Page 40 of Freak
Her smile faltered a little, and she tossed a quick, ambivalent glance at the door. “There’s a lot to do in here.”
“We can spare you, hon,” Adrienne said, turning to smile at them from the stove. “You did all your work before you got here. Caroline can plate the rest of those beautiful pies. Go enjoy yourself.”
Abigail’s responding smile was small and uncertain. She looked toward the door again. Mel saw the way anxiety charged her blue eyes as she shifted her gaze to him.
“I got you,” he murmured, setting a hand on her cheek. “I got you.”
Her smile firmed up and deepened. “Okay. Let’s go up front.”
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~oOo~
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With their hands linked, Mel led Abigail back into the Hall. After a quick scan of the crowded space, he locked on a single free table, a two-top way up front, near Isaac and Showdown’s Neverending Chess Game.
“Let’s go sit, and I’ll get you something to drink,” he said, leaning close to her ear, and she gave him that small, ambivalent smile again and nodded her head.
Switching her hand to his other, he put his free one on the small of her back and pushed into the throng.
A low voice inside his skull told him he was being ridiculous. Obviously she would be completely safe. The Montana Horde were his brothers, too, and even if they might make trouble for women in their own house, they’d respect the Missouri rules. Moreover, he’d done a lot to make sure everybody knew Abigail was his. Any patch who had trouble respecting a woman would damn well respect a brother. She would be fine.
But he felt her uneasiness in the tension in her spine and the clutch of her fingers around his. She was not comfortable, and he couldn’t seem to think of that unease as anything but fear. It had his instincts roaring.
Then, about halfway through the room, almost to the pool table, he heard a woman say, in a voice so clear she had to mean Abigail to hear, “Wait—thatguy’s withthatcow? For real?”
He pulled up and whipped around before the sentence had fully sunk into his head.
Rudy ‘Maniac’ Weathers sat in one of the rattier leather armchairs. His old lady, who looked like a church lady’s nightmare of a biker bitch, all the way to her laced leather pants and barely-there top, was draped over his lap and the chair, and she was staring right at Mel and Abigail, an evil light in her black-rimmed eyes.
He’d been laser focused on dangers that could come from the men in the room. It hadn’t occurred to him to worry about what damage the women in the room could do.
“Muzzle your fuckin’ dog,” Mel growled, his eyes on Maniac. Knowing full well he’d get an answer, he pushed Abigail behind him as he said it.
Maniac stared hard at him. Mel stared back. Then, slowly, Maniac lifted his woman from his lap and rose.
When he stood at his full height—about the same as Mel’s, though his breadth was considerably wider—he took a step forward, so he was within reach of Mel, and vice versa.
“The fuck you just say?” Maniac asked, his voice low and smooth.
“I said muzzle your fuckin’ dog,” Mel repeated, holding firm, but not making any further advance. He could fight, he was decent at it, but he didn’t like to do it. He did not start shit, but he would see shit to its conclusion. He’d let Maniac draw first blood.
The Montana patch let loose with a right cross that sent Mel’s head twisting and almost knocked him clear off his feet. He stumbled back a few steps, bumping into bystanders, who’d already begun to form a circle around them, but he managed to stay upright.
Maniac stood in the same place, ready for Mel’s answer.
The restless sense of unfocused violence he’d struggled with all afternoon now had a target. With a roar, Mel leapt forward, tacking Maniac around the waist, and taking them both to the floor, crashing through furniture. As they landed, Mel rose up and got in three quick jabs to the side of Maniac’s head before Maniac’s big mitts surged up and closed around Mel’s neck.
He flipped them over and started throttling Mel in earnest. Mel slammed his fists into Maniac’s sides and back, grabbed at his greasy ponytail, anything he could get to while stars and darkness swirled through his vision.
“ENOUGH!” The word blasted forth from the side, and Mel vaguely realized the music, and most of the conversation and bustle, had gone quiet. It was Isaac who’d yelled, his deep, powerful voice carrying the syllables across the room with the force of a blow.
At the same time, patches surged forward and pulled Maniac off Mel, and heaved Mel off the floor. He hunched over, grabbing his knees while he tried to push air past his swelling throat to fill his lungs.
Isaac pushed through the throng. “What the fuck?” the old man demanded, coming up on Mel. “What the fucking fuck? You’re fucking brothers!”
Isaac hadn’t been president for years, but Mel figured he’d always be a leader in the club. He was scowling at Mel now, like he was waiting on him to clean up the mess.
