Page 119 of Awry
Presh grabs Rought’s phone out of his back pocket and skips off to the jukebox with Kris in tow.DeVille has gotten his hands on some beer.He probably told the bartender it was for Rought, but the teen is the one sipping it straight from the bottle as he leans back against the bar to casually keep watch on Presh.
I finally give in to the impulse to actually push Cay’s hand away — she’s been teasing up against my still-semihard cock again.Because it’s Zaya and her stupid milkshake that has me in that state, it’s fucking sickening to have Cay’s hand on me.
She frowns at me.But this, whatever it even is, is over between us.It’s never even really started.
Because I already know that Presh is going to find a song she likes on that fucking jukebox, use Rought’s cash app to pay for it because she’s a fucking brat, and Zaya is going to dance.
I’m not going to sit here and watch Zaya dance.Watch as the others flock to her, fawn over her, bask in her presence.
I’m going to berate the agents who should be parked outside the clubhouse, not idiotically hovering around a property that no longer contains their target.Then, though my hands have barely healed from this morning’s beatdowns, I’m going to see if I can’t find a few more assholes to beat near to death.
I shove out of my chair as the first strains of music emanate from the speakers.Doc Z has slid out of Rath’s lap at some point while I was fixated on our deceitful bond.I doubt he noticed either.
I also know Rath isn’t going anywhere.He’ll watch Zaya dance all night.Fuck, he’ll watch Rought fuck her in the middle of the dance floor without asking for anything himself.Without even fucking expecting anything.Because as darkly tainted as I am by our childhood, somehow Rath and Rought made it through just slightly less scathed.
But then, they didn’t betray our love.Our future.
They didn’t conspire, however inadvertently, to murder our soul-bonded.The one person we were created, were literally put on this earth, to protect.
I turn my back and walk away, brushing off whatever Cay calls after me.I pass the bathrooms, heading through the back of the clubhouse to the rear exit, because I can’t be in the same room with Zaya Gage one moment longer.
Not without hating her.
Not without wanting to kill her.Because I can’t exist, can’t function, in the same world as her, and I’m not going to kill myself.
Not without falling to my fucking knees and begging her just to look at me.Look at me and remember.
She could at least remember my fucking name.
I walk away.
I leave my brothers, and I walk away.
I’m good at that.
Thirteen
ZAYA
Presh coaxes musicout of the jukebox that I don’t recognize.It’s danceable though, and I tell myself that it’s a good teachable moment — as I force myself to walk away from Rought, who’s grinning at me again like he is the sun and I’m a planet he wants to warm.Presh is relaxed, still slightly stoned, but just enough to get her out of her own way.
I savor the last few sips of my milkshake as I wander into the center of the cleared space that’s something like a dance floor.The shake is my second one— Rought wouldn’t have gotten his lips anywhere near it otherwise.
The clubhouse is situated on the southern edge of Newport, another of those small townships that pop up all along the coast, about a fifteen-minute drive from the Dairy Queen.The interior space is large and dimly lit, which pleases me, of course.Dingy around the edges, but not dirty.
The decor is worn wood, tarnished brass fixtures, and pockmarked tables, all seeming like a deliberate choice.Comfortable for the club members, and just slightly off-putting to anyone who might accidentally wander in.Not that the two massive shifter bouncers outside double steel-strapped front doors, each with the club patch tattooed on their cheek, wouldn’t be deterrent enough.
The thruple who I’m fairly certain I saw fucking in the back corner, as well as the few open blowjobs that were going on under the shadowed tables when we walked in, have either finished up or taken off for more semiprivate spaces.Catching sight of the three teenagers— and recognizing that Presh, the Outcast’s niece, was one of them — might have had something to do with that.
Rought doesn’t follow me onto the dance floor, but he’s still a presence behind me.A lingering warmth at my back that I inexplicably want to cuddle into.I’ve never felt so instantly comfortable, so hyperaware, with another person.Not even after years of knowing them.Presh’s other brother Rath is a silent, mountainous presence at one of the tables, set with a clear view of both the front door, the room in general, and I presume the back door.
Reck, the ridiculously pretty, dark-haired, olive-skinned brother who I vaguely remember confronting me outside the motel, is in the process of shoving his way through the tightly clustered tables, either to take a piss or leave out the back way.
The essence that surrounds Reck is discordant.Volatile.He doesn’t feel like a berserker, but he doesn’t feel like a normal shifter either.It’s not really my business, of course, but I hope someone has him tightly leashed.Because when he cracks, he’s going to take a whole lot of people with him.
I don’t have to look any closer to know that.
I also … he resembles someone I’ve recently crossed paths with.Or saw a picture of in the news.Or perhaps he’s connected to something I’ve fixed?It’s a more immediate and substantial sense than that hint of familiarity, the otherness, I feel from all the Guerra siblings.
