“Hopefully, there won’t be a next time,” King drawled. He grabbed the gavel and slammed it down on the table. “Let’s get this shitshow on the road.”
Indiana jumped when the gavel connected with the table and leaned toward me. “Jesus,” she whispered.
“You’ll get used to it,” Zag called. “King likes to swing his gavel around like King Kong.”
“What?” Easy laughed. “When did King Kong have a gavel?”
“It’s a simile,” Zag drawled.
Rigid cocked his head to the side. “What?”
“Metaphor?” Zig asked. “I think you meant metaphor.”
Zag waved his hand. “Sure, whatever. That’s what I meant.”
Indiana and Grit both sat quietly, listening to Zig and Zag trying to figure out what the hell they were talking about.
“Is that like an adverb?” Snapper asked.
I turned to Snapper. “Did you end up failing English?” I asked.
Snapper shrugged. “I passed.”
“Barely,” Easy coughed.
“Do I really need to know what a fucking adverb, noun, and prenoun are?” Snapper snapped.
“Pronoun,” Easy muttered. “I think you mean pronoun.”
King smacked the gavel on the table a second time, and Indiana jumped again.
“Enough with the fucking English lesson,” he boomed. “Do you assholes think we can, for once, have a meeting where we don’t go off on some fucking tangent? Worse than a bunch of fucking women yapping your heads off.”
“Tangent. Good word,” Easy called.
King pointed the gavel at him. “You want me to use this fucker upside your head next time?”
Easy held up his hands. “Sorry, bossman.”
Indiana watched the exchange back and forth with her mouth open and her eyes bugged out.
“Let’s get on with the Meeks bullshit,” Dad suggested. “That is one name I never thought we would have to bring up around this table.”
“You know the Meeks?” Indiana asked.
Dad nodded. “It would be more surprising if I hadn’t heard the name before.”
“Runs flesh up and down 95.” King sat back in his chair. “That’s a whole other kind of evil.”
“Jesus,” Zag grunted. “How the hell did your friend manage to get tangled up with someone like that?”
“My sister likes to think she can fix people. No matter how fucked up they are,” Grit interrupted. “Rider was way above anything she had ever dealt with before.”
“Yeah, the son of a notorious human trafficker. Not really someone who can be saved,” Zig laughed.
“Royal’s big heart is her strength and downfall. She only sees good in people even though they are basically in her face showing her all of the reasons why they aren’t good.” Indiana hung her head. “Look, this has nothing to do with you guys. I just need to get to Florida and straighten all of this out.”
Rigid scoffed.