Page 20 of Shatter

He looks like a man who fell asleep behind a dumpster, with bullet holes.

I pull out my phone and text Gunnar, because he's patched and he's my brother and he'll answer at two in the morning without asking questions first.

Night Owl on Tennessee. Body behind dumpster. Dark sedan in lot, keys in my pocket. Bringing a girl in hurt bad. Need Aesir.

The reply comes back before I've pocketed the phone.

Fuck. On it. Get out of there.

Her Corolla starts on the second try.

I lay her across the back seat, and she lets me lift her, but she keeps her good hand locked in the front of my cut, and when I try to straighten up she doesn't let go.

"I have to drive." I cover her hand with mine. "I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere."

Her fingers loosen, one at a time.

I drive with the seat jammed all the way back and my knees still hitting the dash, and I leave my bike sitting in the dark on the gravel, because I'll deal with it tomorrow, or Ulf will.

The car is spotless inside.

No trash, no receipts, no coffee cups, no hair ties looped over the gear stick.

Nothing with a name on it.

It's the car of somebody who expects to leave it behind.

The car fills with the smell of her blood, sweet and metallic, and I crack the window an inch.

In the rearview, she's curled on her side with my cut pulled up to her chin, watching me.

"Where are you taking me?" Her voice is thin and slurred at the edges.

"Somewhere with a doctor who won't call the cops." I take the turn onto Capital Circle too fast, and the tires whine. "You're safe there."

"Nobody's safe anywhere." She says it flat, like a fact she learned in school.

I don't argue.

My hands are shaking on the wheel.

I notice it at a red light.

When I grip harder, the tremor crawls up into my forearms instead.

I blow through the light.

* * *

Gorm's on the gate.

He sees her Corolla and his hand goes to his hip, and then he sees me behind the wheel, bare-chested and bloody, and his mouth falls open.

"The fuck happened to you?" He leans down to the window. "Where's your cut?"

"Open the gate." I don't look at him.

"Hakon, you can't bring a—" Gorm's eyes dart to the back seat.