He nodded, as if he completely understood. But something had changed in him. He was pissed about something. Something more than just my situation.
And now he wouldn’t look at me.
“I’ll go talk to Trick.”
Then he left me alone, and this time, I really did fall asleep.
CHAPTER 23
He has more than five red flags, but I’m a Six Flags season ticket holder.
-Swayze to Trick
TRICK
She couldn’t remember me.
How the fuck…
“You don’t have to be glued to my ass all the way down,” Sadler murmured over his shoulder.
I shrugged.
“Just following you down the stairs, man. Not sure what more you want from me,” I said. “You’re going slow.”
“You could’ve taken the elevator,” he suggested.
I snorted. “I don’t like being penned in anymore. Been there done that.”
“Been in prison,” he agreed. “I remember.”
It wasn’t exactly a secret around here that the Souls Chapel Revenants were felons.
At least, some of us were, anyway.
Lynn wasn’t… though his was more of an ‘I haven’t been caught yet’ not an ‘I didn’t do anything wrong to go to prison.’
Lynn was likely the worst of us all.
He was just way better at hiding it. The rest of the guys? Maybe. I don’t have everyone’s complete story.
We made it down to the emergency room exit, and soon he peeled off to go left, and I went slightly right, being sure to keep my eye on the make and model of the vehicle he was driving.
I was in the shadows, way across the parking lot, by the time I thought it safe enough to double back through the throng of cars.
When I found him at the back of the lot, it was to see him looking in the direction of where I’d walked, his phone to his ear.
“She doesn’t remember anything,” he was saying into the phone. “I’ll be sure to keep an eye on her, though. I don’t want to chance her remembering and squealing. If I have to take care of her permanently, I will.” He paused. “I’ll talk to you later, Ig.”
I had him on the ground, face first, with my knee in his back and his arms pushed up high on his back before he could even pocket his phone.
“You know,” I murmured quietly. “I had my suspicions about you when I saw you earlier. I always get these feelings.”
A scrape of boots had me twisting my head to the side. I wasn’t surprised to find the men that’d quickly become my brothers surrounding us. Even Lynn, with his shirt sleeves tucked up around his elbows, was there.
“Why don’t you let us take your friend to the land?” Lynn suggested, his eyes impassive. But it was the tightness of his body that made me sit up and take notice. “Get him nice and warmed up for you while you visit with your girl a little more? I think two or three days will make it a bit easier for him to understand the importance of talking.”
I sighed, getting my knee out of the man’s back and allowing my fellow club members to take over.
“What kind of fuckin’ motorcycle club are y’all?” Sadler snarled as Sin hauled him to his feet. “Y’all look like a bunch of random punks.”
“We are a bunch of random punks,” Sin replied helpfully. “Did you know that you were the man that brought me from my first home, Jackson Penitentiary, to my new home, Bear Bottom Penitentiary?” Sin asked, smoothing his hand over Sadler’s cheek. “You had a lot to talk about. You thought that none of us would see you again, didn’t you? That why you were so talkative?”
I looked over at the man at my side, Lynn, and asked, “What’s he talking about?”
Lynn shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“You were talking about how we were all bad at doing crimes,” Sin continued. “You even boasted about beating the shit out of a prisoner in front of his granny. You watched that old woman fall on the ground with her hand to her heart. Did you know that old granny had a heart attack and died? Did you know that prisoner you were transporting was in there because some motherfucker tried to take a bat to his granny, and instead of letting that happen, he shot the man with a pistol that’d he’d found? One he thought he might need because he’d escaped a gang that wanted him. Then you went and caused that same granny to up and die, and made that kid witness it.”
Sadler obviously wasn’t going to receive a beating from me tonight only.
Nice.
Piece of shit.
“That boy shot another boy that was a friend’s son.” Sadler tried to wiggle free of Sin’s grasp, but Sin was a big motherfucker. And he knew what he was doing when it came to restraining a man. You learned fun things like that over your military career. But I was sure it was his time in prison that really honed those skills.