Damaged and the Outlaw (Damaged #4)

Raven scooted closer as if knowing I was afraid to say the next part out loud. She understood because she was Raven and I was Vaughn. Somehow, we made sense.

“In the back room, I found them. Not just the mom and Harlow, but her little brother and sister. Fucking Playboy killed those little kids too. When he beat the mom with a tire iron, she was holding her kids and he killed them too. Just bashed their little heads in like they were nothing. The whole room stank of blood and sex. Harlow was on the ground holding her mom’s hand. When she looked at me, I knew she was stoned and didn’t really understand.”

A shudder came over me when I thought of her sitting in the blood of her mom and those babies.

“Maybe it would have been better to kill her too. She’ll remember that shit for the rest of her life. Seeing her mom and little bother and sister getting their heads bashed in. When I stood over her, I thought I was doing her a favor. I really planned to kill her too. I was pissed at Playboy and hated the fucker. Even knowing he was evil, I was still planning to do my job. Even when he told me he wished he could keep Harlow because she was a good lay, I didn’t plan to do anything except follow orders. I was that kind of man. No hero, but willing to kill a teenage girl. I might lie and say I was doing her a favor, but I didn’t really care. I was doing my job. Watching out for myself.”

Raven’s expression never changed, but I sensed her horror at what I was telling her. I needed her to really understand the ugliness inside me.

“I pulled out my gun, planning to kill her. I couldn’t do it with my hands. I’d beaten people to death, but to take that girl’s life in such a personal way was too much. I was planning to shoot her and clean it all. Dump all four of them in a grave and walk away. I don’t want you to forget that about me, Raven. Don’t think I was some good fucker who walked in and felt outrage and saved the damsel. I was going to shoot a child in the face. No matter how old she was and how much she’d seen, sitting on the ground like she was, Harlow as a kid. That’s what stopped me in the end. She whimpered for her mommy and begged me not to hurt her brother and sister. She sounded like a little girl and I couldn’t fucking do it.”

The look on Harlow’s face haunted my dreams. As if sensing this, Raven kissed my hand and waited for me to continue.

“I snapped. I didn’t think about the right way to help her or to walk away. I could have grabbed her and run. I could have faked like I killed her and snuck her out of there and run. I could have done a million different things, but then she said mommy. I looked at the dead woman and her dead kids. I smelled the blood and the way those bastards had raped and used Harlow…”

Pausing, I felt the rage return. “It was like every single evil thing ever was on my shoulders. Like I had to get revenge for it all. My need wasn’t to save Harlow. Or to get justice. I wanted revenge. For every time my mom had a black eye from some fucker she dated over the years. For that dead hooker and the runaway and every chick who ever bled for the amusement of the club. I wanted revenge for every time I was scared as a kid while my mom worked two jobs because some fucker stole her savings after making promises to her about being a family. I just wanted to burn it all down, so I snapped.”

Taking a breath, I continued, “I turned my gun on Playboy then his friends. I can’t even remember their names. They were in the club, but now I can’t remember them. I took Harlow and I burned down the house with her dead family in it. I also went to the place where the club stashed a lot of cash for emergencies. I took it all. I stole from the club and I made it bleed and I left Tucson with Harlow.”

Exhaling raggedly, I remembered the way Harlow stared at me while I burned down the house. She didn’t cry for her mother or Mase and Stacia. A part of her understood they were gone. As the drugs faded, she understood more and more and I saw her pull into herself.

“We left Tucson and I had no plan, but I didn’t need one. I had vengeance and it made me happier than the club ever did. Harlow had nothing back in Tucson and she never complained. We rode for hours and she held on. By the time we arrived in Ellsberg, she had stopped talking. Yet, if I told her to do something, she never hesitated. She hadn’t given up. Something just died in her when her family died and this was the new Harlow. I knew how she felt because the man I was when I pulled the gun out to shoot her wasn’t the man I was when I turned the gun on Playboy. We had changed, but our pasts wouldn’t let us go.”

Raven squirmed onto her knees and hugged me against her chest. She soothed me like my mom did years ago. Even though she wanted me to think everything would be alright, I knew the truth.

“I fucked up the way I took Harlow. If I had done it different, she could live her life and I might be able to live a real life too. Instead, I let my temper control me. Now, I’m a dead man and she isn’t safe.”

“You saved her though.”

“Don’t make me a hero, Raven.”