I don’t want others to die or to get hurt. But I’m willing to see where things go before I react to anything, sitting my ass down at the bar and reaching around to grab a bottle of beer while I wait.
Minutes go by before Wendi comes in, with a pissed-off Casper behind her and holding a gun to her head. And then I see the same for Abigail. I stand quickly. Not sure what I’m going to do, but seeing one of my best friends like this makes me want to dosomething.
“Don’t,” I hear the second before I feel a hand wrap around my wrist and pull me back. I didn’t even know I took a step in her direction.
I look at the hand, then follow it to an arm and shoulder, then face. Kooper. Haven’t seen him for a bit. Someone said he went to lie down or something. Guess this woke him up—whatever this is.
“Sit,” Casper barks, and both Abigail and Wendi oblige. “Have Flint lock this place down.”
Someone runs off to wherever Flint is. Probably in his little cave of justice with all the computer screens.
“For how long?” a brother, I think it’s King, asks.
“Till my bike comes back,” Domino grumbles.
My eyes go wide. Domino’s bike was stolen? Outside the clubhouse? How the fuck was that pulled off? And why are these two here, sitting at gunpoint? And where’s Penny?
Kooper lets go of my hand and grabs my beer, taking a swig before giving it back to me. I don’t protest. He needs it just as much as I do. Too many questions, not enough answers.
And waiting? Waiting is the worst.
It’s been hours of waiting. I switched to water after the second beer. It was going down way too smooth for me to not see it being an issue.
No one has been talking. Not much, anyway. I’ve moved around the clubhouse’s main area a few times. And each time I note that Kooper is close. Not following, but somehow ending up on my side of the room after a while. I refuse to think on it and just roll with it.
When I see Wendi straighten, I look at the door. Seconds tick by before Atom, Penny, and Walker come in. Then Domino runs out, and Penny goes to the bar and starts drinking.
“What’d I miss?”
I’ve got to hand it to the girl. She’s badass. She has to know guns are pointed at her, and she doesn’t seem to care. I like that about her. Not that I should. I get that she, her sister Wendi, and Abigail all did something against the club, I just don’t know what yet.
The boys start laying into her and Wendi. It seems they’re with the Crazy Eights, a group I’ve heard the brothers mention in passing but nothing more. Somehow it’s a group that the brothers get both pissed about and dread.
I’m only half paying attention till I see Wendi is looking at my friend when Casper asks why they pretended to be someone they aren’t. Why they hid themselves. What, or who, are they really here for?
“Abigail?” I say her name and watch her flinch.
I didn’t think my heart could shatter any more. But hearing it, seeing my best friend betray the club my dad and mom raised me in, is like having it broken all over again. I had no clue I could feel this lost ever again, but here I am as they keep bantering.
They say she was overlooked by the club. That she never betrayed us, just did some intel work, though nothing that had them learning more than they should. That’s what “they” say, Penny and Wendi. Who are really Jack and Billy. A cover. Just people pretending to be someone they aren’t.
I feel that. It’s kind of what I’m doing. I’m Ruby, or at least that’s what I answer to. But I don’t feel much like myself these days. Just a shell of the person I once was, when I had a family and a home to go to. Now it’s just four walls and an empty space.
Even Abigail gets a new name: Rue, a recruit for this C8 group. Whoever the hell they are. They say more are coming too. That this is just the beginning. It feels as if the small world I tried to keep together with tape is tearing away as they speak. Nothing seems right anymore. And as the little salvation I still had falls away, I do the same.
I head for my room. They can deal with this without me. I don’t need to be here. More problems are going to come, but they aren’t mine. How can they be? I’m not even supposed to be staying at the clubhouse. These rooms are reserved for club members and vamps, not family of deadHounds. If they were, Abigail would have had a room. Maybe she wouldn’t have gotten to where she is now if we’d let her stay here.
They.Iftheyhad let her. Nothing about this club is aweanymore. I always wanted to be on the inside, but I never was. And now I feel it more than ever before.
“Ruby.”
I turn at my name and see Tommy coming down the hall. Forgot that he was held in lockdown, too, till the club figured things out.
“Yeah?”
“Want some company?” He raises an eyebrow and stuffs his hands into his pockets.
He’s cute enough. Has the charm and the arrogance that I think I would have gone for if things were different. And maybe after a while, I’ll change my mind. But not today.
