Page 17 of All's Fair in Love & Chaos
“I don’t know, maybe why you followed me? How you know me? What you want with me?”
“Fu—”
“If you tell me to fuck off one more time, I swear to God,” I interrupt as I take a deep, steadying breath. “I promise, no matter your reasoning, you won’t be harmed here. You’re safe, Saige.”
“I’m safe?” she questions. “I am so far from safe here at your hell house of horrors. You and your band of hellions are killers. You harm, you take, you destroy, you kill. You’re all the same!” Her anger is palpable, and my heart races in my chest.
“Damn, baby, who hurt you? Tell me their names and I’ll lay them at your feet.” A deep, maniacal laugh bursts from her, her eyes wild and blown. I stand at the foot of my bed in my underwear, confused and concerned as fuck.
“If you only fucking knew, you idiot.”
“There’s only one way to fix that, sweetheart, and it sure as shit isn’t by keeping it to yourself.”
“Let’s just go to bed.”
“Not a chance in hell. Talk.”
“Oh, you can fuck off with that manly,I’m in charge, I’m going to order you aroundbullshit because it isn’t going to work on me. Either let me go, or go to bed.”
“I’m not letting you go, Saige. Not until you tell me who hurt you.” Instead of getting angry with her refusal, I move toward her side of the bed, squatting down to be at her level. She’s lying on her side in the fetal position, looking right through me, her brown eyes glassy and strained, and I don’t know her well enough—or at all, really—to know if it’s from emotion or something else entirely.
My fingertips itch to touch her, and I don’t bother denying myself the pleasure of giving her comfort. It’s foreign, and I can’t explain why I feel this deep, aching desire to erase all her pain. I’ve known her for mere hours. But every fiber of my being is telling me Saige is mine.
I reach out tentatively, gently swiping her hair from her face and tucking it behind her ear. She blinks slowly, finally meeting my eyes, and my heart nearly beats out of my chest. Hell, she takes my breath away.
“You may not know a damn thing about me yet, but I don’t say things just to hear myself talk. Whatever you’ve been through, whatever has happened, you are safe here, safe with me.”
“How can you say that when you know nothing about me? When just a few hours ago, I was trying to cuff you? I just admitted I was going to kill you.”
“I may not know all the little details about you yet, like how you take your coffee, whether you’re a morning person or a night owl, or your favorite color, but I do know how I felt the moment I saw you climb off that bike.”
“And how was that, Camden?”
“Like everything in my life led me to that moment and then shifted under my feet. I’ve never felt the way I do when I look at you.”
“Then why am I cuffed to the bed?”
“Because I’m the president of this club, and I don’t trust you yet. You’ve given me nothing but reasons not to trust you, and as much as I would like to free you, to give you an opportunity to talk like an adult and figure this shitout, I won’t jeopardize the lives of the men and women who live here. The men and women I’m responsible for.”
Saige blinks at me, but I can see her brain working, digesting my words and thinking them over. I don’t know how, but I’m going to get through to her. Her hate of clubs goes deep, and something must have happened to taint her opinion of them. But we aren’t like everyone else, and I want to prove that to her. I won’t let her go until I know the truth, what she’s hiding, and what she wants with me.
Chapter Six
SAIGE
Iwake up with the sun’s rays shining through the curtains. It takes me a moment to remember where I am, but I’m reminded real quick when I can’t move my arms, which have fallen asleep past the point of tingling. I groan out my irritation. The spot on the bed next to me is empty, and I don’t know whether to be relieved or not. I need to find a way out of here, and that’s not going to happen with me cuffed to a damn bedpost.
Last night took a wild turn after Camden woke up in the middle of the night screaming. I know a night terror when I see one because they mirror my own. Nights have always been the worst since my family died. When everything slows down, and the silence presses against me like a second skin, the hum of the fridge, the tick of the clock, every creak of the floorboards starts to bring comfort in my empty house. The one that used to be so filled with laughter, voices, and music.
The first few years were the hardest. I’d wake up in a cold sweat, my body drenched and sticky, myvoice hoarse, my cheeks damp from tears, and I’d draw my knees to my chest, wrapping myself in my mom’s favorite blanket that had long lost the delicate, sweet scent of her perfume. If I closed my eyes hard enough, I could imagine being swept away in her tight hugs.But when I opened them, I was still desolate, alone, and cold.
Sleep became dangerous and something I dreaded; it’s where all the terror I pushed away in the light came out with a vengeance. I wasn’t there when my family lost their lives, but their deaths haunt me all the same. Screeching tires, metal crunching like paper, screams from both my mother and sister. The worst parts are seeing their faces, the momentary shock, the terror, my father’s horror. Sometimes my sister calls out my name, and the guilt that lashes at me hits deeper than bone.I was her protector, and I failed to protect her from this. From Camden.
I wasn’t there, but even all these years later, I still wonder if it would’ve been easier if I had been in the car, right along with them. At least then I wouldn’t have to live with this kind of guilt, this aching, soul-crushing, desperate loneliness. While I was binging TV and falling asleep on the couch, my family was being pulled from a crumpled frame of a car on the side of the highway.
My first year alone, I was checked on by aunts and uncles, but once everyone got busy in their own lives, those check-ins became few and far between. Once I met Sebastian, things got a little less lonely, but as much as he’s been there for me, he still doesn’t understand it, can’t relate to it, or feel it.No one has ever understood the shape of my pain.
Grief carries with you, stretching and shrinking depending on the day. I could be walking through a store perfectlyfine and pass by a stranger in the aisle, their familiar scent grabbing hold of me by the throat and dropping me back in time. Memories become a cruel comfort, and as the years pass, they become more and more diluted, fading away just like the bodies in their graves.
