Eden snorted. “Seriously? Have you seen Trev? No man could make happen what he does.”
I laughed. I felt the same way about Trent.
“Ugh, I still have to pee,” Eden said.
I stood up and grabbed her hands. I pulled her to her feet. “We’re going to be fine. All of us. I’ve seen the other side of this, Eden. With those guys from Night Soul. The way it was here before Trev was pretty rough. It’ll get cleaned up.”
“I know. Trev is smart. He trusts the guys he has.”
“Make sure you trust him then,” I said.
“I’ll blame it on hormones,” Eden said. “Just don’t tell anyone about this.”
“I never would,” I said. “I’m glad I have you.”
Eden turned and waddled away, her hair dancing left to right as she did so. When she was out of sight, I felt my face and heart drop. I couldn’t help but think that Trent was doing the same damn thing Eden was worried about with Trev. Is that what they did?
Hell, I knew that answer.
I saw that answer every night in the other clubhouse. The guys would pass women around like they were fresh beers. Going from room to room, it was like they were competing. Some of them were. They wanted to be claimed by one of the guys to get protection. Until then, they needed to keep their mouths open and legs spread.
“Shit,” I whispered.
I suddenly couldn’t calm down.
I ran to the kitchen and grabbed a glass and filled it with water. Now would have been a great time to get drunk and forget the night. But Eden couldn’t do that. She was living with the same fear as me and she was carrying a child.
I drank the water and filled the glass again.
I looked at myself in the reflection of the dark window.
All I could do was hope that Trent was okay. That whatever he was doing, he’d do good at it and come back to me safe and in one piece. That whatever happened, it would be the benefit of the club.
As I put the glass down and continued to stare at myself, I saw something. Not in the reflection, but something coming toward the window. There was a split second hesitation before the glass exploded at me.
I jumped back and crashed into the kitchen table. I tripped and fell, smacking my head on the floor. To my right there was a bottle on the ground, on fire. A moment later, there was more fire. Then the sound of liquid splashing. The smell of gasoline hit me just as the flames ignited even worse. I rolled to my left and climbed to my feet. The door was just a few feet away. I could escape the fiery hell with ease, but I couldn’t.
Eden.
The kitchen was burning, the room filled with smoke already. I jumped through the growing flames and knew I needed to save Eden. She didn’t deserve to die like this. Nor did her unborn daughter. Hell, I didn’t deserve to die like that either.
The second I crossed the threshold of the flames, I knew I had made a mistake.
I wasn’t going to be able to make it out.
**
Eden was on the toilet. I felt bad bursting in on her, but I had good reason. Before I could tell her what happened there was a billow of smoke behind me.
“Fire?” she asked.
“Someone is trying kill us,” I said. “We have to get out of here.”
Eden got to her feet and I grabbed her hand.
The hallway was filled with smoke. It kept climbing toward us. I backed down the hallway and went into the bedroom. I ran toward the window and it exploded within a foot of me getting there. Again, another bottle, lit on fire. It was accompanied by a smell that went straight to my stomach and throat. I felt like I was going to throw up and that my throat was going to shut. I turned and ran toward Eden again.
The smell was some kind of gas or something.
I put my hand to her mouth and we left the bedroom.
I didn’t know what to do. I pulled Eden to the ground and screamed for her to crawl. That made sense, right? Get under the smoke and climb to safety.
But where was safety?
Who was trying to kill us?
Were they going to bust in and just finish us off?
Poor Eden couldn’t get completely flat because of her pregnant belly. I felt her hand squeeze mine tighter. We were just near the living room when she let my hand go and touched my face.
“Go,” she said. “I can’t breathe.”
“No,” I said. “I’m not leaving you.”
The smoke was so thick and it started to feel like I was swallowing razorblades. It burned my eyes not to mention the heat made me sweat and our sight was almost at zero. I was going to have to do it all by feel, which was impossible enough. Add in a pregnant woman who was losing herself…
“Shit,” I yelled as Eden fell to her left side.
She grabbed her shirt and put her face into it. I grabbed for her arms, thinking maybe I could drag her out of the apartment. I’d find anyway possible to make it happen. I couldn’t lose Eden as a friend and she couldn’t lose her baby. The hell that would ripple through the MC would end up killing all of us.
I sat up and pulled, screaming as I did so.