Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 148220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 741(@200wpm)___ 593(@250wpm)___ 494(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 741(@200wpm)___ 593(@250wpm)___ 494(@300wpm)
Just like they don’t do anything to stop the chatter here. The fighters aren’t supposed to talk to each other. But the guards don’t even bother warning them anymore. Not unless Victor’s around.
Crash grunts. “The Iron Blood took it, then.”
“Nah,” Stone tells him. “I left it in the motel safe. Gunner’s likely got it now, so it’ll be waiting for me when I get home.”
When he gets home. I force myself not to think about how unlikely that is. Instead I try for optimism, too. “It’s a nice amount to have waiting for you.”
“Yeah, it’s not as much as it sounds like. Not after I pay club taxes on it. And I stuck a K into the toy drive box.”
My heart stutters. “You donated a thousand dollars to a kids’ charity?”
Then I helped kidnap him.
Crash snorts out a laugh. “He probably did. I can’t tell you how many times he nearly ended up in the shit after helping some kid who was only there to lure us in so their daddies could light us up. Or, fuck—that time a fucking flea-bitten stray ran into the kill zone, and he nearly blew the whole fucking op.”
“But did I blow it? I did not, motherfucker.”
“Yeah, well—we oughta called you Nearly instead of Stone.” Crash looks to me as I remove his blood pressure cuff, checking the numbers on the digital readout. His voice hardens. “And he’s one of the best men I know, Cherry. A good man. So you take care of him, yeah?”
I pull in a painful breath. “I’ll try.”
“All right.”
“Yeah, and Crash is full of shit.” With a lazy smile that the scarring on his face pulls crooked, Stone holds his arm so I have to step closer to remove his cuff. “To him, all a good man has to be is loyal to his club. To stand up for his brothers. By that definition, I might be a good man. But if you go by any other definition of good, I’m a real bad man.”
Crash laughs. “Yeah, right. You saved a fucking flea-bitten stray, brother. And if you’re trying to flirt with Cherry, you gotta go good. She’s not into the bad boys.”
“Shit. That true?”
“I’m not into anyone right now, good or bad.” I can’t afford to be.
“No?” His teeth scrape over the bottom of that lazy smile and he leans in, voice low and gruff near my ear. “Funny. One thing I remember real clear is how eager you were to take my cock, right there on that bar stool. That was no lie. You were so fucking hot and ready for me.”
My breath shudders. “Maybe.”
“Step back from the nurse!”
“Ain’t no maybe about it. And sometime soon, I’m gonna get my mouth on that hot and ready pussy. Gonna suck on your little clit until you’re grinding that wet cunt all over my face and chasing your come. Is it a good man or a bad man who does that to a woman?”
What kind of man can do this to a woman? He didn’t even touch me and I’m hot and aching, my skin no longer feeling the tight cold but shivering with the thrilling image he just put into my head.
“Look sharp, brother.”
At Handlebar’s warning, Stone steps back. His burning gaze still holds mine. “Which one?”
“Both,” I tell him breathlessly. “Good and bad.”
“I’ll take that.” His crooked grin sends another shiver running all over my skin, and I hide my flush by lowering my face and scribbling numbers onto the charts.
This is the last cardio session of the day, so I return to the barn when the fighters do—though I’m not allowed to walk with them, but slightly behind. Still I hear Stone ask Crash, “What the fuck did you mean, you’re already a dead man?”
Their voices go low after that. Not so that I don’t overhear—because Crash already told me about his tumor—but so the guards don’t. I watch with an aching throat as Handlebar’s back and shoulders stiffen up, as he shakes his head. As if trying to deny what Crash is telling Stone.
And I know what Crash is saying. That there’s no help for him, here or anywhere else. But Handlebar’s convinced that his friend can be saved if they can just get out of here. If they can get to a real doctor.
Crash has told me that he’s been to those real doctors. And Handlebar has told me that they were all quacks who didn’t know what the fuck they were talking about.
I suspect they’re both right. That there’s not much Crash can do about the tumor. But that he also needs to get the fuck out of here.
And I… Well, maybe I’ve stopped hoping.
But I can’t stop trying.
* * *
I could never do more than one or two pull-ups in gym class. And I want to believe that sheer grit will let me pull myself up and through the bars over my stall, but that doesn’t happen. So I switch strategies, hanging from one bar and swinging my legs until I can hook my feet on the next. When I finally manage to contort and squeeze my way through the gap, I lie across the steel rods, panting as quietly as I can, the muscles in my shoulders and arms burning.