Page 162 of The Wild Charge

Reese was gone. Reese had beentaken. He might be dead. Might be in horrible pain.

He’d spent his whole life doing awful things to people; he’d never known what it was like to be the left-behind loved one of those people.

Everything hurt. He couldn’t breathe. He was keening like a wounded animal – and that was exactly what he felt like.

“Tenny.” Fox sat down next to him and gripped the back of his neck, a squeeze that he found himself leaning back into. “We’re going to get him back.” Fox had never sounded like this, all pretense of indifference stripped away. “Iswearto you. We’ll get him back. But you can’t go running off half-cocked by yourself. We’ve got to be smart about this.”

Tenny smeared a hand across his eyes and it came away wet. He sucked in a shuddering breath. “Ihate you.”

“I know, kiddo. I hate me too most of the time. But you gotta channel that in an effective way, yeah?”

Effective. Yes, he could be effective. It was what he’d been born and raised for:effectiveness. A hard sniff, a few more swipes at his eyes, and his vision cleared a little. His breaths came easier. He had to get hold of himself. Had to be better than he’d ever been. For Reese.

“How did it happen?”

“You sure you wanna know?”

“Don’t fucking coddle me. I want to know everything. And then I’m going to kill that bastard. Very slowly.”

Fox sighed. “Alright.” And he told him.

Through the course of the tale, Tenny began an old, familiar, arduous process: that of shutting himself down. He wasn’t Tennyson Fox. Wasn’t Reese’s boyfriend. Wasn’t a Lean Dog or a brother or a person at all.

He was Number Ten.

And Number Ten was nothing but a beautiful reaper.

Forty-Two

Mercy had lived alone only a scant handful of his forty years on earth. First it had been the tar-paper shack with Daddy and Gram. Then the NOLA clubhouse with all of Bob’s rowdy boys. He’d bought his little apartment above the bakery when he first moved to Knoxville. But then it had been back to NOLA, tail between his legs, heart in pieces. Then Knoxville’s clubhouse. Then Ava. Ava, Ava, Ava. And then the babies. And the little white house where they were on top of each other all the time and happy, so happy.

He was no stranger to living shoulder-to-shoulder with his club brothers in the dorms. To doing all the things that one did in said dorms. But he’d never had to live five to a room, his whole family crammed into one dorm like this. With the boys in sleeping bags on the floor (a campout!Cal had exclaimed with glee) and Millie sleeping in the too-small bed between them, tossing and turning while she clutched her stuffed bear. That kid was nothing but knees at night, a fact that wasn’t as noticeable in their king bed at home.

Cooped up in lockdown, with the shops all closed, and no heads to bash, with the feds sniffing around…Mercy was restless. And he and Ava couldn’t even have sex to take the edge off.

He still smiled and joked, and had a drink with the boys, all of them pretending their whole operation wasn’t about to go to shit. But he felt like the gators he’d hunted, long ago: a writhing threat beneath a still surface.

He knocked lightly on Ghost’s half-open office door and eased it the rest of the way without waiting for a response. Ghost was at his desk – had he left it at all today? – and didn’t register Mercy’s appearance. He sat with his elbows braced on the blotter, forehead resting against the knuckles of one hand, phone pressed to his ear with the other.

“No,” he said, head shaking a fraction. His face looked ten years older than it had a week ago. “No, I don’t – yeah. No. That’s the priority. You think you can – well, if anyone could, guess it’s you.” He let out a deep breath and sat back, finally catching sight of Mercy. “Nah, do it. I trust you. Good luck.” He paused, dark gaze fixed on Mercy. “We’ll take care of that on our end.”

He hung up, set the phone down on the desk, and said, “Shut the door.”

A frisson tightened Mercy’s spine. He felt his whole inner monster perk up.Ooh, something’s wrong, something to do. Probably the worst thing about him was that he’d never questioned his penchant for violence.

The best thing about Ava was that she never had either.

He didn’t feel like sitting, but shut the door and stood in front of it, hands going in his back pockets to hide the way his fingers wanted to drum.

“That was Fox,” Ghost said, in the hard, flat tone of a man who was past his limit on bad news. “Marshall Hunter” –

All the fine hairs lifted on Mercy’s arms. He envisioned his hammer, that big twelve-pounder. His tacklebox…

“Was waiting for them at the gallery,” Ghost continued, above the steady, eager throb of Mercy’s pulse in his ears. “Hunter shot Reese. And abducted him.”

Reese. Reese of the sharp stares and the blank faces; who moved like a ninja and killed without remorse…and who was starting to smile. Starting to understand jokes. Who followed Tenny around like a puppy – and yanked him back on his chain like a trainer.

Reese, who’d wanted Mercy to give him orders, because he was adrift without them.

---