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Havoc let out a low whistle.

“And I’m the only one here who can start it,” I said. “It’ll buy you time, it’ll take them by surprise and you can do whatever you need to do.”

Gage looked at me for a long moment. Then he looked at Preacher. “She’s smart. I like it.”

“I don’t,” Shade said. “Not one fucking little bit.”

“I know you don’t.” I made myself look at him. “But it’s my mess, Shade. I flew those guns. It’s my call. I need to make this right.”

His jaw was tight enough to crack. He looked at me like he wanted to pick me up and lock me in his room until this was all over. But he didn’t say no again. He let it be my call.

From the couch where they’d laid him, Lock lifted his head. “I’m coming.”

“You’re not,” Preacher said.

“They put me in a ditch.”

“And you’ll get yours. Just not tonight.”

Lock told him exactly where he could stick that and let his head drop back down. Lock couldn’t have gotten on a bike tonight even if he’d tried.

“The crates go out on the strip as bait,” Preacher said. “Gage, pull the ammo out first. We’re keeping that.”

“And the rifles?” Havoc asked.

Preacher’s face didn’t change. “They want their guns back so bad, they can stand there and watch what happens to them.”

In the afternoon I found Shade alone in his room, cleaning a gun on the bed.

He’d barely said a word to me since church. I didn’t know if he was annoyed or scared for me. I sat down on the other end of the bed and watched him work, and there wasn’t a joke or a smile left in me.

“Can I ask you something?”

He kept working. “Yeah.”

“Last night. With Lock.” I looked down at my hands. “You were amazing. You knew exactly what to do, and everybody in that room just did what you said.”

He didn’t answer.

“You take care of everybody, don’t you? Lock. Every brother in this club. Me, on that airstrip.” I took a breath. “Last night you told me I was yours. I need to know what that means to you. Am I something different? Or am I just the next person you’re looking after, until it’s safe for me to go home?”

He set the gun down.

I waited. I wanted him to say it. I wanted it so bad it hurt.

“I do what needs doing,” he said.

It was the worst thing he could have said. Because it was true. It was true about Lock, and Pete, and every brother in this club. It was true about everybody I’d gotten to know here.

For four days I’d been able to see right through that hard face of his. Now the wall was back up, at the worst possible moment, and I couldn’t see a thing behind it.

“Okay,” I said. My voice cracked. “Okay. That’s what I thought.”

I stood up. He caught my wrist.

Then he pulled me in and kissed me, hard, like he could put the answer into me that way instead of saying it.

For a second I let him. Then I put my hand flat on his chest and pushed him off.