Hammer

9 - Truths

Willow

I jolt upright in bed, sweat pouring out of me as my body shakes like crazy. I haven’t had a nightmare this bad in a couple weeks. My whole body is aching, and my scar is burning. I feel like I’m going to vomit. My head is so tight.

Christ, my heart is pounding in fear. All of the things those monsters did to me came flooding back in my dreams. All the things Crack did to me when no one else was in the room, every look, every touch, each time he forced himself on me.

Jesus Christ!

I stand under the hot shower spray, washing away the sweat my nightmare brought. It’s three in the morning; I’m never going to be up in the morning. I work as an elementary teacher. Well, I did before I was hurt. I was sick for a long time and couldn’t talk for weeks, so I had to take time off. But I am trying to get my body clock ready for when I go back to work in a couple days; I want to prove I’m ready for this.

Not that I like disciplining the kids when they’ve done something they shouldn't. I’m terrible; I can’t even tell my niece no when she’s screaming for something she can’t have. Trust me, Ember can be a real madam when she wants her own way. She’s just like her mother for that.

Can you imagine if I had a kid of my own?

It would turn into a brat because I wouldn’t be able to ever tell it no. I just hate to see kids crying. I’m soft, I know. My mom tells me all the time.

Why am I a teacher when I hate upsetting children in any way?

Because apart from owning a horse ranch one day, teaching is all I ever wanted to do. Showing children how smart they really are, teaching them how to conduct themselves, and seeing how happy they are when praised is more rewarding than I ever thought it could be.

I know I went down the lawyer route at first, and I still don’t know why I did that, but writing and teaching is what makes me happy.

It means I’ll always have something to count on. Something that’s mine for when I finally make my dream of owning and caring for horses come true. I want to run my own school on the grounds. I want to teach children who come from less fortunate backgrounds. I want them to be able to play with the horses during their breaks. To learn how to take care of them.

I want a big ranch-style house with plenty of acres of land for my horses to run free. I want stables and staff to help me care for them.

It’s a big, expensive dream. It will cost me a literal fortune, but I work hard and save everything I earn to make my dream come true. It’ll take me a good while to reach my goal, so I’ll keep working every hour God sends to make it come true.

It might be hard now that Trace is gone, but I’ll make it happen one day. You’ll see.

There’s no point in going back to sleep now that I’m awake. I might as well watch a film. I’m dressed in clean pajamas, my hair blow-dried, and my neck creamed with that medicated crap the doctor gave me to help my scar heal faster when my phone begins to chirp with an incoming message.

Who the hell could be texting me at almost four in the morning?

When I open it up, I’m shocked to see it’s from Hammer asking if I’m awake. He must be drunk.

Why else would he be asking me that at this hour?

Willow: Yes, I’m awake.

What’s going on?

Hammer: I’m outside your place.

I want to see you.

Let me in?

He’s outside my house at this hour?

What the hell?

Nervously, I open my front door. There he is, sitting on my front porch swing. He looks frozen, but I doubt he even feels it. He’s a big guy, a massive mountain of a man. Six-foot-five and packing muscle. His long, shoulder-length, dark hair is blowing softly in the breeze. My heart pounds for this man. I wish I could tell him what he means to me. But that’s not what he needs from me; he needs a friend. I’m only grateful he wants to be around me again after months of staying away.

“How long have you been out here?” I ask as he turns to look at me with a smile. I can’t tell if he’s been drinking or not.

“'Bout twenty minutes.”

“Well, come inside. It’s cold out here.”

Hammer follows me inside and into the kitchen.

He looks like he hasn’t slept in days. He’s dressed as he always is, jeans, boots, a T-shirt, and his cut. All of those goddamn sexy-as-hell tattoos on his arms are on show. God, I could lick him all over and... Shut the hell up, Willow!

I hand Hammer a coffee and sit at my table, trying not to look into his eyes. I seem to lose all thought whenever I look into his eyes. It’s painful because he will never be mine.

“How are you feeling, Will? Now that Trace is gone?”

I shrug. “Fine, I guess.”

There was a time I didn’t think I would ever be able to be in this house again. I was kidnapped from this house. But I soon realized I couldn’t let those monsters take everything from me. It has been strange since Trace left, but I’m doing okay.

“Wanna tell me why you’re at my house at this hour?”

“Couldn’t sleep. I feel shi.t for tellin’ Shepard about Trace when you asked me not to.”

I shift uncomfortably in my seat.

Hammer grabs my hand and holds it tightly. My core clenches and I have to press my thighs together to relieve the ache a little, which, of course, doesn’t.

“I never meant to break your trust, but I couldn’t stand watching that cunt acting like nothing happened the other day.”

“It’s okay, I know you didn’t do it to hurt me.” I stroke my thumb over his big hand. “What’s really wrong, Hammer? You seem to have the weight of the world on your shoulders.”

“Lot on my mind, baby girl.”

I smile shyly. He has no idea what it does to me when he calls me baby girl.

“Like what?”

“You. Me. Us.” He scrubs his free hand over his face. “I don’t know.” I clutch his hand tighter, refusing to let go, even when he pulls back slightly. “I haven’t been a very good friend to you these past few months, Will, and for that, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t, Hammer. You saved my life. What came after must have been hard for you. Hell, being in that room must have been hard for you. Especially after Cindy.”

He shifts and pulls his hand away from me, and I let him because I can see that he’s still not over what happened to her. I don’t think he ever will be.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

It’s all I ever seem to do where Hammer is concerned. We can’t talk about Cindy because he can’t take it. And he’s the only one I want to talk about her with because he’s the only other person, apart from Coral, who understands how much it hurts that she’s not here with us anymore.

“You didn’t upset me; I just wish I could talk about her without the guilt eating away at me.”

“What happened to Cindy wasn’t your fault, Hammer.”

He looks away from me.

I know this hurts, but there’s a reason he came here, and in order for me to understand what it is he wants from me, in order for me to give it to him, I have to make him see the truth about Cindy.

“Look at me, please.” He turns to look at me slowly. His jaw is clenched so tightly that the scar on his hairline is more defined than usual. “The day it happened,”

“I didn’t come here for this, Will.”

“No, but I think you need to hear it. You need to know the truth.”

“I know the truth. She ignored me when I told her not to go out of the damn house, and it got her killed because I couldn’t save her!”

Oh, Hammer, if only that were true.

“Cindy didn’t ignore you.” I swallow hard past the lump in my throat.

It’s time for me to come clean. Well, it’s time for me to make Hammer listen. I’ve tried to tell him the truth a million times. I’ve tried to tell everyone. The only people that would listen to me were my mother and father. They told me not to force people to listen and that they would when they were ready to. To just let things lie because keep going on about what happened that day wouldn’t change a thing about it. But I have felt like such a fraud these past two and a half years, keeping what really happened to myself.

“When you left that day, Cindy and I were talking about Jillian’s wedding and how we needed to find outfits or we’d never be ready,”

Jillian was a friend of ours who went to school with us. Cindy became my best friend within days of meeting. The four of us, Cindy, Tessa, me, and Jillian, were the best of friends. We did everything together. Until Cindy moved away with her family when she was ten. She moved back to town years later, but she didn’t really know Hammer.

As soon as they met, she was hooked. A couple weeks later, she was his Old Lady. It cut me up inside when I felt like it should have been me. But I didn’t let it show.

But can you imagine loving someone for so long and watching them with every other woman but you?

Yeah, it hurts. A lot.

Anyway, the day Cindy was kidnapped, I asked her to go to the bridal store with me to look for our bridesmaid dresses. Jillian wanted us to meet her there, but Cindy really didn’t want to go. She said she had a bad feeling about things.

I laughed it off and told her that I was used to being warned about danger; I was the daughter, granddaughter, and sister of bikers, after all. I told her we’d be fine, that nothing would happen to either of us and that we’d even be back before Hammer even knew we’d gone.

Little did I know that nothing would ever be the same again.

We had fun at the bridal store with our friends. We picked our dresses and even our shoes. We said our goodbyes and left. I’d driven us and promised to get us home quickly. Cindy was still worried and still had that uneasy feeling inside. But I tried to reassure her that everything would be okay.

I’d just put the bags in the trunk when two huge guys came up behind us. I grabbed Cindy and pushed her behind me. But the biggest one grabbed her and pulled her against him.

I begged the man to let her go. They said they only wanted one of us; they needed the other to give Shepard a message. I told them I was Shepard’s daughter, and they should take me. But according to them, their President wanted Hammer’s Old Lady.

Why did they want her?

Because Hammer was the one who pulled the trigger and killed a higher member of their MC, and he was the one who had to pay. Or so they said.

I did everything I could to make them let go of her.

Cindy was screaming and begging me to help her. I tried, I tried so fuckin.g hard, but the bigger of the two hit me so hard across the face that I fell to the floor with a thud and it knocked me clean out.

By the time I came around, they were nowhere in sight. I’d failed to protect Cindy, failed to stop them from taking her, and I could do nothing but cry in frustration.

Of course, I went straight to Shepard, gave him the information, and told him everything they’d told me. He made me swear I wouldn’t tell Hammer I was even there. He said Hammer would kill the whole damn state if he knew I’d also been there.

I didn’t understand what he meant then, but I kept my mouth shut. Even when the video came through of those monsters torturing Cindy and slitting her throat, I said nothing. It killed me to do so, and I know I did the wrong thing.

But watching Hammer right now as I tell him all of this, his eyes wide and the vein in his temple thumping away, I know I most certainly did the wrong thing.

“I’m so sorry, Sam.”

It’s been a very long time since I’ve used his birth name, not since I was sixteen at least. A long time since anyone had called him that, and by the bulge of his eyes, he didn’t like the fact I called him that now, either. But I need him to hear me, I need to speak to Sam as well as Hammer.

“I tried so hard to make them let go of her.”

The tears fall from my eyes. No one has any clue how guilty I feel about what happened to Cindy. No one has ever let me really rid myself of it. Somehow, I doubt I’ll ever be free of it.

“I tried to make them take me instead, but they wouldn’t.” I jump when he gets to his feet and slams his hands down on the table with so much force the coffee mugs jump. “I’m so sorry.”

“Sorry? What the fuc.k good does sorry do me now, Willow?! How could you keep this from me?”

“I didn’t want to. I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t know how.”

“You didn’t want to more like! You kept it from me for your own selfish reasons!”

“No,” I shake my head, get to my feet, and touch his arm. He snatches it away from me. “I didn’t have any agenda. I just wanted to protect you from more pain. But in doing so, I made my best friend look reckless. Cindy wasn’t reckless, Hammer. I made her go with me because I wanted to get out of the house. I wanted some freedom because I hated being told I couldn’t do something.”

“And by doing exactly what I told you not to, I lost her! Do you have any idea what it did to me?! What it’s still doing to me!”

I nod my head, tears falling from my eyes, my stomach churning in pain. I’ve done this. I’ve caused Hammer more pain. But he needed to know that Cindy didn’t defy him; she didn’t deliberately put herself in harm’s way.

“It should have been you!” Hammer hisses through his teeth, eyes hard with anger. My heart literally sinks to my feet. “You killed her!”

“No,” I whisper the word in shock.

“You may not have pulled that blade across her throat, but you killed her. If only you’d done what was asked of you instead of thinking about your damn self for once, Cindy would still be here!”

“I know.” I lower my head and sob. “I paid for my part in her death,” I touch the scar on my neck. It still hurts to touch. “I think I did. Maybe if you’d left me there, I would have paid fully. Maybe you shouldn’t have saved me.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have!” He walks away from me, leaving me there in a mess of my own tears.

I sink to my ass against the wall of my kitchen and sob my heart out. I’ll never be anything to him now. I’ve lost him in every way a person can lose another besides death.

Maybe I shouldn't have!

His words rattle through my head long after he’s gone.

He regrets saving me when he couldn’t save Cindy.

Maybe my mom and dad were right, I shouldn’t have said anything. But I just couldn’t keep it to myself any longer. But I fear I have lost him for good by telling him the truth.

I don’t know what to do now.

My heart is breaking in ways I didn’t know it could break.

I sob and sob, the guilt eating away at me all over again.

I’m so sorry, Cindy. I loved you so much. If I could bring you back, I would do it in a heartbeat.

I’m sorry, Hammer. If I could trade places with Cindy so you could have her back, I would.

But I can’t, and I have to pull myself together. Crying won’t change anything now. What’s done is done. My best friend is dead, and the man I love hates me. Life couldn’t get any worse right now.