Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 56709 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 284(@200wpm)___ 227(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56709 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 284(@200wpm)___ 227(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
His sister clings tightly to me as we ride, with even more urgency than usual. She holds me like she never wants to let go. Maybe it’s because she knows she’ll have to when we reach our destination. We’ll have to pretend nothing happened until we can spring the news on Ryan.
Ryan… Fire rages in me, spitting and hissing and roaring, flames that tell me my only job is to get home and hurt the men who hurt my friend. To hurt them badly, kill the fuckers if necessary. I’m already rehearsing what I’ll do the second I reach home, the orders I’ll give, the places we’ll scout. The fires we’ll set. The bullets we’ll shoot.
On the edge of the state, we stop for a bathroom break. I lean against the bike, scanning the road, a little busier than the nowhere land we were before. Part of me hopes I see Randall or another hitman, somebody I could aim this rage at, apart from myself. That’s who deserves it—me. I should’ve fought these feelings until I could talk to Ryan about them. Now, I may never get the chance.
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
I look up at the sound of Kay’s voice. She’s standing in front of a tall, skinny man, his shoulders jutting through his pale green shirt.
“Just watch where you’re fucking going,” the man snaps.
I don’t see him. I don’t see anything except a sheet of red. Red like the bandages wrapped around my best friend’s gut, red like the dressing barely keeping his insides in place. When the red in my vision clears, I’m standing over the man. He thought he could be tough because he assumed she was alone. He thought he could talk down to a young woman, bully her, and get away with it.
“Is there a problem?” I snarl.
The man stares up at me, slowly shaking his head.
“Move.”
He turns and runs toward the parking lot.
“It’s my fault,” Kay murmurs as we return to the bike. “I wasn’t looking where I was going.”
“Nobody gets to speak to you like that,” I tell her. “Nobody.”
We share a look that, before, might’ve turned into a kiss, but neither of us is in the mood for that.
It’s early afternoon. We’re losing time. Pulling on our helmets, we climb onto the bike. We ride together. With each passing mile, more and more memories of Ryan come to me. When we were in the gym, Ryan held the pads as I hit them heavily, and after, he asked, “Why are you so angry, Kai?”
Then I told him what happened to me as a kid before the club took me in. He’s the only person I’ve ever told. That connection should mean something, but clearly, it didn’t mean a goddamn thing. It didn’t stop me from spanking his little sister, didn’t stop me from wanting to kiss her, love her, protect her, or betray him. I’m a beast, just like they tried to tell me.
Nothing but a fuckup. An animal. Nothing but the feral kid. Throw him some scraps. Don’t worry about how he feels. He doesn’t have feelings. It doesn’t have feelings. That’s me, right down to my skin, cells, and DNA.
When I finally find a place to belong, when I finally find a brother, what do I do? What sort of dumbass choices do I make? I growl inside my helmet, and the bike growls louder beneath me as I pick up the speed and blaze across the asphalt. It would be better if I could hate myself for this, but that would mean regretting what we did. It would mean regretting every single moment. Still, I go faster.
“Kai,” I hear her yelling, the only voice that could pierce this fog. I’m growling and grunting like a crazy person, shaking all over, wishing I could just keep riding until the wheels fall off or I do. “Kai, Kai.”
With my woman on the bike, too, I slow down. I can’t risk her life. I bring the bike to a stop at the side of the road, take off my helmet, and throw it on the ground. I’m embarrassing myself, but the anger takes over as I cave in the helmet with my boot. I keep hitting it, over and over, until it’s crushed. I’m panting and sitting in the dirt.
“Kai,” Kay whispers, her voice shaking as if afraid of me.
I sit with my fists resting on my knees, staring off at nothing, trying not to think about the past and all those countless moments. The time Ryan threw a baseball so hard, it smashed a neighbor’s window, and I said I did it, and then he bought me a pair of boxing gloves to say thanks. Or all those shooting sessions in the dusty wild together, honing our skills—him laughing and me laughing—and everything was good.