DESPERADO | Serpents of Western Rock Book #1

S I X: Let Me Go

Ｊｏｓｉｅ:

I've seen horrible things in my life. I've seen someone overdose, I've seen someone get beaten half to death, I've seen a lot. I've even been in similar situations myself. But I have never, ever, seen what I just saw now.
He was running after me. My heart was pounding out of my chest, my breathing was heavy and strained. Every time that I looked over my shoulder through my tears, he was gaining on me. And when I looked behind me at the wrong moment, I tripped on my own boot, and I don't recall the landing.

I woke up on the maroon and white checkered leather seats of my car. The air conditioning was on and my head was propped up on my bag. I felt a lump in my throat that I couldn't get rid of. When my eyes adjusted to the blazing sun, I looked to my black combats dangling off the driver's side seat. Across from me, I spotted through the open door, was him. He was perched on a large rock, smoking a cigarette. His hands had dried blood all over them. His chest glistened in sweat. His eyes stared blankly at the sand. Everything registered.
I attempted to launch for the door and sit up, but he was too quick. In a moment, he reached over me, grabbed the keys and shoved them into his pant pocket.
I needed to get out. I knew danger all too well, and this was perilous danger. It's very rare that alarms go off inside of my head to tell me to run.
I backed up stiffly against my seat and kept my hands behind my back so that he couldn't grab them. My jaw was nearly locked and I stared at him in pure vulnerability.
He stared back. A stare that was clouded by distress and defeat. He almost looked concerned, but not of what I saw. It looked like concern of what was going to happen to me because of what I saw.
"Let me go," I struggled to demand. I reached up and touched the forming bump on my head, wincing in pain.
He looked into the distance where the sound of motorcycles commenced. He yanked his phone out and called someone, only to mumble a few words and hang up right away.
"I won't tell anybody." I persisted.
He chuckled. And it was menacing.
"Seriously, I'll mind my own business and won't talk to you ever again."
He walked closer to me. I felt my legs become weak and my stomach felt heavy. He rested his hands on the roof of the car, dipping his head to look at me closely.
"Josie," he began. I shuttered to the sound of his unusually deepened and raspy voice say my name. "You know I can't do that."
I felt an involuntary shiver down my spine.
His hand was slowly reaching for my arm. I jumped back. I just wanted to go. Far away from him. Far away from the scene that played over and over in my head.
"Josie..."
"Please let me go." I was quiet and apprehensive.
He looked hurt. "I can't," he responded. "I really wish I could." He was sincere, undoubtedly. And hurt. I hated that I even felt bad for him in a sick way.
Tears began to form around my eyes again. I itched my arm, a nervous habit I wish I could get rid of. "Are they coming for me?" I didn't want to die. Sure, there had been days I was ready for it all to end, but not today. Not anymore.
He shook his head. "They didn't see you. I told them I needed some time to myself."
   "You killed a man." I didn't mean to be so blunt. I hoped it was just an inner thought to myself, but when I saw his chiseled jaw clench down I knew that I really did speak those words aloud.
"You don't understand."
I swallowed hard. "What is there to understand?" I began to cry this time. "Please tell me, because from what I saw, it was clear as day."
"Dammit," He started, slamming a fist down on the hood of my car.
I winced.
"Why did you have to fucking be here?" He began to pace. "Why couldn't you stay in your perfect life and not be here? You weren't supposed to fucking be here."
His stress was radiating off of his body. I felt a disgusting urge to reach for him and calm him. "Why?"
He stopped walking back and forth. "Why weren't you supposed to be here?"
I took a deep breath, scooting to the edge of the seat daringly. "Why did you kill him?" I whispered shakily.
His head fell backward for a moment before running his rough hand through his silky hair. "It's club business."
"I just saw you commit murder. I heard everything, it's not just club business anymore," I taunted, immediately regretting it.
His eyes resembled black holes. "If you say you heard everything," he hissed, "then why ask me?"
"You and the Serpents follow a code, that's obvious, but I am sure you believe in different standards. Don't you? That's murder. You have blood on your hands, literally. You can't possibly think that any of this is okay."
He shook his head again and looked at the ground. For a moment I thought his glare would start a fire at his feet. "The MC is my life. There are repercussions when you disobey and denounce the name of your family, and that is what I believe."
"So the death penalty?"
"Yes," His answer was quick, not with a second thought. "You know from a young age when you agree to this life, that betraying won't be taken lightly. And then you answer to your club and a bullet." I tensed at his words.
In a sick way, I understood. I didn't agree, but I understood. It didn't change the fact that this man that basically saved my life, was also a killer. My chest felt permanently caved in.
"Did he know it would happen?"
He nodded slowly.
"Did he deserve it?"
His eyes focused and unfocused on me in a squint. "Yes."
"I want to go home," I told him, my eyes begged and pleaded.
A long broken sigh escaped his full lips. "Josie, I could be disowned for letting you go."
"But you must've already thought of that when you told those guys to go on without you."
We sat there in silence for minutes on end. There was something warm and gentle about his soul. I had hope that he wouldn't hurt me. I didn't really know him at all, so this could be false optimism. But I truly believed that he wouldn't have called off his gang or kept me comfortable in my car until I woke up just to kill me later on.
He finally spoke up, "I'll let you go."
I straightened my back and reached out for my keys.
He ignored my gesture. "There are conditions."
Shit, I was used to this part. I wasn't ready to hear this. I drew my hand back and set it down beside me.
"You stay away from that cokehead ex boyfriend of yours."
I was about to correct him when he started up again.
"There are people that want him out of here and whatever he is doing to end and they'll go to any length to make sure of it. And if they see you're involved, you'll be in just as much shit."
"You mean The Serpents?"
He didn't answer my question. "Just stay away from that shit. It's trouble."
I raised my chin. "What if I'm trouble?"
He cocked his head to the side and studied me. "I don't doubt that you are, which is why I've got my eye on you," he admitted.
   "I don't need protecting," I recalled his attempt to play my knight in shining armor. I didn't need him to keep an eye out for me.
"Who the hell said I was trying to protect you?"
Instead of asking why he was keeping a close eye, I reached my hands out for the keys again.
"Not yet." He wagged his finger.
I groaned impatiently. I was really sitting here making a deal with the devil. I was worried for my fate.
He stepped closer to me and waved me off to slide to the passenger seat. He slid into the car and shut the door.
"What are you doing?"
He started up the engine. "We are going for a ride."
"I thought you were letting me go?" What the hell?
With a toothy grin he replied, "Yes. After we go swimming."
Was this man crazy? Besides the obvious, yes.
"Are you kidding me?"
He put the car in first gear and slowly peeled out onto the dirt road. He ignored my question. "Plus, you hit that rock pretty hard. Can't let you die out here if you pass out again."
He put a bullet through someone's skull and wants to go swimming now and watch over me because I hit my head? This man was officially crazy. "I thought you didn't want to protect me?"
   "I'm protecting myself, sweetheart. If you go missing out here and people find you, the club will know you were at Eagle's Head and know I had something to do with it."
   He really only cared about saving his own ass.
When silence filled the air I examined his face. His sculpted jaw was clenched again and his eyebrows were scrunched up in thought. His dark brown eyes looked into the distance, but I think his thoughts were far gone and out of the moment. I didn't think he was crazy all of the sudden...I think he was hurt.