Unattainable (Undeniable, #3)(13)

Every day he struggled. He struggled with remembering, he struggled with forgetting, he struggled with all the f*cked-up, perverted bullshit that went round and round his head, knowing that he shouldn’t be thinking these thoughts, knowing those thoughts weren’t his own but instead the thoughts of the motherf*ckers who’d made him this way, but also helpless to turn them off…helpless to stop…to stop what he did to make the images, the whispers, the ugly, depraved urges that caused him to do ugly, depraved things…JUST FUCKING STOP.

Once again in town, Dirty pulled off to the side of the road and cut his engine. Toeing his kickstand down, he swung his leg over his bike and stood up straight. While looking around the dark and quiet street he lived on, he reached into his cut and pulled out his smokes.

Miles City had been perfect. The polar opposite of New York City and all the nightmares that place held inside of it. He could breathe here most of the time, and ride for hours, just him and the road.

A shrill, terror-filled scream followed by the distinctive thump/slap of fist meeting flesh broke the small-town silence, tearing through the empty streets, emptying into the surrounding mountains, and Dirty felt his skin pebble with goose bumps.

Another scream, this one garbled, more choked than the first, then another pounding of flesh, and then…silence.

Dirty had a well-practiced poker face. Aside from Deuce, no one, not one motherf*cker out there, could see through his bullshit. He could throw down with the best of his brothers, beat a motherf*cker senseless, kill him without a second thought, his stare as coldhearted as the rest. He’d done deplorable things to a shit ton of people, men and women alike, and never once did he so much as bat a f*cking eyelash at his actions.

Until he was alone. Because when he was alone he could shake, he could tremble, he could scream and yell, he could punch the walls, he could punch himself.

Alone, he could cry. Alone, he could let the fear out and, Jesus f*ck, there was so much fear. He lived and breathed fear…every day, every night, all the motherf*cking time.

It was fear ruling him that had made him what he’d become. That had turned him into the sort of monster he’d most hated. And it was all that fear inside of him, coursing through his veins, pounding in his heart, making him sweat even more fear.

It was fear that had him tossing his cigarette aside, fear that had him running down the desolate sidewalk, fear that had him turning down a dimly lit alleyway. It was fear that had him skidding to a stop, taking in the scene in front of him.

And it was fear that had him pulling his piece and, with shaking hands, trying to blow a hole straight through someone else’s nightmare, a nightmare that was a f*ck of a lot similar to one of his own.

The bullet cracked through the air. Missing his target, Dirty tried again, only this time the * had been alerted to his presence and was on his feet, pulling up his pants as he ran in the opposite direction, hooked a quick right, and was gone before the second bullet had left the chamber.

Dirty lowered his shaking hand, his entire body trembling, his mind a mess of all-consuming scrambled adaptations of both the past and present.

That wasn’t him lying on the street, that wasn’t him with his pants around his ankles, bleeding, crying, begging.

He tried to breathe. In and out, slowly, faster, slow again. NOTHING WAS WORKING.

That wasn’t f*cking him, it wasn’t, it wasn’t—

“D-dirt-ty…?”

The raspy, garbled, distinctly feminine-sounding mutation of his name caused his head to swivel left and his eyes landed on the bloodied heap of quivering flesh that lay no more than fifteen feet from him.

Dirty blinked. He blinked and he breathed and his eyes refocused.

Shit.

Shit, he knew her. Sort of. She was…Emma? Erin? Ella?

Ellie. Ellie the mulatto hottie. Friends with Danny from way back when.

“P-p-please…” she continued and her arm moved, her fingers extended. She reached for him.

He could do this. He just couldn’t think about what he was doing while he was doing it. But he could do it. He had to do it.

Danny was the closest thing to a friend he’d ever had, the only woman who willingly hung around him, and this was her friend. What the f*ck would he do if it were Danny lying half-naked on the street, badly beaten?

He moved forward, jogging quickly toward her, bent down beside her, and froze just before his hands could come in contact with her body.

“Hey,” he said hoarsely, trying to keep himself calm. “Anything broken?”

She blinked up at him through swollen eyes. “No,” she whispered. “Just…m-my head…hurts.”

“Fuck,” he muttered as he retracted his hands, reached inside his cut, and pulled out his cell phone. “I got you covered, I’m calling the cavalry.”

“No!” she cried as her arm shot out and her hand gripped his wrist. The feel of her, her tight grip on him, her skin on his skin, caused a nauseating ripple effect throughout his body, ending with a violent shiver.

“No police,” she whispered, her grip loosening as the last of her strength faded. “Please…no one…nobody…can know.”

Dirty pressed his lips together. He hadn’t been talking about the boys in blue, he didn’t roll that way. But Ellie had said it first. No police, huh? He understood “no cops,” it was a way of life for him and his brothers, the unspoken code that anything that needed handling, they would take care of it themselves.