Page 53 of Powerless
"They're out searching right now." He reached over with his good arm to touch my knee. "Not just among the bodies. He might've chased one down that was trying to get away."
"But they found his bike in the rubble."
"He could've hopped on another one." Jandro gave my knee a gentle squeeze. "He'll come back, Mari."
I extracted the metal slug from his shoulder and got to work on his sutures in silence. Focusing on my task was the only thing that kept my hands steady and my heartbeat calm. Every minute that passed without Reaper's presence in his own domain just felt wrong. I saw the worry on everyone else's faces, too. We all wanted to believe he'd come swaggering back through that door, Hades trotting at his side, but what if he didn't? What was this club without its leader?
His gavel felt like a brick in my pocket. I probably wasn't supposed to have it, but it gave me an odd sense of comfort. Like he was still near me.
"How long you gonna be at it?" Jandro asked, pulling me out of my autopilot suturing.
"As long as it takes," I sighed. "Probably all night."
"I'll bring you coffee." His hand never left my knee and now slid up my thigh slightly.
"Thanks."
A twinge on my right side suddenly twisted and cramped. I'd felt some sensation there since getting back but it started getting more intense. My gut, or something within me, told me it had to do with Shadow.
"Has Shadow had his injury looked at?" I asked Jandro.
"He won't let anyone come near him," he sighed. "He gets like this sometimes, like a feral animal. I'll talk him into letting you see him, though."
"Thanks." I snipped the end of my thread after tying it off and wiped the surrounding skin clean one more time. "I don't think he had but a bad graze but it could get serious if left untreated."
"Leave it to me." He turned toward me, hand still on my thigh, then leaned in like he was going to kiss me.
The conference room door crashing open made me jerk away, partially relieved and disappointed at the interruption.
The search party had returned. Bones and Dallas walked in, grim expressions on their faces as they looked at Jandro.
"What is it?" he asked.
"No sign of Reaper among the bodies. Or Hades," Bones added with a glance toward me.
"So he's still out there," Jandro said confidently. "We'll search out farther in the morning."
Dallas glanced up nervously. "The thing is, some of the crash sites leaked oil and caught fire. When we put them out, the bodies were impossible to identify."
"Then go by the patch on the cut," Jandro snapped. "Didanyof them have an SDMC patch?"
Bones shook his head. "There are three corpses so badly damaged, we can't ID them by anything. Their clothes literally burned away."
The whole room fell silent. As the information sank into everyone's mind, the worst part was that it told us absolutely nothing. Reaper could be one of those bodies, or he might not be.
"None of those are him," Jandro decided, raising his voice and turning around to look sternly at everyone. "If you didn't find a dog corpse nearby, none of those bodies are Reaper's. Hades never would've left his side."
Bones cleared his throat. "With all due respect," he said hesitantly, "while he's not here, club law says we're to look to you in the interim."
"He'll be here. It's only been a few hours. We don't need to catastrophize this yet."
"Jandro," I whispered.
He looked at me, then down at the gavel I held out in my hands.
"Where did you get that?" he asked.
"It was near his bike. It looked like a hard crash, all his personal stuff was out everywhere."
