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“Sarah’s not bad either,” he said.
“Friends call me Smokey,” she said, turning toward the window.
Ryder felt that like a kick to the chest.
“Why?” he growled, emotion making his voice thick.
He saw her shrug out of the corner of his eye, “My eyes are weird. Mom gave the nickname and it stuck.”
Ryder squealed into the compound lot and slid to a stop.
Smokey reached for the door, but Ryder’s grip on her arm stopped her.
He leaned in, “Why are you really being so cool about this. No one, not even a combat vet, would suffer this shit.”
She mirrored his lean and narrowed her eyes, eyes that suddenly struck him as vaguely familiar. “You know Widow Maker? Bloody Saints M.C.?”
“I know him,” Ryder answered, frowning, wondering what in the hell Maker had to do with this woman.
“That’s my big brother,” Smokey went on. “So you so much as touch me wrong, and he’ll murder you in your sleep.”
Ryder sat back and let her go, “Yeah, he would.”
She kept talking, “So let’s get inside and see what’s doing. I’m speaking to Gate, I’m calling work, and I’m calling Maker.”
“After you save my brother,” Ryder pointed out, and Maker could get pissed or not.
So he hit his truck door and then escorted Smokey into the compound, having no idea how much Google maps had just changed his life.
*************************
Tex
Tex’s eyes fluttered, and when he opened them, all he saw was grass green.
He wondered where he was, remembered that there was something he was supposed to do. Something important, but he couldn’t remember what that something was.
The closer he drifted to awareness, the worse the pain got. And then all he did was hurt. Everywhere.
He took a breath, and that hurt too, and then he coughed and tasted blood.
Vision focused, he clocked Jenna’s pale face, and tried to sit up.
She pushed him back down. Didn’t take much. He was done.
But she held his hand.
“Don’t try to move, Tex,” she said, other hand to his shoulder. “Ryde’s bringing a doctor.”
“Cass?” Tex asked, vision blurring.
“Talon says he’ll find her,” was the last thing he heard before he faded out again.
*************************
Ryder
The first thing Ryder noticed when he hit the doors of the compound was the scent of blood. He felt Smokey go tight beside him, but she didn’t shy away. Just walked in like she’d done surgery on a pool table in a motorcycle club a hundred times. And with Maker for a brother, she probably had.
