I fly backwards and hit my head on the wall,again. I slide down the cheap plaster as my ears ring. He always did punch like a hammer. Damn. I’m going to have brain damage after this is all over.
Slash wraps his hand around my throat and pins me to the wall. “I have been calling you for fucking days.” He slams me. “No one knows where you are. Or what happened to you. I have been losing my fucking mind.”
I look behind Slash to see Hawk and Fender standing there.
“Snitch,” I accuse.
Slash leans in closer, his angry face an inch from mine. “Fender didn’t say a fucking word. I had Hawk track your cell phone. Only then did he tell me what happened.” Ky’s blue eyes are ablaze with anger.
He winds up again, and I prepare myself for another skull-splitting blow.
“Ky, don’t.” Liv’s pleading voice cuts through all the chaos. “He’s been through enough. Trust me.”
Slash breathes in my face like a raging bull. But, by God's good grace, he lowers his fist.
“You have a shit-ton of explaining to do,” he spits.
Knuckles has impeccable timing, and comes barreling through the adjoining door just as Ky relents. He tackles Ky to the ground, and all hell breaks loose in the small motel room.
“No, no, no!” Liv explodes as Hawk and Fender attack Knuckles. I pull her back as she tries to work her way into the mix.
“Stop! Everyone, just stop!” she screams as I drag her away from the flying fists and animalistic aggression. Hawk pulls a gun from his waistband and presses it against Knuckles’s head once the three of them finally have him subdued. I will give the big man credit, he put up one fuck of a fight.
“Please, don’t.” Liv flails in my arms. “He didn’t know. He was just trying to protect me.”
“It’s true. He’s cool,” I add.
Hawk looks to a winded Slash, who nods.
“No funny business,” Hawk warns as they release Knuckles. Knuckles stands to his full height, dwarfing us all. He looks over at Liv, then me. His dark eyes inspecting mine before he sighs heavily. “I’ll get the ice.”
With that, he leaves the room. The look on Slash's face says it all. What alternate universe did he just enter?
“Breaker, start talking,” His patience is paper thin.
“Fuck, Ky.” I cover my throbbing, swollen eye and stumble over to the mattress. “I did not want you involved in this.”
“Involved in what? Your life?” He sounds insulted.
“My problems!”
Ky stomps across the room, the raging bull re-emerging. “You’re fucking problems are my fucking problems.” He shoves his finger in my face. “That’s how a club works. Breaker, you know this.”
“Well, I didn’t want this to be a club problem. I wanted to deal with it myself.”
“Yourself?” He looks directly at Liv, who is standing there silently. “You don’t look very alone,” he accuses something very lewd and disrespectful.
I spring to my feet. “Liv is not here so I can get laid,” I scream in his face. Slash’s vexing gaze travels down my body. My mostly naked body.
“Well, this looks bad,” I argue my case. “We were just sleeping. Knuckles snores like a wild boar.”
“Did someone say my name?” Knuckles arrives with a fresh bucket of ice and a clean washcloth.
Annoyed, I go to make yet another makeshift ice pack, but Fender intercepts the bucket. “Let me.”
“Fine.” I don’t fight him. I’m too tired and too drained to object. Not to mention I have a perpetual migraine.
Fender hands me the perfect, little round pouch of ice. The second I place it on my eye, pain sears straight through my brain.
