“Can you please reach out to Beth and remind her that we have a deal with her?” I said. “I’m wondering if this new girl is acting outside the scope of her work. Some harsh words from Beth might set her straight.”
“You got it, boss,” Axle said without any snark.
I guess being polite pays off, who knew.
“Thanks,” I said. “I... fuck, I need to get out of here. I’m going to punch a wall and break something if I have to stay here thinking about what the bitch said. I’ll see you guys later.”
I turned around and hurried to my bike, ignoring the eye roll and the pleading look that Patriot had on his face. I understood what he had said before, but goddamnit, everyone knew the topic of Shannon was the one thing that would really piss me off. I could be a “true” leader—whatever that meant—one minute, and then hearing Shannon’s name would drive me up the fucking wall.
“Lane,” Patriot said, but I was already on my bike. “Just don’t do anything stupid, okay? No Brewskis.”
I nodded. I had no intention of going back there. I needed to take out my frustration, not give the Fallen Saints a window the size of a skyscraper to take me out.
I revved the engine and roared onto the roads leading to my apartment. I went against my typical nature of being overly cautious and sped fifteen, twenty, even thirty miles above the speed limit. I didn’t hit triple digits—that was still a barrier I didn’t think I’d ever hit anywhere except maybe the highway—but damn if I didn’t blaze by everyone else on the roads. My anger was pushing me, the fire from what that woman had done.
The best friend.
Wouldn’t you feel the same way in her spot?
I ignored the surprising, bubbling thought of empathy as I pressed back to my apartment—an apartment I had intended to have Shannon move into. I killed the ignition, set the kickstand down, and moved with declining emotion to my room. The bike rides were always good for clearing my head, and while that had not happened, I had managed to exhaust my emotional supply. It was hard to remain passionately angry at Angela and the situation with the Reapers when I just didn’t have the energy to do such a thing.
I opened the door inside, made my way to the couch on the right, and collapsed into it. I kicked off my boots and let my feet dangle off the side of the armrest. I inhaled gently a few times before my eyes settled to the right, on the little sill separating the living room from the kitchen.
On it, my eyes then focused on the photo that, all this time later, I had still not managed to remove.
It was the last photo that Shannon and I ever took together.
It was a photo right outside my father’s mansion, taken on the footsteps leading up to it, perhaps a week before he had died. It was a selfie, which made me feel a little silly and ridiculous, but it was a great photo—her smile shined brightly, her white teeth glistening with the setting sun on the other side of the camera’s view, and her eyes as cheerful and genuine as I had ever seen them. I knew that if I ever wanted to move forward, if I ever wanted to just live life, I needed to remove that photo and put it into storage.
But I wasn’t really in a rush to move on. She still needed to be brought to justice. Cole needed...
God, fuck my brother.
And Angela now, too.
Except... if she really was Shannon’s best friend, I should have known her somehow. Maybe I wouldn’t have known her like I knew Shannon’s father or her friends who lived in Springsville, but surely, the name Angela Sanders would have at least rung a bell, right? Shannon did have a ton of friends, most of whom I never bothered to engage or learn more about, but someone with Angela’s personality felt like someone I should have remembered.
The more I thought of it, the more guilty I felt. My aloofness and inability to listen didn’t just happen in the confines of the Black Reapers’ headquarters. It was something that, apparently, had stretched out to our relationship. Shannon had never said anything about it, but the greatest flaw Shannon had was her discomfort with rocking the boat. It was rare that she would mention something that bothered her, and when she did, it had often built up for so long that it felt like a tidal wave of complaints.
Maybe I hadn’t been a great listener. Maybe I hadn’t bothered to really get to know Shannon’s friend group, something that could have made me a better human being. Maybe… maybe some people I didn’t want to give any weight to had made some decent points.
Damnit.
If she was her best friend, wouldn’t you understand her acting as strongly as she has?
I was starting to feel guilty, not so much for saying what I did to Angela, but for disrespecting Shannon as a person who had friends I should have gotten to known better. I wished I could have gone back and done a better job of not just getting to know the individual but getting to know the world around her. If I had done a little bit better, well... it wouldn’t have changed anything, but it would have made me a better boyfriend to her.
It was too late to do anything tonight, but I decided right then and there to do something unexpected to help my feelings about Shannon.
I would call Angela in the morning and tell her everything I knew about Cole and the Fallen Saints. If she wanted justice for Shannon?
She was going to get it.
And in doing so, I was going to finally get it.
Angela
Ididn’t sleep more than two, maybe three hours that night.
