Page 20 of Paladin's Hell

“I’m not sleeping. Every time I close my eyes…”

“Oh, hun.” She puts her arm around my shoulders. “You’ve got to snap out of it. There was always going to be a first time, wasn’t there? Now it’s over, you’ve got to move on.”

She doesn’t understand. “I wanted my first time to be when, where and with a person I chose. Not with the father of the man I loved.” I sniffle loudly, “I wanted it to be with Carter.”

“Carter, or Hellfire as he’s now known, keeps asking about you. He wants to know you’re okay. You can still be with him if you want to.”

“I was a virgin.” I tell her again.

She tries to stifle her laugh, but fails. “Everyone knows that.”

I shudder. When Blackie had dismissed me, I hurriedly got into my clothes, not realising I was bleeding, and had forgotten I was wearing white pants. Yeah, everyone who’d seen me that night would have been well aware. All those bikers. I bet they’re still laughing now.

“Apart from not sleeping, how are you? You look pale, Mo,” she observes.

That would probably be from not eating, and not going out. “I keep being sick, I think I’m coming down with something.”

Her eyes sharpen. “And it’s been, what, three weeks now?”

I nod.

Her lips purse, then she announces she’s got to go, but she’ll be back. True to her word, it’s not long before she returns. With a pregnancy test. Wild-eyed I stare at it, and at her. It sounds crazy, but I never considered that might be the reason I’m feeling unwell. I just put it down to stress. Now she’s put the idea in my head, I’m terrified. Going completely cold, I realise I need to know. Picking it up with shaking hands, I take it into the bathroom. A few minutes later, having done what the instructions told me, I take it back out, setting it down on the dresser.

When it’s time, it’s Jeannie who picks it up. The answer is written on her face. I’m going to have a lasting memory of that night.

Unless I do something about it.

“How much money have you got?” I ask her. “Can you lend me some?”

Her expression shows she’s joined the dots together. “You want an abortion?”

I can’t have the baby of a man who’s raped me. Can’t have that reminder in my life. Though it goes against everything I’ve ever thought. It’s the only option, as long as I can get the money together.

“Blackie should pay,” she tells me. “He caused this. I presume he didn’t use a condom?”

He hadn’t. He hadn’t given me the chance to ask him. I was too busy saying no.

Her mouth narrows. “I’ll help. Let me think how to do this. Don’t worry, okay?”

Don’t worry? Has she lost her mind? What else could I do?

Even now I rub my stomach, the memory of the horror of finding out I was carrying the baby of my rapist returning to me. I was seventeen. Too young to be a single mother, too immature, even had I had a man by my side. Too young to cope. Too young to be able to afford to do anything else. The only certainty was I’d be homeless if my parents found out. They were a dichotomy of alcoholics and religious nuts.

If I’d been sleepless before, it was worse that night. When Jeannie had called and asked me around to her house the following morning, I couldn’t refuse to go, I was out of options. She’d said she would help. All my teenage-self could do was hope she had answers on how I could get the money I needed.

What I hadn’t expected was to find Carter, Hellfire now, waiting for me.

I spin on my heels, not wanting to speak to him. Now, even more, unable to face him.

“Moira. Wait.” He doesn’t give me a chance, following me back down the path, his long legs covering more ground than my own. He catches me, his arms hold me tight, his familiar scent and warmth surrounding me. “I know it all,” he says fast, as though he’s only got moments to speak. “I love you, Moira. What Blackie did? I’ve no words to tell you how I feel. But we’ve both got to work through it, deal with it. And that’s best done together. I love you, Moira. I want you to be mine. Nothing’s changed except for that barrier my fuckin’ father put between us.”

He can’t know everything. He’d run a mile if he did. There’s no easy way to tell him. “I can’t, not now. I’m pregnant, Carter. Pregnant. I want an abortion.”

“I know.” His nose nuzzles my cheek. “I know. And whatever happens, we’re in this together. My fault you came to the club, I didn’t warn you sufficiently, didn’t explain. But I’m a patched member now, babe, the old rules don’t apply. You’re mine, everyone knows and respects that. Ain’t gonna be anyone put a hand on you again.”

I don’t believe him. Don’t want him, or his club. “Your father…”

He interrupts. “He’s dead.”

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