Leave a Trail (Signal Bend #7)(17)

But no one was paying her any mind. She wasn’t sure they even remembered she was there. Len shoved down on Badger’s shoulders, forcing him to sit. And Isaac stood in front of him. “No lying junkie wears the Flaming Mane. You want that kutte, you get your ass clean. And we’re here to make sure that happens. You leave this clubhouse one of two ways—clean or dead.

“Isaac…” Tasha stepped forward.

Len’s head jerked her way. “Shut up, Doc. Stay out of it.”

Adrienne barely heard any of that. She was staring at Badger, and he had turned his head and caught her eyes with his.

The pain she saw in them made her weak.



CHAPTER FOUR



They’d taken his kutte.

He knew they would, of course. He’d been waiting for them to do it. Waiting for months for them to do it. Knowing they were watching him, waiting for their chance. And now they had.

They’d taken his kutte.

Isaac was in his face, snarling at him. Len was holding him down, his hands pressing heavily on his shoulders. Cold rage blasted out at him from Show’s eyes. But he didn’t care about any of that, because Adrienne was there, too. Adrienne. He didn’t understand how or why she was there, but she was standing there, so delicate and pretty, and her lip was cut and swollen.

He’d done that. The whole—morning?—was a blur, and he didn’t know what the f*ck was going on except that everything was falling apart, but he did know that he’d done that to Adrienne. He could still feel the soft skin of her face giving against his knuckles. He’d hit her. He’d bloodied her. Oh, God.

God, why didn’t they just kill him already? It would be so much better if they’d just kill him.

“Just kill me. Just kill me. Just do it. Please. Please, just kill me.”

“Badge, no.” Adrienne’s voice was little more than a gasp, but it stabbed at him nonetheless.

Isaac looked over his shoulder. “Show—get her out of here.”

“Come on, little one. Let’s get you home.”

“No, I…”

“Let’s go, Adrienne.”

Badger watched Show take her by the arm and escort her out. And then he was alone with Isaac and Len—and Tasha, keeping her distance at the bar.

“Just please. I can’t deal anymore.” He couldn’t. He was more tired than he had ever been, and he hurt.

He hurt all the f*cking time. It was just too much.

Len’s hands eased off his shoulders, and then he was squatting next to the chair they’d shoved Badger onto.

“You can, little brother. You can. We don’t take the easy way out. We fight. We survive. Time to remember how strong you are. Come on.” He grabbed Badger’s arm and lifted him up to stand. Then he led him back to the dorm.

Badger didn’t quite understand what was going on, but he was too exhausted to resist.

They’d taken his kutte.

They might as well have taken his life.



oOo



They were killing him. Jesus Christ. They were just killing him slowly, letting his body turn itself inside out while they sat by and waited. Jesus.

They had him locked in his room, but they’d taken almost everything out of it. Even the f*cking lamp on his dresser. The only light in the room was the overhead, which burned his eyes like the damn sun was bolted to the ceiling.

The second time he shat the bed, they took his linens. Now he had a plastic pillow and a rubber sheet.

When he got the chills so bad he thought his teeth would rattle right out of his head, they gave him a blanket back.

And they had the goddamn girls coming in. As if they’d been instructed not to, they didn’t look at him or talk to him. They cleaned up after him and brought him food and drink. Which he couldn’t keep down.

He puked and puked, whether he had food to lose or not.

It was f*cking humiliating.

He had no television, no book, no anything but his misery. He lay; or, when his legs would not keep still, he paced; or he sat; or he curled up on the floor. And he let his head torment him. Everything hurt— every inch of his body, inside and out, was being pulled apart, set on fire, eaten alive—but nothing hurt as much as the anguish in his head.

None of his brothers—former brothers—came to see him. He had been forsaken.

When he could sleep, the dreams were more terrible and vivid than ever, his mind showing him again and again that day with the Perros, making him relive what they’d done to him. When he couldn’t sleep, his mind showed him all the ways he’d f*cked everything up, how he’d exposed himself for the weak suck he’d always been. He’d failed everybody. He’d hurt Adrienne. He was a worthless sack of f*cked-up flesh.

Tasha came in at some point—Maybe the fourth day? The fifth? Only the third?—when he had lost the ability to bear up silently and had spent hours weeping and moaning like a little girl. She hooked him up to an IV. He thought maybe he was going to get some relief, but she told him it was just fluids.

Keeping him alive longer, prolonging his agony and the inevitable conclusion of it.

She stayed with him while the bag drained into his vein. He lay on his f*cking rubber sheet with his eyes closed, wearing nothing but his boxers and a t-shirt, and tried to pretend he was already dead.

But then he started to feel a little better. The weed-whacker in his head slowed. The reaching tendrils of pain settled. His stomach eased. He opened his eyes, and Tasha smiled at him. Then she put her finger to her lips, and he understood. She was helping him. He wondered if she was helping him live or die.