The man curled his lip in response, brushing his grimy shirt likeIwas the walking shit stain. “Watch where you’re going.”
“Die in your sleep.”
“You fucking what?”
It was dark. I stepped to this motherfucker so he could get a better look at me, sensing Ranger sliding into my slipstream. “I saiddie in your sleep. Fire would do, though. I ain’t picky.”
“Pikeythough, aren’t ya?” Baldy poked a stubby finger at my chest. “With your fucking gypo accent.”
Pikey. Mother of Dragons, it wasn’t a new insult, or even a good one. Being Irish didn’t make me Romani or Traveller. But Embry and his kin were a beautiful mix of both, and it was his face I saw as the coiled spring I’d nursed for the last few days came loose, and I let my fists fly with not a single fuck given for the consequences.
Smack.
Knuckles crunched bone.
Yes.
Blood splattered, and as Mr. Bigot’s gaggle of mates appeared from who the fuck knew where and Ranger jumped in, the energy of an old-fashioned brawl swept me away.
Fucking idiots. It was five on two, but they had no idea what they’d started.
Chaos.
I fucking loved it. All these years of fighting for peace, butthiswas who I’d been raised to be, and I didn’t care that I was showing it fifty yards from the entrance to a craptastic Premier Inn.
Baldy hit the tarmac. I wasn’t far gone enough to put the boot in—witnesses—but far from done, I wrenched his last pal standing from Ranger’s path and pulled my fist back to deck him into oblivion, craving the impact of the hit, even if he thumped me right back. Cos I didn’t fuckingcare?—
Holy Mary.
My feet left the floor. The dark corner of the truck stop blurred and Decoy grunted with the effort of hauling me twenty feet and slamming me into the side of a rig.
“Stop,” he growled, very unDeeky-like. “Have you lost your fucking mind?”
Possibly. I took a breath, adrenaline still coursing through my veins, feeling no pain from the scrappy hits Baldy had got in before I’d put his arse down.
He was up again now, shouting more slurs that loosened Decoy’s hold on me, as if my most sensible brother was seriously considering letting me go.
Easily fixed. “Nonce!”
My bellow rang out across the truck stop, and I kept shouting and shouting and shouting until Baldy changed his mind about carrying this fuckery on.
His friends dragged him away, blood dripping from his nose, one of his beady eyes already swollen shut.
Decoy finally released me. Parental disappointment seeped from every pore and his heavy sigh scraped the ground. “Why are you being like this?”
Cos this brother knew it was about more than some cunt showing me his racist arse.
I nailed a glare at my boots. “I’m tired.”
“We’re all fucking tired.”
“I miss River.”
“I know.” Decoy rubbed his shoulder, grimacing. “But you’ve been away from him before and not been this unhinged.”
Ouch. My conscience wrenched with an internal wince. I’d really pissed off Daddy Decoy, but I didn’t have any answers that didn’t involve all the shit he already knew, so I kept scowling at my scuffed toecaps until he sighed and let it go in time for Mats and Ranger to come up on us.
Ranger had blood on his face.
