk was all for me.

“I didn’t think you’d be home,” I say, trying to sound annoyed, but at the same time savoring every moment of his eyes being on me.

“I’m just headin’ to the club now.” Jessie moves towards the stairs, and just as I’m about to open the door to my room his low voice stops me.

“You shouldn’t have ridden back from school with those boys today, your daddy wouldn’t like it.”

I roll my eyes at the door before glancing at him over my shoulder, as if he is lecturing me about who I hang out with. The boys he’s referring to aren’t half as bad as the company he keeps at the club.

“Well maybe if you offered me a ride home I wouldn’t have had to,” I add, feeling proud for airing that one out with him. Me and Jessie had been walking to and from school together since the day I started high school. Granted, Jessie had always been a good few strides ahead of me, but the fact that he never left without me was what meant so much. Since he’d gotten his bike, he hasn’t offered me a lift once, which in my opinion is rude.

I make sure I give him a wet flick of my hair before storming into my bedroom. A few seconds later I hear the front door slam, followed by the loud rumble of a bike engine that fades as Jessie rides further away.

Mama got home around seven. She hangs out at the club for most of the day. It’s the only way she gets to spend time with Dad. Even now that I’m older I still get kept away from the club. There are times when it’s been unavoidable, during lockdowns, and the family BBQ’s that even Mama insists I attend. Then there are the school holidays when I never get to go to summer camp like the other kids at school do. Instead I have to endure the club’s makeshift version, which consists of all the club kids, of all ages, in one of the cabins being overlooked by a few of the old ladies.

I hate it, and even more so since Jessie has become a prospect. The boys never used to tease me when Jessie had been around.

Mama and I eat dinner together. She watches some crap on TV while I finish off some homework, and after a few hours spent mostly in silence, she kisses my forehead and stumbles on to her feet.

Mama seemed to be drinking a lot in the evenings lately, or perhaps she’d always drank and I just hadn’t noticed. I put it down to her worrying about what Daddy gets up to at the club when she isn’t around. Since I’ve been born, she’s stopped going there at night. Choosing to spend her evenings with me instead. It was one of the reasons I felt better than the kids who lived at the club.

Their mamas never choose them.

Around eleven I decide to head upstairs myself. Jessie still isn’t home, but that’s nothing to worry about, some nights he doesn’t even bother to come home at all anymore.

Climbing the stairs, I try not think about him being near the women at the club. Especially the ones who linger around anything in a leather cut like flies attach themselves to shit.

I check in on Mama as I pass her room. She’s still clothed, sprawled out on the bed like she was trying to make a snow angel in her duvet. I manage to shift her body enough to pull the covers from under her and tuck her in.

Mama is beautiful, I really hope I age the way she has. Despite being forty-three, there isn’t a trace of grey in her thick mass of black hair. Nor a single crease on her olive skin. Often I find myself wondering if she deserves better than the life Daddy gives her. Maybe he even knows it himself and it’s the reason he doesn’t want us living at the compound like the other families do.

Mama stirs, uttering sentences I can’t quite understand, but I do manage to decipher a, “Love you Hayley,” somewhere among them.

“I Love you too, Mama,” I whisper back, placing a kiss on her cheek and creeping back out of her room. I close the door quietly and take the few paces to my own room.

Snuggling myself into bed, I roll onto my side and wait for tiredness to kick in. It’s no surprise that Jessie is my last thought before I drift off. It’s been that way since the first day he came to me.

BANG!!

My body jolts awake, and my ears ring painfully. Whatever I’d been dreaming about had felt so real the boom rattled my chest. It startled me, but I manage to shake it off, curling back beneath the covers ready to try and get back to sleep. Seconds later, there’s a second loud BANG, and I realize I’m not dreaming.

The noise sounded like it came from a gun, and was loud enough for me to know that it’s close. Fear pins me to my mattress like a bug trapped in a web, my limbs paralyzed, while my head screams at my rigid, tight body to run for safety. Instead, I duck beneath my covers and clutch my knees to my chest. Praying that this is a just a terrible nightmare and I’ll wake up real soon.

Silently, I curse myself for never locking my bedroom door. Especially when I hear the handle rattle, followed by the sound of the door opening and then quickly shutting again. The lock clicks, trapping me inside with whoever the footsteps trudging towards my bed belong too.

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