I turn over my shoulder, look at Harlen through the cabin. “Get Skinner, yeah?”
He nods.
My feet are at the ground for no less than a second before I feel a knee launch into my stomach, landing among the massacre of ribs this piece of shit’s son had splintered earlier.
“Fuck you, motherfucker,” I seethe, spittle coming from my mouth. I curl over and clench my teeth and before I can think or catch a breath or tame the rage that twists down my spine like a cobra, I see it coming for me again, round two, toward my face. But I catch it, twist it until he grunts, shoving him back.
And it was the only retaliation the grub needed for him to lay into me like a palette of bricks.
I knew he was going to anyway, but now he’d have a reason to throw me in lockup for the night and laugh at me from the opposite side.
I hoped Chief Wynston was on duty. He was an ally to the Devil’s Peak MC. He would let me go. I would be okay.
My cheekbone crunches against the window of my truck, the weight of my skull shattering the glass beneath me.
“My sister…” I try to speak, but the weight and pressure of Officer James’ hand at the back of my head rotates my face until my nose and lips push into shards of glass, silencing me.
“Shut the fuck up, you fuckin’ deadbeat,” Officer James hammers his elbow between my tensed traps.
Every word disintegrates on my tongue when I feel small cuts opening the flesh of my face.
My arms are pulled behind my back, cuffs cool and sharp, snapping around my wrists.
“You have the right to remain silent…”
I tried to speak again, but I couldn’t.
I should have kept them closer.
The noxious smell of body odor singes my nasal cavity.
I tug at the tip of my nose, dropping my arm back to my drawn knees, wrists hanging lazily over bone.
My eyes are screwed closed, head reclined, skull resting against the cold smokey-gray cinder block wall of the holding cell Officer James threw me in hours ago.
Chief Wynston, his superior, and the only person on the force that could have—and would have—stopped him was out of town for the weekend. An annual fishing trip that happened to be on the same weekend we needed him.
When we arrived at the station, they had let Harlen go, which was no surprise. They knew who he was, the blood he carried. My chosen brother had nodded at me before leaving, a silent reassurance that he would get to the girls.
And if he had, I was yet to find out.
A thud comes from across the cell. I adjust my jaw and let go of my breath. Keeping my head where it is, I tangle with my eyes until they’ve landed on the old guy sitting across the tank.
He had been singing in riddles for hours, beating his long, sparse gray head of hair against the wall, pausing often to laugh at himself.
He is plastered, having boarded a rocket ship to an entirely different planet.
He also smells like a sack of shit which isn’t great for me.
“A nuisance to society!” he shouts.
No, just to my nose,I think to myself, the headache that grates through my temples gnawing deeper.
He slams his head against the cinder block even harder and I grit my teeth on impact.
“Fucking pigs!” he screams, beating his head again.
I flick my eyes away, force my face to remain neutral when the banging stops.
