Page 35 of All's Fair in Love & Chaos
We’re in sync, moving together, striking, reloading, surviving. I’ve never experienced anything like it before. A gnarly piece of shit comes around the corner with a thick chain wrapped in his hand. He freezes as we lock eyes, then he makes a critical mistake, looking at Saige. I’m on him the next moment, charging into his body and slamming his head against the wall with a sickening crack.I don’t stop there, pulling him back only to slam him into it again until his head cracks open and the fight drains from his body.
The fight is over as quickly as it started, the Widowmakers bailing out, the retreating rumble of their bikes echoing behind them. We don’t bother chasing them down; that’ll come in time. My men and I stand in the center of our clubhouse, our home, bathed in silence, taking in the damage.
I lean against the bar top, my hands shaky as I look around and account for everyone. Then the blood drains from my body.
“Where’s Saige?” I yell, a frantic, feral terror that something could have happened to her while I was preoccupied, gripping me and holding me hostage.
“I, I don’t know, I last saw her with you,” Sin reports. Everyone scatters quickly, looking for her, checking to see what men we lost, and that the patch bunnies are safe. I race up the flight of stairs to my bedroom, finding it empty except for her leather jacket lying on the chair by my bed.
Wrath appears at the door not a moment later, his forehead cut and caked with blood like he took the blunt end of a gun to his skull.
“Your bike is gone.”
“What do you mean my bike is gone? Destroyed?” I ask as we race back downstairs.
“No, as in missing. Gone. It’s not in the lot.”
She fucking took it. I trusted her, and she fucking bolted the first opportunity she was given. Where the fuck is she? I look around at our clubhouse, the place we’ve made a home, the broken windows, the shattered glass, the destroyed furniture, the bullet holes and blood that decorate the walls. The bodies. I stand there shell-shocked, torn between picking up the pieces of my broken club and going after the woman who just took off with my fucking heart . . . and my bike.
Chapter Thirteen
SAIGE
The night seems to swallow me whole as I push Camden’s bike to its limit, and I let it. Endless darkness stretches in front of me, the purr of the engine under me. I barely made it out among the chaos. As the attacking club members took off with their tails between their legs, I knew it was now or never.
My hands grip the throttle like it’s the only thing tethering me to this world. They tremble and shake, not from the cold or adrenaline from the fight, but from the war inside me that I just can’t seem to figure out.
I don’t even realize I’m crying until the wind smears the tears across my wind-chapped cheeks.Pathetic. I should be laughing, celebrating. I didn’t complete what I set out to do, but at least I’m no longer trapped in Camden’s room at the clubhouse. I couldn’t find my bike, but the moment my eyes fell on his sleek black bike with a bit of burnt orange on the fuel tank, I knew it was my escape. Even if it’s just going to piss Camden off. A small laugh escapes my lips as I imagine his reaction tofinding out not only did I bolt, but I did so on the back of the president’s bike, no less.Hisbike. A part of me, and I’m not sure how much, wonders what will piss him off more. The fact that I’m gone, or his bike.
There’s no doubt he’s going to lose his mind, rage, and come after me. But Camden wouldn’t hurt me. For some asinine, sick reason, I believe him when he said he’d never physically hurt me.
The truth of that lodges itself deep in my chest, like a splinter I can’t quite dig out. It’s the only thing that doesn’t make sense in the narrative I’ve convinced myself of, that all clubs, especially Hell’s Heathens, are evil, sick bastards who live above the law and by their own twisted, fucked-up rules of the road and brotherhood. That Camden Young is just another monster with a patch, that we’re all just minuscule pawns in whatever sick game they’re playing that day.
But then why did he go out of his way to make sure I was comfortable, to make sure I had the things I needed, and to reassure me that I was safe, despite being in a cougar’s den? Why did he only ever look at me like I was the strongest person he’d ever met in his life? That my strength was something admirable rather than a weakness, or something that would somehow emasculate him. In fact, it was a turn-on for him.A big one.
And Jesus, the way he fucked? The way I came harder than I ever imagined possible? Why the fuck did he let me see all the good in him? The human side beneath the Chaos. For a decade, I’ve pictured a cold-blooded killer. A ruthless, bloodthirsty monster with no regard for life, a psychopath lacking any amount of emotion. But that’s not who I met, goddammit, and I’m struggling to reconcile what I thought with what I know.It’s why the entire time I ran out the back door to find my bike, I repeatedly told myself not to look back, not to hesitate.
But Ididhesitate. I stood at his bike longer than I should have, an image of Camden sleeping next to me flashing behind my eyes, his arm flung over his face, hiding from the world even in his sleep. He looks so soft when he sleeps, like the boy I imagine he was before the club, before the patch, before whatever twisted, fucked-up path led him to where he is now. Led him to me.
I hate him. Ihaveto hate him.
He wears the colors of the club that took my family from me. And every time he looked at me like I was the most important thing in the entire world, every time his voice or his touch made my heart flutter and beat wildly in my chest, I felt a deep, gnawing betrayal of the people who were the most important things in the entire world to me. So why the hell does it feel like I just left a piece of me behind in that clubhouse?
Because I did.
I shake my head wildly, the wind whipping around me, my eyes flooded with tears, my throat choking with emotion I haven’t let myself feel in years. My eyes scan the darkness for headlights, tails, anything that looks like vengeance coming to drag me back, but there’s nothing but the open road and the sound of my escape.
I scream into the night, a pointless, desperate cry that no one will hear. I push the bike harder, trying to outrun the man that I hate and the girl I don’t recognize anymore. Fuck everything.
No one’s coming to save me.
No one is coming to protect me.
All I have is myself.I need to remember that.
I pullthe bike to a stop in front of Seb’s house, jumping off it and walking it quickly to the back. I find a spot, concealing it as best I can behind the bushes that line his backyard, before racing back to the steps. My footfalls are heavy as I jog up the stairs, the floodlight coming on above my head and illuminating me like a dancer on Broadway. Exactly what I don’t fucking need right now.
I’m positive I wasn’t followed, and doubled back ten times before giving in and racing into his neighborhood. Do I think Camden will come after me?
