Next Morning

Savannah

The next day we didn’t go to school. Uncle let us skip and hang. We watched movies and ate cereal by the truckful.

When two o’clock came, I talked Percy into letting me go to biker country so I could clean Damon’s nasty-ass room and hope that maybe I could just act like yesterday didn’t happen.

He of course didn’t want me to go but didn’t fight me too bad. I told him to go to some of his other friends’ houses, drive his car or something.

I promised to call if I needed him and that everything would be fine.

I didn’t feel so full like last night. I was ready to have those scars Uncle Jonah talked about, I was ready to feel the open wounds scabbed over at least.

It was hot as fuck, but I made it to biker country in just over an hour and a half.

~Suck it, Damon, it didn’t take me two hours like you said.~

When I turned the corner to walk down the street of the bar, the roar of bikes came whisking by; the loud engines were ear-splitting, but I also kind of liked it.

They didn’t sound like any cars I was normally around.

It was like the bikes were growling, purring, roaring.

I loved it. As if they were alive and wanted the world to be aware. To hear them and know they are wild.

I didn’t pay them much attention when the ten pulled in, just walking the rest of the way to find my way into the bar.

When the windows of the bar started to separate the brick, I saw the blond hair coming my way. He pointed to the jacket in my hand and his eyes grew wide.

~Fuck, I forgot.~

I whipped it inside out and bundled it up, laying my purse over it and acting like it was nothing.

I remember what Sunshine said. How my patches would be seen as disrespect, even though it would have to be looked at as I’m in a one-woman gang.

“Good afternoon, Sunshine.” I waved and walked with him back up to the doors of the bar.

“You won’t think that when you see his room, dude’s a fucking pig.”

He laughs, I roll my eyes and grunt an “oh great” before he opens the door for me and waves me in.

Sunshine puts his hand on my upper back, leading me through the sea of bikers and their ladies until he steers us to the back, a corner booth that is full of men who all look alike.

At least eight different versions of the same carbon copy that is Damon Henley.

I thought one was bad, then meeting his older, piercing-covered brother was like rubbing salt into the wound.

But now? Seeing the eight different models of my Angel, I knew I was done for.

“Okay, so maybe Damon really is the devil’s offspring.”

Sunshine laughs, asking why I think that.

“Because, look at them. No way is that by the grace of God. That’s the devil’s work. No way do all of them look so damn good by DNA or something.

“Dude sold his soul—or he really is the devil himself.”

Sunshine cackled loudly, gaining us attention from the dark-haired angels of biker country.

My eyes locked to Damon’s like magnets—connecting, colliding, and joining as if that’s all they could do, like it’s their whole job.

“So do I go over and say hi or…?” I whispered from the side of my mouth at Sunshine.

“It’s time to meet the family. Welcome to hell, goddess.”

I snorted right as he shoved me forward and my hand smacked the table.

“Hi, sorry about that.”

I glared at Sunshine’s retreating form and hoped he could feel it.

“Nice to see you again, darlin’, how’s about the rain check?” The older version of Damon, the less tattooed and heavily-pierced brother, smiled seductively at me.

“Aw, did you miss me? How sweet.” I batted my lashes and gave him a wink.

I could hear Damon’s anger rising.

“Angel, did you miss me too?” I turned into my hip and swayed onto one leg.

“Like a dog misses a flea.”

I made a sound that came as a shock to me. A loud sound that I hadn’t made in nine months. A sound I couldn’t pretend was anything else but what it was.

A laugh.

A short, airy laugh that sounded like a legit “haha.”

My eyes widened and I immediately turned on my heels to get away.

~How could I just do that?~

~And over such a lame-ass joke?~

~I laughed.~

~I…laughed.~

~I actually laughed.~

Sunshine caught me at the door and looked me up and down.

“Where you going, babe?” His arms folded across his chest until I gave him a sharp look, which made his arms drop and his hands shield his balls.

Cupping himself as if he was thinking I would kick his nuts clean off, making him a Ken doll down there.

I would, just not right now.

But definitely in my job description. I know I have the talent and skill.

His eyes flicked off me to someone behind me.

I felt him press up against me and line his legs with mine, his hands taking hold of my wrists, his face sitting on my shoulder and walking me away like some weird-ass marionette puppet that he was hiding the strings to.

He walked me through the bar and down the hall he had once dragged me down, then back out again, moving me down a staircase, onto a cement landing that I would say was a basement at one time.

The music of the bar faded until it wasn’t even decipherable.

Damon pushed me against his metal door as he entered a code and twisted the yellow metal handle.

He walked me in, hitting the side of the wall that made the lights click on.

“Oh my God, Damon! This place is a pigsty. Have you never heard of a trash can?”

He wrapped his arms around my stomach and made me arch with the way he was hugging himself to me.

“I have one in here somewhere. You’ll have to find it. Cleaning stuff is on the bed.”

He nodded in a direction I assume was meant to show me the way his bed would be at, but I couldn’t find even a sliver of a mattress under the piles of trash that were level with the height of it.

“Where? Eww. How do you live like this? You shouldn’t be sleeping in here. What’s worse is you locked it. Like you were worried someone would come down here and steal your trash. You nasty-ass hoarder.”

“You laughed.”

I froze, stiffening and gnashing my teeth.

“Nope.”

“Yep.”

“Naw.”

“Yeah.”

I pulled at his hands and peeled away from him.

“Maybe. Maybe not. Probably not. I don’t do that anymore. So are you going to stay while I clean or? And how about music?”

I moved through the trash, watching my steps very carefully so I wouldn’t get bit or something from any of the bugs that have to be hiding in this nasty mess of a room.

The entire floor was covered in trash—so much so I couldn’t see my own feet.

“This must be the bed.” I started throwing stuff off the mattress and looking for the cleaning supplies he said were here. Under this pile of trash.

“Do you not use a blanket or pillow? Just burrowing under the trash like some homeless man?”

I tossed more trash off the bed and found a bottle of Windex.

“You don’t even have windows down here!”

He leaned against the doorframe and smirked.

“Listen, Angel, I need trash bags and yellow gloves first.”

I threw him the blue bottle of window cleaner and moved more trash off his bed.

“Here.” A brown wooden basket hung on the doorknob as he walked away.

“So, Van, what’s on the schedule for today? Oh, I’ll just clean hell and make friends with the fallen angels.

“Maybe stop by and say what’s up to Luci, just depending on how time runs for me,” I sarcastically said to myself.

~This is going to take forever.~