Chapter 2 Wren
WREN
Iwondered when he would ask, but I find myself no better prepared to answer.
Because the answer isn’t simple.
“Because King decided it was the safest place for me to be,” I say, in the hope that the mention of his national president’s name will stop the questions.
Catfish rolls his eyes at the obvious deflection. “No, what happened to you that King decided this was the safest place to be?”
From the outside, one might be mistaken for assuming the New Jersey Outlaws and the Colorado Outlaws are the same. Rough men in an overwhelming amount of denim and leather surrounded by the scent of motor oil, coffee, and whiskey. But that’s where the similarities end.
From the time I spent in the clubhouse when I arrived yesterday, where Grudge sounded a bit like a toddler who just learned a new word, over-pronouncing and over-emphasizing the them and they, I learned a few things.
The camaraderie and trust are different here. Even from the short interactions I’ve had since I arrived, I’ve felt it in the air. Like they have the fabric and thread but haven’t quite figured out how to make an outfit.
It does little to ease the crushing pressure welding my ribs together.
And tells me little about who I can trust.
My skills make me feel like a tradeable asset. Like I’m the prized pony who has to show off their mad tech skills in return for being kept safe in a location I never asked to be brought to.
Perhaps it’s a fantasy, but maybe one day, I’ll end up in the company of someone who needs absolutely nothing from me. Someone who doesn’t require anything in exchange, who doesn’t want me for what I can do.
Hell, I think my disbelief in that outcome is another reason I plan to live alone.
As I wrestle with my general distrust, I consider what to say. “There’s no answer I can give you beyond some trouble followed me to Jersey, and I needed to leave.”
He folds his arms across his chest. The guy is attractive, thick blonde curls and a jaw line that wouldn’t look out of place on the cover of Vogue magazine.
I wonder if being attractive is as big a problem for him as it is for me.
He doesn’t look the least bit frightening.
I mean, he’s a tall guy, well over six feet, but rangy.
More like a swimmer than a boxer. His shirt hugs his wide shoulders.
His face feels out of context with his Outlaws cut, with blue eyes that suggest he’s harmless.
But I learned long ago that nothing is ever as harmless as it seems.
He huffs. “That’s barely an answer at all, Wren.”
I shrug. “Yeah. Well. It’s all I’ve got.”
Catfish sighs and steps closer. “Are you okay?”
“I’m not sure what I am, to be honest.”
“I’m sorry you’ve been dragged into whatever this is.”
I glance out the window at the gray and ominous clouds. “One more thing happening to me isn’t the worst of it. I’m gonna head back to work.”
“Work?” Catfish asks.
“The money, remember? I’m finding leads. That’s why I haven’t slept.”
“You’ve been working on it without me?” he asks, raising an eyebrow. “We’re meant to be finding it together.”
Maybe he has an ulterior motive in staying involved. For all I know, he could have stolen the money and is now shitting his pants because he knows I’ll find out it was him.
Maybe he’ll attempt to kill me in my sleep.
I try to remind myself of what King took me to one side and told me on the airplane. That it was highly unlikely Catfish or Grudge had taken the money, but on the off chance I found that anyone within the club had, I was to get myself to safety and call him directly to let him know.
“Unless you’re capable of physically walking into a Tier III data center in Iceland, plugging a hardware tap into an air-gapped rack, and replaying encrypted traffic from inside their backbone with your charming personality and a wrench, this part is mine.
You want in on the missing-money hunt? Great.
But your factory setting is ‘intimidate people’ and ‘lift heavy things’.
I’m currently interrogating a botnet that thinks it’s in three countries at once, but I think I’m really close to getting some of your money back. You wanna trade?”
His eyes follow my lips as I speak. “Fine. I get you don’t trust me.
But here’s the thing: I’m all you’ve got out here.
King and my club trust me to keep you safe.
So, if you can’t trust me, you can’t trust anyone.
” His eyes scan my face, but whatever he is looking for, he doesn’t find it. “I’ll go do a patrol.”
When he puts his boots and outerwear on and finally leaves, I let myself sag against the counter as I try to tamp down on a physical response that always makes me dysphoric. One of the few natural feminine responses I struggle with.
Tears.
I swallow, run my tongue over my teeth, and bite down on the inside of my cheek. The tears sting and burn my nose.
I will not cry. But the panic is so loud in my ears that it drowns out everything else.
I don’t want to be here. I’ve been dropped into the middle of half-written stories. The drama between Lucy and her father. The club’s missing money. It’s confusing. Disorienting.
And I don’t need Catfish telling me I can’t trust anyone. That’s a lesson I’ve learned over and over.
But in New Jersey, I found a group I could.
So, I pad to my room and video call one of them.
“Dude, you look like shit,” Niro says as he props his phone on the worktop in his garage. He’s wearing a thick, fleece-lined jacket and is holding a large knife.
And the bluntness of his assessment generates a watery smile. “I think it’s fair to say the inside matches the outside right now.”
“You didn’t send me an invitation,” he says, sliding the knife back and forth over a stone to sharpen it.
“An invitation to what?”
He grins. “To your pity party.”
“Oh, fuck you.”
He studies the length of the blade for a second, then returns to sharpening. “You know what Mr. White said in Spectre?”
“You still on a James Bond villains kick?”
“I am. I find them more insightful than Bond. I mean, what did he do but accidentally fuck enough girls and almost get them killed while they helped him?”
I huff. “That’s certainly one assessment. Anyway, what did Mr. White say?”
This time when he checks the knife, he smiles at what he sees and wipes the blade with an oiled cloth. “Don’t remember the exact words, but it was something like Bond was nothing more than a kite trying to keep its shit together while flapping in a hurricane.”
“I’m the kite?”
He shrugs. “Sure acting like one. But the moral I took away from it is that you need to be the hurricane, Wren. You think I ever let anything in this life throw me around?”
I shake my head. “Definitely not.”
He rests his hands on the wooden bench and lowers himself closer to the phone. “But I used to. I’d let every single thing that happened to me throw me around and often land me on my ass. But I’ve learned, and so will you. Be the hurricane, Wren. Never the kite.”
His words hit harder than I expect. I mean, I know Niro never sugarcoats anything. And he’s the first person I’ve spoken to in twenty-four hours who hasn’t tried to extract something from me. Or maybe it’s because, right now, he feels familiar in a world that’s anything but.
Even though I get the analogy, it doesn’t feel possible.
“I don’t feel like a hurricane,” I admit quietly. “I feel like a leaf blower could knock me on my ass.”
Niro snorts. “Hurricanes don’t show up polite. They build. As the air heats, the pressure drops, and the storm gathers.”
I pick at the corner of a furling sticker on my laptop. “You’re comparing my mental state to meteorology?”
“Yes, because I’m the only evil genius who knows how to fix you.
Embrace the analogy. Air heats. Think of that as the temperature of the shit you gotta handle.
Then, pressure drops. You got that? The pressure actually fucking drops.
So, the world is getting hot, and the hurricane is like, vibing, feeling chill, because there’s less pressure.
And by doing that, it gets stronger, more powerful. Hurricanes are misunderstood.”
Despite everything, a weak and watery laugh cracks in my throat. “You’re such a donkey.”
“A donkey who cares about you.” He points the oiled knife at the camera. “Look, I don’t know what the Colorado boys dragged you into. But I know you. You don’t scare easy. You sleeping?”
I shake my head. “Not since I woke up in the middle of the night yesterday.”
“Eating?”
“My stomach feels off.”
He sighs loudly. “You gotta do the basics. Even nerds need fuel. You want that big brain of yours firing on all those illegal cylinders? Then take care of the meat-and-bones suit that carries it around.”
The lump in my throat thickens. “It’s not that easy.”
“It never is. But you pull up your pants and crack on with it. And if anyone gives you any shit…”
“They didn’t.”
“Yeah, well. If they do, just remember…you’re a fucking hurricane.”
As if to emphasize his words, the script I was running suddenly hits.
And suddenly, I’m looking at about sixty percent of the club’s stolen money.