Fucking Ace. I should have known he’d be the one who’d get to her first. Jack was stupid for asking him to watch her. He knows Ace has zero boundaries.
I did think Camile had better boundaries herself, though I guess hearing about her father’s death has changed things for her. Maybe she’s feeling a little wild.
She moves about the house, turns things off, checks the door is locked, then heads through to the bedroom. I watch her in there, too, but when she goes into the bathroom, I get a fit of conscience and don’t bring that camera up. That would be taking things way too fucking far.
After about ten minutes, she heads back into the bedroom. Her hair is pulled away from her face in a band, and she’s scrubbed clean of make-up, which makes her look achingly young. She yawns again and grabs her bag, pulling out a book before she slides under the covers. I try to get a look at the cover. It’s black and white and the title isPrimal… something. I think it saysPrimal Limits. Is it a spicy one? Primal indicates that perhaps it is.
I wonder if she’ll touch herself. Does she do that often? Make herself come in order to sleep? I used to have a girlfriend, back before I got all fucked up, who used to have to either have sex or masturbate every night, or she couldn’t sleep easily.
Camile doesn’t, though. She slides farther under the covers and yawns again. It only takes five minutes before the book drops out of her hand and her eyes are closed. The girl is fast asleep.
For a worryingly long time, I just watch her sleep. Then, feeling more and more like a complete freak, I turn away and concentrated on the task at hand.
I sit through much of the night, the sinking feeling in my stomach getting heavier by the hour. Every now and then, I flick my phone to the security feed and watch Camile sleeping. It’s not turning me on—even I’m not that broken—but it does give me an odd sense of comfort to see her safely tucked up in bed.
Maybe I can’t find our men, and maybe I can’t control what happened to me in the past, but I can keep Camile safe and watch over her. So, I will.
At almost four a.m., the two scouts return to the layby, the rumble of their engines preceding their arrival, and tell me they haven’t found anything. It’s starting to look real bad, and when we get back to the compound, we’re going to need to call another meeting and think about how we handle this.
“Are we heading back?” Bruce asks, leaning down on his bike so he can speak to me through my open window.
He’s an older guy, and he’s been with us for a long time.
“Yeah, we can—” The ring of my phone makes me jump, and I curse as I fumble to answer it.
“Ghost?” The wheezy, breathless voice has me sitting up to full attention. “It’s Reynolds. We got jumped, man. I’m fucking sorry.”
“Don’t worry about that, where the fuck are you?”
“I’m outside Winsberg Lake.” He names a tiny town about five minutes from here.
“Those fuckers took the weapons, and they took the truck, and us, but then they let us go. We’ve been walking, but it hasn’t been easy.” He pauses and coughs. “They gave us a good beating. It’s taken us an age to get this far. But there’s a gas station here, and the old-timer running it has let us use his phone. Can you come get us, or send someone?”
It could be a trap, but I’m not about to leave them stranded and injured.
“Wait there.”
I hang up and say nothing else. “Follow me,” I order the two scouts, Bruce and Cash.
If there are any Iron Revenants MC at the gas station, they won’t expect me in a truck, and it will give me the chance to do a drive-by and make sure the place isn’t filled with bikers.
When we get near, I gesture with my arm out of the window for the bikes to hang back, and then I drive into the gas station and around the parking lot, before driving back onto the road. I keep going a further five minutes to make sure there are no bikes parked nearby waiting to ambush us.
It looks clear, so I circle back around and head to the gas station. Once there, I park the truck and jog inside. There, sitting on the floor, drinking sodas through a straw, and damn, from the state of their faces that’s the only way they’re going to be getting nutrients for theforeseeable future, are our two men. Both have swollen, blackened eyes and split lips. Their shirts are spattered with blood which has turned brown as it’s dry.
“Ghost,” Reynolds croaks when he sees me. “Thanks for coming, man. They took all our shit.”
“It’s okay,” I say, even though it isn’t. “I brought the truck.”
He nods. “Good.”
He struggles to stand and fails, falling back down with a groan of pain.
“Give me one second,” I tell him.
I turn my back on them and call Bruce and Cash from my cell, telling them to come and give me a hand. I ask the guy behind the counter if he has some meds that can help with their pain, and he gives me some Tylenol. I give them to the two men and let them sit back to give the rudimentary meds some time to kick in.
When the two bikers arrive, we set to work getting them in the truck. It’s another fifteen minutes before we have both injured men laid out in the back of the truck and covered. No wonder it took them so long to get where they did. They are in so much pain, every movement hurts. I give the old-timer who runs the place a hundred dollars for his help, and then I drive back to the compound, taking real care not to jolt the men when I go over any bumps, which feels fucking impossible on these roads. It makes the journey take twice as long as usual and drags the night into the next day, as the sun peeks out of the early morning haze and the birds wake up.
