Page 32 of Overkill

Vedder

Our Ukrainian menace held her cigarette as far from the front door as possible when she opened it and yelled for everyone inside to “Get out here! You’re not going to want to miss this.”

Daria Savchenko was in skinny jeans, high-heeled, snakeskin booties, and a peplum top that matched her signature red lips. She walked back to the railing and leaned one shoulder on a freshly painted, woodland-green pillar.

Top darkened the front door as I jumped out of the truck and walked to the passenger side.

“…Car trouble?” Daria said with that laugh, gazing at the damage on my new-to-me but still old-as-dirt orange Ford.

“Had a bit of a TIC on the way up here,” I announced as I helped Melody down from the passenger side.

“TIC?” Daria asked.

“Troops in contact,” Top told her, then he let out a low whistle. “Sure you didn’t run into an IED?”

Top stepped down from the porch, running his massive hand through his longer-than-regulation copper hair that was becoming more white with age. The gravel crunched under his boots as he came up to the side of my truck, inspecting at the glass.

“Hey Mel,” he said casually, eyes staying the damage. “You’ll need new tires.”

“I think that’s the least of my problems.” I slowly wrapped an arm around Melody as she shivered, feeling my softened leather jacket mold to her with my touch.

“You two alright?” That was Charlotte, or Mamma Mack, as we called her.

“We’re okay,” I called up to her. “Truck’s dead, though.”

“I see that.” She looked at Melody. “You alright, sweetheart?”

Melody only curled into me tighter.

“Small arms fire, huh?” Taz stepped out next in her biker boots, decked head to toe in denim and leather. She stopped by Daria and bumped her shoulder.

“Who dun it?” Goose asked, joining the group. His long hair had grown out in the last year, and it was now pulled back into a ponytail. It gave him a rather severe appearance tempered only by the bushy moustache and his blue button-down shirt covered in kittens—a shirt designed to embarrass his two tweenagers.

“We don’t know who dun it, right?” Taz said. “Please tell me we don’t, because that’ll be so much more fun.”

“Hey Taz, sometimes you can keep thoughts in your head, you know?” I snapped.

If it were just me, it’d have been alright. Hilarious, even. But the sweetheart in my arms did not deserve this, and I was terrified for her.

“Don’t talk to her like that.” And there he fucking was.

Kai Griffith.

I should have known the moment I saw Daria; the two were work partners. One was rarely without the other.

“The fuck you guys get into?” He jumped down the steps too, walking up to the truck and inspecting it himself.

I was not in the mood for this. I did not need to brawl with Griff, and no matter how little time we spent with each other, that was always in the cards, wasn’t it?

“What are we gonna do about this?” Griff crossed his arms.

It always struck me how he and I both had a slight southern drawl but still sounded so damn different from each other. He was of the Virginian variety. The rich kind of Virginian surrounded by acreage and golf courses and had political ties to the first colonialists. I was the kind of southern who splashed in potholes and fished for their dinner.

“Team meeting?” Goose asked, looking far too happy for my liking. This shit was serious. They were having too much fun.

“Your dates are such a disaster.” Griff shook his head, giving me a pointed look. “At least you were sober for this one.”

I hadn’t been drunk in over five years, but that didn’t matter, did it? It never fucking mattered. Nothing changed. He didn’t, and neither did I.