Maybe they’re right. Maybe I don’t want to be here anymore.
4
WRECKER
Carrie tries to slide off the barstool and nearly goes down. Her knees fold and she grabs at nothing. I catch her by the arm before she hits the floor. Her skin is cold. Her eyes are wet and unfocused. Whiskey clings to her breath, and underneath that is something bitter that makes me want to find Jinn and put him through a wall.
Out in the main room he’s laughing at something Marcy says, hand easy on her hip. Club president. Big man. I taste metal and swallow it.
“I want to go home,” Carrie mutters, words blurring at the edges.
“Not happening.” I keep my voice low. “You can’t even stand.”
She fishes out her keys with clumsy fingers. They slip once and I take them before she drops them. I slide them into my cut. She blinks up at me like she might fight me for them, then looks away.
“You’re staying right here,” I tell her. “Hate me for it in the morning.”
Her mouth wobbles. I think she’s going to cry again, but she just nods, small and tired, and that lands harder than a punch.
I get an arm around her waist and guide her off the stool. She leans into me without meaning to, warm and heavy at my side. We cut along the edge of the crowd, past brothers who pretend not to notice. Music hammers the floorboards. Grease and fryer oil hang in the hall by the kitchen. I shoulder the side-room door and the noise drops a notch.
It’s a cramped little box. Sagging couch. Dented file cabinet. Window painted shut years ago. I ease her down and she sinks into the cushions like her strings got cut. Mascara shadows her eyes. A faint track of dried tears glints on her cheek. She stares at the floor like it might answer for any of this.
Boots hit tile behind me.
“You really bringing her back here?” JC asks as he steps inside, calm like always when the world tilts.
Nico—Blade—slips in after him, eyes hot, jaw tight. He doesn’t ask a thing.
He saw the glasses go down one after another. He saw Jinn and Marcy float past like none of it mattered.
JC’s gaze flicks to my pocket. “You take her keys?”
I tap my cut. “Yeah.”
“Good.” He goes to the tiny sink, finds a half-clean glass, fills it with water, and presses it into my hand without looking like we rehearsed it.
Nico angles his head toward the gap in the door and spots Jinn in the reflection of the steel fridge. His lip curls. “You seeing this?”
“Don’t start,” I tell him. Gravel in my voice I didn’t plan.
I kneel in front of Carrie and offer the water. “Small sips.”
Her fingers tremble around the glass. The first swallow makes her cough. She tries again. It squeezes my chest to watch it.
“I need to go home,” she whispers. “Please, Levi.”
The please hits something I keep locked up. Most folks call me Wrecker like that’s the only name I ever had. She says Levi and a window cracks open.
“You’re not driving,” I say, softer. “Lie down in here. I’ll sit outside the door if that helps.”
I don’t add that I’m not leaving her alone while Jinn plays house with her sister twenty yards away.
JC plants himself in the doorway, blocking the hall. He’s giving me time. Nico prowls once, then crouches by the arm of the couch so he’s level with her.
“You want food?” he asks, voice rough but gentle enough. “Bread, fries, whatever you’ll keep down.”
She shakes her head. “No.”
