Defiance (7 page)

But holy hell, was Tru different. Everyone knew it, especially the other Defiance women, which made all of them either kiss her ass or be especially hard on her.

She was watching him, a small smile playing on her lips. “I didn’t know you were back home.”

“Here to clean up this mess and get you home.”

She tossed her hair back over her shoulder. “Silas brought me here and then he left me.”

“Silas sent me to collect you.”

“He can do his own dirty work.” She pulled out of his grasp for a second before he had an arm wrapped around her waist, was picking her up and carrying her through the party. She struggled. Bit him. But no one stopped him. No one from the right side of the tracks would dare to and no one from the MC would think to. This was a scene from daily life for a woman in the MC. She listened to the men in her life, did what they said or else she paid the price.

It had been drizzling when he’d come into the party and now, it was a full-blown soaking rain, which made it more difficult to hold on to Tru while she squirmed. Finally, he got the truck’s door open and her inside.

“I’m in, okay,” she told him, slammed her own door and he got in and drove away from the house.

“Towel’s in the back.”

She ignored him, brushed some water from her face with her palm. He reached back and handed her one.

She threw it into the back. “Si and I fight a lot.”

“Hearin’ that. Hearin’ other shit too.”

“That I’m having a good time?”

“Think partying with these guys is a good time?”

“You used to.”

“You heard wrong. But babe, I’m not you.”

“The only reason you’ve got a problem with it is because I’m a woman.”

He snorted. “Woman? Sweetheart, you’re a little girl tryin’ to prove you’re exactly what you’re not.”

She stared out the window as the truck rumbled along the back roads. “You have no idea who I am.”

“What the fuck you want, Tru?” he demanded of her. “You
want
to be some high school whore?”

“I’m not like that.”

“Yeah, okay. Not yet. But keep telling yourself that when you go to those parties and act like that.”

“I was having fun. Doing what anyone in the club would do.”

“Doing what any man would do, and you’re not a man, hear? Like I said, you’re not even a woman. You’re a little girl, playing games. And they’re gonna get you in big goddamned trouble.”

“What do you care?” she shot back.

“Don’t,” he lied. “Until I’m the one who gets his ass hauled outta bed to come rescue you.”

“Out of Fiona’s bed?”

“I don’t stay in Fiona’s bed and she doesn’t stay in mine.”

“Fine. Your job’s done. I’m in the car. So go report back like the good soldier you are. Guess I can’t have any fun.”

“Not sure what your idea of fun is.”

“Same as yours,” she challenged.

He snorted. “You want it, but you’re too scared to go all the way with it, Tru. That’s not having balls—that’s being a goddamned little girl. You’re gonna tease, then tease. But know that’s all you’re being.”

“Maybe I don’t tease. You’ve been gone awhile, and you don’t know everything. Maybe you couldn’t handle me.”

He raised a brow. “Yeah, like Silas handles you?”

“You have no idea—”

“That you’re a virgin? Sweetheart, you might be the only one your age in the MC who is. The golden virginity. Hope Silas finds it worth it.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He shrugged. “Like buying a bike without a test drive.”

She went to slug him then, but he caught her fist in his hand, tightened around her fingers easily immobilizing her arm that way. “Truth hurts.”

“You’re an asshole, just like they say.”

“Rumor usually has some truth to it, darlin’.” He got out of the truck and went around to help her out. When he did, he also picked her back up, having made a promise to deposit her at Trixie’s door.

“Get your goddamned hands off me,” she said, clawed at him. He put her down but held on to her anyway, even as her cheeks colored and her eyes flashed with anger. “I’m not helping you keep your 8 Ball patch, Caspar. Plenty of women lined up for that already.”

“Is that really why you’re pulling this shit?” he asked, his voice low. He let her go and fuck it, Trixie could collect her from here.

He hadn’t fully believed he’d been right about why she’d started acting out. The look on her face, her comments about his patch confirmed it.

Instead of saying anything, she just wrapped her arms more tightly around herself, like she knew she’d been caught.

His hands tightened into fists. He had no right to tell her what to do, other than the fact that he was a man in the brotherhood of the club and she had
no
rights in the MC. “What the fuck, Tru? I mean, seriously, what the fuck? You got it good in Defiance.”

Not like me.

He stared at her and she met his gaze for just a second. But that was enough. Something flashed in her eyes and for the life of him, it was something he’d never ever goddamned wanted to see. Never.

He knew that look. But knowing it and doing something about it were two totally different things.

And Tru
was
different—there was a light around her from the first time he’d seen her. She’d been six years old, her long blonde hair trailing behind her as she ran.

She was someone the other kids followed. Big Hugh’s pride and joy.

They wanted her to be part of the MC and yet, not like the other MC women. She was born with the respect given to an old lady, based on the respect everyone had for Big Hugh.

Hell, Caspar had been fooled by the guy too. He’d been one of the few kind ones, although no one would ever pin that moniker on him to his face.

“I don’t want to be in this lifestyle,” she blurted out, looked horrified that she’d admitted it. She’d deny it to the death—he was sure of it.

He also agreed with her. “So don’t be a part of it.”

“Easy to say. Not easy to do,” she told him as she walked away, from him and from Trixie’s house, glancing over her shoulder.

“Nothing worth anything is.”

Chapter Eight

Easy to say.
Not easy to do.

Nothing worth anything is.

As Caspar spoke those words, fifteen-and-a-half-year-old Tru walked away when she really wanted to tell him everything, wanted to share that things had never been quiet between her parents, but that when she’d turned thirteen, everything had gotten worse. Her mom cried all the time, ended up with bruises and no one did a thing.

Including you.
At least not at first. When she finally did stand up to her father, she’d ended up with a bruise on her cheek from the sharp crack of his hand when it made contact.

She’d been too ashamed to go to school, hid at home in her room behind a locked door. Her father took off for God knew where and for a month, everything was quiet. When he came home, it was business at usual. She kept her mouth shut, because it just made her mother get hurt worse.

At school, she was powerful—because of who she was, who she was dating. At home, because she was a girl, she was nothing. And she feared that would never change, even when she moved out.

It was a humbling message to learn. It opened her eyes to the culture around her. Maybe she’d been immune to the violence surrounding her until it landed squarely on her cheek.

Did the town girls see her that way? Sad and controlled, or were they still innocent enough to see or think that the outlaws were romantic?

All Tru could do was hold her head high and pretend nothing was wrong.

She’d pretended when Caspar lectured her while a part of her demanded she admit to him that she was alone and vulnerable. Terrified. Still missing her mother, who’d killed herself right after Caspar had first left town for the Navy.

Her mother had run—
deserted
, Big Hugh told everyone.

Escaped
, Tru thought was closer to the truth.

But she didn’t turn back to tell Caspar any of this and Caspar didn’t come after her. And for the next several months, until she turned sixteen, she continued pretending none of it mattered. Until the night all hell broke loose and she couldn’t pretend anymore.

She was in her room, curled up in a tight ball, reading. Trying to disappear, especially when she heard her father thumping up the stairs.

But at the same time, she heard the sound of gunfire outside. Big Hugh burst into her room, holding a shotgun.

“Tru, you take this and shoot anyone who comes in here, got it?”

“What’s happening?”

“No Name’s tryin’ to storm the compound.”

The rival MC had been getting more aggressive lately, but for them to fight on another MC’s compound was a declaration of war. She took the shotgun in hand, nodded rotely as Hugh fired off more instructions before he left. And as the fight raged outside in the compound, another war waged inside of her. She realized with a sickening clarity that nothing would change, that if she stayed in this life, she’d end up with a man like her father. She realized how alone she really was. How alone she’d always be if she stayed.

Silas idolized Lance and Big Hugh. Even though she knew Silas had dreams of playing pro-football—and he could’ve, because he was that talented and he’d already been scouted throughout his high school career—but that goal didn’t match the club’s goals. Which were really Lance and Big Hugh’s goals.

Club goals centered around survival, money and sex.

So Silas would play his last year of football and enter the military, like all good Defiance members did.

She wasn’t a good Defiance member—hadn’t been for a long time—but was finally ready to do something about it. Something real.
Easy to say.
Not easy to do.

Nothing worth anything is.
She held onto Caspar’s words through hours of screams and gunshots. Sirens. Fire.

During the fighting, she’d made her plans while preparing for blowback from the No Names. But when Big Hugh came home, everything happened so fast. A different kind of blowback than what she expected.

“Good girl, you stayed put like you were supposed’ta,” Big Hugh told her when he’d come into the house. His shirt was ripped but other than that, he appeared bulletproof, as always. And he’d already downed half a bottle of whiskey but he’d have to drink a lot more than that for it to register.

She’d hoped he’d bring a woman home, or better yet, stay at the clubhouse. But he was wired, stalked her through the house. “You should go see Silas—go to your man and give him comfort.”

“Not tonight.”

“Not tonight—or not to Silas?” he’d asked crudely. “I see the way you dress. Know you go out partyin’. Thinkin’ you’re too good for us around here.”

“I don’t think that,” she’d lied.

“Bullshit.” He hit her, a fast and powerful blow that made her black out for several minutes. Even when she came to and heard herself yelling at him, she wasn’t fully conscious of what she was saying, saw his look of pure fury as he came at her again.

He pinned her to the wall, tried to alternately touch her and strangle her, but she slammed a knee into his balls. That knocked him off balance enough for her to grab the bag she’d kept packed since her mother’s death and run for the door.

She barely got out, only did because Hugh was so drunk he’d tripped on the rug. When she looked back, he hadn’t been moving.

Good
, she’d thought bitterly through her tears.

Crying. She could barely hear herself over the loud partying happening because of Defiance’s victory. Crying...and running.

She wasn’t sure at all where to go. Si’s house was the most obvious place but Si wasn’t the most obvious person. She went behind the house to the hill she sometimes sat on, because it overlooked the lake behind Silas’s house.

Normally it was private but she found Caspar outside, sleeping under the sprawling willow tree on the hill overlooking Lance’s house and land.

He watched her race up the hill, looking behind her, expecting her to be running from something or something. She was, but her father hadn’t followed—not yet—and she was embarrassed and crying and angry all at once, a ball of emotions that threatened to push out of her chest.

“I’m fine,” she told Caspar, but he didn’t believe her.

It was the first time she’d been alone with him since that night he’d taken her home from the party. That hadn’t been the last time she’d gone out and partied and had to be reeled in, but she’d done so hoping he’d be the one to come after her.

He never was. He’d been true to his word—he wasn’t coming after her again.

“You don’t look fine.”

She was so close to him. It was dark and she could still see the indent of the scar along his cheek. It wasn’t dark enough that she couldn’t see him looking at her. “I said I’m fine. I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Silas’s inside,” he told her, without a hint of sarcasm in his tone.

“I know,” was all she could manage. She hoped he wouldn’t go find Silas or worse, march her into the house where Lance roamed. Maybe her father had already called and told him that she’d run again.

But she’d never run the way she was planning to tonight.

But Caspar didn’t say anything, just sat back on the big blanket he’d spread out. He didn’t invite her to join him but she sat anyway, on a corner, her back to him. She drew her legs up to her chest, buried her face in her knees as the tears finally came.

“You’re going to get me in fucking trouble if Silas comes and finds us together and you’re crying. If you’re staying here, cut that shit out.”

His tone wasn’t mean or harsh. It was simply a matter of facts and he was right. “I’ll leave.”

“And go where?”

“Are you worried you’ll get in trouble for letting me leave too?”

“I’m not that much of a punk.”

“I need help getting out of here,” she told him, the words barely a breath, but he’d heard them.

“Not scared of me anymore.”

“Still scared. I just don’t care that I am,” she admitted. It earned her a smile—a real one. He reached into his bag and pulled out a half of Jack Daniels. She took the bottle from him before he offered, took a swig, choked and then took another and another until she stopped choking.

He didn’t try to talk her out of it or take the bottle back, just watched her with those hooded eyes.

Her flannel shirt had been pulled on and buttoned hastily. Caspar reached out and lazily traced the scar that ran between her breasts. She held her breath and tried not to shiver, but failed.

He noticed. “This happened before I got here.”

She nodded. He kept his finger there, between her breasts. “Open heart surgery. I had some kind of defect. I almost died.”

Some days
,
I
wish I had.

“What the fuck did he do to you tonight?” he asked, his voice deadly quiet in the still night. It should’ve scared her, but it didn’t.

“You know,” she said. “He tried. He tripped. He’s drunk and—”

“Doesn’t fucking matter. You got away.” He glanced at her bag then back at his. For the first time, she noticed that it was a big army green duffel.

His finger remained on her scar, a second and third moving alongside it to stroke the outside of her breast.

“You’re leaving again?”

“Reporting back for duty. Gotta get the hell out of here before I get busted and kicked out,” he explained.

“Did you have to enlist?”

“Isn’t that what good old Defiance members do?”

“I don’t want to be a good Defiance member anymore.”

“Finally ready to do more than talk about getting out of here?”

She didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

“Then I’ll help you.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I know. But it keeps me from killing your father tonight.”

She drew in a breath at the harshness of his words but didn’t move from his touch. She wanted, needed, different hands on her. His hands. And when his palm slid further inside her shirt to cup a breast, she stilled and then smiled.

“Yes,” she told him in answer to his unspoken question.

“One thing has nothing to do with the other. Know that, Tru. I don’t take what’s not given.”

“I know.”

He’d nodded. “I’ll get you the fuck out of here then. Can still change your mind about this.”

He’d brushed a thumb over her nipple when he said
this
and then took his hand away. The jolt of pleasure and the sudden loss of contact made her head spin more than the Jack Daniels had.

He was up and moving, helping her to her feet and into his truck before she could worry about anything else. They left the compound, but instead of heading for the highway, he’d gone toward her house. He pulled a block away from her street and told her to wait there for him. Fifteen minutes later, he’d put two more of her bags in the backseat.

“Grabbed what I could,” he told her. “Took your night table shit. Some clothes from your drawers too.”

“Thanks.” She was grateful to have anything. Never more so than when he handed her a roll of cash. “I can’t take that from you.”

“Not from me. Took it from Hugh,” he said. “Guy’s still passed out on the floor.”

That money, she would take. She shoved it into her pocketbook, which she put into the backseat, rolled down the window as the truck left Defiance in her rearview. She took a few more slugs of the Jack Daniels, turned up his radio and stuck her head out the window while he sped up along the highway.

When she tucked back into her seat, her hair was a mess and she was laughing. He shook his head but she caught the glimpse of a smile.

He drove for hours. She lost track of everything but the countryside in the darkness. Finally, he pulled off road someplace in Virginia, drove along dirt paths through wooded areas until he stopped in a clearing by a lake. “I was planning on sleeping outside tonight. Mind?”

“No.”

He went to the back and opened the flatbed. He had some kind of gel padding and blankets and when she climbed in, it was surprisingly comfortable. She felt safe. Free. Giddy.

And he was waiting for her to make the first move. He’d stripped off his cut and his shirt and shoes. She noted that his gun was above their heads, along with his phone.

He’d insisted on leaving hers behind.

“You’re not a virgin anymore,” he said finally.

“No.”

His smile was wistful. “Guess I pushed you into that.”

“You were right about the test drive—except you forgot that I have to enjoy it too.”

He laughed at that. “Fuck me.”

“Are you going to ask me if I enjoyed it?” She lay next to him, letting him open the buttons one by one, revealing her under the night sky without answering her. He was unwrapping her slowly, like they had all the time in the world.

She hadn’t cared about anything to do with tomorrow, only cared about being with the one man she knew could handle all her shit. And then he finally answered her question. “Might not be your first, but I’m sure as hell gonna be the only one you remember.”

And he’d proven every word of it as she’d wrapped her arms tight around him and let him take her under the stars. Called her pretty baby. Curled her toes, rocked her world. She’d never be the same and somehow, that felt right.

In the back of his truck, miles and miles and miles away from Defiance, she’d watched the stars after he’d made her come.

“Do you like it in Defiance?” she asked.

“Not always.”

“It hasn’t been easy for you there.”

“No shit.”

She was still giddy and that made her snort laughter. She covered her mouth. “Sorry. That’s not funny. I know...it’s just the way you said it.”

He didn’t seem to mind, held her closely, her head on his arm. “Guess we’re more alike than I realized.”

“I realized,” she said quietly. “I wish it was different there.”

“I think it could change. Think it should.” He’d been staring up at the stars while he spoke, almost mesmerized. When he realized what he’d said, he’d looked slightly abashed.

“What would you change?”

She hadn’t expected him to answer, but he did. Told her more than she’d ever known about Defiance, the way Lance ran things. The way Caspar wanted to.