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Jay grunts, his body folding over in pain. For an instant, I see doubt flicker in his eyes. Maybe he realizes that he's outnumbered and outmatched.
Sophie chokes up her grip on the pipe and she looks ready to swing hard enough that she’ll take Jay’s head off.
I dislike Jay. Strongly. But I don’t want to see him decapitated. I have to stop this.
Throwing open the door to my car, I jump out and step between him and Sophie, my hands outstretched toward my friend, thwarting her blow. Jay perks up immediately, straightening, but the not-boyfriend bouncer and Harper both step between him and me.
"Get back in your car and leave, motherfucker," Harper says, her voice steady despite the tension crackling in the air. Her words are not a plea; they’re a warning.
Jay freezes, his entire body still except for his eyes, which burn with a ferocity more intense than anything I’ve ever seen from him. Those eyes glare at me, threaten to consume me, and I feel what little strength there is in my spine burns to ash beneath their fire.
Then I hear Sophie hiss. “Don’t you fucking worry, Em. We got your back.”
“Leave, Jay. You don’t want to get hurt over this. Please, just go,” I say.
Something in the strident tone of my voice touches him, and those fires in his eyes dim just a little. Shaking his head, he snorts, spits, and then returns to his car. Leaning out the window, he calls to me. “You’re making a big fucking mistake, Em. Maybe you’re too innocent or too stupid to know it, but you are. Whatever that new guy you’re fucking is mixed up in, it’s bad. Real bad. And if you keep acting like this, there’s going to be no one around to save your fucking ass when shit hits the fan.”
Before I can open my mouth to retort how crazy he sounds, he slams his foot on the gas and, with tires smoking, speeds off down the road.
Sophie runs down the street after him with the pipe held high and her other hand — sporting an upraised middle finger — raised as well. Even though his car has disappeared into the distance, she still calls out, “Get fucked, you distended pig’s anus.”
Panting, she returns to the group, still holding the pipe like she wants to bash someone’s head in.
Then she points the pipe right at me.
“Em, I don’t care how responsible you want to be. With that psycho shithead skulking around, we are going to teach you how to kill.”
Chapter Sixteen
Hunter
“How much is the pay?”
Those are the first words out of my mouth once I meet Havoc and Mayhem at the clubhouse and then follow them to the job site, which is actually an old farmhouse — complete with a big barn — on the outskirts of Ironwood Falls. The fields are fallow, overgrown, and the only crops on the entire compound are the hunks of steel, sheet metal, and the skeletons of past creations that spring from the earth.
I know it’s not the best idea to ask about the money up front, especially when it’s more important to me I get in the good graces of these two so they can speak up for me with the MC, but I have a kid at home, and kids take money; I can live rough and homeless for a long damn time, but a baby is not suited to sleeping under the stars.
Plus, I have a babysitter to pay. Emily seemed excited as hell when she came by watch Charlie, like she’s craving some sense of normalcy, that, or she’s just flat-out in love with Charlie — which wouldn’t shock me, every day I spend around the kid, I realize he’s going to grow up to be a handsome guy — but I refuse to let her work without pay. I couldn’t do any of this without her. She deserves to be compensated.
“Five hundred, maybe a thousand,” Havoc says, running his hand along his shaved head.
“Depends on the job,” Mayhem adds. “This whole thing is like art. You conceive, you create, you mold, you birth, you destroy, and what’s left at the end… that’ll decide.”
“Five hundred or a thousand, huh?” I say. “Let me show you something. You guys have your welding equipment ready?”
“It’s in the barn. Follow me,” Havoc says.
The two of them lead me into the barn, which, on the inside, looks like something out of a steampunk mushroom trip; there’s equipment I recognize, equipment I’ve never even imagined, and equipment I know shouldn’t exist, all around the space, set out on tables, sprawled on the floor, and even hanging from chains suspended from the ceiling. I feel like I’ve stepped into Willy Wonka’s workshop after he’s had a midlife crisis.
“Holy fuck,” I mutter.
“Welding equipment is over next to the thing with spikes on it that looks like a giant man in a diving helmet. We call him Trundle the Great,” Havoc says.
“Really, he named himself. That was a wild night, wasn’t it, brother?” Mayhem says.
Havoc nods. “My scars still hurt.”
“Lot of blood, yeah,” Mayhem laughs. “Sometimes I think we need to help him find his queen. Trundle shouldn’t be alone.”
