“That they do.” Is her response as she walks across the street. Her fingers move from her eyes to mine, then back to the car.
“We are watching,” she calls out and I watch as Carl smirks around another cigarette. How the fuck is he even alive with the amount that he smokes?
A chill ripples over me, as the wind kicks up bringing his smell on the cusp of it and assaulting my nose. I pull myself into my jacket and walk around the back and into my empty and eerily quiet house. It’s never bothered me before, being alone with the quiet but tonight for some reason it does. I don’t like it.
I take a chicken and rice meal from the fridge, nuke it in the microwave, grab a bottle of water and head straight to bed. Flicking on Netflix I chill and eat alone with the lights off and doors locked.
Waking in the morning, I shower and down some more oats from the fridge. Drinking a coffee and heading out the door for work my phone pings and I share some texts with 81. He knows I’m off. I hate that he knows me more than I know myself. I have a delivery coming at Ten am and I tap my fingers over the marble counter waiting patiently. 81 is coming home so I only have a small window between killing Carl and wiping it from my eyes. Timberly said they could be gone for days. It’s only been like Thirty something hours.
The delivery man arrives, unloads buckets of fresh flowers, then passes me the clipboard. As I sign the invoice, he slips me the small brown bag. Winking, he turns and walks from the shop. Slowly I lift my feet, one in front of the other towards the back room. Opening the bag, I see the needle and the glass bottle of clear liquid.
An opiate mixture of cocaine and fentanyl injected into the vein of the neck called a hotshot will cause rapid death and that’s just what I want. Rapid death of this son of a bitch.
Payback’s coming, baby.
Slipping it into my handbag, I carry on with putting together my orders, then have a late lunch with Timberly. Blue and Lilly join us. It’s like I’m a fourth wheel in that ensemble though. Accepted but still not quite part of the pack. My eyes flicker from my phone to the street and back again. Looking at the man who destroyed me and waiting for the man that in a small way kinda saved me to message.
“Hey, Tim, what time do you expect the boys to be back?” I question picking up my double shot latte.
She wipes a crumb of her apple pie from her mouth.
“Lord knows with them. Sometimes they don’t even come back to their home, they go to the club to unwind and debrief,” I say around a spoonful of pie with lashings of whipped cream.
“So, what you’re saying is that I won’t see him till tomorrow sometime?’
Blue laughs, “Or a few after that.”
“Word,” Lilly says as she pushes her plate toward the middle of the table.
“Right,” I answer looking around the room my mind scrambling.
“You’ll get used to it. It’s always the club before us,” Lilly says again, this time her hand reaches for mine. “It’s just the way it is.” Her eyes are kind. She knows she’s been brought up with the men that rule this crazy MC and I haven’t.
“Yeah, it’s all good,” I say biting the inside of my cheek.
If he chooses to stay at the club that means that I can lure Carl in, kill him and dispose of him all before daybreak. Dispose of him! Fuck, Jade, you aren’t a hit man with connections.
But, anyway, I have a plan.
I have put feelers out. He thinks he’s smarter than me, he thinks I’m still the timid hide in the shadows Jade. But one thing I learned with and without him was he and his abuse was definitely a habit that I could break. That the way 81 looks at me is all I need to know. Also, these past few days, I have realized that drug addicts will do anything, give you anything and say anything for a hit, some cash and a hot meal.
I wonder if there is hope for someone who has done bad things? Will the gates of heaven open for them? Or will they fall into the pit of hell? These questions I ask myself a lot.
I also ask for the world to not hurt me. To allow me the freedom to be what Jade could have been before him. Before Carl. Before I built The Great Wall of China around myself.
I wish I could strip it all off and let him see all that’s inside. Not just the scars but Jade. The Jade I want to be.
Strong. Independent. Beautifully broken.
This next act in my grand plan of uncovering myself will surely show him that I can take the dark and worship inside the bitter wind of its hurricane. I can be with him while he spends so much of his time locked inside that hurricane. Alone. Just himself and his thoughts. Pure destruction.
“Wow, Jade, are you good?” Timberly touches my hand. I flinch back at the touch. I scared her; I see it in her eyes.
“Girl what’s going on inside that head of yours? You were like gone,” she says again looking at me, like really looking at me.
“I’m good. I’m just tired.” I smile at her trying my best to not allow my façade to slip. “It’s just a lot, ya know? The intensity of it all. Him. The club. The men. The rules… the whole lot. Plus, it’s like cracking into my very carefully made-up life.” I pull my feet up onto the seat of the chair and rest my head on my knees. I am so damn tired.
“Yep, loving them is madness. Because loving them comes with so much more than just them.” Timberly pats my knee I smile weakly at her.
