Chapter 19
Hush
Iyawned as I watched people come and go from Jake’s store.
We’d been watching the place for four days now and everything had been quiet.
Lack of sleep made my eyes burn and I tried to rub the grit from them.
I wasn’t good at sleeping during the daylight hours.
Staying up all night to keep an eye out was wearing on me.
At least, that’s what I told myself as an explanation for my restless sleep.
No way did it have anything to do with a pair of ocean eyes.
It may have been quiet out here, but as soon as we’d taken over from our brothers who’d been keeping watch something had seemed different. Something was in the air and my instincts were tingling.
The restless feeling devouring me, I pushed away from my bike and walked toward the store.
“Something up?” Riptide asked, looking up from his phone.
“Just need to walk,” I told him. I eyed Butcher as he fell in line with me. “I’m just checkin’ it out, Butcher,” I warned him.
His hazel eyes met mine and he gave me a grin. Anticipation was radiating off him. “Your gut is telling you something’s up. Right, Hush?”
“Yeah,” I muttered.
Butcher rubbed his hands together with eagerness. “Good.”
“Fuck.” Butcher was the one we sent when we wanted people to disappear.
None of us minded getting our hands dirty, but Butcher was on a whole different level.
He craved the violence like he needed it to live.
Killing, torturing, was like air for him.
He wasn’t the one you wanted to send in first. Not if you wanted the person to stay alive long enough to answer your questions.
If it was up to me he’d be kept behind glass with a sign that said ‘Break in Case of Emergency’.
That was why Lockout had given me a look. It said ‘keep him in line’, before we’d started coming out here. Riptide’s eyes were on us as we crossed the lot and stepped into the light the store provided, but he stayed where he was, keeping an eye on everything outside while we entered the building.
The kid behind the counter glanced up from his phone as we walked in. “Hey,” he said in greeting, then paused as he realized he knew me.
“Brad,” I said, walking forward. Having already booted him from our bar and seen him at the hospital, I recognized him right away. This was the first night I’d seen him working here.
“You’re Jamie’s friend, right?”
“That’s right. Hush,” I told him.
“Nice to see you again.” His smile was rueful since both times we’d seen each other prior hadn’t been the best for him. “Help you with something?”
“We’re here watchin’ over the place.”
Brad’s eyes widened and curiosity flashed over his face. “Kerri mentioned something about some friends helping out for a few days. Thanks man,” he said with a genuine smile.
He seemed like a decent kid. It was on the edge of my tongue to ask about Seek.
It’d been a few days since I’d cut ties and I’d been getting more and more restless.
I kept telling myself it was because I needed something to do, someone to beat on.
Then everything would even out. I knew I was lying to myself, but I wasn’t willing to do anything about it. This feeling would pass.
“We’ll be outside if you need-”
I paused as three guys walked into the store. Something about them made my instincts chime like an alarm. Butcher stiffened next to me, getting the same vibe I was.
“Better yet, Kid. How ‘bout you go call the cops?”
“Wha-”
“Just do it. In the back,” I demanded, nodding toward the little office behind the counter.
“Now,” Butcher growled at him when he didn’t move fast enough.
Looking bewildered, Brad grabbed his crutches and followed the orders by going back into the office. I leaned my hip against the counter, facing Butcher, so I could keep the three guys in my peripheral.
They were back by the soda case, having what looked to be a heated discussion. When one of them pulled out a black ski mask, I rolled my eyes. Amateur.
We found out after Jake had woken up from surgery that he’d walked in on the robbery and one of the guys had panicked, smacking him in the head with the gun. That was the only reason they’d gotten the drop on him. After that they’d kicked him repeatedly, causing the internal bleeding, and bolted.
Lockout must have been right, they were likely back for the safe. It didn’t matter, this ended tonight. I saw them approach, masks over their faces.
“He’s goin’ to be a minute,” I told them pleasantly, as though them walking up with a mask and three guns—they’d upped their defenses—wasn’t completely out of the norm. “Changin’ out the till.”
“Hands up, Geezer!” one of the kids barked.
Butcher snorted out a laugh and I could see the confusion in the eyes behind the masks at his reaction. Butcher was trying to hold it in, but the laugh burst out of him and he began howling, holding his sides as he doubled over. “He called you…Geezer,” he wheezed.
“Fuck off, Butcher,” I told him in a low, pissed off tone. Turning my body so I was facing them fully, I pinned the leader with a dark look. “You too, asshole. I’m not that fuckin’ old.”
The guy’s hand trembled, making the gun shake. I waited patiently, a coiled rattlesnake, preparing to strike. The fact that we weren’t listening to them or taking them seriously pissed off the leader. He stepped toward me. Big mistake.
My hands whipped out and I grasped the gun by the barrel and the butt, twisting in opposite directions. The kid screamed in agony. He tried to hold on against my twisting. The grinding crunch of his wrist breaking was his reward.
As soon as I made my move, Butcher joined in.
From his hips he pulled twin knives out of the sheaths hidden beneath his cut.
The blades sliced through the air, hitting their marks.
Blood welled at each of the would be robbers’ wrists and they dropped their weapons.
Butcher kicked the guns away, pointing his knives at the guys’ throats. They froze, petrified.
I set the gun on the counter behind me and looked over at my friend. “That was too easy.”
Butcher put his knives away with a manic smile. “You aren’t kidding. Want to have some fun boys?”
One kid, the one who’d been shaking in his boots, gun wavering all over the place, took one look at Butcher’s expression and rushed for the door dripping a trail of blood behind him.
I watched passively as Riptide stepped in front of the glass outside and slammed the door into the runner.
The sound of it crashing into the guy made me cringe.
A large crack split down the glass as it collided with flesh.
The kid was stopped in his tracks. Riptide’s brows shot up as the robber stood there for a full second before falling backward, stiff as a downed tree.
The second smack of his head hitting the ground jarred his friends out of their stupor.
The leader came at me with a snarled warning. “I’m going to kick your ass, old man.”
I sighed and side stepped his frontal attack. The air escaped from him in a blustery whoosh as he slammed into the counter. These guys were probably only twenty or so, and clearly thought they were tough guys. Their reeducation was going to be painful. For them.
As soon as he turned toward me, I punched him in the face. We went toe to toe, exchanging blows. He had strength, and to fight on with a broken wrist, that took guts. But he lacked any real skill. No one had ever harnessed his anger and taught him to actually fight.
“Can I help Hush with this?” I heard Butcher complain. “Mine went down too easy.”
“No. Let him have his fun,” Riptide told him. From the corner of my eye I saw Brad step out of the office to watch the fight, if you wanted to call it that.
“Kid,” Riptide called out. “How long until the cops show?”
“Probably a few more minutes,” Brad answered.
“All right, Hush. Quit playing with him and finish up.”
My blood was singing and for the first time in four days that restless feeling was still and calm inside my chest. Sighing, because I knew we couldn’t get caught here, I ducked under a wild haymaker the kid threw.
Grabbing his arm, I put him in an arm bar and spun him around to face the counter.
Slamming his head down, I reveled in the crunch of bones against a hard surface.
He’d have some broken bones in his face to match his wrist, but he’d live.
It was far more than he deserved for what he’d done to Jake.
The kid’s lights went out as soon as his head connected with the counter. Dragging him over, we tied the three of them up, making sure that if they woke before the cops got here, they couldn’t get loose.
I glanced up at Brad with a questioning look. The others cleaned up and were busy wiping our prints off the guns, which we left nearby. The weapons would ensure that they got a longer sentence. Judges were less lenient when you brought guns into a robbery.
A smile stretched over Brad’s face. “That was awesome!”
The chuckle slipped out, unbidden. I couldn’t help it, he looked so impressed. In reality, it had been a one sided fight. I could have taken on all three of these kids alone, but I didn’t point that out.
Butcher gave Brad the evil eye. “Are you going to say anything?”
“To the cops? Hell no! To everyone else I meet? Fuck yes,” Brad admitted with a grin.
I laughed again and shook my head. “As long as you don’t tell the cops.”
“Naw, man, I won’t. I shut off the security cameras in the back as soon as I went in there. I’ll go erase the part where you walked in, too. Damn camera glitches,” he added, grinning.
“Thanks, Kid.”
With that, we walked out and went to sit on our bikes in the shadows, watching until the cops showed. We waited until they loaded the robbers up in an ambulance and cleared out, leaving Brad alone, to go back to work.
We took off after that, job completed. The drive back to our clubhouse was only about thirty minutes this time of night, but by the time we pulled back into our lot, the ache was back. Frowning, I rubbed my chest as I cut the engine on my bike.
“You okay?” Riptide asked as he watched me from where he was parked.
“Fine.”
“You don’t seem fine. Took a lot longer to put that kid out than I expected.”
“Needed to release some steam. Figured you’d appreciate me unloadin’ on him rather than you.”
Riptide grinned. “I’m up for a sparring match if you want one…Geezer.”
I wouldn’t be living that one down any time soon. Shaking my head, I climbed off my bike. “Some other time.”
Riptide’s brows shot up as he studied me. “Seriously, Hush. You feeling alright? You never turn down a sparring match.”
It kept my reflexes quick and my skill sharp. He was right, I was always sparring with someone. “Don’t feel like it.”
“This about-”
“Don’t fuckin’ finish that sentence, Rip.”
His sigh was aggravated. “How many times are we going to have to do this, Hush?”
“Askin’ myself the same thing. If you want to be a mother hen, go fuss over Ricochet. I don’t need it,” I called out over my shoulder as I walked away from him.
“The fuck you don’t. You’re hell bent on torpedoing your life.”
“Quit bein’ so fuckin’ dramatic,” I said, rolling my eyes as he fell in line with me, walking toward the clubhouse.
Riptide’s hand closed over my arm, forcing me to stop. Facing him, I was surprised to see the anguish on his face. He was pissed off too, but there was a healthy amount of worry there all mixing together in his expression. “The last time we gave you time and space, Hush… You fucking left us.”
Guilt shredded me as he tossed those words in my face. He wasn’t wrong, but fuck…how was I supposed to have stayed for them when I wanted nothing more than to curl up in a hole and die?
“We know why you had to go,” he relented, as he saw the torture he’d just laid on me reflected in my expression. “But you still left. You want to know why we keep picking at you like this? Because in Texas, we saw a spark of the old you again. You know when else I’ve seen that spark, Hush?”
I knew what was coming, though I wished he’d keep it to himself. Riptide, being the overachiever that he was, couldn’t give up the opportunity to twist the knife in my gut deeper.
“When you’re with Jamie. So, pull on your fucking Depends and go grovel to your woman and get her back.”
Ignoring the insult, I focused on one piece of information. “How did you know I broke it off?”
“You mean besides the fact that you’ve been moping around this place for days now?”
I frowned. I hadn’t been moping. Much.
“Because we all know everything that happens around here. Especially with you. You brought it on yourself,” he interrupted me when I opened my mouth to speak.
“If you didn’t want us all fucking fussing over you, you shouldn’t have bailed on us.
Now that you’re back we’re going to be a bit overenthusiastic in making you pay for walking out. ”
Whistling a low tune, he walked into the clubhouse and left me alone to think about what he’d said.