Rattle Some Cages (Battle Crows MC 3)

“Go buy your own. These are mine. I worked hard for them.” He shook his head, not buying my brand of bullshit. “I dove all the way to the bottom of the box for them. If someone was truly missing them, they would’ve looked.”

“I hope they have herpes on them,” I joked.

My brother rolled his eyes. “You know that’s not how you get herpes, loser. You have to have…”

I held up my hand to stop him from getting too technical.

“You totally missed the joke, dill weed,” I said as I waited for him to finish getting dressed.

After he was fully clothed in my spare clothes and his Crocs, he headed back out the door with me.

We came to a stop at the nurses’ station in the main ER.

“You’re looking much better,” an older doctor mused without once looking up from his computer.

“Sure, ol’ man,” Tide grunted. “Since you looked and all.”

The man smiled and finally glanced up. “You know that I’m descended from witches. I have a third eye. Right here.” He tapped the middle of his forehead.

My lips were twitching, because if there was anyone in this entire world that didn’t believe in anything extraterrestrial… or paranormal, it was Tide. From a young age, Tide had been extremely hard to scare. Ghosts or zombies… they didn’t affect him. Hell, scary movies only amused him.

I was convinced it was because Tide didn’t have an imagination.

“Or maybe you’re just full of shit,” he grunted. “You want to work for me next week?”

“I’m a gynecologist, Crow. Not a surgeon or an on-call ER doc.” He paused. “Where are you going next week that you need someone to cover for you?”

“Vacation,” he grumbled. “Naples, Florida to be specific.”

The old man, whose name tag read D. Proctor, OB/GYN-MD on it, frowned.

“My daughter is going up there with her friend this weekend, too.” Something odd crossed the older man’s eyes. Something that looked a whole lot like despair. For a few seconds, I wondered idly if he was hurting or dying. The man looked green. “Supposed to possibly hurricane, though.”

“Of fucking course it is,” I grumbled.

The older doc’s eyes came to meet mine.

They narrowed, and he looked from Tide to me and back. “This your brother? Y’all look nothing alike.”

Tide and I grinned. “None of us do,” I said. “He has to look respectable for his job and all. I don’t.”

Doc Proctor eyed the two of us. “Y’all look like you could be brothers if you were both to act like one. But with the outfits, it definitely has y’all looking more alike. If he was in his scrubs, or his doc wear, he definitely wouldn’t look anything like you.”

I didn’t take offense to that.

I’d spent the majority of my teens trying to make myself distinguishable from my brother.

“Is it the face tat?” I wondered.

“Probably,” Dr. P said. “But I’m not quite sure if that would be defined as a face tat. It looks more like a neck one.”

I shrugged. Mostly, it was a neck one. But it did curl up over my neck and around my ear slightly, going to just the left side of my lower jaw. Which was covered in a scruffy beard today.

“Why’re you letting your kid go to Florida if there’s supposed to be a hurricane?” Tide wondered.

I pulled my phone out and completely ignored their conversation, wondering if I would have time to make it home before I needed to be at my jiu-jitsu class in an hour.

Most likely I wouldn’t.

I was glad to have a backup gi in my saddle bags for such an occasion.

“I’m heading out,” I said, interrupting the two of them. “Talk to y’all later.”

Without waiting for a goodbye from either one of them, and smirking when I heard Dr. P say I was rather abrupt, I headed back out to my bike.

But not before I caught the eye of two police officers who eyed me based solely on the cut that was on my back.

I was a member of the Battle Crows MC. I was known by almost every single member of law enforcement in two counties.

Funny enough, not because of them catching me doing something illegal—not because I didn’t commit illegal acts, but because I did not get caught—I was a staple in the police community. When people got dead, I was called to clean up the mess.

“Fellas.” I nodded at them as I passed.

Both jerked their heads up at me in hello, but I didn’t stop to talk.

In fact, I had planned on walking all the way out to my ride, but a sobbing redhead caught my eye.

She had her hands pressed to her face, and she was really cutting up.

Like, if I wasn’t so fuckin’ intimidating, I might go up to her and see if she was okay.

I walked to my bike instead, straddling it and yanking on my helmet, my anger at seeing a woman cry more than evident in my movements.