My chin quivered. “I need to call someone to come and help us.”
Fighter shook his head and reached for his cell. “No,” he grunted, spitting out a mouthful of blood. “Not here, it’ll be a massacre.” He spat out a mouthful of blood. “We need to go.”
My eyebrows shot up, “How?” I cried. “You can’t ride and we need to go—now, before my daddy changes his mind!”
Fighter swallowed and stood up straight with a groan. He grabbed the handlebars of his bike and kicked out the stand. “Come on,” he grunted, and started to walk.
I stared after him, watching his small, pained steps.
When I didn’t immediately follow, he turned to look at me. “I said come on.”
He spat another mouthful of blood out and continued to walk, pulling his bike with him. I caught up to him and grabbed the other side of his bike, taking as much of the weight as I could.
“We could leave the bike,” I offered.
He gave me a scathing look.
“Okay, bad idea.”
“Very bad,” he grunted.
The sound of bike engines starting up made me flinch, and both Fighter and I looked behind us, watching as the Vipers climbed onto their bikes and came toward us. My heart froze, my hands trembling in fear.
“It’s okay,” Fighter grunted. “Just trying to scare us.”
I watched as bikes drove slowly alongside us and I looked back at Fighter. “Well, it’s working.”
He hung his head as pain burned through him, his steps faltering as he stumbled. I gripped the bike tighter and he shot me a pained look.
“I’ve got it,” I said, sweat beading on my forehead at the weight of the bike. I was a strong woman, but after Solomon’s treatment I was weak, my muscles sore and pained, but I refused to let Fighter know how much walking and holding his bike up was hurting. If the bike was important enough to him to push all the way home, then that was what we’d do.
It hit me then and I turned to look at him. “Where are we going?”
He tried to smile, but his expression was bloody and made him look more like someone from a horror movie instead of the handsome man I’d come to know. “Home,” he grunted painfully.
I thought of his brothers, Rider and Gauge, and of Charlie and her little girl, and how close I felt to them all already. Would his other brothers accept me into their club, or would I always be an outsider? Unwanted, unloved. It was what I was used to. What I’d lived with my whole life.
*
We walked nine miles that day before someone came to help. Seven miles in the burning Georgia heat, pushing Fighter’s bike and followed by Vipers. Eight men ready to strike the moment either of us fell. Taunting us with each pained, slow step. Both of us were injured and aching, but neither of us were willing to give up. We stumbled, but we refused to go down. Instead we clung to each other, to the bike, and to the faith that we could still make it out of this alive.
At the seven-mile mark, my daddy’s men turned and headed back toward the clubhouse without a word. Solomon spat at me as he rode past and I lowered my head, refusing to be goaded by him. I put my hand on top of Fighter’s when he snarled at Solomon. Even then, half dead and covered in blood, he was still ready to fight for me. Kill for me, even. And I realized that I would do the same for him.
It was at this point I fell in love with him.
Unequivocally.
Blatantly.
Blindingly.
At eight miles, Fighter pulled out his cell and handed it to me. Our eyes locked. “Call Rider.”
I nodded and opened the phone, hunting out Rider’s name before pressing call. He answered on the first ring.
“Fighter?”
“It’s Penny.
