Chapter Twelve
Blaze
May was snorting like he’d just done a line of something. His chest was violently heaving.
“What the fuck?” I was speed walking to keep up with him as we shot across the yard. When we reached the shed, I heard a commotion behind us like someone had tried to toss a cat in a tub of water, but much louder.
May held his ribs and cackled while snatching at my arm.
“... Come… On,” he managed, despite his tears. “He’s awake already. Man, you got balls. Legendary balls. Either that or you’re a supersized dumbass!”
He cackled like some granny at a bingo hall. I couldn’t help it, the sound grated me so badly, I shot my arm out and whacked him in the stomach with a full-forced back hand.
He violently coughed, but it didn’t disperse his laughter any.
“You’re worse than my sister. Are you fuckin’ giggling’ right now?” I glared back at him while following him down the driveway. “Man, I got a whole fuckin’ bike, back there.”
“Might be… But you ‘bout to have half an ass if we don’t get some pep in your step.” He laughed and grabbed my arm, tugging me down the road even as I whacked at him.
“May, what the fuck?”
“Dude,” he whispered, his voice oozing with admiration.
I realized his eyes were hauntingly similar to Mak’s. He licked his lips and glanced back at Mak’s bike.
“Someday…” he whispered.
“What?” I squinted, not following.
He looked at me and a chill ran down my spine. I opened my mouth, but something inside me snatched the question away before I could formulate it.
He laughed and tapped my arm, cutting down a side alley. The further we got from the house; the noisier things became. Not overbearingly so. It was a small town, but there was a tune drifting from the distance. The humming of a crowd.
“Ah shit! The fair is on.” May reached to whack my arm again, but I froze, letting him step forward and slap at the air.
“Bastard.” I scoffed when he looked back to check on me.
He sighed, still amused, but at least he contained his fucking giggles.
“You don’t think he’s gonna hurt her, do ya?” I paused again and glanced back at the direction we’d come from.
“Huh? No! That’s her dad.”
“Yeah.” I huffed. “He was her dad a few minutes ago when he was waving that gun at me with her right there…”
“Listen. That girl is well protected, okay? She’s had all of one prior relationship under her belt. They dated from her freshman year until a few weeks after graduation. He was controlling, and he smacked her a few times. When she graduated, she wanted to go to college, and he said no. When she sent the application, he sent a video of her going down on him to social media.”
“Yeah?” I couldn’t keep the growl out of my voice. “Where the fuck is the asshole now?”
May swallowed a laugh, and his eyes lit up, “Well, he ain’t fuckin’ in jail. That’s for sure! Buddy left the state without his thumbs.”
When I gave him an odd side glance, he cackled.
“Mother fucker won’t be pressing the send button any time soon, ya dig?” May held his hands upin front of his torso, cupping air like he was clutching a cell phone and texting away.
“Makaveli took his thumbs?” I somehow was impressed by this; I didn’t think him capable of such fatherly energy.
“No. Her brother did.” May grinned.
I snorted, losing all interest. “That… makes sense.”
Mackie was a maniac. If I had to put money on him or his ol’ man in a street fight, I’d bank on Mackie.
“I guess.” May shrugged, before slapping my arm and pointing. He raised his finger to his lips in a plea for silence. I rolled my eyes, having noted the two girls walking a block ahead of us.
“Whatever, I gotta piss,” I announced, stepping into a part of the alley that indented, creating a corner of privacy that I had every intention of taking advantage of.
May kept walking, I didn’t see him reach the girls, but I sure heard it.
“What the fuck!” I recognized the shrill sound of Lucia’s voice the minute it blessed the air, despite the distance May had to jog to catch up with them.
The groan it produced came straight from my soul. I didn’t know anything about her, but the girl grated my last nerve without effort. I hadn’t even noticed it was her when he’d first pointed the pair out.
I was midstream with a handful of dick, when I felt breath against the back of my neck, I flinched and saw a hand reaching around to help me. It wasn’t until after I damn near slapped it out of socket, that I noticed the flirty pink nails.
“What’s wrong with you?” I barked, even before I could get everything put away and confront the stranger. Once I did, I found a chick holding her wrist with an expression of pained disbelief in her big, hazel eyes. They were lined in black and smoked like she had an evening affair to get to. Her eyebrows weren’t natural, but I’d never seen a pair so symmetrical in my life. Her roots were dark like Lucia, but the rest of her long hair was bleached to a caramel-blonde color.
“What the fuck is wrong with you? You’re the one scared of a little coochie.” She gave a provocative laugh and flashed a smile that revealed a wide mouthful of perfectly straight pearly whites. They probably weren’t that white, but her dark lipstick made it seem so. The shade was so red it was almost brown.
May and Lucia joined us just as I finished zipping up.
“One is putting their dick away and the other is injured.” May narrated for his cousin, as if she didn’t have eyes of her own.
“I know.” Lucia pouted, “We missed it.”
“Yeah… no.” I shook my head and stormed past the three of them.
“Nakarii didn’t mean anything by it. She’s just too bold for her own good sometimes.” Lucia sprinted after me.
“Fuck,” I cursed under my breath, setting my jaw.
I already regretted leaving the house. Why the fuck hadn’t I just gone out to the garage until Makaveli left? I closed my eyes and took a deep breath as steps fell into place behind me and those same pink nails curled around my shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” Nakarii purred, batting her fake eyelashes.
“Knock it off before you take flight,” I growled, shrugging her hand off my shoulder.
May laughed so hard he snorted, and Lucia self-consciously fussed with her own lengthy lashes. Nakarii paused to shoot Lucia a glare and then returned to my heel.
“I thought you said these were Steel legacies. These aren’t nothing but chest-thumping boys, who are too afraid of a little ass to reach out and take what they wan–”
A vicious crack sounded so violently behind me that I whirled to investigate. Just as I did so, Nakarii shrieked and flew forward in an effort to get away from May, who was currently making waist high grabby hands in her direction. She collided with my chest, even as she was craning to look back at May. Her palms clapped against my shirt, shoving me away, like it was somehow my idea for her to leap into my arms to begin with. In her effort to do so, she clawed the hell out of my chest, and all I could do was hiss in her painted face.
“Fuck both of you,” she rattled, before snaking her hand up and clipping my cheek. It wasn’t anywhere near as soundly as the slap May had connected with her ass, but I wasn’t expecting the pain that sharply erupted and spread over the left side of my face.
“Bitch,” I lurched forward like I meant to return the favor, and she scrambled, landing on her ass at May’s feet.
He didn’t slow his pace, but he did reach down and tangle his hand in her hair, jerking her to her feet with a swiftness that left me gasping.
“Hey,” I barked, unsure of what the fuck was going on. “What the hell is with you three?”
“She needs to learn a lesson.” May said, his voice crisp and cool.
That same little chill I got when he spoke about Mak’s bike started to tingle up my spine and the tiny hairs on my arms felt charged. I’d wouldn’t have been surprised if they were standing on end.
“That’s a girl, May.”
“As she’s pointed out,” he agreed, trying to walk past me with his fist still in Nakarii’s hair.
“May, that’s enough.” I slapped his wrist, grabbing onto it rather than letting the blow slide past naturally.
“Fuck off,” he growled, shoving at me.
Nakarii didn’t wait for permission, the girl sprinted down the alley, with Lucia on her heel.
“I swear to fuck, I’m not one of those little girls, Mayhem. I’ll rock your shit, bud…” I warned him.
“Don’t ever check me in front of pussy like that again.” May’s finger didn’t jab into my chest, but he extended it, so it lay against my shirt.
“You just let me know how far you want to take this. You don’t have any brakes, mother fucker, and I don’t back up, know that–”
The smile lit up in his eyes and he dusted my shoulder almost affectionately, before starting down the alley “Watch your fuckin’ mouth. Shit ain’t goin’ anywhere. We’re family. Fuck them whores.”
He slowed his pace and looked back, making it obvious he still thought we were good.
I squinted for a solid five seconds before I finally shook my head and shifted into motion. I wasn’t sure what was going through his mind. Maybe he was still off kilter because of what Mak had been saying in the cell.
“You know that shit Mak said–”
“Fuck Makaveli Miller.” He clipped, clearing his throat in an abrasive, dismissive fashion.
“May, he didn’t know what he was talking a–”
“He never does. Every time he flops his gums it’s like a boil festering over. The stuff that pours out– It’s the nastiest shit imaginable most days, and it infects everything it comes into contact with.”
I wrinkled my nose at his description, but I really couldn’t argue about it, the boy was preaching some truth.
“I never looked at it like that, but you ain’t wrong,” I finally admitted.
“Mm? I know I ain’t.” He laughed, shooting me a wink.
It was bizarre. The manic edge evaporated, and it was like another person had made the sound.
“You know how to treat boils, Blaze?” he whispered.
I tilted my head. He’d said it so low I had to strain to hear it, but when I didn’t, I was afraid to meet his gaze. Those fucking tingles broke out again and I did a shoulder dance.
“Knock it off, fucker.” I laughed, trying to convince myself that all his homicidal humor was really comedy and not something more.
If it was flippant, it might not have been so concerning, but it had been aimed at Makaveli every time it appeared. His demeanor changed. His eyes–
My mother smothered, it was true, but she also educated those she raised. She passed on little tidbits of her knowledge as a federal agent. I didn’t understand all her babble and profiling shit, but I knew the eyes were important.
I knew it wasn’t good when pupils blew, whether it was due to drugs or… Whatever the fuck it was she always warned Karlotti about.
“I need a drink.” I sighed, suddenly wishing I had a phone.
I wasn’t ready to sit down with my mother and Oak, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to mingle with May until I ended up in a cage again, either.
“We can probably get somebody to buy us a twelve pack,” May suggested, prompting me to stare at him.
“What?” he quietly asked, before giving a crazy look around like he thought someone had overheard him.
“I’m fucking twenty- three, dumbass. I don’t need anyone to buy booze for me.”
“Oh.” He grinned and nodded. “Right.”