Page 1 of Cage's Ruin

1

Autumn

Ilooked in the mirror and I saw my face. I looked the same. When I spoke. I sounded like myself. But I was someone else. I wasn’t the girl that laughed, cried or felt an emotion.

The sound of a bike back firing in the lot, pulled me back in time.

He loved me unconditionally. I knew that. When he kissed me, it felt like he kissed my soul. When he hugged me— safety would flood my body. When he laughed, I could never stop my lips from twitching up, smiling. He was my life— my future and now…. Now I prayed to God that I was forgiven for the sins I have committed.

Come tomorrow. The same grief would hit my body. The same anger at myself for going there that night would surface. I should have gone to fucking prison. I should have…

I heard my bedroom door open.

Every little thing would take me back in time. A bike back firing. The glance of a gun. The feeling of heartache never left and the look in Hawk’s eyes. I blinked, as tears ran down my cheeks.

“Autumn?”

I held onto the basin sink tighter. God help me because I felt myself going… numb. It wasn’t depression. It wasn’t anything like that.

“Autumn darling?”

I looked up in the mirror seeing Cage standing behind me. I was quick to wipe the tears away. I couldn’t make him feel guilty for my decision. I was the one that pointed the gun at her. I was the one that ended my mother’s life. Me. No one else.

I killed my mother.

The feeling that normally surfaced when I thought of that fact, surfaced. I didn’t know how I was ever going to live with my actions and a large part of me, didn’t want to live with them. While that should scare me, it didn’t. Because I wasn’t really living as it was.

CAGE

When things go south, they really go south. The club was barely functioning without Hawk. I had the club earning again but small decisions, hell even big decisions needed to be made and it was a President’s call.

Come tomorrow morning. We were going to have a vote about what to do with the rebirthing business. Now that it was functioning and earning us money, we needed to decide on whether to expand the business or, distance ourselves from it as the debts were paid.

My eyes ran over Autumn. She was here but I knew that she was really back in that motel room, standing over her dead mother, shaking with tears— regretting it. I wished she had shot me. I wished she had killed me. Then at least, she would be living. I couldn’t not blame myself for what happened.

If I hadn’t shown up, she wouldn’t have been forced to end her mother’s life.

The police were under the impression that Emily had escaped, running from the law and the club. When really, she was off a beaten highway, in a shallow grave that I had to dug.

Autumn would never know where her mother laid at rest. As for Hawk. Fuck. The man was, is, barely keeping himself in line. I didn’t know how I could help. Hawk couldn’t string a sentence together, just grunted.

The betrayal of his wife going into witness protection and then nearly costing him not just his freedom but his life— well that shit was life changing and it had changed his life and his outlet.

He wasn’t concerned about Autumn’s lack of life.

Jacob didn’t even seem to care. That man had turned to ice, blaming himself for everything.

The family was shattered.

And me?

I had men looking at me wanting answers and then on top of that I had my girlfriend struggling to look at me and I knew she had played out the other option that she had but didn’t take and that was killing me.

I was keeping a close eye on Autumn. I had to because I was worried, she would end her own life. She slept beside me, but she wasn’t there. Just like she wasn’t really at the bar now. She was drinking alone. But her eyes— told me, she was trapped in a circle I couldn’t save her from.

She must hate me.

She had to hate me! She was torturing herself because she picked me. If I could go back in time, I would have let her leave. Hawk’s death would have been acceptablebut Autumn living but not— I can’t fucking live with that.

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