On their walks, Stella had talked a lot about the club, past and present. And she was proud how her ol’ man—the new president of an old MC—was building something great. Stella said she’d been skeptical at first, but now the woman backed him completely. Supported him one hundred percent.
Autumn had no doubt that Stella loved Trip and was completely loyal to him. It was easy to see it on her face when she talked about him.
Stella said their relationship wasn’t perfect and probably never would be. But then, whose was? She had laughed and said, “Whoever says their relationship is perfect is lying.”
Autumn had agreed.
“But still,” Sig continued, “Trip lived through alotta the same shit I did. Judge, too. A few of us who are old enough to remember. All got scars from some of the shit we’ve seen and been through. But back then we knew no fuckin’ different, all that shit was normal. My point of all this is, got my temper from my sperm donor. So does Trip. Somethin’ we both share and struggle with. Thinkin’ he faired a lot better ‘cause of joinin’ the Marines. Think that gave him some discipline and control. More than me, anyway.”
“You just need to find the right outlet to focus that anger.”
“Yeah, baby, just need to find the right outlet. Got no fuckin’ clue what it is.”
“Stella said Trip’s temper sent him to prison.”
“Yeah. His wife was a cheatin’ whore like my mother.”
“Have you been to prison?” Autumn held her breath as she waited for his answer. Knowing it before he even said it. Stella had warned her, even told her about some of the charges, but Sig had never mentioned what they were and she wanted to hear it from him.
“Ain’t gonna lie. Spent more time in than out.”
“That makes me sad.” And that was what it was. Him being an ex-con didn’t make her scared of him, it made her sad for him, instead.
“Point is, know what it’s like to live in a small box, Red. Know what it’s like to lose your freedom. Know what it’s like to have choices taken away from you. Understand it better than you know.”
Every muscle on her seized.
“Don’t wish what happened to you on anyone. ‘Cept for the people who did it to you. They need a taste of what they fuckin’ did. No, more than a taste, a great big fuckin’ servin’.”
“Sig,” she whispered, dread bubbling up her throat, beginning to choke her.
“Last night when I disappeared... I went up there.”
Her breath caught. “Where?” Oh God, she knew where. “Why did you go up there?” She tried to pull away, but he held her fast. Her hands pulled at his arms but he just held on tighter.
“Hear me out, baby.”
She yanked at his arms harder. “I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. You’re fuckin’ goddamn strong. Look at you. In only two weeks look how far you’ve fuckin’ come. Anybody else woulda been a quiverin’ fuckin’ mess. Hidin’ in a corner, not lettin’ me touch them like I’m touchin’ you. They woulda givin’ up. You didn’t give the fuck up.”
“I did.”
“No, baby, you didn’t.”
“I did give up, Sig. I did. For the longest time, I wanted it all to end. I couldn’t take the darkness anymore. The loneliness. The suffering became too much. My mind began to play tricks on me.”
“But you did it. You survived. You found a way to escape.”
“I survived because they took everything from me. Which meant, I had nothing to kill myself with. No clothes, no blanket, nothing. So I stopped eating. I decided a slow death was better than staying there forever. But they forced me to eat. They forced it down my throat.”
“The bruise.”
“Yes, she’d kick and hit me to get me to eat and toward the end, I was too weak to fight her off sometimes. So, I’d roll into a ball. Then she’d go get Vernon’s son and he’d choke me until I opened my mouth and they shoved the food and water down my throat.”
She didn’t want to talk about this. Why was she telling him any of this?
“But it was when they began to do that, I knew they wouldn’t let me die that way. So, my thinking changed. If they didn’t let me escape that madness by dying, then I had no choice but to find another way to get out.”
“How’d you do it?”
Autumn closed her eyes. He wanted to know everything. She wasn’t sure if she could tell him everything. She told him too much already.
“Don’t tell me that yet, then, if you can’t. Tell me about your family. You said you can’t go back to ‘em. That you got nowhere to go. Why?”
“My mother is my only family left.”
“Can’t be as bad as mine, Red. And haven’t told you everything about her.”