Redemption (19 page)

Chapter Thirty

Wild horses...couldn’t drag me away

Jessa

Two days later, Mathias still hadn’t reconsidered his decision to let me go, but I was going to fight fire with fire. I was writing out a list of songs that I wanted to include on a tape for him. My plan was to talk Bishop into letting me use Mathias’s recorder one day, but for now, I needed the perfect mix of songs.

Tru and Aimee had refused to let me stay inside the guesthouse crying, and I didn’t fight them too hard on it. Because I had to prove to myself—and to Mathias—that he’d been wrong. And so I’d gone out to the bar with them, under the protection of Hammer and Rebel, and I’d sung. But I was always singing to him.

Defiance was on lockdown, because we were still waiting to hear from Keller. I’d heard rumors that the supply trucks were due to pull in tomorrow, and everyone was unsure if that would truly happen.

I pushed that out of my mind now, because I couldn’t control that. I was sitting outside, in the main part of the compound, near the tattoo shop, listening to some of Mathias’s tapes now, because he hadn’t asked for them back. Over the past week, he would come and borrow some of the tapes back and leave me new ones, always at night, when I was asleep, so he didn’t have to talk to me. But I always knew when he was there. I’d hold my breath, hoping he’d wake me up, but he never did.

I started writing down some lyrics, trying to make this tape perfect. A blend of my feelings and my freedom, and how I saw him as both those things. I was so into the music I was listening to that I didn’t see the men approaching until I was surrounded. I would’ve noticed sooner if the sun had been out, but it was dark, and even the lights in the compound didn’t give off enough light to create shadows.

Mathias wasn’t in the tattoo shop—Tru was working there today—but he was close, across the compound meeting with some Defiance members, and I’d felt safe here. Until right now.

I’d never seen the two men who were suddenly in front of me. I’d only been here for two weeks, and for about half that time, the storms were terrible enough to keep most of Defiance locked underground. And I still hadn’t been allowed in the tubes. I can’t say that bothered me, because I’d spent enough time underground to last me a lifetime.

I didn’t want to look up at the two Defiance members, didn’t want to add to the sense of panic that raced through me. I squeezed the pen hard and willed Mathias to somehow know this was happening. I prayed for another one of his signs.

“Hey. You’re the new bitch,” one of them said finally when I refused to look up, and I bristled at the tone. It was said like
bitch
was their everyday language, what they always called women, and that was far more in tune with what I’d expected from an MC.

I glanced up and past them, but no one seemed to be noticing this was happening. I didn’t want to make a scene, because their patches said they were Defiance members...but something wasn’t right.

“Hey, talkin’ to you.” The second man snapped his fingers in my face.

I looked up at him. “What?”

“Bitch’s got a mouth on her,” the first guy said. “There’s a reward out for you. We want to collect.”

Since Mathias had rescued me, I’d been carrying a knife with me all the time. No matter how much Mathias had taught me about self-defense, he couldn’t convince me that a knife wasn’t better. I slid my hand in my pocket and gripped the handle. “I think you’re mistaken.”

The second one snorted. “She talks fancy. You know she’s not from around here.”

“She also doesn’t know the rules,” the first said.

“I’m with Mathias,” I told them firmly.

“Mathias isn’t Defiance. That means you’re fair game. And if you don’t know what that means, I’ll tell ya. Means you’re fair game to be passed around, and we’re taking some passing before we collect our reward.”

“Don’t you touch her.” Luna, the angry girl with the tattoos, and her beautifully furious face, was standing behind me.

“You’re not anyone’s girl either, Lu. Know your place.”

“She thinks she’s Rebel’s,” the second said to the first and they both laughed.

I hated them. If this was the type of man Defiance cultivated, I didn’t think I could handle them.

Or could I?

I jumped up—they weren’t expecting it—and I had the knife to the second guy’s carotid, like Mathias taught me. “Keep talking. It won’t take much for you to bleed out.”

Luna smirked. “Guess we don’t need a man after all. Because she just made you her bitch.” And then... “He mentioned a reward.”

Luna was talking to Mathias and I didn’t dare turn around. I was scared to hurt the man I was threatening, but also too scared to take my eyes off him.

I shouldn’t have worried. Mathias had the one I’d been threatening by the hair.

“You can’t touch me, mute—you’re not Defiance.”

Mathias mouthed clearly,
Fuck.
The.
Consequences.
And then he jerked the man up and away from me. They were circling each other and Mathias actually motioned the second guy to come at him too. A fight to the death, two against one.

“Get Bishop,” I told Luna.

“Mathias can handle this.”

“That’s the problem. Please, Luna.”

A part of her didn’t care about the rules of Defiance any longer, but a part of her still loved the MC, wanted it better. I could see that war waging in her eyes. But finally, she nodded and ran off.

When Bishop came minutes later, at a dead run, Caspar was on his heels. I begged Bishop, “Don’t let him.”

“He’s defending your honor,” Bishop told me.

“But he’s not Defiance.”

Caspar brushed past me and the fighting stopped. Mathias took his hands off the first man’s throat and looked up.

“One of you talkin’ about reward money?”

Both shook their heads.

“Got two witnesses.”

“Because we’re listening to gash now, right, Caspar?”

“Questioning my leadership? You know your choices.”

The men blinked.

“Leave with your Defiance tattoo burned off or cut off. That’s what I’d do normally, but since you’re threatening a guest in my MC...”

“Lance’s gotta be rolling in his grave,” the second guy shouted.

Caspar looked at Mathias and nodded. Mathias jumped back in and the fight went from zero to brutal in seconds.

I couldn’t watch. I turned away and Luna caught me, a hand rubbing my hair, like a mom would do to a child. Any mom except mine, and that brought tears to my eyes again.

“This is what they do,” Luna told me. “This is what they do for you.”

I heard her words, interspersed with some howls from the men and the sounds of fists hitting flesh. I felt Bishop’s tension, palpable as the vibrations under my feet from the three big men fighting. I didn’t say anything, not until Luna said, “It’s done,” and then I broke away from her.

For a second, she glanced at me, and then at Bishop. I swore she was going to say something to him—something akin to loving him—because the look on her face was one I recognized. Tru wore the same expression when she looked at Caspar. But Luna said nothing, walked away, and Bishop stared after her.

I thought I’d walk away from what had happened behind me then, not turn around and just walk. But instead, I found myself turning, looking for Mathias, because he’d become my lifeline. My rock.

I realized, for the first time, that I might actually become his too. Maybe I was already close, because why else would he beat two men to death for me?

He stood there, bruised and bloodied, but definitely better off than the two men on the ground. Caspar was talking to Hammer and Rebel and I walked past them and stopped in front of him. I was shaken, yes, but not as badly as I thought I’d be.

I took his hands in mine. “We have to go ice them.”

He nodded warily, like he was waiting for whatever else I had to say. I figured I might as well get it over with. “Are you going to kill anytime someone threatens me?”

Yes.
Because you’re mine.

“Yours? Like you own me?”

Like you don’t own me too?
he asked and I stopped short, because that wasn’t something I’d considered.
Well?

“I do.”

And you would’ve killed for me?

His hand went to the knife in my pocket.

“Yes.”

How’s that different?
I
don’t want you to have blood on your hands because of me
,
but I’d understand if you did what had to be done.

All I could do was hug him and realize we’d both always have blood on our hands. And that there wasn’t anything wrong with that.

I
was wrong.
You don’t need freedom.
You need me.
You’re mine.
From the second I saw you
,
the second I took you in my van.

“Either Mathias has been in Defiance for too long or he was born with that possessive streak. Which means he was meant to be here,” I heard Tru tell Caspar, and I remembered her discussing how possessive Defiance men could be.

Mathias heard what she’d said too, nodding in acknowledgment and mouthed while signing,
I
won’t be wrong again
,
so you lost your chance to back out.

I’ll belong to him
, I thought to myself. That knowledge bore into my heart, but instead of splintering it, it burrowed in and refused to come out. “Good,” I told him. “Good.”

No backing down for either of us.

It wouldn’t be easy. Tru had told me the initiation process was brutal.

Then again, so was Mathias.

Mama, just killed a man

Mathias

After I told her she was mine, I knew what I had to do. I’d known from the start, so nothing had changed. But this would just make it harder on her and I cursed myself that I hadn’t been strong enough to stay away, to resist taking her to bed again.

She was lying half underneath me now, her hands stroking my back, my arms, tracing the tattoos. I rolled off her completely and pulled her close, so we were side by side, heads on the pillows. I grabbed the alphasmart and began to type, and she said, “Make sure you sign too.”

Because she’d been practicing, with Bish.
I
didn’t mean to scare you.

She’d been watching my hands, not the alphasmart, and then she glanced up at me. “I need to get used to the violence. It’s a necessary part of life now.”

It was, especially for me, and it had been for a long time.
I
never told you the rest of the story
,
what happened with Bish and his father.

She’d assumed that everything had been fine, that we’d lived happily ever after. But now, I typed how Bish had to go home a couple of times a week so he didn’t get reported as missing. How he’d come back beaten. How my parents tried to get him to report it to child protective services.

“He wouldn’t do it,” she whispered.

He refused.
Said he could take it.

“
Find me a reason to let him stay with your family
,
sir.
Because if he won’t admit to anything
,
there’s nothing I can do to help him.
” The woman from CPS looked so damned sad when she said it, like she’d seen this before.

Like she’d known how it would end. I had too. I’d known from the second I’d had the dream, the second I’d found Bish hiding, what I’d need to do.

I told Jessa all of this, and her eyes widened as she watched my hands and the alphasmart. She knew where this was headed, but I needed to tell her anyway.

I
found out later that Dad had been watching over Bish since he’d turned five.
He couldn’t interfere much
,
mainly because Bish refused to say his father was hurting him.
But he gave Bish money and food and clothes...and he’d given Bish our address.
That’s how Bish knew to come to me that night when he was eight—Dad told him
,”
if you think your father’s really going to go too far
,
you come to me.
”

“Thank goodness for your father,” she said.

The worst night was when we were twelve and I found Bish passed out in the Bayou a mile from our house.
For four years
,
after that first night Bish had come to us
,
I
watched him get beaten harder and harder.
He took it
,
and he’d come back and say it was no big deal.
That it was worth it to be able to live with me and my family most of the time.
It was his punishment
,
his father told him
,
for trying to give up his heritage.

“But he wasn’t trying to do that,” Jessa said, like she was pleading the case to some invisible judge who could stop the inevitable.

One night
,
Bish barely made it back to us.
We took him to the hospital and my parents begged him to tell the police what really happened
,
that he hadn’t been hit by a car.
That his father had nearly beaten him to death with his bare hands.
But not me.
I
never asked him to do that.
I
understood why he couldn’t
,
and that’s why I was the only one who could.

Jessa went still.

I
went to the house and I broke in.
I
tore up the place—vandalized it.
Spray-painted it
,
ruined the cars out front while one of the neighbors watched—another Indian man who was older than Bish’s dad.
I
kept waiting for him to stop me
,
to ruin my plan and call the police before Bish’s dad came home
,
but he never did.
And then I found Bish’s father’s gun and I made sure it was right where he could reach it
,
and then I waited for him to come home from work.