Reilly groaned and rolled over, swiping at both the wet and dry drool clinging to the corner of her mouth.
She was never drinking that much again.
Eeeeeever.
Her head pounded, her tongue had turned into a wad of cotton and, apparently, her eyes had remained wide open during a sandstorm. On the bright side, she had slept like the damn dead.
Only moving her eyes—because everything else was on strike—her gaze swept the empty bed.
Rev’s bed.
She shot up so fast, she groaned again and slapped a hand to her forehead to keep her brain from spinning like one of those old rotor rides at a carnival. The kind of ride that spun the hell out of you, the centrifugal force sticking you to the side before the floor dropped out.
Yeah, that one. Where you risked losing a limb.
That was what her head felt like. Only, she wouldn’t lose a limb, she might lose her cookies.
If she had any. Her stomach was a deep, empty pit. Food would be a good idea to help with the hangover. Especially a big greasy breakfast like they served at Dino’s Diner. Unfortunately, they were about three and a half hours from Manning Grove and Rev was nowhere to be found.
Wait.
Did they have drunken sex last night?
She glanced down, relieved—okay, maybe not so relieved—to find she was still wearing his T-shirt over her sexy, silky PJs. Her effort to get him to break last night was foiled by his insisting on her covering up with the plain, boring cotton shirt. Along with them both getting stoned and drunk out of their minds.
She not only needed food to sop up the alcohol still surging through her veins, but a gallon of water to relieve her dehydration.
But first…
She slid her hand under Rev’s T-shirt and into her silky shorts to find herself bone dry down there, too.
She glanced around, looking for any empty condom wrappers.
None.
She didn’t know whether to be pleased he didn’t take advantage of her or disappointed. But then, if they had sex, she wouldn’t have remembered it. That in itself would’ve been disappointing. Because the first time she had sex with Rev, she definitely wanted to remember it.
That was right, she thought it: the first time. If it was up to her, it was going to happen not only once, but maybe a few more times before leaving Coatesville.
Doing it here, away from home, they could have a little fun without the risk of getting caught. And nobody had to know.
Only the two of them.
The problem was, she had to get Rev onboard with her plan. That meant tonight couldn’t be a repeat of last night, where both of them ended up passed out.
Moving as slow as a turtle, she leaned over, snagged her phone and hit the side button to light it up.
It was almost freaking noon! No wonder she was hungry.
She frowned at the flashing indicator that told her she had a text message. Opening up the text app, she saw she had several text messages. One from Tessa. One from Saylor. Two from her sister, but only one from Rev.
She read his first. B back L8R
Be back later?
That was sent around nine this morning.
“Oh shit,” she whispered. Did he go back to his parents’ house without her? Without someone along to keep him from committing murder when his dad acted like a dick and treated his only son like he was an unwanted nobody?
She typed a text back: Where are U?
Staring at her phone, she waited. Nothing.
She texted again. R U out getting food?
“C’mon, Rev, answer. Please don’t say you’re back at that house by yourself,” she murmured.
After a few more minutes without an answer, she sighed and tapped her phone on her bare thigh while she considered her options.
Besides showering. That was a given. Brushing off the fuzz that grew on her teeth overnight, too. That was a guarantee.
But between her cotton mouth and her hunger pangs, she really needed to grab something out of the vending machine by the office to at least tide her over before her body started eating itself. However, she couldn’t do it the way she was dressed. And without shoes or money.
When she stood, she threw her arms out for balance and waited until the room stopped rotating before heading back to her side of the connected motel rooms.
She yanked on his interior door and it didn’t budge. He’d locked it. She unlocked and opened the door, then tried her side and that was locked, too.
Huh.
She frowned. She left both doors open last night. Why would he lock them?
She grabbed her room’s keycard, flipped the hinge-y lock-y thingy to keep the exterior door in Rev’s room propped open an inch and to keep from getting locked out, and hurried over to her own exterior door.
She inserted the card into the slot and it blinked red.
What the hell?
She tried it again. Flashing red.
Did she have his room card by mistake?
She went back into his room and glanced around, not finding any other keycard. But what she did find was her backpack was no longer in her room where she’d left it. It was now sitting on the floor next to his. In his room.
In her stupor, did she grab it sometime during the night? Had she needed something out of it?
She unzipped it and dug through her stuff to find everything still where she packed it, along with the toiletries she had placed in the bathroom next door.
Someone had stuck all of her products, including her makeup, back in her bag.
Was that someone her?
No. Couldn’t have been. If she was so drunk she couldn’t remember doing it, how could she actually do it?
She stood, pursed her lips and stared at her bag for a few minutes while scratching the back of her neck.
So damn strange.
Unless…
She hurried back outside, leaving that metal hinge-y thingy in place again so she didn’t get locked out and tried her keycard in Rev’s lock this time. The light turned a solid green.
Son of a fucking bitch.
Had he taken her keycard by mistake and left his?
She stood on the threshold, only wearing her PJs covered by Rev’s T-shirt and stared inside the room, trying to determine what all of that meant or if it meant anything at all. Maybe it was just a simple mistake.
Speaking of his T-shirt… She fisted the cotton and shoved it against her nose.
Shit. Whiskey and pot. That could be the scent for any of the guys. Whiskey, beer, pussy, pot, leather and tobacco combo made up the typical Fury fragrance.
Her fingers loosened on the cotton and she let the shirt drop back into place as Rev’s Bronco pulled around the side of the motel and into the spot in front of his room.
Had he caught her sniffing his shirt? Damn it.
The engine cut off, she heard the unmistakable sound of the parking brake being engaged, then the driver’s door was flung open.
He climbed out of the truck and went around to the passenger side, opening the door, leaning in—unfortunately, from where she stood, not giving her a good look at his ass—and then shutting the door with his knee since his hands were now full of bags.
His face actually looked haggard, much older than his twenty-eight years. Likely due from a lack of real sleep, drinking too much, and, if he spent time in that house this morning with those people, he was probably emotionally worn down again.
He paused in front of her and whatever was in the bags smelled like heaven. Food! Hot food! Not vending machine shit.
“You look like a goddamn deer in headlights standin’ out here. And you don’t got any fuckin’ pants on.” He pushed past her and into the room.
She blinked, hurried after him and shut the door behind her. “You took my keycard. I’m locked out of my room.”
“Yeah,” was his only response, his back to her as he set the bags down on the tiny table in the corner.
She planted her hands on her hips and when he turned to face her, his expression was unreadable. “What do you mean, ‘yeah?’ I need to get in my room to shower and change.”
“You can do it in here.”
Her brow furrowed. “Why would I do it in here when I have a perfectly good room next door?”
His mouth twisted and suddenly she knew exactly what he was going to say before he said it. “Decided no point in payin’ for two rooms. Gonna share one.”
Her eyebrows launched to the top of her forehead. “We are?”
“Yeah. We are.” He tipped his head at the other queen bed in the room. The one that was still perfectly made. “Got two beds in here. Last night proved we can sleep in the same room without fuckin’ up.”
It did?
They had both passed out!
But, wait… She shouldn’t argue this turn of events. Not at all. This might actually help her plan.
She rolled her lips under.
He frowned when he read her face. “You in that bed. Me in the other.”
“Okay.”
His bloodshot eyes narrowed.
She smiled.
He jerked his head toward the bathroom at the back of the room. “Go shower.”
She had no idea what he bought for breakfast or lunch, or whatever, but it smelled way too good to wait. “I’ll shower after I eat.”
He wrinkled up his nose. “Gonna shower before we eat.”
She lifted her arm and sniffed her own pit. “I don’t stink.”
“Thought a fox always smells his own fuckin’ hole first. Guess that’s wrong. Shower. Then eat.”
“But I’m dying of starvation!”
He cocked one eyebrow and looked her up and down.
She rolled her eyes. “Are you saying I’m fat?”
“Didn’t say shit.”
He didn’t have to. “I know I need to lose weight. I’ve done nothing but put on the pounds since working at the shop. We eat like shit. Donuts, snacks—”
“Shut the fuck up, woman. You don’t gotta lose even one goddamn pound. Any weight you put on was needed and it all went to the right places.”
“Yeah, my fat ass.” She slapped one hand on each of her ass cheeks, then shook the junk in her trunk.
His blue eyes became more intense as he watched her. “Men like to smash an ass like that.”
She grinned.
“Men who won’t die doin’ it,” he corrected himself.
Her lips flattened out. They would have to have a discussion about that once she showered, changed and her stomach was no longer complaining.
“Do you happen to have aspirin in your bag?” she asked, hopeful.
“In the Bronco.”
Oh, thank fuck. She needed a handful. “I guess you needed some, too.”
“Go shower, Reilly. I’ll grab the aspirin and set out the food. You take too long, I’m eatin’ without you.”
After her shower, she was glad she hadn’t put on her jeans. Instead, she pulled on cotton shorts she had shoved into her backpack. She was thankful that she did since her stomach now felt twice the size after stuffing herself on the smorgasbord he had set up on the table during her quick shower.
A whole cheesesteak hoagie and a few fries later, all washed down with a large bottle of water, she couldn’t even glance at the food on the table that still remained uneaten.
She placed her hand on her gut with a groan and stared at the movie he had turned on. She guessed it was an old John Wayne movie, but wasn’t sure. It certainly wasn’t something she would watch if given a choice.
With the aspirin and carbs kicking in along with the drone of the TV, she was starting to nod off. And here it was only early afternoon.
She glanced at Rev propped up against the headboard on “his” bed, his eyelids also getting heavy. His fingers were laced together and his hands planted on his belly. He was barefoot once again but he still wore his jeans and today’s choice of T-shirt, otherwise she might have been tempted to eat him instead of the cheesesteak.
Less calories, hopefully more satisfying.
However, if they remained in this room—in separate beds—both of them would soon be asleep, then wide awake tonight. “Maybe we should head down to my storage unit today.” At least that would get them out and moving. She paused. “Unless you’re afraid to go too far from your parents’ house.”
He’d said nothing about his visit there earlier, but she could tell it was eating at him. Just like it had yesterday.
And, of course, he had to have smoked at least half of a joint while she showered.
She didn’t bother taking a hit or two since she had already been ready to gnaw off her own arm. Smoking pot would have made her inhale that damn cheesesteak even faster. She had to force herself to slow down so she wouldn’t choke as it was.
His words were a little sluggish but nothing like last night. This time it was only exhaustion and weed causing it, not copious amounts of alcohol. “That stubborn old fuck ain’t gonna die today. Doubt it’ll be tomorrow, either. Thinkin’ we go get your shit tomorrow mornin’ since it’s forty minutes away. Matthew’s got my number, he can call me if anythin’ changes. No point in puttin’ off emptyin’ your storage unit, ‘cause as soon as that motherfucker’s black heart stops beating, we’re headin’ home. Already sick of this place and we’ve only been here two days.”
Not even two days. Just a little over twenty-four hours. And even that short amount of time was taking a toll on him.
But she understood his impatience to go home and put this all behind him. What little interaction she saw yesterday between Rev and his parents couldn’t be healthy for him. And he was even out of the house and grown. It had to be so much worse when he’d been too young to leave.
Reilly was damn lucky she had Reese to step in place of their shitty mother. Even though that was a burden a young child should never have to bear. But Reese sacrificing her childhood to raise her baby sister was what helped Reilly survive and become a functioning adult in society.
Yes, sometimes Reese still acted like her mother instead of her sister and, yes, it could get extremely annoying, even smothering at times, but Reilly knew she only did it because she loved her, and it was all Reese had done since she was only eleven years old.
Reese became Reilly’s “mother” at eleven.
She wondered how often Rev had to step in to help his baby sister. He didn’t even hesitate to bring Saylor onto the farm and into the club once she was released from juvie. While she was eighteen—and, legally, an adult—he could have easily told her that she was on her own and not taken that burden on himself.
But he did. He made sure his sister was set with a roof over her head and a job. He also ensured she was welcomed into a better family than the two people who were supposed to be their parents.
She smothered a yawn, quickly losing the fight to keep her peepers open.
If he didn’t want to head out and get some fresh air, then maybe she should go walk laps around the motel.
Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen.
But she needed to do something to stay awake and if he wasn’t willing to get naked… yet… then they needed something to occupy their time until she could convince him to risk doing some horizontal dancing with her.
She had no idea if he’d answer any of the many questions floating around in her head, but it couldn’t hurt to try. She only hoped he didn’t clam up and shut her out completely. Her plan was to start out by lobbing softball questions and slowly work her way into the more complex ones.
“How old were you when you left?”
“Sixteen.”
Shit. She didn’t realize he’d been that young. He must have run away since she doubted he went through any kind of legal emancipation process. “That made Saylor how old?”
“‘Bout seven.”
“I mean, I won’t lie and say your parents seem like lovely people because clearly they’re complete whack jobs, but why? Why did you leave when you were so young? Besides the fact they act like they’ve stepped out of a M. Night Shyamalan series about religious freaks.”
Well, that went from zero to sixty in two-point-five seconds. Good job, Reilly.
“They were strict.”
“I’m finding that hard to believe,” Reilly teased, her effort unfortunately falling flat. “But most kids think their parents are too strict.”
“Yeah, but most parents don’t make a kid cut their own switch, string them up practically naked in their backyard and whip them ’til they bleed.”
“What?” she whispered, unable to close her mouth or even breathe. This whole conversation just went from sixty to one-hundred-and-sixty in half a second. “They did what?”
She thought parents using switches on their children was a thing of the past. Nobody did that nowadays, did they? They’d most likely be arrested for abuse.
Rev surged from the bed. He went directly for the whiskey, unscrewed the top, tipped up the bottle, dropped his head back and guzzled a good amount.
“Uh… Rev.”
Maybe they shouldn’t talk about this. She did not want a repeat of last night where they both overdid it and suffered the next morning because of it. Plus, she wouldn’t doubt some brain cells were killed last night by drowning.
She hadn’t drunk that much since college and she was surprised she didn’t end up hugging the toilet and retching her guts out.
He slammed the bottle down on the table and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Without even a slight pause, he reached over his shoulder, grabbed a fistful of cotton mid-back and ripped his tee over his head. Totally exposing that mouth-watering, well-defined terrain.
Was he doing it to distract her from asking questions? If so, that was an effective way to go about it.
“Didn’t notice this last night, did you?”
Honestly, last night she’d been kind of distracted by his chest and nipple piercings and the room had only been lit by the television. So no, she hadn’t noticed whatever he was indicating.
Good God, he actually had dimples above his ass. She thought those were a myth. How had she missed those all the times she saw his jeans halfway down his thighs? Maybe because she was always focused on the flex of his naked ass instead…
But those sexy-as-fuck dimples couldn’t be what he was pointing out. What the hell was he pointing out?
Besides those muscles—honed from whatever routine he did in the club’s tiny gym on the farm to counteract all the garbage he ate and booze he drank—she only saw the club colors inked on his skin, mostly in black and gray except for the red blood that dripped from the skull’s eyes and mouth.
“C’mere.”
He didn’t have to tell her twice. She scurried off her bed and got nice and close.
“See it?”
See it? She wanted to touch it. All of it. Every inch, trace every valley. But she still had no idea what he was—
“Ooooooh shit,” Reilly breathed.
The Fury rockers and large center insignia covered most of them, but in the negative space, where the skin wasn’t touched by ink, she could see them. Faded fine lines, barely visible, crisscrossed his back.
If he hadn’t pointed them out, she might not have noticed. Maybe even thought they were a trick of the light.
“Those were done by a switch?” She’d never seen a switch in real life but she had an idea of what one looked like.
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“You mean what did I do to deserve them?”
“No. Nobody deserves that. Okay, maybe pedophiles and rapists… And some select others. But what child deserves that? Who would do such a thing?” She sighed. “That was a dumb question. Your parents did—”
“Father.”
She tilted her head to the right. “Your father did that. What reason could he come up with that warranted that type of punishment?
“Plenty.”
“Name one,” she insisted, reaching out and lightly tracing her fingertip over the thin, barely visible lines.
His skin quivered under her touch. “Touchin’ my sister.”
Reilly froze and her chest tightened. “You touched your sister.”
“Hugged her.”
There had to be a lot more to that story than those two words. Her mouth opened and it took a few seconds for her to repeat flatly, “You hugged her.” Her brow furrowed. “You weren’t allowed to show your sister any affection?”
“No.”
“No one could?”
“Not in the way normal families did.”
Normal families. Yes, the description of normal didn’t seem to apply in Rev’s family’s case. “I’m confused.”
He spun around and her eyes dropped immediately to those damn shiny barbells. She curled her fingers into her palms so she wouldn’t reach out and touch them. The time had to be right and now was not it.
She needed answers first.
“We were always in training.”
“For what? Sports?” Every answer he gave made her want to ask so many more questions. This conversation was like opening Pandora’s Box.
“To be Godly, most of all. Also, to be obedient. For both of us to become good members of our congregation. For me to become a worthy husband. For Sarah to become a worthy, submissive wife.”
Sarah.
“Who’s Sarah?” Did he have another sister he’d never mentioned before?
“Saylor is Sarah.”
He wasn’t clearing up her confusion, he was creating more. She did a little shake of her head and, once again, forced her gaze from his chest to his face as he began to explain.
“Hated the name Michael ‘cause of what was attached to it. Saylor hated the name Sarah for the same reason. We both wanted to be free of that life and start new. In school, I began to tell people my name was Mickey and refused to answer to Michael. Once Sarah freed herself from their grip, she changed her name to Saylor and took the same last name I was usin’ in an effort to scrape off the remains of this life.”
“But to be free of one prison, she had to be locked up in another,” Reilly murmured.
Holy fucking shit. That was heartbreaking. Saylor had never talked about her childhood. Not once. All the times they’d hung out together, either with the rest of the sisterhood or even on their own, she only talked about stuff currently happening. On a rare occasion, she’d bring up an entertaining story from her time spent in a juvenile detention center.
“Yeah.”
“That’s fucked up.”
“Yeah,” he agreed.
But wait, she needed to circle back. “So, those scars are from when your father punished you for touching your sister?”
“And other things.”
“Worse than touching your sister?” Because a brother touching a sister in an inappropriate way was pretty damn bad.
“Nothin’ worse in his eyes than me touchin’ Sarah.”
“And did you?”
He sucked on his teeth for a second, took a deep breath and lifted his bearded chin a notch. “Not in the way they thought.”
She was almost afraid to ask, “What did they think?”
The slow roll of his Adam’s apple caught her attention. She could see he was on the fence about continuing this conversation or shutting the whole thing down.
While she didn’t blame him for not wanting to talk about it, she also needed to know what the hell had gone on. Not only to be supportive for Rev while here and back at home, but for her club sister Saylor. Even if Saylor never found out that Reilly knew, Reilly could still know the truth and respond appropriately to a situation, if needed.
However, she would never spill any of Saylor’s secrets. If Saylor wanted to share them with others, that would be her choice and her choice alone.
Maybe that was why Rev hesitated. Because they weren’t only his secrets, they were Saylor’s. Their secrets were intertwined like a knotted shoe lace.
Holy shit, she hated to even ask this, because it was not the Rev she knew. “Did you… touch your sister inappropriately?”
She made sure the question was soft and not accusatory because she definitely didn’t want him to cut this conversation short. If he did, she would never stop wondering and questioning who the real Rev was. Who she thought he was.
But, holy hell, this trip was barely two days old and had been enlightening. And not in a good way. Worse, it wasn’t even over yet.
“You think I’d do that?”
Guilt washed over her for even asking if he would. “No, but… I mean, I assume you were young. Young kids don’t always know the difference between what’s wrong and what isn’t. We learn that from our…”
“Parents,” Rev finished for her when she didn’t. “Never molested my sister. I only ever tried to soothe her when she was upset.”
“They thought you were molesting her when you were actually consoling her?” For shit’s sake, now she hated his parents even more!
“Yeah.”
Again, the story had to go deeper than that. A simple hug was not sexual. A brother hugging his sister was not sexual, damn it!
“But why did she need so much consoling?” she prodded gently.
“I’m pretty sure someone else did.”
“Did what?” Reilly sucked in a sharp breath. “Molest Saylor?”
“Sarah,” he corrected.
God, this separation of two children into four hurt her brain. She understood their need for that coping mechanism, but for her, it was like dealing with people who had two separate personalities or were two separate people. However, this was different than a personality disorder they couldn’t control, it was a choice both of them decided to make.
“Who molested Sarah?” she repeated with the correct name. Her pulse was racing because she already knew. There was no need for him to confirm it.
She now knew why Saylor wanted nothing to do with her family, why she kept committing crimes to get pulled from the household, why she didn’t want to go home after juvie, and why she changed her damn name.
Why Rev didn’t want Saylor to come “home” with him to visit their dying father.
Reilly forced herself to swallow the rage that had rose out of her chest and into her throat. “Do you know for sure he did that to her?”
Holy shit, the man needed to die. No wonder Rev wanted to see his father’s end through.
“When I was punished, I was taken outside. When she was…”
Reilly held her breath.
“He only ever did it in her room, with the door closed and she’d cry for a while afterward. He never used a switch on her. He’d…”
The breath rushed out of her as his face twisted and his hands clenched into fists.
“What else would make her cry like that? When I was whipped, I wasn’t allowed to cry without addin’ to the number of strikes. But she cried every fuckin’ time after he left her room. Every damn time. I’d go into her room once they went to bed, once it was safe. I’d crawl into her bed and hold her. I’d beg her to tell me what was wrong, what he did and she never would.”
Why did he look guilty? How was any of this his fault? “He probably threatened her not to tell.”
“Or he brainwashed her into thinkin’ whatever he did was normal. ‘Cause to him it fuckin’ was. I think it was accepted among all of them. However, it was never fuckin’ talked about and since I wasn’t a female, it didn’t affect me like it did her.”
“Shit,” she whispered. “Why would it be accepted?”
“It was—probably still is—a father’s job to prepare any daughters he had to be obedient to her husband. This way he could hand her off to a worthy one. No man would want her if she acted out or wasn’t submissive.”
“The way Matthew’s wife looked.”
“Yeah.”
“This… church… it’s more than a church, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s a damn cult, almost like the Shirleys,” she concluded.
His tattooed chest rose and fell. “Yeah.”
“Jesus Christ, how many fucked up groups are there like this in the world?”
“Bet more than we know.”
“That’s scary,” she whispered.
“Ain’t it?” He shook his head. “Think about it. Wouldn’t be hard to take a brotherhood like the Fury and twist it into something darker, like a cult. Wouldn’t be hard at all.”
“Which is why Trip is careful not to let the club turn back into the Originals.”
“Part of the reason. Though, the Originals were never into incest that we know of. Were they the best parents? Fuck no.”
“No,” Reilly agreed, “but from some of the stories that are told, they were into some other fucked up shit.”
“Yeah, the stories that are told. Sure there are much worse ones buried somewhere.”
“But the Originals are now gone,” she stated.
“Not all of them,” he reminded her quickly.
Right, Dutch and Ozzy were Originals and even wore the patch stating such. Trip and Judge, and some of the others, were positive more were out there, they just hadn’t been or didn’t want to be found.
Also, a few of the Fury members, along with some of the club sisters, were products of some of those Originals. Most with secrets as deep as Rev and Saylor’s.
When she got back to Manning Grove, she was going to give Saylor a bone-crushing bear hug. She’d just have to find a good excuse for it, so Saylor didn’t guess that Reilly knew the truth about her past. Or figure out that Reilly went with Rev to Coatesville.
Unfortunately, this trip would be one more secret thrown onto the ever-growing mountain of Fury secrets.
“I’m sorry,” she finally said, because she didn’t know what else to say to help take away the horrible memories from his childhood. “After you left, did you have any way to stay in touch with Saylor?” She grimaced. “Sarah, I mean.”
“Not really. When I could, I would go to her school and check on her there. Wasn’t often since I was barely survivin’ on my own. Once I turned eighteen, I could visit her at juvie without the threat of bein’ caught as a runaway, so it was a little easier.”
“When she was in school why didn’t you report to them what your father was doing?”
“Had no proof. I never saw what he did. I only could guess. And like I said, I was a runaway and didn’t want to be taken back. Anyway, who would believe me over adults? Saylor has never spoke of it. Not once. She acts like it never fuckin’ happened.”
“She’s probably repressed it. Hidden it away in her mind. It’s a coping mechanism.”
“The same as you?”
