“Okay, and why did you send her home?” I waited, knowing that couldn’t be all of it.
He shook his head, like he was about to tell me something awful. “I think her and Freedom are involved somehow.” He talked about the kidnapping. “From the way Anarchy acted all weird around me, she’s up to something.”
“Weird. How do you mean?”
“All mature and level headed. She wasn’t drinking or giving me sass. That’s not the Anarchy I know. I’ve let Scar know to keep an eye out and to keep her from joining the hunt again.”
As bad as the possibility that the kidnapping was even more of an inside job was, I was relieved he hadn’t told me his ex-girlfriend had gotten knocked up with his child. Personally, I didn’t think Anarchy was involved in my baby’s disappearance, but I didn’t know her like he did. I did know Snakebite, so felt he had to be behind all of this mess.
My lips were sealed about Anarchy. Cowboy crawled in bed with me saying, we’d just sleep. He assumed I wasn’t in the mood, and he’d been right.
I laid my head on his shoulder and drifted away.
The next morning, Cowboy told me to stay put while him and Snakebite met up to try and rescue my baby. It was a tall order. Still hurt he hadn’t been truthful with me and feeling guilty knowing something he didn’t know about Anarchy, something that pertained to him, I didn’t let him kiss me goodbye. So, when the door opened again, I thought it’d be him, coming back to insist. I rushed to meet him, having changed my mind, upset about being so short with him, but bumped into Snakebite.
“What are you doing here?” I made sure all the buttons on the big plaid shirt I’d borrowed from Cowboy were buttoned.
He came toward me, and I backed into the room. “Hiss is taking your Cowboy to the center. I volunteered to guard your door.”
“And Cowboy was okay with this?”
“I think he’s pretty confident I won’t win you over… What the fuck, Halley? Why haven’t you come back to me?”
“Why have you taken my baby?”
“He’s mine as much as he is yours.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I’m president now. Dad’s dead. Murdered by your brother, so I’m all the decent kin the baby has now except Viper.”
Viper, I hadn’t thought of Snakebite’s sister in ages. I fought the urge to ask about her, knowing how she lost her own child. One of the Asphalt Gods had murdered her. I shook my head not wanting to go back to the past. “No way to tell if the baby was Serpentines or not.”
“None of that matters. I loved you so he’s mine… Still love you. I’ll be responsible for him.”
“I guess you are responsible. You left me to rot down there. If it weren’t for you, your brothers and your daddy wouldn’t have raped me at all.”
“If it weren’t for me, you’d be dead, and you know it.”
After that, Snakebite stepped outside, actually guarding my door.
Cowboy had left me a bagged breakfast. I ate but didn’t taste the food. Sucking down the coffee, I got some energy, but had no idea how to use it. I paced. It’d been over an hour, and I hadn’t heard anything from Cowboy.
Peeking out the window, I saw Snakebite hadn’t moved, but he had stepped up to lean on the balcony while he smoked. I stepped outside and bummed a cigarette off him.
“You don’t smoke,” he said, handing me one.
My hands shook as I tried to light it. He took the lighter from my hands and lit it for me.
I inhaled and coughed.
“Don’t worry. I won’t let them sell our baby. I’ll buy him if I have to.”
I inhaled again. “You will not. And he’s not our baby.”
“You porkin’ that Sumbitch’ Cowboy?”
“None of your beeswax,” I automatically replied then regretted it.
