Wrath (21 page)

Emma

I put the stack of books on their shelf and looked them over.  I’d managed to purchase all the required ones today, and I was prepared now through the end of next semester.  I even had a little bit of cash left over for groceries.  I was feeling pretty good about that.

I had gotten a call from Kat asking me if I could trade today’s shift for a double on Saturday.   I’d said sure.  Saturday was the most profitable day of the week for the strip club.

My finances were coming along well, and after the last week of classes my grades were in better shape. 

What was more, I was settling into my new life.  It had been calm since the raid, maybe too calm, but I was enjoying it.  Aidan and I had been attached at the hip, and I spent more time at the clubhouse than the dorm these days. 

A fact that Kim was quick to remind me of. 

“Well, imagine this!  She finally graces us with her presence!”

She was a smart-ass and a half, and I let her do her thing until she finally forgave me a little.  That didn’t mean she had stopped snapping at me, though.

“What are you doing?”  Kim asked, interrupting my thoughts. 

I blinked, realizing that I had been staring at the wall. 

“Just reorganizing my books, why?”  I asked. 

She plopped down on her bed.  “Oh, I dunno.  Because you looked like a total creeper?”  She smiled, an edge in her voice.  “Haven’t seen dear old ‘tall, dark and dreamy’ the last couple of days.  Where has he been?”

I shrugged.  “He fixed the car.  I haven’t needed him to pick me up.”  I’d been driving myself to work all week.  Yeah, I really missed riding on the back of his bike, but he was always at the club.  Watching out for me, finding ways to include me. 

The other night, I’d made half the MC drinks and we’d all played shots till we were piss drunk.  That had been a good night, and not just for the shots.  Aidan drunk was a hell of a lot of fun once the door closed and the clothes came off. 

Then yesterday, Desiree had asked me to help her stock the clubhouse for emergency care if it came up again. 

I had a feeling Aidan and Layla had something to do with all this extra bonding time, but I didn’t spit on it.  I needed a way to make sense of Aidan’s life in Fire and Steel, anyhow. 

It should’ve been awkward after our fight, but it wasn’t.  I loved every moment I got to spend with him, and we never seemed to get tired of each other.

We were falling fast and deep, and I was okay with that.

“Yeah, I saw it.  Looks likes totally new.” 

I blinked again, confused, and Kim smirked.  “Your car.”

Oh.  Right. 

“Got him wrapped around your finger, I see.  Did they do anything special to it?”

If my head went a little dirty with that, well, who could blame me?  Aidan and I had been at it like bunnies for weeks now.  I was a very, very content and happy woman.

I kept my answer clean, though.  “Well, they did a new paint job, and the new parts make a huge difference.”  She ran like a queen now.  Aidan had restored the entire thing, painting it cream to offset his black Chevelle. 

According to Aidan, it was a cute little dream, “even if it was a Ford.”

I didn’t care about the model.  I loved that hunk of junk – even if it wasn’t junk anymore.

“Things still hot and heavy?”  Kim probed.

“
Kim
!”  I turned to see her smiling wickedly, and she wrinkled her nose at my shock.  We got along well, but she just didn’t understand.

She put her hands up.  “Okay, Okay.  Calm down.  I was just yanking your chain.  Jesus.”

I looked around for something to do, and worked on that whole ‘keeping Kim in the loop’ thing I’d been prioritizing of late.

“Yes.  Things are still going very well.  I like his friends, and we’re having a lot of fun.” 

She smirked as my cheeks flushed. 

Yeah.  He and I were having
a lot
of fun. 

“I just, I want to make sure that I keep doing well at school, you know?”  I was spending a lot of time with him.  Since we had visited the graveyard, he’d taken to helping me study.  He wasn’t very good at it, distracting me more than anything, but he really was happy to see me succeeding at school, and that made me feel great. 

I wasn’t sure what motivated him, but I wasn’t complaining.  This was the first time in forever that I’d felt like I belonged somewhere. 

“Shit.”  Kim scowled.  She had buried her head in the fridge.  “You going to the Italian Market anytime today?  We’re out of those amazing lemon wafers.”  She pouted at me.

“Well if you didn’t eat them so fast…“

She stuck out her tongue at me. 

“Yeah, I was planning on going.  Anything else we need?”

“We’re out of that coffee you found last time.”

“That stuff is expensive.”

“So?”

“I had a coupon last time.”

She just snorted at my thriftiness.  “Here.  I’ll cover that.  You pick up the risotto and lunchmeat.”

“I can cover it.”

“Oh, cut it out.  You’re running out to get it.  Let me pay for the damn coffee.”

“Fine,” I muttered, plopping down at my desk and jotting down a list.

“Ooo!  And could you grab some of that amazing soap for me?  That stuff was
divine
.  I’ll pay you back for that, too.” 

“Sure,” I murmured, tapping my pen against the desk.

All I could think about was the way Aidan touched me last night, his body against mine.  Those lips kissing me the round of my shoulder and the curve of my waist, wandering their way down right where I wanted them... 

I shook my head with a smile.  It was ridiculous.  I couldn’t get enough of those lips.  And I was never going to be able to pass the quiz for anatomy this week if I didn’t study.

Twenty minutes later, though, I shut my book.  I couldn’t focus.  The only thing that would clear my head was a walk.

“I think I’ll walk down now and get some things.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” she muttered around her ice cream spoon.  She was in the middle of figuring out how to finish a project for her art class – something to do with surrealism.  It wasn’t turning out very well, but she didn’t need me to tell her that. 

Honestly, I got the feeling she didn’t care how it turned out.  If she did, she wouldn’t have grabbed the pint of ice cream.  Kim dug into her little indulgences when she had decided to just chill about something.  Her eyes would get all cat-like and analytical and she would pop out the chocolate bars or gourmet coffee and start poking and prodding at whatever had annoyed her.  It was weird and a little funny to watch. 

Personally, I preferred a bit of fresh air to shake things off. 

It was a gorgeous day out, not too hot, with a bit of moisture in the air.  A storm had come through and cleared away the hazy summer fog.

I headed down the hill and off onto Forbes Avenue, making a few turns until I was in the heart of Oakland.  I could’ve driven, but it was too beautiful out.  And the truth was, I needed the exercise. 

I could care less about my weight.  My curves were my pride, and I didn’t usually feel too jealous of how other women looked.  But I really was afraid of letting my strength fade away. 

I still remembered how scrawny my mother had gotten at her worst.  After seeing her body turned into a toothpick from drugs and heroine-stifled hunger, I’d never had much patience with dieting. 

Let other people do it if they wanted.  I just wanted to be strong enough to break a nose, twist a wrist, and make a run for it if I needed to.  That meant I needed to use those muscles regularly.

I’d enjoyed riding with Aidan so much, though.  I had gotten lazy.

Luckily, the market wasn’t very far away, just a mile or two.  The walk was long enough for some people watching.

Pittsburgh was an interesting place to live because of the cultural and ethnic cultures that had come to mingle there.  Some parts of the city were clearly Italian, while others were German, or Polish.  Like Chinatown in San Diego and any Indian or Middle Eastern community elsewhere in the states, many of these European pockets had their own, very ethnic markets that reflected their pre-American cultures. 

I really liked the feel of them.  I was a bit of a mutt and my childhood hadn’t been filled with heirlooms or family stories.  Maybe that explained why I gravitated to places like this…

The Italian Market squatted on the corner of Bates and Ward.  They carried import and specialty goods, but they also had great, cheap produce.  I also liked coming here because I didn’t have to waste gas.

I turned down a side alley that I knew was a short cut, hoping to shave a few minutes off of my trip.  But when chills that ran down my back, I gasped in horror.

When I turned around, it was him.

Samuel.

I stood there in shock.

I hadn’t heard more from him since last week when Layla told me the club would take care of it.  I assumed they had, because I hadn’t even gotten a single note from him.

“Thought I disappeared, huh, lovely girl?”  I fought an involuntary shudder.  It was what he used to call me. 
Lovely girl
.

“You’ve grown up a lot.  Come in.  Filled out in all the right places.  Bit like your mother back in the day…” The look that crossed his face then truly was horrifying. 

At one time, my mother had been beautiful. 

After Samuel gotten ahold of her, her body had become gaunt and bruised.  He had beaten lines into her face long before they had been due.  She had lost hair and teeth to him – to his fists and to his drugs.  He’d broken her spirit and he’d never given it back.  What she had now, she had because he hadn’t been able to get to it.

She had always had bipolar, but she had been more than her condition.  She had taken her medications because she had loved me and she had wanted to be a mother to me.  She had wanted to enjoy her life as best she could.  And then he had come along.

The person I hated had never been my mother.  It was this monster in front of me.

For Samuel, this wasn’t about our looks.  It was about breaking things – people – one at a time, and he liked stepping on the remaining pieces until there was nothing left to crush.

He took a step towards me but I backed up.  I realized I couldn’t outrun him.  He was taller, leaner, and in better shape than I was.

He sold the drugs, he didn’t do them.

“Why are you following me?”

“You know why.  Your mother’s been out of the institution a week.  Didn’t come to see me, so I decided to pay her a visit.  Do you know what she did, lovely?”

I shuddered, backing away just slightly.

He saw the movement and just followed me, his steps casual, those avian eyes coldly watching me. 

I wasn’t stupid.  I remembered that look.  If I ran, he would be on me in a second.  I’d seen him run my mother down back in the day.  The results had given me nightmares.

Samuel was a vicious son of a bitch when he felt slighted.  And right now, he was feeling a little “unloved.”

It occurred to me suddenly that if he got ahold of me, he would kill my mother.  He might kidnap her first and use her a bit, but he would kill her, if only to make a point to me. 

He was trying to replace her. 

He was going to try to break me.

Realizing this scared my shitless.

“Do you know what she did?”  he said again, oh so softly.  “She denied me… Now why would she do that, Emma?  Why would they escort me away from my girl?” 

His smile as he used my name was sick, the kind of twisted sprawl of tooth and lips that made me want to throw up and bolt at the same time.

It was the same smile he had worn when he offered to prostitute me out.

He went on, his voice horribly quiet.  “I told her.  I’ve told you.  Your mother belongs to me.  You are her daughter, and so you belong to me.”

I was sure I was going to collapse, but there was nothing to hang onto.  Nowhere to run.  I had to keep myself on my feet by sheer willpower or hit the ground. 

If you can’t run away, run ‘em down
. 

Aidan had told me that just the other night.  He had been drunk and I had been more concerned with getting his clothes off at the time, but now I remembered the way he had drawled those words.  The strength in his voice.

He would have run down anyone who threatened him – or me.

That was when it really hit me.  I needed to stop being scared of Samuel. 

I’d broken up bar fights, I’d knocked guys out.  He was a mean son of a bitch, but I was strong, too, and I knew what I could do.

“Not even going to try to run?”  he taunted as he walked over to me. 

“We both know I wouldn’t get far.”

“That’s right.  And you remember what I do when my girls try to run.”

God, he’d never dared to talk to me like that before.  His tone had only started to change when I hit puberty, the shift slow but steady.  I’d gotten away from him just in time.