Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 102136 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 511(@200wpm)___ 409(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102136 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 511(@200wpm)___ 409(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
“Ash!” Zane came through the garage doors. Get your shit together. I turned to Zane and walked toward him, grabbing a can of soda from the fridge. I knocked it back, just trying to stop my head from wandering, from everyone knowing something was wrong. Zane pulled out a chair and sat down. “The cabin’s almost done. AK reckons we’ll be in it by the weekend.”
I nodded. Good. I needed to get out of Flame and Maddie’s place. Beatrix was there now. I couldn’t be bringing my shit into the house around her. I was fucked up. I wasn’t gonna endanger my niece. I’d be better in the cabin with Beau and Zane. “Your aunt good with you moving out?” I asked Zane, hoping I sounded normal.
“She cried, but said it was time.” Zane shrugged, looking just like AK. “Graduated High School early, finally living on my own. Just gotta get patched in, and life will be fucking sweet.”
“Ash! You’re off the clock. Get the fuck outta here!” Tank bellowed across the garage. “And Zane, if you’re gonna keep coming around here this much, I’m gonna put your lazy ass to work.”
“Do it,” he said. “I’ve been working on bikes for years. I know my shit.” It was true. He knew more about bikes than me, but AK made him graduate before letting him do it as a profession. Now that was done, he could do what the fuck he wanted. But I didn’t want my best friend working here. I saw him watching me sometimes, in suspicion. Zane knew me too well. He would know soon enough if I didn’t get my fucking twitching sorted. If I didn’t find something to remove the fucked up thoughts from my screwed-up mind.
Tossing my cut on over my shirt, I threw my hand up in a wave and left the garage. Zane followed. “Why you wanting out of AK’s so bad?” I asked my best friend.
Zane eyed me weird. That meant one fucking thing. Saffie. My heart started fucking pounding, preparing myself for what he’d say. I saw his eyes drop and I fucking knew. “She’s got that fucking symbol brand, doesn’t she?”
Zane finally fucking met my eyes. He nodded. My body fucking set alight. For a moment I believed I knew what Flame meant, when he talked of flames in his blood. I was his brother, the fucking snakes bit me too. I was a Cade. If Flame had fire in his blood, then so the fuck did I.
“She’s having real fucked up nightmares lately, screaming and needing to be restrained by Phebe again.” Rage, that’s what I felt. Rage so strong it knocked the fucking wind straight out of my lungs. I wanted to go to her, fucking sit outside her cabin so I knew she’d be safe. Then I thought of all the fucking sluts that I’d been with lately. The sluts whose faces all blurred into hers, all fucking blondes. All when I was fucked off my face on coke and Jack. I was no good for Saffie. I wasn’t even worthy to be around her.
“Who are these cunts?” I snapped at Zane, and then fucking punched the wooden fence of the garage beside my bike. I punched a hole straight through the panel. My knuckles were bleeding when I pulled back my hand. I needed a hit. I needed a hit so fucking bad, but I was out. My skin jumped. I just needed to get the fuck away from Zane, from the garage, and get my shit together. “I’m out,” I said, and jumped on my bike.
“I gotta get back to the clubhouse. You coming by later?” Zane asked. I nodded and waited until Zane had ridden the fuck off before I pulled out onto the road. I gunned it down the road, away from the compound… away from Saffie, who I wanted to grab and run the fuck away with, so I could keep her safe. I gritted my teeth against the wind, imagining her in that motherfucking cage, symbol on her hip, and mouth sewn shut. What the fuck had actually happened to her? What the fuck had they done to her in that cult, then the cartel, then motherfucking Klan… and now this group of pricks we couldn’t find out shit about?
I pulled harder on the accelerator until my handlebars shook. Trees rushed past in a blur. I let my mind clear itself of the men I’d killed, of Slash’s face that haunted my motherfucking life, and Saffie tied up in a cage, her eyes dead as some old fucker raped her, and her mouth sewn up so she couldn’t scream.
I was going so fast that the roar I released was stolen by the wind.
It took me ten minutes less to reach the secluded ranch than it normally did. As soon as I parked my bike in the scrap yard, I jumped off the saddle and hammered on the door. Chris answered and immediately raised his eyebrows.