Road of Bones

[Briar] The first thing I heard was the giggle. Not a ha-ha, that's so funny. It was the kind of giggle that belongs to a woman who knows exactly what she's doing and exactly who she's doing it with. When it drifted out of Cade's bedroom every hair on my arms stood straight up. I knew that giggle. I'd been hearing it across his family dinners for two years. Sable. I stood in the hallway of his apartment holding two paper bags of takeout from his favorite barbecue place, because I am was that kind of girlfriend. The kind who brings you dinner after a twelve-hour day in the shop because you said you'd had a rough week and your voice sounded tired. The kind who still gets a little flutter when you text can't wait to see you, Bee. The bags weren't heavy. My chest was. I could've walked out, no I should've walked out. Instead, because I am my father's daughter, I walked in. The door was open a crack, which was how the giggle got out. I nudged it with my boot and there they were. Cade, my boyfriend of two years and Sable, his stepsister, wearing my favorite pink tank top and nothing else worth mentioning. For a second, my brain tried to explain it away. Maybe she's borrowing clothes. Maybe he's asleep and she's just trying to wake him. Naked. At nine p.m on his bed. Then Cade's head snapped toward me and his face went through about six expressions in a second and a half. Every one of them ending with oh s**t. "Bee." He scrambled up, grabbed a pillow, held it over himself like it was a life raft. "Baby, this isn't—" Sable didn't even sit up. She stretched slowly and looked at me from under those ridiculous lashes and smiled. The smile of a girl who'd just proven she could take anything I had. "Hey, Bee." Like I'd stopped by for coffee. You're home early. The thing that got me wasn't the betrayal. Okay, it was absolutely the betrayal. But the fact that they were doing it on his bed before we even did it. That's the detail that made it more painful. I didn't get emotional he wasn't worth it and deep down I had a feeling he was a spinless prick. I set the takeout bags down on the floor. Carefully. The way you set down something breakable when your hands are shaking and you refuse to let them see it. "Two years," I said. My voice came out flat. Two years and this is how it ends? With you f*****g your stepsister? "She's not my sister—" Cade started and Sable cut in, Step, technically, it's only a technicality," and I laughed. I actually laughed. Not because it was funny. If I didn't laugh, I was going to cry and I'd already promised myself that I wasn't going to give either of them the satisfaction. You know what? I said as I reached into my bag grabbed my XXX Hot pepper Spray and gave them a taste. I especially sprayed aimed on his peins, her cheap fake t**s she did last year and their eyes. It was gonna kill them but it sure will make them wish they where and I walked out. I made it all the way to my truck before the first tear hit. I'll tell you the truth, because I'm done pretending: I sat in that parking lot for ten minutes with my forehead on the steering wheel and I didn't cry over Cade. I cried because I'd spent two years of my life convincing myself he was the safe choice. The good choice. The man my family wouldn't have to worry about. Turns out the safe choice wasn't always the right choice. My family found out, of course. You can't keep anything secret in a biker family the gossip travels faster than the bikes. By the time I got home, my mom was already waiting on the porch with her arms crossed and her reading glasses on, which is how you know it's serious. My mom only wears her reading glasses when she's about to look through you. I look just like her with wavy auburn hair and brown eyes. She doesn't look a day over 35. "Baby." She opened her arms I walked into them. Tell me where to point your father. That made me snort-laugh. Mom, I already handled it and you can't let Dad lose on him his been looking for any excuse to deal with him. Watch me. Your father has been looking for an excuse to hate that boy since the day you brought him home. Bear! she hollered over her shoulder. It's Cade! From somewhere deep in the house, I heard my father's voice, low and certain: I'll get my gun. I love my family. I need you to understand that, because it's the whole reason the next part happened. My family is not the problem. My dad Bear Monroe, president of the Iron Serpents, built like a grizzly and twice as protective has loved me since the second I was born and being the baby of the how doesn't help. My mom, June, runs the club's books and our house with the same iron gentleness. My brothers, Cash and Deke, would burn the world down and then help me rebuild it just to watch it burn again. They're not perfect. They're bikers. They're loud and opinionated. My dad once grounded me for sneaking out to a concert. But they are my family and they love me. The problem has never, ever been them. The problem was that I'd built my whole life inside their love. I'd never been anything but Bear's daughter, Cash's little sister, the princess of the Serpents. When Cade cheated, it didn't just break my heart. It broke the one thing I'd chosen for myself. So I did what any reasonable woman would do. I woke up the next morning, walked into the kitchen where my whole family was loudly planning Cade's funeral and announced: I'm going on a road trip. Dead silence. Four heads swiveled. Alone? Dad asked, like I'd suggested swimming with sharks. Yes, alone. For how long? Mom asked carefully. I don't know. Until I figure out who I am when I'm not somebody's girlfriend or somebody's daughter. My dad opened his mouth. My mom put a hand on his arm. Then my dad did something unexpected he reached into his pocket, pulled out a wad of cash and pressed it into my hand. You call every night, he said, voice thick. You don't call, I send your brothers. "Deal." That was easier than I thought I already prepared a whole samon to convince him. Cash looked up from his coffee. Can I at least come with you to run Cade off the road? Just once? As a treat? I kissed his cheek. No. The first hundred miles were the hardest. I took the old highway instead of the interstate, because my dad raised me right and the interstate is where souls go to die. Windows down. Radio up. By the second hundred miles, I'd stopped checking my phone. Cade had called forty-seven times. Sable had texted no hard feelings, right? with a winking emoji, because of course she had. b***h. By the third hundred miles, I'd started to remember what it felt like to be free. And then the engine light came on. I'm not a mechanic. I restore bikes for a living I can rebuild a carburetor blindfolded but my grandfather's old truck is a mystery to me. It sputtered, coughed and gave up the ghost right at the edge of a town called Bone Ridge. I coasted into the only gas station for miles, a little place with a flickering sign, a diner attached and killed the engine. The bell over the door chimed as I walked in. The waitress a woman with kind eyes a name tag that said Ruth looked up and smiled. Honey, you look like you've been driving through something. You have no idea," I said and I meant it in more ways than one. That was when the door opened behind me. I didn't turn around at first. I heard it the heavy thud of boots, the sudden drop in temperature, the way Ruth's smile went a little bit nervous. Then I heard the voice, low and rough as gravel, say the two words that would change my entire life: "Coffee, Ruth. Black." I turned. For the first time in three hundred miles, I forgot how to breathe. He was the biggest man I'd ever seen up close. Leather cut, black and gold, a president's patch on the front and a skull grinning over crossed bones on the back. Dark hair, dark eyes, a jaw cut from stone and a face that looked like it had never once in its life been told no. He caught me staring. Didn't smile. Didn't nod. Just looked at me with those flat, cold eyes like I was a problem he hadn't decided how to solve yet. And my heart traitor that it is did a little flip. Oh no, I thought. Oh no. Not him. Not a cold one. Not another project. But even as I thought about it, I was already smiling. I'd spent my whole life making safe choices. Maybe it was time to find out what happened when I aimed higher.