Page 33 of Property of Necro (Kings Of Anarchy MC: Illinois #1)
Chapter
Twenty-Four
Something’s wrong.
I don’t know how I know, but I sense it.
A tingle. A wrongness. It looms like a dark storm cloud, following me through the church as I go up for breakfast by myself, again.
After yesterday, I hoped Necro would wake me this morning with sex and a shower, but nope.
It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have pushed so hard, so fast. That’s on me.
I got ahead of myself, asking about the mask too soon.
He shut down, and nothing with him was the same after that.
If Coffin and Rot could tell, they didn’t let on as we chatted for hours in Necro’s bedroom before Mama came down with a plate of sandwiches and a bag of chips to share.
It was… nice, apart from Necro playing on his phone most of the time.
In the kitchen, I claim my stool and wait for Mama to finish washing his hands before I help myself to leftover eggs and bacon.
I must have slept in. After the craziness of yesterday, that makes sense.
I have no clue what time we went to bed last night, only that Rot and Coffin put me there, with a kiss to the forehead, before they closed me inside like a vampire taking her daytime slumber.
Drying his hands on a towel, Mama turns and trips over his feet when he sees me. “Sola,” he gasps.
“You alright?”
Mama nods, looking everywhere but at me.
See. Something’s off.
“What’s going on?” I wave my hand around. There are no brothers. No Rot. No Coffin. No Tiffany.
“We have a visitor.”
“Who?”
“Dark’s here.”
What?
“Why?” I ask, dumbfounded.
“To take you home.”
“Wh-why… Why would he do that?” I stammer, staring at Mama like a deer in headlights. Did I do something wrong? Why would he be here?
Mama’s face scrunches up on the verge of tears. Turning around, he marches to another room. A door slams shut moments later, and Creature lumbers into the kitchen with a duffel slung over his shoulder. “It’s time to go,” he states, all business.
“What’s going on? Where’s Coffin, Rot, or Necro?”
“They’re busy.”
“Busy?” Since when?
He dips his head. “Yes. Busy.”
“Doing what?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
Of course, he can’t. What the fuck?
“Is this some kind of joke?” I look around the room, waiting for the inevitable gotcha moment, where all the guys jump out and scare the bejeezus outta me.
Pressing his lips into a thin line, Creature slowly shakes his head. “No, ma’am.”
“Dark’s really here?”
“Yes. He’s outside. It’s time to go.” Creature flicks his eyes toward the chapel like I’m supposed to just get up and follow him.
I’m not going anywhere.
“But they said I’d die if I left.” That’s the rules. They are outside, on the bulletin.
“You’re the exception.”
What? That doesn’t make a damn bit of sense.
My brow pinches in the center as I stare at Creature like he’s grown two heads. “Why? I don’t understand.”
He shifts from foot to foot, clearly growing more uncomfortable by the second. That makes two of us. “I don’t understand any of this either, ma’am, but I was ordered to see you safely outside, with your belongings, and so I’m doin’ that.”
Right.
He’s just doing what he was told to do.
This was planned. These assholes are shipping me away. They don’t want me anymore.
That awful sinking feeling sets in as it always does when I get a little too close. I feel a little too much. I’m an idiot.
Chewing my bottom lip, shoulders hunched forward, I slide off the stool to stand on legs that feel like they weigh a ton.
Creature sets the duffle on the floor at his feet, unzips it, and pulls out a pair of black leggings and a t-shirt.
Both of them are mine from a life I barely remember at this point.
I haven’t worn my own clothes in months.
Tugging the leggings on first, one leg at a time, is torture. I turn around so Creature can’t see my breasts as I remove Necro’s shirt and set it on the counter. My insides cramp the worst kind of pain as I slip a too-tight purple t-shirt over my head, not even bothering to put a bra on.
Swallowing the thick knot in my throat, I pluck at the leggings, hating how they feel. I tug on the hem of my shirt that kisses the edge of my hip. Why is it so short? Shouldn’t it be longer? Shouldn’t it almost touch my knees? I hate this.
Creature sets my purple Crocs on the ground, side by side, and I stare down at them, him, and back to them. Something awful worms its way through my middle, slashing and gnawing. I press my palm to my stomach to make it stop and force my foot into one Croc, then the other.
This is wrong.
So very wrong.
I don’t know why this is happening, but I don’t want to go.
Not yet.
Not when I have so much more to learn. To explore. To do.
I don’t want to go back to my old life. I don’t want to go back to my old job.
I need to find myself, as Coffin said yesterday when he opened up. Why would he do that if he planned to let me go?
I don’t understand .
When Creature waves for me to follow him, I do.
Lead weighs down my legs as I slog through the chapel and up the same aisle I entered when I first arrived.
Outside, parked in the same spot as before, Dark leans against the side of a car, arms tucked across his chest. He’s wearing a shirt, and for some reason, that strikes me as funny. Of course, normal men in the outside world wear shirts. Duh. They also have tattoos. Dark has a ton of them.
Creature hands him the duffle as I round the hood and slip into the passenger seat, keeping my head down the entire way. I can’t read the church bulletin I read on my way in all those months ago.
They don’t want me.
They let me live.
Wrapping my arms around my belly, I rest my forehead against the cool pane of the passenger window and close my eyes to block out the world. Why is this happening? What did I do wrong? Why does nobody ever want me? Am I just not good enough?
Why didn’t they say goodbye?
I said something wrong, didn’t I?
Dark slides into the driver’s seat and starts the car. He says something, but I don’t pay attention as every part of me shrivels and dies.
It’s slow.
Agonizing.
And I wish it were real.
That my heart would stop beating in my chest.
That my lungs would stop drawing air.
I don’t want to do this anymore.
Enough is enough.