AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Rogue, that's enough,” Maddy gives her a stare that might as well scream, shut up!
“Come on, let's go grab you some food,” Maddy drags me up from the log, still glaring at Rogue, who responds by blowing her a kiss goodbye.
“Pay her no attention.” Maddy grabs me a plate and starts to pile it up with food. “Rogue is just… Rouge. She’s got no filter.”
“Is what she said about Shaniya true, and Alex?” I ask, still in shock.
“Yeah, it’s true.” Maddy nods sadly.
“And what did she mean about Screwy?”
“It’s not really my place to say.” Maddy looks uncomfortable, and it’s rude of me to press her for more, but I need to know.
“Please, just tell me what you know,” I plead, and when she looks over my shoulder almost guiltily at Screwy, I know she’s going to give in.
“Okay, I’ve been living at this club for a while now, and up until the night we brought you back with us, I’ve never heard Screwy talk. He speaks to Squealer, but never to the others.” I’m shocked by what I’m hearing, but when I think back, I realize he hardly speaks at all. This is why Squealer made such a big deal about him speaking up at the meeting.
“Why didn’t he speak?” None of this makes sense. I have to know more.
“I don’t know the answer to that. There aren’t many people here brave enough to ask him. They call him Screwy for a reason.” Maddy laughs to herself as she adds a spoon of potato salad to her plate and then places a hand over her mouth, her eyes widening like she’s messed up somehow.
“Why do they call him that?” I feel like I'm getting to know him so much more.
“I shouldn’t,” Maddy shakes her head.
“You really should.” I take the spoon from her and add some to my plate.
“All I know is that, before Screwy and Squealer came to the club, they were in some kind of facility.”
“What kind of facility?”
“The kind you go to when you lose your head,” she tells me awkwardly. “But Screw’s a good person, and you’re proof of that. Until he saved you from that place, we all thought he was void of any emotion. Turns out, he has a heart after all.” Maddy looks over to where Screwy’s standing by himself, his eyes still focused intensely on me.
“It’s not like that. Screwy doesn’t feel that way about me–he just wants to help me,” I assure her, though it hurts to say the words out loud.
“Lydia, the men in this club are impossible to understand. You can’t always rely on what you think you know.” She leaves me on that, heading over to where Jessie is standing with a boy on his shoulders. He’s talking with Ella, and a guy who I assume, must be her husband because he has his arm around her and has taken over holding the baby.
I take my plate and move towards Screwy, who doesn't change his expression at all.
“You want some?” I offer the plate out to him, but he shakes his head.
“The girls are nice to me,” I try my best to start a conversation, but I’m suddenly very aware of what Maddy just told me. It makes me wonder what happened in his past. But now’s not the time to ask. I remember what Grace said about this party being important to Shaniya.
It doesn’t stop me from hoping that one day he might tell me.
“There you are! I’ve been looking for you, you wanna take a look around the house?” Shaniya offers, and I look at Screwy again. He takes the plate from my hand and nods for me to go.
“That would be lovely.” I smile, following Shaniya, and trying not to think about what happened to her as I step onto the porch of her beautiful cabin.
It’s at least an hour later before I find Screwy again. The music has got louder, and the people are rowdier. Shaniya is the perfect host and makes me feel so welcome, introducing me to some of the people from her tribe. I even get an invite from one of her friends to visit them there.
I find Screwy sitting on one of the logs around the fire by himself, and with that need to be close to him clawing at me, I make my way over to join him as he stares silently into the flames.
The men Ella spoke about earlier are on the opposite side of the fire. They’re loud, and I figure, a little intoxicated from all the drink they’ve knocked back, but they seem to be having a good time. Eventually, they move closer, standing beside us, and I don’t like the way one of them looks me up and down.
I can’t describe how, but it reminds me of the way my trainer used to stare at me.
I shuffle a little closer to Screwy when the man staring over whispers something to the guy he’s standing with.
