He took a moment, looking around the parking lot to give Elle a chance to get her bearings back and his gaze flitted over the familiar truck, and the three bikes that were already parked there. Carla and Joel where there already. He recognized Tucker's and Hot Wheels' motorcycles, and that left the third which looked slightly familiar but not enough for him to place.
Honey prayed silently that Joel had found some still loyal members of the Dirty Cruisers to bring in but he wasn't holding his breath. He knew how bad things had been getting. The club was already on edge with everything that had happened with Maurice, and then this thing with the farm, going straight. It hadn't set well with a lot of people and Viper had known just how to manipulate that.
He turned to walk towards the office, where he assumed the rest of the their pathetically small group was already waiting but they barely made it four or five steps before he realizes that Elle had drawn to a stop a few feet behind him. Honey watched her for a long moment, his eyes tracing the spot her own were glued to as her face went somehow even paler.
For a moment, he was worried she might pass out then and there, it looked like she wasn't even breathing. Just staring straight at the spot where that asshole Scorpion had shoved her against the wall and threatened her.
Rage clouded his vision for a moment as he remembered, just as he was sure she was, and he doubted whether it was the best decision for her to come back so soon after the attack. He also knew that it wasn't his decision to make, and knowing Elle, she would be up in arms if he even mentioned a word of his thoughts, yelling at him about how she made a promise or some such.
Without a second thought he walked the few short steps separating them, and reached out. As her hand slid into his, something clicked inside of him. As if there'd been something missing all the past years and he'd never noticed, never even known until he'd held Elle's hand. Such a simple thing but it shot through him like a tremor and had his chest tightening with the unfamiliar emotion.
He felt resistance for a moment but he held tight. As much as she tried to pretend like this didn't affect her he could feel the trembling in her fingers, in the way her breath hitched at the contact and she leaned a little closer to him. Honey doubted she was even aware of the unconscious move but it had warmth blooming inside him.
"It's okay." He said softly, startling Elle and she turned her big dark eyes on him. For a moment it felt like drowning before he pulled himself back, focusing on the words he had to say, the words she had to hear.
"It's okay," he said again, "It's okay to let me help you. Just this once." He paused, staring at her, struck as always by how beautiful she was, how untarnished by the cruelty of the world despite everything she'd gone through. "It's okay, Elle. You don't have to be the strong one all the time."
"The strong one?" Elle snorted the question cynically and he knew she wasn't asking for an answer, but he gave her one anyways.
"Yeah, the strong one. You always have to take care of yourself, you always have to take care of everyone else. But when are you going to let someone else take care of you, Elle?" Honey shook his head, desperately wanting to draw her closer but he could see the stiffness in her shoulders, the tension in the way she held herself ramrod straight, "There's a difference between being strong, and being brittle. I hope you figure that out before you break."
Honey turned back towards the office, Elle's hand still clutched in his and even though she didn't say anything else as they walked, neither did she try and pull her hand away from his and for some reason, that small, negligible thing had hope burning like a beacon inside him. Hope for Elle. Hope for them.
As they walked into the office Elle spotted Carla and quickly headed in her direction leaving Honey standing there, already missing the feel of her moving next to him. Joel, Hot Wheels and Tucker all had their heads together as a fourth man, one he recognized as a member of their rivals the Nomads, Sparkplug. He barely had a moment to wonder why the other man was there at all before his question was being answered.
"Sparkplug brought some new information to light that we all need to know about," Joel said softly, but even so it drew everyone's attention. For the millionth time Honey wondered how any of the crew members could doubt Joel's ability to lead when he'd seen it in action time and time again.
Everyone walked closer until they were all standing around the small round table that Joel, and the other three were already arranged around. Joel cleared his throat.
"Sparkplug, if you wouldn't mind?" Joel said stolidly. The other man looked surprised for an instant but then nodded slowly before speaking.
"Alright. I'll keep it short," The big man spoke, his voice gruff but his eyes direct as they moved from person to person, "Before I … left the Nomads I found out that Damaris, our leader, cut a deal with Viper. Apparently, before all that shit went down with the Dirty Cruisers, that asshole had approached other crews, told them about the farm, and Joel's plan."
"That's why I haven't been able to get a jump on anyone," Hot Wheels fumed quietly, but at a look from Sparkplug she grew silent once more.
"Like I was saying, Viper cut a deal with Damaris. In return for a percentage of the weed for dirt cheap, Damaris would back Viper if there was a split in the Cruisers. He promised help taking over the crew, and the farm."
"The farm!" Carla cried out, a horrified look on her face, "they can't do that! They can't just think that they can walk in here and I'd sign in over to them."
"Actually, that's exactly what Damaris thinks, Carla." Sparkplug shook his head slowly, "And believe me, with enough … pressure … you would. You would do anything they say."
"That's not true," Carla replied weakly, and Joel reached over and held her hand, a sad look shining in his silver eyes.
"You would. But it doesn't matter because we're not going to let it get that far." He said, his voice solid, not a hint of the fear showing that merged with the sadness in his gaze.
"What – What are we gonna do, sugar?" Hot Wheels finally spoke up, asking the question that everyone else was thinking, "Damaris has a mean streak as wide as the Mississippi."
"She's right." Sparkplug interjected, "You need to take him down all at once, otherwise he'll retaliate. And he has no mercy when it comes to his enemies. Or his friends either, really."
Joel was silent for another long minute while he thought, and Honey took advantage of the moment to sneak a sideways glance to his right where Elle was standing next to him. Her face was still pale, but there was a light in her eyes now. A protective light. A light that said she really cared about these people and what happened to them, and that meant the world to Honey because in reality, they were his true family. Them, and Elle too if she would ever admit it.
"Okay. I've got an idea, but it might be crazy," Joel started and Hot Wheels snorted.
"Sugar, what we need right now is bat shit. Go ahead."
"We don't have the man power to face the Nomad's head on. I did some digging at the clubhouse and there's a lot of tension. A lot of the crew members are uneasy with Viper and any loyalty to him is starting to crumble except for the new guys he brought in but I guess there've been some … examples made of people trying to leave. It would take me weeks to make any headway there."
"We don't have weeks," Sparkplug said, interrupting, and Joel just gave him a solemn nod of agreement.
"No, we don't."
"We might not even have days."
"I know. Which is why this plan just might work. We need to pit Viper and the Nomads against each other. Viper doesn't know that the Nomads are trying to undercut him and make a deal with me directly and the Nomad's don't know how unstable things are within the Cruisers. If we could play them against each other, it might just be the spark we need to let them destroy each other and give us enough time to come up with plan b."
"What's plan b?" Elle asked, the first time she'd spoken since they walked in and the sound of her voice soothed something wild inside him.
"Plan b is what we do after all this shit hits the fan." It was Hot Wheels who answered, but Honey shook his head.
"How?" It was only one word but Joel understood, and for some reason he looked uneasy.
"We send someone in, to the Nomad's. As a mole, pretending to be one of Viper's. They let slip that the deal is off, that Viper wants more. If Damaris knows Viper it should be easy to convince him that the man's getting greedy. Make the demands so unreasonable that Damaris has no choice but to either back out, or confront Viper. Either way, it's another crack in the already weak ties that's keeping the Cruisers together."