Phoenix’s Plight by Tiffany Casper

 

“Pray.”

- Heathen

 

Chapter 16

Heathen

Heathen paced the waiting room of the hospital. Savage had ripped his shirt off and held it to June’s side to slow down the bleeding when they were in the back of the van.

They had prospects grab his and Savage’s bikes.

The women were all huddled together with tears in their eyes.

Two hours. That was how long it had been since he had eyes on June.

Two long fucking hours that she had been in surgery.

Powers had been calling for a doctor, so they were waiting the moment Heathen had jumped out of the black van.

As he laid June down on the gurney, he placed a tender kiss on her lips. She still hadn’t woken up.

While they wheeled her away from him, a nurse had come over and gotten her details.

When he was asked his relation to June, it had been Skinner who had spoken. “His ole’ lady.”

“And y’all?” she asked the rest of his brothers.

“We’re her family,” Savage stated as he came to stand beside Heathen with his kutte over his bare chest.

After three hours of waiting, the doctor finally came out.

“Doc, how is she?” Heathen asked Conrad.

“She’s healthy. She’s strong, Heathen. The bullet pierced her appendix, but she should make a full recovery.”

“The baby,” he asked in the doc’s ear so his brothers couldn’t hear.

Not when he could barely say it aloud himself.

“We’re waiting on her to get out of recovery before her OB/GYN comes up and checks on the baby,” the doc said to Heathen alone.

An hour later, he was led back in her room and he hadn’t left her side since.

Rachel had brought him and Savage clean shirts to wear.

So, this is what it feels like to love someone so much and to see them lying there, unmoving, on that hospital bed.

Those words that had choked him up all his life suddenly seemed to be spilling from his lips. The longer she laid there unmoving was more than he could bare.

“Hey, man, get some fresh air. I’ll sit with her,” Powers said as he stood in the doorway.

Skinner hadn’t said a word when he slipped in with another chair and sat on the opposite side of June.

Savage had posted up right at the door so no one came inside without a badge.

The brothers rotated over the first eight hours after surgery.

“No,” Heathen grated out.

“You’re not going to be any help to her, brother. You need some food, a shower, and a couple hours of rest.”

“Have them bring me a bag from the clubhouse. I’ll shower here in her room,” he said as he ran a strand of her hair between his fingers.

“Heathen . . .”

“I ain’t leaving her, Powers. She threw her battered body in front of that bullet to save me. Me! The asshole who doesn’t even deserve to have that light that she gives away so freely to me. I’ll not leave her side. I respect you, Powers, but if you’re about to give me an order, then you might as well take this kutte from my back. Cause that’s one order I’ll gladly fucking disobey.”

“Okay.” Powers threw his hands up, with Lil at his side as she stood there, hoping that June would wake up.

Even his brothers were here around the room. The only part of June who was missing was Shiloh, and that was because she had a client who wouldn’t change his appointment time.

They had all come to care for her just as he had. Well, nowhere near like he cared for her. Loved her.

“Where is her bracelet?” he asked the nurse that had come in to check her vitals.

“She didn’t have on a bracelet, sir.” With that, the nurse turned and left, and he knew . . . he knew that he had fucked up royally.

After ten hours, most everyone had gone home to catch some sleep, and Shiloh was on her way.

Heathen knew the moment that those baby blue eyes opened and landed on him as he sat there at her bedside, he had fucked up.

“Fuck, babe, I am so sorry I wasn’t there in time.” He had to fight the tears that were threatening to flow from his eyes.

Then the words he never wanted to hear flew out of her mouth.

“Get out of here, Heathen.” Not Johnny.

“Babe, I ain’t leaving,” he said with emotion clogging his throat.

The light that resided in her blue eyes was now dull and lifeless.

“Johnny, I don’t want to see you. Please. Powers, get him out of here.” June whispered that last statement and it was like a knife had been stabbed in his chest.

He deserved her anger.

She pulled her hand from his and turned her head.

“The lady wants you to leave, Heathen. Best to mind her wishes.” He respected the doc. Hell, the man bent over backward for them.

“I won’t be far away, baby,” he muttered as he pressed a kiss to her forehead, even though she had tried to shrink away from his touch, and that fucking burned.

With his head hung lower than it ever had before, he allowed Powers to walk him out of the room and away from his world.

The moment he made it back to the clubhouse, he dodged everyone as he headed to the shed, where that whore and that son of a bitch president was.

While Heathen had been at the hospital by June’s side, Powers had gone and torched the Jokers’ clubhouse and ended that giant piss-poor excuse of an MC.

All that was left of it was in the shed.

Skinner flanked him with Savage.

“Here,” Skinner said as he handed June’s bracelet to Heathen.

“The bitch took it for a trophy,” Skinner said quietly. He knew who the bitch was that Skinner was referring to.

With a nod of thanks, he turned and jogged to Lil.

“You headed to see her?” When she nodded, he handed her June’s bracelet.

“I know she’s upset, and rightly so, but please give this back to her.” He placed her bracelet in Lil’s outstretched palm.

Turning, he walked back to the shed.

Walking the steps down into the shed, he allowed the weight of his boots to pound on the rickety stairs. He wanted them to fear him. He wanted them to be ready to meet the devil, because the amount of pain he was about to inflict on them was perilous.

He went to Jenny first and ripped the duct tape away from her mouth.

The tears that crept out of her eyes at the pain hadn’t phased him in the slightest.

The president, Rock, still had the tape over his mouth.

Heathen unleased the beast and asked, “Why?”

“Because . . . the money.”

“So, you gave them my ole’ lady and my baby?” Heathen asked with no emotion in his voice.

The color drained from her features when Heathen said that last part. The brothers knew that Jenny couldn’t get pregnant. It was partly why she had been accepted as a club girl.

“Baby?” asked Jenny, now white as a sheet.

“Yeah. My baby.” He grabbed his knives.

“Haul her body up and chain her. It’s time for some target practice,” he said as he tossed a couple of blades in his hands.

The moment she was chained up, he threw one and it landed in her right thigh.

“You traded money for my woman.” He threw the second blade at her left thigh. “You almost got my baby hurt.” He threw a third blade in her right shoulder.

The woman’s screams didn’t even register as he saw a red haze.

Heathen walked slowly toward Jenny and then he drove that fourth knife into her heart, saying as he went, “The deceit that you exhibited has earned you a trip to hell, bitch.”

He smiled when the life drained from her eyes and the last bit of air whooshed from her body.

Looking to Savage, he commanded, “Grab me a beer.”

Heathen waited for Savage to return while he pulled the knives from Jenny’s limp body, and then, as soon as Savage handed him and Skinner each a beer, they both lowered Jenny’s body and threw her atop the plastic.

Heathen took a giant swig, then pulled the tape from Rock’s mouth.

“You won’t phase me, boy. Your mom should have aborted you when she had the chance. You’re nothing but a piece of trash,” he spat out at Heathen.

“Funny. Two years ago, I would have agreed with you.” And that was the absolute truth.

“I see that whore you call your ole’ lady . . .”

Heathen snarled and then punched the side of Rock’s head so hard, he heard a crack in the man’s skull.

“Funny. My ole’ lady was a virgin. Pretty sure only having one man between her thighs makes her a saint.”

And then another punch to the man’s head came from Skinner. And another bone in the man’s skull cracked.

Heathen grinned when he saw fluid leaking out of Rock’s right ear.

“Whoops.” He smiled as he turned and then sat down in a chair. “So, you were okay with almost killing your grandchild?”

“That baby ain’t no relation to me. I don’t claim you as my son.”

Heathen barked out a laugh. This was fucking funny. “Then why were you coming after me and mine?”

“Because I got to your momma ten years ago. She shouldn’t have whored around on me,” Rock said as if he had a right to breathe air.

“So, this was all about revenge?”

“You’re damn right,” Rock spit at him.

“Then this is all about justice.” Heathen pulled his piece and shot the man in his junk.

Savage commented with a smile, “You’ll bleed out in no time.”

Heathen took another swig from his bottle and settled in to watch.

Pulling his phone from his pocket, he texted June. When she didn’t respond, like he knew she wouldn’t, he looked up at Rock, who was blubbering profanities at him.

Heathen was about fed up with it. “You about done? I’m hungry?”

“Same,” Savage said.

As soon as the last breath left Rock’s chest, Heathen grinned.

He didn’t feel remorse for ending two lives.

He didn’t feel remorse for ending one of the reasons he was brought here on this earth.

He called June before he laid his head down that night, then sent a text, telling her good night and that he loved her and their unborn baby.