13. Deacon
DEACON
Have you ever been so angry that your body factory resets itself?
I stared at her stomach and wondered if that was what fell on the nape of my neck.
When we charged out of that bunker and dove to the ground, something wet fell against my skin.
I still smelled it. The twinge of Bait’s blood in the smoke that puffed right into our fucking faces.
The feeling of that bloody grit as I wiped at the back of my neck.
The debris that rained down around us when that bunker blew.
Things I couldn’t unsee. Things I’d never unsee.
It made me sick to my stomach. I felt it turning over. A war raged within me, hellbent on destruction as I sat there, staring off into space.
How the hell did I let this happen?
“Here,” Char said.
Her voice ripped me from my trance, and I found a plate of… I didn’t know what the hell it was.
“Chili over cheesy casserole. It was my favorite growing up,” she said calmly.
I traced the line of her arm all the way up to her shoulders. It reminded me of how Gauge tossed me over his like a goddamn, motherfucking child. I gritted my teeth together. I still tasted the smoke and grit on the tip of my tongue. Still felt it coating the back of my throat.
I couldn’t stand it.
Her food smelled incredible, but I just couldn’t handle it.
“Move,” I glowered.
Char gasped as she stumbled backward. I shot onto my feet and stormed toward the bathroom as my stomach bile ventured into my throat.
I barely kept it together as I shoved my way through the door.
I damn near took it off its fucking hinges before I threw myself at the sink and hunched over.
And as every cell in my body locked out, I vomited with a force that dragged involuntary tears to my eyes.
At least my mouth won’t taste like blood.
I white-knuckled the edge of the countertop as sweat broke out along my brow.
I’d never forget that scene as long as I lived.
I slid that patch of Bait’s skin off the nape of my neck, only to look up and watch the rest of him fall to the ground in pieces.
Bile burned the back of my throat before my jaw unhinged, projectile vomiting whatever contents were still inside of my gut.
And as I turned on the sink to wash away the smell, I heard the door behind me creak open.
“Don’t,” I choked out.
It was that smell, however.
Her smell.
I’d know that smell anywhere.
“Char,” I warned before another heave sent my face back toward the sink.
“I’m just gonna clean your face up a bit,” she said as I heard the paper towel dispenser engage, “you’ve got puke everywhere on it.”
I watched in the mirror as she came up beside me.
Such a little thing, yet she commanded a room whenever she stepped into it.
I was mesmerized by her, and exhausted from the fighting.
So when she reached around and gripped my chin, I followed her motions.
I allowed her to turn me around. I let her pull my face down to her.
And as she dabbed at my lips, my cheeks, and my chin, she wiped away the evidence of my body’s inability to cooperate.
There was a gentleness about her that seemed almost impossible. She used soft strokes, small circles, and soft movements to clean my stubbly skin from the bile that stung my tongue.
I couldn’t stop watching her as she cleaned me up.
“You’ve got some on your shirt, too,” she said with a nod of her head.
“That happens,” I croaked out.
She tossed the paper towel away before reaching for a new one.
She reached around me just long enough to wet it, then came back and dabbed my shirt clean.
She wiped her hand across the wet spot, causing my entire chest to lock up.
And when she looked up at me from beneath those long eyelashes of hers, I saw the worry.
The pain.
The sorrow.
“What happened?” she whispered as she tossed that paper towel in the trash, too.
“Stuff,” I said flatly.
She slid her hands down my shirt, knocking off stray specks of sand in her wake. “I heard a boom earlier.”
I stared over her head, my eyes locked with the cinderblock wall.
“If you want to talk about it, Deac?—”
“I don’t,” I glowered.
I watched her nod in my lower peripheral before she patted my chest. “Just know that whenever you’re ready, I’m here.”
I snickered. “What, no fight? No random demands?”
She took a step back. “No.”
My gaze met hers. “Why?”
She shrugged. “Because this is personal, and that’s always treated differently in my world.”
What a woman she was.
“I’ll put your food at a table. You can come eat if you’re hungry. Or drink if you’re not.”
I nodded mindlessly. “Thanks.”
And just as effortlessly as she slipped in, she slipped right back out.
Leaving me alone with my thoughts as I turned back toward the mirror.
I saw so much of my father in my features.
In the downtrodden curve of my lips that dragged my cheeks down.
In the bags beneath my eyes from sleepless nights trying to figure this shit out.
I remembered my father turning his wheels like that.
Losing sleep. Losing weight. Killing himself trying to figure things out.
I saw my father reflected back at me, all his failure. All his expectations. All his anger.
“It should’ve been me,” I muttered.
“No, it shouldn’t have.”
I closed my eyes at the sound of Gauge’s voice. “When the fuck did you slip in?”
“Does that matter?”
I rolled my eyes as I turned around. “Yeah, actually. It does.”
He thumbed over his shoulder. “I was pissing when Char came in.”
I leaned against the wall. “You need to learn to make more noise.”
“And you need to learn not to internalize everything like your father did.”
“It should’ve been me in that chair, Gauge.”
He shook his head. “No, it shouldn’t have.”
“I’m the President of this crew. If anyone dies, it’s me.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Gauge, shut up.”
But he walked up to me and placed his hands on my shoulders. “I really need you to hear me when I say this because it’s important. It should not have been you, Deacon. Say it.”
“Never.”
“I’m not letting you go until you say it.”
I tried shoving him away, but he didn’t budge. I backed up, but he simply moved with me.
“Gauge,” I said curtly.
“Deac.”
“Haven’t you touched me enough today? What, you want my dick or something?”
“Say. It. And I’ll let you go.”
“It shouldn’t have been me. Happy?” I asked.
However, Gauge shook his head. “Not that.”
I blinked. “What?”
His hands fell from my shoulders. “Say the thing you can’t say out loud. The thing we’re all thinking. The thing that’s making you more afraid than anything else.”
“I’m not fucking afraid, Gauge. I’m pissed.”
“Same thing with us.”
I ground my teeth together. “Baitfish is dead.”
Gauge nodded. “He is.”
I swallowed hard. “Baitfish is dead, Doc threw the signal and hasn’t been heard from since, we’ve got some fake-ass ATF agent sniffing around the bar, and we’re no closer to figuring out who the fuck is pulling the strings.”
Gauge watched me intently as I pinched the bridge of my nose and decided it was now or never.
We had to deal with reality one step at a time.
“We’re in way over our heads,” I said breathlessly.
“Yes we are,” Gauge said. “So what the fuck do we do about it?”
And I made the executive decision that we weren’t losing anyone else. “We need to get back to the clubhouse. Get back to a secure spot that’s home turf for us so that we can hunker down and find the information we need.”
“You know that’s what your father wanted to do when?—”
“Well,” I snarled as strength rushed through my veins, “he’s dead and I’m running this joint. And I say we lose no one else to this bullshit until we know what it fucking is. You good with that?”
Gauge grinned. “I’m great with that.”
“Good,” I glowered as I charged out of the bathroom. “But first, we eat and drink. We need to refuel and sit for a while before we head back out.”
The smell of food that sent me to the bathroom now smelled divine.
More than ever, I now knew that all of the singular predicaments we found ourselves in were interconnected.
Doc threw the signal with our deal, and that started a cascade of shit we’d scrambled to recover from ever since.
The cameras. The attack on the mechanic shop.
Baitfish being taken. Even that goddamn ATF agent.
I just didn’t have even the beginning stages of a theory as to how they were all connected.
An eye for an eye.
Baitfish said ‘she,’ and I couldn’t help but think about the ATF agent who paid our bar a visit. That was a woman, and Bait was nothing if not detail oriented. If he said a woman talked to him and beat the shit out of him, then it was a woman.
“An eye for an eye,” I murmured as I emerged into the main bar room.
I wanted answers, but my stomach wanted food even more.
I was no use to anyone if my stomach was growling, so I searched for Dallas.
He sat there in a booth, with a plate of untouched food in front of him.
I heard Char doting on someone behind me as I approached him, staring at the unmanned plate of food across from him.
“Dallas?” I asked.
He nodded to the food. “Char set that down for you.”
I slid into the booth. “You okay?”
He continued staring into his food. “Yep, just fine.”
I studied the blood that still peppered his hair. “You sure about that?”
His gaze whipped toward mine. “That bile I smell?”
“It is.”
He sighed heavily as Gauge approached us. “Let’s have one of these beers, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Dallas said flatly, “sounds good.”
As I picked up my fork, I dug into the chili in front of me. It was thick and rich and exactly what I needed. I scooped up a handful of fries and dragged them through it before I knew it I was inhaling the whole bowl like a hungry fucking teenager.
It was the best food I ever tasted.
And it pissed me the fuck off that Bait wasn’t there with us to enjoy it.