Total pages in book: 171
Estimated words: 159500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 798(@200wpm)___ 638(@250wpm)___ 532(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 159500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 798(@200wpm)___ 638(@250wpm)___ 532(@300wpm)
“Er… yes. She found out things I didn’t want her to know, because stuff was difficult enough from the start,” I mumble, avoiding Brigid’s gaze at all cost, because now I worry that if she glances deep into my eyes, she will be able to read the truth straight from my soul. “There was a moment when I had to tell her, and she… didn’t take it well. She’s refusing to talk now. Stopped taking my calls.”
As pathetic as it is to share this, Brigid is like a good priest, who will never reveal the secrets confessed to her.
“And you wish to get her back?” She picks up the skull and looks into the empty eye sockets as if she’s able to stare into Clyde’s eyes and see right through him to tell me his secrets.
“I need to,” I tell her, only now realizing my feet have been tapping against the floor like I’m a two-tailed dog. “I don’t know what to do. Everything was going so well, but I feel he didn’t listen to everything I had to say and cut me off, and I’m so damn lost.”
The air I inhale smells almost choking, yet sweet, and I meet Brigid’s gaze at last. “Maybe you could send her a dream about me? Come up with a spell that’s good for such things?”
She swallows and squeezes my hand. “If you have something that belongs to this person, I could try. There is a ritual I could do for you. But you have to help me understand why they are so important.”
My bones turn into rock, and I can almost feel the chair giving in under my weight as my heart sinks deeper into my chest, pumping blood at a frantic pace. “I’m… not good at this kind of stuff. I don’t know why she’s so important, but whenever I think about never getting to touch her again, it’s like a fucking life sentence. I can’t live like that. I never thought anyone could be like this with me. She just gets me for real. Like she’s the bike, and I’m gasoline, you know? We belong together.”
“Bring me something from your motorcycle as well then.” She knows she’s asking for a lot. Every guy’s bike is their sacred vehicle. But that only makes me feel she understands how serious I am. I’d give her Smokey and let her drown it in the lake if that meant Clyde coming back to me.
“I’ve got her T-shirt. I’ll bring it.” It’s men’s, but girls wear men’s T-shirts all the time. It shouldn’t be too suspicious.
Brigid nods. “You can’t send any more messages or call. She might still choose to pull away from you, and you will have to accept that. But if you feel there has been a misunderstanding, that you didn’t get closure, you should write her a letter. Ink on paper. It needs to be tangible. I can check it for you if you’d like,” she adds, because yeah, she knows my spelling is shit. The things I need to say to Clyde though? No one else can see them. They’re too private, too telling. They’d make her tell the whole truth to Prophet, and I can’t—
A loud knocking makes me jerk my head up in time to see my prez enter. I’m surprised he didn’t wait for Brigid’s invitation, but one look at his somber features shuts me up. He meets my gaze.
“The other chapter of the Butchers has arrived.”
“Fuck.” I get up, because this means I’ll be needed for a meeting at the clubhouse.
“Wait! Road?” Brigid picks up the elongated bone with a frown. “This one I cannot decipher. It’s from a rooster. Maybe it’s something you know about her that will be helpful to you. Does she own chickens? This is close to her heart and means a lot to her.”
I bite my cheek hard. The chicken I whittled for Clyde.
“No idea,” I mumble or my voice might crack.
If it’s important, I must still have a chance.
Chapter 30
Clyde
My lips form smiles. I nod, pat shoulders, and clink my bottle with others, but my heart isn’t in it. It stayed in that damn motel room, squashed by Road’s boots, and nothing’s felt right since.
With the Bend chapter of the Butchers here, I can’t allow myself the solitude I need, so I withdraw deep into my head while my body moves around and says all the right cliché things, a puppet meant to keep up the illusion that nothing changed, that I don’t feel desperately lonely and so depressed I would run right back to that lying bastard if I heard his voice again.
I don’t allow myself any of that. The calls and messages kept coming, so I switched off my secret phone to keep him from luring me back in. Maybe I should have also left the damn thing at home, but on the one day I chose to do that, the emptiness in my pocket was so distracting I ended up pissing over my own shoe.