Wring: Road Kill MC #5 (16 page)

And I’ve never dealt with the virginity thing.
Never had to. Sweet butts sure aren't fucking virgins by the time
they're servicing the club. Everybody's been in those cracks.

Maybe I should have shared more with Shannon.
Hate fucking sharing. Chatting it up is for guys who want to grow
their own uteruses.

Not feeling
that
. I snort, slamming the
door, and charge headlong for my cell.

Jamming out a text to Noose, I realize I didn't
see a cell anywhere near Shannon, and I pause mid-tap.

She must have one, right?
Most girls have
a text in their hand likes it's part of them.

I've never seen her with one.

I hit Send.

Noose pings me right back:
Hey man, I
apologize. I had nothing to do with it.

I sit up straighter, hit the little symbol for
mic, and talk into my phone. I'm a fucking fanny fat finger when it
comes to texting.

Me:
What do ya mean?

Noose:
Fuck man, Rose got a call from
your girl, Shannon—to come pick her up from Viper's place. I wasn't
here, she sort of stealthed the whole deal.

Raw heat kicks on from deep inside me, a
sucker-punch of licking flames.

Me:
She's in a fuckton of danger. What
with Lopez around the damn corner and only Storm to watch
her.

Noose:
Storm's not on detail. Viper's
got him doing other stuff. You had her so he took off after she got
back to take care of her mom.

Me:
Get over there, Noose, I'll be
right there.

Noose:
Man—hate to be the bearer of
the shit news but your girl's not interested. Told Rose she doesn't
want to be with a murderer.

My head tips back, and I chew off a holler that
rattles the glass.

How could Shannon misunderstand me that much?
I'm not a danger to her—I'm a danger to others who would hurt her.
Fuck.

I jump up, rip my shirt on inside out, and grab
my cell one-handed as I toss my boots on without zipping them. I
stomp to my ride.

My cell buzzes, and I see it's Noose
calling.

“Yeah?” I bark into the phone as I sit on my
ride and start it up. Jamming a smoke in my mouth for good measure,
I balance the phone between my shoulder and ear.

“Hate fucking texting. Auto correct slays the
words, man.”

I roll my eyes, taking a deep drag. “Shannon's
making me a fucking insane-asylum candidate.”

Noose chuckles.

“Fuck you,” I say.

“Uh-huh. I said a lot of that last year.”

“I'm going. I don't need your bullshit. Gotta
get to her, straighten shit out.”

“Yeah.” There's a pause in the conversation,
eaten by the noise of my bike as I cruise down the dirt road.
“Sorry Rose got involved. And Wring?”

“Yeah,” I bite, looking both left and right
before I head west toward Shannon's.

“I looked into her more. Shannon and her mom are
two, almost three, years behind in their property taxes. They've
got a land line but no cell phone.”

Knew it.

“What are you saying? ʼCause I can't talk.” The
bike's drowning Noose's words even though he’s shouting.

“She's poor as fuck,” he yells.

“That's why she's so skinny,” I say mainly to
myself.

“What?” Noose bellows into the cell and I wince.
“Never mind. See ya soon. Get your ass over there.”

I can almost hear the sigh.

“Affirmative, fucker.”

Grinning, I slide my phone between the
handlebars, relaxing as I put on the speed, hurtling toward
Shannon.

For the first time in forever, a sense of
impending loss looms.

I find I’ve got something to lose.

*

Rose covers my hand as a cooing baby serenades
us.

“I feel like such a weasel,” she says, squeezing
my hand.

Me, too. But it's the only way. A clean break.
Wring shouldn't shoulder the burden of my life. He got me out of
that mess—two messes—but I don't want to put him in the position to
have kill people. And I have a feeling he will.

“This is super fucking sneaky,” Rose says.

I take in my surroundings. The driveway to the
cabin is probably a half mile, which I walked. My jeans were
salvageable, as was my bra—but the gore-encrusted shirt was
toast.

I left it in the trash and grabbed a
shirt—probably Wring's, since it fit me like a dress—and wore that.
I walked half the length of the driveway then jogged the rest.

The entire time, I had a feeling that Wring
would wake up and come after me.

He didn't. Never seen anyone sleep so soundly.
Almost like he didn't have a care in the world—or hadn't slept in
such a long time that he was desperate for sleep.

“I know it's kind of crappy of me.” I look at
the hand Rose was just holding as she pulls onto the highway
leading home.

“Well…”

“I just—he doesn't want to talk, and you should
have seen him and Noose—”

“I have,” Rose says quietly, gripping the wheel
so hard her knuckles whiten. “There's nothing scarier than Noose
using knots.”

I swallow.
Except Wring using them.

“The skills he learned in the military are the
only things that kept him alive,” Rose's large brown eyes look at
me, and she finishes in a low voice, “and me.”

I shrug. “I don't need that level of violence in
my life. I have enough to figure out with my home situation, I
can't… address that too.”

“For what it's worth, I don't think Wring would
ever be violent with women.”

I glance at her while she's driving. “That's not
it. I have my mom, and I have to protect her, too. I can't have
Wring making things worse with the gangbangers.”

“Seems to me it'd be worse if he and Noose
hadn't figured it out.”

I sigh. “Yeah, I do make some stupid decisions,
but at this point, I think he's more of a catalyst for antagonizing
them.”

“I wouldn't live one minute without Noose's
protection. He absolutely keeps us safe.” She sounds so convicted,
and that's great for her. She's married, with a baby. Different
situation.

Her smile is a twisted lip lift of irony. “I
know what you're thinking, Shannon.”

Tight breath releases in a tired sigh. “I'm
thinking that my mom needs food and her meds.”

“No—stop thinking about your mom. You've already
told me that she can got to the bathroom and get basic things. You
don't need to be there every second, Shannon.”

Rose's right. But if she
is
right, why
does being away from the constancy of Mom's care feel so wrong?

“Wring is smoother than Noose.”

I swing my head to her, and she glances my way,
barking out a laugh when she catches sight of my expression of
clear surprise. “Really?”

“I can't believe it. I mean, if there was a
nickel for every F-bomb uttered—”

“Every reference to the golden hoo-hah.”

I laugh, nodding. “Yeah, the guys seem pretty
obsessive.” I blush, thinking about what Wring did to my body just
hours ago.

“Whoa, look at that face.”

“Num-num!” Baby Aria shouts from the back seat,
and I jump a foot.

Rose cringes. “Sorry about that. She's got a
real appetite, and she's not afraid to let us know.”

At her words, my stomach growls. I do mental
inventory of groceries in the house and come up empty. Gnawing
continues in my belly. But I know from experience that the hunger
will quiet if I just ignore it. For a couple of hours.

“Hungry?” Rose’s eyebrow quirks.

I lift a shoulder. “Not so much.”

“You're bone thin, Shannon.”

I ignore her, looking out the window.

“We can get burgers. I know this great place
that makes banana-peanut-butter-chocolate milkshakes.”

My stomach lets out a walloping howl.

Rose laughs. “Huh. Let's go there.”

“I don't need charity.”

Rose hits me in the arm, and I flinch, turning
to her in anger.

But my anger fades as she smiles. “Aria's
hungry. You wouldn't say no to a hungry baby, would you?”

I shake my head. “You're sort of violent, too,”
I grump, rubbing my arm.

“When the need calls for it,” she replies
cryptically and turns in to a dive of a burger place.

*

I try not to wolf down my food, especially when
Rose ignored my attempt to order a kid's meal.

“Are you a kid? No. A grown woman needs more
than three hundred and fifty calories a day.”

Relenting, I take another slurp of my delicious
shake and shift on the rickety picnic bench. It groans under my
weight, lurching under my butt. I clutch the sides of my frozen
cup.

“This place has been here since my folks were
kids,” Rose says, looking around at the steep parking lot that
flows into the tiny, flat-roofed building, then pops a fry into
Aria's mouth.

She thoughtfully takes it out, mashes it between
her fingers and smears it between her lips.

Adorable.

My fries are long gone, and only two bites of my
burger remain. A pang of guilt slices through me, thinking about my
mom alone with only yogurt and bread for toast in our fridge.

I push the burger basket away.

Hot tears run down my face as I choke down the
rest of my shake.

“God, Shannon, what is it? Please…” She reaches
for my hand across the rough wood table.

Aria whimpers in apparent sympathy then screams,
“Num-num!”

I smile through my tears.

Rose absently offers her another fry, and I give
her my best, albeit shaky, answer while squeezing her hand back. “I
can't… I don't have any money.” I let go of her hand and sink my
face into my palms, hiding my face.

Rose makes sure Aria is busy and latched in the
high chair before she rushes around to my side of the table. “I
know, Shannon. It's okay.”

“It isn't, Rose. I can't pay our taxes and buy
enough food, and I can't work more hours because Mom needs
care.”

Rose strokes my back. “Let Wring take care of
you, Shannon.”

I lift my tear-stained face to hers. “For how
long, Rose? Until the next girl comes along?”

Rose's smile is a little sad at the edges.
“Those MC guys can have any woman they want, any time. They don't
need girls like us.” She jabs her thumb into her chest.

The baby screams again, just to hear her own
voice. Our faces whip in her direction, and Aria gives us a
devastating smile, a single dimple flashing in her pudgy cheek.

I turn back to Shannon, eyebrows knitting. “Like
what?”

Rose grins, tapping my nose. “Complicated.” She
sighs. “If Wring wants a slut-ho to stick his wick in, they're a
dime a dozen.”

I blink at her description, food churning in my
stomach at her words.

Rose guffaws.

Aria screams, “Num-num!” swinging a defiant arm
at the sky. Rose gives her another fry. “Pig,” she says then adds,
“oink-oink.” Aria wrinkles her nose and tries to make the pig
noise.

“That's not going to be attractive when she's
older, you know,” I say, but I'm smiling.

“That's okay. Less guys for Noose to beat the
shit out of for looking at his baby girl.”

The moment swells, me thinking about rough men
and the women who love them.

“Thank you for lunch,” I say quietly.

Rose takes my hand again, and Aria pitches a
mangled fry on the pavement.

“Thanks for being there for Wring.”

I frown. I'm not
there.

Rose nods. “He's been different in the week he's
known you.”

I raise an eyebrow, not understanding. “How
so?”

She pats my hand, unhooks Aria from the confines
of the high chair, and hikes her on a hip. “Not sure. Whole,
maybe?”

“Whole?” I give a small laugh, standing and
stretching. Wring's huge T-shirt comes to mid-thigh, and a pleasant
throb between my thighs reminds me of what I've done.

Loved.

“Yeah,” she says, a wistful catch in her voice,
“those guys come back from war, and they're not them anymore.” She
looks at me. “Sometimes it takes just the right woman to heal all
their hurts.”

Maybe for both of us.

I roll up to Shannon's driveway and immediately
see the door is ajar.

Splintered at the jamb.

Cold dread spreads from the center of me out to
my extremities.

The numb slips away. I feel everything then.
Things I don't want to.

Some things, I do.

The bulge of my Colt .45 at my ankle. The sweet
tightness of my knotted end of rope at my hip. The succulent sting
of adrenaline piercing me like a lit up Christmas tree of Swiss
cheese.

Everything is where it needs to be as I dismount
in a hopping slide over the top of my seat.

I leave the hog running.

Sliding along the siding, I hear someone tossing
the house.

One of my eyeballs cruises around the edge of
the torn doorjamb. Gangbangers crawl over the interior of Shannon's
modest house like ants.

I move fully into the threshold, ripping the gun
from my holster in a whispering tear of fabric. “Hey, fucknuts,” I
greet in a cheerful tone.

They turn, hands full of jewelry and things that
glint in the afternoon light piercing the window pane.

I snag a pillow from a nearby recliner and put
it in front of the muzzle of my piece.

“Fuck!” one of them shouts.

They drop what they're holding, raising their
own weapons.

The gun has a slight kick as I fire, and a red
bloom opens in the center of the first gangbanger's surprised
face.

I pivot my gun slightly to the right and pull
the trigger again.

A flower of blood opens in the cheekbone of the
second man. Skull fragments and pillow guts fly like scattered
clouds of torn gauze. The details of their death appear as a vapor
of smoke moving between us.