Page 31 of Awry
The line goes really quiet.
I’m starting to feel stupid, hanging out in the parking lot as if I’m avoiding what is yet to come.Getting antsy about it like some toddler, and I don’t put two and two together until the words are already out of my mouth.
The fucking car.
“A silver 1972 BMW,” Rought says, his voice sounding thin, stretched, over the line.
Fuck.Fuck.I open my mouth to answer, to say something.
The line goes all the way dead.
The emotional asshole has hung up on me.
The thing is, we’re evenly ranked in the Outcast MC.We’ve got the same claim on Presh as well.I can’t just order him to stay the fuck away.
“Problems?”Grinder asks.He’s dark-haired with medium-brown tattoo-covered skin, and a beard going gray, mostly around his chin.Another Outcast lieutenant, he’s actually higher ranked than me.But Grinder rarely bothers about that, content to let me lead when the situation dictates it.
“Not if you had kept your mouth shut,” I snap, shoving my phone into my inner jacket pocket as I finally step away from my bike.
Grinder doesn’t rise to my tone.“What did I do or say that wasn’t mine to delegate?”
Yeah, he heard the entire conversation with Rought.Doc would have too.Because all three of us are shifters, with all the heightened senses that come with that, no matter that we three don’t share the same beast under our skin.I don’t know a single other shifter with my beast counterpart.It’s been delegated to mythic status, really, even in Asia.I know because I spent a year in Shanghai while completing my second master’s degree on the mythos of essence, with a rare-breed shifter focus.
“Nothing,” I growl, vaguely answering Grinder’s question.Rought oversees all the Outcast mech, including our bikes and other vehicles.Grinder messaging to let him know that a car needed transport and aftercare is completely appropriate.
I head for unit five, noting the motel manager scurrying alongside the lower level of rooms, aiming to intercept me.He’s been hovering by the front window in the office, watching us since we pulled up.
“We need to get eyes on Chains,” I say, “starting at the beach location.Apparently, he walked away.Or rode away.I want him found and detained.”
“On it,” Grinder says, tugging out his phone.
Doc is a still, silent presence on my right.Being quiet really isn’t her thing.At least not when we’re alone.But I know she’s picking up shit from me, as we arrive at unit five— and I just stand there.Staring at the stupid door, and not rushing in to grab my sister.
Doc Z — Zephyr — and I are friends, I suppose, and fuck buddies when we get an itch.Or when she gets the itch.But I haven’t told her about that summer with Zaya thirteen years ago, or all the summers stretching back the eight years before that when we were all just kids playing on the beach together.Until we all became something much more.
I don’t talk about it with anyone, not even my brothers.
Someone needs to die tonight.Under my claws.Or I need to find an anonymous fuck that won’t mind me being rough.And not just for what happened to Presh.Because everything else feels like it’s unraveling, completely beyond my control.
Zaya Gage.
We three — her three — are already broken.Cobbled together and barely functioning.But I didn’t know how cracked and eroded I still am, not until I heard her name and that raspy, sardonic, pissy tone over the line.None of the sweet or playful girl I …
No.Someone is trying to fracture us, using rescuing Presh as a way in.It’s too much of a coincidence otherwise.And the timing is ridiculously suspect, what with the heart attack that took down our uncle three weeks ago.
A cold resolution settles over me as I reach for the keycard the manager is holding aloft in my direction from the other side of the door.The window is set to the left.I’ve avoided crossing by it, as has everyone else.The window and door are both graded to repel essence of any kind, from both sides.But only the stupid rely on other people’s dedication to their work, or the quality of the materials they use.
I pluck the card from the manager’s hand, ignoring how badly he wants to shit his pants.The Outcast work hard for our rep so that we don’t have to enforce it very often.The manager— a null— has probably never set eyes on a ranked member before.But the motel owner is a low-level mage and was more than accommodating when I called.
Operating any establishment on the border with the so-called neutral territory is a bloody business.But the property is lucrative, and we’ve used it as a safe house more than once.Plus, I have ongoing plans to expand that border, reclaiming more of the coast, and giving the motel more of a buffer to the north.As a result, unit five is always held vacant for an Outcast, no reservation needed.
“Go.”I warn off the manager, swiping the master key card across all the locks.Numerous bolts release with a resounding clunk.
Grinder steps to the side with Doc, filling the spot the manager was hovering in before scurrying back to the office.He reaches for the handle, turning it so I can keep my hands free.I’m pretty damn essence-proof and big enough even in my human form to completely fill the doorway, functioning like a bulwark in these sorts of situations.
I give the door a harder kick than I intend, and it slams back beside the window, startling Presh awake just across from me.
My youngest sibling, my only sister as far as I know, almost falls off the bed.The light-brown-haired, pale-skinned, painfully thin woman perched next to her manages to get her free arm in front of her, holding Presh upright.The woman’s other hand is wrapped around the grip of the pulse gun she has pointed directly at my chest.
