When I'm With You (Little Hollow Series, #2)(34)

“Get the fuck off me!” I yell, and hit out at him.

He ignores me and lifts me onto his bike effortlessly, holding me down as he sits behind me and starts to ride.

“Where the fuck are you taking me?” I scream against the wind.

We eventually pull up to an old car garage and I’m more confused than ever.

“Hunter! You need to tell me what the fuck is going on, right now!” I scream.

“Follow me.”

Follow him? That’s all he has to say?

My head is spinning, half an hour ago I was driving home in my car, and now I feel like I’m on the run. I want answers so I follow him into the lot. He scans the cars one by one and calls over a salesman.

“Afternoon, can I help you?” A man around fifty asks, eyeing me up warily.

I must look like a domestic violence victim and I consider asking him for help, but the look that Hunter fires at me makes me keep my mouth shut.

“Yeah, I need a car in perfect working order and it needs to be ready to leave right away,” he answers him with authority in his voice.

“Err, sure, we have the-”

“I don’t care what car it is, it just needs to be ready to go now,” he says between gritted teeth.

The man startles and rushes back into the little trailer. At first I think he’s going to call the police, but he soon comes running back out with a set of keys in his hand and points us toward a navy blue Toyota.

“She may not look like much but she’s in perfect working order, I just need you to sign some papers inside. I assume you’ll be paying with cash?”

Hunter nods his head and follows him back inside, I just stand there ready to collapse as my head starts to feel like it’s spinning. I can’t move, as much as I want to try and escape, I don’t think I’m in any danger with Hunter.

He saunters out ten minutes later with the car keys in one hand and the duffle bag, I hadn’t realized he was carrying, in the other. He throws off the cardboard sign on the front window of the car and opens the door, shoving the duffle in the passenger seat.

He looks up at me with a blank expression on his face which is so unusual for Hunter, he’s normally an open book with me. This isn’t my Hunter anymore, the Hunter I feel safe with, so I start to panic.

He rounds the car and I take a few steps back but he catches up to me easily enough in a few strides, he lets his wall down and I see conflict dancing in his eyes as he curls my hand around the keys.

“You need to go, now.” Is all he says before pushing me toward the car.

“I don’t understand, can you just fucking stop for a minute!” I shout, and he lets go of me.

“Steely, you’re in danger,” he says matter-of-factly, his voice void of any emotion.

“Don’t call me Steely right now, this is serious. What the fuck is going on?” I ask between sobs.

He doesn’t answer me so I look up into his eyes, I wish I hadn’t. His wall is back up and he starts pushing me toward the car again. “Get in the car and drive, keep driving until you’re far away from any of The Crows Rebels turf.” I drop down into the driver’s seat. “And don’t ever come back, do you hear me?”

He says it with such finality and ferocity that it hits me in the chest, dealing another blow to my already wounded state. “But… I just don’t understand what’s going on. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

He bends down next to me and grabs me by my chin, forcing me to look at him.

“He’s eighty-sixed you, Steely. If you’d have just kept your legs shut, none of this would be happening. You’re free game now, so I suggest you get the fuck out of here before any of the other brother’s find out what he’s done.”

He let’s go of my chin and stands up, slamming the car door behind him before walking off without a look back. He climbs on his bike and roars off back toward home, no, not home. Hell.

And here I am, left sitting in a strange car wondering how the fuck my life has ended up like this at the age of twenty-one, but I know how deep down.

Some people are just born with disaster in their blood.





After going down memory lane, I need a drink. I get to the clubhouse and head straight to the bar, prospect Whitey pours me a glass of my favorite and slides it over to me. I notice Taz eyeing me up over his shoulder from the other side of the bar.

“Hey, Taz, why you so twitchy?” I question him, swirling the amber liquid around my tumbler and quirking up a brow.

“Dunno what the fuck you’re talking about,” he retorts, signaling for a beer.

“Really? Since I’ve contested you as VP you’ve been all jumpy and shit, something to hide?” I take a mouthful of liquor and stare at him smugly.

He’s so easily wound up, hence his road name, Taz, like the Tasmanian devil. He has a temper on him like a bull seeing red. He puffs out his chest and stalks over to me, grabbing me by my cut and pulls me toward him. “You need to remember who you’re talking to.”

I take another sip of my drink, completely unaffected by his try at a macho display and put my hand out as Slider and Smokey stand out of their seats.

“Easy, boys. Everything’s all good here, ain’t that right, Mr VP?”

I grin as his face starts to turn red and he lets go of my cut.