Page 98 of Caution to the Wind

They couldn’t know what a tragic mess I was inside, that the only clear, bright thing I curled around protectively was my love for the Axelsens and my need to take care of them. Even from afar. Even in strange, morally grey and slightly macabre ways. Ways that would makeAxe-Manhate me even more than he already did.

It wasn’t that it was too late to change my path. It was that I didn’t want to.

It wasn’t that I couldn’t change who and why I was. It was that I refused to.

“Does he have a girlfriend?”

The words were out before I could stop them. I wanted to cut out my own tongue for being so obvious. Seventeen and dumb all over again, only this time it was worse because Axe-Man was still my best friend’s dad, and now, he couldn’t even stand the sight of me.

It was Lin who answered, and she did it softly. In a way that was meant to be kind, I thought, but instead, it just embarrassed me even more. “Yes. But not seriously. Not for long.”

“He’s always said he only needs us,” Cleo added, but she didn’t do it with that girlish pride she’d had when she was younger, happy to have a dad who loved her after a childhood without.

She said it like it made her sad, but she’d only just realized that.

“I wouldn’t get your hopes up.”

I hadn’t been paying my normal attention to my surroundings, but the salon had filled up, and a small group of women had approached our row of chairs. The woman in front was absolutely beautiful. Like someone from a magazine or a movie, so nearly perfect I almost didn’t believe she was real. She wasn’t the one who had spoken, but she stared at me with brilliant blue eyes that held a wealth of reservation. Even though she was young, maybe even younger than me, there was a seriousness to her aura and her positioning, like she’d been elected the leader.

The woman beside her was holding a baby with a curly mess of golden hair and a plump little fist wrapped around the rich brown strands of his mother’s locks. They looked like a modern-day version of Madonna with baby, both beautiful, both serene. In a cream knit dress with suede booties with her big hair in loose waves, she was just as pretty as the blue-eyed blonde, but she didn’t seem to demand the same attention. And she was the only one who didn’t look like she wanted me to leave town on the next bus.

It was only because of the last two women that I knew they were affiliated with The Fallen. They were wearing leather, the eldest woman in skintight black leather pants with a matching lace-up corset and the other in a cool, vintage brown jacket and motorcycle boots. They both looked weathered in the ways bikers tended to, wind-blown and sun-cracked and worn in by life and exposure to the elements.

If I’d been a complete stranger, I would have loved to approach them. They seemed like my kind of people, at a glance, cool and composed and secure in their own unique style and personalities.

But my life was never like that.

So they’d obviously heard of me, and what they’d heard they did not like.

“Yeah, bitch, I’m talkin’ to you.” The woman in head-to-toe leather stepped forward pugnaciously, jerking her chin up at me.

“We haven’t met, so I’ll forgive you for getting my name wrong,” I replied blandly. “My name is Mei, not bitch. Don’t forget it.”

“Oh, we know who you are. Everyone in this town will know who you are by lunch, so don’t go expectin’ Lauren to sell you shit from Honey Bear after that. No one wants you here, you get me?”

“Winona,” the brunette with the baby scolded, stepping forward and rocking her fussy baby at the same time. “That’s enough.”

“Not nearly,” the older blonde added with a glare for good measure.

“I want her here, Hannah.” Cleo’s voice stilled the group of women like smoke in a beehive, the vibration falling almost completely flat. “Does that not matter to any of you?”

“Sweetie.” Hannah frowned and moved to step toward her, but Cleo held up a slightly quivering hand.

“No. I guess you heard Mei was messed up in some stuff a long time ago. But it was just that, a long time ago.”

“Around the time your dad was sent to the clink,” the original aggressor, Winona, snapped.

“Yeah,” Cleo agreed, and I could tell she was going for calm nonchalance, but she was starting to shake, and there was a faint tremor in her voice that broke my damn heart. She hated conflict, always had, so this had to be hard for her. “But you don’t know how or why she was messed up in that or about all the years before when Mei was family to me, my dad, Lin, and my mum. You don’t have a clue, so don’t stand there and pretend you have enough information to pass judgment.”

“Cleo,” the young blonde, the pretty one with some kind of imbued authority, stepped forward, and the more aggressive two shrank back even though Winona sneered a little. “They’re coming on strong, but they mean well. We’re all just worried about you. We want the best for you.”

Her eyes cut to me, and I could practically hear the wordsand she’s clearlynotitecho in the room.

“I want the best for me too,” Cleo admitted on a shaky exhale. Unable to resist, I reached over and took her hand, glaring at the women myself for upsetting her like this. “And Mei’s part of that.”

“You did just fine the past eight years without her,” Hannah pointed out, but it wasn’t with the same cruel joy as Winona.

“Did I? I wonder,” Cleo said softly, staring down at her casted leg and maybe, her ruined womb.