Now is not the time for hope.
Now is the time to plan for war.
Chapter 5
Grace
Istilldon’tknowwhat got into me.
Maybe it was the way he fed me twice like it meant nothing. Maybe it was the way he gave me his bed without asking for payment. Maybe it was the quiet, the normal, the strange little moments that made my body believe in something my mind doesn’t trust.
Or maybe I really am that pathetic, that stupid to feel hope because a biker cooked for me and didn’t demand anything in return.
Hope is dangerous.
It makes you careless.
Diesel is outside, his silhouette moving past the window. I hear the low rumble of a motorcycle, the clink of tools. I stand by the table with my sketchbook in my hands, not knowing what will happen next.
I stretch, wincing when the bruise on my shoulder pulls. My mind flashes to Malice’s fist connecting with my collarbone.
I inhale. Exhale
Not now.
I sink into a chair and pull my sketchbook into my lap. The page from last night is smudged, but it captures Diesel too well, the slope of his brow, the hard line of his jaw, the way his eyes seemed to glow even in the dark.
Drawing him feels intrusive and intimate at the same time.
It also calms me.
I flip to a clean page, go to the window, and start drawing the scene outside: Diesel bent over an engine, hair falling into his eyes, grease staining his fingers. My pencil moves without conscious thought. Lines become shapes. Shapes become a world where my hands can do something besides shake.
Then the memories push in anyway.
A shipping container on the Wolves’ compound, metal walls sweating cold. The sour tang of blood in the air. A whimper that didn’t belong among engines and laughter.
I’d gone to the garage to get my sketchbook. Malice had hidden it, like stealing my pencils could teach me obedience. I heard the sound again and followed it.
The container door was latched. I pried it open.
She was inside.
Tied. Gagged. Wrists raw. Eyes huge and wild. Like she’d been there for days.
I didn’t think.
I cut the ropes with the knife I kept in my boot and tore the gag away. I told her to run.
She ran.
I never saw her again.
Malice found out anyway.
He told me she was merchandise.
He slammed my head against concrete and broke my arm like it was nothing.
