Chaos by Alexis Noelle Page A

ran the few more feet until I was in front of the house. That’s when I heard them.” I wait for him to go on but he just sits there.
    I want to get up, to wrap my arms around his neck and give him the comfort that I always get from him. Torch stands up and walks out of the living room and I have no idea if I should follow him or not. I decide after a minute to see what he was doing. I find him in the bathroom. His face is dripping with water; his hands grasp the sink tightly while his breathing is labored like he just ran a marathon. My hand lightly touches his back and he jumps as if I just burned him.
    “I can’t handle you touching me right now.” He stands up walking past me back into the living room. I follow him crossing my arms over my chest resisting the urge to reach out to him again. He takes a deep breath as I sit where I had been before. “I couldn’t help but scream as I stood in front of the house. They must have been in the front room, at least my little sister was. Her name was Kristen, but we called her Kiki. She must have heard me because she started calling for me, screaming for me to help her. I ran to the back of the house but there was no break in the flames. The fire trucks showed up but by the time they were able to get in the house they couldn’t save them.”
    “I lost everyone I loved that day and for years after it, I prayed that something would happen to me. I was too much of a coward to take my own life, but I prayed to die just so I didn’t have to be alone anymore. The cops figured out it was some crazy parent of a kid my dad treated. The little girl had cancer and when she passed away he blamed my dad. He broke in that day and shot my mom and dad. My brother and sister must have been hiding. After he shot them, he doused the entire inside and outside of the house in gas then set it on fire. When Shooter met me, I was an out of control idiot who was walking around starting fires just because I felt like it gave me some sort of control back.”
    I try to digest everything he just told me. The way he always plays with that lighter, his name, all those things start to click into place. I feel like at one point Shooter saved us all from self-destruction, that’s why it hurt so much to lose him.
    I stand up and walk over to him. His eyes watch me apprehensively I know that he wants to push me away. He feels raw and exposed. I felt the same way when I stood in front of the club and told them about Viper, even though I didn’t go into detail. I raise my hands slowly before wrapping them around him. I pull him against me and the two of us stay like that for the longest time. Men like Torch pride themselves on being the strong ones, the ones who are the pillars in the relationships. This once I want to be his pillar, I want to support him, to hold him up. I pull away from him an inch before pressing my lips against his.
    “I’m glad nothing ever happened to you.”
    I kiss him again pouring all the love I have for him into it.
     
     
     

Chapter Twenty-One
    Tracie
     
     
    Torch pulls away from me. “I showed you mine. Now show me yours.”
    I look down, every inch of me screaming to run and hide. I can’t though. I need to tell him everything. It’s the only way for this to really work. “Okay. What do you want to know?”
    “For starters, where did this whole ‘I can’t date bikers’ thing come from? Was it that night?” His hands are still on my hips.
    I move away from him. I now understand why he wanted his space as he went through his story. “No, it was before then. The night my parents died, my mom and I just had a conversation about the kind of boy I should try to find. She had found me flirting with one of the prospects and took me into one of the rooms to talk. She said as much as she loved my dad, she didn’t want this life for me. That as happy as she was, there were times when she could feel so lonely. It was one of the last things she said to me. I always felt