Raw: The Ultimate Mc Collection (5 page)

I put one foot in front of the other, and after several steps, I removed my arms from around their shoulders.  First Doc, then with just a flash of recognition that I was hesitant to let him go, I let go of Ryder.  He kept his warm hand on the small of my back and I continued forward.  He walked beside me and with each step I took, I became steadier. 

Finally, his fingertips disappeared from my back, and I was walking all alone.

“I think I’m okay,” I said.  “Thank you.”

They stood beside each other, nodding and smiling at me.  

“So, um…the bathroom?”

“Oh, right!” Ryder said, motioning towards a door in the corner of his room, opposite the one he had come out of.  I remembered how he had described what was on the other side of that door, and I was thankful I didn’t have to be introduced to the chaos he had referred to.

“Thank you,” I said, walking to the door and nodding as he opened it for me.

“Of course, of course,” he said.  “Feel free to take a shower, if you’d like.  There’re fresh towels and everything in there.  Let me know if I can get you anything.”

“Yes, okay, thank you, Ryder,” I said, smiling at him as best I could muster.

I closed the door behind me and came to face to face with myself in the mirror.  Just like with my hands, and my body, it was familiar like only your own face can be, but it was covered in bruises.  My left eye was puffy, and I had a scratch on my right cheek and one on my neck.  But still, I could not put a name on the person standing in front of me.

I knew what I looked like.  I could have drawn a picture of myself before I had looked in the mirror.  But why couldn’t I remember anything?  This was absurd, and I felt the panic begin to rise in me again.  

Quickly, I peed, my mind racing.

Something awful had happened to me, but what?  Was someone out there looking for me?  Did I have a family?  Who would want to beat me?  And why?  Luckily, there was no pain when I went to the bathroom, so hopefully I wasn’t raped.  I was thankful for that.  I felt okay, except for the slight pain around my eyes, and a whole lot of sore muscles, but by looking at me, you wouldn’t really even know anything was wrong.

I looked like anybody.  And yet, somehow, I was nobody.

Ryder’s words flowed through my head.  He was trying to comfort me, I knew that.  He seemed so kind and thoughtful, even if he looked a little intimidating.  I was thankful he had saved me from who knows what.  There’s no telling if I would even be alive if he hadn’t come along. 

But that bit about everything being okay?  

I wasn’t so sure about that.  I might not remember what happened, but something certainly didn’t feel right.  

Whatever it was that I had forgotten, it was really bad.

CHAPTER NINE

Ryder

When she came out of the bathroom, I was pacing the room like an angry lion, trying to come up with a solution, a way, any way, to figure out who she was.

“Listen, I have a few ideas…” I said, as she slowly wandered around the room.  It was a bit of a shock seeing her upright, seeing her move around.  She had showered, her face scrubbed of the remnants of the makeup she had been wearing.  Her long, blonde hair hung in wet strands down her back. She looked fresh, young, healthy.  And so fucking beautiful, it almost hurt to look at her.

I swallowed hard, and I realized I was having a hard time staring straight into those pale green eyes, and I wasn’t sure why.  Something about her unnerved me, and that never, ever happened to me.  I had nerves of steel, and I had ever since…well, since Julie.

I had shut down afterwards - it was the only way I could survive the pain of it all.  And by shutting down, that meant nobody got under my skin.  Nobody.

And yet, here she was.  This stranger that I had killed for.  This knock-out of a woman that had stumbled into my life and was now presenting me with the great mystery of all.  Who was she?

“Yes?” she asked, her huge green eyes blinking at me.  Why did she trust me?  Why wasn't she running her perfect ass out the door?  Instead, she was looking at me like I must have all the answers.  But in reality, all I had was a long-shot.

“I should have done this already, I guess.  But I never dreamed you’d be unconscious for so long, and then I certainly never imagined you wouldn’t know who you were when you woke up.  So, anyway…one of my brothers, his name is Riot, well, he’s got a knack for computer stuff, so I’m going to have him do some searching for missing persons, see if you show up at all, okay?  Unless you have a better idea?”

“Riot?” she asked, that eyebrow arched again, and once again she winced in pain.

“Yes. He’s a real gentleman, I think you’ll like him,” I replied, winking at her.

“Oh, sure, okay. That’s a good idea, I guess,” she replied quietly.  She seemed defeated, entirely confused and lost.  I felt terrible for her.  I couldn’t imagine what she must be feeling.

“Okay, so I’m going to have Riot come in here, okay? I’ll introduce you to the rest of the clubhouse tomorrow.  Hopefully, you won’t be too overwhelmed, they’re a rowdy bunch.”

“Sure, okay.  Thank you.”  Her eyes misted over and she turned away from me.  

“Where are my clothes?” she asked.  

“Oh, right over here,” I replied, showing her the tiny pile of clothes on the chair by the window.  

She walked over to them, and gingerly picked up the high heels and the blood-spattered denim skirt.  She searched in the pockets that I already knew were completely empty and dropped them back on the chair.  She lifted the black, torn tank top and let it slide from her hands as she turned back to me.

“I don’t think I want to wear those.”

“No, I don’t imagine you would. Maybe one of the other ladies has something else we can find for you later.”

“Okay, sure. This’ll do for now,” she said, gesturing to Cherry’s sweatpants and my t-shirt. “Are there a lot of other ladies here?”

“Well, there’s a few.  Valerie is Zander’s old lady. Zander’s our VP.   Cherry and Tiff hang out quite a lot, they pretty much live here. And every now and then, a new girl will show up for a while.  Most of the girls that do can’t handle the scene for too long, so they split pretty quickly.”

“Oh,” she replied, her eyes widening curiously.  I was probably making everything sound a lot worse than it really was.  I decided to just shut my mouth and let her see for herself.

“I’ll be right back with Riot,” I said, turning for the door. 

She sat on the bed again, looking so lost and out of place, that it made me want to hug her.  I felt terrible for her.  I didn’t hug her, though.  I walked out the door to find Riot, determined to help her find the answers she desperately needed.

***

“There’re thousands of missing people in Oregon, Miss,”  Riot said, his fingers tapping furiously on the laptop keyboard.  He smelled like beer and weed. “But there haven’t been any missing women reported around these parts in the last three days.  It’s entirely possible you could be from a different state. And maybe your appearance has changed?  I’ll just scroll through real slow, and maybe you’ll see something that looks familiar.”

Riot sat next to her on the small couch in my room, her eyes intently searching the missing persons listings he was showing her.  So far, we had checked every county in the states of both Oregon and Washington, and had come up entirely empty.  No news stories, nothing on the police scanners, nothing at all. The few listings we did see, there was no sign of her face.

Her eyes clouded over with defeat as each minute passed. It hurt to watch her go through this.  Each new search that Riot performed churned up new hope, and with each disappointment, she became more and more sad.  Her shoulders slumped and her eyes misted over when Riot ran out of ideas.

“Let me keep thinking, and keep searching the local listings.  Something has to turn up.  It’s hard without even a kernel of info to search with, but at least we know what you look like, right?” he asked. 

Riot was a huge, gruff, bearded tattooed burly ex-boxer. He had seen better days, and while his professional fighting days were long over, he still craved his fighting time with Slade and the other boys.  Sometimes, I suspected he just let Slade win for the hell of it. Riot had a heart of gold, he just liked to live on the edge a little. He just happened to be an electronics and computer geek at the same time. 

“Okay, thank you, Riot,” she said, looking completely dejected and exhausted, despite the fact that she had just slept three entire days.  She looked up at me, those big green eyes peering right through my soul.

“You look tired,” I said.  “Maybe you should lay down again?  You took quite a blow to the head —”

“I was just coming in here to say exactly that!” Doc interrupted, his bellowing voice entering the room before his portly body did.  “Everyone out! The lady needs her rest.”

She looked at the both of us, her eyes filled with gratitude.  

“Yeah, I’m pretty tired, I guess…” she replied.  

“I’ll keep you posted. See you later, Miss,” Riot said, patting her shoulder and leaving the room. Doc followed him after helping her into bed.

I sat down in my usual chair right next to the bed without thinking.  As she sat there blinking at me, I was stricken by how huge her eyes were, and I remembered the damned owl outside.  Was he out there? Did he know she was awake now?

“Um…” she said, her voice tired and quiet.  

“Yes?” I asked.  

“I don’t think you need to keep vigil at my bedside anymore, Ryder,” she said.

“Oh!”  Of course, I didn’t.  “Well, right, of course. I, um…yeah, okay.  You get some rest, and we’ll talk in the morning.”

“Okay,” she said.  I jumped up and began walking towards the door.  “I think it might be good for me to spend some time alone anyway.  I’ve got so many questions, Ryder.  I feel so weird and lost.  But thank you for…well, everything.”

I turned back to her, and felt the glimpse of something almost unrecognizable in my chest.  I wanted to save her.  I wanted to solve all her problems for her, and I didn’t even know her fucking name.

“Sure, of course, we’ll talk tomorrow. Good night.”  I closed the door behind me, shook off that stupid knight in shining armor shit and thundered down the hall.

Doc and Riot were waiting for me, sitting in the living room huddled around a bottle of whiskey.  Without asking, they poured me a shot.  I downed it, and then downed three more in quick succession.  

“You okay, boss?” Doc asked.

“Yeah, I guess,” I said, taking the joint from Riot as he passed it to me.  “I just have no clue what to do with this woman.”

I sat there all night, thinking, trying to come up with some sort of a plan.  Instead, the only thing I succeeded in doing was getting completely wasted.

CHAPTER TEN

Grace

I slept like a brick.  No dreams, no tossing and turning, just good, solid sleep. I woke up at noon, according to the clock by Ryder’s bedside.  I felt terrible for taking his bed again, and I wasn’t unaware of the fact that it had been days since he had last slept in his own bed.  But he had made me nervous about what lay outside the door of this room, and after looking for hours through missing persons with Riot last night, I felt like I had been hit by a truck.  There was no way I could face whatever was waiting for me on the other side of his door.  Not the clubhouse.  Not the world.  Not my past.

I was weak, sore and exhausted.  But when I finally woke up, way too many hours later to be polite, I felt almost as good as new.  I was stiff from spending so many hours on Ryder’s lumpy mattress, but other than that, I felt strong.

Sunlight streamed in through the only window in Ryder’s room, and I spent a peaceful few moments alone before I heard a knock at the door.  

“Come in,” I said.  The door opened, and instead of Ryder’s face like I was expecting, two women, who couldn’t have been more opposite from each other, walked in.  The short, curvy orange-haired lady smiled at me through her gum-smacking, red-painted lips, her hands holding a pile of clothes.  The other girl was younger, taller, her dark hair framing an innocent looking face.  She held up a pair of sneakers, hanging from her hooked fingers.  Her arms crushed her breasts together to form an obscenely magnificent display of cleavage that threatened to bust out of her tiny pink crop top.

“Hi, there, darlin’!” The older lady cooed as they strode towards me.  “We’ve been dyin’ to get close to you, I mean…to meet you. We’re so glad you’re awake!  I’m Cherry, and this is Tiff.”