Chapter 15 #2
She moved into line, and her attention snagged on the snacks set up near the register.
Her interest piqued. All cute as her face lit up as she spied what she was looking for.
Gummy worms.
She grabbed a bag.
“Those are disgusting.” I grunted it under my breath.
“You’re disgusting,” she shot back.
Touché.
She wasn’t wrong.
Then she grabbed three packages of Peanut M&Ms and a bag of barbecue potato chips like she was stockpiling for the apocalypse.
“What? Lulu’s food isn’t good enough for you?”
Her glance at me was exaggerated. “Like I’m ever going to be able to show my face in front of Lulu or Elena again. I can only imagine what they thought when I went running out the door last night.”
Apparently, I wasn’t a quick learner because I couldn’t help but edge closer.
Mouth not quite hitting the shell of her ear as I murmured, “Never be ashamed of fighting, Brinley. In this world, we do what we need to in order to survive. You were just fighting the wrong person.”
Energy blasted from her.
That fine line between hate and desire tossing her into uncertainty.
Unfortunately, right then, that hate didn’t seem so severe.
I hesitated then added, “Elena was worried about you this morning.”
“How you have people who are so sweet related to you, I have no idea.” There was no fire behind it. It almost sounded like a tease.
I grunted as Elena and Kai’s faces traipsed through my mind.
Barbs of loyalty speared through my consciousness.
“At the end of it all, my family is the only thing that matters.”
“The club?” she asked, her head tilting to the side.
“Sure, they’re a part of that. My family. But my blood? They’re the reason I’m in this life. So I can take care of them.”
Fuck.
She didn’t even ask me, and I was dishing dirt like I was a TMZ reporter.
So fuckin’ reckless.
Brinley peered up at me. Devotion fully exposed. “Taking care of my family is the most important thing to me, too.”
A tiny, self-conscious laugh rippled from her. “Though Dereck is the only one I’ve got left.”
Unease twisted my stomach. My abhorrence of her brother clashing with the clear care she held for him.
I hated it for her.
That she got tangled in his bad decisions and she didn’t even know, but I supposed that was often the way life went down. You were trapped before you realized you’d become a pawn.
We both startled when the cashier called, “Next,” and my head popped up to find the customer in front of us scrambling to grab their bags, scuddling out the door like a spooked cat.
Casting wary glances behind them as they raced to safety.
No doubt, thinking I was gonna rob the place.
Brinley stepped up to the cashier.
Piled her things onto the counter.
The guy working behind it scanned the items while he clocked me from the corner of his eye.
Likely thinking it, too.
I wondered if every single one of them could taste it. The violence that dribbled from my flesh, or if it was just the exterior on which they cast their verdict.
Didn’t matter either way. They had a right to be leery. They should be.
The guy rang up Brinley’s items, and she went for something in her pocket, but I was already pulling out a hundred from my wallet and leaning around her to set it onto the counter.
My chest brushed her back as I did.
She exhaled a shaky sound. Then that irritation rose again. “I can pay for my own things.”
“Not on my watch, you can’t.”
She huffed out in disbelief, though I could feel some amusement rimming it as she took her bag while the cashier counted out the change.
She glanced back at me. “Do you think buying me sweets is going to make me like you more?”
I reached around her again, accepting the change, my lips just brushing her jaw. “A man can only try, can’t he?”
Was I flirting with this girl? I edged back, trying to shake whatever insane reaction she conjured in me, and started to usher her out.
A hand at the small of her back.
That touch I convinced myself was only due to the fact that I needed to stand guard over her.
Keep close.
It had nothing to do with itching to let my hands roam over every lush curve of her body.
Her ass swayed just below my hand. A stirring of dark vibrancy with each brush.
By the time we stepped outside, her breaths had gone shallow, and she inhaled something deep like the fresh air might squash the heat.
All while I forced myself to take in our surroundings.
Glittery light embossed the late afternoon air. The sun beginning its descent toward the verdant canopy of trees.
Birds flitted from branch to branch.
But in it, there wasn’t a modicum of peace.
There might as well have been a viper curling up my leg with the way I sensed it.
The wicked disorder that rolled over me.
I was in front of Brinley in a flash, gun pulled from the holster I had hidden at my back, though I kept it low and close in hopes the few people out in the lot wouldn’t notice.
A disjointed breath shot out of Brinley, and I gritted, “Stay behind me.”
For the first time since I met her, she didn’t have a cunning retort flying off her tongue.
She just curled one of those hands into the bottom of my cut like some kind of horrified promise.
It was the barest relief.
The smallest solace in knowing that maybe she did get that I was here to protect her and had no intention of keeping her trapped.
My attention scanned the few cars and faces.
It didn’t take long to land on the figure on the far-right side of the lot up close to the road.
His bottom half was concealed where he stood near the hood of his car on the opposite side of us.
There wasn’t really anything about him that should set me off.
To the normal eye, he looked like some harmless forty-year-old man.
Jeans and a casual button-down.
Dull brown hair.
Probably swinging in to grab something for his wife on his way home from the office.
But my gut told me that was all wrong.
I could almost see the waves of depravity rolling off him.
Hellsmoke and ire.
Was sure of it when his eyes met mine from over the top of his hood.
They were full of a challenge.
Maybe a warning.
That and the fact that he didn’t cower when he saw me standing there clearly prepared to go on a murder spree.
Instead, he punted what amounted to a mocking grin.
Fucker ignorant enough to think he might have the upper hand.
Teeth gritted and my heart thundering, I curled my finger around the trigger when he moved.
Prepared for things to get messy.
Though the asshole just kept smirking that smug smile as he edged back to his door and slipped into the driver’s seat, started the engine, and pulled from the lot.
Had half a mind to go chasing him down as the tail of his black sedan disappeared down the road.
But Brinley was gasping and shaking, and a fury I shouldn’t feel suddenly scorched through my veins.
Singeing everything in its path.
Warily, I tucked my gun back into its holster, not wanting to draw more attention than we already had, gaze still flashing from side to side.
“Who was that?” Brinley wheezed.
Panic laced her shuddery voice.
Her fear saturating the air.
That enraged me, too.
“We need to get back to the compound,” I gritted rather than answering.
Should have known she wasn’t going to back down with that non-response.
Woman refusing to budge as I tried to tow her toward my bike.
The spikes of her heels might as well have become one with the concrete.
“I asked you a question.”
I swiveled around, ducking in close to her face.
Harvest eyes went wide with surprise.
“That was exactly the reason you need to be secure behind the compound’s walls until we get this sorted.” The words were nothing but shards.
“Was he after me?” There she was again. Indignation pouring out of her demand.
“Don’t know.”
She scoffed out a sound of disbelief and frustration, her expression pinching in the same dissatisfaction.
“So, you’re saying it could have been nothing?” She lowered her voice even further, her brows scrunching together with the clear accusation. “You pulled a gun on someone, and it could have been a regular ol’ citizen of Crimson Creek?”
Exasperation flurried in my chest. “I said I didn’t know, but I’m not willing to take the chance. Now get on my bike.”
“I want to know what’s happening, Silas.” She might have lifted a defiant chin, but the quivering in it told me everything I needed to know.
She was terrified and trying to tap it behind all that ferocity.
“You want me to toss you over my shoulder and carry you to my bike, you just keep right on standing there,” I warned.
“You wouldn’t dare,” she seethed.
“Try me.” I growled it near her face, then I turned and started for my bike, never dropping my guard, even though it likely appeared that I didn’t give two fucks.
The problem was all the fucks I was actually giving.
Way I felt like I might splinter apart as I watched for anything that might be a threat.
That wildfire at my back.
Her flames ten seconds from consuming.
She finally started to clamber up behind me.
Thank fuck.
Because I hadn’t been bullshitting when I warned her I was going to toss her over my shoulder.
It was pretty much the only thing I wanted to do.
I wanted to pick her up and wrap myself around her and protect her from the monsters that loomed.
I knew they were there.
Lurking in the periphery.
I couldn’t stomach it, and it was becoming clear that I’d gotten lost in the wilderness.
Five thousand miles off course.
All rationale lost.
Because the second I made it to my bike, I was turning and sweeping her into my arms.
I got a flash of that wild, surprised gaze, her lips parted in confoundment and incredulity, before I jostled her around and planted her sweet ass on the seat of my bike.
Then I swung on behind her.
Pinning her back to my chest as I reached for the handlebars.
Shock gusted from her. “What are you doing?”
My mouth dropped to her ear.
Easy since I was fully wrapped around her, my body a steel blanket covering her whole.