Page 87 of Making Choices

Safe in the arms of my second-favourite man, I allow the cloak to lift.

Tense limbs relax.

Unconsciousness takes me.

It’s a welcome wall of nothing.

Sleek and black.

Shiny and undented.

A partition between dark and light that only appears when I’m secure in the knowledge that Slash will fight my monsters for me if they come. While Zeke plays hide and seek in my psyche, and I do my best to pretend that Alex hasn’t finally stolen everything from me with his poisonous touch and his vile intentions, Slash is my one constant.

He keeps me from completely breaking.

Offers solace.

Blissful repose.

Coalesced disconnect.

He’s my temporary refuge.

23

SLASH

“She knows he left her.”

The five words play over and over in my head as I ride. They match the rumble of my Harley engine. A regret-filled cadence. A rhythmic indictment. The admission Nadia made when she exited the bathroom, ashen faced and with saturated hair, rocked me hard. But, not as hard as the tortured look etched in her elfin features because I knew there was only one reason for it.

Cherub had cut herself again.

It was that realisation that kept me from her bed last night.

Instead, I paced from one end of the backyard to the other, the dark night matching my mood, until the solution I was trying to avoid became too apparent to ignore any longer.

Venom needs to come home.

Now.

And that’s how I find myself speeding along National Highway A1 in the hour after sunrise, with nothing but the clothes I’m wearing, the Steyr HS stowed in my pannier, and a resolution to have my best friend in the same room as my duchess before the funerals accompanying me.

No one knows what I plan to do.

Fucked if I know myself in all honesty.

Half an hour after I stop to refill my tank, force myself to eat a sandwich, and drain an energy drink, a pack of motorcycles pass by me on the opposite side of the freeway. A familiar motorcycle leads the group of Blackards, so in a kamikaze move that would have my mumma twisting my ear if she saw it, I veer across two lanes to take the next off-ramp. Navigating the web of local roads, I make my way back onto the highway, this time heading back in the direction I just came.

It takes me a good ten minutes to catch them, but when I do, I’m immediately aware that he spotted me at the same time as I noticed him. Venom’s posture is unnaturally tense and he stares straight ahead when I pull level with him in the middle lane. The other bikers drop back, leaving us to ride alone. When Venom refuses to acknowledge me, I realise that he’s fully embraced his darkness. Rage flares within me, a blistering hot inferno that burns my tongue with all the scathing insults I want to yell at him. I swallow down my anger to remind myself that I need his help.

As soon as I’m sure that my temper is under control, I rev the throttle and hold out my clutch hand with my fingers curled into a fist. He continues to glare at the road ahead. I rev again and swing closer to him. When his chin dips but he refuses to acknowledge me, I hammer fist his thigh.

Venom’s bike wobbles.

He rights himself.

The scowl he directs at me would make me laugh in different circumstances.

---