Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Iris
“Iris!” The shrill of my sister’s scream rips me from my nap with a start, just as the door to Dark’s room is torn off its hinges.
The fingers wrapped around my ankle tighten as a massive silhouette of a man stands in the doorway, backlit by the sun, breathing hard, sucking all the oxygen out of the room.
“Fuckin’ Christ,” the man growls full of venom.
I pull my ankle from Dark’s grasp and tuck my legs under me, fists up, ready to fight. Even if I can’t do much, given his size, I’m a scrappy bitch. I’ll bite his nose off before I die. Maybe break a rib or two.
The pissed-off man steps into the room, and that’s when I get a good look at him.
A well-groomed gray beard, muscles for days, covered in a layer of tattoos, and a leather vest that reads Sunshine on the chest. His angry, wrinkled-around-the-edges gaze that looks a whole lot like Dark’s locks on me.
“If you give me my fuckin’ son, there won’t be any problem between you and me. Got it?” He gestures among us. “But if you put up a fight, I don’t give a fuck if you’re a woman. That’s my kid.” The man juts his chin at Dark, who cracks open an eye.
“Pops?” he groans.
“Kid.” The man named Sunshine sighs in relief, and his shoulders relax.
“What the…” Dark rasps, squinting at his father. “Why… why are you here?”
“To save your sorry ass.”
“Just take care of him,” I plead, not letting my guard down for a second.
I don’t know this man. He doesn’t know me, but I’m not gonna stand between a man and his son.
“He’s my kid. Of course, I’m gonna fuckin’ take care of him.”
Nodding at the giant, who shares a scary resemblance to his son, I shuffle to the opposite side of the room, away from Dark, but I don’t give the biker my back.
No longer worried I’m gonna cause a problem, the anger bleeds from his face, and he gifts me a respectful up-nod before waving for another man to join him.
A taller, wider biker with darker skin and a bald head steps into the room.
He offers me a tight, almost apologetic smile as they stretch out a thick blanket they brought across the floor and maneuver Dark onto it. He groans in agony.
“I’ve got you,” his dad whispers as he and the big guy grip the corners of the blanket, lift it off the floor, and slowly carry Dark from the room.
The moment they’re gone, Dee rushes inside.
When she sees me shaking in the corner, unharmed, she collapses onto the floor in relief.
My legs, no longer able to hold my weight, give out with hers.
I stare at my sister, at where Dark was, and back at her half a dozen times as the shock of what just happened settles into my bones.
Shaking my head, I rub both hands up and down my face. “What the fuck?”
“They came to the cabin.”
“Did they hurt you?” I ask.
Dee shakes her head.
Thank heavens for small miracles.
“I’m gonna need more than that.” I need details. How they found her. What happened when they came in. What they said. All of it.
My sister stretches her legs out in front of her and stares at the ceiling. “Cell told them.”
“And she gave them our location.”
“Yep.”
“We can’t stay here, Dee. Not after that. It’s not safe anymore.”
Her shoulders sag. “I know.”
“Ugh!” I punch the air, all keyed up and just… I don’t know. “What the actual fuck?”
“At least they didn’t try to kill us,” Dee replies with a half-cocked smirk that says she would have loved to fight them.
“You don’t know they won’t, after they get him to safety. They could send a whole fuckin’ crew to take us out.”
Dee’s nose wrinkles as she considers what I said.
Once she decides I’m overreacting, she shakes her head.
Her braid flies to the side before it settles over her shoulder.
I recognize her skepticism. She thinks I’m full of it, which I’m not.
Dee has little to no experience with the outside world.
She doesn’t interact with anyone but me unless they’re at the end of her blade.
When she orders something in town, like food, she does it with her phone to avoid as much human contact as possible.
She doesn’t know how to read people. Her entire existence revolves around slaking this need inside her.
I know people. I understand motives. We hurt that man’s son.
It doesn’t matter if he’s a Sacred Sinner who knows Cell.
She has no control over what happens to us after she ratted us out, even though she was the one who originally gave us the information.
What a shit show.
And what’s worse?
I don’t know if Dark will be okay. I don’t know what’ll come of his scars.
I don’t know anything. Dammit! It shouldn’t matter that he left.
I get that. But… for some silly reason, it matters to me.
Which is stupid. It makes zero sense, but that ache in my chest that radiates to my gut speaks without words, and I’m listening.
The sensation might be foreign, but it’s real all the same.
Rubbing my sternum, I ignore whatever’s going on inside and focus on the one thing I can do—protect my sister. “We need to pack up and leave today.”
“This is home,” she argues.
“Not anymore, it isn’t.” Not that it ever really was to me. But it is to her. I get that.
She slaps the concrete floor and glares at me. “Iris. It’s home.”
“Your home is where the opossums are. We’ll take them with us.”
“No.”
“Dee. Be reasonable.”
“I am,” she snaps.
Done with this conversation, I get up, stomp past Dee to the woods, and pass our cabin on the way to my car, where I find big tire tracks left by them.
Great.
Now they know what I drive.
Cursing the entire way to the driver’s seat, I throw the door open, plop down behind the wheel, turn on my phone, and make a call.
“I’m sorry,” Cell cries the moment the line connects.
“What did you do?”
“I told Kali.”
“His dad showed up here with a guy even bigger than him.”
“Angel. That’s Angel.”
I don’t give a damn if it was the pope. She sold us out.
“We can’t stay here, Cell. It isn’t safe.”
“They won’t hurt you.”
“You don’t know that. You can’t guarantee our safety.”
“Shit.”
“You know I’m right.”
“Yeah. I do.”
“I can take care of myself, but what about Dee? She can’t live in the city. Not full-time. She can’t stay here. She’ll end up in prison, or worse, dead.”
“Let me make a call. I think I might have a solution. Keep your phone on.”
“Fine.”
The line goes dead, and for what feels like years, I wait with the door open of my shitty car, frying in the sweltering heat, as I wait for Cell.
A million light-years later, as I’m drumming my fingers on the steering wheel, her call vibrates in my lap.
“Yes?” I answer with a growl.
“I’m sending you an address.”
“To where?”
“A sister of mine lives in an old, rundown town that they’re converting into a safe haven for women. Dee will be welcome there. She’ll be safe.”
“How? She needs to kill. It doesn’t matter if it’s a nice, kumbaya place if she can’t…”
“That won’t be a problem.”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive. They’ll be expecting you.”
The moment Cell disconnects the call, an address in Illinois to a town called Kings Cursed stares up at me from the screen.
Great. It’s road trip time. But first, convincing my sister that this rando place we’ve never heard of is what’s best for her is not gonna go over well.
That, and I don’t even know if I believe it’s what’s best for her, given this is new to me, too.
Then again, apart from today, Cell hasn’t steered us wrong.
What’s the worst that could happen? We check out this town and decide it’s not for us. No harm, no foul.
Or that’s what I’m going with because in no world do I wanna think that our old friend would have us driving to our death.
No matter what… We can’t stay here. Not only is it unsafe, but it’s also a dump.
Dee deserves better. She’s always deserved better.
But Dad never let her have it. Now that he’s gone and I have an excuse to make her leave, I’m gonna take it.
Sunshine may not hold a grudge over what happened to his son, but I can’t trust that any more than I can trust the weather.
What I can do is use this rare, messed-up gift to get my sister far away from our past and hopefully into a real shower, for once.
Wish me luck.
I’m gonna need it.