Page 82 of I Was Born Ruined (Death by Daybreak MC 1)
“Alright, Gaz, that’s enough.” Cat’s voice is cold as he gives the command for my brother to stop, leaving me bleeding in a crumpled heap on the floor. Gaz snarls and throws open the back door, storming outside to cool his head as our father squats down beside my face, his boots squeaky on the shiny floors. I’m shaking and coughing as he sweeps some hair back from my bloodied forehead. “You’ll fall into line willingly, Gidge, or I’ll rearrange your limbs until you fit. Do you understand me?”
“It’s …” I choke out, coughing up blood on the floor, hating the memories it conjures up in my psyche. “Gidget. Never Gidge.” Only people I like can call me Gidge. Only Queenie and Posey ever called me Gidge. I gasp, my throat getting stuck on the words.
Cat frowns and grabs me by the hair, dragging me out of the kitchen and across the floor while Nellie watches. Even though I feel like I’m about to pass out, I’m forced to scramble up the stairs lest I get dragged up them.
My father throws me on my bed and stands there, watching me pant and bleed and glare.
“Last fucking chance,” he says, eyes as cold as deep space. “Last chance.”
He turns and leaves before I get the opportunity to speak. That is, if I can even talk. I’m hurting so bad that I feel like I might die.
One day, I think as I lie there and wonder, not for the first time, if Queenie’s and Posey’s deaths are just as much Cat’s fault as they are the mafia’s. One day I’m going to kill you, Cat.
I don’t believe in premonitions or foreshadowing, but a chill travels down my spine at that thought.
And then … nothing.
I barely remember the next few days.Nobody gives a shit whether I skip school or not, so I stay home the next few days and lay curled in bed around my three-legged dog. He literally doesn't seem to notice or care that he's missing a limb, but I do. Every time I look at him hopping around with only one front leg, I'll remember. I'll remember that I made a mistake, that I hate Cat, that I hate this life.
That I have to leave or die.
Rolling onto my back, I groan, and hear Beast shift at his position near my non-existent bedroom door. I ignore him and look up at the ceiling, imagining that kid's gray eyes looking back at me, ready for his own death, desperate to save me from a fate he perceived as even worse than his own.
Cat is not going to let me get out of this. As soon as he’s finished with the kid, he'll call me back in and make me kill him. And if not him, then someone else. Maybe someone even less culpable, someone even less deserving of a shot to the head. Gritting my teeth, I push the heels of my hands against my eyes so hard that they hurt.
My father is going to bind me to the club with string so tight it cuts. I'll be a murderer. My soul will be tainted a filthy black, and I'll never really be able to escape. Once, Gaz’s girlfriend took off with two hundred bucks and her clothes, left their apartment and moved three states over. Because she'd seen things, knew things … they hunted her down and killed her.
Someone that my brother claimed to love was executed for a mere infraction. Cat is going to reel me in like a fish on a hook that I can never remove.
I have to take my dog, and that kid, and I have to run.
But to outpace the long legs of the club, I'll have to be smart. I'll have to run far and fast, and I'll have to go either somewhere they'd never expect … or somewhere they can’t reach me.
That leaves me with two choices: the feds … or the mafia.
Fem flicks his tongue against my ear, and I yelp, dropping my hands and glancing over to find him panting and staring at me like this is any other normal day. He wants to go for a goddamn walk, and he's just had his leg amputated.
“It's time for antibiotics,” I say, and he just licks my mouth as I try desperately to push him away. “And your pain meds. You don't get a walk, not yet.” Fem ignores me, hopping down off the bed and stumbling just a little before he regains his feet. He bares his teeth at Beast, but then settles down to lick the long fur of his tail.
I stand up with a groan, meeting Beast's blue eyes from across the room.
“Do you want to learn to defend yourself?” he asks, surprising the shit out of me. I cock a brow as I study him, standing there in his leather cut and tight black tee, his worn-out jeans, and his steel-toed boots. I can still remember him in the ring, kicking ass and taking names. It's a mystery to me why he joined the club, but probably for the same reasons as everyone else. And really, it's not for booze, and drugs, and women: it's to feel like they belong, like they're part of something bigger.
