16. Garret
GARRET
Sara had the first aid kit open on the table before I'd even settled into the chair. She pulled out a handful of gauze and pressed it against the cut above my eyebrow, and her other hand went to the back of my head to hold me steady.
"Don't move," she said, brow furrowed in concentration. "This is deep."
"It's not that bad," I told her, craning my neck to avoid her touch, but she held me still by a handful of hair.
"You're bleeding all over my mother's table, Garret. It's that bad." She peeled the gauze back and looked at the cut and her face screwed up tighter. "What happened?"
"Locust jumped me in the parking lot across the street," I told her, though I wouldn't let on that it was payback from the other night. She'd just lecture me, and after that warning Lightning gave me he'd see it and lay into me.
"Just one?" She dabbed at the edge of the cut with a clean corner of gauze, but the look on her face told me she didn’t believe me.
It was a little embarrassing that only one of them got me this bad.
If I was the blushing type my cheeks would've been burning.
"He got lucky with the first shot and caught me while I was getting off my bike.
After that it was pretty one-sided." I winced when she pressed harder. "In my favor, before you ask."
She pressed a fresh piece of gauze against the cut and held it there with firm pressure. But she wouldn't look me in the eye. Her focus stayed locked on the gauze and the blood but every few seconds her gaze flicked toward the back booth where Lightning and the others were seated.
I knew just how she felt. If I'd have known they would be here I'd never have come up, but once I got parked and saw their bikes it was too late.
The guy was on me so fast I couldn't stop him.
I came in here to get a rag or something for my bleeding and this happened.
Lightning was gonna kill me, and it wasn't even my fault.
"Hold this," she said, and guided my hand up to the gauze so I could keep pressure on it myself. Then she turned and walked behind the counter and poured two fingers of bourbon into a glass and brought it back and set it in front of me. "Drink that. I need to clean your knuckles."
"Yes ma'am," I said, chuckling. I took a sip and the bourbon hit the split on the inside of my lip and burned all the way down.
Sara took my free hand and turned it over, examining the damage across my knuckles where the skin had broken open thanks to the Locust's teeth.
She started dabbing at the splits with a cotton ball soaked in peroxide, working across each cut until the blood was gone and the fingers were bandaged.
It really wasn't necessary at all, but if I pushed her away rudely what would she think?
Things between us weren't exactly ironed out, and after that chat with Lightning I didn't know what to think. He wanted me away from her. I wanted to protect her, and I didn't know what she wanted.
"You need to ice these tonight or they'll swell up twice this size by morning," she said without looking up. She picked up all the bandage scraps, wadding them in her fist before putting the lid on the peroxide and stowing it away in the first-aid kit.
"I've had a lot of fights, Sara. I've had way worse than this," I said.
"That doesn't mean you shouldn't take care of it." She turned my hand over and checked my palm, then set it down and reached for the other one. "Give me this one too."
I switched the gauze to my left hand and gave her the right.
This one was worse. The middle knuckle had a flap of skin hanging loose and the ring finger was already black and blue at the joint.
She cleaned it carefully, pressing the cotton ball into the creases between my fingers where dried blood had settled, and I watched her work.
When Lightning walked over and stood by her she seemed to shrink.
Her head ducked down farther, and her bottom lip worried itself between her teeth.
It didn't seem like the appropriate response for Sara to have if something was going on between the two of them, especially if he'd already staked a claim to her, which disgusted me.
But he acted normal, not at all cautious of her or angry at me for being around her.
"What the hell happened to you?" he asked.
"Locust caught me in the lot," I told him. "Sucker punched me while I was dismounting."
"Which one?" He crossed his arms over his chest and his biceps flexed hard.
"Didn't get his name," I said. "Young guy, skinny, had a scar across his chin."
"I know who that is." Lightning's jaw clenched, making the muscle under his beard push out. "We'll deal with it."
"I already dealt with it," I told him, scowling up at him past Sara. Now her skin was pale, like the color drained right out of her face. I couldn't tell for sure, but it appeared like she was scared of him. Watching the way she was acting made me wonder what the hell was going on.
"We'll deal with it properly. At the club level.
" He looked down at Sara, who had her head down and was still working on my knuckles, and his stare lingered there long enough to make the back of my neck prickle.
"You about done playing nurse?" Whatever was going on it wasn't what I thought.
But that didn't mean I planned to listen to him for a single second.
Sara's hand tightened around my wrist for a split second before she let go. "I'm just cleaning him up, Tony."
"He's a big boy. He can clean himself up," he growled. Then he flicked some of the stray bandage wrappers onto the floor and scowled at her.
"He's bleeding in my mother's diner," she told him. "I'd rather get it handled so I don't have to mop up in the middle of the rush."
Lightning's nostrils flared but he didn't push it further. He turned and stomped toward the bathroom at the back of the restaurant, and the tension didn't leave Sara's shoulders until the bathroom door swung shut behind him.
She sighed and her shoulders dropped about two inches. Then she picked up the peroxide and capped it, keeping her hands busy, and I could see a fine tremor running through her fingers that she was trying to hide.
I leaned forward across the table and kept my voice low. "You okay?" I asked, and her eyes flicked toward the bathroom where Lightning had gone.
"I'm fine, okay? Just doing my job."
But I could tell she wasn't fine at all. Something was going on. If Lightning was trying to control her, or push her into something—I'd kill him. I wouldn't even hesitate. "I want to talk to you, okay?"
Her eyes went wide and she shook her head slightly. "Garret, I don't think?—"
"About us… Please"
She grimaced and looked again down the back hallway toward the men's restroom. "Where?"
"My place." I kept my voice low enough that nobody at the back booth could hear. "Come alone and don't tell anyone. Can you do that?"
I could see her worrying about what it would mean.
Chances were if he warned me off, he'd done the same to her for some reason, but whatever it was, I knew our history was strong enough to convince her meeting with me was safe.
Her lips parted and closed and parted again, and she glanced toward the bathroom door.
"Okay," she whispered. "Okay, I'll be there."
"Thank you," I said.
She gathered the bloody gauze and the cotton balls and closed the first aid kit and picked it all up just as Lightning came back from the bathroom. He looked at the clean table and then at Sara walking away with the kit and seemed satisfied that she was done touching me.
He dropped into the seat across from me and leaned over the table at me menacingly, scowling like I should be afraid of him.
"You got a problem?" I asked as I set the bourbon down. I wasn't hoping for a fight, but I wasn't going to back away from one. I couldn’t help that she noticed me bleeding and ran over to help. It was human decency, something this loser had no shred of in his entire being.
"The problem is I told you to stay away from her," he said.
"And I told you that what I do on my own time isn't club business.
" I pulled the gauze from my eyebrow and tossed it onto the table between us as I finished my bourbon.
"Getting sucker punched in a parking lot wasn't exactly on my schedule tonight.
She happened to be working when I walked in.
Would you rather I'd bled out on the sidewalk? "
"Don't be dramatic," he said.
"Then don't be a prick," I told him. "If you can't let a man get the blood wiped off his face without turning it into a power play, why would I want to be around you at all?"
Lightning's eyes narrowed and his hands curled into fists. For a second I thought he was going to come across the table at me, and part of me hoped he would. I bet I could take him in a fight easy, even with my hip screwed up.
But he didn't. He sat there glaring at me with his nostrils flared and his eyes locked on me like a predator watching prey. "You're on thin ice, Crank," he said.
"I've been on thin ice since I patched in," I told him. "You've had it in for me since I was a prospect. Why don't you tell me something new?" God I wished I had another glass of bourbon.
He held my stare for a beat, then shifted in his chair and leaned back.
The anger didn't leave his face but he controlled it. It was like he was trying to decide what to do with someone who could kick his ass and had zero respect for him. I didn’t know why Fox elevated him so high and I hated it.
The man had no business being in charge.
"Tell me about the one who jumped you," he grumbled, pretending we didn't just almost throw punches. I thought about it for a few minutes trying to gauge his intent and then just caved and told him what happened.
"I told you, it was some young guy… He said we shoulda never chased them off.
The prick's lucky I didn't snap his neck.
" I stared at the bourbon glass and thought about how I needed to stay sober tonight, as hard as that would be after years of drinking.
But I had to talk to Sara, and she deserved me at my best. Not wasted.
"And he said it was payback for the grain elevator?" Lightning picked at a scratch on the table with his thumbnail.
"He didn't have to say it specifically, right?
That's how these things work." I picked up the bourbon glass and spun it in my fingers, trying to force the craving to have more down.
"He said the Locusts had nothing to do with Mandy's murder.
" I set the glass down and studied him. For years we'd been fighting these losers from a town over all because someone said they suspected a Locust as Mandy's killer and Fox won't come off it. "What do you think?"
Lightning's face contorted into disgust and then contempt. "Of course he had reason to lie," he said, "he was trying to save his own ass."
"Maybe. But he also said if we don't lay off and stay out of their business, they're gonna burn down the Anvil." I held his stare. "And he didn't sound like he was bluffing."
Lightning went still but his expression darkened. The Anvil was more than a bar to the Gravehounds. It was headquarters, meeting place, and home base all wrapped into one building. Losing it would gut the club's presence in Grove Hill.
"They wouldn't dare," he said, almost deathly quiet. He glanced around the diner then to Butch and Rusty, and back to me.
"That's what he told me, word for word," I said. "He said they'll torch it and everything inside if we don't back down."
He leaned forward, pressing the pointer finger on his right hand into the table between us. "Then it's time to stop playing defense."
"Meaning what?" I asked. If I had my druthers, I'd have ended this dumb feud years ago.
We kept beating the hell out of each other over something no one had proof about.
Now we were at the point where they were threatening church, and it would mean more than just busted knuckles. Someone could die over this.
"Meaning we go on the offensive. We organize something big enough to draw their president out into the open." He jabbed his finger against the table harder, then tapped a few times. "If he's the one who ordered the hit on Mandy, we force his hand and make him answer for it."
"And how exactly do we do that?" I scoffed but didn't tell him how stupid that sounded. Attacking their president was the dumbest move. It would assure retaliation happened. "We don't need a war."
"It's been a war since Mandy died," he fired back. "We've just been too cautious to fight it." He sat back and crossed his arms. "All we need is Fox's blessing. I'll handle that."
"Fox isn't gonna sign off on an all-out assault without proof," I said.
"Fox is grieving his wife and he wants blood. He'll sign off on whatever I tell him to." Lightning stood up from the table and jerked his cut straight. "Get yourself cleaned up and get some rest, Crank. When this thing kicks off, I need you ready."
I hated the way he spat my name like an insult but I was glad he walked away.
The man was an idiot, pushing to keep this feud going when every club member I spoke to knew it was risky and stupid.
If we all stood up to him he'd have no choice but to back down.
The problem was we'd all taken an oath to respect the chain of command, and ever since Fox put Lightning at the top, we'd had problems.
The glass in front of me called to me, beckoning me to fill it and drink, but I pushed it away and stood. I needed some air to clear my head. I walked past the register, nodding at the waitress there and hoping to see Sara before I left, but she was hiding and I didn't blame her.
Tonight, I hoped to get to the bottom of why she was acting so weird, and I had only one intention.
My personal life was mine and Lightning couldn’t give me orders over who I slept with.
If for no other reason than to tick him off, I wanted to see Sara tonight.
And I had every intention of seeing how she felt about all of this.
I'd spent way too long on this yoyo trying to decide where I stood. Maybe her thoughts would help me pick a side and stay there.