But once we stuffed the toiletry necessities into them, I broke the silence.
“How’d the patrolling go?” I asked.
“They were spotted in town.”
I whipped my head up. “What?”
Brutus was already looking at me when I looked up. “They were spotted in town. One of their blacked-out logo cars drove around downtown Redd Valley for a while today.”
“Logo,” I whispered softly.
He tilted his head. “What? What is it?”
I worried my lower lip before I turned my attention back to the bag I was working on. “Does my brother and his crew know about the car you saw?”
“Cap’s keeping them in the loop, yes. What do you know?”
I sighed heavily as I peeked back over at him. “The woman I talked to today? That heard and sort of witnessed the kidnapping of the girl here in town? She said there was a logo on the black car. She just couldn’t make out what it was.”
His face grew stern. “Please tell me you informed someone.”
I scoffed. “The fuck do you think I’m doing? Of course I informed someone. King knew immediately, as did Dozer since he was with us. I don’t know what they did with that information, but they know.”
He drew in a very deep breath. One that expanded his chest to a point where I thought his breastbone was going to jump right out of his fucking skin. But then he let it out in one of the biggest sighs I think I’d ever heard in my life.
“I’m glad you’re safe, Anna.”
I reached over and placed my hand on his forearm without thinking. “Of course I’m safe. When I’m with my brother, I’m always safe.”
His beautiful brown eyes met mine. “You know you’re safe with me, too. Right?”
I smiled at him and squeezed his forearm softly. “Of course I do. I know I’m safe with you.”
He placed his hand on top of mine, his thumb tracing idly on top of my hand. “Good. Because I need you to know that. Even if your brother doesn’t think so, you’re always safe with me.”
I furrowed my brow. “Why would my brother think I’m not safe with you?”
He just studied me for a while before patting my hand. “Just a vibe I get from him.”
“Well,” I said as I removed my hand from his skin, though I hated moving away from him. I wanted to move closer. “My brother has always been protective of me. Don’t let him get to you.”
“I’m not.”
“Mmmmhm. Here, we’ve got some surplus here. Let’s figure out how to get it into these bags evenly.”
We worked together for a while, counting things out and rearranging some things in the bags so that everyone had an equal amount of everything that I had purchased. I felt good about these bags. I wasn’t sure why in the hell I hadn’t thought about the water filtration bottles beforehand. Those would help them out a lot, along with the filtration straws I ordered way back when for my next batch of these things anyway.
Brutus was the one to break the silence. “How often do you make these for the homeless?”
I shrugged as I tied off one of the bags. “A few times a year. It helps me to keep connections with them and keep tabs on them. I like to know who’s coming and who’s going from our hometown. Who’s aging out of the system and who needs help.”
“Why?”
I peeked over at him. “Why not?”
He shrugged. “I’m just wondering. I think it’s admirable, what you’re doing. I figured there was a personal reason behind it.”
I looked back down for a while, working on tying up another bag. “Mom was homeless for a while. When she was younger.”
