"Where to, boss?" the kid at the wheel asked, completely unconcerned by this entire interaction.
Fuck.
I didn't even know.
"Eighteen-Hundred South-West One-Hundred, Fifty Street," Ayanna burst out. "Look, Westy boy, I don't know what you have going on, but I know that when shit goes down, that is where my man wants me. So that is where you are taking me."
"Right," I said, nodding to the kid. "Go ahead," I agreed, reaching for my phone. "Huck, I have her. I have them all. Yeah. I know. We're good for now. Ayanna is making us drop her off at her man's place or some shit. Where do you want us to meet up? Okay. Yeah. Half an hour or so. Stay off the streets."
"Ayanna, your man gonna let your friends stay with you?"
"Yep. No questions," she told me, frantically typing off a text to her man.
"I'm not staying there. I need to be with you. And my brother," Auggie objected from the floor.
"I'm assuming she's the most at risk right now," Ayanna surmised. "She'd be safest with me."
"That's the plan," I said, even if the stress of letting her out of my sight was eating a hole in my stomach lining.
"West, no," Auggie objected, popping upward.
"Your man said down," the kid at the wheel declared, reaching back to push her head down with one arm as he steered with the other.
"Who is this asshole? Get your hand off of me," Auggie growled.
"It's a valid question though," Ayanna agreed, snapping a picture of him, likely to send to her man, Booker.
"Seeley," he supplied without hesitation. "Local getaway driver for hire, I guess," he added.
Ten minutes later, we were pulling up to a long, low building made of thick cement, windows barred, and blocked from the inside.
Ayanna's man, someone who made even a giant like Huck look small, was standing outside the door with three other men.
"West, no," Auggie said, grabbing the side of the door when I went to drag her out. "I need to stay with you. I will go crazy in there. You have to let me come with you."
I never thought I would see the day that Auggie was begging. But there was no denying that was exactly what she was doing right then.
"It's not forever," I promised, hand covering hers, trying to pry her fingers away.
"Your hands are bloody," she said, reaching with her other hand to try to turn mine over.
"I'm fine."
"You didn't even say what happened."
"There was a bomb, sweetheart. Things went boom. I went a little boom too. No big deal."
"You have a gaping head wound."
"Pretty sure it isn't gaping."
"Are you saying you, an arms-dealing biker, know more than me, a certified healthcare worker, about wounds?"
"Auggs, honey, I'm alright. A concussion. Some scratches. I've had worse, okay?"
"Not with me around," she insisted, voice softer. When I looked, her eyes were almost a little glassy. "I want to patch you up."
"Worried I am going to scar? Don't worry, pretty girl, I will still be devilishly handsome. Even if I don't heal perfectly."
"West..." she tried, and that sweet, vulnerable voice of hers nearly did me in.
"Hey, Booker?" I called, watching the man move over toward us. "Can I come in for ten minutes?" I asked.
"Yeah. But not him," he said, jerking his chin toward Seeley. "My girl says you all just met him."
"Seeley, give me ten."
"Yep, boss. Got nowhere to be."
"Boss?" Auggie repeated, letting me put an arm around her lower back, leading her away from the car.
"I dunno. Kid is latching on. That's Huck's business though. Come on, honey, let's let you get your nursemaid on, so I can get back to the guys to see what the next move is."
The inside of the safe house was set up like an open-concept home. The living room rolled into a small kitchen that led to a wall of six beds at the far end.
There were only two doors.
One that likely led to the bathroom.
The other, I wasn't sure. Maybe a safe room or a weapons room. Who knew.
"First door on the right," Ayanna's man, Booker, told me." You'll find anything you need in that closet."
"Thanks, Booker," Auggie said, sliding her arm through mine, leading me across the space as the girls stood in a circle, talking, casting curious and worried glances in my direction. "Sit," Auggie demanded, closing the toilet lid, pushing me down on it, then digging through the cabinet, placing various items on the counter, then doing a hand washing straight out of a show about surgery, all the way up to her elbows, not missing a single spot.
"I can think of more fun ways to play doctor," I suggested as I watched her pour alcohol onto a strip of gauze.
"You need to start talking," she told me, brows lifted, jaw tight. I knew that look. It said she was not going to give in until she got what she was after. In this case, information.