Page 123 of Silent Damage

Jason releases me with a pop of his mouth and kisses me. “You are fucking filthy,” he croons.

“We both are,” I correct.

“True.” Jason lifts me out of the sling and cradles me in his arms.

“Are you carrying me?” I ask with a laugh.

“Fuck yeah,” he replies. “These pigs will maul you if I don’t show that you’re off limits.” Then he barks to the crowd, “Move it. Show’s over.”

Jason carries me back to the clothing check-in, and we grab our stuff.

When we return to the bar, Torren and Felix are gone, but Angelique delivers a message. “They wanted me to let you know that they could hear you from up here, and they’re very impressed.” Then Angelique looks us up and down and says, “The next time you two do something like that, it has to be when I’m off. I want a front row seat.”

I can’t help but laugh.

You and everyone else at this club, apparently.

Chapter 28

Jason

It’s a wet heat—like an armpit or your Aunt Bertha’s pussy. The HellCats training grounds are in the back of an old sugar factory in the most dilapidated part of Belmont. A fenced-in obstacle course sits behind the factory, which is where I'm currently running my ass off.

To say I’m sweating like a pig would be an understatement.

There are four other dudes here, all guys who fought their way into the HellCats, and they’re all massive.

I’m the youngest and thinnest. Not the shortest, which I’m smug about, but definitely the thinnest, which sucks.

Tobias and three of his top guys stand at the end of the course. My feet pound the dirt track, dodging piles of rubble and leaping over deep trenches. I can hear the dudes huffing and puffing behind me, and it’s making me chuckle.

They might be big, but I’m fast.

I approach a makeshift wall dotted with climbing holds. There’s a ditch in front of it, and I accelerate before leaping over the ditch and grabbing one of the holds. My first hand slips off, but the other finds a pocket before I can peel away from the wall. Once I’ve got a solid grip again, I climb the rest of the way up. The guys behind me are an absolute show. One didn't see the ditch and fucking face-planted. Two others tried to pull the same move I did and landed right on top of him. The last guy just stopped, staring at the damn wall like he expected it to move.

I hit the dirt running, and there’s a chain-link fence blocking my path to the finish about fifty feet away. I reach the fence and leap onto it, climbing up the thing as it rattles. Barbed wire crowns the top, forcing me to thread myself carefully between the rusted barbs. One catches my cheek, drawing a sharp sting, but I don't stop.

The last leg of the course requires army crawling beneath more barbed wire. I drop onto my stomach and maneuver through the dirt, elbows and knees digging into the ground.

My lungs burn, and I can barely see through the sweat streaming into my eyes, but I keep my blurry sight set on Tobias’s combat boots.

I finally reach the end of the barbed wire, scramble to my feet, and take off. It’s a clear path the rest of the way, and I’m so happy I could freaking scream.

But then I notice the ground is uneven, and the dirt is a bit higher in one spot along the track. I leap over it, just in case, and nearly keel over when I finally reach Tobias and his men.

“Not bad,” Tobias praises.

“Thank you,” I gasp, remembering not to say “sir.”

A shriek of pain rings out, and I turn to see one of the men stuck in the barbed wire. Another one is racing toward us, but he doesn’t notice the uneven ground as I did. His foot lands right on the mound of dirt, and he disappears into the trap beneath it.

One of Tobias’s men states, “This is a fucking mess.”

To which Tobias makes a sound of agreement before placing a hand on my shoulder. “At least this one isn’t a total disappointment.”

Thank god my face is already red from running…

Tobias turns to the man on his left and asks, “Will you help that one out of the hole, please?”