This chapter contains brief mentions of suicide, and themes that may be triggering for some readers. Please proceed with caution.

— Chapter 67 —

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The kneading of a black cat's paw against my cheek awoke me from a light slumber. Grimacing against the onslaught of dark silhouettes in my bleary vision, I blinked my eyelids a few times, gently nudging Fuckass off my face so I could breathe freely. The cat scampered off and disappeared into the sheets.

It was still dark. The curtains by the bay window were parted slightly, though no light seeped into Noah's bedroom—the sun hadn't come up. Cushioned in the warmth of at least three heavy blankets, I rubbed my frigid eyelids and felt around for Noah on the other side of the bed. He wasn't there.

Instead, there was a dip in the mattress by my feet.

Noah was sitting shirtless in the dark with his back to me. He was slumped slightly over and rubbing his forehead. In his other hand, some kind of pill bottle—it rattled as Noah tilted his head back and dry-swallowed a lilac tablet. Blitz.

"What time is it?" I asked him, the words a whisper that I wasn't sure carried.

Noah peered over his shoulder to hold my gaze. His answer came as a husky exhale. "Five in the morning. Can't sleep?"

It's only been three hours?

Spotting Fuckass snaking herself onto Noah's lap, I confessed, "The cat woke me. Why're you up?"

He sighed. "Fell asleep on my back."

There was a touch of frustration in his tone, but it wasn't a direct answer to my question. I watched him scratch the feline behind its ear and did my best to read between the lines. "Nightmares?"

"Sleep paralysis."

The blankets rustled and crimped into folds as I sat up on the bed.

"Are you okay?" Sleep paralysis was something I'd only endured once or twice in my lifetime—thankfully no further. Needless to say, it was a terrible experience to go through.

I noticed that Noah's hair was slightly wet and that he'd slipped into light-grey sweatpants, no doubt the result of a late-night shower. The silver chain at his neck gleamed while goosebumps were flaring up his arms. His knuckles were split and bruised and stained in irritated shades of scarlet. He wouldn't stop staring at them. They wouldn't stop trembling.

He shook his head. "It's fine. I'm just... seeing things."

I couldn't help myself from taking his trembling hands into my own. It came as an instinct. Noah watched me breathlessly as I brought one of his hands to my face and left a tender kiss on his palm.

"You're strong," I murmured. "It'll be okay."

"What about you?"

I looked up to meet his eyes.

Noah drew in a breath, unclenching his jaw. "They hurt you. You were hurt because someone was trying to use you against me, and I wasn't... I wasn't there. You must have been so scared."

Every break between his words stripped a layer of my strength away. He was pushing aside the veils that concealed my soul, holding the most vulnerable parts of me in his hands. I had to trust that in this moment, like those veils, he'd protect me too.

"It wasn't your fault," I breathed. "I'm still here. You couldn't have known something like that would happen and I never blamed you for any of it. I'm safe. Okay? I'm safe."

He shook his head. "I need to see. I need to... to know what they did to you."

"Noah, I'm okay. Really."

"Please."

My teeth sank into my lower lip. It wasn't that I didn't want to show him—I only feared that he'd blame himself for what happened. It wasn't his fault. If anything, I believed it was mine.

But I showed him anyway.

Pulling my top off over my head, I let the icy air in the room send chills through my bare skin. Bundling the fabric at my forearms, I drew in a breath and let Noah see the extent of the damage, my chin to my chest as I undid the bandages around my ribs and shoulder.

Every cut, every scrape, every mark and bruise left behind was out in the open for him to see. Noah's hands hesitated, lingering in the air for a moment before finally grazing down the sides of my arms, where shades of faded brown were splotched seemingly at random. Some of them had come from fingers that had dug into my skin, while others were the result of blunt force. But compared to my torso, my arms were the least of it.

I wasn't sure if I'd broken a rib or not that night, but there were deep bruises around my ribcage and stomach. When I closed my eyes I saw flashes of steel-capped boots colliding with my battered muscles, and I was fighting to hold myself together all over again. This wasn't Noah's fault. Fate only dealt us a horrible hand.

Noah took his time bearing witness to the full extent of it. He spent the most time ever-so-lightly skimming his fingertips over the untouched skin by my burns. I couldn't see them properly, but if I could, I knew the gruesome state of them would be hard to stomach. Air trapped itself in Noah's throat at the sight—he didn't look like he was breathing.

"They did this to you?" he forced out, but we both already knew the answer to that question. "Does it... does it still hurt?"

I shook my head. "Not as much as it used to. Comes and goes. Sometimes I don't even notice it's there, but... other times it's so unbearable that I can't think past the pain."

"And your father? He didn't..."

"No." I muttered, "He didn't hit me."

He's human enough not to kick a dog when it's down.

I curled into Noah as he pulled me into a gentle embrace. His chin rested at the crown of my head. His fingers weaved into my hair, and a frustrated exhale left his lips. Skin to skin, chest to chest, I wrapped my arms around his waist and hoped my warmth would extend him a comfort that I didn't know how to say out loud.

"I promise," he whispered into my hair, "that if I ever lay eyes on those bastards again... I'll gut them all from the inside out. This won't happen to you again. Never."

My thoughts wandered back to the last Stray Dogs meeting, and the bounty that was announced so openly for everyone to hear. "Nobody's been able to find Han, have they?"

"No. Chains put people out looking, but... some of them came back worse than they left. The kid knows we're after him, and he's hiding. Probably until the next time Midas calls him to go do his dirty work."

That explains why he hasn't been at the store in so long.

"And the Stray Dogs?" I asked him, slowly pulling out of our hug. "Tats, your friend—he said the club disbanded."

Noah's jaw tightened. He slowly nodded. "We took a vote on it yesterday morning. It was my idea, and we argued about it for hours, but... I didn't think the majority would go in my favor. As it stands, the Stray Dogs no longer exist."

"Why?"

He sighed.

"Kato—he's an asshole, but he's smarter than he looks," Noah explained. "I had another look at that letter they gave us. It was a lot of bullshit about banning club colors and stopping bikers from meeting in groups, but... it didn't say anything about persecuting bikers from clubs that have disbanded. You can't hunt down a club member if there's no club to begin with."

"That's a pretty big loophole. You think it'll work?"

"It has to," he muttered. "I called some old friends from my pre-law to be sure. These are the kind of people who read contracts for fun. And... I doubt Midas would've seen it coming. We could use a divine move right about now."

Noah and I moved to lay down beside each other on the bed. Tucking my hands beneath my cheek and the fluffy pillow under my head, I found myself resting so close to him that we were sharing the same air, with only a few blankets wedged between our bodies. My gaze embraced the few light freckles on his nose and cheekbones. I was sure I could count them if I paid enough attention.

Taking in his words, I spoke, "If not, at least it'll stop the police from backing you into a corner."

"Hopefully," he agreed. "The Stray Dogs is just a name on a piece of paper. We're more than that—the club is a family, with a legacy and bonds that almost nothing can break. Nobody cares if the city council doesn't recognize the Stray Dogs as a club. They didn't when my old man was in charge, and look at us now." Noah let out a breath. "Enough people have been hurt. Maybe we can't wear our vests, but somebody has to be around to stop the races. The cops certainly won't—they're probably too busy rolling in all the money Midas paid them to give a shit about anything else. Wouldn't be the first time."

"Are you sure you want to be carrying all that pressure?" I murmured. "You can't expect to protect everyone."

"I have to try. This city's constantly been on the edge of caving in on itself ever since the Stray Dogs went clean. It's like walking on a fucking minefield." Noah grazed his tongue over his lower lip. "My uncle had an analogy he gave me once. You know what a keystone species is?"

A chuckle filled the air. "No," I admitted. "I um... I think I skipped that biology lesson."

He smiled lightly. "A keystone species is just the fancy name for something that everything else depends on—like an apex predator or a king on a chessboard. Without it, everything else ceases to exist."

"You're saying the Stray Dogs are like that?"

"Mhm." Fiddling with the chain around his neck, he explained, "Back in the day, the whole point of the Stray Dogs was to keep things in line. Getting rid of us inadvertently opens the doors for plenty of other threats to start creeping in to take our place. Midas is living testament. We might be the bad guys to everyone else, but... this city is worse off without us here. We keep the evil shit out."

"And all that stopped when you guys went clean," I realized, finding the conclusion he'd been leading me towards. "But now that you're disbanded, you have the freedom to move around without the police looking over your shoulders."

He nodded.

"Now all the real work begins," he said. "Disbanding is temporary... just until all this shit blows over. But I think that's enough of this conversation for one morning." He pressed his forehead to my own. "You must be tired."

"Not really," I answered. "I like talking to you."

A smirk tugged on his rosy cheeks. "I think that might just be my morning voice."

"It's very soothing."

"A compliment?" he mused. "I'm touched."

"I give you compliments all the time."

"I can't imagine 'stupid idiot' is much of a compliment."

My brows pressed together, mouth pulling into a frown. I definitely didn't recall saying that to him out loud. "How do you—"

"You talk in your sleep," Noah confessed, a short chuckle leaving his lips. He ruffled a few strands of my hair. "Dreaming about me, Darling? How cute."

I forced my eyes shut, mortified. A heated blush was undoubtedly painting my cheeks in every shade of pink. Sleep-talking? Somebody please just kill me now.

"Erase that from your memory," I pleaded tersely.

"No way," he teased, raspy voice sending shivers down my arms. "It's also a little terrifying to hear my name being whispered in the middle of the night if I'm being honest. But... at least I have something to listen to when I can't sleep, so that's nice."

"You say that like this is going to be a common occurrence," I began, raising a curious brow. "And I'd prefer to save myself the embarrassment of you knowing the inner workings of my brain, please."

He laughed and adjusted the ring hanging off his neck. Caramel irises peered at me through dark lashes, shimmering just as sweet. "Can't be any worse than mine, Alley Cat."

A calm silence filled the space between us. Warm, heavenly scents of vanilla were a bliss to my senses, and I couldn't help but soften a little as Noah pressed his cheek to my forehead, resting it there. This is how it was meant to be—just me and him, without worries or distractions, at ease in the comfort of each other's presence.

"You know," I uttered, "you never told me about New York."

He shrugged. "What do you want to know?"

I didn't expect the question to come from him so half-heartedly. "Well, I know it was a 'business trip' to you, but... you were gone for a while. How was it?"

Noah kept his attention trained on the metal ring in his grasp. He didn't answer, lips pursed into a thin line. Whatever was keeping him silent, it'd left a tense air in the conversation.

"Nothing to write home about."

I contested, "Oh, that can't be true. You must've seen your family at one point, didn't you? That must've been nice, right?"

"Sure," he muttered, monotonous.

"It can't have been that bad." Trying to lighten up the mood, I wondered out loud, "Am I... am I missing something?"

Noah pulled away from me to sit up on the bed. Answering me with silence, he fumbled with a packet of Marlboros on his nightstand and used a silver lighter to burn up the end of a cigarette. I pulled my knees up and watched him take a deep inhale, reclining back on the bed by my feet. A clean ashtray rested in his free hand.

He stared at the ceiling and let his deep-brown tresses of hair fall in waves onto the blankets. Splaying his arms out, the cigarette continued to flitter away between his fingers. Pearly-grey clouds of smoke seeped from the small part in his lips, caressing the tip of his nose as they twirled into the morning air.

"Like you said, it was a business trip," he finally uttered. "I saw my family, but... they didn't know I was there. Their lives are better without me around."

My voice came as a whisper. "I'm sure it's not like that. They're your family, Noah. Family helps each other through the bad stuff, don't they?"

He scoffed. "They got out of this shit a long time ago. I'm not going to drag them back in by getting them mixed up in my messes. They've been through enough."

I looked to the chain in his grasp. He was holding it up over his head now, the metal dangling and dancing in the soft light that had begun to flutter in through the curtains.

My thoughts went back to Noah's panic attack, the night he told me it was cursed. Chains and Angela once told me that Noah's father died street racing. Whether he said it or not... I knew the death of a parent left behind wounds. The kind that never truly healed.

"Your father," I murmured. "He's why you wear that chain around your neck, isn't he?"

Noah forced his eyes shut as he drew in a breath.

"The ring around it was his," he finally confessed, the syllables so soft that I thought they'd disappear. "It's the only thing I have left of him—the only thing I kept."

"You never talk about him."

He hesitated. "Nothing to talk about."

"Really?" I pondered, doubting his answer. "But he's a legend in this city, isn't he? I'm sure you've got a lot of stories."

Noah ruminated on my words for a few spare moments, the silver ring reflecting in the form of a halo around his pupils. He drew in another slow inhale from his cigarette. His brows were tensed together—I'd never seen him so lost as to where to begin.

Stringing the words together, he began, "When I was a kid... I wanted to be exactly like him. He was a biker, sure, but... he was an army brat before that. A few years after starting the Stray Dogs he got called back to serve in Iraq. He spent nearly three years there."

"You didn't go to the army?"

"No. Never." He sighed. "Of course, when you're a kid you don't exactly know what war really is. What it costs. The things you have to live through. When you see with your own eyes what it does to a person, it's... sobering." He dropped the chain back to his chest and stared off into the distance. "So, no. I'm one of the only Stray Dogs that didn't serve."

He didn't sound too pleased by that fact. "Do you regret it?" I asked.

Are you who you want to be?

Noah let go of his lower lip and tapped debris into the ashtray. "I don't know. Sometimes I fucking hate myself for it. And sometimes... sometimes when I remember what my old man went through, I'm selfish enough to think that maybe I made the right choice. It's not a simple question."

So much guilt to bear in only one person. I couldn't even begin to imagine it.

"Chains told me your dad died in an accident," I said. "Street racing."

"Chains says a lot of things. Not all of it is true."

The answer left me staring at him in confusion. The possibilities were different colored strings that I kept winding around push pins in my head, all in hopes that I'd find some kind of logical conclusion.

"I don't understand," I voiced quietly. "He lied?"

Noah puffed out a flurry of smoke and glared at nothing in particular.

"Of course he did. He's had it in his head for a long time that he needs to protect me." So many words, and yet he still wasn't making sense. "Last year it was a heart attack. At least that was more believable—didn't involve my father breaking his own code. Can't say Chains has gotten more creative over the years."

"But... why would he lie about the way your dad died?"

Noah sat up on the bed and huffed. "Because no matter how you phrase it, the truth is a fucking curse. Because a truth coated in sugar is still the truth, and sugar doesn't make pain any more bearable."

So I asked, "What's the truth?" In search of answers, I mumbled, "You're not making sense."

"You're not listening."

Exhaling sharply, Noah rubbed his eyelids and shook his head, as if to knock some sense into himself. When he spoke again, his tone was quieter, more patient, and yet strikingly fragile.

"I told you my old man went to Iraq," he reminded me. "He didn't come back alive. We got his body, living and breathing but... his soul was gone. Left on the battlefield. Dead. And... and I didn't notice that he was sick in the head. Not until his blood was on my hands. I didn't notice."

The more I listened to him speak, the more questions I uncovered—too many to keep up with the few answers I already had. Death, blood, guilt...

"Noah... what happened?"

"It was my fault," he rasped to himself, his voice unsteady as he cupped his face in his hands. The bare muscles of his shoulders shook, and trembling, he brought the cigarette to the corner of his lips. "I did it. It was my fucking fault. I'm next."

My hand reached out to touch him, seeing a break in him that I'd only ever seen once before.

"Noah."

"Stop it," he hissed at me, jolting up off the bed before I could lay a hand on his shoulder to comfort him. "Stop it. Stop trying to get into my head. It's so loud and I can't. I can't—"

Sorrow sank in my stomach as I watched him saunter onto the carpet. Ditching the cigarette on the ashtray, he was slightly hunched over in an effort to inhale silent breaths of air. My heart ached in my chest.

"I'm sorry," I stammered, pushing myself off the mattress to go be with him. His back was to me, and it curled into my chest as I wrapped my arms around his waist. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to pry, I just..."

I went too far. I pushed him too hard.