Page 1 of Arm Candy Warrior

1

Isqueeze my eyes closed.One Kyle and An-na. Two Kyle and An-na.

“Babe. Oh my God, babe.”

No, no, no. Three Kyle and An-na.

A heavy hand skates around my back, grips my waist, and pulls me back into a hard body. I cower away from it.Heknew. He knew this was all going down. The rest of us were like sitting ducks.

“Shh,” he whispers, trying to comfort me. My life is coming apart at the seams. It’s done this once before. I had to sew the pieces back together with a shitty cob job, but this might be the time when the stitches rip out fully, unable to be tied back up in a neat little revenge-ridden bow. “Are you okay?” When I don’t say anything, Johnny shouts, “Is she fucking hurt? What the fuck, Magnum? I told you to watch out for her!”

“She’s injured from the fight and the escape. Not badly though.” Magnum hisses in a breath after answering, and I peek at him to see if there’s still blood dripping down his arm from the bullet that grazed him. “We were followed. Roza’s guys were shooting at us, but she hasn’t been hit.”

He’s not lying. I’m not hurt physically, but there are a million and one ways to hurt someone.

“Thank fuck.” Johnny nuzzles me again, and I squeeze my eyes shut harder. Two different parts of my brain war with one another. The one that’s thankful he’s here trying to comfort me, and the other that wishes the hands holding me belonged to someone else. Two someone elses. Guilt forces its way into my conscience like a nail being driven in with a hammer. I didn’t want Johnny to die. Hell, I didn’t want anyone to die but Big Daddy K.

“Johnny.”

My stomach heaves. I forgot he was here. In my head, I play back Big Daddy K shooting Roza in the head. The chaos that ensued afterward. The screams. The loud crack of gunshots. Because why? Why the fuck would he do that?Iwon the fight. Goddammit. I fought for nothing. Nothing.

“Take her to your place,” Big Daddy K’s calm voice says. “We have things to discuss.” He’s acting like it’s any other day. Those words slipped from his lips just as if he was asking someone to change the channel on the TV. But this isn’t TV. This is real fucking life.

Johnny pats my shoulder, squeezing me there. He lowers his voice. “Come on, babe. Let me get you settled.” He moves his hands around me and starts to pull me up.

I step away from him. The fuck if I need his help. “Don’t,” I say.

I walk toward the still open door no one else has come through. My feet are like lead weights, and my shin hurts enough that I want to fall right back down again, but I don’t let that stop me. I put as much distance between me and Johnny Rocket—the whole fucking Heights Crew—as I can.

There’s still so much roaring in my ears that I don’t hear anyone behind me until a hand slowly wraps around my bicep right before I hit the button for the elevator. “What are you doing, babe?”

I spin toward him. My body weighs a million pounds, measured in fear and guilt and anger, and I almost trip over my feet.

When he sees me look at him for the first time, he grimaces, eyes fluttering like he can’t stand to see the look on my face.

“What am I doing?” Anger rises to the surface, burying the other emotions for the time being. “I’m leaving, Rocket.”

His jaw tightens, his face like stone. “You can’t go anywhere. What’s left of Roza’s crew will be looking for you. For any of us.”

The world tilts. It’s as if I’ve been thrown off my axis again. Even if Oscar and Brawler are okay, they’ll be hunted down just like me if I were to leave this building. Roza’s gang is probably staking out the place.Whoever’s left, as Johnny put it, probably has a laser sight aimed at the exit of this place.

Leaving would be a death trap. Staying could be the same.

Rocket reaches for me, but I step out of the way again. I’ve reverted to a petulant child, but he doesn’t deserve to touch me. He never did. Maybe I was just a fool to think he could change. That he was just a victim of his circumstances. There has to be a line somewhere, right? One that says, yes, this is how he grew up, and the other that says he knows better and he doesn’t give a fuck.

“Don’t pull away from me. Please,” Johnny pleads. His pale blue eyes melt like ice chips. Whatever kind of fucked up heart Johnny has inside of him, it’s clear my actions are bothering him.

Fucking good. “Your dad killed her. He walked right up to her and pulled the trigger.” As I’m saying this, it dawns on me I shouldn’t be shocked. Isn’t that what he did to my parents? The only difference being my parents were innocent bystanders. They weren’t trying to take away Big Daddy K’s fighting ring. “What was the point in having me fight if he was just going to kill her ass, anyway?”

“You’rethe one who begged to fight,” Johnny growls. The devil who waits on his shoulder takes over, spearing me with his words. There’s no more concern in his eyes. It’s replaced with hard steel. Stubbornness. Holier-than-thou, Godlike bullshit.

I lift my hand and slap him. The crack of my palm against his cheek rings through the hallway. It cuts through the buzzing in my ears until the sting of my palm radiates outward, acknowledging what I’ve done.

He slowly moves his jaw back and forth before staring at me straight in the eyes. “Again.”

I slap him a second time—harder—rage fusing my thoughts together. “I fought because I thought it was going to make a difference. I thought it meant something. I didn’t volunteer for the fucking fun of it, Asshole.”

“Again,” Johnny growls, steeling himself for another outburst.

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