by C. M. Owens
“I have to make a note, while we’re talking about Rush,” Drake drawls, which has me snapping my head over.
He smiles like he expected as much.
When did Sledge get in here? How long have I been staring at this board?
Sledge groans while scrubbing a hand over his face.
“Don’t, Drake. I warn you, it’s stupid,” Sledge cautions.
“There’s an argument on stupid versus brave we won’t delve into right now,” Drake informs him, lips curling up at the corners. “Is it just me, or is the man a lunatic when he’s happy?”
“Definitely a lunatic,” Maya says very quickly.
She bends over to tighten the laces on her skates, while wearing her pink tiara with today’s bright and bubbly outfit. And she’s with the mafia.
“Pot to the kettle, darlin’,” Drake says to her. “It means more when sane people say it.”
“I’m sane. I just like being happy, and I don’t understand why I can’t be taken seriously just because I have a normal style and recreational habits,” she says as she stands and pushes off, beginning her laps for the day.
“As I was saying,” Drake resumes, “Rush is different. He seems to be enjoying the club life now.”
“Because he wanted me and the club, so now he’s getting to relive his adolescent fantasy with him in control,” I tell him, pursing my lips as I pretend to be disinterested in this conversation.
“He only stayed in the club to figure out what happened to you,” Sledge says quietly.
My hand pauses with the pin I’m holding in the middle of rearranging some other pieces.
“After he kills Herrin and makes him a nonissue, he plans to kidnap you and give you Stockholm’s so that you love him again,” Maya adds.
Sledge curses and covers his face with his hands as Colleen pats his head like she’s consoling him.
I glance back over at Maya, trying to decide how she comes up with this stuff. Then I half wonder if it’s true...considering the barricading incident.
Drake leans forward to speak, abruptly shifting the topic. “Have you considered any new ink? There’s a trend in Halo where—”
“Rush will put three bullets in you, let the rats in his hidden dungeon finish you off, and then he’ll toss your bones into a wood-chipper to use as inventive confetti for an annual Halloween party if you tattoo her vagina,” Maya states in an emotionless tone.
I...don’t really know what to say to something like that. I’m used to roughnecks who talk about breaking bones and shooting an eye out. Not...this...sort of detail.
This is scary.
“That’s oddly specific,” Colleen points out with a semi-horrified expression.
“I have this friend back home who’s a little fucked up,” Maya says with a dismissive shrug. “Rush reminds me a little of him.”
We all just stare at her for a minute as she casually sips her coffee, still roller skating around the silent room.
“This is what I get for trying to have a normal conversation around this place these days,” Drake finally says on a tired breath as he rests his head in his hand.
Maya rushes toward me, skidding to a halt inches away, grabs the board, and skates it back toward the meeting room.
The door blows open before she gets it all the way back in, and we all turn as Rush comes in, dragging an unconscious body behind him.
“Because it’s not the wild fucking west, Drex!” I hear someone saying like they’re in the middle of a heated argument.
My eyes widen when I see a man in a blue suit, running his hands over his hair in frustration.
I get two peeks at his concealed side-arms, along with a generous glimpse of this harnessed holsters. He’s some sort of authority figure. You can tell just by the tension in his rigid shoulders, the gait of his walk, and the overall look he’s sporting.
“This is just the fucking beginning of what’s coming. That’s what happens when you live in a town this close to the border. People know how shit works in Halo. The good times are really damn great. The bad times are hell,” Drex argues as he drops the foot of another unconscious man.
My view is interrupted when Rush stops directly in front of me, and he cups my cheek. Since he’s also holding a gun with the hand that’s cupping my cheek, I get the feel of warm metal against me too.
His lips land on mine in the next instant, and he kisses me like he’s missed me. I’m an idiot, because I swoon against him.
“This is positively the most corrupt vagina squad I’ve ever known in my life,” Drake states dryly from behind Rush...somewhere.
I’m too caught up in the way Rush is toying with my lips, and walking me backwards into the wall that finally stops me. He presses in closer, quickly freeing my mind of all other thoughts when he groans against my lips.
I don’t even know when my fingers ended up twisted in his hair, but I use my hold to pull him closer when he tries to pull away. I also feel his slightly smug grin when it spreads.
“That’s more like it,” he murmurs against my lips like I’ve somehow pleased him.
I tell ya...the urge to rebel is immediate.
I settle for a bored look as he pulls away with that smug look still on his face. The guy I forgot about groans from behind him. Without even looking away from me, Rush slams the butt of his gun against the guy’s temple, and knocks the man back out.
He glances behind him as the man in the suit curses, stomps his foot in a tantrum for about two minutes, runs a hand through his hair, and then calmly walks away...
Axle bends to pick up where he left off, grabbing the man’s foot that Drex dropped.
“I can’t see nothing. Can’t hear nothing. Don’t want to know nothing,” Drake says as he puts an arm over his eyes.
“Then maybe you shouldn’t be around,” Rush bites out, glaring at him.
“Ain’t after your girlfriend even a little bit,” Drake adds.
“Although he did talk about tattooing her—”
“Fuck’s sake, woman, why do you hate me?” Drake shouts in interruption to Maya. “I’ve been good to you,” he adds.
“How fucking good?” Axle grinds out, pausing his body-dragging-routine.
“I don’t know why I make friends. People suck,” Drake decides as he stands and walks toward the door.
Maya grins as she skates backwards in front of him, putting very little space between their bodies, and Axle eyes the motion before he drops the foot he’s holding and stalks toward them.
“You’re banned from my shop,” Drake says as he darts around her, darting a quick glance over his shoulder to a fast-approaching Axle.
“It’s the closest thing to comedy hour we get around here,” Colleen tells me as she sips her coffee.
Drake bolts out the door, and Drex checks his phone. “One more incident caught in the press, and we won’t be able to hold the feds back any longer. Even with Maya’s contacts,” he tells us.
Maya’s smile falls. “Surely I have more power than that.”
I glance around, wondering how freely they just discuss shit like this. It’s still just us in the room, but who the hell’s this Colleen chick?
Abruptly, Colleen stands and heads into the parlor room, and music starts playing like she’s intentionally cutting herself off from this conversation.
Hmmm. She really isn’t too curious about stuff.
“You really don’t have quite as much power as you apparently think you do,” Rush informs her a little flippantly.
“I have friends. I can make some calls,” she says as she skates off, already pulling her phone up to her ear.
“Just a normal day around here?” I muse.
Drex cuts his eyes toward me, as Rush scratches his own forehead with the barrel of his gun and kicks at his towed hostage to ensure he’s still unconscious.
When the guy grunts, Rush knocks him over the head again.
“I knew that fucker was faking it,” he mutters, glaring at the limp man l
ike he’s offended him.
“Taking him to a hidden dungeon for rats to eat his body?” Maya asks as she studies Rush very intently.
Rush gives her an incredulous look. “Who the fuck has rats in a hidden dungeon?”
She bristles. “It was just a question. Sheesh. You just beat a guy unconscious, and it still feels like you’re judging me for having an inquiring mind.”
“Your old lady scares me,” Rush says very seriously as he looks at Axle.
Axle eyes the pistol Rush is using to scratch under his chin.
“I need a drink,” Axle says as he abruptly turns and walks to the bar.
“I need to interrogate, and I can’t sing worth a damn, so I have to do things the hard way. Be back soon,” Rush tells me before dropping a rather domestic kiss on my lips...and dragging the unconscious man away.
As soon as he disappears through a code-locked door that makes a heavy whoosh when it seals shut, Drex stalks toward me so quickly I startle.
“What the hell is wrong with him?”
“He’s not always like this?” I ask in surprise.
“No,” Sledge bites out. “Leave it, Drex. Fuck this up and he really will kill you.”
“Pardon him for not wanting his sister bashed over the head and whisked off to a private island for the rest of her natural days,” Maya quips. “Personally, I’m a women’s rights activist. Possibly because I have a vagina and identify with women and stuff.”
She rolls to a stop at Axle’s side, and he wraps an arm around her, drawing her so close to him. I never expected to see a soft side to someone like him. He always scared the shit out of me, because he was rough, brash, and scarred. It set the scene for a violent sort of guy, and...he is violent...
I’m a hypocrite. I hear it in my own head.
“Are you listening to me?” Drex asks, waving a hand in front of my face.
“Actually, no. I wasn’t sure how long the bickering would continue and I sort of zoned out,” I confess, rocking back on my heels when that telling angry muscle jumps along the side of his jaw. “I mean, yes. I heard every word, and I...agree?”
His eyes narrow.
“I disagree?” I guess.
Fifty/fifty odds, so one of those has to be the right answer.
“Kara, he has fucking snapped his already fucked up lid, and—”
“I think you botched that metaphor,” Maya points out.
Drex inhales a breath that sounds like he’s trying to drink in some patience.
“We’ll head upstairs for a while,” Axle says in his gravelly tone, as he abruptly lifts Maya and tosses her over his shoulder.
She rolls her eyes and allows him to manhandle her.
Snake is disassembling a pistol off to the side, staying quiet.
Drex darts a look at Sledge, but Sledge speaks before he can.
“You know how much he struggled with getting control over himself and his own life, and you sent him to watch the one girl he never wanted to let get away. What the fuck did you think would happen when he got to invade her privacy to that extent and find a sense of control over this one particular situation?” Sledge finally asks him.
That’s a good point.
I look over at Drex with an expectant stare.
“Really? Do you honestly think my head works like that? There’s a reason I can’t find Pop!” Drex shouts. “It’s because I don’t fucking think like that!”
He drops to the couch when Sledge and I both go quiet, since this angry outburst has now shifted the topic. He’s more concerned with Herrin than Rush, and now I finally see just how stressed my brother really is.
He scrubs a hand over his face several times, and I lean back against the wall. I got out. He stayed.
I’m holding it together real damn well.
He’s just barely not falling apart.
I hated Pop.
He loved him.
For the first time, I realize just how hard this must be for him. “I rearranged some of the things on the board. I think it’ll help narrow the scope. He’ll be in Halo, because he’s watching from somewhere by this point, and he wants to be close when he makes his move,” I tell him.
Drex looks over at me, eyes growing serious once again.
“We’ve exhausted Halo. If he were here, we’d have run across him by now,” he argues.
“He knows this city better than any of you ever will, and he’ll enjoy telling you just how close he was the entire time...right before he puts a bullet between your eyes,” I tell him in my let’s-be-real tone.
Snake stands, lifts the leg of the abandoned man, and starts dragging him toward the sealed door.
“Call me if someone needs shot,” is all he says before he disappears below.
“This fucking club is falling apart all around me,” Drex grumbles as he massages his temples.
“Can I go work on that board some more?” I ask in a curious tone.
“Like I give a fuck,” Drex grumbles.
My eyebrows hit my hairline.
“It’s in the meeting room,” I remind him.
He makes a gesture like he’s shooing me off so he can wallow in his stress puddle.
Sledge stands and follows me into the room, shutting the doors behind him as I move to the board.
“I can’t believe I’m in here,” I say as I turn a slow circle, fully appreciating this moment more than I realized.
It’s like marking something off my bucket list, minus the burning shit bag I planned to throw in here. I expected to have to break in with a lot of fire and fury in my fantasies.
I was a badass in those fantasies. Sort of like Sarah. Minus the overdose of crazy.
“Do you think all the slaughter makes them extra crazy?” I ask Sledge. “Rush and Sarah. Rush is definitely not the boy I remember.”
“No. He’s not. He’s a man who went cold the day you turned up gone. He didn’t know if you were dead or alive, and he shut down, Kara,” he says quietly, head down as he leans against the large table behind him.
I clear my throat, awkwardly wring my hands like an idiot. I didn’t expect him to get so serious so quickly when I was purposely trying to ask a dark question with a peppy, non-judgmental tone.
“He’s been on cruise control ever since,” he adds, his jaw ticking. “He did whatever he was told, so long as he got to do it his way. He also toyed with Herrin’s patience on purpose, because he knew Herrin had gotten reliant on his ruthless, calculated skillset—the son he wanted Drex to really be.”
My brow furrows, since I certainly didn’t expect that.
“And Herrin hated the fact that Rush didn’t give two shits about the attention he was paid. Rush is the one member Herrin worked so damn hard to figure out, but he never could. Because the last thing Herrin would have ever thought was that Rush actually fucking loved you. You may be the only person he’s ever truly loved.”
“Are you trying to make me feel like shit right now? Because it’s working,” I tell him a little angrily. “I had to leave, and Rush chose the club. At least to that girl at that time, that’s exactly what I thought. I had no reason to think otherwise until he told me so.”
He nods like he gets it.
“To you, he chose the club. Lives were at stake. Decisions had to be made by two scared, insecure kids. You’re all grown up now, Kara. At least, on the surface. He’s not the same half-broken kid you remember. I’m not sure where the head has to go to enjoy his skillsets as much as he does. Same for Sarah. You can tell a lot about a person, based on who they gravitate toward.”
“You’re saying he’s as twisted and crazy as that assassin chick who is really confusing to my head?” I ask him.
“Sarah’s definitely fucked in the head. She’s the first one he’s shown a kindred sort of comradery toward since you left, and not in the romantic sense,” he says, adding that last part when I snap my eyes to him in an embarrassing surge of jealousy.
His lips twitch like he’s inside my head.
<
br /> “He feels normal around her,” he goes on. “Compared to him, she’s insane. Compared to all of us...”
“He’s the one who’s crazy,” I conclude with a firm nod.
“You’ve been gone a while. Herrin’s the kind of guy who eases you into the darkest recesses, leaving you to believe you’re an anarchist fighting for the right reasons. Before you know it, you’re just a thug cleaning up his messes, while he pockets more cash, ass, and drugs. Rush was his number-one go-to guy for the secret jobs.”
My heart sinks, and I sag to a chair.
“A job he took so he could get close enough to Herrin to figure out what really happened. Drex played that too close to the vest, and the only reason Rush didn’t immediately shoot him when he found out Drex had known all the time—”
“Is because I love my brother,” I state quietly.
“Herrin’s only alive, because Rush thought he was the key to finding you. Now he realizes he could have killed the bastard all along, and then Drex would have let you come back. It’s driving him a bit mad, so I need you to soothe him. Also, I need you to gain some perspective, and accept his crazy fucking ass the way he is, because he really will kidnap you.”
“He already has kidnapped me. I’m aware of what he’s capable of,” I groan, scrubbing a hand over my face.
“So what are you going to do about it?” he asks, prompting me to look up at his serious, worried eyes.
“I’m probably going to let myself get kidnapped. It’s not like I’m ever going to love anyone else half as much as I’ve loved him,” I say, not admitting aloud how I’m sort of in love with how obsessed he is with me.
Because that’s unhealthy, crazy talk.
No good can come of a toxic relationship like that.
At least, that’s what others will say.
He looks relieved by that, so I may not have gotten judged by him at all.
“Believe it or not, he was better off landing in this club than he would have been anywhere else. He was too fucked up to live in some foster house. If they’d been abusive, he’d have killed them. If they’d been great, he’d have stolen all their shit and ran away from them, landing him right back on the dirty streets of Halo.”
His eyes lift to meet mine. “If he loses the semblance of control he thinks he has over you, it could be bad, Kara. Play your cards carefully. I’ll owe you one,” he says as he pushes off from the table and walks out.
