“Stud, I’m going in there to talk to him. You’ll have to fucking kill me to stop me. Let. Me. Go!”
Sex Piston placed her hand on Stud’s arm. “Let her. Whatever is in there, she needs to see for herself. We’ll go with her.”
“It isn’t pretty,” Stud warned, his face contorted in sorrow.
“Let her go.” Sex Piston’s voice wobbled at her demand.
When Crazy Bitch felt him release her, she didn’t hesitate. Going inside, she searched the room for Calder, passing over Candi and the others in the room. None of them were Calder.
Her eyes flew back to Candi, who was sitting on a chair with a slinky grey robe knotted at her waist. She was obviously naked, with her titties barely covered and unconcerned that most of her thighs were showing as she smoked a cigarette.
Candi leaned forward, tapping her cigarette in an ashtray on her coffee table. “Welcome. The more, the merrier,” she said waspishly, making a pretense of adjusting the top half of her robe when Crazy Bitch gave her an insulting glare.
“Where is he?”
Candi waved her hand with the cigarette in the direction of a doorway to her left. “In my bedroom. Next time, call before you come over. Calder and I are back together. We’d like time alone right now. Calder would have called Stud in a few days. We’ve… been busy.”
“I bet you have.” Crazy Bitch scornfully crossed the room, going to the bedroom. Hearing her friends’ footsteps behind her gave her the courage to enter the room.
Not expecting the room to be dark, she had to blink to adjust her eyes. She wrinkled her nose when the stagnant smell of sweat and sex hit her nose.
“Where’s the light?” She reached for the wall when she heard Stud tell her it was by her shoulder.
The harsh light had her wanting to turn it off again. Calder was lying on a bed so tumbled the fitted sheet had come off the corners. He jerked when the light came on, his arm protectively hiding his eyes.
“Turn the lights off.” His thick voice indicated he was half-asleep, high, or both. “Go… away.”
She moved closer to the bed, seeing he was naked, not even bothering to cover himself when she tried to touch his shoulder.
“Leave… me,” he slurred. “Go.”
“I’m not going anywhere. What about you and me? What about Star?”
He reached out, jerking on her T-shirt. “More… I need… more. Where is… she?”
“Let’s go,” Sex Piston said to Crazy Bitch. “Don’t do this to yourself. Stud and the others can bring him to the clubhouse.”
“Not going…” He started fighting her touch. “I need her. Where is she?”
“I’m here, Calder!” Candi yelled from the other room. “Bastards won’t let me come in.”
Crazy Bitch twisted away when Sex Piston tried to get her to leave. Sitting down on the bed next to him, every memory of her mother played out, taunting her to leave. She hadn’t lived through years of living with her mother’s addictions to put up with a future filled with the same.
Calder looked as if all the life had been drained out of him, and all that was left was the empty shell of the man she loved with all her heart. She thought of the times she had lost the battle with her craziness, and he had taken it, giving her love pats only when he had been afraid she would get hurt.
In everyone’s life, you had to make decisions that would affect your life. Every choice she had made with men, she had failed. Was she just going to sit there and make another one? Give him another chance that she would never give anyone else?
Her eyes welled with tears. Looking at her friends and how they were in their lives, she wanted that for herself. Every woman did. If they didn’t, they were lying to themselves. No one enjoyed being alone, or being with someone who wasn’t that special one.
She turned back to Calder, who couldn’t look at her and smelled like another woman. That was when she realized her choice had already been made.
“How did you get here?” she asked him.
“Don’t… know. Drove awhile. Sleepy…”
His words didn’t make sense, but she hadn’t expected them to.
Standing up, she walked toward the door.
“Need her. Need…”
Sex Piston, Stud, Killyama, and Train took one glance at her face and backed away as she passed. As she walked into the other room, Shade, Viper, Moon, and Dozer did the same, leaving the path to Candi open.
“Stud, call a fucking ambulance,” Crazy Bitch told him.
“If he goes to the hospital, they’ll know he broke parole for doing drugs.”
“Call them. We have a good lawyer.”
Crazy Bitch didn’t miss the frightened look that came across Candi’s face when she mentioned calling an ambulance.
“How can you care ab—”
Candi’s voice broke off when Crazy Bitch grabbed her by the throat.