Page 19 of Running on Empty

But bruises wouldn’t last any longer than it would take my body to heal. In a day or two I wouldn’t have a mark on me. As the thought occurred to me, I lifted my eyes back up to my reflection in the bathroom mirror and watched my eyes narrow as I came to a decision. I reached for my phone from the shelf beneath the mirror so that I could record the evidence. I knew that it would potentially be useful if I had to go to the cops. I’d had photos taken of my bruises before, when the state was thinking of taking me away from Mum. As I lifted the phone I saw I had a ton of missed calls. And one text message notification…

Don’t think you’re going to get away, omega.

My first reaction was anger. The tone didn’t sound like Ash, but after what I’d found out the previous night, I felt like I didn’t really know any of them. I tapped on the notification, ready to tell that high-handed prick to go fuck himself when I saw that I had messages from each one of the guys. A whole bunch of them popped up as I scrolled. But the one with the faintly threatening tone? It wasn’t from any of the Kelly boys, not unless they had a burner phone. It wasn’t that fuckhead Jack either. I’d blocked his number which made me think… I didn’t need to play detective. I’d had fucking weirdos stalk me before so I blocked the number the text had come from too. And then I got back to taking a record of the evidence of what had happened.

Taking photos of the extent I’d been hurt somehow made it easier for me to deal with it. It was as if I wasn’t doing it as a person able to be affected by the emotions of it all, but instead it was as though I was a camera. Cool, glass lenses recorded everything in clinical detail, even a full body shot. By the time I was done I felt like I had packed everything from the night at the club away and was ready to move on.

Get to work. Deal with the Sunday sesh crowd and Jonesy’s bullshit. Come home and die. Repeat. I nodded to my reflection before finishing getting ready, pulling on my clothes and then going out into the kitchen to make myself something to eat.

As if the universe sensed my resolve and decided to test it, two things happened as I opened the fridge. My phone started to ring and there was a knock at the front door. I fished out my phone and saw it was an unknown number. I looked at it for another moment, then up at the door when there was another knock. Just a double tap. Nothing too loud or threatening.

Unknown numbers usually meant telemarketers or the government. Then there was the possibility that one of the other Spencers had decided to get in on the whole harassment angle, so I left my phone to ring out on the bench, and marched to the front door to fling it open.

I was expecting to see Ash, ready to tell me off, or Jax, wanting to talk about what had happened. What I didnotexpect was Scarlett. And, damn. While I was a hot mess on a good day, this woman? She looked elegant and deadly in a pair of black denim jeans, knee-high boots, a man’s shirt and tie–expertly tailored to fit her–with all that bright red hair bound back into a tight bun. She smirked as I looked her up and down with no doubt a stunned expression on my face, and then she held out a paper bag in one hand, while she balanced a tray of coffees in the other.

“Breakfast?” she asked.

“Is that from the boys?”

“Yes, but—”

I screwed up my nose and grabbed the bag, then ushered her in. Scarlett had been good to me so I had no reason to be rude to her. The boys on the other hand… I stalked over to the bin in the kitchen. Slamming my foot down on the pedal to open the lid, I held the bag over it ready to dispose of it dramatically when Scarlett gave me pause

“So far be it from me to question the disposal of perfectly lovely baked goods, but…” I kept my foot on the pedal bin and turned to look at her. “It might have been those idiots that sent me over here with the food and the coffee, but I was the one that suggested it.” She leaned over my kitchen bench. “Their idea of aftercare leaves a lot to be desired, but I consider myself very good at it. I told the three of them that I’m not their bitch to go running over here and wave a white flag for them, which resulted in Ash saying something rude and me telling him to go fuck himself.”

I snorted at that, looking at her more closely, because she seemed as though she was more on Team Stevie than Team Kelly right now.

“But if you were my sub–and you’re not–” she said, holding up her hands as though to ward off my complaints, even though I wasn’t making any, “I’d prescribe something hot, something sugary and something with a bit of fibre so your blood sugar didn’t spike too high.” She nodded to the bag. “How’d they do?”

I sighed, dropping my arm down and moving toward the kitchen bench, the bin lid clapping shut behind me. I tore open the paper bag and saw three muffins sitting inside.

“This one would be Ash’s.” I wrinkled my nose as I nudged one that was all brown and lumpy with no icing at all. “It’ll be some high fibre, keto, sugar-free nastiness.”

“It looks as though it would be much the same coming out as going in,” she agreed.

“This one would be Jax’s.”

It was a carrot cake muffin, complete with an elaborate swirl of cream cheese icing that made my mouth water. I loved cream cheese icing more than life itself and the prick knew it.

“And this is Ronan’s.”

It was some kind of triple chocolate monstrosity, dripping with icing, chunks of actual chocolate, the muffin itself so choked with cocoa as to appear almost black. Dark and sinful, that was his offering.

“You know them well,” she said, with a gentle nod to the muffins.

“I thought I did.”

As I grabbed a knife out of the drawer, Scarlett’s eyes widened, but she was reassured when I sliced the two edible muffins in half. I tossed the knife in the sink and then pushed the muffins towards her, Scarlett choosing one half of Ronan’s muffin.

Figures.

“I’ve known them most of my life, their family too. They felt like…” My throat dried up then, so I grabbed one of the coffees and took a sip. Damn, just the way I liked it. “It felt like they were my family too, and when I could.... The boys were alphas, they’d have a fated mate and I was the only omega near them so–”

“So it was your way in?” she prompted. Scarlett grabbed the other coffee and took a sip. “Why did you think you needed that to be accepted?”

“Well, otherwise I was just some kid—”

“Not some kid. Stevie,” she said, looking meaningfully at me.

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