Simple Ride (Hellions Ride Book 6) (4 page)

“
Fucking kids!” Dennis
roars. “Lazy-ass white woman can’t pick up one fucking thing.” He
stomps into our tiny living room and throws a mangled tricycle at
my boys.

I rush in front of them,
putting myself between them and the monster who helped conceive
them. Not my babies. No way, no how. Do whatever the hell you want
to me, but not my boys. No one will touch my boys until I’m cold
and dead. .

He marches over to me,
standing toe to toe. I will not back down, though. He cannot punish
my boys. Not today, not ever, but especially not today. The
tricycle was outside because I was trying to get them to wear out
and take a good nap. I have had the flu for the last week and my
period came this morning, so I was tired. After outside play, the
three of us lay down. I didn’t plan to sleep this long, but having
two boys under two is hard. I was going to bring them out before
dinner and then clean up.

Dinner.

He is really going to flip
when he finds out dinner isn’t ready.

I wave my hand behind my
back, trying to shoo the boys away. They don’t move. He
does.

His breath comes down hot
on my neck. “Lazy bitch,” he mutters as he raises his hand high in
the air. The smack comes down, and I bite my lip so hard I bleed,
trying not to cry out from the pain. The copper taste does nothing
except send my adrenaline into overdrive. Then the punch to my
stomach comes, hunching me over, and I bend farther to watch my
little ones hurry away.

Hide, little
ones
, I think to myself.

In my distraction, I don’t
prepare for the knee that comes to my face. I fall backward onto my
ass as he climbs over me. My sweatpants are yanked down harshly as
he straddles me, slapping my face from side to side and laughing
with each roll of my neck.

He’s the dog, and I’m his
toy.

I close my eyes as I feel
him stand and undo his pants. Then he straddles me again, pushing
my shirt up and moving my bra to rest on top of my large breasts,
painfully constricting my chest. His cock is hard, sliding over my
belly while he pinches my tender nipples painfully. I want to
vomit.

“
Love that cock, baby,” he
groans as he squishes my breasts together and slides between them.
“Titty fuck me good. Fuck my anger away. That’s right, my Pamela,
fuck it all away.”

He scoots down and parts my
legs, no doubt seeing my pants and bloody pad. He now knows this is
not an ideal time, but does he care? No. He slams into me and
pounds away, and my stomach lurches as my insides ache while he
slaps my stomach to match each thrust.

“
Gush for me, Pamela,
gush,” he cries out as I feel wetness leak out of me. All I can
think of is the mess on my carpet as he finally fills me with his
release.

He slides out and his face
pales. “Sick, bitch. Clean this up.” He stands to pull his pants
up, and I see his blood-covered cock. I want to vomit, but more so,
I wish it was his own blood covering his limp dick and not
mine.

Dennis goes to shower and
change, leaving me aching and a mess, emotionally and
physically.

Slowly, I manage to make
dinner while he showers—tator tot casserole is quick and easy. I
feel my period getting heavier with every move I make. Somehow, I
get through the night without disturbing him as I bleed through
multiple times.

Once he leaves for work, I
make the emergency call to my mom to watch the boys. Then I drive
two counties over to the free clinic where I know they won’t push
me about the bruises covering my face. I check in, and the nurse
quickly offers me a rape kit that I laugh off.

“
No, I’ve never bled this
heavily, even after having my kids, so I just want to make sure
everything is okay.”

She smiles a polite smile
that screams she doesn’t believe me. After I pee in a cup, they
take blood, and then I climb on the table, naked from the waist
down, holding a pad to myself because I don’t want to bleed on the
table while I wait for the doctor.

She is a gray-haired lady
who is obviously ready to retire. She looks at my chart, looks at
me, and leaves the room. Well, no one promises good bedside service
at a free clinic.

She wheels in the
ultrasound machine and pushes me back on the table. She wraps the
wand with a condom while the nurse settles my feet into the
stirrups, and she removes the pad. The wand goes in, and my body
clinches automatically.

The rhythmic swish lulls me
as I hear the steady thump of a strong heartbeat. Immediately, I
cry. I know those sounds. That is the sound of my baby.

My baby girl. She made it through that
night. I was nine weeks along, and the doctor felt she’d possibly
had a twin that I lost, causing the bleeding. She couldn’t promise
I wouldn’t lose this one, so I needed to take it easy and return in
two days for blood work.

Two days turned into fifteen more
weeks of one hard pregnancy, a pregnancy that wouldn’t make it
full-term and would kill a part of me every single day after its
loss. I should have left then. I didn’t, and my baby girl paid the
price. My boys now do, too, living as someone they aren’t with my
mother. They can’t know me.

When my phone rings, I look at the
screen as dread fills me.

Unknown number.

“
Hello?” I
answer.

“
Hello, Pamela.” Chills run
down my spine at his voice. “I’m coming for you.”

Chapter Four

~Boomer~

I am a dick. I wasn’t raised to be a
dick, but I sure have become one.

What’s the best way to get over pussy?
Get balls deep in another one. Pamela had me for the last year.
That ship has sailed.

I slap Keri’s ass. “Time to go,” I
say, getting up and going to the motel bathroom without looking
back. Then I freshen up, hoping she’s gone before I get
out.

No such luck.

“
Time to go,” I say
again.

She is dressed and sitting on the edge
of the bed. Her hair is wild, like we are back in the eighties, and
her makeup is smeared. I know she got it good from me last night,
so why hang around?

“
Secrets,
Boomer.”

“
What about them, Keri?” I
snap.

“
We all got
’em.”

“
Time to go,” I repeat
firmly.

“
I’m not talking about
yours, Boomer; I know better. I’m talkin’ about Purple Pussy
Pamela. You and her, I see it. Last night, you called out her name.
I was sucking you off since my pussy couldn’t get the job done. I’m
fucking and sucking, only for it to be her on your
mind.”

“
Watch yourself,
Keri.”

“
Secrets, Boomer, just
think about it. She’s got ’em; you’ve got ’em; and not that anyone
cares, I’ve got ’em, too. She cares about you, but the girl’s got
secrets.”

“
Last I checked, you’re a
barfly, Keri, not a love doctor.”

“
Love has nothing to do
with it. I’m a woman who sees a woman who could use a friend.
You’re the only one she’s let close.”

“
What is this, the
sisterhood now? You should shut the fuck up.”

“
Get your head outta your
ass, Boomer. You’re better than that. All the Hellions, badass as
you are, have got a heart. That woman needs a friend. Be that
friend, Boomer.”

Without another word, she leaves while
my anger boils.

Who the fuck does she think she is?
I’m a mother fucking Hellion, and she wants to tell me to get my
head outta my ass? No more fucking that one.

I rub my beard. She sure wasn’t
telling me to get my head from between her legs. Even if I was
picturing a purple pussy with polka dots while I ate her hard, she
still got hers.

I grumble as I gather my wallet,
phone, and helmet. Then I set the no-tell motel room key on the bed
and leave.

Getting on my bike, I hit the open
road and don’t look back.

The mountains take my focus. My mind
can’t drift. The gravel is solid beneath me, the wind blowing
against my face, and the miles breeze by.

I haven’t been this twisted since I
came home and faced Melonie.

She pounds on my chest,
crying, sobbing, and her belly shaking with the baby inside who
doesn’t know what he lost.

“
He promised to love,
honor, and protect, Boomer.” She pounds against my chest. “How can
he protect me from the grave? How can he honor me when he’s no
longer with me? He promised me forever, Boomer,” she screams at me,
hitting me again with each word. “He promised to love me
forever.”

“
He did, he does, he will,”
I reply as I take each hit from the grieving widow in my
arms.

She stills, looking at me
with swollen eyes, the tears falling down her face. “You ever been
in love, Boomer?”

“
No, I can’t say that I
have,” I reply honestly.

“
It’s all-consuming. I
can’t breathe without him.”

I can’t breathe. The entire
world stops in this moment. My brother in arms is gone, and his
pregnant wife is hurting. She is going to live the ultimate
sacrifice. I thought leaving on each mission, fighting, and killing
were the sacrifices I made for my country. I thought my duty, my
life on the line, was the greatest risk and the greatest pain to
bear.

I was wrong.

I was wrong. The greatest pain is to
survive; the greatest sacrifice is to those who are left behind.
Melonie made the greatest sacrifice to our country, my country, in
losing the man she loved, the man she had built a life with and
trusted with her future. She gave it up in the name of
freedom.

Where I am weak, she is strong. It
hasn’t been easy, but she has gotten by for herself and for Taylor,
their son.

I ride on. I press forward. The sounds
around me fade to the steady tick of the engine beneath me. I could
do this forever.

I was made for solitary
life.

Then, as if I was being slapped in the
face, I remember the sensation of her wrapped around me. I remember
the pull of Pami’s fingers on my stomach and the squeeze of her
thighs around me. Her presence soothes me.

Why?

She’s no different to me than Keri: a
place to dip my stick every so often; release given and taken, no
strings. So why do I want Pami on my bike? Why, in the middle of my
darkest of thoughts, does my mind go back to her? Why can she pull
me out of the sadness and make me want nothing more than to turn
around and go back?

How, in all this time of riding free,
do I suddenly find someone who can call me back home yet doesn’t
want me there?

Secrets.

We all have them. Keri is right about
that.

What would my purple-pussy lover think
if she knew it would have been better to have been me that died,
not Skid? What would everyone think if they knew that, in my mind,
I beg to go back and take his place? I want nothing more than to
trade my life for his. I have no woman, no love, no kid, no family
… He had it all, lost it all, and here I am, running away
again.

One of the elite, my ass.

I am nothing more than a pawn in
Uncle’s Sam’s game against the world, now reduced to a bitter
former soldier, the warrior inside me dead.

My stomach burns. My chest aches.
There is nothing left to fight for.

~Pamela~

Don’t panic. Don’t panic.
He will not win,
I remind myself over and
over to stay calm.

If he knew where I was, I would
certainly be dead. If he knew where the boys were, I would be dead.
I can’t mess this up by becoming careless now.

Absently, I rub my belly, the place
where each of my children began. Day by day, they grew inside of
me. My body provided them safety, nutrition, and love from the very
beginning. I lost my precious baby girl, but I won’t lose my
boys.

He hasn’t found
them
, I tell myself over and over.
Think, Pami, think. How did he find
me?

Absently, I straighten up my trailer,
refusing to peek out of the windows. If he’s watching, I won’t give
him the satisfaction of rattling me. Maybe he only has my phone
number … Hopefully, he hasn’t found me yet.

Time to plan.

Today, I have to clean Doll’s house.
Then I will give her my one-week notice. I can’t make any sudden
moves if he has found me.

Going to the kitchen, I take out the
cereal box—Lucky Charms, their favorite. I smile, thinking of my
boys and the many times they have probably had this since I have
been gone. My wish is for the end of the rainbow.

I pull out the money I have been
saving and count it out. Although three thousand dollars won’t get
me far, it will get me to another state and set up until I can find
a job waitressing or something.

I hate to leave North Carolina, but if
he’s found me, being in the same state as my boys is too close. If
he can find me in Catawba, he can find them on the coast. Maybe my
mistake was moving them and me to small towns. Maybe the city would
hide us better. I will keep that in mind for my next location.
Then, when it’s safe, maybe Momma should go to Raleigh or
Charlotte. I now know I won’t keep us in the same state again, so
wherever she goes, it will be far from wherever I am. Of course,
that is going to take money, too.