Beast: Learning to Breathe (Devil's Blaze MC #5)

“What the hell was that?” Crusher asks as soon as I get outside. His hand is shaking as he rakes it through is hair. He’s holding Dani close, and she’s still crying, her head on his chest. She just has silent tears running down her face, but somehow that seems sadder, because they’re tears of understanding and knowing Dani’s history, the fact that she can feel that kinship with Hayden terrifies me.

“That’s a panic attack,” Dani whispers a little later. “A bad one. The kind that drove me to self-medicate,” she continues. “What the hell happened to her, Beast?” she asks, and I don’t know what to say to that, because I have no idea. I never even had a clue. If she had this kind of problem, wouldn’t I have been able to see it clearer before now? How come she didn’t react this violently when I was at her house the other night? I can’t answer Dani, because all I seem to have are questions and no fucking answers.

“The best thing we can do for Hayden right now is to leave her alone for a little while.”

“The last thing she needs to be is left alone. What if that happens again?” I growl, ready to march back inside already.

“You’re wrong. Hayden does much better on her own. She limits her interaction with others. She would probably do better with medication, but—”

“She can’t take medication while pregnant,” Dani finishes and the Pastor nods his head in agreement.

“What the hell happened to her that she has episodes like that?” Diesel asks, and I want to laugh. That wasn’t a fucking episode. Whatever Hayden had in there was pure Hell.

“I don’t know for sure. I can only tell you from the shape she was in when we found her, it was bad. She was beaten, and bleeding heavily. They didn’t think her or the child were going to make it,” the Pastor says, and it feels like a damn hand has a death grip on my heart.

“They beat her while she was pregnant?” Diesel roars, echoing thoughts that I can’t verbalize. I’m having trouble just breathing.

“Charlie, from the diner, found her lying in her own blood along the side of the road. Someone had dumped her out like the trash. She managed to get her into her car and took her to the hospital. That’s when I first met them both. I was the Chaplin on call there. We tried to find her next of kin. Hayden mentioned a brother. He never showed, but there were some things delivered to the hospital. Including a deed to this place.”

“Pistol…” I hear Diesel mutter under his breath.

“I think that Hayden must have been mixed up with a gang in the city, but whoever her brother is he somehow got word out though that she was under his protection. They’ve left her alone.”

“I guess the sorry sack of shit did one thing right before he died.”

“He’s dead?” the Pastor asks, and I nod my head yes, distractedly. My eyes go back to the house, thinking about the woman inside and wondering what kind of torture she must have lived through.

“Will she be okay?” Crusher asks, and everyone else is talking and the Pastor is answering him, but all I can do is concentrate on the house and picture Hayden scared in her bed alone.

She’ll be okay. I’ll make sure of it. I won’t fail this time.





40





Hayden





It’s that sick feeling you get when you have made a fool of yourself. That’s what is sitting inside of me. I hear movement in the kitchen. I don’t fear it though. I know it’s Michael. He said he would be here when I woke up, and I don’t doubt his words for a second. With my history you think I would, but I don’t. Not when it comes to Michael.

I force myself to get up and walk into the kitchen. It’s quiet, so I’m praying no one else is with him. If they are, I vow to try and be stronger, even if for a few minutes. I peek around the corner of the doorway and breathe a sigh of relief when Michael is all I see. He’s standing over the stove, reading the directions on a can of soup.

“I can cook,” I tell him, and wow my voice sounds rough, and feels almost the same. I clear it, self-consciously. Michael turns around to look at me. His dark eyes rake over my body, assessing me.

“Come sit,” he orders abruptly, and for some reason, I miss the way he called me sweetheart. I was out of it for a little bit, but I remember his softness. I hadn’t ever had that before. It was…nice.

I walk over and sit at the table, feeling out of place. I’m still raw inside from earlier, and I’m so embarrassed I wish the ground would swallow me up.

Michael brings a bowl of soup over and sits it in front of me with a sleeve of crackers. I watch him as he turns back around and fixes another bowl for himself. He should be awkward in my small kitchen, because Michael is extremely tall. I don’t think seven foot would be stretching it at all, and his arms are so broad he’s wider than my kitchen sink practically. He’s like a giant, though for a bit this morning he seemed like a gentle giant.

I want to smile as I watch the way his head bends down to avoid hitting the upper cabinet. He turns around and catches me staring, in return I get a grunt from him—which is oddly comforting. He brings us back a couple of drinks from the fridge—mine a tea and his is a beer. I look at him strangely for a second.

“I don’t remember having beer here,” I tell him. He grunts again, but he looks at me again, and I see the sadness on his face. I don’t want him to feel pity for me. That would kill me.

“Eat, sweetheart,” he says gruffly. My heart stutters in my chest at his words. There’s the gentle giant again.

Words are lodged in my throat. I want to say something, but I have no idea what, so instead I pretend the chicken soup he made is the best thing since sliced bread and eat.

“Where are your friends?” I finally ask, a few minutes later, becoming bored with nothing but the sound of spoons and bowls clanging.

“They were just stopping by. They had to leave today,” he says, not bothering to look up.

I push my bowl away and sigh. “I’m sorry if I embarrassed you, Michael. I’m still…I’m learning to cope.”

“Will you tell me what happened?” he asks, leaning back in his chair and watching me.

“I…was attacked,” I tell him, giving him the truth but not elaborating.

“Who did it?”

“It’s not important. It’s in the past,” I tell him, getting up, and taking our bowls over to the sink. It’s then I notice all the boxes that I haven’t loaded and then I see a large box on the counter that contains ruined pies that didn’t survive me dropping them. “I’ll have to remake these,” I say, mostly to myself.

“You don’t need to worry about it today,” he says, and I rub above my left eyebrow. I’m going to get a headache. I can feel the tension gathering.

“I need to at least deliver what I have, I can’t afford to lose my customers, Michael. That’s income Maggie and I will depend on. I’ll have to call Pastor Sturgill—”

“I’ll take you,” he grumbles, and I jerk my head up to look at him.

“You don’t have to, Michael. You’ve already done so much.”

“I’ll go do a few things and get my truck while you clean up,” he answers.

I swallow. “If you’re sure.”

He walks over to me, cups his hand under my chin, and he applies pressure until I’m forced to look up at him. “You’ll be okay,” he tells me, and when I look into his dark eyes, I want to believe him.

I really do.





41





Beast