You are worth every damn second.
17
Kase
Ihelp Penny load her bike into the back and throw a tarp over it once it's secure. She'll be riding back to South Hollens by her lonesome when Brooklyn and I settle into a hotel in Seattle. She's fixed us up with some of the fake IDs and credit cards that we give to battered women and their families to escape. Brooklyn and I will be going by Carson and Bebe Mendez from now on, if we want to remain undetected.
It's a little bittersweet, shedding my last name. This is probably the last time I'm going to see my family for a long time. Our war with the Hellions isn't done. There's no telling how this whole clusterfuck is going to affect our ongoing feud with the Kings.
Brooklyn passed out in the backseat only a few minutes after we left South Hollens in the rearview mirror.
"You have to stay away," Penny reminds me for the umpteenth time, her fingers tightening around the wheel. She's gone over the instructions several times, as though I'm going to forget in the next ten minutes.
"Why sis, it almost sounds like you want to be rid of me. Gonna pawn off my shit when I'm gone and buy yourself something pretty?"
Penny's stare is arctic. "Don't even joke about it, Kase. I'm not in the mood."
I blow out a breath. The interior of the car is uncomfortably warm, but I don't reach for the knob. The goal is to keep Brooklyn comfortable while she heals. I have instructions from Doc Harman in the hastily packed duffle bags that Holly gathered for us. Brooklyn's is full of castoff clothing from Penny, Cleo, and Holly. Mine was easy to grab, as I pretty much lived out of the clubhouse.
"I'm sorry."
She shakes her head and drags in a sniffling breath. She's crying, and she doesn't want me to see. I let her think that I haven't noticed. Penny plays hard and can take twice the punishment than most men I know. If she'd been born a man, she'd have been one of my boys, someone I trusted in a fight. But she's my sister, so I've always had this caveman urge to protect her.
I can't protect her from this, and that just kills me.
"This isn't fair," she says, banging a hand onto the steering wheel. "It's too soon to lose you."
"I'm not dying."
"No. You're going to disappear. I'll get to call you, what? Once or twice a year, if I'm lucky?"
"This was your idea," I remind her. "We can still go back."
Penny shakes her head again and wipes her nose with the sleeve of her jacket. "She can't stay here, Kase. And I know you can't live without her. I love you too much to ask you to leave her behind."
And here lies the fundamental difference between my siblings, and the reason that Penny will always be my favorite, even if I somehow learn to forgive Cruz someday. Cruz would shove Brooklyn back over the line to maintain our status quo, no matter how much pain it put me through. Penny will let me go, change her life radically, just to see me happy.
I drape an arm around her neck and pull her toward me, though she splutters in protest. I press a quick kiss to her hair, memorizing how she smells and the precise cadence of her voice. I treasure the sting as she swats me away with a good natured; "Get the fuck off me, bro."
"I love you," I tell her.
A faint glimmer of my sister's natural confidence shines through finally and she offers me a small smirk. "Of course you do. I'm fucking precious."
I release her with a laugh and let her get both hands on the wheel.
We spend the rest of the ride talking about very little of consequence, neither one of us wanting to get into the heavy stuff. I don't want to say goodbye to her, no matter how soon that's going to become a necessity.
So Penny tells me about Dominique and Lilly, two of the newest prostitutes that have come to be rehabilitated by she and Holly. She's having a hard time keeping them off the streets. Some working girls are like that. They fall back on it because it's the only way they know to make money. I hang on every word she says, though her work has never been something I particularly cared about before. But it's the last I'm going to hear from her for a while, so I try to absorb every detail.
It's an almost four hour drive from South Hollens to Seattle, but it flies by too quickly all the same. Even I'm getting a little misty when we pull up in front of a Day's Inn and park. Brooklyn grabs her bags and exits, but I don't turn to look at her. I gather my sister up in my arms, squeezing her as tightly as I can manage.
"I'm never going to forget this," I whisper. "And we'll be back someday. I don't know when or how. But we'll come back."
Penny hugs me back, threatening to bruise my ribs. "Get your girlfriend inside before she freezes her ass off you big dummy."
It's another minute before I let go and climb out after Brooklyn. The rain is a light drizzle that rests on our hair and dews on our faces. Brooklyn crouches beneath an awning while I help Penny retrieve her bike from the back.
"Stay safe," I say automatically, though I doubt there's someone who's better on a bike than Penny. She straddles the bike and cocks her head over her shoulder to look at me. I snap a picture in my mind, because I want to remember her like this. Penny, decked out in her club jacket, combat boots, and leathers. Her expression taunting, as though she's just won a race. Her love for our family clear in her eyes.
