Hell's Angel: Devil's Backbone (BK 2)

I'm a Survivor

Alison's POV
(bellamysgirl)

My head broke the surface of the ice cold water and I gasped in a breath, coughing up a bit of water. Matt came up a little ways to my right a second later. "Get to the shore," he said, sounding a little hoarse. I nodded and started around the front of the boat. I was practically already on my way when he said it. My arms moved quickly to carry me to the cement steps along the side of the dock. They were big and widely spaced.

But I stood as soon as it was shallow enough on the bottom step and hiked myself up. "Alison," Matt's voice came from not too far behind me. "Wait." I ignored him and continued climbing until I was up to the top, behind a row of some colored barrels. One look at the boat and my heart sank. I shuffled around the barrels to get a better look at it. The whole deck was engulfed in vibrant flames. My chest was so tight it was beginning to actually hurt.

I sucked in a breath. I didn't know that I hadn't been breathing. But it came out more like a hiccupping gasp as tears made short work of my defenses. I didn't even try to hold them back this time. What was the point? Dani and Frank were still on the boat when it exploded. And now they were both dead. The only two people I had left that I still cared about...dead. Mary's dead, Chase is MIA, and now this?

My eyes scanned the carnage but I knew. There was no finding either of them. "Frank..." my shoulders dropped, hot tears burning my cheeks. "Why?" The question came out a little more hopeless sounding than I'd wanted. But, what can you do? I heard Matt's sopping footsteps as he came to stand to my left. "Alison..." Matt sounded just as hollow as I felt.

But the sound of his voice caused pure rage to slip into my veins. I inhaled. "This is all your fault," I clenched my jaw.

"My...my fault?" he asked, unbelieving. "How is any of this my fault?"

I whirled to face him. "If you hadn't of shown up to begin with, this would've gone a whole lot differently-"

"Yeah, it would've, and it would've been a whole lot worse," he shot back, getting angry as well.

"Maybe if you weren't there, I could've talked him down! But because you had to prance in on your holier-than-thou white horse to try and convert us all, the whole stinking boat exploded!" I shouted, through the tears. He recoiled an inch, caught off guard. But then he scoffed a humorless chuckle. "You really think he was going to listen to you?" he questioned, rhetorically.

"Yes, because he listens to me, Matt! He's listened to me and only me since day one," my voice got quieter with every passing word. Matt stared at me. I couldn't tell what his face was doing behind that stupid mask of his. But my insides felt like they'd been scooped out with a metal spoon so I didn't really care. "He listened...and he cared. You think he's some monster because he kills people—but you don't know what it's like."

"What what is like, Alison?" Matt asked, adjusting his stance.

The anger was starting to fill my chest again. My voice was venomous, "To have a child. It's your whole world right there in your arms and then it just disappears. And there's not a darn thing you can do about it and- your system? It doesn't fix anything! Your system is what took his family away; your system is what took my son!"

"What am I supposed to do about it? Where there's good, there's corruption—that's why I do this, princess! To fix it!" he spat back, triumphantly, like he'd won a battle that wasn't even over yet. I stepped forward and shoved my hands into his chest. It wasn't a thought or premeditated. My hands just itched to do something, so I did. He stumbled back and off the edge of the dock, hitting the water down below.

He was under for only a second before shooting back up to pop his head above the surface. I turned back toward the boat, fuming. He was such a jerk. The man I love is dead, the woman he claimed to love is dead—and he acts like that? More tears burned out of my eyes as I raked my hand back through my wet hair. Every inch of me was soaked and I was starting to shake a little from the cold night wind. I heard splashing a dripping.