Feel My Pain (Curse Bound 1)

Laughter. A punch to his ribs to make him squeeze his muscles harder.

He didn’t even have the strength to cry.

He was nothing.

Trash to be disposed of.

A toy to be ripped open by a pack of hyenas.

If only he could die and no longer feel.

But he wouldn’t be given that privilege. The world around him sped up. Images blurred, stilling for short moments of horror.

He was crying behind an abortion clinic as he watched a car drive off.

He was cuffed to a porch and hugging a stinky dog.

He faced a corpse behind a couch. A man with his eyes drooping into his skull. When he asked about it, Hulk yelled that the roaches would take care of the body. That meant him. When Zane saw himself grab the dead man’s arm, his own were bigger and already inked.

His thoughts were impossible to separate from Roach’s, and he knew he’d do what the club needed. As memories once more sped up through fist fights and a shootout, it became clear to Zane that as long as Roach was a tough fuck who gave as bad as he got, as a vicious gang member he was safer than he’d ever been as a child.

He was honest with no one, he gave up on people, resigning himself to the nickname that symbolized his talent for survival. He buried a body in the forest.

A second.

A third.

No one could touch him anymore, even though they all tried.

He stood outside on a cold evening, smoking a cigarette and eager for a drink that always made his brain pleasantly fuzzy. Knowing that nothing in his life would ever change was soothing in a way, because the unknown had always turned out to be worse than the mild pain he lived with constantly.

Someone was running his way from the parking lot, long hair bouncing against his back. Tall, wide-shouldered, and panting as he walked up, he was a vision. Zane (Roach?) looked into his own grey eyes. He couldn’t hear what was being said, but when his mirror image smiled at him, for the first time in this wasteland of a nightmare warmth filled his chest.

Hope.

I don’t want you to die, Roach’s voice whispered straight into Zane’s ear.

He sat up with a loud cry, and the wind blew snow into his face, choking him with its icy breath. His throat hurt. He could breathe again as he rolled in the snow and stared at the gate to the trailer park. It was still daytime, but his fingers had gotten icy, as if he’d laid here for at least fifteen minutes.

He was all alone.

For a moment, he couldn’t remember why he’d come here in the first place, his mind still lingering on the mess of thoughts—both his and Roach’s—and he curled up, frozen by the shock of having to live through all this horror in fast-forward. Every bit of his body ached, and he cried out, rocking on the freezing ground until a cold nose pressed against his ear.

Breathless, he glanced at the slender dog whose yellow fur made him so reminiscent of a dingo. It was his mistress Zane was after.

His mind stalled, and he touched his neck, to find it swollen and aching. Was Roach… dying? If so, there was no time to waste. Zane needed to find Madge and take the curse off them before it was too late, and Roach took Zane with him.

Fear wrapped around his throat, threatening to squeeze once more. Fate wouldn’t be so merciful twice, but Zane stalled, his mind hung up on the things he’d seen, and the sweet, sweet voice that wanted him to save himself.

But who would save Roach if Zane gave up on him? Roach’s life was hanging by a thread, he could feel it deep in his chest, and if Zane didn’t go to Mad Madge now, he might not survive either.

But maybe there was still hope? What would it make him if he left Roach to rot like an animal, with nobody to hold his hand as the fire inside him died? Roach didn’t deserve such fate, and Zane… he’d almost lost his life already. If they left the world hand in hand, maybe it wouldn’t be too painful.

Maybe he’d get to see Roach once more.

Maybe he’d get to apologize for the things said in anger.

Maybe he’d get to say the unsaid things he’d kept locked deep in his heart.

Zane rolled to his knees and stared down the road, to where the burnt-down clubhouse was. His brain was only now catching up, but the realization that whatever sent him down this spin into the past happened to Roach had him climbing to his feet and dashing forward.

He’d been drowning in the filth of their past, but it was time to pull Roach from under the surface. All this time, Roach had been living with these hideous secrets. It was now so painfully obvious why he’d blown up like that last night. Of course there had been no lover among the bikers. Roach had told him he hated them all. The truth was so much worse than the stupid jealousy and feelings of betrayal Zane had experienced. All he wanted was to grab Roach and cradle him in his arms.