Page 53 of Hawk's Cry

“I think I better go.” I try to stand and stumble.

“Is she okay?” I vaguely register a female voice asking.

“She’s fine,” Gabe replies for me. “Just got up too quickly. I’ll take her home.”

He’s holding my hand, painfully tightly. His arm is around my waist.

Something’s not right.

“This isn’t my car,” I complain as he opens a door and starts pushing me inside. I try to resist, but my limbs feel like jelly, and my swollen stomach weighs me down. I drop into the seat as my legs refuse to support me. The door bangs shut loudly.

Immediately, he’s around the driver’s side, sliding in behind the wheel.

With what’s left of my senses, I try to open the door, but he’s already locked them centrally, and in my increasingly befuddled state, I can’t find the button to override that.

He’s drugged me.

“What have you given me?” I manage to rasp, my fear for the baby forcing my words out.

He doesn’t answer, just starts to pull out of the parking lot.

I try to stay conscious, to watch where we’re going, trying to pick up clues of where he might be taking me, but my eyelids keep lowering as if by themselves. Eventually, it’s too much effort to lift them again, and I succumb to the darkness.

Chapter Nineteen

Eli…

I could have killed Hound and Throttle when they dragged me out of the house this morning. All I’d wanted to do was wallow in my own misery, perfectly content to spend the whole day doing exactly that.

What actually got me moving wasn’t the orders that Hound had barked at me, but the knowledge that they were there in my bedroom in the first place. Even stranger, they’d made no mention of my leaving the club, and the word Brother had come from their lips.

I’d felt I’d reached my lowest point and had no idea how to climb back out of the mire. Their appearance gave me a glimmer of hope that there might be a way back. Not to the club, I didn’t want that, but perhaps a way out of this grave I feel like I’m living in. If they’d put themselves out for me, maybe it was up to me to try.

I had absolutely no faith in the doctor I was going to see. How could talking about my problems help? There’s no magic wand to fix me, but if Hound and Throttle want me to go through the motions, I’ll give it a go.

At the hospital, Dad’s already waiting. He offers to come in with me, but I’m a fucking man, aren’t I? Surely I don’t need a parent holding my hand. Straightening my shoulders, I follow the instructions I’m given as to where I should go.

I’m surprised when first I’m given a full physical with blood taken. It’s only then that the doctor starts on the therapy. He’s not the same man who came to the house, but I’m here, so I may as well cooperate.

First, he asks me a list of questions, and gives the instruction to answer truthfully. Here, within these four walls, I’m assured of confidentiality and nothing but total honesty will help me in any way. I do make a mental note to steer away from club business, but decide I’ll tell him everything else.

No, I don’t take drugs. Never have, never will. Sure, I use cannabis from time to time, but not every day. Doesn’t everyone?

I don’t smoke. Drink? Is he having a laugh? I’m a biker for fuck’s sake. Or I was.

Have I suffered trauma? Well, yes, but that’s something I can’t admit to. While he’s assured me he won’t share anything I say, there’s always the possibility that knowing I’ve killed and tortured people and buried bodies where they’ll never be found might send him running straight to the cops. I know he’s probing to see if I could be suffering post-traumatic stress, and honestly, nothing I’ve done has had that effect on me. I’m not haunted by the faces of dead men in my dreams. Anyone I dispatched to meet Satan deserved to die. I don’t dwell on the time a bullet came too close to me, nor the time I was rammed by a truck causing me to lose control of my bike. When we mete out our own form of justice on those who had wronged us or ours, it got adrenaline rising, not fear. I live, had lived, for those times.

Health issues? Nah, my health is good.

How’s the relationship with your wife? What relationship? I can’t be bothered to work at it anymore.

How often have you felt down, or depressed? That you had no control over the world? Every fucking day, Doc. Every fucking day for months.

We go through my sleep patterns, my appetite, my energy. Then comes the big one.

Have you ever thought of suicide?

If I don’t reply honestly, he won’t be able to help. I shrug and admit it seems like it could be the answer.

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