Page 61 of Live for Me

“We probably don’t need a nurse,” I said. “Just shoot her.”

“Oh, that’s cute as shit. Somebody have a crush on her big, bad Executioner?” Nevada asked, pointing from me to Utah. “Don’t worry. I’ll kick his ass, and then I’m coming for you,” she said while glaring at me.

“Back to the truck, angel,” Utah said as he shook his head. He dodged Nevada’s first two punches easily enough, but that only seemed to piss her off more. When he tried to spin away from her a third time, she was ready for it and spun the opposite way to elbow him in the ribs. That threw him off enough for her to land a solid blow straight to his nose. He groaned and squeezed the bridge of his nose before he rolled his neck from side to side.

“I’m still not going to fight you,” he said. “But I will put your ass on the ground if you keep it up.”

“Let’s see it,” she said and smiled before moving in to swing at him again. By the time he was done dodging that series of attacks, she’d managed to maneuver Utah away from me. And neither of us realized that had been the goal until she whipped around to face me and sprinted straight at me.

For a split second, I wished I’d had any experience at all in physical altercations. But when the back of my head bounced off the asphalt after she’d tackled me, it pretty well wiped out any coherent thought I was in the middle of processing. Nevada had landed on top of me, but she was gone again by the time I opened my eyes. She was rolling away from me with Utah wrapped all the way around her. He continued to wrap himself around her further until he’d successfully pinned her beneath him. He was essentially sitting on her stomach. He had one of her arms trapped at her side by his leg and he held her other wrist above her head against the asphalt. When he was convinced that she wasn’t going anywhere, he looked back at me. I forced myself to get back up so Nevada wouldn’t have the satisfaction of seeing me just lying there on the ground.

“Get. In. The. Truck,” he snapped at me. “Now, Memphis.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” I snapped right back.

The laugh that came out of him that time was a fear-inducing one.

“After I’ve had my nose busted on your behalf is not the fucking time to test the limits on my patience, sugar. Give me one of the cards and take your little ass back to my truck.”

Nevada started laughing while I marched toward them. I pulled one of the cards with the chat room information on it from my back pocket and threw it on the ground beside the two of them.

“I’m going to let go of this hand to reach for that card, Nevada,” he said. “And you’re not going to move a fucking muscle. Got it?”

She smiled so sweetly at him that I suddenly wanted to just step on her face. Utah held the card between their faces for a second.

“You will talk to Salem about this,” he said. “Once you tell her that Memphis and Utah came looking for you because they know what really happened to your doctor friend—because they know the President was involved from the very start—you tell her what this card says. And if you learn how to fucking behave, we’ll still take you both in.”

I wanted to step on his fucking face, too, as I watched him put the card in between her teeth. Her free hand went right to his arm, but not to scratch at him or throw a punch. Her fingers just dragged their way down the muscle that was packed in there under his skin.

“Don’t you fucking move until I’m gone,” he said, pointing a finger right in her face. He was off Nevada and stomping his way toward me the next second. He bent at the waist, shoved his shoulder right into my stomach, wrapped an arm around the backs of my thighs, and stood upright so that I was dangling over his shoulder like a tantrum-throwing toddler for the duration of his angry march the rest of the way back toward his truck.

“When I tell you to get in the truck,” he said, “it’s because I mean. Get. In. The. Fucking. Truck.”

“And when I tell you to shoot somebody, it’s because I want you to fucking shoot somebody,” I hissed.

He opened the passenger door of his truck and dropped my feet straight to the ground. He glanced back to make sure Nevada hadn’t moved, and then his hand wrapped around the underside of my jaw. I grabbed his wrist with both hands and tried to back away from him at the same time, only to realize I was trapped by the truck.

“You’re still safe,” he said when I lost all control of my ability to breathe. His voice was a level of calm and controlled that did not at all match the fiery rage burning in his eyes though.

I realized pretty instantly that he was right. He was holding me in place by my actual jaw and his palm just barely rested against my neck. I could breathe just fine if I really thought about it. Utah was just forcing me to look at him.

“If you’re going to keep coming on these little outings with me, Memphis, I need to know that you’re going to learn how to listen to me when I tell you to do something. I’m not a bossy prick just for the fun of it. If I tell you to do something, it’s because your actual life probably depends on it.”

I still hadn’t figured out how to speak. So, he used his hold on my face to pull me closer to him.

“Are we clear, angel?”

I forced myself to nod my head. The way that he smiled after that sent my blood pressure to the fucking clouds. His eyes dropped down to my own white knuckled grip on his wrist, like he was somehow amused by it. He shook his head and ran the fingers of his other hand across my knuckles.

“Calm down,” he whispered. “If I’m going to strangle you, Memphis, you’re going to enjoy it.”

He smiled again at the disastrously embarrassing sound that came out of me.

A gasp? A moan? Some crazy breathless whimper?

Somehow all of the above at the same fucking time?

Fuck.

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