Chapter 95: Cabin Fever

Savannah

I can’t say I actually knew who my parents were outside of being parents. I think I never noticed that they were actually people and not always my mother, not always my father.

That they were husband and wife.

They were friends, they had friends, they had lives that had nothing to do with Morgan and me and anything we could touch.

What I mean is, they had a whole ass life that came before, during, and now, after me.

It’s called the afterlife but whatever.

~Tomato potato.~

I always saw my mother as the white raft on the ship. She was the life preserver—she was what kept us afloat.

My dad was the sails. He was the steering wheel and kept us going in whatever direction we needed to go in.

They never failed us.

They always came through for me.

Always being there to catch me when I fell and swore I couldn’t get back up. They were my bumper pads, my helmet, my gutter lane blockers for as long as I can remember.

They always showed up.

They always had my back.

I can’t tell you my mom and dad were good people. I didn’t know them as people.

I can without a single shred of doubt tell you I had amazing parents that would have done absolutely any and everything for me.

That I was loved.

That I was cared for and fought for and kept in such a loving family that I didn’t know anything else.

When we crashed, that was the first heartbreak I had.

That’s how well they did.

I didn’t know true heartbreak until I was seventeen and being thrown off a bridge into the river below.

It wasn’t until I lost them that I felt it.

Knowing my dad was dead.

Knowing my mom was gone.

Waking up to find Morgan had left.

Finding out that who I was wasn’t ever going to be who I am anymore.

That was my first heartbreak.

And it wrecked me.

It broke me.

All the pieces that my family took so much time in laying down and building as my foundation, cracked and crumbled.

But, good news, bright side of things, I’m still here. Finding out that ~yes~, I will never be pre-car crash Savannah ever again.

But I still have those pieces inside me.

Granted, they’re broken and fucked to high heaven, but, still there.

~Sound like Stitch, don’t I?~

At the end when he is getting hauled back into the spaceship, and the lady was like “Who are they?” and Stitch was all “They are my family, I found them all on my own, they are little and broken but still good, yep, still good.”

That’s me.

Behind the wheel of Uncle Jonah’s SUV, with Slash on the radio to keep me calm.

Going ninety when I have never driven a car before in my life and this is the first time I’ve ever been in one undrugged for so long.

I have no backup.

No jacket. No Damon. No knock-out juice.

But it has to be done.

I can do this.

I have to.

He needs me.

I’m Wonder Woman, goddamn it, and I can’t forget it.

Not now when he fucking needs me.

~I’m coming.~

~I’m coming.~

^BEFORE^

“I think, maybe, you should breathe, girlie. I know this isn’t the first choice in sleepovers for you, but it’s safe. I don’t want to be here either.”

Grave puts his hands on my knees and keeps me still. The thumping of my leg must have given me away.

“We could literally camp in a cave and it would be better than here. Why? Why am I here and not back at home or, better yet, at work? My mother did not kill Nina and you know it. She wouldn’t have done that.”

My fingers curl and cut into the flat of my palm. I have never been to the cabin but I know the stories.

I guess they were lies right? How my dad brought my mom here and proposed. How he thought it was going to be romantic and charming but it was a getaway from hell.

How the electric didn’t work, there was no running water, and it had to be hotter than Satan’s asshole in the summer.

It’s fall and I’m sweating.

But the truth is, they ran away after my mom cheated on Grave with my dad and they rolled over on the club and my mom worked hard to help Nina.

That this is where they hid out.

This is where they…what? Made an agreement to fall in love?

To pretend?

“Oh, this must be super awkward for you.”

I laugh and knock his hands away. I need some air and to see my uncle and cousin.

“Yep,” he chirps.

Coming right behind me as we get into what I want to assume is the kitchen, I thank fuck I was not born in the 1800s.

I can’t be in some stuffy ass house cooking in front of some hot fire sweating my tits off like this. Even if my husband was Damon way back when.

It would make it worth it, but I still wouldn’t want it.

Pissing in some cold chamber pot.

“Um, Grave? Where am I supposed to take a piss at? Please tell me this place has got some pipe work done in the last, oh, I don’t know, seventeen fucking years.”

He laughs, stirring some kind of campfire concoction that actually smells good, but I don’t want to know what’s in it.

“Since you’re mine, you should know my last name is Dov. It’s Jewish for bear.”

He keeps his back to me as he uses a one hundred percent real ass stick he must have found outside to lick the stew-like mess he has made up in this black cauldron of doom.

Licking his lips, with a ~it’s pleasant tasting~ sound, he finally turns to me.

His arms crossing at his chest, he locks one foot at his ankle and leans into the wall.

“And?” I cock my hip out and wait for him to continue.

“Does a bear shit in the woods?”

I facepalm and groan out loud.

A slow clap is heard around us, and Uncle Jonah is suppressing his laughter to show his approval.

“Strong first dad joke.”

I roll my eyes and declare how much I hate this place while taking Percy with me and lugging us out the door to leave the two assclowns inside.

“I’m not staying here, and you know it. Talk to me, what’s going on?”

I corner Percy and make him spill the beans.

He gets flustered, working hard to not vomit the truth at my bare feet.

“I don’t want to push you, Van, you need to eat and relax while this blows over for a while. We won’t be here forever, maybe just two weeks or something.”

My jaw drops with the news but gets picked right back up as fire hits my bloodlines.

“I think not! I am not staying here for two weeks! I have to get this shit sorted out, Luna’s Idol has shipments and work, I have a history test to study for.

“I can’t stay here. I have to talk to Damon, and I still need to talk to Dane and beat some sense into Lucien. I can’t, I can’t be here, Percy.”

I’m not so much talking to him as I am venting out loud the thoughts that are louder than the sense of why this action was taken.

I get it. I kicked the hornet’s nest, and now I got leather-clad pissed-off wasps ready for blood at the only person they can pinpoint to with the slightest involvement. Lucien is in the anger part of grief.

He is pointing fingers at anyone he can to blame for Nina’s death. I get it. I do.

Better than anyone else. It’s me that gets it.

His wife is dead, and he wants justice, like anyone would.

Barns.

“This shit is getting solved now. Right now.”

I snap out of it, not even noticing the help Percy was trying to give me with his soothing techniques.

My feet in the cold pine needles, I march back up the steps and blow through the door.

“Uncle, Grave. I need truth. You know it, I know it, so let’s talk. They said Barns did it, right? Like Callahan and Malachi?”

My uncle drops the last log—like we need a fire. It’s hot in here and he wants to start some Kumbaya campfire.

“How do you know Callahan and Kai?”

Grave is the first to speak up. I know my uncle is going into cop mode, playing the field before he picks the best way to take me on.

“Callahan punched Uncle Jonah in the nose and I beat up Kai for it. Which got Callahan called in and I beat his ass too. So back to my questions, who killed Nina? Which one?”

Grave looks proud again, but quickly locks it away when my words hit him. He shares a fleeting pass of a look to Uncle Jonah as he continues.

“Callahan has a younger brother, Mathias. Ellie gave Nina a gun with his fingerprints on it from some club shit that got him more time. It cut Lucien’s to a third.”

“So? Luci is his vice president, right? He comes before whoever is under him. Club laws, right?”

Grave’s lips twitch at my knowledge.

I watched ~Sons of Anarchy~, I know what’s up.

“Yes, but the club was over. Our president turns all of us in. It meant nothing. Most of us stuck to the brotherhood, but, finding out Nina turned on him, he wanted her dead. Like anyone would a rat.”

I smack my lips and feel the hate for this Barns man grow.

“Nina had two boys and was pregnant with another. She had to move back in with her mother and work a full-time job. Her husband was looking at…what? Ten years? Did he really not understand?”

Grave said the gun turned Lucien’s sentence down to a third. Right?

“He didn’t. He only saw another betrayal. I can’t say I didn’t at first either.”

He shrugs his shoulders and drops his arms to his side when he sees my eyes ignited with anger.

“Hey, I was freshly heartbroken and in prison. My girlfriend, the only one I had ever had since I was ten, cheated on me with someone I considered a brother, helped rat us all out, ran away and ditched me. Yeah, I saw where he was coming from.”

I turned my head and let all this sink in.

“So he sees it as Nina ratting him out to just protect what is hers, he does his time, joins a rival gang, and one day comes for revenge.”

Grave nods and goes back to stirring.

“And Lucien never went after him? Wait. No. Damon said he was with her when she died. They went to get ice cream. He said she was here and then she wasn’t. What happened?”

Grave sighs, rubbing the back of his neck as he retells me the story of my Angel being just eight years old and going for ice cream with his mom, how he was in the car and held her with the headshot and blood.

How he wouldn’t leave her until Grams and Lucien talked him out of the car. How he wouldn’t let her head fall because she needed help. That he didn’t know she was dead.

Tears sting my eyes and I want to run to my Angel to take him in my arms. I want to soak up all the bad and never let him relive that memory. My sweet, douchey Angel.

I lock my armor back in and get ready for full-out war. Whoever hurt my man, whoever thought it wise to take his mother from him, is now dead.

“Mathias isn’t dead. Why isn’t he dead?”

Grave coughs and leaves the floor open to Uncle Jonah, who gives me this deadpan look.

“Because it’s MURDER, Savannah. A crime.”

“And? He killed Nina! I know what it’s like to lose a mother! If I could point fingers at her murderer I would, you know it. Why isn’t he dead?”

My eyes lock back with Grave who gives me this ~I’m not talking about this in front of them~ look.

“Oh for fuck’s sake.”

My hands in my hair, I pull at the roots.

Mathias killed Nina.

For that, he will get my vengeance one way or another. You do not touch a hair on my family’s head and think all is well.

I meant it when I said I would be the judge, jury and, need be, executioner.

The question now is, ~why hasn’t Lucien taken care of it?~

~Why haven’t the boys?~

~Why hasn’t the club?~

This makes no sense.

“Savannah, eat. Breathe. Calm down. It’s almost nighttime anyways.”

My Uncle Jonah knows the dark thoughts going through my mind. I know he knows me too well.

I nod and agree to give myself a little time.

I need more truth. More honesty. More time to dig up the past so I can know why Lucien blames my mom when Mathias still lives.

Ten years' worth of living he has done while Nina hasn’t. While my Angel has been hurting.

Ten years' worth of payback, plus a lifetime she didn’t get to have.

How this debt has added.

***

I hate this cabin!

I hate it!

I feel like Gollum from ~Lord of the Rings~.

“We must stay in the dark but we hates it!” my inner voice hisses.

My feet crunch another damn stick that is, I’m sure, serrated with thorns by the way it cuts into the heel of my feet.

I wasn’t smart enough to put shoes on before trying this.

If Grave won’t answer me, and Uncle Jonah won’t let him, my Angel will.

Sneaking my phone out of Uncle Jonah’s safe was a stroke of luck I didn’t really expect to work, but looks like lady luck is on my side tonight.

Sneaking out the one-room cabin was one hundred percent the most stealthy thing I have EVER done.

I have the grace of a gazelle when I need it.

Popping my SIM in and my battery, I wait for the phone to load up so I can send my call and hear my Angel’s voice.

To tell him it’s okay. That I’m okay. That we are okay and I need help.

The wind blows to move these scary-looking trees that I’m sure were used to scare Snow White when she ran from the huntsman into a dancing frenzy.

The night birds go on and not a speck of light comes from anywhere else but this new age device.

If anything is a sign, the fact that the moon’s full might be it.

When the blue screen fades, the second this thing picks up signal, I am bombarded with an attack of texts and missed calls from Dane.

One right after the other pop up and only let me catch a glimpse of the text before the next comes in and my phone is possessed.

200 texts, 88 missed calls, and 15 voicemails from the youngest biker prince.

My heart drops right out my ass and hits the forest floor.

I hit call back and wait. The first ring.

The second.

“Savvy?” My heart shatters.

~Yes, baby brother, I’m here.~

“I’m here, sweetheart. What’s wrong?”

My hand on my throat, I listen to him whimper and start to cry. His jagged breathing hits the speaker with rattles and bangs as his emotions overtake him.

I fear the worst but I have to be calm.

~I’m here. I’m always here.~

“Calm down, sweet boy, talk to me. I’m here. I’m here for you. I’m always here. Deep breath for me so I can help, okay? I’m alone but you are not alone, I’m here for you always.”

I can hear him sobbing, his cries coming into the phone so loud I can’t fucking take it.

“Dane, sweetheart, tell me what’s going on. I need to know so I can help. I’m here. I’m always here for you. No matter what. Through anything.”

He starts to calm enough to get words out and manages to say my name one more time.

“Yeah, sweetheart, I’m here,” I coo and hold the hand to my throat harder.

“I need help. I don’t know what to do.”

I nod like he can see me, so I quickly add in an “Okay, tell me what happened and I’ll fix it.”

I promise.

“Vannah, I messed up. I messed up. I’m messed up.”

“No. No, Dane, you are not messed up. You are perfect. Do you hear me? Tell me what happened. Did someone hurt you?”

The worst fear is right at the tip of my tongue, just behind my lips, but I can’t out him if this isn’t what this call is about.

It could be anything. Right?

“I…I spent the weekend with my…”

He starts to cry again, and this time it’s one of heartbreak. I need to take this sting away.

“I know, sweetheart. What happened?”

Deep breath.

“His stepdad and his brother walked in on us.” His voice breaks, and hard sobs rack him. I can hear someone in the background giving him shushing and telling him to drink some water.

“Did. They. Hurt. You.”

~Dead. I’ll kill them.~

~Lay hands on my Dane?!~

~Not my baby brother.~

He whimpers out this most pitiful “Yes” that does everything to enrage and break my own heart.

“Where are you? Is he with you? Are you two hurt?”

My hand comes away from my throat to itch for the faces of this homophobic stepdad and brother.

“We ran when we could. The old Walmart building. I stopped bleeding, but I need you.”

“I’m coming, Dane, stay there. Stay hidden, okay? I’m on the way. Everything’s going to be okay. I’ll fix this. I’ll make it all better. I’m coming.”

~I’m coming, baby prince.~