I frowned. “That bitch, man. She’ll try anything to get in your pants.”
“I really think she’s in a tight spot, brother.”
“Jesus,” I hissed. “Come on, I’ll go with you. We’ll take one of the mobile trucks.”
We headed out, arriving to the location Gloria had texted Cash, and I saw her car with the hood up, parked on a narrow frontage road near an industrial complex.
“Why the fuck’s her hood up?” I grumbled. “Did she think she was going to be able to fix it herself?”
Cash shrugged as he pulled up behind her car. “The day I know what the hell Gloria’s thinkin’ I want you to put a bullet in the back of my head. Come on, let’s get this over with. I want to get home and back in bed before Teagan knows I was ever gone.”
We hopped out and Gloria hugged Cash, giving him a relieved smile. “My hero. Thank you so much for coming to my rescue.”
“Okay, okay,” he said, pulling away. “Let’s see what’s wrong with your car.”
No sooner had he gotten the words out of hismouth, than a black panel van came screeching to a halt beside us. Cash grabbed for his knife at his side but was bum-rushed by three Spiders before he even had a chance to pull it out.
“What the fuck?” he snarled as they zip-tied his arms behind his back and threw him in the van.
Outside the van, I did my best to stand my ground, but I was eventually overtaken by the Spiders. The names on their cuts read ‘Slammer’ and ‘Tiny.’ Trunk jumped in at some point as well, because I almost had the upper hand.
“What do we do with this guy, Trunk?” Slammer asked, pointing to me, despite the fact I was still struggling, despite bleeding from several places on my face. “Kill him?”
“Fuck him up but not so bad he can’t crawl back home,” Trunk said. “Warlock wants to send a message. Vega, Gloria, you come with me and Loverboy here.”
Then the door whooshed shut and drove away.
––––––––
Someone pounding on my door brought me back to the present.
“Gio!”
Fuck. Angelica.
My big sister, and all-around pain in my ass. There were five of us. Four girls, and me. The baby. To say I was doted on... and smothered... was an understatement, with Angelica leading the pack right behind our mother.
“Gio, I’m coming in,” she called, and I heard thekey in the lock.
“Fuck,” I hissed.
“Oh my god!” she squealed, then she was suddenly standing over me. “What the hell happened?”
“What the fuck, bro?”
This came from Cash who was now rushing into the room, his boots hitting hard against the old linoleum and I groaned at the impending shit show.
“Why is my brother on the floor?” Angelica demanded.
“I don’t know,Margo,” he snarled, suddenly appearing above me as well. I would have laughed, considering Christmas Vacation was our favorite movie, but this seriously wasn’t the fucking time. “Why the fuck are you on the floor, Razor? You were supposed to keep your ass in the chair while I ran and got food. I was gone fifteen minutes. Tops.”
“I had to piss,” I bit out.
“So what? You fuckin’ hold it,” Cash snapped. “How did you even manage to use that walker with only one working arm?”
“Not well!” I growled. “Which is the reason I’m on the goddammed floor.”
“You just had surgery, Gio,” my sister said. “You can’t be up and moving around by yourself yet.”
