Again, silence, so I add, “If it will make you feel better, when I get back to the clubhouse, I’ll hug my little bag of thorns and tell her how horrified I am that she dressed weirdly and seemed like she was having a good time.”
Eight’s voice deepens into that mansplaining tone. “The problem is that you don’t know if she’s been traumatized. Maybe she needs you right now.”
I want to ignore him, but well, it’s me, so I reply, “Have you met my daughter? And if we’re going to be critical, it didn’t take a lot of persuading to send Oscar with her.”
His voice gets louder. “Jesus Christ, you didn’t give me much choice. You were gonna fuckin’ pick up that mental giant in the backseat by yourself if I didn’t help.”
“Hey,” Sadie snaps. “I’m not so dumb.”
I say to Sadie, “You robbed a goddamn candy store and took a measly $500 bucks and half-a-ton of Twizzlers. You are so dumb.”
Then I turn to Eight, “And you. There’s such a thing as free will. You didn’t have to do anything.”
“You don’t really get it, do you. We’re together. It would…” He glances at Sadie through the rear-view mirror, “…make me unhappy if you got injured or worse.”
The whole conversation is absurd, then he adds, “The kids were safe. You weren’t.”
I start laughing too hard to reply.
Sadie sighs loudly. “The point, you failure of a biker, is that you just made your point.”
“I’m gonna pull over and make another point all over your face,” he snarls at Sadie
“He likes golden showers?” I say as I get my giggles under control.
“Fuck off,” Sadie says to me as he kicks the back of my seat. “And you fucker,” he says to Eight. “You better never let her out of your sight, or I’ll make her so ugly, you’ll have to put a bag over her head to fuck her.”
Eight screeches to a stop in the middle of the road, turns toward Sadie and punches him the face.
Sadie yelps, “Fuckin’ hell!”
Eight punches him again.
I grab Eight’s arm. “One of the rules is that I’m not supposed to fuck up the merch once I have it secured.”
“You’re not fuckin’ him up,” Eight says as he rips his arm from my grip. “I am.”
He faces forward, then squeals the truck’s tires as he roars down the road.
I want to say so many things to Eight, like quit being such a man. I don’t need you to protect me. I’m my own woman. But I don’t want to do it in front of Sadie and frankly, I’m needier than I thought because I’m kind of turned on by his protectiveness. This is a first for me, having a man care enough to fight for me. I press my lips together and say nothing until we’re at the Reno police station. It’s a two-minute drive and a new record for me.
It's quiet at the police station, but then the sun’s coming up and all the bad guys are sleeping by now. There are six cop cars outside the front that we bypass as we wrestle Sadie inside the station.
Chris Pringle, who looks like he’s two years older than Henri, stands up from his chair behind the bulletproof glass and looks us over. “Hey Selkie,” he says. Yeah, we know each other. I’m on a first name basis with most cops in Reno.
“Hey Chris,” I say back. “Finally caught the asshole.”
He glances between Eight and Sadie. “Which asshole do you mean?”
I go girlfriend bear on him. “Eight is not an asshole. He’s helping and he’s not in the system anyway.”
“So if I were in the system, would you hand me over too?” Eight asks.
“I gotta think about that,” I reply with a smirk. “I mean, wouldn’t this be a great way to lure you in.”
“Selkie,” he warns.
“I’m kidding. If you were in the system, I’d go on the lam with you.”
