Page 136 of Heartbeats & Highways

Savage watched me for a moment but didn’t reply.

“I know. Crazy, right?”

“They left you at eighteen. To fend for yourself against a physically abusive man.”

His shoulders tensed and I waited. Would he get up and need to go for a ride to clear his head? Would he need to go spar to get out some of his anger?

Savage’s arms tightened around me. “They didn’t protect you. They left you vulnerable. Alone. I’m so sorry, babe.”

I wasn’t going to give him empty platitudes and say it was okay because it wasn’t. Parents were supposed to protect their children. And mine had abandoned me, essentially feeding me to the wolves.

“Yours didn’t protect you either,” I murmured.

“At least I had Willa and Duke. And at least you and I found each other, too.”

“We get to do it differently,” I whispered. “Our babies will never know that kind of fear or loss.”

“No, they won’t,” he agreed.

We fell silent for a while, and I let him ponder what I’d unveiled about my parents. It was a lot to take in.

He finally spoke again. “I haven’t told you how I got the name Savage.”

“You haven’t. No.”

I waited for him to gather his words.

“I grew up in foster care,” he said softly. “It was my third foster home in a year. I was fourteen. Full of anger, resentment. But my foster mother, she was kind despite life beating her down. Despite her husband beating on her.”

He let me go and sat up, facing me on the bed.

“She made sure I had clean clothes, lunch for school. She did her best, you know? She couldn’t have kids of her own, but the way she treated me . . . she really wanted them. She would’ve been good at it. A good mother, I mean. She was a good mother, to me . . . for a while. But maybe it was a blessing she couldn’t have kids because her husband was a dick. An angry drunk. A useless piece of shit.”

He reached out and clasped my hand in his.

I linked our fingers like a lifeline.

“She got sick. Uterine cancer. She was gone in three months. That fucker moved a new woman into the house not even two weeks after she died. The woman who moved in with us had a sixteen-year-old daughter. I didn’t like the way he looked at her.”

I knew where Savage was going with his story, but I let him talk. I let him purge his past.

“One night, her mom was gone. She worked the graveyard shift at a gas station. I heard his heavy, drunken footsteps as he came up the stairs. I ran down the hall to Tracy’s room to protect her, but when I got inside the lock on the door was broken. We dragged the dresser in front of the door to slow him down. We climbed out the window into a huge oak tree next to the house. We sat in the tree together. He shoved against the door, like he was throwing himself against it. He either gave up or passed out. But it wasn’t a permanent solution, you know? Because he’d made the decision to hurt her, and it was only a matter of time before he did.”

I was quiet and waited for him to go on.

“A few days later, we came home from school and as soon as I opened the front door that motherfucker clocked me so hard he knocked me out cold. He was so much bigger than I was . . . When I woke up, I panicked and ran to Tracy’s room to find her. He had her cornered. Her shirt was torn, and her lip was bloody. I was too late. Her eyes were glazed, like she’d just mentally checked out, so she didn’t have to process what had just happened. I lunged for him. Jumped on his back and started choking him. It was enough for her to get away. She ran to the neighbors while my foster dad beat me senseless. But because he was drunk, he got tired and passed out.”

“Savage,” I whispered, horrified.

“Somehow, I dragged myself up and limped over to the neighbors. Tracy’s mom eventually showed up and said the police were on their way. She told me they were moving out, andthat she was going to press charges and that he’d never get to hurt Tracy again.”

His eyes drifted from my face to look over my shoulder. Like he was staring into the past, trying to find the last piece of it to divulge so he’d never have to tell his story again.

“I knew if I was still there when the cops showed up, it was going to start all over. A new foster home, some new asshole to fuck up my life. I wouldn’t do it, and I couldn’t protect Tracy, so I just left. Went to live on the streets. Bounced between living with Duke and Willa. Had a gym teacher who suspected what was going on and used to leave the door to the locker room unlocked so I could shower and shit.”

He swallowed. “Anger fueled me. The idea of revenge kept me going. When I was prospecting for the Tarnished Angels, I finally had my chance. I was living at the clubhouse, and I’d been fighting for years. Training, you know? One night, I went to that old house. That decrepit, stinking, moldy old house. He’d been out of prison for a couple years already and was sitting in his recliner when I kicked the door in. He tried to fight, but I was young and strong as a bull. He was old. Used up by life and booze. He tried to hold his own, but he was no match for me. He finally begged me to stop. That’s when I beat him to death with a fucking pipe wrench. Didn’t stop until his skull had caved in.”

The visual turned my stomach. I clenched his hand tighter.

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