POWERHOUSE

For three months, we’ve been trying to find a needle in the haystack. Hemingway, Master’s baby sister, has been very well concealed from the prying eye of the public.

We’ve dug deep; hell, I’ve sledged my way through the thick, dark underground world, hitting up some unsavory characters in my attempts to find out her whereabouts.

Plain and simple… nobody knows jack shit. Our threats, promises of a marker; nothing has yielded the desired result of finding her.

Tyson is tirelessly searching, doing whatever it takes to get his mind off Amara’s suicide. Not that a single one of us blames him for keeping his mind from becoming idle.

Unfuckingfortunately, Amara wasn’t able to get past the skeletons that burrowed deep inside of her closet and made it their dwelling.

She’d relived her torture sessions daily—every hour, minute, and second, they haunted her. Regardless if she was awake or asleep, those monsters tended to invade her mind and control her life.

What Amara lived through was fucked the hell up. It would’ve made any female a drooling mess. I hold a lot of blame on my shoulders for that day’s outcome. I was given the task to watch over the women, and I failed exponentially.

Tyson’s been holding a grudge against me, keeping me at arm's reach. Again, I don’t blame him one bit, I just wish I could turn back time and prevent the tragedy from happening.

Sadly, time machines are only available in the make-believe world of Hollywood, so in an effort to fix things, I keep up my punishing lifestyle, sleeping only when I’m past exhaustion, so I can find the answers we all seek, but he desperately needs.

Growing up in a household where my mother lived in her own, mentally chaotic hell where I was dragged along for the ride, was draining on my fragile, still developing psyche.

Suicide attempts were a daily obstacle I had to hurdle as a child.

Every day, I walked through the door after school, praying I wouldn’t get a dose of seeing my mother lying in a pool of her own blood.

It’s my belief that no kid should end his day worrying about his parents' mental health and if they’ll be alive when they walk through the front door of their house. I know I’ve got a fuckton of baggage I drag along with me which dictates how I handle each and every situation I’m presented with, but at this point, I don’t give a fuck.

I matured ahead of my class which caused some rifts between me and my other classmates.

I was considered the weird one.

I became a leaper when I was fourteen. That’s the day that she succeeded in ending her life. I can remember it like it was yesterday.

“Mom! I’m home. Where are you?” I shouted as I kicked off my shoes and tossed my bookbag on the shelf for my things that were sitting by the front door.

“Mom!” I try again, but all is quiet, not a sound reverberates other than the echo of my voice as it carries down the hallway and bounces back to me.

My skin pebbles, because down deep, I know that she’s not responding to me because she can’t, not because she doesn’t want to.

I scan the entire house from front to back, finally coming to the realization she’s not here. A cold chill wracks my body, and I instinctively know I’ll never see her again.

For hours, I sit at the kitchen table, looking out the window hoping that this day is nothing more than a bad dream that I’ll eventually wake from.

Only, the nightmare intensified when knocks came later on that night. Two detectives stood on the front door’s stoop and delivered the news as delicately as they could.

I ended up with my bags packed and was delivered to an aunt and uncle that were dangling on the fine line of living an unsavory lifestyle. They were in the pockets of some low-level drug dealers, worked side-by-side with some loan sharks, and tried dipping their hands in some petty crimes, using me as their scapegoat more often than not when they got caught.

I used to dream that someone would step in and drag me away from their household. But you know what they say about hopes and assholes, everyone has one, that doesn’t mean they’ll come true or be wiped cleanly.

Then the day came when we discovered that due to my mother’s dramatic leap in front of the train, we wouldn’t be receiving any of her insurance benefits.

According to her autopsy report, she’d taken a handful of pills to give her the courage to try something she hadn’t attempted before. She’d walked in a dazed fog in front of a moving train. She’d crossed the tracks moments before the locomotive passed the tracks she’d chosen.

My life went downhill fast from there. I saw the inside of a cell more often than not, and not just the one provided to me from time-to-time by the local police department. The assholes tasked with raising me welded their own version for me, and it became my new home until I escaped and began living in the bowels of the streets with the rest of the destitute.

I dumpster dived for my dinner, used cardboard boxes for shelter, and took odd jobs that weren’t always up to par.

Surviving on the streets isn’t for wimps, that’s for fucking sure but I’ve got the physical and mental scars to prove I managed to do so.

That’s how I met Pops.

He helped me find shelter, forced my hand by putting me back in school, showing me the type of man I wanted to measure up to, and eventually become. When I was in lockup for a bad decision, I met Texas and things progressed from there. He enticed me to join the DreamCatcher Motorcycle Club, and my life finally made sense and had meaning.

Tyson has finally convinced Master and Gunner that he can make better ground without me tagging along, so I find myself back home where once again, my life makes a drastic turn for the better.

SALEM

Taking the position offered to me by Aspen has been a dream come true. I love to dance, have always been naturally gifted at it, but never wanted to do anything further with my talent outside of teaching and choreographing.

The way the human body can move, twisting this way, and bending that way, is a conundrum to our skeletal makeup.

It shouldn’t be possible, but it is awe striking when I see the way my youngsters manipulate gravity’s continuum.

“Good class,” I say as I turn off the music. “See y’all next week.”

“Bye, Miss Salem,” Oakley remarks as she grabs her tote bag with a pair of pirouetting ballerinas on it, takes off her dance shoes and slips off her tutu, replacing the items with her sneakers and a pair of shorts.

“Miss Salem?” Juniper snags my wrap skirt that covers my leotard, pulling on it to grab my attention. “Next week, can we practice my leaps?”

“We can,” I answer before advising, “Practice pointing your toes.”

“I will, I promise,” Juniper acknowledges, sending me a megawatt smile.

Their ride is running behind, so I spend the next few minutes giving her some exercises that will help her memory automatically perform the duty without stopping to think about it when the roar of a jacked-up truck comes purring into the lot.

My mouth waters at the sight that greets me once the driver's side door opens and a fine-looking specimen steps out. I’ve never seen a man who’s so mouthwatering delicious in my life.

My body instantly responds, my nipples pebble and my core clamps in a painstaking grip.

“Who is that?” I whisper, lifting my finger up and swiping it across my bottom lip to make sure no drool is dripping down my chin.

That’d be embarrassing.

“That's our uncle, Cole,” Oakley submits. Glee at seeing her relative have her irises dancing in their sockets.

“He’s not a blood relative,” Aspen supplies, wearing a knowing grin, which she doesn’t hide from me.

Isn’t that a written rule in the girl code handbook or something?

Even if you know your friend is salivating over someone and he’s starring in some pretty racy fantasies, you do not toss that up in her face.

You hide that shit behind your hand or keep it held inside.

That’s what I’d do anyway if the roles were reversed.

Sometimes.

Maybe.

Oh hell, who am I kidding, I’d let that shit fly. “He’s a brother in the club.”

“A brother?” I ask, still stupefied that a man could be so well-sculpted and developed. It’s like an artist plucked the perfect prototype out of my head, and sketched him—he’s that damn yummy and perfect.

“Careful, Salem. Them cobwebs you’ve kept from dusting may blow away in the wind,” Aspen teases me.

“About damn time someone tackles and dusts them,” I wisecrack. Aspen snorts at my clever comment, but the girls look lost and confused.

Just as they prepare to ask a slew of questions, a bell dings above the door indicating someone entering, and said “dust cloth” is the one who walks, no struts through.

Oakley, obviously still in the dark, asks, “Who’s gonna dust Miss Salem’s cobwebs?”

My face turns a bright crimson shade of red.

How do I know this is happening?

The simplest answer is this… I can feel the fire from the blush seeping through my skin and flowing like lava through my capillaries burning me from the outside in.

My head hangs, my eyes finding a spot on the floor, hoping and praying that a hole will open up and swallow me whole.

But as luck would have it, no sinkholes present themselves offering me a hasty retreat. When I feel as if I have enough courage to face this dreamboat head on, I lift my eyes and they connect with his. There’s a gleam of satisfaction beaming back at me, and the icing on top of the cupcake is that he shoots me a wink that has my knees wobbling. The confetti sprinkling is the fact that it takes all the muscle strength I have to keep myself in an upright position.

Face planting in front of this hottie is not an option!

For fuck’s sake! Where’s a bottle of Calgon when a girl needs to be taken away?

Aspen clears her throat, then starts introductions. “Powerhouse, I’d like you to meet my newest employee and friend, Salem. Salem, this is Master’s club brother, Powerhouse.”

“Pleasure, Darlin’,” the walking, talking, tasty man-candy states. His tone is suave, smooth, and charismatic making me wish I could be his sugary treat.

“Likewise,” I squeak, then begin internally scolding myself for the less-than-smooth first impression… I sound like a damn mouse.

My free-spirited, fluent in three languages, literary mother, would be so proud of my stumbling eloquence. Not.

Epic. Fail.

Strobe lights flash through my mind, the catchphrase, “you lose, do over” gleams behind my eyelids.

Only, there’s no capability of backtracking from my disastrous bumpy start.

The jury has come back with their verdict; I’m a complete and utter loser.