Doin' a Dime, Vale, Lynn [top young adult novels TXT] 📗

“Let’s go. I’ll walk with you. Keep you out of trouble.”

I’d rather go back to my bed and die.

But when I would’ve turned, he caught my arm in an unyielding grip and didn’t let go.

His grip was so punishing that I didn’t even think to tug it away.

I knew that if I did, the result would only be worse than the original intent.

But, instead of leading me the usual way, he led me the long way, and the ever-darkening dusk started to make me feel very uneasy.

There were now not many people around.

Those that were around weren’t paying us any attention.

Which had to be why, when we slipped past a darkening building, nobody noticed when we both disappeared into the shadows.

“No.” I started to yank my hand away, realizing just how freakin’ stupid I’d been to go so ‘willingly’ this far with him. But before I could so much as get the ‘n’ in ‘no’ out he had his hand over my mouth.

“Say a word or scream, and I’ll kill you,” he growled.

I froze, listening to the sincerity in those words.

He really would kill me.

He’d not even blink an eye at it.

“You know how easy it would be to ‘find’ you?” he asked.

I wanted to scream ‘but people saw us together!’

I didn’t, though.

I stayed still. At least until he had a false sense of security.

He moved his free hand down the length of my body.

“Never seen such a sweet ass before,” he growled. “Twitching and bouncing in my face around every corner.”

I wanted to knee him in the balls.

Then I thought… why the hell not?

I wasn’t getting out of this alive if I couldn’t fend for myself.

And my daddy, the vice president of the Dixie Wardens MC, didn’t raise no bitch.

I grew up with a brother, Johnny, that was a rough and tumble sort. He baptized me the hard way. If I wanted to learn to protect myself, I was going to learn the hard way.

By him doing the beating.

My brother was great. But back then, he was a rowdy little asshole who’d grown up in a motorcycle club just like me.

His father was Sebastian Mackenzie just like me.

He had hundreds of pseudo-uncles that didn’t go easy on him just because he was a child.

I had an uncle that was former-Army. He taught me to creep and do all of my own dirty work. I had another uncle that was former-Army and a sniper. He taught me everything about a rifle and I could shoot better than anyone I knew. This asshole toad was probably not going to go easy on me, either. Even if he was a male and older.

“Can I let your mouth go?” he asked.

I nodded.

The moment his hand was off my mouth, I struck.

My knee went high, straight into those two little peas he called testicles.

When the breath left him in a whoosh of air as he leaned forward, I kneed him in the face with the other knee.

But, just like my father told me, a determined man wasn’t going to go down easily. Taking a knee to the balls and to the face didn’t take Drill Sergeant Brees down like I would’ve hoped.

So I decided that the next best thing was to run.

I ran.

Hard.

Only, he was faster.

Just like my father said.

A man is always going to be faster. Stronger. Able to go longer than a woman. If you ever truly need to get away, you need to strike hard, fast, and think smart.

I screamed.

Only, my face met the dirt so fast that the only sound that got out was a high-pitched yip before my mouth was full of so much dirt that screaming was impossible.

I struggled hard, but his full body weight pinned me down, forcibly holding me there while he growled behind me.

“Made a mistake, you little bitch,” Brees hissed from behind me. “All I wanted was a fuck. You could’ve given me that without getting this. But… your fault.”

I struggled hard, and with each tug of my arm, he’d punch me somewhere.

Neck. Kidneys. Shoulder. Ribs. Face.

Over and over, he hit me, trying to keep me still, and over and over I struggled until I just… couldn’t.

There was no fight left in me.

“No!” I cried, tasting dirt, saliva, and blood. “Please, no.”

“Ahh, the sweet sound of begging coming from a girl so high and mighty.”

I wanted to throw up.

He was such a piece of shit.

That’s when I heard the sweetest sound to ever grace my ears. It calmed me down so quickly that a rush of euphoria rolled through me.

Absinthe Solomon’s voice.

“Get your filthy fucking hands off of her.”

Then the sound of punching filled the air.

Grunts. Curses. Then a bone-wracking thump.

That’s when I passed out for good. At least, only after I felt the sweetest touch on the edge of my jaw. The only place, likely, that wasn’t bruised or bleeding because he couldn’t reach that particular spot with the way I’d been positioned.

When next I woke, it was to a sterile-looking room.

My eyes peeled open, and I was staring at a white ceiling with very bright lights.

“How the fuck does something like this happen?” I heard my father growl. “We left her in your care, and you shit all over that. And now you’re sending the man that saved her to prison? What a crock of fucking shit.”

I turned my head to see the general standing there with my father all but thumping him in the chest with his finger.

My dad was in his face, pissed as hell, and towering over the general.

My mother was standing at his side, looking just as pissed. And then there was my grandfather, staring right along with my mother, quietly seething.

My brother was there as well, flanking my father, arms across his thickly muscled chest, jaw clenching and unclenching as if he was having to control his temper or deck the hell out of the general.

Oh, boy.

“Dad,” I whispered softly.

My father’s head whipped around so fast that he all but caused himself whiplash.

He was there in the