But thankfully, it quickly left.
Will came around to Winter’s side, who sat at the island facing me, and lowered his head next to hers, whispering in her ear.
“Get the fuck off,” I told him.
He could talk to her. Just not like that.
He looked up at me and laughed, but threw his hands up and backed off.
Nothing had changed. He’d remember that.
“You’re going to need to go to the hospital again, Damon,” Banks spoke up.
“Fuck that.” I blew out smoke. “Just butterfly bandage it.”
“Are you kidding?” she blurted out.
Rika blew through, carrying a small duffel bag and wearing a black suit with her hair teased and wild. She plucked the cigarette out of my mouth, quickly looking around for Michael before she took a drag.
But pain suddenly sliced through me, and I hissed, “Shit, Banks.”
She just shook her head, and I barely noticed as Rika stuck the cigarette back between my lips.
I blew a few breaths, using what nails I had to dig into my skin around the wound and detract at least a little of the pain.
I swallowed, looking at Rika who unzipped her bag and started adding shit to it.
“We need guns,” I told her.
She didn’t look at me, only grabbed something out of her bag and slammed it down on the counter next to me.
I looked down at it, arching a brow. “That’s not a gun.”
It was the dagger we gave her two years ago as a threat. Coincidentally, the same one she stabbed me with then, too, not very far from the wound I had now. Her cut wasn’t as deep, though.
“It’s our way,” she answered, still focused on her task.
“Our way?”
What the hell did that mean?
She zipped up her bag and fixed me with a hard stare. “If you want this town, we are not leading by creating a massacre in the streets,” she bit out. “They won’t fear us because we’re armed. They’ll fear us because we never fail.”
And she grabbed the bag and stalked off, head held high and shit.
I snorted. “Madame Mayor…”
“Shut up,” she fired back.
But Michael caught her, wrapped her in his arms, and led her off himself, smiling back at me. “I knew she’d warm to the idea.”
Yeah. We had her. Definitely.
Banks cut two-inch pieces of first aid tape, slicing off triangles to make the butterflies and started fixing them to the incision, keeping the skin together until I could get back to the hospital.
“What are you guys going to do?” Winter asked.
“You mean, what are we goi