I only stop when Raphael Dela Vega slumps over me, a heavy, dead weight, pumping long, hot jets of arterial blood all over my naked body.
“Ohmygodohmygodohmygod.” I shove him off of me, and then I’m clambering to my feet, backing away, backing up until my shoulders hit the wall and I can go no further. Shit. Shit! I clamp both of my hands over my mouth, trying not to see the mess I’ve made of Raphael. I want to look away, but I can’t. My eyes are locked on the shiny pair of scissors—Winchester Gun Company—that are sticking out the side of his fucking…out the side of his fucking neck.
I pitch forward and brace my hands against my knees, and I throw up.
I don’t stop until I feel hands around me. I think for a second that it’s him. I think it’s Raphael, that I didn’t do the job properly. I start flailing, arms and legs everywhere, fighting for my life. And then I smell that smell. The one from the soft t-shirt. I smell that smell, and then I know everything will be okay.
Rebel crushes me to him, and the world turns black.
SIXTEEN
REBEL
Sophia sleeps in one of the bedrooms in the clubhouse most of the next day. When she’s awake she showers over and over again, crying continually. I stay with her. I don’t really know what to do to make her feel better. This is all my fucking fault. I allowed that motherfucker to remain alive and breathing on Widow Makers’ ground. I should have put a bullet right between his eyes the moment I saw him standing there, but I didn’t. I allowed him to live, and so in turn I allowed him to attack Sophia. She’s hurting and she’s in pain, and it’s all because of me.
The third time she wakes and lumbers heavily to the shower, I sit on the edge of the double bed, sheets twisted up and practically knotted from where she’s been tossing and turning, and I hold my head in my hands. There’s nothing I can do to fix this. She wanted her freedom. She didn’t want to be watched over twenty-four seven, but I shouldn’t have listened. There shouldn’t have been a moment of the day that I wasn’t by her side, especially with that piece of shit festering away in the basement.
I allow myself a moment of weakness, and I think about Laura. It was the same with her. I turned my back for five minutes, and then she was gone. What the fuck is wrong with me that I keep letting this happen to the people around me. They always seem to get hurt. A part of me wants to shut the club down. These people that have followed me out here into the middle of nowhere, who for some reason trust me to know what I’m doing, have misplaced their faith in me. I keep proving that, time and time again.
And Sophia. She has to go back to Seattle. Like, yesterday.
Just the thought of what I have to do makes me want to head directly downstairs, grab a bottle of Jack from the shelf above the bar, get on my bike and then find somewhere quiet where I can drink myself into a stupor. There was a time when I probably would have done that, but I can’t now. I have a responsibility to the woman quietly tearing herself apart in the shower.
I walk numbly down the hall, take my flick knife out of my back pocket, and then I twist the lock on the bathroom door open from the outside. The room is so full of steam, I can’t see my hand in front of my face.
“Soph? It’s me. It’s Jamie.” I speak loudly, so she knows I’m there. The last thing I want to do is surprise her. “Jesus, have you even got the cold tap turned on, girl? It’s like a sauna in here.” I know why she’s scalding three layers off skin from her body, though. She feels dirty. She can still feel his hands all over her body.
This, sadly, is not the first time I’ve had to take care of a woman who’s been mistreated by a man. It is the first time that I’ve felt like I’m dying myself, though.
From behind the steamed up glass shower screen, I can make out the small shape of Sophia, curled up in the corner of the tiled shower. “Can you…can you just…”
She wants to ask me to go away. She’s trying to ask that of me, but she can’t seem to finish the sentence. I should be a gentleman and give her what she wants. Walk right back out the door, lock it again, and give her the space she craves. But I can’t. Instead, I open the shower door and I climb right in there with her, fully clothed. T-shirt, hoody, jeans, sneakers. I leave it all on. Me stripping off my clothes would be a shitty idea, even though I have zero intention of trying anything on with her.
I’m soaked the instant the stream of boiling water hits me. Sophia looks up at me, arms wrapped tightly around her body, knees drawn up to her chest, and I can tell there are tears running down her face in amongst the beads of water from the shower head. “What are you doing?” she mumbles.