“Nice touch,” I said.
“Classy’s my specialty.” He offered me the water. “Drink. You look like you’re about to tip.”
I took a sip, and my hands wouldn’t stop shaking. He noticed but didn’t call me on it. We sat in silence for a minute, and the quiet was almost peaceful until the door exploded open.
Damron St. James filled the doorway like a natural disaster. He wore a plain white tee, black jeans, and a scowl that belonged on a fucking courthouse wall. His eyes flicked to me, then back to Augustine, and all the heat in the room dropped ten degrees.
“Augustine. Outside. Now.” Damron’s voice was all sandpaper and command, no room for questions.
Augustine closed the first-aid kit, gave my shoulder a quick, firm squeeze, and stood. “Sit tight. Don’t touch anything sharp.” He shot me a look that was almost a smile, then followed Damron into the hall.
The walls at the Bloody Scythes were about as soundproof as wet Kleenex, so even with the door closed, their voices leaked in like static.
“That’s Melissa fucking D’Agossa,” Damron hissed. “You know who her father is?”
“Yeah,” Augustine shot back, low and flat. “Cutler D’Agossa. President of the Leatherbacks. Ipassed civics.”
“Don’t be cute. Are you out of your goddamn mind bringing Leatherback royalty into our house?”
“Would you rather I left her to get raped in a cemetery by a bunch of tweakers?” Augustine’s voice didn’t rise, but the silence that followed was loud enough to make my ears ring.
Damron again, this time controlled fury. “She’s not just another junkie. She’s a walking fucking blood feud.”
“I don’t see her making phone calls.”
“She won’t have to.” A pause. “You remember what happened to Pop James, right? You want a repeat of that?”
“Pop James got careless. I’m not.”
“And now you’re babysitting the daughter of our worst enemy. That’s not careful, August. That’s fucking suicidal.”
Another stretch of dead air, the kind that meant someone was thinking about violence. I heard Augustine shift his weight.
“Look,” he said, softer, “she’s running from something. I don’t think it’s us she’s scared of.”
Damron’s answer was a quiet, guttural noise. “She’d better be. If the rest of the club finds out, you’re on your own.”
“Fine by me,” Augustine said. “I was born on my own.”
Footsteps. A door slammed somewhere else in the building.
I let out the breath I’d been holding for the last two minutes. The smiley-face Band-Aid on my neck felt radioactive. I looked down at my ruined blouse, blood and mud and cemetery grass ground into the silk, and had to fight back a wave of stupid tears.
Instead, I stood and wandered the room. The couch was about the only thing soft in the place. On the table was a half-assembled Glock, a cigarette lighter shaped like a grenade, and a busted-out Polaroid of Augustine and two other guys at some kind of desert bonfire, all shirtless and flexing like idiots. I guessed that was the closest thing to family these people had.
I heard the door open behind me and spun, ready for a fight or an eviction.
It was just Augustine, but his face was tighter now, like he’d had to swallow something that didn’t want to go down. He closed the door behind him and leaned back against it.
“You okay?” he asked, like he actually meant it.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Nobody’s tried to kill me for five whole minutes, so that’s an upgrade.”
He gave a low, rasping chuckle. “You got jokes. That’ll keep you alive.”
I stared at him, then at the space between us. “Am I a prisoner here?”
“No,” he said, too quickly. Then, slower: “But you might want to keep your head down until I figure out what to do with you.”
