I slam my fists into the bag and then lean my forehead against it. “Give me a name, Ivy.”

She gives me a sad smile. “Can’t do that.”

“Why are you still afraid of him? You don’t need to be afraid anymore. You’re in my house. Under my protection—under the club’s protection. He can’t ever get to you.”

“I’m not afraid for me. I’m afraid for anyone who gets too close to me.”

I unwind the hand wraps from my fists and walk over to her side of the room. She’s already on her feet, ready to flee.

“Have I ever given you reason to doubt me? To doubt that I could protect you?” I say, pressing my hand to the middle of her chest and pinning her to the wall. Beneath my hand, her heart beats like the rapid thrum of a hummingbird’s wings. She’s so fragile, and I feel that with the sick sense of nausea of someone who wants to both hurt her and soothe her all at once. She makes me so fuckin’ crazy.

“What do you want from me, Tank?” she whispers.

I trail my rough hands over soft, milky skin, up to her neck where I grasp the base of her skull in my hands. Time and time again, I keep coming back to this place. To this thought: It would be so easy to take what I want from her. But I can’t, because nothing worth fightin’ for ever came easy.

I want her submission. I want her heart. I want her to look at me and not wish I were someone else. More than anything though, I want to rid her of the belief that to love is to hurt, to feel pleasure is to hurt. And I want to wring my hands around her bastard father’s neck for making her believe it is. I want to squeeze the life from him and savour the sound of his last breath rasping through his clenched teeth.

That’s what I want.

I want her, and I can’t do a fuckin’ thing about it. That shit is what eats me the fuck up inside, because just like she said, it’s not safe. It’s not smart to make her my world when it could so easily be ripped away from me, when it gives my enemies leverage. She’d be a tithe for the horrible shit I’ve done, collateral damage, and fuck me for being a selfish prick because a part of me doesn’t care. A part of me wants her, has always wanted her, no matter the cost, and that Tank doesn’t give a shit about the consequences.

“I want you,” I find myself saying. Ivy’s eyes widen, her brows shooting upwards with surprise, and then her expression turns cold, removed.

“No,” she says, as if that’s the end of it. As if I’m a kid and she’s telling me I can’t have ice cream before dinner. She shrugs out of my embrace. Brushing past me, she heads to the door.

“Why?” I demand, and she pauses.

For a long time she just stands there with her back to me, and when I think she’s not going to answer, her response has the hair on my arms standing on end. “Because he always finds me.”

She turns, and her eyes are haunted. I’ve seen her on a bad trip. I’ve seen her wake, panicked and stricken with fear, running from the monsters that haunt her dreams. I’ve seen her throwing up her guts and begging for crack, and I’ve seen her completely destroyed by Kick, but I ain’t ever seen this Ivy. I ain’t ever seen anyone’s eyes so haunted, and I’ve been present in the last moments of a lot of lives. I know fear. I’ve governed it, grown it, and sometimes even revelled in it. But not this. I’ve never seen Ivy like this.

“He always brings me home,” she says, and there’s resignation in her voice, as though everything she’s saying is inevitable. “Why do you think I’ve spent the better part of three years inside that clubhouse, Tank? I may be an addict, but I’m not an idiot. There’s a reason I followed you there, and there’s a reason I’m addicted to cocaine.”

“Because you’re used to your life being fucked up, so what does it matter if it gets fucked a little more?”

“It has nothing to do with that,” she says.

“Bullshit,” I snap. “You gotta deal with this shit, and you gotta deal with it now. Snortin’ another line ain’t gonna change what happened to you. And it ain’t gonna help you protect yourself when I ain’t around.”

“No, it won’t, but it helps me forget. And every second I spend sober is another second I want to peel off my skin. I need to forget the things he did to me, Tank. I use to forget, and that shit is the only thing keeping me glued together.”

“Bullshit.” I step closer and snag her around the waist. She fights. I wrap my hand around her delicate little throat. Ivy stills. Desire flares in her eyes, and I bring my lips to her ear.

“Let me be your cocaine.”

She laughs humourlessly. “You can’t.”

“Why?”

“Because you don’t want to hurt me,” she says. Tears escape the corner of her eyes, and she shoves out of my embrace and leaves the garage.

I may not want to hurt her, but someone’s gonna pay for this shit. I’ll find out where this fucker lives, and fear will be my tithe for every second he made her suffer, hate herself, or doubt how fucking incredible she is. I’ll make him pay with the worst pain imaginable. I’ll set fire to his flesh, and rejoice in the screams.

There is only one god in my world, and it’s the fear in a man’s eyes as he looks on your face and knows with one hundred per cent certainty that it’s the very last thing he’ll ever see. It’s the swift cold hand of death as she grasps you by the throat and doesn’t let go. And I have every intention of introducing that sick fuck to my god, and makin’ the two of them real fuckin’ cosy.

I wake to a loud bang and startle in my sleep. My bed is wet again. I feel the stickiness between my legs, the once-dry, warm flannelette sheet beneath me now cold. I push back the covers and climb out of bed, fumbling around in the dark for my cupboard. I’m quiet, so I won’t wake my dad. If he sees I’ve wet my bed again, I’ll get another beating. Mamma says it doesn’t matter; she says it’s just stress that makes me do it, but Dad tells her she’s babying me. He hits me when I piss the bed.

He hits me for a lot of things.

“There she is,” my dad bellows, and I freeze, knowing that he’s awake and could come in and find me wide-eyed and stinking of piss. His voice sounds funny, like it does when he drinks too much beer, and there’s another man downstairs that sounds the same. Drunk, Mamma calls it.

I don’t like it when he drinks, and I don’t like it when he brings his friends home from the bar. He’s not as mean, but he acts like a completely different person, and it scares me because I never know what will set him off and what won’t. And that’s a very dangerous thing.

“Baby, make us a sandwich, will ya?” Dad says, and I creep over to my door to hear them better.

“She’s a looker, Wayne. I thought she’d be a dog when you put her up for play.” The other man says this. His voice is slurred and gravelly, like Rock Biter in The NeverEnding Story. I used to watch that film over and over, until Dad gambled away our TV and VHS, along with all of our movies.

“Up for play?” Mamma asks, sounding confused. Fear prickles down my spine and I quietly move down the stairs, poking my head around the corner just enough to see, but not be seen. I don’t care that my pants are soaked and he will know that I pissed the bed again. I’m too worried about my mamma; something doesn’t sound right. It doesn’t feel right.

“Don’t worry about it. Just fix us somethin’ to eat, woman.” Dad wraps his arms around Mamma’s waist, but she shrugs him off and shifts away. He doesn’t look happy, but then again, he never does.

“You sly dog,” the man says. “You didn’t say anything about her lookin’ like an angel.”

“I like to play my hand down low,” Dad replies

The other man is tall and thin. He has a horse face, long with too big a nose, and big dark eyes that look hungry. He slaps Mamma on the butt as she’s bent over in front of the fridge, and she squeals and turns to them with the look she gives me when I’m behaving like a brat.