Page 6 of Hawk's Cry

“You want me to leave?” I offer, trying to sound nonchalant, as though I don’t give a damn, surprised how much I already miss the weight of the leather on my shoulders.

“Not just yet.” Wizard nods to the enforcer.

As I retake my seat, it’s to see Throttle slicing off the patches, the ones I worked so hard to attain. Each stitch he methodically cuts through wounds me, though I don’t know why. He’s symbolically cutting me off from all that I’d previously wanted from my life. I’m a man without a home, with no anchor. I’ve nothing left.

It’s what I want.

Once the naked leather is on the table for all to see, Wizard instructs, “Leave us, Eli. Lady? Get a prospect to wait with him, please.”

Rock looks up and shakes his head, then points at me. “Get two.”

Drifter snorts.

Chapter Three

Olivia…

I knew something had been going on in Eli’s head, I just hadn’t known how grave it was and the far-reaching effect it was going to have on our lives.

Eli had always been there. There’s only a couple of months between us in age and we’ve been inseparable since then. Eli had been my companion, my first friend, my protector from the moment we could walk. He’d been the one to pick me up each time I’d fallen. I suppose it’s corny, but I never looked at anyone else. I’d always known he would be mine, that I’d marry him when we were old enough. My childish thoughts might have matured into those more fitting to an adult, but had never changed.

While similar to his father in so many ways, there was one major difference between Drummer and Eli. Drummer’s reputation for banging everything in sight had earned him his handle. He’d continued that way until he’d met Sam, Eli’s mother. After Eli had prospected and earned his patch, I had feared he might believe he had to live up to the family reputation. But he hadn’t. He stayed faithful to me. We’d lost our virginity to each other.

We live in a club where sex is all around us. I can’t even begin to count the number of times I’ve walked in and seen men taking one or two girls, or two men taking one girl together. I’d grown up where fucking wasn’t just something done behind closed doors, it was a natural bodily function, nothing to be ashamed of. Everyone did it. Except when it came to the club kids, or, in particular, daughters of the club members.

Dad had been, and still was, the ultimate in overprotective fathers, knowing, as he put it himself, just what pigs men could be, and how little encouragement they’d need to take advantage. He’d have killed anyone, including Eli, who’d touched me or my sisters inappropriately. I’d been seventeen when I was first able to sneak off with Eli for sex. After that, we got together as often as we could, but had to hide from everyone that our relationship had moved to the next step. We were successful, or so it seemed, waiting another four years later until I gave up the pretence, and admitted it to my father. Two years on and I was pregnant which was when my dad figuratively and literally got the shotgun out.

Neither Eli nor I had minded. We were each other’s and always had been. Making it official was just one more step toward the rest of our lives, or so I had thought. We teamed up with Wizard and Amy, went to the altar and said our vows, a double wedding the likes of which the Satan’s Devils had never seen.

At first, Eli seemed over the moon about the pregnancy, as happy as I was myself. But as the months have passed, I’ve sensed him pulling away.

I’d thought it was me.

The good thing about living on the compound is that I always have family around me. Mom, Dad, and Zoey, Eliza and Hilda, my three sisters for a start. Then there are Drummer and Sam who are like second parents to me. Zane, my brother-in-law, Maya, Rose, Hope and all the other kids I’d grown up with. I can’t forget Amy, who’s three years older than me. There’s always someone to turn to, to talk to.

The bad thing about being here is that it’s like living in a goldfish bowl. Everyone knows your business, sometimes it seems even before you do.

Sometimes I wonder whether if Eli and I had lived different lives, would we have ended up together? Our marriage was seen as a fairy tale ending, a natural culmination of a love that we’d shared all our lives.

I know the other old ladies, and my siblings by proximity, all think it’s cute that while we’ve been brought up in an environment where sex was offered and taken freely, Eli and I have remained faithful.

I do feel pressure to maintain other people’s fantasy of a perfect life. So when the cracks started to appear in our marriage, I kept that to myself, maintaining the pretence that I couldn’t be happier. Even though as the weeks have passed since our wedding, it’s become increasingly hard.

No one was surprised that Eli and I became pregnant. It was only a matter of time. My mom had joked she’d expected it to have happened earlier, but I’d waited until I was twenty-five. Then came the wedding, and soon after, my relationship with Eli started to fall apart. Who could I blame but myself? Was I not enough for him any longer? Did he not want to be saddled with a wife and child?

This afternoon’s conversation had been a revelation. It had been a relief to be told Eli being closed off had nothing to do with me, but was down to the last thing I expected. His unhappiness stemmed from disillusionment with his club.

I’d been gobsmacked—the word used by my mom is the only way to describe it.

That he’d disappeared before we could have a decent discussion and left me hanging, but every Wednesday the members congregate for church. I knew he had to leave and attend it.

But as he’d walked out of the door to go to the meeting, I was left not knowing what to think. My first reaction was sadness, that he’d gotten to this point and I hadn’t seen it coming. The second was fear. This club is all we’ve known all our lives.

My only experience of life off the compound was when I’d attended school and that was only a few hours a day, five days a week during the school terms. And even there, club children tended to stick together, mingling with citizens not discouraged, but why spend breaks with people who didn’t understand your way of life?

Now the very thought of living among citizens and not having the support of family around me is so scary it takes my breath away.

In three months we’ll become three. How could I cope with a baby without my mom living so close? Or without Sam, and the rest of the women here?

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