Page 39 of Hawk

He arches an eyebrow. “You really gonna blow me off like that?”

I grit my teeth and narrow my eyes, my irritation flashing inside of me. “Don’t question my integrity. Ever,” I growl, my voice hard and low. “If I tell you I’m going to do something, I do it. You got it?”

He apparently sees that I mean what I say because he nods. “Yeah. I got it. You’ll take it back to your table,” he says. “That’s cool. You know how to reach me.”

I nod as Deke walks up and hands me a frozen mocha thing, then another to Ratchet. I shrug and take a drink.

“Damn. That is pretty good,” I note.

“Told you.”

“I’ll be in touch.” I won’t be.

“I’ll be waiting,” he says.

I get back onto my bike and fire it up then take off, rumbling down the highway again. I ride along that endless ribbon of black until I find a spot on a turnout that overlooks a particularly picturesque stretch of desert. In the distance, tall red rock mesas line the horizon, casting long shadows in the morning light. The scrubland between me and those mesas is dotted with color as wildflowers grow on bushes. The sun is gleaming off the red stones, making them seem especially vibrant, and the air is brimming when the scent of the wildflowers. It’s peaceful and I can already feel my mind starting to ease as my stresses slowly ebb.

I climb off my bike and sit down on a flat rock at the far end of the turnout. I set the cup of the formerly frozen mocha thing on the ground at my feet and look out at the desert. Molly’s note in my pocket feels like it’s burning a hole in my chest. The weight of it in my cut is growing heavier. I know I should take out my lighter and burn it. I should tear it into a million pieces and scatter it to the winds when I’m cruising along the highway. I should do anything but what I’m already moving to do as if I don’t have control of my own body.

Slipping the paper out of my pocket, I unfold it and read her words:

Hawk,

I know this is unexpected and totally improper. You were right when you told Hammerhead that I am not your business or your concern. I understand that business comes before anything. So believe me when I say I’ll understand if you throw this note away or just ignore me for the rest of your time here. I won’t hold it against you.

By now, you know that Hammerhead abuses me. I’m treated little better than a slave. Some of the things he does… I guess it doesn’t matter. I’m mistreated and you know that. Hammerhead has become unstable. Unsteady. He’s deep into drugs and is making bad decisions that have destroyed this club. He’s driven some members away and has killed others for no real reason I can see other than they questioned him.

He’s been doing things that have made me feel unsafe. I feel as if I’m in danger and I’m terrified all day, every day. I fear for my life from the moment I wake up to the time I go to sleep—not that I sleep all that much.

I know my problems aren’t your problems. But I am begging you to help me. I need to get out of this place before he kills me. And I’m sure he will kill me at some point, Hawk. The question in my mind isn’t if. It’s when.

I would have escaped on my own but the windows in my room are locked. When they go out, they lock the doors from the outside, keeping me in. And I am never allowed to go anywhere on my own. I am watched at all times. Kept in a cage like an animal.

Please, Hawk. I’m begging you to help me get out of here. To help me escape this captivity. This life is brutal, and it will one day kill me. I did not ask for this. I do not want this. I do not deserve it.

Please, if you can find it in your heart, help me. But if you decide that you can’t, please believe me when I say I won’t hold it against you. I understand that your business is important and I am not your problem.

~ Molly

“Nothing like sticking me with that dagger of guilt there at the end,” I mutter. “Jesus.”

I fold the note and slip it back into my pocket, her words bouncing around in my head wildly. All I can see is her face. Her smile. Her eyes. Then I remember seeing the fear in them. The terror. And it breaks my heart.

I know I shouldn’t have anything to do with this. She’s right. This is business and I’m here to see to it. Not her. Not matters of the heart. But I can’t help it. My mind keeps going back to her face and the pain I saw in her eyes. And though I try to push it away, an idea starts to form in my mind.

“Don’t be an idiot,” I tell myself.

But it’s already too late. The plan is forming in my head, and I can’t slow it down, let alone stop it.

I’m about to be an idiot.

CHAPTERSIXTEEN

After Hawk left, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I paced the kitchen. Sat in my room for a little while. Decided to take a shower and get dressed. And now I’m sitting in the kitchen again, listening to Hammerhead and the others lounging around in the main room of the clubhouse. They’re shouting, yelling, and cheering raucously as they watch a football game. It makes me think back to the football games I went to back in high school and a sense of melancholy descends over me.

The way Hawk pointedly ignored me when he left earlier told me all I needed to know. After he’d left, I slipped into his room and looked around. My note was gone so I know he got it. The way he left told me that he’s not going to help me. I knew it was a long shot when I wrote the note out last night. Longer than a long shot. But I had a faint flicker of hope as I wrote it and remembered the compassion I saw in his eyes. The kindness.

But that flicker’s been extinguished now, leaving nothing but a cold, smoldering pit of ashes. I can honestly say I’ve never felt this low in my life. And given what I’ve endured since being abducted, that’s saying something. But I let myself foolishly entertain the notion that somebody might help me, that I might have a way out of here.

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