I couldn’t help but feel like a thief. Her smiles, her warmth, her time—none of it was meant for me. So I stole it. I wanted to steal every second she sat with me. The soft laughs and the glances, I collected every one and kept them tucked away in my memories like a dragon hoard. She may have thought she gave them to me willingly, but the fact remained that we were never meant to share anything between us.
She had three men who gave her everything she needed. I was never supposed to be the one who held her as she cried into my chest.
Hands shoved deep in my jeans pockets, I headed down the street toward the clubhouse while my fingers itched to wrap around a bottle and drink. When the urge came on strong like this, I knew the outcome would be one I’d regret. So I ignored the alluring thirst for numbness, bypassed the kitchen and headed for the stairwell.
It was the middle of the day, not anywhere close to sunset yet. But the first view of the sky from the roof eased the tight clamping in my chest just slightly. The air was cooler lately and I welcomed the chill on my skin.
I leaned over the balcony and allowed the breeze to blow my hair freely. No one could see me up here. It was one of the few places I didn’t have to hide.
Around her, I wanted to hide everything. Everything that was wrong with me, I wanted to bury and shove away. Being around her made me feel like all my faults were on display, out in the open to shame me. I made sure to keep my facial scar hidden, and to speak at appropriate times. I never cared about being normal before. Now I wished for nothing else.
But at the same time, she made me feel normal—despite my freakishness being painfully obvious to me. I felt like I could grow an extra head and she would just smile and ask me how my morning was.
Her warmth and kindness shined an ugly spotlight on how fucked up my upbringing was. The pain from a blade slicing my skin used to be the only physical contact I ever knew. After touching her during a tattoo or our few brief hugs, my skin felt like it was starving for more contact.
I’d never felt anything remotely like that before, like I needed to feel the touch of another person.
Violence and alcohol used to be my drugs of choice. I kicked them, but found a new addiction in Mariposa, and couldn’t begin to understand it.
Horus and the raven, Munin, circled each other in midair, diving and chasing each other. Watching them distracted me from my own thoughts, at least for the moment. Their aerial acrobatics must have done the trick, because I didn’t even hear the Son of Odin walk up until he was right next to me.
My pulse shot up but I didn’t react. Distracted or not, no one had been able to sneak up on me in a long time.
The silent man to my left was the one they called Grudge. His hair was pulled back into a ponytail at the base of his skull. The wiry whiskers of his beard nearly reached the top of his chest. I’d only ever seen Dallas with a beard that rivaled that one.
I gave him a nod of acknowledgment but otherwise ignored him. He kept his distance and seemed to be up here for the same reason I was—to get away from everybody else.
Commotion on the pool deck drew my attention below. Gunner and T-Bone walked up together from the front gate, talking and laughing. Those two seemed close lately, but Gunner was always good at making friends.
The smell of fry batter hit my nostrils. It was nearly lunch time, and we were trying to use up our perishable food before moving. If my senses were correct, fish tacos were the main menu item today.
Just as I was debating heading down for a bite, a nudge at my arm nearly startled me out of my skin. Fuck, I’d have to learn some things from this Grudge guy. I thought I was silent, but he took it to a whole new level.
Turning to face him, I saw that he held a small pad of paper out to me, which was what had touched my arm. Written across the paper were the words, Sisters of Bathory?
Fuck.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I felt like a child again as I stared at him, the shadows deep in my psyche rising up to darken the sky and sun that I found freedom in. It had been nearly a decade since I’d seen or heard the name of that community.
“You too?” My question came out a choked whisper.
Grudge gave a single, tight nod. He pointed at my arm, indicating my scars, then hovered that same finger in front of his face and opened his mouth.
The man had a small, moving muscle in his lower jaw toward the back of his throat, but nothing where his tongue should have been.
“Holy fucking shit.”
He closed his mouth and nodded.
“But,” I narrowed my eyes, “I was born there, and the only male they kept long-term. No one else survived. I would’ve remembered you.”
Grudge quickly wrote across his notepad, NV, outside of Old Vegas. You?
“Here in Arizona,” I answered. “I don’t know where, exactly. The community got invaded by the National Guard and they sent me to a mental health ward at a prison.”
“Hm-hm-hm!”
Grudge seemed to be laughing, but it was hard to tell from the limited amount of sound he could make. He pointed his pen at me, then at the notepad to ensure I was watching. Slowly, he wrote the word COMMUNITY in large, all capital letters across a fresh sheet of paper. Then he took the pen in his fist and dragged it through the word, making deep black lines across the letters.
He dragged the pen back and forth until the word could barely be seen underneath. Then underneath, he slowly wrote the word CULT.
“I know,” I sighed. “Trust me, I’m still catching on to how fucked up they were. Especially after finding a brotherhood like this.” I allowed myself a small smile. It was getting easier to do. “I guess we lucked out in some ways, Grudge. I didn’t even know Bathory had other locations.”
He nodded and flipped to a fresh page in his notepad. Nothing wrong with your “mental health”, yeah?
“No,” I shook my head. “I don’t understand a lot of things, but nothing’s wrong with my brain. The medic hasn’t given me pills for that, at least.”
Grudge made his odd chuckling sound again. Medic’s pretty. Yours, too?
“No, she’s not mine.” Tightness enveloped my chest and throat in a painful grip. “She’s the president’s, VP’s, and Gunner’s, who you’ve met.”
You two are close.
“We’re…friends.” The word felt strange in my mouth, but I knew it would be the one Mariposa used to describe us. “She’s the only woman I’m comfortable around. You know, considering…”
I trailed off, no need to elaborate. Grudge nodded to show that he understood. I could barely wrap my head around the fact that another man had been subjected to the same life as me, and lived to talk about it.
“How did you get out?”
It was the first question that left my mouth, although dozens more piled up in my brain. He couldn’t have been a blood bag like me, but why else would they keep a male alive? Why remove his tongue? Grudge wasn’t all scarred up like me, but my torturers never felt the need to silence me. I had a feeling they enjoyed my screams, and had become dissatisfied when I stopped feeling pain, stopped reacting to anything they did.
They would never kill me, so a big reason for my silence was to spite them.
Grudge chuckled again, the pen in his hand moving quickly. A longer story than I got paper for. T and D can tell you, though.
“They’re good men, huh?” I asked. “Helped you make sense of the outside world? Made you feel more normal, useful, like you had choices and a purpose?”