Page 74 of Liar Byrd
I didn’t have many options before joining the army. There weren’t any jobs, so you either moved away to find one or you enlisted. Half my friends are dead, and the other half are still fighting in a war-zone somewhere. The few who went looking for jobs elsewhere have families, and it makes me wonder if I chose the wrong path.
I hate what I’ve become. That it can feel just as good to save someone as it does to kill.
Makhi likes to say everyone has a devil inside them. A thing they’re driven to and that they know will eventually destroy them. But they can’t stop. Or they don’t want to.
The gentle buzz of my phone draws my focus away from my task.
I fish my cell phone from my pocket, frown at the caller and the time, and answer it. “I thought you were sleeping.”
Makhi releases a soft sigh. “Yeah, well, I’m not. Can you come get me?”
Holding my phone against my ear, I snap all the pieces of my gun together. Fifteen seconds later, I’m on my feet and tucking it into the waistband of my jeans. “Where are you?”
A filthy curse interrupts Makhi before he can speak. The curse is familiar, and only because I’ve heard it said in one specific part of Massey, Arizona.
“Never mind,” I mutter. There’s only one place he goes without his bike, and that’s only because someone would trash it if he ever did. “On my way.”
He’s swearing at someone in the distance as I hang up.
I carefully lock up the house when I leave, knowing Nash will still be awake. I haven’t forgotten Byrdie’s fear. Massey isn’t a big town. It wouldn’t be too hard for someone to work out where she is if they were determined to find her.
Twenty minutes later, I pull my truck to a stop at the trailer park just outside town.
Lights are on almost everywhere; a small crowd of men has formed, cheering, clapping, and stamping their feet. My eyes snag on a bottle of whiskey men are passing around as I cut the engine and climb out of my truck.
Makhi says fights happen so frequently that the sheriff has given up coming to stop them. He sends a deputy if he can be assed. Most of the time, he can’t or doesn’t because the fights start up and end before he can get someone out here.
Two men wrestle across the ground, each getting the upper hand for a few seconds before losing.
I stalk over to them, and a tough, red-haired man with bleary eyes sways a little as he steps in front of me, blocking my path.
“Piss off. I got money in this.” He blasts me in the face with sour whiskey breath.
I look him in the eye. “Move.”
His left arm twitches. Another man grabs his shoulder and drags him out of my way, muttering, “Don’t you know who that is?”
I bypass their muttered argument—something about a murder and a body.
The man who was getting ready to clock me backs away, eyeing me warily.
Makhi has lost the upper hand as I approach. I grab the man sitting on top of him by the scruff of his shirt, drag him up, and shove him away. “Enough.”
He hits the ground hard with a grunt, then immediately rears up, dark brown eyes spitting with fury, fists clenched.
I pull my gun from the waistband of my jeans, holding it low by my side, and I look at him. I just look at him.
“Fucking prick,” he mutters, backing up. Still cursing, he swings around and stalks away, snatching the bottle of whiskey from the guys passing it around and taking a healthy gulp from it.
I turn to Makhi, who’s dusting himself off as he gets to his feet. “I had that.”
“Why do you keep coming back here?” I ask him, noticing a dark bruise on his jaw.
“Family.” He brushes more dirt off his jeans. “That’s not to say I don’t fucking hate the lot of them, but someone needs to watch out for the couple who are worth my time.”
“Your brother said something.”
I guessed as much from the black eye he returned with after visiting his older brother in jail a couple of hours away. It probably wasn't his brother who gave him that black eye. His brother is behind a glass visitors' screen, and he'll be behind that screen for the next twenty years. His punishment for second-degree murder.
