“You didn’t answer my question,” I reply. “Oh, and I told you I’m not going anywhere.”
She rolls her eyes and steps past me. Heading toward the stairway that leads up to my room, just four small steps. My bedroom sits on the top landing, open to the open plan living room below. I like it as I can see all that is going on. I can see out of all the windows. I can see the door and fire escape. Living the way I did, and then running for so long, you soon choose places that are open, large and easy to escape from. You need multiple escape routes and always need to be one step ahead.
My clothes hang on a rack. Next to it is the small, four-drawer wicker set that holds my panties, bras, socks and pjs. I don’t need much as it’s harder to grab when you have to run.
I watch her rummage through the few items as I sit on the edge of the bed. I could stop her, but she wouldn’t listen, so I lay back on the bed and just watch as she moves through my small room taking things off hangers, pulling drawers open and looking through the four pair of shoes that I own. She holds them up to various items then her eyes widen, close and seek as her forehead frowns. She makes a mmmm, hummmm, ahhhh, ooooo sound before she clicks her tongue and claps her hands happy with her selection. She thrusts them at me while standing at the foot of my bed, her knees touching mine. Looking at her you can’t help but like her. “Up! Get dressed now.” She drops the clothes onto my chest, and I laugh like really just laugh as it’s that or I’ll cry.
Sitting in front of all these humans had my anxiety at a peak. It's sliding down towards not too hot by the nanosecond. Timberly slides down on the couch next to her boyfriend and fellow outlaw. There are outlaws everywhere, all screaming danger and destruction. Sweat rolls down my spine and I feel faint. I can barely breathe let alone look at anyone for more than a spilt second. The noise and smoke choke me as the smell and sweat that sticks to the air suffocates me. Timberly grabs my hand as two beautiful women walk towards us, the sea of people parting for them. They are wearing the same jackets as Timberly, but the blondes don't have a guy’s name on it. My mind wonders about this as Timberly pulls me up. The two men that walk behind the ladies move past us, nodding at Timberly and looking me over before falling beside the other group of hellishly scary outlaws. Blue and Lilly are the girl’s names. They shared that and so much more with me as we sit outside under strings of lights.
A guy with a jacket that has no sleeves stands over a huge grill. The smell of cooking meat makes my mouth water and drew more people outside to join us.
The placed buzzes with laughter and music which made it a struggle to listen to all that was happening around me. The runner and victim inside me seeks out all the exits and places I can escape through. I'm constantly taking mental notes and photos of all that is around me, their features, clothing, the premises. I may be an abuse victim, a wallflower and an OCD panic filled human, but I'm also smart now. A lot smarter than I was two years ago and I had a photographic memory.
For good reason too. This place that I had walked into tonight, no, I was dragged against my will into, is a world where it is not safe for me. This woman, though you can say to, but she will not listen, brought me into this life that she lives. It is filled with violence, pain, death, drugs, drinking and by the looks of it a lot of women for a bunch of men to do as they would like to.
Some guys in the corner were motor boating a woman’s breasts. She is wearing a pair of booty shorts and that is all. There is also another woman where men are doing lines of powder from her ass cheeks as she lays over a table like platter set out for dinner.
These men no doubt break the law on the daily basis and live by a law of their own choosing. They no doubt have a sense of ownership or brotherhood that they live by and the principles inside this unspoken bond would make society blanch in its beige colored confines. I'm the beige, and I'm in a full-on panic attack knowing that I'm in a place that can destroy my soul, yet I feel the safest I have in a long time.
Food is served and people milled around the huge tables that are covered with an array of different items I thought the table would buckle under its weight.
I watch a small group set off to the side of the fire pit watching the way they seem not to fit in, yet scream they belong. One of the women sits with daggers in her eyes that screamI wanna fuck your shit uptoward Timberly and I felt a strong urge to assist my newfound friend. But my whole subconscious told me to leave it alone. The party kicks up a gear after dinner
I watch as Lilly and Blue speak with a guy dressed like the other guys in jackets with no sleeves, I will make a mental note to ask about this. They look at the lady he is with. Wrapped up like an oversized Christmas gift next to the fire.
She is thin and pale, sick looking. She has oxygen prongs hung from her nose and black rings under her eyes. She catches me staring and offered me a weak smile. I give one back, feeling that she’s like me, out of her depth. Walking toward her, I sit down across from them watching the fireflies from the flames dance over the nights sky, my eyes following them up and up into the midnight black sky. My heart stops, my breathing hitches in my chest and sweat drips down my spine as his eyes lock on mine.
His huge frame blocking out the moon behind him - well all of the light - just the fire in front of him lighting up his strong shield and interesting features.
Instantly, my eyes zoned in on all or any exit past this man. I cannot be here with the weight of his stare and the energy that is bubbling between us. Its freaking insane.
“Little bird.” He nods at me cracking a beer and taking a seat next to me.
My stomach curdles with a toxic mixture of fear and… something else. But fear is what is screaming at me in this moment. He’s so close to me he is sucking all the air from round me as he drinks beer from the bottle and pulls a smoke from behind his ear offering me it.
I shake my head unable to speak his presence has stolen all of my words from my body. Movement and rational thinking has flown out of my body leaving me a shaking, mute shell.
“So,” he say’s sucking in lungful of smoke and blowing it out in front of us.
I watch it as it mixes with the ember hue from the fire. He turns his head, catching me looking at him, his sheer size and muscle mass seems to have the ability to swallow up the night behind him, causing a shiver to ripple over me.
Even sitting down, he’s massive and screams danger, radiating chaos. He’s everything I keep out of my life since I ran, but here in the dark I would follow him.
Crazy, right? But here, right now, it feels like I’m safe and that he’d never hurt me. I'm finding it hard to breathe, speak and move. He grabs my chin. Pulling me slightly into him. His grip is brutal, sending ice down my spine as my mind ran to all the images of violence from a past, I want to forget that I’m running from.
But looking into the abyss that is his eyes, I feel safe and the natural human instinct of fight or flight doesn’t wash over me like it usually does. I just stay frozen in his grasp.
What scares me more then his touch, more then the look in his eyes, is my bodies reaction to his hands on me. The way his eyes looks past me and into the depth of my eyes seeing my soul and all the shadows of pain surrounding it, the real me. He doesn’t look away, and neither do I.
“You know what, what, little bird?" Sometimes the worst place you can be, is inside your own head.” He drops his fingers away from my chin; the warmth gone with nothing but cold replacing it.
“Wow the dead man’s talking. And it is to the opposite sex.” A husky voice sounded out over the fire pit. I turn my gaze to where the voice came from, locking eyes with another man who is just as big and scary as all the rest in this place.
“Fuck you Hawk.” His voice is laced with ice.
The man across from us laughs throwing a beer top at him. “Good to see, Brother.”
He moves his gaze to my hands that are running down my bouncing thighs. It’s an anxious thing and my anxiety is at an all-time high right now. He takes my hand in his, turning it over so it’s palm up, resting on my thigh that is stilling as he draws little patterns over the flesh.
