Page 48 of Healing Souls

I nod. “How have you ended up being the one to hold us all together?” I ask with a slight smile.

Gray sighs, but I see his lips twitch. “I think I just have the least amount of damage out of all of us.”

I furrow my brows and grip his forearms. “That isn’t true. Yours is no less than ours. Don’t do that.”

He releases my face, causing my hands to fall from his arms, and steps back. “I know. I just think it’s easier for me to help everyone. Are you feeling alright now?”

“Yeah. I think I’m good. It just made me feel… helpless, I guess. I need a really good run or spar, honestly.”

Gray nods. “Well, don’t ask me to do that with you.” I chuckle, and he continues, “Noah wants to talk to us. He asked me to come get you. Him and Cade are in one of the offices waiting on us.”

We head out of my room and towards the stairs. “Do you know what about?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “No. But I’d guess it has to do with Harley.”

We both let out mirrored sighs. This might not go all that well, depending on what they tell us.

We soon reach the downstairs offices and find them not in one of the extra offices but in Rage’s. When we walk in, Rage is sitting behind his desk with Noah standing next to him, along with Sugar and Nerds off to the side by the window, sitting on the couch.

“What’s going on?” I ask as I stand behind the chair Cade is sitting in. Rage has two chairs that face his desk, and Cade is in one, with Gray taking the other.

“We have a few things to talk about with you,” Noah explains gruffly. “First off, I know I haven’t said anything about school, but you guys have missed four days now. With today being Sunday and tomorrow starting a new week, you need to go back. I will get a hold of the school and let you know what I tell them for why you were randomly gone, but it’s time you return.”

“Why? What’s the point?” I demand, my fists clenching.Don’t snap. Give them a chance to talk this out with you first, I remind myself. I’m supposed to be improving and not immediately freaking out on people.

“Probably because you need to fucking graduate. Is that a real question, Ryker?” Noah challenges, crossing his arms over his chest and raising a brow. “Or do you just mean, what is the point in being away from your little girlfriend?”

I swear on my life that an actual animal-sounding growl just came out of Cade when Noah said that. Everyone in the room looks at him, but he doesn’t say anything. His leg is bouncing like crazy. He’s probably getting extremely restless and needs to go for a run. Typical Cade.

Rage sighs and runs a hand through his beard. “Blade,” he commands without even looking at him.

Almost instantly, Noah drops the cocky look and takes on the more serious older brother role. “Either way, it isn’t an option. You three go back to school tomorrow.”

“And if Harley chooses to stay here, she will probably join you soon,” Rage adds on.

Before I can even try to open my mouth, Gray responds. “Okay. We get it. We need to go.” He looks up at me. “She has a phone. I just think it’s still at Rage’s house. We can get her bag for her, and you can text her, but we do have to go back. The school will ask questions, and Nerds has done his best to keep things at bay with us all living in a motorcycle clubhouse and under Noah’s care.”

Fuck me. Why does he always have to be so smart and logical?

“Fine,” I grit out. “I won’t fight this one. Only because I know she’s going to stay here, so she’ll be coming with us in no time. But if she doesn’t answer my texts and you guys don’t fucking text me back, I will leave in the middle of the day to come back. I don’t care if I get suspended for it.”

Rage lets out a humorless chuckle. “Alright.”

“So why did you need all of us in here for something that Noah could have done alone?” I question, eyeing all of them.

Nerds speaks up from the couch. “I was able to get Harley’s birth certificates sorted out. The fake one that Tammy had made no longer exists, and now we are getting a copy of her real one that lists Rage and Lilian. So wherever she goes, she can go to school and do all things that a normal teen should do, and Tammy can’t do shit about it.”

“Which leads us to the next thing. I need to know what Harley has said about Tammy. Even if it is the smallest detail, I need to know.” Rage demands, crossing his arms.

“No,” Cade snaps, sitting up straight in his chair. “No, we will not become your spies because you don’t have a relationship with her where she will tell you things. If there is something brought up that we think you really do need to know, we will convince her to come to you or we will ask if we can tell you.

“But no. We will not spy. The fact that you would even ask that shows that your head is not where it usually is.”

“Cade,” Gray says under his breath. A warning.

I agree with everything he said, and I couldn’t have said it better myself. I’m not sure why he didn’t also tell them we know nothing, but I’m not going to say anything else about it.

Cade is right; the answer is no. We would break her trust, and the three of us know the struggles of talking yourself into trusting someone to begin with.

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