It was only when the rocking of the van started to abate that I allowed myself to just lay there and try catch my breath.
That's when I felt the boot on my chest and heard the creaking of a knee as someone crouched down over me. I was waiting for them to speak, but the sound of Harry's raspy laughter in the front caught me off guard and had me frowning hard.
“Let me hear it, Tucks,” the gravelly voice of the man holding me in place ordered quietly.
“Is this really fucking necessary?” I growled from beneath the open weave material.
“You know the rules.”
“Fuck the rules.”
He didn't answer right away. I knew my response had made him pause for thought and look back at the other guys around him. I could feel the shift in his body weight as he did, the idiot.
Knowing his concentration had slipped so quickly and so easily, I swiped my arm across the floor where he was resting his one good leg and knocked his balance out from beneath him. The second the fucker crashed to the van’s floor beneath me, I swung my legs up and twisted my body around until I was the one on top of him. Then I yanked that fucking burlap sack off my head and tossed it to the side quicker than the five of them had put it on. The others didn't react to the shift in power. They didn't even react when I leaned over the person who had led them for the last five years and curled my fingersaround his neck.
My overgrown hair fell over my face as the slow, sadistic, one-sided smile started to creep up into one cheek.
“If you wanted to hear my call, Jedd, all you had to do was ask.”
Then I raised my chin up to the sky and made that one sound I hadn't been able to make since I walked into prison all that time ago.
I howled.
Because I was back with my brothers again. I was with my pack.
And it didn't take long for the slaps of my family to land on my back before I was tugged and pulled around that van like I was Santa fucking Claus himself.
That was where I belonged. That was what had made it all worthwhile inside.
Chapter Three
Ayda
“You have to be shitting me.”
“I’m sorry. I hate to do it. You’re the best worker I have, Ayda, but these high school kids work for pennies, they don’t make a noise about uniforms and they always come in for extra shifts. You’re overqualified for this job.”
Rolling my feet forward and backward, I snapped my head side to side and planted my hands on my hips before looking down at the floor in consternation. I wouldn’t let them see me cry. I wasn’t that easily defeated and I wouldn’t give this punk the satisfaction of my tears. I’d worked my ass off every day for the last three years, and all they wanted was some mindless kid that would skate around in short shorts, pop gum and flirt with the other kids. She could have the fucking job. That was a line I firmly refused to cross, especially for the money they were offering me.
Babylon was a stop between one big city and another. Gas prices were decent, and that was about all we had going for us. Those of us who lived here tended to have been born here and fought for the few jobs there were. If you were lucky, the oil and gas companies that were littered around would offer you a job.
I wasn’t lucky. Not in any capacity.
My dad had been an engineer for one of the larger companies, which was exactly why we’d moved to Babylon to begin with.
While Mom and Dad were alive, life had been good. I’d loved my friends, I’d loved my school and I’d loved my boyfriend, Jacob. They’d been smart enough to get out while they could. Me? Well, I was called back and now found myself stuck with no other direction to go in.
I’d been so close to that complete freedom that I could have sworn I’d tasted it. I'd had big dreams—the same dreams most women my age had—but I'd had to learn to let them all go.
Standing there in front of a manager who was a year younger than I was, I felt the control start to slip from my fingers. I didn’t sign up for this. I didn’t sign up for any of it. I wasn’t cut out to be a parent or guardian. I could barely look after myself. Most days I forgot to eat, and when I did it was a crappy microwave burrito, which I drowned in hot sauce. How was I supposed to ensure the healthy nutrition of a growing boy? How was I supposed to know how to make sure he didn’t kill himself playing football, or when was a good time to talk to him about sex, which I suspected I was a year too late for? And how the fuck did health insurance costthatmuch?
It was never ending. When I fixed one problem, another one came along. The moment that was taken care of, something else happened. Any extra cash we had was greedily grabbed by the next shitty handout life gave us, and I couldn’t even blame Tate. He was in the same boat that I was—he was just a little more optimistic and had grabbed a paddle, whereas I was swimming, and my arms were tiring to the point Iconstantly felt as though I would drown.
“Ayda?”
Steering my skates away from the manager, I pushed one to the side and allowed myself some forward momentum as I waved over my shoulder. “Yeah, I got it. You’ll send me my last check, right?”
“I really am sorry.”
