Chapter 16 Talon’s Past #2
Fisher is waiting near one of the old forklifts, sleeves rolled to the elbow, ledger balanced in his hand like it’s more sacred than any of us.
There’s a gun tucked behind his belt, half-swallowed by the plump swell of his stomach.
Out of all the men here, his hands are always the cleanest. At least, literally.
I sweep the room. Most of the boys are already gathered—shoulders stiff, jaws tight, some of them wearing the kind of under-eye bruising that comes from a night spent waiting for fallout. A few flick quick eyes toward me, then drop them again.
“Hey,” I say.
Fisher looks up from his ledger and meets my gaze flatly.
“Where have you been? Baker said you weren’t home last night.”
“Out,” I answer, clipped. “You need me for something, or you just here to check my bedtime?”
A small shift moves through the room. He’s not used to me talking back, and neither are the guys. I don’t mean to pick a fight with him, but I already know where this is going, and I don’t feel like choking down the preamble he usually uses to put people back in their place.
“You started a fight with Rey’s men last evening.” He slaps the ledger shut.
I don’t bother denying it. Seems like everyone knows. Even Baker. He’s been asking questions just to toy with me.
“They came at me first,” I say. “Purposefully. They started shit at the border.”
Fisher’s eyes narrow. He doesn’t answer.
“You know they’ve been doing it lately.” Still nothing.
I lick my lips and glance around. These are boys I’ve known my whole damn life, but they won’t believe a word unless I bleed in front of them.
“Fine.”
I unzip my jacket. The wet fabric clings to my shirt, the bandage underneath seeping dark through the cotton. I peel it back just enough.
“See this?” I rasp. “Three against one. Somehow I’m the only one who walked away needing stitches. You think I’d pick those odds?”
Fisher’s gaze drops to the bandage, then back up to my face. His expression doesn’t change but if he thought I was lying, I’d see it.
“What made it?” he asks finally.
“A gun.”
A low whistle. Someone spits. A few curses under breath.
“Fucking scumbags…” Fisher mutters, setting the ledger aside and dragging a hand across his face. “Why didn’t you come straight to us?”
There it is. The question that hits dead-center.
And the truth burns immediately up my throat:
Because I was bleeding out, barely standing, and there was somebody warm for once.
I’d choose Rhea ten times over this crew.
But I can’t say that.
“Came as fast as I could,” I lie, and the slide back into performance is instinctive. “You know me. If I could bleed out on your precious dock for dramatic effect, I’d do it. Nothing like having a couple of guys hold me down while I decorate your boots with my insides.”
Baker snorts. A few of the boys crack smiles. Fisher’s hand pauses, then he huffs a laugh too. Tension evaporates just enough.
“You’re lucky you’re still breathing,” he says.
“I make my own luck.”
“Maybe,” Fisher says, eyes cutting to mine, “But there will be no next time. We’re gonna retaliate. No Rey’s scum will hurt my boys, you hear me? This could have been any of us.”
Well, sure. In theory it could’ve been any of us. If we spent our days standing at the border doing nothing but waiting to get picked off. But most of us don’t. Most of us push the odds back when the enemy thinks they can roll through.
I didn’t.
I grin anyway. “Sure as hell, boss. This shit really hurt. Would like to give back the favor.”
“Damn right.” He jerks his chin at Baker. “Load up. We’re sending a message.”
My stomach knots. Just a small, disagreeable twist that doesn’t show on my face. Baker nods and walks over; he claps me on the back like we’re best mates even as my ribs scream in protest.
“Told ya it was urgent,” he smirks as he passes.
I swallow the ache and tuck it down under the show. If I let it take me, I won’t move fast enough. Three trucks roll off the dock; tires scream against the wet concrete. I ride shotgun, Baker at the wheel, a couple of kids packed in the back like someone’s idea of a war party.
Fisher keeps it simple, in his way. Rey’s boys have a drop near the east warehouses. It’s crates from who-knows-where, stacked one upon the other. We torch the lot and kill anyone who opens their mouths.
We park two streets away. Rain starts in earnest, slicing the night into hard, tinny sounds. The pavement goes slick, puddles blooming where the light hits. Any sane planner pulls out and waits for another day.
But Fisher’s not a planner.
He thinks that messages have to land hard and fast, he says, or they’re bullshit.
Baker kills the engine. We climb out.
I roll my shoulders, ignoring the sting in my stitches. Rhea’s face flashes.
She said: I don’t want men like you, plural. Just you.
Am I not both? Am I not myself, the version she wants to save, and a man like myself? I am a gang member. I am both honest and counterfeit in the same breath. The two are constantly fighting for which version takes up the room.
We rush the warehouse. Chains snick as they cut, a padlock clattering to the floor with the satisfaction of a nail being driven home. Crates topple. Gasoline puddles like oil-slick skin along stacked wood. Fire takes what it wants.
It’s quick and effortless, until some kid bursts out from the front.
He’s barely eighteen, maybe younger.
Still, he has a gun gripped white-knuckle tight, voice cracking as he shouts.
Baker’s faster.
One shot.
Red bursts over the wall like paint slapped across canvas. The kid folds in half mid-stride, as if someone cut the strings holding him up.
Another one bolts from the back door.
I catch him. My knife slides between ribs, twist, pull. His breath leaves in a wet gasp against my throat. The heat of him spills down my forearm as he clings for a second, then dies against me.
When it’s all over, the place is burning, and Fisher claps me on the shoulder on the way out—approval, pride, whatever he thinks passes for camaraderie—and I nod like it means something.
But even before his hand falls away, I’m already moving.
I tell myself I’m heading home.
I tell my feet to turn toward my own damn door.
They don’t.
I go to Rhea’s.
Even though I tell myself, over and over, a dozen times, that I shouldn’t.
The problem is, I don’t know which outcome I’m chasing:
Whether I want her to see the blood on my hands and finally be afraid of me,
or to pull me inside and patch me back together again.