And that wasn’t all there was to it. I’d seen the way Hawk looked at her, the way you looked more closely at the walls when you thought you heard a mouse scratching from inside. You couldn’t see what was in there, but you knew it was something.
It was the same way I felt when I was around Cassie. Fuck, even when I wasn’t around her. I wanted to stare at her, figureout why she made me want to rail her and protect her at the same time. Because I’d wanted to rail plenty of girls but the urge to protect had never reared its ugly head.
“She’s coming out,” Vigo said.
I followed his gaze to the little house where a young woman not much older than Cassie emerged with a baby on her hip, her brown hair in a ponytail.
“She leaving?” Hawk asked from the back.
“I think so,” I said as the woman turned toward the car in the driveway, an older sedan in need of a paint job.
She reached the car, put the baby in a car seat in the back seat, and climbed into the driver’s seat.
We watched as she reversed, then disappeared down the narrow street.
Hawk grabbed his mask off the back seat and opened the door of the G-Wagon. “Let’s do this.”
Vigo and I joined him on the street, all of us holding our Hunt masks. We crossed to the white house and waited to put on our masks until we were headed up the cracked concrete walkway.
No reason to scare the shit out of the neighbors, or worse, bring out the cops.
We stepped onto the porch with Hawk at the front. He didn’t even slow down as he approached the door, just pulled open the screen and took out the door with one vicious kick.
We stepped into the house after him and found ourselves in a small living room with faded blue carpet and mismatched furniture, a giant TV dominating the room.
A skinny guy with stringy brown hair jumped up from the sofa holding a bong, his eyes wide as we advanced into the room.
“What the…?”
Hawk grabbed him by the neck and drove him back against the living room wall. “Tell us about the accident on Old Mountain Road.”
“What… what are you…?”
Hawk looked at me, but Vigo punched the guy in the face before I got the chance.
I glared at him. “Stay in your fucking lane. Fuck.”
Fucking Vigo.
Blood dripped from Travis Dorsey’s nose and mouth, eyes wide.
“Tell us about the time you drove that couple and their son off the road!” Hawk roared. “You’re only going to get so many chances.”
It was weird to hear Hawk refer to Bram Montgomery as someone’s son. He loomed large in Blackwall Falls, the boogeyman everyone pretended didn’t exist but needed to keep around to keep things running.
But I knew now that Bram was more than that. He’d been a kid once, a teenager. Someone’s son.
Cassie’s brother.
“It was an accident!” Dorsey said.
“Bullshit,” Hawk roared.
I slammed his jaw with my fist before Vigo could beat me to it a second time.
Dorsey’s head snapped back against the wall, then hung forward over his chest, blood dripping onto his stained white T-shirt.
It felt good to hit him after what he’d done to Cassie’s family.
