Page 10 of Obey

“I believed him,” she agreed. When she looked up again, though, I didn’t see the tears I expected. Instead, her eyes were hard as rock and glowing with fire. “And I saw what he did to Tinker. I saw him send him out with that gun. Send him to die. Devil might not have been the one to pull the trigger, but he killed the man I loved.”

Oh fuck. I’d thought this woman might have something important to tell me, but this was a lot more than I’d expected. And I wanted to take her in my arms, hold her, and rock her as I told her how fucking sorry I was. I’d heard about what happened to Tinker.

I couldn’t imagine watching it—especially when he was the man you’d loved at one point.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered.

“I’m going to kill him,” she snarled. “I’ll kill Devil for what he did. Kill him with my own two hands.”

I reached out and laid two fingers on the tattoo on the inside of her wrist—which I now realized matched the one I’d seen on Tinker’s arm. “I’ll help you,” I promised. No, I didn’t know this woman. We’d been in the same club for years and I’d never even talked to her. She wasn’t my friend and I didn’t owe her anything.

And yet, Devil had hurt her even worse than he’d hurt me. And that, I understood.

Hers was the sort of revenge I’d very gladly help with.

She stared at me for a long time, trying to figure out, I thought, whether I was telling the truth, and finally said, “I can help you, you know.”

This woman evidently didn’t believe in beating around the bush. “I appreciate that. Are you going to?”

She bit her lip. “I’m not sure. There’s war coming and I want to survive it. I want to escape. Not be killed trying to get you home.”

“Knight will give you protection,” I said immediately. “If you take me to him, he’ll protect you from anything that might come. From Devil.”

To my surprise, the woman snorted. “Like he protected Tinker? And Brock? I don’t think so.”

I frowned. “Brock? Isn’t he—”

“Dead,” she said sharply.

The world that I’d just been starting to put back together exploded around me, and I went quickly through my memories, trying to figure out what she was talking about. They were hazy and I’d been upside down and moving at the time, but I’d definitely seen Knight in the distance on that morning in front of the bank.

And Brock had been with him.

I searched everything I could remember, but I’d been shoved into the trunk of that car moments later and hadn’t seen anything else. What had happened? Was there a gunfight? Did Devil and his bodyguard go after Brock and Knight?

Oh shit, was Knight okay? I didn’t realize it until this moment but I’d been positive that Knight was seconds away from finding a way to rescue me, and the idea that he might be dead...

It tore a sob from my throat, the sound so raw, so feral, that I didn’t even realize it had come from me. Not that it mattered. My world was falling down around my ears, all the hope I’d been feeling evaporating in the wind.

Brock was dead. Brock and Tinker.

And Knight might be dead, too.

Then Sioux was taking me in her arms and rocking me slowly, shushing me like she was talking to a child.

“Shh, shh,” she murmured. “I’m sorry, girl, I wouldn’t have told you if I’d known you’d react like this.”

“Brock?” I asked, feeling broken. “Knight?”

“Brock is gone,” she confirmed.

She didn’t say anything about Knight, and I started to struggle against her.

“I have to get out of here. I have to get back to them. Now.”

She held me tightly again, and drew back to look at me. “You’ll never be able to get out on your own, girl. You’ll die trying.” She bit her lip and narrowed her eyes like she was thinking, and then nodded once. “But I might be able to help you. Make things easier, at least, while you’re here.”

She motioned toward a bottle of water sitting next to her, and then a bottle of Scotch. “The water’s for when you’re thirsty. The Scotch is for times like right now, when you feel like everything is lost. Take a shot, but no more. And calm the fuck down. You can’t afford to lose sight of what you’re fighting for. Devil has the cops on his payroll and they come around every so often. They’ll see you if you try to leave. Don’t do anything stupid, girl.”