Feel My Pain (Curse Bound 1)

Reed groaned. “Okay, let’s start from the beginning. What happened that night?”

Madge cocked her head. “Pull up your T-shirts.”

“Hm?”

“I need to know you’re not wearing a wire!” she screeched. Reed rolled his eyes at the ridiculousness of it but pulled up his T-shirt, encouraging Zane to do the same.

Once she was satisfied, she handed them cans of Diet Coke and shifted, making space on one side of the mattress, as if she were trying to invite them to sit on her bed. Zane glanced at Reed, but seeing no outright rejection of the idea, he tossed off his boots and sat cross-legged where the hard mattress met the wall of the trailer.

“So what happened?” he asked.

Madge adjusted her glasses and quickly applied pink lipstick to her mouth without the need for a mirror. “The MC president wanted to buy my liquor, but he told me to go.”

Zane frowned at Reed. Was that the reason she’d wanted to burn down the clubhouse?

Reed spread his arms. “Sorry, but also, that shit was poison, so not sorry.”

She made a deep, long-suffering sigh, but continued. “And I was looking for my dog later that night. Or was it in the morning? And Dingo found you, beaten to a pulp. We talked about my beverages, and you bought them all for your guitar, it was broken by the way, so I don’t feel I got what I was ow—”

Reed snapped his fingers. “Madge, focus. What happened?”

She hummed and had a sip of Coke, eying Zane. “You set the bottles on fire and threw them into the club. You were so angry. They were screaming inside the building and couldn’t get out, but you kept yelling ‘Feel my pain! Feel my pain!’, and then, while it was still burning, you collapsed.”

Zane went stiff. He barely remembered those things, and her recollection was so different to his he didn’t know if he could rely on his memories anymore, but Reed came closer and stroked his shoulder in silent support.

Zane swallowed around the rock in his throat and leaned against Reed’s hip. Going back to those events was like watching them from behind a thick veil. Everything following Reed’s departure was a blur, as if his mind decided not to keep it on record. On an everyday basis, he’d blocked it off to the point of denying some of those things had even happened to him. He knew he’d been afraid, and screamed, and hurting, but images and sensations weren’t a sequence, but rather a tumble of fragments that didn’t quite fit together.

In his memories, Madge had been the one to hand him the bottles, but maybe that wasn’t how it had happened? Maybe he had been the one to itch for vengeance as he’d clung to his miserable life? He had been in poor shape, so how was he to tell reality from fever dreams?

“And… what did you do?” he asked, eyeing the dog, who crooked its head, grinning.

“I took you to the hospital.”

Zane sat with a daunting feeling in his stomach. She hadn’t caused the curse, nor had Reed.

He had.

By some twist of fate, his wish had been granted, and they’d never find out why.

“Oh!” Madge sat up straight and Dingo barked. “There was a lady here in Grit once, and she lived at the Karma Motel. She was in a car accident, and after that, she could understand her cat talking. She told me she wished for it when she thought she was about to die. Oh. And she killed a deer in the accident. But she’s moved out now.”

The Karma Motel. It was where they both lived, but if Culver had magic powers, he would have left for Hawaii long ago.

Zane glanced at Reed and caught his fingers, squeezing them gently.

“You look much better now,” Madge said, her lips stretching into a pink smile. “I’m glad you recovered. Thought you were done for.”

“Wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you,” Zane said, eyeing the purple box. “How much for one of those amulets?”

“A Hamilton,” she said. For a moment Zane was so stunned he just sat there, but then he laughed out loud and pulled out his wallet.

Chapter 29 – Zane

Zane had never been so at ease at the back of Reed’s bike. Their life together was only about to begin, and they were both content to close the final chapters of their lonely existence. There was a purity to their relationship now. With ugly secrets out in the open, they could truly understand each other in moments of vulnerability. He’d care for Reed and not just because their health was tied, but because he wanted to. Because Reed deserved it.

Because Reed was a good person who deserved to be loved.

He was at peace with the fact that they might never find out the truth about what tied them together, but it didn’t matter anymore. He wanted to keep Reed with him forever, and share everything, both the good and the bad life might bring.