Page 65 of Slick Trip

“Seriously?” I muttered. “He brought backup? That’s so embarrassing for him.”

“Get in the car,” Jon said quietly.

“No way,” I insisted. “And don’t you dare mute me again.”

“I didn’t mute you,” he said, rubbing his jaw. “Just get in the car and let me deal with them.”

“No.”

There was no amusement on his face when he looked at me. “If you don’t get in the car, be ready for consequences later.”

My lips parted. I really, really wanted those consequences. To secure them, I stepped in front of Jon, earning a frustrated curse.

He was going to be so mad at me. I could hardly wait.

“That him?” one of them asked, pointing at Jon. He cracked his neck and knuckles, looking like a crude cartoon character.

“Yeah,” Cart Guy said, nodding. “A pair of freaks,” he sneered.

“You’re a freak!” I told him, taking a step forward. “I bet you have a really small dick!”

Jon’s hand closed around my wrist, his touch tender but firm.

“Enough,” he said under his breath.

I leaned closer.

“Why?” I whispered. “You’re already going to punish me. I might as well enjoy the journey.”

“Control your brat,” Knuckle-Cracker spat, stepping forward. Jon pushed me behind him, fury radiating off him. He looked like a storm about to break. I realized too late I had made things harder for him by running my mouth and not getting into the car. What if he got hurt? It would be my fault.

“I suggest you all crawl back to whatever dark hole you came from,” he said. “Before I actually get mad.”

The men looked at each other and chuckled.

“Are you practicing some kind of freak math, kid?” Knuckle-Cracker sneered. “Seems to me there are four of us and—” He gave me a derisive look. “One and a half of you.”

The other three men howled with laughter. I bristled.

Jon kept his hand on my arm. “Stay back.”

“Don’t bother,” the biggest of them said. “It’s been a while since we beat a little Omega freak like that into the ground. We might as well start with him.”

I didn’t have time to feel scared by his threat. I barely even tracked what happened. One second he was talking, the next Jon’s fist had connected with his mouth and his knee had found its way into the man’s crotch.

“You really shouldn’t have said that.”

Knuckle-Cracker lunged at him next, but before I’d blinked, he staggered back, blood gushing from his nose.

Dumbfounded, I just stood there and watched as Jon twisted Cart Guy’s injured wrist until a sickening crunch and a scream of pain told me that this time, he broke it.

There was one guy left but he had stepped back, raising his hands in a placating gesture.

“Done?” Jon asked, his voice lethally quiet, as he stood there and looked around. There wasn’t a scratch on him, except on his knuckles. I was going to kiss them better.

Apparently, the men were done, because they escaped, moaning in pain.

I turned toward Jon. “Are you all right?”