Silver Bastard(10)

Nope. I had work to do.

Specifically, I needed to kill Teeny with my bare hands. Then I’d tear him apart and eat his heart. Raw. He screamed like a bitch the whole time, and I heard Boonie yelling in the background. Then they hauled me off his ass, kicking and fighting because I’d well and truly lost my shit.

“What the fuck is happening here?” Picnic Hayes demanded. Beside him stood one of the Longnecks, a guy who looked a fuckuva lot like Teeny and I realized this must be the brother who was part of the club. Bax.

Bax wasn’t a happy camper. Fair enough. I was pretty fucking unhappy myself.

Teeny moaned on the floor, rolling onto his back, and I spat at him. Then I heard a sobbing noise—one that’d already been burned into my brain. Becca was crying, and I looked over to find her huddled up against Teeny’s old lady.

Shit. I hadn’t seen it before because the woman was so nasty and used up, but under that scrawny, tweaker body was an older copy of Becca. Had to be her mother . . . Even with the meth eating her, though, she seemed too young. If that was the mother, she must’ve had Becca really fucking early.

“She his daughter?” I asked her, my voice like a knife. The woman shook her head quickly, lips quivering. “You let him pimp her out?”

She looked away.

“Damn,” Picnic said. “This is a hell of a clusterfuck.”

“I’m not leaving her here. He’ll kill her.”

Pic shook his head slowly, thoughtfully, but I could see it in his face—he knew I was right.

“Yeah, she can come with us,” he said. “You up for that, Boon?”

My president nodded, eyes never leaving the huddled mass of blood and human filth crying on the floor.

“We’ll head out in twenty minutes,” Boonie said decisively. “Anyone got a problem with that?”

He looked around the room in challenge, and several of the Longnecks glanced away—apparently they weren’t going to stand up for Teeny. Said a hell of a lot about them in general and Teeny in particular. I mean, I was glad that we weren’t fighting our way out, but that’s just pathetic. They were happy to party with him. When it came time to take his back, they were gone.

“C’mon, let’s go upstairs and grab some of your shit,” I said to Becca, reaching toward her. She gave a little scream and pushed back with her feet, sliding across the floor to get away from me. Fuck.

“I’ll get her ready,” the mother said suddenly. Her voice quavered, but her eyes were resolute as they met mine. “She’ll go with you—just get her away from here. He’ll hurt her bad for this. Real bad.”

I nodded, watching as she drew her daughter to her feet, then pushed her toward the stairwell.

“Jesus, you can sure pick ’em,” Boonie said. “How old you think she is?”

“She’s still in high school,” I said, my voice grim. “Fairly certain I’m up for statutory if this goes down wrong.”

“Damn,” Painter said, coming up behind me. “That’s fast work—usually takes a little longer to violate parole, bro.”

I met his gaze, and for once his face didn’t hold even a hint of mockery. Fuck. This was really bad.

“Outside,” Picnic said sharply. “Horse, Ruger—you stay here. Make sure the girl gets out safe, okay?”

He caught my arm and pulled me toward the door. Boonie flanked us, and I sensed real danger beneath their calm expressions. We walked over to the bikes as the others scrambled to grab their shit and pack up.

“I won’t leave her,” I told them again. “I know she’s scared of me, but I don’t give a fuck. That girl’ll die if she stays here.”

“Not gonna leave her,” Pic said. “But we do need to get out fast, before they have time to figure out what happened and get pissed off. They decide to fight for her, things’ll get ugly. Not sure we can take ’em.”

“Thanks for standing with me.”

Boonie snorted.

“You’re our brother, Puck,” he said, his voice casual. “This is what we do. You went down for us, you think we aren’t prepared to do the same for you? Now pull your shit together. We can put the girl in the truck with the prospects, or you can take her on your bike. No time to fuck around.”

—

Fifteen minutes later, I watched as Horse, Becca, and her mom walked out of the house. At least thirty members of the Longnecks MC stood watching, talking quietly among themselves. I kept waiting for one of them to reach for a gun or challenge us, but they didn’t.

No sign of Teeny.

Becca had stopped crying, but her face was still covered in tear-smeared blood, and nasty bruises were popping up all over. Her breath sounded wheezy, too, and I hoped to hell she didn’t have broken ribs.