Page 14 of Preacher

This wasn’t my bedroom. The room was small but neat. A dresser against one wall, dark wood matching the beams. A leather jacket slung over the back of a chair.

A nightstand with a phone charger snaking down to the floor, and—oh, perfect—a folded knife sitting next to a paperback like it was a coaster. The walls were a deep slate gray, broken up by a framed black-and-white photo of a stretch of highway disappearing into mountains. No clutter. No dust. Whoever lived here either didn’t live here much or was the kind of person who folded their socks.

I was willing to bet it was the second one.

The bed beneath me was firmer than mine, the sheets softer, the pillow under my head smelling like laundry detergent and something else. Something smoky. Something male.

“Oh god.” I dragged a hand down my face and immediately regretted it when my fingers brushed the bruise. “Oh god, oh god, oh god.” I’d fainted, in front of an entire row of outlaw bikers who probably ate nails for breakfast.

“Okay,” I whispered. “Step one. Don’t die. Step two. Find food. Step three. Figure out the rest.”

Step one was already complete. Generous of the universe.

I sat up slowly, the room swimming for a second before it settled. My jaw still ached, but the pain had dulled into something I could ignore if I focused. Someone had loosened my belt. I checked under the blanket fast, the panic spiking, but my jeans were still on. Just unbuttoned at the top, like whoever had laid me down had wanted me comfortable but had stopped well short of anything that would make me want to crawl under the bed and die.

Considerate. The word didn’t fit anything I knew about Preacher Deluca, and yet here it was, stamped all over the careful arrangement of my shoes and the glass of water within arm’s reach.

The barbecue smell hit me again. My mouth flooded with saliva so fast it was embarrassing.

I swung my legs over the edge. The hardwood was cool under my feet. My socks had been left on, which was somehow the detail that almost broke me. I sat there for a second, head down, hands braced on my knees, breathing through my nose until the prickling behind my eyes subsided.

“Not crying in a biker’s bed.” I muttered it like a vow. “That’s a line, Trent. We have so few left. Hold this one.”

I thought of Preacher’s hand on my back. His voice, low enough that it had felt like he was pouring it into my ear instead of speaking it. Something about a brother and a sister and a front door. Maybe candy?

Giving up, I stood. The world tilted, my head sloshing like a snow globe, then it righted itself.

The mirror over the dresser caught me on my way past, and I stopped to take inventory. Hair stuck up on one side like I’d been electrocuted. Bruise looking exactly as charming as expected. Diner T-shirt rumpled to hell. I licked my palm and tried to flatten my hair. It bounced right back up. Effort made.

I started to splash water on my face from the glass before I remembered that wasn’t what it was for. I drank it instead, the whole thing, in three long swallows. It was cold enough to make my teeth ache.

Turning, I saw the window was cracked open a few inches, and that was where the smell of food was coming from, riding in on a breeze along with something else. Voices. Laughter. The low growl of an engine being revved, then revved again, like somebody was tuning it. And under all of it, threading through everything, music. Something with a guitar that sounded like a serenade.

Weird.

Padding across the room, I pressed my ear against the door like that was going to tell me anything useful. I heard a man laugh, deep and rolling. Somebody yelled something about propane. Somebody else yelled back about getting it yourself.

Real intimidating crew, arguing about a grill.

The barbecue smell grew stronger when I cracked the door an inch. Just an inch. Enough to peek.

The hallway outside was long and ended in what looked like a common room. From my limited view I could see the corner of a pool table, the glow of a beer sign on a wall, and a sliver of glass door beyond that opened onto a back patio. That was where the smoke was coming from. I could see a haze drifting past the door, lit gold by the same late sun that had been pouring through the bedroom window. The music kicked into a chorus, and a voice I recognized as Crowbar’s sang along, badly. Man went from intimidating biker to off-key menace.

It was so normal it scrambled my brain. I’d been bracing for a horror movie, and instead, I was looking at what amounted to a backyard cookout with extra leather.

A figure crossed my line of sight, broad shoulders and a black bandana, and my whole body went still in the way prey animals did right before they were eaten.

Preacher was talking to somebody, head tilted, one hand resting on the back of his neck while he listened. Even from behind, in profile, with distance between us, the man’s appearance was unfair to the rest of us. He’d replaced his shirt, now wearing a black tee, ink crawling down one of his forearms. His other hand had a bottle dangling from two fingers.

My gaze slid over his features. His face was relaxed, in contrast to the intense expression he wore in my presence. He looked like…a normal guy, not someone who’d held a gun to Tap’s forehead with a savage curl on his lips.

I stood there at the crack of the door, watching him, and somewhere in the back of my brain, a small voice was politely suggesting I close the door, climb back into the bed that smelled like him, and pretend I was still unconscious.

As if he’d felt the weight of my gaze, he turned.

Just enough that he could look over his shoulder, straight into the inch of door I’d cracked open.

Straight at me.