I tilt my head, eyes narrowing.“I’m sayin’,” I answer slowly.“That somethin’ is takin’ them.Someone.Someone evil.”
The wind cuts through the lot just then, cold enough to raise goosebumps.The fire flares like it heard me.
A siren wails down the road.
An owl screeches overhead.
Someone inside Heck’s Kitchen cheers as another fighter hits the mat.
But none of that shakes the feeling in my gut.
The old stories.
The tunnels.
Louisville.
Pearly Gates.
It all ties together.
And the girl bound in my room?She knows more than she’s letting on.Oaks throws another beer into the fire, making it flare bright.
Rye claps me on the back.“Come on, man.Drink with us.Stop actin’ like you’ve seen Mama Crowley.”
I almost sayI have.
Instead, I smirk and take the beer.
But staring into the flames, I swear I see something leap through the smoke, just for a second.Wrong-shaped.Wrong-shadowed.
And it vanishes.Nothin’ but a memory of a nightmare.However, my beer loses its flavor.No matter, I’m half-drunk by the time I head back to the Lockup.
First hint that something is wrong is the silence.
Not the usual hush of the Kings’ clubhouse settling into night, but that predator-still quiet that happens right before something lunges at your throat.It makes my skin tighten under my cut, the hair at the nape of my neck lifting like I’m standing in the presence of the Demon Leaper himself.
The corridor seems off.Air too still.Walls sweating cold.The odor of motor oil and beer unexpectedly covered by something subtly sweet.Shampoo?Cheap stuff.Something fruity.Peach.Something a club bunny would use after crawling out of one of the boys’ beds.
I’m halfway down the back corridor, on my way to sweep the grounds again, when I see it.The door to my room cracked open a sliver.
My stomach drops once, hard.
I locked it.
I always lock it.
The Kings of Anarchy don’t have many rules, but mine are iron, carved into me deeper than my scars.Doors lock.Knives stay sharp.Feelings stay dead.
Except she’s been breathing life back into all the wrong parts of me.
I move closer, silent, the outlaw instinct in me rising like smoke.Becki’s scent leaks out through the crack in a soft drifting ribbon, sweat, something sweet beneath, cheap shampoo.It strikes me like a fist.
Shampoo?I push the door open with one finger.See it on the tiny sink.Where the hell did she get that?
I get the real surprise.Empty cot.Empty chain.
My jaw flexes, once, twice, before instinct overrides thought.The cot’s still warm.Blanket rumpled.Chain lying across the mattress like a dead snake.
