Chapter Twelve #2
“That ain’t how food works.”
“Sounds right.”
Sophie smiles.
I almost do, but I’m watching Kaylee too closely.
Every noise beyond the office pulls her attention toward the door. Her shoulders tighten whenever a male voice passes outside.
Except Bullet’s.
She notices me noticing. She picks at the edge of the blanket. “I don’t wanna go to the hospital.”
“I know.”
“I don’t want your department.”
That one hurts. My fingers tighten around the coffee mug, but I keep my face neutral and my voice level.
“Okay.”
Kaylee looks up. “Okay?”
“I heard you.”
“You’re not gonna make me?”
“Not right now.”
Bullet’s attention shifts toward me. Maybe approval. Don’t care.
I take a small step closer, stopping well outside arm’s reach. “Kaylee, I need to ask you one thing.”
Her shoulders immediately tense.
Sophie touches my arm lightly.
Warning.
I soften my voice. “Just one. Then I’m done.”
Kaylee nods.
“The person who tried to get in here today. Do you know why they’d come after you?”
The color drains from her face.
Bullet is on his feet before I can take the question back, not aggressive toward me so much as ready to put himself between Kaylee and anything making her breathe like that. “Deputy.”
“I’m not pushing.”
Kaylee’s breathing gets too fast.
I stop immediately. “Never mind. We’re done.”
She shakes her head.
“No.”
“Kaylee…”
“They know.”
The room seems to lose every sound except her breathing.
“Know what?” I ask.
“That I left.”
Bullet crouches beside the cot. He doesn’t touch her. “Look at me.”
She does.
“Breathe.”
He demonstrates slowly, breathing in and out until Kaylee starts matching him.
Sophie looks toward the doorway.
Legend is there now, Royal behind him and Becki farther back. Whiskey comes last.
His eyes find me immediately.
Kaylee twists the blanket in both hands.
“They don’t let people leave.”
Nobody looks surprised that Pearly Gates had her.
That ain’t new anymore.
What changes their faces is the way she says leave, like getting out was never supposed to be an option.
Legend stays near the doorway. “What people?”
Kaylee closes down.
Bullet turns his head. “Back off.”
Royal’s eyebrows rise.
Legend doesn’t react.
Bullet clearly doesn’t give a shit.
“Too many people.”
Legend steps back.
Royal follows.
Becki catches Royal’s forearm and pulls him another foot away for good measure.
Smart woman.
Kaylee looks at me again.
“They sing.”
Beside me, Sophie’s posture changes.
I notice.
So does Whiskey.
“What do they sing?” I ask.
Kaylee rubs both hands over her arms. “At night.”
“Hymns?”
She nods. “Church songs.”
Bullet leans forward, his entire attention narrowed onto her.
Kaylee looks toward the doorway.
“But wrong.”
I frown. “What do you mean?”
“They sing them wrong.”
Something hits the floor in the hall.
Glass breaks.
Everybody turns.
Cider stands beyond Royal, pale beneath the yellow hallway light, her dark hair hanging loose around a face that suddenly looks years younger.
I know her too. Not well. Nobody really knows Royal’s sister Cider anymore.
Not since she came back.
Royal turns toward her. “Cider?”
She isn’t looking at him.
She’s looking at Kaylee.
Her breathing goes shallow.
“They sang them wrong. In the blue room.”
Royal crosses half the distance between them. “Hey.”
“Blue room?” Someone asks. “She’s always talking about that blue room.”
Royal goes still. “You remembered the wrong hymn before.”
Cider nods once, eyes locked on Kaylee. “I know.”
Her voice drops. “She heard it too.”
Cider backs up. “No.”
Royal stops instantly, hands dropping loosely to his sides.
“Okay.”
Her eyes stay fixed on Kaylee.
“I know that.”
The room goes quiet enough that I can hear old pipes knocking inside the walls.
Kaylee pulls the blanket higher. “I don’t know you.”
Cider shakes her head. “No.”
Something raw crosses Royal’s face. Fear, pain, helplessness. Enough that I almost feel wrong watching it.
“What do you remember?” he asks.
Cider presses both palms against her temples. “I don’t know.”
“Cider.”
“I said I don’t know!”
Royal stops pushing.
Becki moves beside him.
Not toward Cider.
Toward Royal.
Her fingers thread through his.
He holds on.
Sophie approaches Cider slowly enough that she can see every step.
“Hey.”
Cider looks at her.
“They did that.”
“Who?”
“The song.”
Her eyes squeeze shut.
“Mercy.”
Cold crawls over my skin.
“What does Mercy mean?” I ask.
Every King in the room looks toward me.
Not good.
Legend answers carefully. “Cider remembered that name before. We still don’t know what it means.”
Sophie looks sharply at him. Not surprise. Frustration. She was there when Cider remembered Mercy the first time, which means whatever Legend is holding back now goes beyond the name itself.
“There’s more,” I say.
Legend’s jaw works once. “There are fragments. Nothing I’m putting on Kaylee right now.”
Sophie gives him a tired look. “Legend.”
“Not here.”
Her expression closes. “Of course not.”
I’ve seen enough of those two to recognize the fight without either of them raising a voice. Legend decides what counts as protection. Sophie decides when she’s had enough of being protected from her own damn life.
He looks at her. “Sophie.”
“No. It’s fine.”
It clearly ain’t.
My gaze drops briefly to her bare left hand out of habit.
I already know their wedding is postponed. The missing ring isn’t news. The distance between them tonight is.
Legend starts toward her.
Sophie steps away.
A warm palm hovers near my back.
Whiskey.
He doesn’t touch me.
I shift half a step closer until his hand meets the small of my back.
He leaves it there. That scares me more than when he used to simply grab me.
Royal is still looking at Cider.
“You think you’ve seen Kaylee?”
Cider studies the girl for a long moment. “No.”
Some of the tension leaves Royal’s shoulders.
Then Cider whispers, “Maybe.”
His head comes up.
“I don’t know.”
Kaylee pulls the blanket tighter around herself. “I’ve never seen her.”
Cider’s eyes fill. “I know.”
Bullet moves subtly until more of his body blocks Kaylee from the room.
“Enough.”
Legend nods. “Yeah.”
Sophie leads Cider away. Becki goes with them after squeezing Royal’s hand once.
Royal stays where he is.
For the first time since I met him, he doesn’t look like a dark biker with a smartass answer for everything. He looks like a brother who got his sister back without ever really getting her back at all.
Whiskey leans toward me. “Come on.”
“I want to talk to Kaylee.”
“Later.”
“I’m a deputy.”
“You’re also upsetting her.” That pisses me off because he’s right.
I look at Kaylee. “I’ll come back when you’re ready.”
She nods.
Bullet watches me. “Next time don’t bring a crowd.”
“Crowd’s been here. I didn’t bring them.”
Whiskey and I leave together.
The clubhouse seems louder after that office, though the jukebox still ain’t playing.
Voices move around us, boots cross concrete, a pool ball clicks softly somewhere near the front.
Everybody is pretending they didn’t just hear Kaylee independently corroborate something already buried in Cider’s missing years.
I stop near one of the old barred cells.
Whiskey stops beside me.
“You knew Cider remembered the wrong hymns before tonight.”
“Yeah.”
“And the blue room.”
“Yeah.”
“Mercy too.”
Whiskey’s jaw tightens. “Yeah.”
I look back toward Kaylee’s room. “Then she didn’t give you a new memory.”
“No.”
“She confirmed an old one.”
His eyes follow mine toward the hall. “That’s the part I don’t fucking like.”
I look toward the hallway Sophie disappeared through. “Legend knows more than he’s saying.”
“Legend always knows something.”
“That ain’t reassuring.”
“Wasn’t meant to be.”
Across the clubhouse, Legend stands alone near the bar now. Sophie is gone. Royal is staring at nothing until Becki returns and says something quietly to him.
She reaches for his hand.
Royal takes hers immediately.
That softens something in me I didn’t ask to soften.
“Y’all do that.”
Whiskey looks over. “Do what?”
“Act like you’re made out of broken glass and bullets until one of your women walks into the room.”
“We ain’t made of glass.”
“Missed the point.”
“Knew there was one.”
I roll my eyes.
“Not just any woman. Becki is Royal’s woman.” His palm shifts slightly against my back, sliding toward my hip.
My body registers the movement before my brain does, heat spreading beneath his hand.
Annoying. I look down at it. “Really?”
“What?”
“You know what.”
“Want me to stop?”
“Yes.”
His hand leaves me immediately.
The absence of it is so fucking noticeable I react before I think.
My fingers close around his wrist.
Shit.
Whiskey looks down at my hand.
Then up at me.
I release him.
His brows draw together. “You just said…”
“I know what I said.”
His eyes darken.
“What?”
“You arguing with yourself.”
“I’m complex.”
“You’re a pain in my ass.”
“You like my ass.”
“That too.”
“Whiskey.”
“What?”
“You don’t get to act like I belong to you in front of your club.”
The humor leaves his face.
“I never said you belong to me.”
“Your hand’s been on me since we came back out here.”
“Was.”
I hate that one word more than I should.
He did exactly what I asked. That doesn’t stop half the clubhouse from watching us like they already decided what this is before I did.
Oaks walks past, slows, and looks between us.
“Not saying anything.”
Whiskey points toward the other end of the room. “Keep walking.”
“Didn’t say shit.”
“Your face did.”
“My face is innocent.”
He keeps walking.
I lower my voice. “Everybody knows.”
“Knows what?”
I hate the question because I don’t know the answer.
“This.”
Whiskey looks at me. “Whatever this is?”
“Yeah.”
“What is it?”
“You tell me.”
“No.”
“Coward.”
“Says the man who kidnaps women instead of dating them.”
His mouth curves. “Dating sounds expensive.”
“I am expensive.”
“Figured.”
“High maintenance too.”
“Knew that.”
“You ain’t charming.”
“Never tried.”
“Liar.”
That gets a grin out of him.
Sophie returns from the hallway alone.
Her face is composed again. Too composed. She gestures toward the bar. “Come sit.”
I follow her.
Whiskey starts to.
Sophie points at him. “No.”
He stops. “Why?”
“Because I want to talk to her.”