Page 57 of Gather the Storm

“Waiting,” I said, relieved my voice sounded more confident than I felt.

“For what?” he asked.

“For you.” I’d left my hair long and I flipped it back a little, trying for casual even though my face felt hot and I was definitely nervous about the confrontation. “All of you. So we can go into town.”

Jace barked out a laugh and shook his head. “You’re not going into town.”

“If you’re going, I’m going,” I said. “And you’re obviously going.”

Wolf stepped forward, his dark hair still damp, blue eyes shining like beacons through the darkness that had descended with the setting of the sun.

“Listen, sunshine, I get where you’re coming from, but now that the alarm is installed, the house is the safest place for you,” he said.

He sounded sincere, and I had a flash of him in the truck, his expression a mixture of pleasure and anguish as I’d looked down at him.

My pussy sparked to life in spite of the battle I was fighting.

I crossed my arms over my chest. “Easy for you to say when you’re not the one who has to stay here alone after getting that package.”

“You don’t have to be scared.” Otis flipped his blond hair out of his face and I was suddenly mesmerized by the sliver of skin showing at the top of his black T-shirt. “The alarms are wired to the police.”

“It’ll take ten minutes for the cops to get all the way out here and you know it,” I said. “Besides, I’m not scared.”

I realized too late that I wasn’t playing the one card I had, because I was pretty sure one of them would stay with me if I asked.

But I didn’t want to be scared little Daisy Hammond. I didn’t want to be Princess Daisy or in-need-of-protection Daisy. Especially not to the Beasts, although I didn’t want to think about whythatmattered.

“Then you should be just fine staying here alone,” Jace said.

“I would be,” I said. “But whatever’s going on obviously affects me most. I’m not going to sit here and watch TV while you guys figure it out, so we can either get in the car or we can waste more time going in circles.”

I’m not going to lie: I was proud of myself. It wasn’t easy standing up to them when they were so imposing and ginormous, not to mention distractingly hot.

“Honestly,” Wolf said with a sigh, “I’d feel better if she was with us anyway.”

“Motherfucker,” Jace hissed to no one in particular.

He stalked to the driver’s side of the SUV.

I’d won.

Now it was time to find out if that was actually a good thing.

Chapter 29

Daisy

The Orpheum was packed, although to be fair, it might have been totally normal. I’d never been, mostly because I’d been a kid when Blake was murdered. The abandoned movie theater on the south side of town had been the subject of all kinds of rumors, and by the time I was old enough to check it out, it had been scary for other reasons.

The whole town had seemed like an enemy after Blake died, because while everyone else had been certain the killers had been caught when Jace, Wolf, and Otis confessed, I’d never been sure.

I might have been wrong — I knew that, knew part of me just didn’t want to believe it — but if I wasn’t, Blake’s killer was still out there, and the Orpheum seemed like just the kind of place for him (or her I guess?) to hang.

Jace parked at the curb across the street and we made our way inside with an assortment of bikers from both the Blades and the Barbarians, guys from Blackwell’s street gangs, a few townies I vaguely recognized, and a handful of guys I pegged as being from Aventine thanks to their Russian accents.

I understood why the Beasts would come here to find information. It was a motley assortment of people from all corners of Blackwell Falls. If someone had a lead on who’d sent me the package, they were probably here.

The night was warm — finally — and at first glance, the Orpheum’s lights made the whole scene feel almost glamorous. You had to look close to see the seedy underside of it all: the scramble of letters on the marquee, spelling out nonsense now that so many were missing, the shady glances of the gangs as they sized each other up, the stained carpet in the theater lobby.

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