Page 82 of Slayin Villain
I told myself I’d ride again once I sobered up.Just needed a few more gulps of numb.
Instead, I climbed back on the bike ten minutes later, drunk as hell and shaking like a leaf.Gravel spun under my tires.The forest bent and blurred.
I made it a mile, maybe less, before the road curled too hard and I didn’t.
I went flying.
Metal shrieked.Skin ripped.My helmet cracked against a tree.The bike spun into the woods.
Then… nothing.
Just dark.Cold ground and bourbon breath.
And her voice.In my head.
You never chose me.
Maybe I never did.
Maybe I didn’t deserve her.
Chapter 36
Rachel
The hum of the new fridge was louder than it should’ve been in the silence of my mother’s house.
It wasn’t my fridge.Not yet.Nothing in this place felt like mine, even though Mama had insisted I take the guest room and make it my own.Right outside Nashville.Safe.Quiet.Far enough from Royal Road for the memory of him to not claw through the walls.
I stared at the nameplate on my desk, Rachel Carter, Intake Coordinator, and barely recognized it.But working from home had its perks.
New job.New phone.New car.Hell, new life.
And yet?Same heart.Same ache.Same baby growing inside me like a secret I had no one to share with anymore.
“Isn’t it darling?”Mama cooed, flipping on the light in the room across from mine.
The nursery.
She’d painted the walls herself in pale yellow and hung white curtains with bunnies stitched into the hem.There was a changing table already set up, and some kind of bassinet I knew she’d bought the second I’d agreed to come stay.
“It’s perfect, Mama,” I said softly, not trusting my voice.
She beamed, pressing a hand to my belly.“My first grandbaby.You’ve always made me proud, honey, but this, this is somethin’ else.I’m gonna spoil that little one rotten.”
I smiled, but it didn’t reach my eyes.Couldn’t.Not with the weight behind them.
She didn’t ask about the father.Not anymore.She’d seen the look in my eyes the first time she brought it up and knew better than to dig.Southern women knew pain by scent.And mine had been all over me like perfume.And mama knew pain.Daddy was never in the picture for a reason.
That night, I stood in the bathroom brushing my teeth when I caught my reflection.
Too pale.Too tired.Too hollowed out to be the girl I used to be.The fire I once had?That spark Villain claimed to love?Burnt down to ashes now.
I leaned over the sink, pressing trembling hands to the edge of the counter.
“You’re gonna be fine,” I whispered to the mirror.
Liar.
