The Way Home (Lights of Peril Book 2) (24 page)

Cable and Risk grab him by the shoulders to help him up.
Instantly Raider’s body tenses in anger and throws Cable, tossing him backwards. “Easy, go find Shame. He’s going to need all you have to get through this without killing everyone on the way out.” Risk sounds convincing.

“Fuck!”
That’s all Raider says on his way out of the room and back down the hall that led him here just minutes before.

“He doesn’t have much time.
We need to move him.” Doctor Brady is more alert than I’ve ever seen him. It’s a good sign because as long as Hem still breathes, he has a chance to survive this.

“
Hem is a stubborn piece of shit when he wants to be, but…but I’m tellin’ ya now, his love for you is what runs so deep, what keeps him breathin’. When I told him Shame killed Warren, he knew exactly what that meant. The only way to protect you was to survive it, gain strength, lay low, and
win
. That’s what your boy is doin’ by being here now. I would have given my left arm for my sister to have a man like Hem in her life; loving her the way Hem loves you.

“
Forgive him, Sadey. Trust him again. He’s going to win. I just hope that, for his sake, he doesn’t lose his prize in the meantime. He would have fought his way back to you for nothing.”

God, I need to stop this before I
have a mental break in sight of a near stranger. Shame and Mace know him and trust him now, but I don’t know him and I can’t hear his words anymore.

“Hood,
are you always this emotional? This is like our first conversation and you’re all about the drama. I don’t think we have enough here to drink for this heart to heart.”

“Well then, Sadey, you gonna cry?
’cause I’ve heard stories about you and I hear you’re a god awful crier. Hem missed it, missed seeing you cry over your girly books and movies, but from what I hear, I don’t think I would miss it,
at all
. Hearing Kegs explain it, sounds like I may need a towel to wipe off with once you’re done.”

We hold each other in a serious stare for about ten seconds
, then burst out in laughter. It feels so good to sit with a stranger, drink in hand, in a safe place, and laugh freely. It’s been forever since I’ve felt like laughing.

“Sugar?
Hood? What the fuck?” Oh Lord, ‘Angry Hem’ is up and moving again.

“Honey, we are having a drink.
Would you like one? If I remember right, I think I saw some of that water, which comes from the well, in the fridge. Or your lazy ass can try the spigot.”

I’m still so pissed at him for our fight an hour ago, but after the light that Hood shared
, I’m finding it difficult to stay that way.

“She’s a funny girl, Hem.
Ornery as fuck, but she’s funny.” Hood is smiling at Hem.

“You don’t have to t
ell me, brother. Pain’-in-my-fuckin’-ass.”

He turns his upset face to me now, “I
knew you were pissed at me and you left pissed, so to avoid my life from playing out like a goddamn Neil Diamond ballad, I thought I would come down and what I find is you two laughing and carryin’ on. Sadey, come back to my bed so I can sleep, huh? Bring the bottle of Jose with you. Gonna get you drunk enough to make some bad decisions”

“Fine
, you big damn baby.”

I stand, turning
to Hood, embracing him in a small tight hug, “Hood, nice chatting. Look forward to seeing you again, soon?”

Hem growls in my ear because
, once I made my intentions clear to enter Hood’s space, Hem moved quickly to us.

“Yeah, I’m around. Goodnight,
Sadey May. Goodnight, Hem.”

Hem
hisses
in my ear now as he pulls me to walk away with him. He doesn’t miss a damn thing, even in his recent angry state.

“Sadey May?
What the fuck?
He’s
nicknaming you now? Christ woman, I can’t take my eyes off you for a fuckin’ minute can I?”

“Hem, shut up and take me to your naked
bed and make me your naked girl. You and I are all done talking. Every time you speak I get more pissed off at you. Let’s go fuck it out.”

No other words need
to be spoken, because I’m off my feet and over his shoulder headed back to his cave, where, I have just decided after talking with Hood, I want to make my permanent residence again.…and I just noticed. Hem didn’t flinch at my phrasing this time.

''All my life I've looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time.''  

-Ernest Hemingway

The sun is blinding.
Cursing my few tequila shots from last night, I stand shakily, getting up from the bed where Hem still sleeps. He didn’t rest much at all last night between Ace’s skank testing our resolve to work things out, having our walk down memory lane that ended in tears, coming to get me from the “brutal clutches” of Hood, and the emotional strangle he held on me, then bringing me upstairs and marking me his, yet again. I’m going to let the brute sleep-in while I run to get Patrick.

On my way down the stairs I hear conversation coming from the room that Ace has been staying in.
It’s not surprising that he’s in his old room. No one is extremely happy with Ace right now being that his bitch is making everyone uncomfortable and that he hid Hem from us for so long, even if it was because he was trying to protect him…but I know Ace always felt that this was home and he was comfortable in his room. I don’t want to know what’s happening behind those doors. I am getting weary of feeling so emotional with this.

After stopping in the common area to get all my stuff I had brought with me last night, I start my walk of shame to the front door.
I’m shocked at what I find outside. Cherry is sitting on the front stoop. She’s a mess. It’s a small relief to see that I’m not alone taking the walk of shame home, wearing last night’s clothes, makeup, and the just fucked look. I hadn’t seen her with anyone last night and I’ve no interest in asking her who put that just fucked look on her.

She notices me coming to
her and she turns her head in my direction. She looks rough, though not her usual club whore rough, but something has changed. I stare at her, waiting for her to say something to me, but she doesn’t.

“Cherry, good morning.
What are you doing out here and where is your coat?”

She starts to giggle, not a good giggle
, but more like a bizarre and itchy snicker. It’s when I take a seat next to her that I see why she’s acting the way she is. Shit, she’s using?

“Sadey, Sadey, Sadey.
What’s up, chicken butt?” She cackles at me louder than necessary.

“Honey, what’s up is that you have white shit all over your
goddamn nose. What the fuck are you doing? You use often? Does Hem know? Even if he does, he’s going to be livid. You can’t do that here. These guys don’t do drugs, or run them, or tolerate others that do.”

I’m
berating her with questions in my moment of shock. I just never once thought of Cherry as a user. Not even when Mace hated her because of Shame.

“God
, you’re so fuckin’ naïve, aren’t you? How nice for you to live in that protective bubble that Hem and Shame build around you and your precious girl, Mace. The rest of us don’t live that life, so maybe you need to back the fuck off with your threats and judgments. Go back to your treehouse with your ‘crush.’”

Wow.
Nose candy makes her a raging bitch. Good to know.

Rather than waste my energy smacking her, something she wouldn’t remember anyway, I stand up and offer my hand to her.
She looks up at me like a wounded child that knows they fucked up and is about to get grounded. She won’t take it, so I just continue standing.

Her face turns to reflect the sadness she’s about to relive
. “They got me high that night. They kept pushing and pushing me into accepting more. I didn’t have a choice. There was so much pain, I couldn’t take it. All I thought about was making the pain stop, letting my mind escape, so I wouldn’t feel his hands, or the objects of torture, on me.”

This is all new information she’s sharing
. I don’t think anybody knows. “Oh, Cherry, God, I’m so sorry.” This is all I can say.

“The que
stions about you, Hem, and the club were relentless. When I would get an answer right, they would give me more. When I would get an answer wrong…well, you saw me after. I didn’t know what they wanted to know. I never talked to you and I had only fucked Hem a few times when he asked me for it. The night they took me though, they were prepared. They knew my past. Greyson actually did his homework on how to effectively fuck up a whore’s life more than it already was. He was skilled and he did a fantastic job. Who fuckin’ does that, Sadey?”

“Cherry, I’m so sorry.”
Jesus, I know I’m on repeat, but I have no other words to offer. I did see her afterwards. She was a mess, unrecognizable.

“No, don’t
…fuck… just stop sayin’ that. I can’t handle any more pity. I was clean for three years. After losing my son, Decklan, to my parents, I came here to start new. I didn’t know what I was looking for, Vegas had always been my home. I was passing through and I found Kegs. She was as lonely as I was, but she didn’t have a special friendship with cocaine to keep her company. I would use in Vegas during those long nights of nameless faces that would use my body as a receptacle to expel all their fucked-up-ness into. When Greyson had me, I went back to being that person. It was the only way to survive it, I thought. This makes me not feel anything. Not feeling anything makes me happy.”

As she says the last, she holds up a bag filled with white powder.
I’ve been around the club. I know they do a lot of unethical things, but I’ve never been a part of it.

She’s giving me more personal information about her
than I believe anyone has ever known, other than April, and I’m not sure what to do with it. She’s high as a kite and her eyes are evidence of her self-inflicted damaging therapy session.

“My son, he’s four.
He turned four…just two days ago. I miss him. Fuck I want him back, but look at me. I’m broken from the inside out. I can’t have any more kids because of what Greyson did to me. I’m no longer a woman. It took him just twenty seven hours to work me over hard enough and leave me so that I’m just a shell of a person who has nothing to give anyone, ever again.”

Dam
n it, this is a lot to handle with a headache and at eight thirty in the morning. I can hardly see her through the water in my eyes, as she wipes the powder off her nose with her thumb, then rubs it along her upper gums. I’ve seen people do this, never understanding what for, but now I get it. She’s not about to waste a fragment of this high that she’s on.

I rub her back as I sit beside her.
I have no words to offer her in comfort, no experience to draw from, because in essence, she’s right. Hem and Shame have carved out this peace and harmony that Mace and I have lived in over the years. I’ve never appreciated it more, until this very moment.

“Honey, you can start by not leaning on this for comfort.”
I grab it from her hand. It’s all I can think to do because, it seems to me, this is what’s causing her problems. I’ve no experience in it and no idea the effects of it being taken away could cause.

After I remove it from her grasp, the raging bitch surfaces again in reaction.

“Fuck you, Sadey. You keep it. They make more. Thinking it’s probably a habit you should consider. Hem may turn a blind eye to the girls that use here, but he certainly has been known to enjoy the special effects it has on a woman’s ability to make the man fuckin’ fly in a sexual adventure.”

She scoffs at me as she
removes her eyes from mine and looks to the ground before delivering her final blow. “Hell, look at you, God knows you’re probably in need of a whore’s lesson to be able to keep Hem for much longer. He’s no innocent in the sack, or haven’t you seen that side of him? I remember it, very well.”

I’m about to throw down right here, at the club, in broad daylight,
with or without witness. She’s pushed too far. I’m not oblivious to the fact that Hem could have any woman here on his looks alone. He
chose
me, he
chooses
me. Any hurt I could deliver her would be only for my benefit, but hell if I’m not willing to handle it.

“Cherry, you..
.”

“Sadey bug…”
Ace catches me before I start to unload. He’s standing behind us, not but three feet away.

“Go
. I have her.” He’s pissed, but I can see his face withholding an untold emotion at this. This is he and Cherry’s silent connection and why she always has his back. He knew about this.

I’m pissed.
“Can I talk to you for a second, please?”

He doesn’t answer
me, just stares down at the broken woman who still holds fury in her eyes, aimed at me. “Ace? A second?”

He comes out of wherever he mentally went and looks at me as if he’s pissed at me.
“Yeah, alright. Make it quick. I need to get her home.”

We only need to move away a few steps since she’s now holding her face in her hands, appearing to be
napping
.

“You knew about this, didn’t you?
Why didn’t you tell me? If not me, then Mace? She’s our friend and you’re not helping her by hiding a god-awful habit. Fuck, Ace, she watched Patrick. She was alone with my son and she’s been
using
.”

I hold the bag of blow a few inches from his face before he knocks it away and grabs it from my grip.
“What the fuck is wrong with you? This shit needs to come out. She needs help.”

“I’m not hiding it, but I’m not throwing her to mo
re wolves, either. You know damn well if I were to say something, that she would be shunned by these all-mighty hypocrites. They drink themselves stupid on any occasion and they label that ‘okay.’ She doesn’t drink much. This is her vice and I couldn’t just turn her in to Hem. Don’t you think there’s enough shit going down around here?”

Yes, he’s pissed at me.
Wonderful for him, but I’m no less pissed off.

“I think you need to say something
, if not to Hem, then to Mace or Shame. She needs help, Ace.”

“Workin’ that out
, Sadey. Stay out of it.”

“I can’t.”

“Bullshit! You can, you just don’t want to. There’s a damn difference.”

He’s using my words against me
. He’s also not finished with his emotional blackmail.

“Remember when you found out you were pregnant?
I promised you time to get yourself together and tell Hem. It went against everything I knew, keeping secrets like that from someone, my President no less, for fuck sake. I did it though, for you. Now, you’re going to return the favor. Shut it, Sadey. I will get her what she needs, but until I figure out the best way to do that, not a word. We good?”

“Yeah, we’re good.”

We’re not, but he’s right. I need to let him handle this and by giving him just a few days, maybe he will be able to give her more help than a raging and pissed off Hem could.

“Good
. Now can I take her home? I’m staying there with her until I go. Sylvie hates her. Fuck she hates everyone, but she has a past with this shit as well, so surprisingly, and thankfully, she’s not making waves about this.”

“Okay.”
Go figure. Sylvie has seen herself on that side of a mirror, snorting herself into oblivion. Damn it, Ace, I hope you know what you’re doing.

“Cherry, Ace is going to take you home
, but you and I aren’t done talking. Got that little sister?” I’m trying not to let myself rip into her for her painful statement about Hem and I’s relationship, but damn, it’s hard.

She finally
takes her hands away from her face. When she does, the personal hell is evident. Her eyes are glassed over and it’s hard to tell if it’s from the emotion of the moment or the high.

Ace grabs her
, using his hands as crutches to take her away. He talks so gentle to her. He likes her, maybe loves her, even with all the problems she’s bringing his way. They are close. I’m thankful she has someone so determined, like him, to help.

Once he has her standing and stable, I hear his words,
“Cherry, honey, let’s go back to your place. I can stay with you for a while.” She doesn’t respond verbally, just puts her hand in his and he walks her to his bike.

Nothing ever stops spinning in my world
. I wish it would.