“What does this mean?” Wren asks, repeating the first motion where he pointed to the side. Jagger holds out his hand to Sly, who passes him the phone. He types out the answer.
“They,”she reads. Then she tries to piece the sentence together. “They touch you… Oh! Theywon’ttouch you!” she says excitedly as she pieces together what he signed. He points a finger at her chest and mouths,“You.”
“They won’t touch you,” I clarify, squeezing her a little tighter.
The bikers settle around a table in the center of the room. One guy with bright blue hair catches my attention as it's a bit unusual for a biker; he’s smiling widely at another guy who looks just like him, but with brown hair.They laugh at something he says as a bigger guy hands out beers to them all. I don’t get the sense of them wanting to cause any trouble, so I relax, just a fraction, and Wren decides we need to learn some more ASL, American Sign Language.
When she finishes her beer, I stealthily replace it with one of the fresh ones, hoping that if she gets a little tipsy, she’ll stop with the lesson.
I don’t mind learning some words for Jagger, but couldn’t he just use the phone to type out what he wants us to know? I was never that good at learning, especially other languages. I didn’t have her gift.
Jack comes over to take our photos, and when Wren finishes her second beer, I start to slide her my half-drunk second one. In a flash, Sly’s hand whips out to grab my forearm, stopping me.
He shakes his head at me, his eyes narrowing. “She likes it,” I say defensively with a shrug.
“She’s probably never had alcohol before; we don’t want her to get sick.”
“Who?” Wren asks, her slightly red eyes looking up at me.
“You,” I say, pressing my finger to the tip of her nose. She tries to follow in until her eyes cross, then she shakes her head.
“I’ve always wanted to try alcohol, but I don’t want to get sick,” she says worriedly.
“Don’t have any more, and drink lots of water. You should be okay,” Sly tells her.
“I’ll get some,” Dex says, exiting the booth and heading for the bar.
Jagger signs something that I half miss, but Wren seemsto understand as she nods her head. “I feel fine. Great actually!”
The door bangs open, and the whole bar seems to grow quiet. I lean forward to take a look and see a bunch of bikers standing in the entrance, their gaze sweeping over the room until it lands on the table of bikers beside us. The moment they see them, their eyes narrow and fists clench.
“We need to get out of here,” Sly says, seeing the same thing as me, that there’s some sort of turf war going on here. We climb out of the booth, and fate must be on our side for once because Jack is standing up at the same time. Spotting us, he says, “Good timing, I’m all done, here you go.”
He passes them to Jagger, who’s the closest, and scans through them, nodding in approval before he slides them into his pocket.
“Let’s go,” Sly says to us. “Thank you, Jack.”
“My pleasure,” he says, hurrying away as we head toward where Dex is standing at the bar, closer to the exit, and hopefully out of the line of fire if something goes down between these bikers.
Wren suddenly trips over thin air, and I wrap an arm around her waist, catching her before her knees hit the ground. “Whoops!” she says with a giggle.
I can’t help but laugh seeing her so tipsy. I didn’t mean to get herthisdrunk; I just wanted the sign language lesson to stop. I may have given her a little too much.
“I’m gonna wipe that smirk right off your face when we get out of here,” Sly warns me as he grips Wren’s free arm for additional support.
We both eye the bikers and see the moment all hell breaks loose. The big guy, still standing at the entrance, barrels toward the group sitting, but uponseeing him move, they all stand quickly, their chairs flying back, several blocking our path.
Jagger tries to kick them out of the way, but it slows our pace as an all-out brawl starts between the two groups that appear to be biker rivals.
A chair flies overhead in our direction, and I pull Wren against me, arching myself over her and placing my back to the incoming chair. It hits me hard, and I grunt as I hear it smash into pieces upon impact.
“Motherfuckers,” I hiss before a grin of excitement crosses my face. I stand up and grab Jagger’s arm. “Take Wren,” I say, and he doesn’t hesitate to scoop her up and try to remove her from the scene.
“Pete, don’t—” Sly starts, but I ignore him as I lay my eyes on the big guy who threw the chair at my girl, whether he meant to hit her or not. My grin widens as the need to cause a little mayhem fuels my body as I jump into the fray.
I sucker punch him in the face, as his attention was on a rival biker, but he quickly turns to me when he realizes I’m the bigger threat. I jab him in the side, then slide under his right hook, peppering a quick jab at his kidney from behind.
“Who the fuck are you?” he asks, turning to face me as I bounce on my toes.
