Vengeful Soul by Emma Creed
Brax flies through the door like a hurricane, the door crashing loudly behind him making me jump. He heads straight into the bedroom, and I debate whether I should follow him or not. He returns to the room a few minutes later with a duffel bag on his shoulder.
“I got to head out.” He opens the kitchen drawer, rooting around in it until he finds a roll of gaffer tape. Then shocks the hell out of me when he pulls a huge fishing hook from under the sink.
“Ooookay.” I watch on suspiciously. He’s like a storm cloud waiting to break, his brow creased and his eyes wild as he stuffs more items inside the bag. I can’t help wonder where he could be going that would require a whole bag of salt?
He stops just before he gets to the door and looks back at me like he isn’t quite sure what to do next.
“Be careful,” I tell him. Sensing that whatever he’s heading out to is dangerous, with Brax, everything seems dangerous.
“Don’t ya waste time worrying about me,” he tells me sharply, and it feels like a cut across my skin, especially after I thought we’d made a breakthrough this morning. “I don’t know when I’ll be back, should be later tonight.”
“Come back when you like, makes no odds to me,” I answer just as curtly, turning my back on him and stropping into the bedroom. If that’s how he wants it to be, that’s how he’ll have it. I’m done trying to figure him out, playing guess the fucking mood.
Footsteps thud behind me and my body gets spun around so roughly it makes me dizzy, and before I can protest, Brax’s mouth slams hard over mine.
“Stop being a brat,” he warns me, his lips kicking up into a lopsided smile that makes my legs turn to Jell-O. He turns and leaves, and I wait until I hear the door close and his bike tear out the yard before I come back out.
I’m struggling with the confines of the cabin walls, so I decide to put some space around me and get some air.
The yard is empty when I step outside, and I want to explore. So, I set off, following the rough track down the hill.
“You alright?” I hear a voice I recognize call out from above me, and when I look over to my left, I see Nyx balancing on a ladder that’s propped against one of the derelict barns. He’s stapling a string of tiny bulbs that are being fed to him by Grimm, who looks far from impressed.
“I’m fine, just going for a wander,” I answer with a smile.
“Stay on the compound, and stay away from Squealer,” he tells me with a smirk. This Squealer guy seems to have quite the reputation.
“Got it.” I salute before I carry on walking down to the Clubhouse. There doesn’t seem to be anyone around, but I’m not really looking for company. What I need is space. Time away from Brax to clear my head. He had acted like a whole different person this morning. The way he’d been when he came back from church just reminded me how temporary all this was. How quickly things can change, and how I’m doing myself no favors by becoming attached to him.
Maddy called by after the boys left for church earlier, she explained how they had the names of the people involved. And it doesn’t take a CIA agent to guess where Brax is right now. He’s working on getting me back home, back to perfect suburbia, and back to Julian.
Julian, the man I’m supposed to love. The man I promised to spend the rest of my life with before all this. Right now, I don’t even know if I want to see him. How will I ever look him in the eye after all the things I’ve done with Brax?
I bury my head in my hands and try to tell myself things will work out, but I’m not convinced.
“Which one is it?” a flat female tone causes me to look up. And a girl I haven’t seen before stands in front of me. She’s wearing black boots, with pink overalls tucked in at the ankle. The sleeves of them wrapped around a slender midriff. The white cropped tank top she wears is smeared with what looks like engine oil, and both her arms are covered in bright tattoos. Whoever she is, she has a really pretty face, and hair so blonde it’s almost white.
Using the dirty rag from her pocket, she wipes her hands clean before holding one of them out to me.
“Rogue,” she smiles, giving me a sturdy shake.
“Gracie,” I reply, realizing that I’ve never introduced myself like that before, Gracie is what Brax calls me.
“Gracie… You know anything about cars?”
“Well, I can drive one,” I answer her cautiously, it sounds like there’s more to come from her question.
“Perfect, follow me,” she pulls me up to my feet with a strength I wasn’t expecting from her dainty figure, and leads me over to the garage.
Pulling open the door of an old pickup, she gestures for me to get in the driver’s seat.
“Just try starting her up when I say.” She disappears behind the open hood, and I hear her tinkering and cursing as she fiddles with whatever it is she’s trying to fix.
“So, you gonna tell me which one of the assholes got to ya?” she asks, her head still buried into the job.
“How do you know it’s one of the guys?” I try to avoid her question.
“Well, you’re not dressed like the whores that hover around them like hungry sheep. Which suggests one of them brought ya here.” Her head pops around the hood. “Start her up,” she instructs
I turn the key in the ignition and it splutters, Rogue rolls her eyes and gets back to work.
“It's Troj, ain’t it? I swear that boy was sent from God to wreck panties and ruin hearts.” She stabs a guess, and I know which one she’s talking about straight away.
“Actually, it's Brax,” I admit, hearing a clang of metal straight after.
“Brax?” she repeats, sounding shocked.
“The one and only,” I sit back in the seat and sigh.
“Try her again,” Rogue instructs, and I attempt to start the truck. Still without luck.
“You sound surprised.” I can’t help but be curious at her reaction.
“Hell yeah, I’m surprised, Brax doesn’t seem like the settling down kind, if you know what I mean.”
“He isn’t, I’m only here until Prez finishes some shit he helped my mama with, then it’s back to normal.”
Rogue laughs, and it pisses me off a little. The girl doesn’t know me, she has no right finding amusement in my situation.
“What’s funny?” I let her hear the irritation in my voice. She comes back into view, crossing her arms and resting them on the open window.
“After this place, things will never be normal again. Did he put you on his bike?” she asks, resting her face on her hand and leaving dirty smudges on her cheek as she makes a sarcastic dreamy sigh.
“I rode with him once.”
“Then you’re in more trouble than you think,” she raises her perfectly shaped eyebrows at me. “Give it another go,” her eyes look down at the ignition, and this time when I turn the key, the engine sputters and starts with a choke.
Rogue smiles back at me cleverly.
“So which one do you belong to?” I ask when she steps aside and opens the truck door for me to hop out. She laughs again, this one sounding sugary sweet and laced with venom.
“Oh, darlin’, I don’t belong to no one, especially no Dirty Soul. I’m far too wild for any of those boys to tame.” I watch as she slams down the hood of the truck and rubs her greasy hands on the back of her overalls.
“I should get back to the cabin,” I smile, ready to make my way back up the hill.
“Fuck sake, Rogue, stop getting your parts delivered to the clubhouse,” an irritated voice interrupts my exit, and a huge guy, covered in tattoo’s slams a box down on the crowded work surface. He’s one of the twins that rode off with Brax and Jessie to speak to the rival MC, and he offered to help me with my bag yesterday. I was in such a mood with Brax that I was rude to him.
“I can always guarantee there’ll be someone there,” Rogue shrugs innocently. “That’s your brother’s new exhaust, so maybe you should be thanking me for him, you know, seeing as he doesn’t have much to say himself.”
I notice the guy eye her warningly for a second.
“This one’s got a mouth on her,” he turns his attention to me now, nudging his head toward Rogue. He seems a nice enough guy, a lot less serious than some of the others around here.
“In fact, she’s lucky I don’t take some severe action to keep her quiet.”
“Something like what, Squeal, you wanna stuff your chubby in my mouth?” Rogue bites back at him with a tantalizing look in her eyes.
“Wouldn’t run the risk,” he shakes his head. “You’d probably gnaw it off.”
“You know me too well,” she throws him that over-exaggerated sweet look again, playing up to her act before scowling at him and getting back to work.
“I’ll tell Screwy to come over and fix his exhaust when we’re back from our little recreational,” he tells her, backing out the door and winking at me as he leaves.
“Squealer?” I ask Rogue.
“Living and breathing… for now,” she rolls her eyes.