Waylon (Ruthless MC 2)

“What are you doing?” I ask the question again, even though the answer becomes obvious when Waylon rips the grill off the top and tosses it to the side.

He unzips the suitcase and upends it over the pit. All the clothes I packed fall out along with the piece of paper with Stephanie’s name written across the front.

My heart drops to my feet when he picks up a nearby bottle of lighter fluid. And my questions about what he’s doing immediately get replaced with “No! No! You can’t do this!”

But the thing is, he can. He holds me back easily as he douses my few belongings in lighter fluid. Then he pulls one of those permanent matches out of his front pocket.

“No! No!” I screech. “Those are my things!”

Granted, I've only had most of "my things" for less than a couple of hours. But they’re mine. The clothes Lucinda brought over for me. The scrubs Doc let me keep. The note from Stephanie.

“What is wrong with you? Why are you acting like such a psycho?” I slap at Waylon’s chest, pull on his arm—try to get him to stop. But it's like attempting to move a statue. He barely budges. Nothing, including my screeches and arm tugs, keeps him from striking that metal match.

Just a few seconds after I try to stop him, I watch the items he dumped out of my suitcase go up in flame.

“You belong here,” he says between gritted teeth as the fire destroys everything I’ve accumulated over the last 24 hours. “You belong to me. This is where we are supposed to be. I’ll get you whatever clothes you want when you finally understand that—when you submit. But if you try this shit again, I will punish you again.”

I let go of his arm, no longer wanting to touch him.

I've spent my entire adult life trying not to be angry, trying to be a better person. But at that moment, I lose the fight.

“I hate you,” I screech, shoving against him. “I fucking hate you! If I were a man, I'd beat you like you beat Jonathan!”

I swing at him with clawed hands, determined to scratch his eyes out.

But he just catches my wrists and regards me with a stone-cold expression.

“If you were a man, we wouldn't be in this situation,” he answers, his voice as angry and gruff as mine is helpless and enraged. “But you’re a woman. My woman. And guess what? You don't have to like me to belong to me. Now, get back in Meemaw’s place before I strip you out of the clothes you’re wearing and burn those, too.”

I want to argue. I want to fight. I want to yell at him about the life he's destroyed and tell him he has no right.

But the way he's staring down at me, his blue gaze full of challenge. Like he’s dying for me to call him on his bluff—that tells me it’s not a bluff.

Whatever edge Waylon has, he’s reached it.

And yes, I'm angry—unquestionably angry for the first time in my adult life.

But he knows, and I know, this isn't a fight I can win.

I return to the house, just as he commanded without looking back.

But I don’t have to look back to feel his eyes burning into me as I leave.

I back down, but I don't give up.

I spend the rest of the day in my room behind a locked door, ignoring Meemaw when she comes upstairs and asks if I want dinner. She sounds apologetic but offers no explanations.

I guess people don’t feel they need one when it comes to Waylon. He wants me to stay, so she stalled me when I asked for her help, then immediately told him what I was trying to do. Probably without a second thought.

Instead of eating lunch or dinner, I strip naked and wash nearly everything I’m wearing—a tee with a Peter Pan collar and a pair of jeggings. I run the shirt's armpits and the crotch of my borrowed panties under the spigot in the bathroom sink. Then I hang them out the window to dry for most of the day. And when I go to bed, I hide them underneath all the T-shirts, just in case Meemaw figures out how to get in here.

I refuse to let my one decent outfit get taken from me like everything else.

Meemaw’s probably expecting me to stay locked in my room forever. But I make my way downstairs toward the smell of another fragrant breakfast the next morning.

I find her in the kitchen again. And Waylon’s sitting at the table as if we’re all in some sort of videogame that completely reset when I lost.

“There you are!” Meemaw calls out as soon as I emerge from the short hallway. “I was just telling Waylon about how you didn't eat anything last night. I was beginning to worry you had plans to starve yourself.”