Scars (Going All the Way 3)

And after their parents died in a tragic drunk driving accident when Landon was twenty and she was sixteen, that’s when things had changed drastically. He’d changed for the worse. Landon hadn’t ever been the best person to her, but once there wasn’t the buffer of their folks between them, Landon became this hateful, possessive person.

He saw her as something more than she was, something more than she’d ever be.

He wanted her, and although they weren’t related to anyone that actually counted, even though she never—would never—see him as family, as a brother, Landon had some kind of proprietary hold over her. Or so he thought.

For two years—until she turned eighteen and could leave—she’d had to deal with his cruelty, his possessiveness. With him being the only “family” she had left, she toughed it out, finished school, and had hopes to one day go to college and escape the nightmare that was her life.

But she started noticing the looks he’d given her, always watching her with… interest. She’d been seventeen. He’d been twenty-one. And she knew that if she didn’t escape, if she didn’t leave behind the toxicity that was Landon, he’d drag her down.

He was a bully.

He was insane.

He’d force her into things she didn’t want.

And that’s where she was now, how she’d gotten here.

That was how her real story started, it seemed.

She was tired, wanting nothing more than to sleep, but she had to keep moving before she allowed herself that. She had to put as much distance as she could between them before she passed out.

She wiped angrily at her tears, ones that were from frustration and exhaustion, tears that were from self-loathing and hatred.

“Never again.” She gritted her teeth. “Never again will I allow myself to be cornered.” She was starting her life over. With no family or friends, she was all on her own, but that was something she was looking forward to.

Peace.

Quiet.

Stillness.3Scars got into town an hour ago and headed up to the cabin to get settled. He also needed to see how bad the cabin was. He knew the guys hadn’t been up there for quite a while. Aside from the closed off, musty air and a thick layer of dust on everything, it wasn’t too atrocious.

There were no supplies, just a couple cans of old-ass baked beans, some jars of vegetables he knew one of the old ladies had canned a couple years ago, and some of those fake-ass sausages that were probably made out of pig lips and assholes.

So yeah, he’d needed to head into town.

Scars didn’t know how long he was going to stay at the cabin. He just needed to get his head on straight and his shit in order before he went back to Reckless.

He had a cell if shit went down and the club needed him or if Stella wanted to talk, but aside from that, he was disconnecting. But hell, even his cell got shitty fucking reception at the cabin, and more times than not, it didn’t even work in town. But they knew where he was, so if it was important, they could find him easily.

He sat in the driver seat of his truck, staring at the grocery store in town. Richie’s Foods was small and had been owned by the same family for the last two generations. Because the town was so intimate, this was within a fifty-mile radius if you wanted to eat something that wasn’t fresh meat or takeout from the diner.

Scars scrubbed a hand over his face. Shit, he was tired, the scruff under his palm scratchy from a couple days’ worth of growth, because he hadn’t bothered shaving. What was the point? He was going to be isolated up in the cabin, and no one was going to see him.

He got out and slammed the truck door, the vehicle old and rusty but a beast and able to take the winding mountain roads like a champ. He headed inside, glancing to the left at Bernadette's Diner. The little mom-and-pop restaurant had been around for longer than Scars could even recollect.

Hell, Bernadette had been in business since well before he’d been coming to the cabin. It was a staple in town, their peach cobbler and homemade vanilla ice cream is what they were known for.

Scars told himself he’d go there before heading back to the cabin, pick himself up some dinner to go and get a chunk of that famous peach cobbler. Because truth be told, he had no intentions of coming back to town unless he ran out of food, hell froze over, or worse, he didn’t have any more liquor.

Scars had never been the social type, and aside from his club, the men within the MC who he considered family, and his baby girl, he was not a fucking people person.