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“In the truck you said you had a fender bender in this morning?”
The frustration clinches in her voice, making it sound more abrasive. “I’m using Tom’s truck.”
“Then you should be able to meet me in the saloon in fifteen minutes. And I should see you pull up in his truck. Ain’t that right?”
Several seconds go by before she answers this time.
I’m calling her bluff. There’s no way I’d be able to make it from Wheaton to Pulsboro in an hour, let alone fifteen minutes.
But she doesn’t know that, and I know she can’t… because Iknowshe’s lying.
“I can’t,” she says tightly. “I said town… but what I meant was out of town.”
“Which town?”
“Wheat—”
“Wheaton,” I say over her. Then I glance at the others, and they shake their heads in disbelief. “Interesting you’d say that, Velma. ’Cuz that happens to be where I really am. In Wheaton. Trying to figure out why the fuck you were here a couple days ago scoping out the motel Sydney was staying in.”
Silence.
More silence.
Even more silence.
Velma stays silent for so long, you’d think she’s no longer on the line. I’m half a second away from rumbling out a vicious threat when she decides she’ll air herself out too.
“I take it you know,” she says simply.
“Know what? Let me hear you say it, Velma.”
“Say that my loyalty’s with the Reapers? Say that I’ve been playing you Kings for fools for years now? Say that our plan is happening right now, and you can’t do a thing to stop it? Sure, Mace, I’ll say all that and more. Your old lady—yeah, she might as well be, ain’t she—is sure in a whole lotta trouble. Hear that?”
In the background there’s a scream and then a mechanical crank of some kind of heavy equipment.
“That’s girly about to die. You’ve got about thirty minutes to get to the local Portales Construction Co site before she runs outta air and does. But it doesn’t matter ’cuz the Reapers have won either way. Bye, Mace.”
With a witchy cackle and click of her phone, Velma hangs up.
32
MASON
I’mof a single thought from the moment Velma hangs up. One thing and one thing only matters—making it in time to save Sydney.
We ride out as a pack, passing through town louder than the angry thunder from last night. I’m up at the front, leading the charge. The others fan out at my sides in their proper positions with Cash taking up the rear.
Though I ride with precision, I’m only thinking of Sydney.
My mind’s filled up with nothing but spliced up memories of her. I’m forced to experience them all over again.
The look of hurt on her face when I confronted her at my birthday party. Earlier than that when she’d smiled and danced for me. The afternoon we ran off from the prison and went for a ride, just the two of us. I replay the moment from last night where we’d almost come together in a kiss, but she’d denied me and turned the other cheek.
She wasn’t ready yet. We still had a lot of shit to work through.
Fair enough.
I’d left like some damn soldier going to war, under the assumption I’d win the fight, and come back to the woman waiting for me.
