Chapter 11 Talon’s Past
My hands won’t stop shaking.
I sit in this blood-soaked Camaro long after Lark’s chest stops rising, long after the engine dies from running too hot. Just me and her and the salt stink of the docks. My jaw’s locked so tight it feels like it’ll snap.
What the hell do I do now?
For a long time, I don’t know. Eventually, though, I’m forced to jump back into life. It’s either that, or just lie down and die. And as simple as that would be, I’m not a quitter.
So the Camaro never makes it back to her garage.
I hide it in a dead lot under the overpass, a tarp stretched over its black skin like a body bag.
Can’t bring myself to dump it, but can’t drive it either.
There’s too much of her in the wheel, the pedals, the smell of smoke and leather still caught in the upholstery.
Weeks blur. Then months. I work my usual jobs, keep my head down, and I must be lucky in my mystery, because Rey never finds out who killed his boys. Neither does Fisher. Lark’s contact runs before anyone could question him, and so I’m free to exist.
But every girl who looks at me…
All I see is the green glass of Lark’s eyes.
And just like that, time goes by.
Four years of risky jobs, fake smiles, and girls whose names I can’t be bothered to remember. They vanish like Lark did, and they’re just as forgotten by the rest of the world as she was.
The Camaro stays hidden. It’s my secret reliquary. I change its oil, swap its tires, polish it under that tarp in the dark, like I’m keeping her ghost close. But I don’t drive it. Not once.
Nobody in our crew likes winter. Wrong season for everything we do.
It’s too cold to sling at the docks, too slick on the streets for decent races, too dead in the clubs for high rollers to waste their money.
Everyone gets meaner in the cold. Jobs get sloppy, tempers snap quicker. Girls show less skin.
Overall? What a fucking waste of time.
But the show has to go on, doesn’t it? Rent won’t pay itself, and Fisher’s been riding us hard to bring in cash. We’re running shittier hustles just to scrape by.
My job today? Hit a bar bordering Rey’s territory and “make friends.”
Which is Fisher’s code for leaning on a dealer who’s been ducking payments.
Yup. Gotta rough up some kid today like it’s the highlight of my goddamn week.
I’ve stooped this low.
But I still gotta eat, so too fucking bad.
The bar’s half-dead when I walk in. Sticky floors. Busted neon. A jukebox coughing out some country song. Shabby place, like all of them.
Thankfully, the dealer’s easy to spot. Skinny kid in a hoodie two sizes too big, hunched in a booth like the world’s already pressed him flat. And, shocker, there’s a girl on his arm.
Yeah. Literal arm candy.
Blonde, big tits, and a laugh built to reel him in.
She’s flirting, and not the discreet kind. Fingers crawling up his sleeve like she’s trying to climb inside him, lips brushing his ear with every fake laugh. The kid’s eating it up. His eyes are glassy, smile stupid, hands fidgeting like he doesn’t know where to park them.
I mean… who am I to ruin that for him, right?
I grab a stool at the bar, order a beer, and watch.
My beating won’t escape him, but a girl like that might.
“Teenagers, am I right?” someone says near my elbow.
Low voice. Smooth. Pretty.
I turn.
She’s leaning on the counter, wiping a glass with a rag. Dark hair twisted into a messy knot, sleeves rolled up, a faded band tee clinging to her curves. There’s a pale scar along her wrist and a couple of rings glinting on her fingers.
She quirks a brow when I don’t answer right away. “You here for the show, or just the cheap beer?”
Her nametag says Rhea.
Huh. Pretty sure the bartender was a guy last time.
“Why don’t you tell me, sweet pea?” I say finally, dragging my gaze to her face. It’s just as pretty as her voice. “Heard bartenders read people better than anyone.”
I flash my best practiced smile. As a teenager, I thought I had it figured out. Now I’m the devil himself. They could burn me alive, and I’d still make them believe it tickles.
Rhea’s lips twitch.
“Listen, I don’t mean to be rude...” She slides the glass across the counter, foam cresting shy of the rim. “But we don’t want trouble here. It’s hard to find a peaceful place in this town. I just want to get through the night, alright?”
Oh, is this the please-leave-us-alone talk?
Straight off the bat, huh.
“Come on, you make it sound like I’m trouble,” I say, lifting the beer to my lips. The foam clings to my upper lip. I let it linger for just a moment, make sure her eyes catch on it, then dart my tongue out to wipe it away. Slowly. Oh, ever so slowly.
Let the girl feast her eyes a bit.
Her rag stills against the glass.
A crimson blush creeps up her throat—fast, wide, blooming across her cheeks and ears and, hell, probably her tits under that bartender shirt.
Oh, she’s definitely new here. No local girl would get her panties in a twist that quick.
She clears her throat, snapping herself out of it. “Aren’t you?”
“Hm. Maybe,” I purr. “To girls like you, though? Only in the sheets.”
She sets the glass down hard enough that the rim cracks against the bar.
“Oh, shit.” Her eyes widen at the chipped edge. The blush deepens, like she’s been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. “Sorry. That one’s on the house. I’ll grab you another.”
She whirls away before I can answer, vanishing toward the back sink. I watch the sway of her hips. The way she moves too quick, like she’s running from her own embarrassment.
Cute.
By the time she comes back, she’s composed again, fresh pint in hand. She sets it down in front of me with just the slightest tremor in her fingers.
“Here,” she says. “Let me clean this up.”
I laugh low, quiet. Watch her work. She drags her gaze back to me between each movement.
“Jumpy much?” I tease.
Her mouth parts, but no words come out. That blush returns, hotter this time. I watch her fight it, watch her try to keep that bartender composure. I lean in just enough that she can smell the cigarette smoke on my jacket and the motor oil on my hands.
Someone once called it a bad-boy smell. I’ve been using it ever since. You never know what tiny thing girls will decide is sexy, but they’ll always find something.
You just tick off as many tiny things as you can think of and reel them in.
Her fingers tighten around the bar’s edge. She’s fighting a smile now, eyes locked on mine like she’s afraid to blink.
What is she, some small-town good girl who wandered into the wrong part of the world?
Can’t help it. Gets me interested.
I look like a fox, and I guess I grew into the part. You see a blushing girl, what else are you gonna do but bite?
“Don’t worry.” I let my voice drop, soft, just for her. “Didn’t come here to cause trouble. Not unless you ask for it.”
Ah, the way she bats her lashes… It makes me want to lean across the bar and see how red I can make those cheeks get.
“What’s your name?” she asks.
“Talon.”
“Pretty name. Sounds a bit edgy.”
“Yeah, well. I have claws sometimes.”
She laughs. It’s not even that funny, but she laughs.
“Where are you from, Rhea?” I ask, rolling her name slow on my tongue.
“Here and there,” she says. “I was in school a while back. Nursing. Didn’t work out. What gave away that I'm not from here?”
“Want me to be honest?”
Her brow furrows, but there’s a spark behind it. “Yeah. Might be good to know what to mask next time.”
I take a sip, let the pause hang.
“Don’t know if you could mask something like that.”
“What is it?” she asks.
“The light in your eyes.”
I say it like I’m guessing, but I’m not.
She’s not hollow. She’s got this glow, like she’s made half out of sunlight.
The longer we talk, the more I see it, and fuck…
I guess I’m some back-alley plant that clawed its way up through sewage, because when that light hits me, all I want to do is bask in it.
Or at least inhale it in.
“That’s poetic,” she says. “And extremely vague.”
“I guess I’m a vague guy.”
“I don’t like vague guys.”
“Well, let me be anything but, then.”
She laughs again. Even warmer this time.
I shouldn’t be doing this.
I came here for that kid I nearly forgot existed, had a saintly moment letting him flirt with the skanky blonde instead of dragging him out by the hoodie and cracking his teeth against the jukebox.
But here I am, leaning in toward this bartender like I’m some clean-cut college boy trying to impress his date instead of a Fisher dog with blood still under his nails.
Come on, Talon. Curiosity’s one thing. Stupidity’s another. That’s enough.
But then Rhea tilts her head, studying me with some slow, curious patience, and it makes my skin crawl in a way I don’t hate. Most girls? They’re all in a rush to get drinks, or to get laid, or to get whatever they came for. She’s not.
A stranger glancing into my soul. Just for a second or two.
Am I losing my mind? I must be. Because why the hell is that enough to completely fuck me over?
Look at me: gang member, murderer, thief, criminal through and through, and I’m sitting here letting a girl with soft eyes mess with me.
“You can shapeshift like that?” she asks. “Think you could hide your true nature from me?”
For a second I lose the thread of our conversation. My mind spirals; I see Lark’s green-glass eyes, hear her laugh smashing into the waves the night before it all went to shit. My throat clamps shut and I forget to breathe.
But then, I smirk, because that’s what I always do.
“I don’t know. You tell me,” I murmur. “Could you read me?”
She studies me, the blush still there. “I think,” she says slowly, “that you’re a really dangerous man. When you came in, you were watching that kid in the booth like you were just waiting to hurt him. Are you talking to me so he lowers his guard?”
I glance at the drug dealer. Frankly, his guard is already low enough. Blondie’s got that covered.
“Ah. Well, I’m working,” I say. “Part of the job description.”