Page 9

Flame

T he moment I turned and saw Piston in The Common Room, I knew something had happened; it was written all over his face. As I listened to the words leaving his mouth as he explained what he’d been told, I could feel my deadly and lethal side trying to break free. I wanted to rush out of The Clubhouse and go on a murderous rampage, but I knew I couldn’t do that. I knew I needed to control what I was feeling so I could go and talk to the brave boy who had turned up here all because he was worried for my son.

Even before I met Micah, I knew he was the type of person I wanted Cam to have as a friend. Cam couldn’t go wrong in life having a friend who would go out of his way to do something to protect him. Who even though he was loyal to his friend, would risk everything to make sure he was safe. I had that growing up with Wrath, and it made all the difference for me, and I know it would make all the difference for Cam too. It’s all well and good having a family who love and care, but having good, loyal friends is just as important.

I knew after what Piston said that listening to whatever Micah had to say was going to be hard, and I wasn’t wrong. Micah’s bombshell of information hit both me and Wrath hard. Almost as hard as when we learned the cold, hard truth of everything he’s been through because of Claire. Neither of us was remotely happy to learn what had been happening to our son without our knowledge.

The minute we left Piston’s office and no longer had to keep ourselves under control for the sake of Micah and making sure we didn’t inadvertently scare him, we both lost our shit. There’s no other way to describe our reactions. Wrath’s office did not survive either of our anger. We’re definitely going to have to order some new furniture for his office. It now looks like a tornado went through it with the furniture upturned and in pieces everywhere. Sorting out the destruction of Wrath’s office is something for us to worry about later. Right now we have bigger and more important things to deal with.

Now that we’ve both unleashed our fury and have ourselves more or less under control, or as under control as we’re going to be after everything we’ve just learned, we’re faced with the task of having to talk to Cam about everything that’s been happening at school. I think we both know why he hasn’t said anything to us about the situation. To Cam, it probably seems like nothing after everything he went through at the hands of the woman who birthed him. The thing Cam needs to understand is that this isn’t something he should have to put up with just because it’s not as bad as what he’s already been through. He should be safe and treated with respect at school, not targeted by students and teachers alike. I know we’ve got to tread lightly here; neither of us wants Cam to feel like he’s in trouble, but at the same time, we need him to understand he doesn’t need to and shouldn’t keep things like this away from us. We can’t help him if we know nothing about what’s happening, and unfortunately for us, Cam has more than enough skills to hide what has been happening and how it’s affecting him. I fucking hate that more than I could ever express, and I know Wrath feels the same way. I hope Claire is rotting in hell where I sent her for causing such a young child to have these sorts of skills already.

That teacher of Cam’s is going to fucking regret treating our son badly. She should really have thought twice about it; she had to know Wrath and I wouldn’t take Cam’s treatment lying down once we found out, and even without Micah we would have found out eventually. It also pisses me off more than anything because all the staff in that fucking school know exactly what Cam has been through and how hard it is for him sometimes, especially with women, which is understandable after what he went through at the hands of his own goddamn mother. We were assured that even though his teacher was female, she was lovely and understanding. She had the training to help children who had been in terrible situations. That she would be the best member of staff to help Cam. Yeah, it really fucking sounds like it.

Taking a deep breath to calm myself from the anger that’s starting to bubble back up from my thoughts, I enter our house with Wrath right next to me. I’ve always loved this house since the moment it was first built, and I lived here with Wrath and Shadow, but it feels like so much more now. Now it’s the home I share with my husband and son. Wrath grabs my hand and squeezes lightly as we start to make our way through our home to find Cam. I know that we’re both struggling with what we know is about to come, but this conversation needs to happen. Cam needs to understand that he can’t be keeping things like this a secret and that the way he’s being treated isn’t acceptable in the slightest.

We walk into the living room still hand in hand, finding Cam sitting watching TV with his grandfather, Blaze. Despite everything going on in my mind right now, I can’t help but smile at the scene in front of me. This is one of my favorite things to see, Cam fitting in so well with our family, being shown and given love so freely. Seeing him have the things he should have always had but didn’t get until he came into our care. I hate to have to end this moment between them; it’s about the last thing I actually want to do, but this is important; it needs addressing now, and it might be good to have Blaze here to offer his own words of wisdom and support while we have this talk.

“Hey, can you turn that off, Cam? We need to talk to you for a minute.” Wrath says, sounding equal parts serious and sad.

The sound of his voice immediately catches both Cam and Blaze’s attention. Blaze must notice the tightness in both Wrath’s voice and body language as he immediately goes on alert. That’s not all that surprising; the man not only raised Wrath and Shadow as a single parent but was the President around here until Wrath took over nearly six years ago when Blaze discovered he had cancer. Luckily, he beat cancer’s ass and is as healthy as he was before his health scare, but instead of wanting his President position back once he was back to being healthy, he’s happily enjoying his retirement and spending time with his family.

Cam turns off the show they’ve been watching and then turns to face me and his Dad. Thankfully, despite the obvious tension in his father, Cam stays relaxed. I know it won’t last much longer when we bring up what we’ve discovered, but I’ll take it as a win that he isn’t automatically worried anymore every time we tell him we need to talk about something. Even though Cam adjusted pretty well to living with us almost from the start, he still had more moments than we’d like where his trauma response came through. Normally when we told him we needed to talk about something. It’s good to see that reaction isn’t the first thing that happens anymore; it shows he’s definitely adjusting to his new normal. The sort of life he should have always had.

“What’s up, Dad?” Cam asks, his voice as bright and happy as always. He’s always so upbeat when he sees us, and I love it.

“We need to have a chat. We had a visitor a little while ago, a young boy named Micah came to see us because he’s very worried about you and things happening at school.” Wrath gently explains.

“It’s just words, Dad. Words are nothing.” Cam says making light of what we’ve discovered. It’s also more than a little bit clear that he actually believes his words. I fucking hate it. If I could bring Claire back to life and kill her again, I would just to have the pleasure of ending her again for all the pain and suffering she’s caused.

“It’s not going to just be words for much longer though, Cam. Micah overheard some pretty serious and horrific plans that had him scared enough to come here and talk to us, but even without the escalation we learned about today, you should have told us, Cam. You don’t have to deal with this sort of thing anymore. We’re here to listen, support you, and fight for you when needed.”

Cam’s eyes fill with tears at Wrath’s words, and at almost the same time, we both rush towards him and wrap our arms around him. Cam may be Wrath’s child by blood, but he’s mine by soul. I’d do anything for him, and I absolutely despise that he’s been dealing with such a shitty situation and we had no idea. The kid is far too good at hiding things, and it needs to stop. We need to nip this in the bud now before something much more serious happens, and he manages to hide it away from us because he doesn’t think it’s something to worry about when it is.

We’re his parents; it doesn’t matter how small or inconsequential he might think something is; we want to know about it. We want to know everything because we care and love him. We want to do everything in our power to support him and keep him safe. We can’t do that if he is keeping things away from us. I know he’s not used to having his parents care about him the way we do; it’s why I’m not angry at him for keeping what’s been going on away from us. I’m sad that he didn’t even once think to come to us with what was happening. That going to his parents wasn’t his first thought because it’s not something he’d ever had before.

After close to ten minutes of comforting him, of us holding him and keeping him safe in our embrace, Cam finally calms himself down and pulls back from our arms. His eyes may be bloodshot from all the tears he’s just shed against our chests, but he looks lighter. Like crying it all out from the safety of our arms helped. I despise that he was so upset; I hate seeing him cry for any reason, but I am thankful he no longer seems to once again be carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. I thought I’d never see that look on him again while he was still this young; those responsible for causing him this much stress are seriously going to regret it. I plan on finding a way to make them all pay for what they’ve done. I know we can’t touch those kids; we’d never dream of harming a child, but there is more than one way of getting our point across. There’s more than one way to make them realize they made a major mistake in targeting Cam. We’re just going to have to get creative, and I have no problem with that. I have more than a few ideas already about what we can do.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you what was happening.” Cam apologizes.

“You don’t need to apologize, Cam; this is all new for you, and we know that. Just promise us both that you will come to us if anything like this ever happens again. It would destroy us both if something happened to you and we had no clue about what was happening.” I say seriously and sincerely. If nothing else comes from this conversation, I need him to understand what I’m saying right now at this moment. It’s too important.

“I promise, Papa.” He replies honestly.

I can tell just by looking at him that he means what he’s saying. He’ll come to us next time something happens; we won’t have to find out secondhand, which is a relief. Blaze hasn’t said anything as we’ve spoken, but he’s been listening, and just like when we all found out earlier, he is not even remotely happy about what he’s learned.

“Cam, why don’t you go and hang out in your room for a bit?” Wrath asks, eyes glued to his father.

Cam glances around the room, and after catching the look on his grandfather’s face, doesn’t argue, just heads off upstairs to his room. Probably to jump on one of the million game consoles he had for his birthday.

“Dad, I know you’re pissed. We all were when we found out, but do not blow up in my house. I’ve already got to replace most of my office furniture. I don’t want to have to replace my home furniture too.”

Wrath’s words have the desired effect on his father, as he snorts out a laugh at Wrath’s words. Which, in all honesty, is a little funny if not one hundred percent true.

“I can only imagine what your office looks like after you two found out what’s been going on in that fucking school. When you’ve planned out what you’re going to do about it all, make sure you include me. I think there are some people in this town who need a reminder of who we are.”

“Of course, Dad. I know Shadow and Wreck will want in on it all too. They were there when Micah told us what had been happening. Actually, now that I think about it, I better double-check if Shadow needs new furniture before I order my own. He went into his office with Wreck after we found out, and I could tell he was pissed as fuck.”

“You’re lucky Wreck was with him when he found out; otherwise, he would have lost it there and then. You know what he’s like when it comes to family.”

“I know, Dad. I remember his reaction when I told him about Sera. I was just as lucky back then, though that did involve Wreck having to tackle him to the floor. At least that didn’t need to happen this time. I’m sure that would have freaked Micah out, which would have pissed Flash off.”

“What do you mean it would have pissed Flash off? What am I missing?” Blaze asks curiously.

“Oh, fuck. We didn’t tell you that part, did we? Micah, who is Megan’s little brother, by the way, is the spitting image of Wyatt.” Wrath informs Blaze of the other bombshell we received earlier.

The moment I saw Micah, I could see the resemblance between him and Wyatt. I hadn’t spent nearly as much time around Wyatt as Flash or Piston, but I’d seen him a few times when he was with Flash when he was younger, and the resemblance between them is uncanny.

“Holy shit. That man isn’t going to be letting that go anytime soon. Not that I blame him; I’d want fucking answers in his shoes too.” Blaze says. For a moment there’s a look in his eyes I don’t fully understand, but within seconds of it appearing he’s blinked it away. It happened so fast I can’t help but wonder if I imagined it.

“No, he’s not, and we’ll all help him anyway we can. I imagine Jake has already got something in the works; he was the one at the gate when Micah arrived, and there’s no way he hasn’t already discovered Micah looks like Wyatt. If not from Flash, then Piston would have said something to him. We’ve all seen how close Flash and Jake have gotten since they spent Jake’s recovery together.”

Both Blaze and I nod at Wrath’s words because he’s not wrong. Flash and Jake have clearly developed a friendship during Jake’s recovery, and honestly I’m glad. Flash needed to stop shutting himself off and start living again. Jake seems to have done what none of us could manage and break through the shell he’s built around himself.

Since they’ve both been back around the MC, Flash has been very much like his old self. Like the man he was before everything went down with Wyatt all those years ago, and it’s great to see. We’ve all hated the way what happened impacted him and that we weren’t able to help him move past it all. I was honestly starting to believe he’d never heal from the heartbreak of having Wyatt cut him out of his life. Jake is clearly some sort of miracle worker with how, in just a few short months, he’s managed to give us back our friend.