Page 104 of Girth (Marked Skulls MC 1)
Being on the run was a risk I took on when I gravitated back towards the motorcycle lifestyle. When I found the Iron Souls and began running with them.
When I realized I wasn’t going to truly be able to leave that all behind.
The truth was, I really had nowhere else to go. My father was robbed from me at twenty years of age, and my mother had just succumbed to cancer. I would’ve simply continued to stay in her house and live out our days in it had the Iron Souls not been busted. I was on the run because of a group I spent maybe six years of my time with, and I had been thrust back into the territory of a group I’d been raised with.
I literally had nowhere to go. This was the only place I could be.
The movie droned on in the background as I felt Emery’s breaths evening out against my chest. I held her close as my mind swirled with that black sedan, wondering what in the hell it had been doing out there this morning. Was someone watching me? Was someone watching Hawk? Were The Road Rebels in trouble? Was there something I could do help?
The last question startled me as I clenched Emery close to my chest. Memories of running around with Hawk and practicing our self-defense with other members of the group caused me to draw in a deep breath. Even with the blood-soaked memories of how I lost my father, I still had wonderful memories of growing up around here. There was never a moment where I felt alone. Where I felt you didn’t have anyone to go talk to. There were fun weekend road trips where I got to experience the open road and take trips with my father. I got to run around campsites with other kids while we played in the water and slept around bonfires.
Hawk gave me my first kiss behind the dying embers of a hot fire on one of those trips.
Even with the threats that loomed over our heads, there wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t learn something new. Sure, we didn’t attend a regular school. We were all homeschooled by a couple of women who would volunteer to get their licenses through the county. But we learned in ways most children never did. They took us on trips to museums and candy factories. We would lay out at night and name all the stars we could see. We learned about constellations and burning gases and how the sun really shed its light.
I smiled at the memories as I felt Emery shift on top of my body.
I reached for the remote and shut the television off. It was approaching five hours since Hawk had been gone and I was beginning to get nervous. It was well past lunch time, almost colliding into dinner, and part of me wanted to call him and make sure he was all right.
But I didn’t have his number, so that was out of the question.
I slowly shifted Emery off me, then sat up on the couch. She curled into the cushion, pulling the blanket up onto her body while she continued to sleep. I bent down and kissed her, smoothing her hair out from her face as I smiled at her freckles. She didn’t have as many as me, but they were all congregated around her nose and cheeks. I memorized what she looked like in that very moment, curled up in a blanket that smelled of her father while she slept with a smile on her face.
I wanted to memorize every part of her innocence before she ultimately found out why we were house-hopping.
Why we had come to stay with Hawk.
Who Hawk really was to her.
I felt tears crest my eyes as I raised up from her. I tucked her in and ventured into the kitchen, cleaning up my mess from that morning. I was beyond conflicted. I wanted to shelter her from this life. Whisk her away to Northern California or Washington State. I wanted to use my two-year degree to get a job that would pay for us to live wonderfully, just like she deserved. I wanted to see her off to school and cook homemade meals she could devour at night. I wanted to decorate her room any way she wished and raise her in one home for the rest of her life.
I wanted to host sleepovers and be the ‘cool mom’ and have my house be a refuge for all her friends to come when their parents weren’t being as cool as I was.
But I missed the open road. I missed the wind in my hair. I missed the taste of sand and falling asleep underneath the stars. I missed having a big family, with lots of people to lean on at different times. I missed the fierce protection that came with the motorcycle lifestyle.
I missed having friends and owning my own bike. I missed the shared camaraderie and the rally we all went to.
But most of all, I missed Hawk.
I missed that man more than I could stand.
“Where are you?” I whispered it to myself as tears streamed down my face. I emptied the rest of the coffee pot into my freshly-cleaned mug as I tried to gather my mind. The last thing I needed to be was an unhinged mess when Hawk finally came through that door.
But the one thing I’d forgotten was how quiet he could be when he walked.
“Syd?” he asked as I gasped and whirled around.
“What’s wrong?”
Chapter 7
Hawk
I knew I had to lose this fucker, no matter what it took. I didn’t know if they were following Sydney or if someone had latched onto what we were doing, but I knew I needed to take drastic measures. I kicked my bike into gear and sped out of the gas station, wrapping around the back of it as I looked in my rearview mirror. I saw the black sedan pulling out the parking lot, but they got hung up at the light. I wrapped my way around the gas station and sped down a one-way gravel lot before I crept up onto a bike path and sped through the woods.
I was dodging cyclists and mothers with their children. I checked to make sure the groceries were okay before I crossed the gravel road. There was a back way that went for miles before it dumped me out onto an exit ramp, and I had every intention of riding it all the way to the highway.
I sped through the woods and dodged little animals as the concrete turned to dirt. I hung on tight, trying to not rattle the groceries badly as I finally heard the traffic whizzing by my left ear. I took a sharp turn and jumped from the woods, sailing over a steep hill as cars honked at my intrusion. My bike hit with a thud onto the ramp of the highway, and I settled myself into traffic as I looked around.
There was no black sedan, no police cars chasing me, and no mysterious vehicles trying to catch up.
I breathed a sigh of relief as I made a u-turn in the middle of the highway. I needed to get going in the right direction so I could get back to Sydney and Emery. The last thing they needed to be was alone right now, especially since I knew someone was following me. What I needed to know was if someone was following them. Was it just me they were clocking, or were they watching my daughter, too.
Because if someone was keeping tabs on those two women, they were in for a very serious discussion.
I took the exit ramp and headed for my house as my head continued to dart around. Even as I drove down the main road that led to my house, I didn’t see a black sedan anywhere. I pulled my bike up beside the house and parked it in the shade, waiting around to see if anyone would come creeping up the road. I sat there, perched behind my bike as I kept staring around the corner of the house.
But when no one came creeping down the road, I grabbed the groceries and went on inside.
I took a deep breath as I closed the door silently behind me. I figured Emery would be napping somewhere, and I didn’t want to wake her, but the sound that hit my ears soon after I shut the door prickled the hairs on the back of my neck.
Sydney was in the kitchen crying.
I slowly walked around with the groceries in my hand as her body came into view. She was hunched over the sink, her hand holding her head as her tears dripped against the stainless steel metal. I stood there for a second, simply watching her. I listened out for anyone else that could be in the house. Anyone that might have come in here to try and harm her.
But when I was satisfied no one else was in the house, I lifted the bags and set them on the table.
She jumped and whirled around, her snotty nose and puffy eyes coming into view. She put her finger to her lips before she pointed over to the couch, trying to tell me Emery was asleep.
/> “Syd?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”
“Not here,” she said, whispering. “Not here.”
I put away the cold stuff quickly and left the rest of the shit out on the counter. I took her hand and slowly led her up the steps, not thinking about the fact that I was still wearing my Road Rebels leather jacket. Her sobs were stifled by her hands, the sound crushing my heart as we made our way into my room.
I sat her on the edge of my bed before I dipped into the bathroom.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
Without a word, I started drawing her a bath. She was shaking up a storm, and I had to get her to calm down. I was worried someone had come by to talk with her. Had found her at my house and attempted to intimidate her back into the group. Maybe some other people in another black sedan or some shit had come snooping around and scared her. Or maybe someone looking for her had found her.
I poured some hand soap into the bath, trying to get her some bubbles that might soothe her before I went back into my bedroom. Her crying had stopped, and she was trying to clean up her nose, but her body was still shaking up a storm.
“Did someone come by the house?” I asked.
“No,” she said breathlessly.
“Would you tell me if someone had?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said, nodding.
“Let’s get you in a bath.”
I watched her stand, but her hands were shaking so bad she couldn’t grab her clothes. I walked over to her and slowly peeled her robe off her shoulders, letting it fall to the ground. She was still in my shirt, which meant she hadn’t attempted to clean herself up. There was only one time in my life I’d ever seen Sydney not take care of herself.
And it was when I tried to get her to shower the night her father died.
“Hey, hey, hey. Look at me.”
She took a deep breath and raised her beautiful blue eyes up to greet mine. I ran my knuckles over her cheek, wiping away her tears while she tried to breathe through her nose. I wrapped my other hand into my white shirt and held it to her nose, nodding for her to blow as she dumped her face full of snot into the fabric of my clothes.
“It’s gonna be all right. No one’s gonna find you here. Not The Road Rebels. Not the DEA. Not the Iron Souls, okay?”
