Page 222 of American Hellhound
Duane’s voice filled his head, and he felt the corner of his mouth lift in reaction. It wasn’t a smile, but it probably looked like one. “I hate selling drugs,” he said, quietly, an admission. He’d never been to church a day in his life; his marriage was his confessional, Maggie his priest. “Duane said, once, when I was still a prospect, ‘It ain’t about what you want. What you like. Whether it feels good to you. It’s about being in control. If you control the sin, you control the man who commits it.’” Somewhere in the cosmos – more like in hell – Duane was laughing himself sick over this, delighted as he watched Ghost come to the same bitter realizations he once had.
“Every time I look at Kev,” he said, voice starting to fray at the edges, “I remember that I sell the shit that almost killed him and I just…” His hands tightened to fists in his lap. “I tell myself if I didn’t sell it, someone else would.”
“They would,” Maggie said.
“And that at least this way, I’m in control of it.” He shrugged, helpless. “But I’m just as bad as he was. And the world’s just as dangerous as it was when he was sitting at this desk.”
When he met Maggie’s gaze, she stared back at him levelly. “You’re not God, Kenny.”
“What?”
She snorted, thoroughly unimpressed. “Don’t get me wrong, baby, you’re hot shit, and you do a damn good job around here. But you aren’t actively making the world a more terrible place. It’s plenty terrible all on its own. Don’t get ahead of yourself there.”
He felt a true smile touch his lips.
She got to her feet and came around the desk, perched sideways on it and leaned down to pass him Ash. The baby came with a little disgruntled squeal and Ghost tucked him up under his chin, high on his chest, one hand supporting his diapered butt.
“We do what we do for our babies,” Maggie said. “Maybe we’re horrible people – but our motivation isn’t. Don’t forget that.”
He felt Ash’s heartbeat against his throat, light as butterfly wings, but steady. Strong in its own little way. He smelled like Johnson & Johnson, and Maggie’s milk, and that sweet new-baby smell that lingered in his skin. Ghost breathed it in, let the warmth and weight of him sink through his own skin, tried to draw it down into his bones.
“So what’s the plan, boss?”
Ghost spanned his son’s tiny back with his whole hand, felt ribbons thinner than his fingers, soft baby rolls of fat. Breathed in the smell of his hair. “The same as it always is: wipe ‘em off the face of the earth.”
~*~
The shaking started somewhere in her chest and quickly spread, down her arms and legs, into her fingers, weakening her muscles until she could barely walk. Kris made it to her dorm – not wanting to be seen like this, weak – and collapsed onto the bed, sitting with her hands braced on her thighs, breathing, staring down at the carpet.
He was loose. Badger wasloose.
She felt phantom manacles around her wrists; tasted blood in her mouth. She breathed high and fast and rough, like a rabbit caught in a snare.
No, she was supposed to be safe now.She was supposed to be safe.
The knob turned and the door opened.
Her panic spiked and subsided from one beat to the next, the adrenaline surge almost knocking her back across the bed.
Reese slipped into the room and shut the door silently behind him, stood with his back pressed to it, hand still on the knob. “I’m going to kill him,” he said, tonelessly. He could have been asking when dinner was, commenting on the weather. His unwavering gaze stayed pinned to her face; he was her brother and she loved him, even understood him on most levels, but sometimes the way he stared sent goosebumps prickling up her arms. “Don’t be scared. I’ll kill him.”
“Reese–”
“I let Ghost do it his way. Now it’s my way.”
“Reese.” She gathered what strength she could and stood up, wavering.
He stepped forward and caught her arms to keep her balanced.
She sighed.
“Do you want to leave?” he asked her, innocent as a child, violent as a thunderstorm. “We can leave. If you want.”
“I don’t.” And she didn’t. She liked it here, liked making money, and having her own room, and not being grabbed by lecherous men every time she walked past. The women were polite to her.
She glanced over at the dresser, the collection of shampoo, lotion, and cheap perfume bottles she was slowly amassing. This wasn’t a permanent arrangement – there was no way Ghost would let her stay here at the clubhouse indefinitely – but it was a start. A better start than she’d ever hoped to have. And she desperately wanted to keep it; wanted to dig her fingers into it like claws and hold onto it for dear life.
“Don’t you like it here?” she asked her brother, turning back to face him.
