Loving Me, Trusting You(43)

And then I feel arms around my waist and my body spasms, loosing the chains just enough that Mack slips out, falling to the cement with a choking gasp. Sweat starts to pour down my face and my knees go weak as I slip a bit on the gravel and the dirt. Gaine holds me up with one arm and borrows one of the chains with his other hand, using it like a whip to snap a man in the knee caps. It's pretty f*cking impressive, I'll admit.

“Let f*cking go of me!” I scream, but I don't fight. I can't move. My body doesn't belong to me in that moment, it belongs to the howling demons inside my skin, the ones that fight for supremacy everyday, the ones that I always just manage to hold back. Lately though, lately they've been kicking my ass hard, beating down the door of my sanity. I never should've killed Tray. There. There it is. I've said it. It hurts to admit it, feels like a betrayal of self, but that's it. That's the magic answer. I keep striving for vengeance when all I really want is peace.

I scream and flail, stumbling from Gaine's arms in a pulsating frenzy, a collection of confusion and barely suppressed rage. I can't believe this. I cannot even freaking believe this. How could I not want to kill these stupid f*ckers? And how, how, how could I regret taking out the worst one of them all? Obviously, something is seriously wrong with me.

I squeeze my fists at my side and turn to look at Gaine.

Or someone. Yeah, maybe someone is wrong for me.

“You stay away from me!” I tell him in the middle of our mid-afternoon brawl. He looks at me like I've completely lost it, brushing his dark brown hair from his forehead as his eyes flick this way and that, absorbing the mess around us. Seems kind of counterproductive for me to start a shit storm in the middle of a tornado of crap, but that's kind of what I'm good at. I'm not proud of it, but there it is. “You don't touch me, you don't pander to me.” I point my finger at him and pause just long enough for him to shove a guy in the chest and send him stumbling back into the whirlwind that is Beck Evans. The redhead grins the entire time. “You treat me like an old friend and that's it, Gaine. This cat and mouse game is over.”

I turn away and smash the instep of a man in a Bested by Crows jacket. I have no clue who he is, and I don't care. If he's a part of Tray's gang then he's trouble. Fuck him and the horse he rode in on.

“Mireya!” Gaine's calling after me, but I'm not listening. I'm letting my fury boil up and spill out, letting it cascade down around me and crash into the rioting crowd like a tsunami. I take my frustration out on anyone that gets in my way, swinging my single remaining chain around like I'm still dancing for my first husband and his friends, for the people I called family and who called me cunt, saw me as nothing more than a place to hang their hat. “Mireya!”

I move away from Gaine, purposely trying to lose him in the melee. It isn't difficult. There's a lot going on here and none of it is simple or easy. It's just a big, f*cking mess. There are a lot of people that are going to be hurting come tomorrow morning. I get terrible déjà vu then, remembering the first time I'd seen Bested by Crows in years, at the bike show in Amy's town. We went to trash their bikes, and they came to trash us. None of my attackers were there then, so it was easier to distance myself. Here, they're all the f*ck over.

I fight my way to Kimmi's side because I know that when it comes down to it, even if she hates me half as much as I pretend to hate her, that she won't tell anyone about the tears that shine wet on the dusty planes of my face.





It's two in the morning, and I'm still awake. I'd rather not be, but the moon won't let me sleep. She was beckoning to me through the curtains and drawing me out here to sit on the edge of the pool with my thoughts. The water might have chlorine in it and be swimming with water bugs, but at least it looks pretty. I dip a finger and try to grab some control over myself. I don't feel like me anymore. I blame Gaine for it because he's the closest person to me, a victim of friendly fire, but maybe it's true. He's been desperately trying to see inside the cracks of my psyche all these years, so I guess he's finally done it. He's in and I am screwed. ?Qué voy a hacer?

Tray Walker.

I twirl my finger through the water and watch the trail of ripples, comparing my clumsy motion with the weightless dance of the insects on the surface nearby. They're probably laughing at me, at this ridiculous woman with the horrible past who can't make up her mind for shit.

Right now, sitting here in this quiet loneliness, I know that I was right. I know why I feel so conflicted. I want Bested by Crows to suffer for what they did, but I don't want to be the one to act on it. I figure it's because I've already been through enough shit. I have plenty of nightmares to keep me awake at night. I'm not a saint myself, so I have more than enough to atone for. You add that on top of all the horrible things that have ever happened to me and there you have it. I'm tired. I'm done with all of this.

I drop my palm to the water and hold it there, feeling just the slightest kiss of liquid against my flesh. It feels like Tray's blood. Well, in my mind it does. In reality, it's nothing like it. It was sticky and hot; my mouth filled with the taste and scent of copper, like I was sucking on a jar full of old pennies. He convulsed like a fish out of water and bled out right then and there in front of me, life fading from him like color draining from a photograph. One minute, he was in color, the next he was black and white.