Page 4 of Vandal Unbound

Because it’s like I’m standing on the edge of something bottomless and dark, and I don’t even have it in me to be afraid of the fall. In fact, some days I deliberately force myself closer and closer to tipping over into the abyss.

Usually, I’m right in the middle of the fun. I’d be standing on a table, singing out song lyrics that would both tease my president and irritate him at the same time.

And Knox knows it’s because I love him. He’s a decade older than me in actual years and a lifetime away from me in terms of maturity. Secretly, I think he knows I think of him as more of a father figure than a brother, because I’ve never had one of those in my life before.

I slip behind the bar and eeny, meeny, miny, moe myself across the top shelf. Vodka. Tequila. Gin. But I end up with whiskey. A true Scottish single malt that is probably too good for what I need given the way I’m gonna suck it down.

“You taking the whole thing?” Knox asks, stepping up beside me.

“You got a problem with that?” I ask.

Knox shifts his arms across his chest and leans back against the wooden bar top. “It’s not for me to say how a man lives his life. But, Van, I’m worried about the path you’re on, the life you’re currently living. There are better choices than this out there for you.” His eyes shift to the healing scars that dominate my head and face.

“Fuck you, Knox. You know shit about the path I’m on. It’s not like I fucking chose it.”

“Then get the fuck off it.” He shifts, putting himself right in my space, so close that our noses brush. “You need my help, brother, consider it done. Because this isn’t you.”

Intellectually, I know it’s that simple.

And yet…

“Good chat, yeah?” I say and spin on my heel to head to my room. I know I’m the party-pooper. The one they’re all talking about behind my back. I’ve put a damper on Knox and Maren’s celebration.

But it’s really hard to care.

Once inside, I open the pill bottle hidden in the pocket of a shirt that hangs on the back of the door. Then I pour myself a heavy slosh of whiskey to chase them with, but at this point, I might as well be taking it straight from the bottle. Anything to keep the nightmares away.

Because in the darkness, I feel everything.

The crack of steel-toed boots to my ribs, to my skull, to my face.

My teeth loosening, and bone giving.

The burn of those cattle prods ripping through my skin, the electricity almost sending my heart into arrhythmia.

And worse. I hear him.

Alvarez.

Asking me over and over again in that cool, calculated tone that never wavered what I knew about a man I didn’t care about and barely knew. I see that ridiculous gloved hand of his smoothing the hair back from his face after he’d exerted himself in some method of torture.

Every day, I watch the clock tick closer to night, knowing that as soon as I close my eyes, I’ll be right back there. Then I wake, choking on my own breath, drenched in sweat, calling out indecipherable words as I try to escape the nightmares.

So, I drink.

Yeah, it’ll wreck my liver. Sooner rather than later, if I’m lucky.

Because a man who’s scared is no use to his club, and right now, I’m not a man worth keeping around. I’m too broken, too fucked up, too injured to be of any help at all.

I wasn’t there the night they took on Alvarez in retaliation. When club members from across the country came to throw their support against Alvarez’s organization by stealing one of his major weapons deliveries from right under his nose.

Instead, I was recovering from another surgery.

I flop down onto my unmade bed. The sheets are twisted and stale, and I don’t remember the last time I washed them. I know Knox’s eye is on me. He had a couple of club girls try to tidy my room around me, but I told them to get the fuck out.

My phone buzzes on the mattress, and I almost ignore it, letting it ring out.

Something, a habit maybe, makes me glance at the screen.