Chapter Thirteen: One if by Land, Two if by Sea
As Gemma explained they'd be headed to another house for hopefully just a few days, Clay and the other brothers got the two vans ready for Juice to drive Gemma north to the safe haven Marcus offered, along with Tig and Rosamund in the other van.
While those four began their long trip north, Clay and the other brothers waited at Gemma's childhood home for Marcus's reinforcements and the arrival of Hector Salazar and his low-life, scum-bucket, orbiting lifeforms.
Maneuvering onto the interstate, Juice pressed the accelerator to the floor and urged the van to devour the miles north at a quicker rate as Gemma clicked away on her phone in the passenger seat. The radio was on low as Gemma exchanged multiple emails and messages with Tara and Unser back in Charming.
In the van closely following, Tig kept pace as Rosamund stared out the side window, her thoughts a billion miles away.
"You okay?" Tig asked as he laid his hand on top of her thigh, gently squeezing.
Rosamund nodded and mumbled something unintelligible as she looked away from the window and settled a hand over his. "Just tired," she added as she patted his hand, unable to express how much she was thinking and feeling.
Tig didn't believe her. He wanted her to explain her silence, the unreadable expression that contorted her beautiful face. He glanced down at the odometer and knew there would be plenty of time to talk with the distance they had to cover.
As Tig let Rosamund drift back to her swirling bed of confusing thoughts, back in Charming, Salazar and his band of merry fuckups finally sobered up enough to get on the road and head north.
Back at Gemma's childhood home, Clay and Bobby were each on their own phone with other MC's, calling in favors for extra checkpoints as Salazar made his approach. Clay was looking for a Paul Revere from another MC to let him know how Salazar was planning on launching his attacking.
"Why are you still here?" Clay barked when he saw Chuckie sitting at the table with the laptop and cords wrapped up in neat wire bundles.
"I wasn't sure if you'd need me," Chuckie started before Clay marched across the kitchen and grabbed one of his prosthetic hands, causing his plastic digits to click, clack, and gesticulate.
"These were not made for pulling fucking triggers," Clay said as he added in a gruff, teasing tone. "I'm gonna get Unser to get you the fuck outta here," he added as he dialed up the memorized phone number.
"I can accept that," Chuckie said curtly with a nod. As Chuckie remained waiting for his ride home and staying the fuck out of the way, in the second van heading further north, Tig narrowed his eyes as the furthest right lane ended due to CHP's and emergency vehicle's on the scene.
As Tig flicked on his signal to get into the left lane, Rosamund recrossed her ankles, her heel tapping against something under her seat. As Tig remained oblivious to Rose's action amidst the honking horns and plethora of horn-honking, Rosamund pulled out a worn scrapbook that had been wedged under her seat.
Rosamund couldn't help but jump when Tig's voice sounded, it held an edge, something sharp and unpleasant.
"Don't look at that."
"Why not?" she asked, her fingertips poised to open the cover, prepared to defy.
"I don't want you seeing those pictures of me."
"You've looked at how many of mine that I never had a say in?" she countered, feeling a flush of hurt and embarrassment of all that he'd seen and never asked about.
Tig couldn't find a valid rebuttal to stop her from turning her attention to the scrapbook and snapshots in time of felonies, mayhem and still frames of reasons to plead the fifth.
Tig struggled to keep his eyes on the road as Rosamund leafed through the entire scrapbook without saying a single word, keeping her expression neutral.
Rosamund tapped the last picture of most of the guys standing in front of Teller-Morrow when it opened.
"Do you wish you were back at that other house?" she asked softly, hesitating before adding. "Are you sure you don't want to be getting ready to fight, play with guns and drink?"
Tig reached out a hand to settle over hers before weaving his fingers through hers, his scarred and uneven skin sliding along the smooth length of hers, the texture in diametric opposition to the other.
"I couldn't imagine being anywhere else," he found himself admitting.
Rosamund looked over and held his eyes for a fleeting second before he forced himself to pay attention to the approaching offramp to the interstate.
"What about all of this?" she pressed as she closed the scrapbook and replaced it under the seat as she added. "Am I just supposed to adapt to that kind of life?"
Tig tightened his grip on her hand, "no," he started before trailing off.
"No? Then, what's tomorrow look like? And next week?"
"I'm not sure baby, I'm kinda figuring it out as we go along."
Rosamund narrowed her eyes and looked down at his hand over hers, sniffing hard as she felt tears sting the back of her eyes.
"What is it baby?" Tig asked, concern flooding him, leaving him with a metallic aftertaste.
Rosamund pressed her lips together, "I'm so afraid my uncle is going to find me," she whispered on a voice that threatened to break.
Tig clenched his teeth until his jaw popped, tempted to pull the emergency brake in the middle of the five lanes and demand she tell him everything Hale had ever done to her. Tig was desperate to know every time Hale had blocked her view of the sun, cast a shadow, or caused a single tear to fall from her eyes.
Tig wanted to strike while the iron was hot and Rosamund's emotions were on the surface but hesitated with so much of the unknown in front of them. He quickly changed the topic and as the miles climbed on the odometer eventually watched her tension leech away.
Tig felt a modicum of relief as they drew closer to the house that Marcus had told them was available in which to lay low, the address ended up leading them to a condominium complex with blooming violet agapanthus outside the ground-level unit number sixty-four.
"It's not much to look at," Tig offered as Rosamund leaned closer to the windshield and narrowed her eyes at the faded blue paint on the condo's siding.
"It's safe here?" she asked.
Tig reached over and squeezed her hand, "I swear it is baby."
For a while Rosamund was distracted by looking through the small condo, boasting two tiny bedrooms and postage-stamp backyard.
"This is just temporary," Gemma murmured as she dropped an arm around Rosamund's shoulders.
The four of them unpacked the van and Gemma was quick to call for take-out at the nearest pizza place.
As they settled in the cramped condo, back at Gemma's childhood home, Clay and the others remained staged, waiting for word on any sight or smell of Salazar and his sleazy pals.
As Clay and the others continued to exercise patience. As they networked with other clubs and kept waiting, Salazar and his friends, all bound by their depravity towards human life, continued to barrel north, riding on noxious fumes from shitty transmissions and IV drugs spreading their poison through their veins.
Back at the safe house that Marcus had offered, the pizza was delivered within half an hour and after they all ate until acid reflux was all but promised, Tig's attention returned to Rosamund as she excused herself to take a shower, her skin feeling grimy from so many hours in the van.
Gemma watched Tig as he watched Rosamund leave the kitchen and couldn't help but chuckle.
"Take me out for some ice cream Juice," Gemma said as she picked up her purse and then turned to address Tig.
"We'll be back in a while Tigger," she murmured with a wink. Juice followed her with a look of bewilderment, not super quick on the uptake. Gemma explained on the way to a gelato shop that Tigger needed some alone time with Rosamund.
Tig watched Juice back the van out of the narrow parking spot and smiled as the brake lights diminished from sight past the stop sign before taking the stairs two at a time to the half-bath.
He paused outside the closed bathroom door and settled his hand on the tarnished knob, a tingling started at the base of his cock and moved though his nervous system like an electrical firestorm as he heard the spray of the water break over her naked body.
On the other side of the door, Rosamund looked through the clear shower curtain as Tig pushed open the door shortly after knocking.
She crossed her arms over her midsection as Tig pulled open the plastic dividing them.
"How long are you going to keep hiding from me?" he asked.
"I'm not hiding."
"Aren't you?" Tig pressed as he began to slip out of his clothes, letting them fall to the floor until he was just as naked. Rosamund's breath grew shallow as her eyes fell on his hardening cock hanging heavily behind his thighs.
Rosamund wordlessly made room for Tig to step into the shower, the small, tiled stall suddenly at a peak state of suffocation.
"Let me look at you baby," Tig growled as he gripped her wrists and pulled her hands out to her sides, feeling tension flowing under her skin, a living, pulsating entity.
Rosamund held her breath as Tig dragged his gaze lavisciously and hungrily down the front of her naked flesh, the warm spray of the water sluicing down the bare curve of her breasts and beading on the ridges of her scar tissue.
"Are you going to say anything or just keep staring?" she managed, feeling her belly twist into knots at the scrutiny in his unreadable expression.
"I'm going to keep staring," Tig said with blunt huskiness as he moved his hands to rest on her hips.
The blood rushed to Rosamund's face at his honest admission as he lifted her and forced her against the wall with the bulk of his weight, forcing her thighs far apart.
Tig saw her sudden worry that they weren't alone. "It's just us right now baby," he murmured as he dropped his face to the curve of her neck, shifting to keep her pinned against the wet, tiled wall.
He gripped the length of his smooth, pulsing cock with his free hand and stroked himself to painful rigidity. Rosamund's thighs began to shake as he slid the rounded, glossy head of his cock up and down her slit, seeking her tight, wet center.
Rosamund's grip on Tig's shoulders grew harder, her fingers digging into his flesh as he abruptly shoved himself to the hilt inside her impossibly tight opening, pushing past the soft, pink lips of her pussy.
Both of their breathing grew erratic as Tig leaned back to capture her eyes, forcing a gasp from her with each deep stab of his cock.
He groaned, knowing he wasn't going to last much longer, thinking for a moment, Juice and Gemma could've just stepped outside for a smoke break and still have given them more than enough time alone.
Rosamund dug her fingernails into the rounded caps of Tig's shoulders as he dropped a hand between them to tease his thumb in varying circles around her clit until she was twitching from his erratic rhythm.
Tig felt like his heart might explode when Rosamund slid a hand along his collarbone, up the length of his neck and rest a couple fingertips on his lips. "I love you," she whispered in the steam-filled air as Tig plunged himself inside her with enough assertiveness to bruise her intimate flesh.
"Say that again," Tig demanded as he buried his cock as deep as he could, forcing her pussy to stretch to accommodate around his thickness.
"I love you," Rosamund gasped as he impaled her until her breath threatened to be lost forever.
Tig wasn't able to demand a repeat when his cock suddenly spasmed and he came in several hot spurts, her tightness clutched at him as his knees shook from the force of his freefall into a shuddering climax.
Tig and Rosamund's breathing slowly came back to a normal pace before he made her wince when his softened cock slid out of her aching center.
The 100 billion neurons of Tig's brain, the same as the number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy pulsed with electrical anticipation of the next moment he'd be able to fill her body and possess every part of her.
As they slowly untangled and washed up quickly as the water heater drained and the spray turned tepid, across town Gemma and Juice headed back with a take-out pint of pistachio gelato.
Gemma fished her phone from her oversized bag when it rang, answering quickly at Clay's number displayed on the caller ID.
"Everything okay baby?" Gemma answered.
Juice continued back to the safe house as Gemma nodded at what Clay said. She commented in single syllables as Clay told her Salazar and friends had been spotted en route to her childhood home. With the rate of travel, they'd be there within a couple hours.
Clay said he might be on radio silence but had enough forces to circle Jericho and reduce it to moon dust. They exchanged their love before simultaneously ending the call, Clay swearing to call the moment he could.
Rosamund was making a pot of coffee when Gemma and Juice got back with the gelato. Tig was on one of the two shabby sofas with the local news on when they walked in.
Gemma smiled warmly at Rosamund when she found her in the kitchen pouring multiple cups of coffee before searching the cupboard for any kind of sweetener.
Juice settled on the other sofa and updated Tig on what was happening with Clay, changing the subject when Gemma and Rosamund walked into the room with full mismatched mugs of coffee.
Gemma sat near Juice and Rosamund settled next to Tig, tucking against his side as though they had been made to fit together.
"Is everything okay?" Rose asked as she felt the residue of Juice's conversation lingering in the air.
"Yeah baby, everything's fine," Tig murmured as he tugged her closer to his side and fumbled for the remote when the news anchor returned to fill the screen after an advertisement for life insurance.
The quartet watched the news and exchanged commentary on the top stories. When the next break began with a trailer for a splashy installment of a popular horror franchise, Gemma stood up and collected Juice's empty coffee cup. "Who wants dessert?" she asked.
Tig rose his hand right before Juice.
"Rose can you come help me in the kitchen?"
"Sure," Rose said and went to rise before Tig squeezed her upper arm, making her pause and look back at him. Tig leaned forward and chastely brushed his lips against hers, "hurry back baby," he whispered.
Rosamund's face flushed with color as she eventually joined Gemma in the kitchen, locating bowls as Gemma found a large spoon to dish out the bright green gelato.
"I know all of this must be a lot for you, but have you decided on when you'll get married?" Gemma asked as her eyes fell on the glittering ring around Rosamund's finger.
Rosamund shook her head, "Tig had said he wanted to get married back at your house."
"A backyard marriage would be nice, we'd just invite close family," Gemma said casually, gauging Rosamund's reaction before she continued. "It would be wonderful to start married life in your own home."
"What do you mean?" Rosamund asked as she paused in mid-motion of tearing sheets of paper towels off the bent roll.
"I'd like you and Tig to have the house, our wedding present to you," Gemma murmured and laid her hand on Rosamund's shoulder.
"You can't do that," Rosamund immediately protested. "That's way too much," she added before Gemma squeezed her shoulder, interrupting her.
"I love Tig, but you've saved him, he was spiraling away from everyone, ready to burn out. You brought him back to life baby."