CHAPTER ONE
Kenny
In my dream, she was there. The little girl’s hand was tiny as it reached to me, promising another path of less pain and sadness… It felt like being stranded on a tiny, isolated island, in the middle of a deadly storm, when I started to slowly gain consciousness from the latest beating. The winds—their anger—circled me. Who was my companion on this lonely island? Searing pain. My mouth hurt. My stomach. My head… Every place throbbed through echoes of many mistakes, the past and the ones to come, by us all.
Muddled, my mind scrambled to comprehend what was happening the night everything changed for me. In my present state, I stood on weak legs, the moon shining down on me, my wrists strung up above my head by two ropes attached to the upper corners of the entrance of an old abandoned barn. The ropes, pulling me in opposite directions, were a metaphor for what was taking place within my heart and spirit.
The last thing I remembered was leaving Delilah… Her haunted tears made my eyes burn all over again. Through my forming tears, I saw a dark field in front of me. I was somewhere deep in the country part of Georgia. Present was a Harley motorcycle and Delilah’s new red Camaro. I also saw the backs of two bikers. Their leather read: Redemption Ryders MC.
Diesel. These are his boys.
I was so young then. Just barely seventeen. A wet-behind-the-ears Junior in high school. How had I managed to get stuck in such a deadly circumstance? I fucked with the MC President’s girl. She wasn’t his Old Lady. Delilah was best friends with his little sister, Viola.
The tips of the bikers’ cigarettes glowed in the night, highlighting their bloody knuckles. I gazed down at my beaten body, hoping the tobacco could calm them.
One of the bikers ran his free hand through his wild reddish hair. “Jesus, we get back into town to do nothin’ but ride straight into a shit show.”
The other biker said nothing but stared into the vast darkness surrounding us.
The redheaded biker tried again for conversation. “Why this barn, brother?”
As soon as the other biker finally responded, I knew who it was. Artist.
Lost in thought, he quietly replied, “Delilah and I had a special moment here. Felt right to have her memory witness his death.”
Peering around, seeing no one else there, was confirmation it was me they planned on killing.
Delilah wasn’t at the barn. Artist was just staying true to his road name, speaking through his poetic way of thinking.
Blood dripped from my mouth as I asked, “I-Is she o-okay?”
Art’s body seized, the mere sound of my voice making his skin crawl. As the wind blew through his brown hair, his back straightened before he turned around to show his menacing glare through angry blue eyes. “How am I supposed to know? You won’t fucking tell me what you did to her.”
My eyes widened with confusion. “Won’t tell you? H-How long have I been here?”
Both men closed in, dangerous curiosity looming. Art’s upper lip lifted in disgust. “What’s with the new and improved attitude? No longer want to be a button-pushin’ asshole?”
Me? “H-Have I been talking to you?”
Art raged forward, grabbing onto my bloody and sweaty shirt, and shook me. “Stop with the fucking games! Tell me what you did to JB!”
I had never heard of that nickname for Delilah but knew it was her he was referring to. My eyes closed as I thought of Delilah’s bedroom, Viola and her huddled together on the carpet. Viola’s blonde hair and Delilah’s long golden-brown hair, both disheveled, showing their stress. V was holding Delilah while she screamed at me about what I had done…
Painful remorse etched all over my face had Artist stepping back as if afraid of what I had to say. I swallowed. “V said I… hurt her.”
The older redhead’s nostrils flared as his dark eyes dug deeper than his words. “Hurt her how?”
Knowing I was minutes from death, a blade gutting me by Art, I told the truth. “I don’t know.” He wanted to know what I had actually done, but I took his question literally. I loved Delilah so much that ‘how’ I was able to hurt her was baffling and unbelievably heartbreaking.
Without warning, Art rammed his ringed and tattooed fist into my gut, then screamed, “I’m done with your lies!”
My strained wrists took the weight of my body as my knees buckled. Fighting for air, I coughed. “Lilah said—”
Art had my hair in his angry grasp in a second flat. Same height as me, he wrenched my head back to sneer in my face. “That nickname is for her daddy and brother only, you piece of shit.”
He was right. In fact, Delilah had told me never to call her that. I was wrong. In so many ways. “She-She said I have split personalities.”
Redhead chuckled. “How hard we hit him in the head?”
It felt like my hair was being pulled slowly from my scalp as Art tightened his hold. “Multiple personalities, huh? Was it your ‘personality’ that told V ‘Delilah’s watery doe brown and golden eyes pleaded for air as I came down her throat’?”
I had no idea what he was talking about. To my knowledge, Delilah and I had never had oral sex. But there laid the problem. My knowledge wasn’t correct.
Delilah’s was. She had been living with a part of me I would never personally know. That is how multiple personalities work. They replace the one that is not handling whatever circumstance the host is facing.
Art was trembling with anger. “Huh? Wanna tell me that wasn’t you?” He released my hair and shoved at my chest. “Don’t bother. I heard you my damn self over the phone when V called me.”
In Delilah’s bedroom, V had told me she was calling Tucker, my best friend, but then I blacked out again. When I came to, Viola was hysterical. What had I said? What had I done? I was clueless, but whatever words or actions I committed, V wanted me to pay the ultimate price. I can’t explain how it feels to know that a part of you is vile and not know why. Not comprehend how that part of yourself could bring harm to those you love the most.
So, right in front of Art, as I had in Delilah’s bedroom after V had told me what I had done, I leaned my head back and screamed to the night sky, “Nooooooo!” Rage and frustration racing through me had my legs carrying me again. I screamed, “Goddamnit! Art! Please tell me you’re lying! Pleeeease!”
Art didn’t move, at all. He just stared at me, lost in thought as I gasped and cried for hurting someone so dear to me. Delilah was my savior. After all I had been through, she was the one I could count on most. To think… To think I—
“Ah, shit,” mumbled the redheaded biker, rubbing a palm down his long thick beard. “This fucker really doesn’t remember.”
Art blinked. He stumbled back, eyes searching for nothing anyone present could see. The smart fucker was putting pieces together.
I was suddenly afraid I would soon black out—switch into another of my personalities. I cried out, “Dissociative amnesia. Don’t forget that. It’s what Delilah suspects I have.”
Just then, another Harley roared and skidded into the field, racing toward me like the devil was coming home and was hungry as hell. The headlight shining in my eyes made me squint.
Artist and Redhead tried to block Diesel, who, now on foot, stomped toward me, but there was nothing powerful enough to stop that hatred. The two men fell back as the large man charged through them.