Page 55 of StoryTeller's Tale

Her face is turning blue, so I ease off to allow her to speak. “Earlier this morning.”

“You got her phone number?”

A shaking hand reaches into her pocket and pulls out her cell. After getting her to unlock it, I snatch it, call up the contacts, and send her number to myself.

Scowling, giving the phone back and regretting I don’t stoop to hitting women, I race to my bike, only pausing a moment to send Legend a text.

With her number, he can hopefully track where she is.

And while he’s doing that, my best bet is to get to the airport.

“Hey!” Cut back on, I’m just about to start my engine when a woman comes running out of the house. Someone who looks like a younger version of the one I was speaking to just now. “You want to know about my stepsister?”

If she’s talking about Sheri, I do. I again dismount and wait for her to come close to me. The introduction sounds right. This woman doesn’t resemble Sheri at all. She’s made up to the nines as if she was just going to go out.

I expect her to stop a distance away, but instead, she invades my space, almost pressing her body against mine as she says, “You don’t want to waste time looking for Sheri. Why don’t we get to know each other instead?” Her hand even comes up to cup my cheek.

I wrench it away, her touch feeling like bugs crawling over my skin.

“The fuck you saying?”

“Come with me,” she purrs. “I know how to give men like you a good time.”

I’ve a sneaking suspicion it’s not me she wants, but she wants to keep me away from finding her sister. I think I’ve got the answer why Sheri prefers to live in a scruffy apartment rather than here with her folks.

“I can get a good time with a woman like you anywhere,” I tell her, a sneer on my face as I mentally compare her to the club whores we have back home. “Now get out of my way so I can find a woman worth finding.”

Her face reddens, and her eyes blaze. “You’re making a mistake.”

Ignoring her, I swing my leg over the bike, start the engine, and leave her in the wake of my exhaust.

CHAPTERNINETEEN

SHERI

Looking back, it’s stupid how I didn’t connect the dots, let alone read the signs, but then picking up the threads of my normal life hadn’t been easy after what I’d been through. It had taken me a long time to get anywhere close to regaining my equilibrium after coming back home following my ordeal.

Agatha had tried to talk to me, to find out the details of what had happened, but I gave her the bare bones, just like I told everyone else. I was abducted, kept captive for a couple of days, and then miraculously released.

My dad and stepmom had professed their fake concern for me, even offering to have me stay for a few days. But I refrained, knowing it was only so my stepmom and stepsister could get mileage out of gossiping at my expense.

I couldn’t afford therapy, so suffered my nightmares during the hours of darkness and tried to pull up my own socks during the days. If at times a bout of uncontrollable crying comes over me, I just take myself away and deal with it. There’s no point in complaining about what had happened. I force myself to remember that the women with me had had it far worse.

When it gets too much to bear, I try to picture StoryTeller, sometimes wondering if I’d conjured him up out of my mind. I’d dreamed of a biker riding in to rescue me, which is exactly what had happened. The fantastical element so unbelievable I kept it to myself, treasuring the memories, thinking no one would believe them. What would a handsome biker want with a nobody like me?

The book? Well, that stays by the side of my bed. If I find it comforting that it had been in his hands, I keep that to myself.

I could have gone with him.But I did not.

Looking back, I don’t regret making the decision that I had. Okay, so a fictional biker might have forsaken all others and taken me as his old lady for life, but the Wretched Soulz aren’t a club summoned up from the mind of an author, and there’s no happily ever after. Best he lives on in my dreams as there he can be the man I want him to be, one who has eyes only for me.

Just coping with my daily life has been enough. Firstly, I had to plead to get my job back after being absent without leave. Getting out of the apartment was a chore in itself. I flinched at every strange man I saw approaching me. For the first few weeks, I didn’t venture out except to go to work. And even that space wasn’t safe enough. I freaked when I needed to serve a table of men who’d walked in carrying motorcycle helmets, refused to take their order and hid out the back. I was fired.

Agatha came close to asking me to leave, but I assured her I had a small cushion in savings to tide me over until I found new employment. While I was still making rent, I could stay.

When I missed a period, I wasn’t surprised, putting it down to stress. When I missed the second, I still wasn’t worried. It hadn’t been until my breasts started to feel tender that I put two and two together, then yesterday bought a pregnancy test which provided the confirmation.

“What the fuck is this?” Agatha had spotted the empty box in the bin. “You’re pregnant?” She looked incredulous. She knew even before my kidnapping my social life was non-existent.

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