I was done.

I wouldn’t let anyone control my life anymore.

It was going to be my choice.

“Blackbird … stop,” Optimus pleaded quietly, his face full of anguish hearing the story I’d never shared.

“No! Maybe I didn’t want to live! Maybe, just maybe, I would’ve rather died with them, than spent the rest of my life moving from foster home to foster home, hell to fucking hell, without them.” I picked up a textbook off my desk and threw it across the room. “I never got given that choice!”

I breathed deeply, trying unsuccessfully to calm my emotions, to get a hold of myself, but it all just spilled out.

“I didn’t get stories read to me at night. Nobody walked me to school in the mornings or picked me up after. Nobody taught me how to ride a bike, nobody clapped for me when I graduated high school, nobody was there for me when my first boyfriend broke my heart. Nobody!” I screamed, my body shaking uncontrollably.

“Baby, it’s okay,” Optimus whispered. I tried to escape as he came at me, but there was no way out. He wrapped his arms around me and cocooned me in his hold.

I fought against him, slamming my fists into his chest. “They never let me choose!”

“Shh.” he took the hits, his calming tone never changing. “Baby, stop. You’re killing me, please.”

I fought for several minutes before I finally gave in, allowing him to comfort me as I broke down. We sank to the floor together and he pulled me into his lap, my legs straddling his and my face tucked into his neck as he ran his hands up and down my back.

I licked at my chapped lips, tasting the saltiness of my tears. It was strangely refreshing.

“Please.” I whispered, gripping his cut in my hands like it was my last life line. “Please, let me choose.”

He sat still and silent, his hands still moving up and down my back. “I can’t,” he said carefully. “I need you to be safe. And if that means you’re safer without me, then so be it.”

I sat back so I could see him. “I don’t want you to protect me. I want you to love me.”

He swallowed harshly. “Blackbird—”

“Don’t keep me out. Let me in. Let me be there for you. Let me be yours.”

He shook his head. “I can’t. Not right now, not while it’s so dangerous.”

Tears began to fall once again.

My heart ached.

It was crying out with pain.

It was breaking.

“Then let me go.” My voice broke, but I steeled my back, knowing that this was what I needed. I needed to take control of my life and stop letting other people rule it. “I can’t do it, Op. I can’t sit around and pretend like every thing’s fine. I can’t pretend that I’m okay seeing you every day and knowing I can’t touch you. It hurts, Op. It hurts so bad.”

“I can’t—”

“Let me go.”

“I can’t—”

I shoved at his chest, forcing his hold on me to break and climbed to my feet. He quickly followed. “Please! If you can’t give me this, then just let me go.” My fists clenched at my sides and I struggled to hold myself back from him, but I knew in my heart that this was something I needed to do.

He sighed and scrubbed at the scruff that covered his jaw. “I’ll tell the boys that you’re no longer a club girl, but that you’re still under the club’s protection. I’ll stay away, you won’t have to see me and I won’t use the other girls. Then when all this shit is done—”

I shook my head. “No.”

He frowned. “Chel, there’s only so much I can do.”

“You don’t get it.”

“Get what?”

“You need to let me go. Let me leave.”

His face morphed from confused to surprised. We both stood there for what seemed like forever. Just staring at each other.

“No.”

“I can’t do this, Op. I need to go.”

He took a step toward me, his face serious. “No. No more fucking running.”

“That’s not your choice to make,” I said, throwing his words back at him.

I turned and moved to my closet. I sank to the floor on my knees, pulling out a large bag and began to stuff it with whatever clothes I could find.

I wasn’t angry anymore.

I wasn’t upset, or scared, or sad.

I was numb.

Club girls weren’t obliged to stay. We could walk away whenever we wanted, but the moment we did was when the club stopped paying and supporting us.

It would be hard—probably hurt like hell to leave the people who had been my world for so long. But I was done. If he couldn’t show me that he was willing to lay everything on the line and prove he wanted me, then I wasn’t willing to sit around and wait any longer.

“What are you going to do when the Mafia track you down, Chelsea?” He shot sarcastically. “The club can’t protect you if you’re God knows fucking where.”

I continued to pack, shoes, jeans, shirts, underwear. “You said yourself. For me to be safe, it’s better if we pretend not to have something going on.” I zipped the bag closed and pushed off the floor. “Well, now we don’t have to pretend.”

The words stung even me.

“This is fucking ridiculous. Where are you going to go?” He fidgeted, his body rocking back and forth like he wanted to come at me and tie me to the bed so that I couldn’t leave.

“Doesn’t matter,” I murmured as I slipped my feet into my shoes. “I don’t belong to the club now.”

This time his body gave in and he rushed toward me, gripping my face in his hands before I had a chance to look away. “Don’t do this. You can stay, the club will keep you safe.”

I placed my hand over his as it cupped my cheek, leaning into it and enjoying the rough feeling against my face. “Op, I’m in love with you,” I told him softly before closing my eyes. “I have been for a long time. I can’t be a club girl anymore with the feelings that I have, and if you won’t claim me, then my time here is done. It’s time to move on.”

I felt his overgrown stubble brush against my face and a soft pair of lips find mine briefly. “One day, you’re going to have to stop running and realize it doesn’t solve all your problems.”

“And one day you’re going to have to realize that pushing the ones you love away isn’t protecting them, it’s isolating them.” I gave him a soft peck on the cheek then stepped back. “If it’s okay, I’ll come back and get the rest of my things soon.”

He nodded, but his mind seemed far away as he stared over my head. I wondered if it was what I’d said, or if he’d chosen that particular time to cut off his emotions completely.

I tried to swallow, but my throat was completely dry. My stomach turned.

This was it.

I was walking away and he wasn’t going to stop me.

I cleared my throat finally, throwing my bag over my shoulder and taking a couple of steps closer to the door. Optimus didn’t move. I desperately wanted him to call out, to tell me he couldn’t let me go.

“Chelsea.”

I squeezed the door handle in my hand, my breath seizing in my throat. “Yeah?”

“Watch your back out there.” I thought I heard a sliver of emotion in his voice, but I couldn’t see his face to confirm it, so I put it down to just my mind hearing what it wanted to hear.

“Yeah.”

I pulled the door closed behind me, leaving Optimus standing silently inside my room. I managed to hold off the tears until I reached the space where my car usually was. But in its place was only charred remains.

The tears poured then.

There was no holding back.

“Op said you might need a ride.” Ham’s voice did nothing to sooth me as he dangled keys from his fingers and guided me over to Optimus’ truck. “Rose’s?”

I nodded, not even able to get a word out. I wept and sobbed the whole way to Rose’s apartment, hoping like hell that she’d be home. I had nowhere else to go. I could go and stay with Harmony, but I knew it would cause tension.

I needed to take a step back from the club. It was my plan to do so eventually—if Optimus hadn’t pulled his head out of his ass by the time I finished college—so I may as well start the disconnection now.