Scars nodded, hoping that did the trick to clear his head. “Yeah, I think a couple of days in the cabin might do me some good.”
“You could take one of the girls up with you. You know they can make you forget your name if they try hard enough.”
He knew the look he gave Booshie said “yeah, fuck no.” Why Booshie even suggested that confused the fuck out of Scars. He hadn’t been with a woman in a while, and had no plans to any time soon. He didn’t need that mess in his life.
Besides, he wanted to be alone.
Booshie stood and clapped Scars on the back. “The fort will be held, brother. We can’t stay united if your head is somewhere else.”
Scars stood and walked away from the table, giving his brother a hug. “You seem different, more upbeat. You get laid or something?”
Booshie just grinned and shook his head. “Nah, I think I found myself an old lady.”
Well, at least one of them was happy. Maybe one day Scars could find himself a good woman too, one strong enough to deal with his shit and the life of the MC.
Maybe.
Or maybe he’d be alone for the rest of his miserable life.
2
God, Hannah had actually done it, actually grown a pair of balls and left the fucker, fought back, made sure she had a fighting chance.
Left my stepbrother behind, injured and bleeding.
Those words played through her head over and over again. She’d left, but at what cost? Hannah knew she’d hurt Landon. She knew she’d hurt him pretty damn badly. There had been a hell of a lot of blood.
Tears blurred her vision as she maneuvered the shitty car along the twisting and turning road. When Hannah had left, she didn’t have an actual destination in mind, but getting as far away from the life she’d had with Landon was all she’d been able to think about.
Landon had been a constant thing in her life since she was twelve, when her mother married his father. He’d always been an asshole, cruel and mean on a good day, brutal on a bad day.
And after their parents died in a tragic drunk driving accident when Landon was twenty and she was sixteen, that’s when things had changed drastically. He’d changed for the worse. Landon hadn’t ever been the best person to her, but once there wasn’t the buffer of their folks between them, Landon became this hateful, possessive person.
He saw her as something more than she was, something more than she’d ever be.
He wanted her, and although they weren’t related to anyone that actually counted, even though she never—would never—see him as family, as a brother, Landon had some kind of proprietary hold over her. Or so he thought.
For two years—until she turned eighteen and could leave—she’d had to deal with his cruelty, his possessiveness. With him being the only “family” she had left, she toughed it out, finished school, and had hopes to one day go to college and escape the nightmare that was her life.
But she started noticing the looks he’d given her, always watching her with… interest. She’d been seventeen. He’d been twenty-one. And she knew that if she didn’t escape, if she didn’t leave behind the toxicity that was Landon, he’d drag her down.
He was a bully.
He was insane.
He’d force her into things she didn’t want.
And that’s where she was now, how she’d gotten here.
That was how her real story started, it seemed.
She was tired, wanting nothing more than to sleep, but she had to keep moving before she allowed herself that. She had to put as much distance as she could between them before she passed out.
She wiped angrily at her tears, ones that were from frustration and exhaustion, tears that were from self-loathing and hatred.
“Never again.” She gritted her teeth. “Never again will I allow myself to be cornered.” She was starting her life over. With no family or friends, she was all on her own, but that was something she was looking forward to.
Peace.
Quiet.
Stillness.
3
Scars got into town an hour ago and headed up to the cabin to get settled. He also needed to see how bad the cabin was. He knew the guys hadn’t been up there for quite a while. Aside from the closed off, musty air and a thick layer of dust on everything, it wasn’t too atrocious.
There were no supplies, just a couple cans of old-ass baked beans, some jars of vegetables he knew one of the old ladies had canned a couple years ago, and some of those fake-ass sausages that were probably made out of pig lips and assholes.
So yeah, he’d needed to head into town.
Scars didn’t know how long he was going to stay at the cabin. He just needed to get his head on straight and his shit in order before he went back to Reckless.
He had a cell if shit went down and the club needed him or if Stella wanted to talk, but aside from that, he was disconnecting. But hell, even his cell got shitty fucking reception at the cabin, and more times than not, it didn’t even work in town. But they knew where he was, so if it was important, they could find him easily.
He sat in the driver seat of his truck, staring at the grocery store in town. Richie’s Foods was small and had been owned by the same family for the last two generations. Because the town was so intimate, this was within a fifty-mile radius if you wanted to eat something that wasn’t fresh meat or takeout from the diner.
Scars scrubbed a hand over his face. Shit, he was tired, the scruff under his palm scratchy from a couple days’ worth of growth, because he hadn’t bothered shaving. What was the point? He was going to be isolated up in the cabin, and no one was going to see him.
He got out and slammed the truck door, the vehicle old and rusty but a beast and able to take the winding mountain roads like a champ. He headed inside, glancing to the left at Bernadette's Diner. The little mom-and-pop restaurant had been around for longer than Scars could even recollect.
Hell, Bernadette had been in business since well before he’d been coming to the cabin. It was a staple in town, their peach cobbler and homemade vanilla ice cream is what they were known for.
Scars told himself he’d go there before heading back to the cabin, pick himself up some dinner to go and get a chunk of that famous peach cobbler. Because truth be told, he had no intentions of coming back to town unless he ran out of food, hell froze over, or worse, he didn’t have any more liquor.
Scars had never been the social type, and aside from his club, the men within the MC who he considered family, and his baby girl, he was not a fucking people person.
He headed into the grocery store, the cool air washing over him as soon as he stepped inside. Despite being high in the mountains and the temperature far less stifling than if he were in the city, it was uncharacteristically hot this time of year. He sensed a storm coming, the air humid and thick, the scent of rain hinting in the air.
He went through the store quickly, just wanting to get the fuck out of there. He got cases of beer, bottles of liquor—you know, the important shit.
He grabbed nonperishable items, a large bag of potatoes, onions, and some jugs of water. There was a well at the cabin, but he hadn’t checked to see if things were still working properly, so to be on the safe side, he’d buy some gallons from the store. He’d get the meat from the butcher, hell, maybe even smoke some. He tossed in canned goods, junk food, and a few frozen items for when he was too hungover to cook.