His new reality.
The one in which Max would continue to cry for a mother he’d never see again. Where Joe no longer had a father to push him to do better, to be better. The reality where an entire club had just had their footing ripped out from under them, all their tethers sent scattering in the wind.
All they had now was… him.
Preacher knew what he needed to do—what his father would expect of him. He needed to pick up the burden at his feet and place it squarely on his shoulders. Only how? How did he—someone who couldn’t get his own shit together—take on the responsibility of everyone?
“Preacher?”
Turning, Preacher’s eyes roamed the destroyed room before coming to rest on Debbie. Sitting up in bed, she was wearing only a tank top and her underwear. She stared back at him, her brow furrowed with concern.
Again he glanced around at his destruction. Then down at his swollen hands, covered in dried blood. Blood, just like the blood smeared on the trailer door. Had it been his father’s blood or his mother’s?
His stomach heaved, and Preacher scrubbed a hand down his face—a failed attempt to scrub the image from his mind.
“I’m gonna go clean up.” Refusing to look at Debbie, he headed to the bathroom.
Turning on the shower, Preacher quickly divested himself of his shirt and jeans and stepped inside. Bowing his head, he watched the water circling the drain turn pink from his blood. Blood, like the smear of blood on the trailer door. He squeezed his eyes shut, only to see it all again.
June on her hands and knees. Joe, red in the face, and shouting. The blood smeared on the door. Max running across the campsite. One after the other, as if someone was rapidly changing the channel in his mind, he flicked through the collection of unnerving images.
He opened his eyes, and the images evaporated.
Jesus Christ. He couldn’t do this.
Cursing, Preacher grabbed hold of the shower curtain and tore it open. Debbie stood in the center of the bathroom, still wearing the same concerned look on her face. “I was… worried about you,” she stammered.
He didn’t respond. He didn’t know what to say. To anyone. And neither did he know what to do—for anyone.
“You’re bleeding again.” Debbie hurried forward and he let her take his hand. Fresh blood welled at his knuckles and dripped onto the bathroom floor. Onto her hands. Onto her bare feet. Blood—there was fucking blood everywhere.
“Some of these are really deep. You need to wrap them.”
Preacher only stared back at Debbie, wondering what the hell she was still doing here with him and this god-awful mess, and yet thankful that she was. He couldn’t bear to be around the others, couldn’t face another second of witnessing the devastation in their faces… but neither did he want to be alone.
“It’s fine,” he muttered, taking his hand back and turning away. Although his wounds throbbed angrily, the pain was insignificant compared to the storm raining down chaos and destruction inside of him.
Had they died quickly? The thought of his mother suffering was too much for him, and he slapped his forehead against the shower wall. Then again, harder. And again, harder still, wishing that his skull were an eggshell and easy to shatter. Easy to discard.
Preacher stilled when he felt a brush of soft skin against his leg. A hand touched his back, and tentative fingers trailed up his spine.
“Preacher,” Debbie whispered. “Preacher, look at me.”
He couldn’t look at her. He couldn’t even breathe. If he breathed, he was going to lose it.
“I don’t know what to do. But I want to help. Just tell me what to do. Tell me what you need.”
When he didn’t respond, she continued. “I lost my dad when I was little. He was killed in a car accident and I—”
White noise exploded in Preacher’s mind and he turned, grabbed hold of Debbie and pulled her beneath the water. Unable to speak for fear that he’d lose his feeble grasp on control, he only shook his head tightly.
Wide-eyed, she lifted her shaking hands to his face and laid them gently on his cheeks.
“I’m so sorry,” she breathed. “So sorry.”
She stroked his cheeks, his forehead, and tucked his wet hair back behind his ears. Then she rose up on her tiptoes, draped her arms around his neck, and pressed a kiss to his cheek, his jaw, his lips, his nose. Preacher let out a shuddering, ragged breath, and found himself leaning into her.
She was naked, he realized once they were pressed against one another.
Preacher’s hands slid up her back, and she continued to kiss him. Soft, gentle kisses, as if she were afraid he might break.
The next kiss Debbie placed on his lips, Preacher returned. He kissed her painstakingly slow with long, deep, lingering strokes of his tongue. One hand cupping her jaw, the other slid down the side of her body. And as his mental machinations slid swiftly into a different gear, his body hardened.
Pushing Debbie up against the wall, Preacher lifted her leg and wrapped it around his hip. Lifting her, he used his body to hold hers to the wall and positioned himself between her thighs.
Debbie’s eyes found his. Her pupils dilated. Her breaths sped up. Her breasts heaved with the rapid rise and fall of her chest. And Preacher resented her—he envied the single-minded need shining in her eyes.
He wanted that.
He wanted to not think about all that would be coming next.
He wanted to not see the smear of blood on the trailer door.
He wanted not to hear his brother screaming for their mother.
He wanted not to feel the shock, and the fear, and the pain.
Jesus Christ, he wanted just a moment even, just one single fucking moment, to be free of all of it.
Preacher slammed his hips forward and Debbie cried out. He pulled back, the tight, slick feel of her clenching around him tearing a groan from his throat. He thrust again, harder, and Debbie’s answering cry echoed throughout the room.
He thrust again; she cried out again—a harsh, frantic sound, as hungry as the nails scouring his back.
Thrust, cry. Thrust, cry. Thrust, cry.
Hard and fast, Preacher fucked himself into oblivion. Skin-slapping strokes and a primal chorus of guttural groans, desperate cries, and breathless pants were the soundtrack to his manufactured bliss.
His mind was nearly blank, focused only on the body he was pressed against—soft in all the right places, firm in all the right places, and how he felt sheathed inside her—a warm, wet sanctuary where he could hide from everything that was coming.
Because he knew.
He knew what sort of hell lay in wait for him outside of her body. Outside of this room.
The kind that there was no coming back from.
Chapter 25
Present Day