“I should’ve fucking seen this coming,” Cat says, more to himself than to us. I don’t know what he saw on Gaz’s phone, but I’ll tell you this: the way he looks at me wrapped in Crown’s arms is enough. Seeing us together is enough. Our love—as gritty, as resistant, as hard as it is sometimes—is so potent as to be a smoking gun. It paints us filthy, like traitors, paints us with the bright colors of guilt and betrayal. “Jesus Christ, Crown. I should kill the two of you right now.” My father actually turns around, hefting his gun in his hands. He stares at it like he’s deciding whether or not to execute us both right here, right now.
His loyal demons aren’t so loyal, not when it comes to me. Their greatest sin. Their most holy triumph.
Crown very slowly, very carefully, turns us both around so that he can face Cat, keeping me tucked in his arms. I’m not sure that my feet are even touching the floor or, if they are, I’m not sure they’re holding a single ounce of my own weight.
“I won’t tell you that you’re wrong,” Crown says, his voice steady and even. He’s remarkably calm. I can’t help but wonder where he’s been all this time, what he’s been doing. He isn’t singed from the blast; he isn’t bleeding from any gunshots. “But Prez, give me time to explain the situation.”
The sound that escapes Cat’s lips might be called a laugh in some circles, but only if you believe that sound can be tinged with malice and the promise of future violence. The expression he’s wearing now isn’t much different than the one he held just before he killed his only son.
We’re alive, but only for now.
And Crown has just revealed his hand.
He should’ve left me to flounder on my own beneath Cat’s dark stare.
“Gaz’s body is on the floor of my office; clean it up and keep quiet about it.” My father turns and starts walking away, dropping that nugget of information the way someone else might relay the weather to an acquaintance.
“Fuck,” Crown growls out, squeezing me even more tightly in his strong arms. “We need to get you out of here.” He looks down at me, but I can’t really look back at him. I’m too weak. I was running on pure adrenaline until now; I’m not sure there’s a lot left.
“Where are they?” I whisper, my voice quavering as I dig my fingers into the leather of Crown’s cut. He hesitates then. I don’t like that, not one bit. He takes me by the shoulders and moves me back enough that he can lean down and meet my eyes.
“Don’t worry about that just now,” he tells me, but of course I’m going to worry about that. The only people in the whole world who matter to me are on this compound. “We need to get you some help.” He sighs and flicks his gaze to the side for a moment, running his tongue along his lower lip. “You might also need to run.”
You not we because Crown isn’t the type to run from anything. No, even if it meant his death at Cat’s hands, he’d stay and face the music all alone, leaving me to ride off into the sunset on the back of another man’s bike. That’s just who he is. Disturbingly righteous in his own way.
I shove away from him and stumble, only to fall into someone else’s arms.
My head whips around to find Beast looming over me, his face bloodied and bruised, burns along both of his bare forearms. My new husband is alive. He’s alive. With a small cry that I’ll probably regret making later, I turn and let myself fall against him.
“You’re alive,” I whisper, even though that’s an obvious fact at this point. “You’re alive.”
“I failed you, sugar,” he says, stroking a hand over my hair in a way that isn’t dissimilar to the way that Crown just touched me. “I failed you.”
As if getting knocked down by a bomb blast and shielding me with his body was akin to failure in any way.
“Where’s Grainger?” I ask as Crown moves over to stand beside us.
The two men exchange a look, and fury fills me in a glittering red wave. I shove back from Beast so hard that I stumble again. Only Crown’s hand on my elbow keeps me upright.
“Where. is. Grainger?” I grind out, feeling my body begin to shake. I’m hurt. Not as badly as I was after the motorcycle accident, but I need medical attention, a soft bed, and a bucket of cool water to drink.
“On his way to the hospital, honey,” Beast tells me, but this time, there is no comfort for me in his pretty Southern drawl. I feel sick. Hospitals are a last resort for the club; we treat most all injuries here on the compound. Even me, when I pulled the lace of my original wedding dress down to reveal a gunshot wound to the chest, I was treated here.
For someone in the club to actually go to a hospital is bad news.
“Sin?” I whisper, terrified to hear their answer. Please don’t be dead. Goddamn it, Sin, if you’re dead, I’ll … I’ll find you in the next life and kill you myself. Beast and Crown exchange a look before turning back to me again.
“Also en route,” Beast tells me, his voice far gruffer than I’ve ever heard it, thick with emotion.
“Fuck,” I groan, my body sagging against Crown’s. He keeps me up easily, as if I weigh nothing at all, and my eyes close of their own accord. Blackness creeps in at the edges of my vision, but I won’t allow myself to give into sweet, blissful nothingness. No, I’m stronger than that.
I once compared myself to a resurrection fern. That is, a type of fern that grows on the trunks of mature trees, but without harming them. The reason I felt this was an apt metaphor is that I was trying to explain to Crown how I can exist inside the club’s strict hierarchy without being parasitic. I am my own entity. I exist on my own, with a little help from the trees.
Right now? Here’s what I can say about myself: the resurrection fern can live for a hundred years in a dead state. It can lose up to ninety-seven percent of its water while other plants die with just a ten-percent loss.
That’s me. Living dead for years. Suffering losses that would cripple others.
And even now, here, in one of the worst states I’ve found myself in since my sisters were murdered, I’m going to persevere. My eyes snap open even as Crown tries to lift me to my feet, and I push back against him.
Feelings are luxuries; business comes first.
“We need to make sure Cat administers the antidote,” I murmur, and Crown’s brows draw together in confusion.
“How do you know about that shit?” he asks me, and I look up at him with a huh, what the fuck? sort of expression on my face.
“Uh, aren’t I the one who should be asking that question?” I grind out, my tongue gritty and my ears still ringing. I’ve got a massive migraine, blood dripping down my face, and a heart that’s being torn into jagged strips with each second we stand here wasting time. “Grey is on the compound.”
The words rush out before I can stop them. Not that I would, but I’m taking a huge risk here. This is me extending trust to these men in a way I never thought I’d be able to. I’m telling them that my friend is here, on this compound, in the middle of this bullshit. If they wanted to kill him, it’d be so easy. They could save face with Cat, bring Death by Daybreak a severed head that the club would absolutely love to stick on a pike outside the gates to the compound.