“Fuck this, I’m going back,” I hissed, crumpling the empty can in my hand.
Axe was on me faster than aftershave on a playboy. “You’ll go nowhere. It’s too damn risky.”
I pointed to the television. “She’s looking for us, Axe. You know she is. You really mean to tell me we’re just gonna leave her there by herself?”
“She’s not by herself,” Dee said.
“And she’s not even looking at them! She’s not even looking at her parents! Look at the television, Axton!”
When he didn’t turn around, I grabbed his shoulders and whipped him around, forcing him to look at the screen. Forcing him to see the empty hugs she gave those people as tears slid down her cheeks. Her gaze never wavered. Even one of the cameras caught onto what she was doing and panned over the parking lot, trying to figure out what in the fuck she was staring at.
We knew, though.
We knew what she was staring at.
“We can’t,” Axe muttered.
I growled. “I need some fucking chips.”
“Maybe she’s just pissed about her sister. It’s understandable. I’m sure she’s got a lot of anger toward them right now,” Dee said, grasping at straws.
Then, all too soon, she disappeared back into the hospital.
“Where is she going?” I asked as my travels to the kitchen were thwarted.
Axe chuckled. “Of course, our girl wants to help.”
Our girl.
The words hung heavily in my head as a grin tugged at Dee’s cheeks. “I like the sound of that.”
Axe chuckled. “I figured you would.”
I swallowed hard. “Why didn’t we call her that sooner? It would’ve made her smile so much.”
“Look, I know this sucks,” Rocker said as he came out of the kitchen and handed me one of my suckers, “but what the fuck are we going to do about The Heretics? It’s not like they’re just out there not doing shit.”
I took the sucker from him and unwrapped it. “Thanks.”
He nodded as he stared at Axe, waiting for an answer. And I had to admit, it was a good fucking question. We had gotten so wrapped up in chasing down that bitch that we had completely forgotten about the puppeteer.
“Well,” Dee said, pulling out his phone and dicking around on it, “word on the street is that the bounty on our heads is gone.”
“Probably because of the meet-up,” I said matter-of-factly. “Can’t really say it went their way.”
Wolf chuckled. “Serves them fucking right, too.”
“The payments clear out, by the way,” Locker said, coming up to my side. “Just moved my shit around and everything was smooth sailing.”
That made the guys rip their phones out of their pockets. Dealing with the kind of money that we did on a regular basis took patience and time. And sometimes, it didn’t always clear, which meant that we had to hit the streets for a nice little warning call. But with the dings and smiles that ricocheted across the room, the mood seemed to lighten.
Despite the fact that Brielle had charged back into that hospital and hadn’t yet come back out.
“What do you guys think she’s doing?” I asked as I nodded to the newsreel on the television in the living room.
“We could get our regular patrols back out now that Rachel’s off the streets,” Locker said.
“We may want to go check our stash warehouses, though,” Rocker said.
