BROKEN WINGS: GODS OF CHAOS MC (BOOK THREE) (17 page)

My arm screamed in pain as I landed directly on the cast.  The man disappeared through the grass and I lay panting and gasping for breath through the pain, defeated and broken, the sorriest excuse for a man that ever lived.

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Doc worked on Oliver all night long.  Methodically and gently, he placed him in a small box so he wouldn’t thrash around, and he called a friend, an old army buddy that just happened to run a wildlife rescue.   Chet was older than Doc, but thinner and taller, but just as gentle.

He knew exactly what to do to help Oliver, and after spending a few hours with him at the clubhouse and stabilizing him, he took him to his sanctuary for him to heal and rehabilitate.  

Oliver was so good, barely making a sound through it all, watching Doc the whole time with such trusting and calm eyes.  

It was heart wrenching.

And it was all my fault.

“If I had never made that phone call to you!” I wailed to Slade later, when we were alone in his room.  He had taken twice the amount of painkillers he was allowed, and he refused to go back to the hospital to get his arm checked out.  He was a little groggy, which was good, because his anger was finally fading a little.  He had been like a rage-filled monster after everything went down.  I couldn’t talk to him, I could hardly look at him.

“If I hadn’t called you, none of this would have happened!” I continued. “Look at you, Slade!  Look what I’ve done!  I’ve disrupted your life, I’ve caused you to get hurt, I’ve caused that sweet owl to get hurt!”

“Stop it, Diana!” he said, his explosive demeanor from earlier replaced by a drug-induced calm.  “You don’t know that the guy in the woods was here because of you.”

“No, but how often do you get people sniffing around down here?  Someone is following me, someone wants to get near me.  They proved that with the fucking snake!”

“Not often, that’s true, but you know what?  It doesn’t fucking matter, baby.  None of it, it just doesn’t.”

“How can you say that, Slade? I’ve changed your life, I’ve changed Oliver’s life…if he even survives!”

“Look, babe.  What I mean is…hell, we’re all gonna end up with broken wings eventually anyway.  The ‘when’ doesn’t matter.”

“What are you talking about?”

His eyes darkened, and his grin faded.

“I look at it like this.  Every creature is born with wings.  And every creature learns how to use them.  Sometimes, the world, or if you’re lucky, your parents, show you how to use them to fly high, to reach unimaginable heights. Or, they can break ‘em.  They can either encourage you, love you, teach you how to get up and fly again when you crash, because you’re always gonna crash…or they can beat you down, insult you, neglect you, make you feel like a burden, a worthless piece of shit…until you forget you even had the ability to fly in the first place.”

“And you, Slade?”  I asked, beginning to understand him a little better after all.  “Were you broken?”

“Yeah, beauty, they got smashed pretty good.”

I nodded.  

“But you learned to fly again.”

“Yeah, I did.  And I can do it again, too.  And I will.  And so will Oliver, you can bet your sweet ass on that.  He’s a tough bird, he’s going to be just fine.”

Slade reached out and pulled me into his arms, his lips gently brushing mine.

“So let’s make a deal, alright?”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“No more blaming yourself.”

“That’s not going to be easy,” I replied.

“No, but just promise me you’ll try?”

“I promise,” I sighed. I laid my head on his chest, and fell asleep within minutes to the steady sound of his heart beat.

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Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you just end up fucking up.

I had to accept this.  I was humiliated.  Someone had gotten close to Diana twice on my watch, and I still hadn’t caught the fucker.

Whatever was going on, it was clear to me the situation was seriously escalating.  For someone to be that close to the clubhouse, they had to have followed us. And what had they seen?  Had they seen me and Diana fucking in the woods?  Was it the same asshole that had left the snake in her apartment? And had that person seen us fucking, too?

Was this prick getting his rocks off watching us?

I wanted to rip his head off.  I was beyond furious, I was enraged.  

After bringing Oliver to Doc and making sure he and Diana both were okay, I decided to wait till morning to talk to the rest of the Gods.  As far as I was concerned, it was time to come up with a plan to put this shit to rest once and for all.

I wasn’t about to just hang around and be a fucking sitting duck for some asshole who thought he could fuck with me.  That wasn’t my style.

When Diana finally fell asleep on my chest, I was just beginning to calm down.  Her soft hair on my skin, the gentle rise and fall of her breasts as she slept, the incredible smell of her hair pressed against my face, relaxed me in a way I didn’t know was possible.

It was like she was some magic elixir and I couldn’t get enough of her healing powers.  She calmed me.  She slowed my breathing down, stopped my heart from the usual violent racing, and quieted my soul in a way I had never experienced.

How I found the patience to handle this chaos with such peacefulness was beyond me, but I knew it mostly had to do with Diana’s presence in my life.

I fell asleep with her in my arms, praying to a God I didn’t believe in to let me keep her.

***

The next morning, Riot, Ryder and I scoured the woods for any clue of our visitor.  We found tire tracks that didn’t tell us much of anything.  

When we revisited the site of the struggle with Oliver, we hit paydirt.  Amongst all the bloody feathers strewn about, we found a wallet.

When Riot opened it and showed me the ID, I knew exactly who it was.  The familiar face, seen hundreds of times, made me take a step back.

“Well, I’ll be a sonfofabitch!”  Ryder said.

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“Faith first,” the man muttered, as he stuck his hand in the hissing bucket.  “Faith first, and then good works!”

He pulled a snake out, holding it behind its head.  He showed it to the girls, the sinners.  

“You have to have faith first, don’t you understand?” he shouted.  They looked at him with fear, but he knew that was only because they didn’t believe.  “If you don’t have faith, you can’t do the real work!”

He had been trying for weeks now.  Trying to convert them, convince them that he spoke the truth.  He showed them the good book, he read to them, all of Mark 16.  Three times!  But still they looked at him blankly.  Like he was the crazy one, like he was the sinner.

He was their savior, and they couldn’t even see that!  

“If you believe in the literal interpretation of Mark 16, if you believe it all, every single word, as the gospel, then you stand a chance of salvation! True salvation, don’t you see?”

He held the snake out in front of their faces, the terror shining brightly in their eyes.  

Let them cry
, he thought.  Let them suffer.  They deserve it, they deserve it all.  Until they repent, they deserve no mercy.

“Repent, repent…” he repeated, over and over, as he slid the slithering snake over their chained-up, naked, shivering bodies.

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“I’m coming back soon, Tony.”

“What are you talking about?  You just went on leave.  Take some time, you need it.”  His loud voice made my phone crackle, and I held it far away from my ear.

“What I need is to get my work done.  I’m in the middle of this story,” I replied, hearing the desperation in my own voice.  The clubhouse, the forest, Slade…all of it was beautiful, but something about being driven from my own home by a madman was making me feel rebellious. 

“Wyatt is covering that story now,” Tony replied.  
No shit
, I thought.  

Slade had returned this morning from the woods with Wyatt’s wallet in hand.  At first, I was shocked, then reality struck.  Of course he would follow me.  He thought I had a lead on the missing girls.  He thought that was why I took leave.  He knew I’d never go voluntarily, as he had tried to suggest himself so many times.  He was right.

However, it pissed me off to no end that he had followed me, that he had no doubt seen Slade and I fucking in the woods.  If he thought he had the upper hand, because he got away, he was wrong.

I was coming back.  

Of course, I had yet to discuss this with Slade, and I didn’t know how I was going to approach the subject.  I knew he’d never agree to me going back.  I knew, in the back of my mind, that I’d have to leave on my own, sneak out when he wasn’t looking.   I hated to do that to him, but I could see no other way.