Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 148220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 741(@200wpm)___ 593(@250wpm)___ 494(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 741(@200wpm)___ 593(@250wpm)___ 494(@300wpm)
He wrenches Crash’s head to the side.
Handlebar’s roar of denial echoes the silent scream that fills my head and my heart. This can’t be real.
But it is. I know it is.
Sobs hitch painfully in my chest as Stone rises to his feet with his arms wrapped around Crash’s torso, his heavy muscles straining under the weight. The Cage unlocks and two of the guards head in.
“Back off,” Stone snarls and carries Crash’s body to the exit—toward Handlebar, who’s raging against his chains. “Take him, brother. Take him.”
A keening sound comes from the bearded man as Stone lays Crash in his hands. Then Handlebar’s hoarse, “You’re no brother to me. I’ll kill you. First fucking chance, I kill you.”
Jaw set, Stone nods and backs up a step. When the guards start closing in, Victor at the lead, he tells them, “You’re not throwing Crash’s body away like trash. You’re going to let this man bury his brother. Or about five of you are going into the ground tonight, too. You’ll eventually get me down, but not before I can do a lot of fucking damage.”
Victor stares at him a long second before nodding. “We’ll bury him back at the compound.”
When Stone gets that agreement, all the aggressive fire and steel seems to vanish. He moves back to the bench like a man still carrying a heavy body with him. With silent sobs tearing at my chest and throat, I pick up my first aid kit and head over. He didn’t put a mark on Crash, but Crash got in quite a few hits on him. Blood streams from a cut in his scalp, his left eyebrow, his mouth.
I can’t help Crash. But I can do this. It’s one of the few things I can do for any of these guys. Keep them healthy. Patch them up.
“Don’t you fucking touch me. Don’t you ever fucking touch me.” His harsh voice freezes me in place and he snatches the antiseptic pad from my hand. When he looks up at me, his gaze isn’t cold and lethal. Not tormented or grieving. Just dark and empty. Soulless. “And don’t you dare cry. Not when you’re the reason I was in that Cage with him. Your skin is safe.”
Grief and anger lock my throat. The urge to shout that Crash was my friend, too. But it wasn’t the same as Stone’s bond with him. I know it wasn’t. And whatever blame he places on me, it can’t be close to what he’s putting on himself.
I nod and back off, but his next question stops me.
“What was the plan?”
Renewed grief stabs through my heart. My plan to slip the guards chocolate laxatives and get them out of the control booth. I’d filled in Crash tonight for the first time—and he’d loved discovering why I’d had him playing along and pretending to be constipated for days.
But he’s gone. And I can’t just switch the symptoms over to someone else.
“It’s impossible now,” I tell him in a thick voice.
“Then you’re useless to me, aren’t you?” His empty gaze moves back to Handlebar, who’s clutching Crash close. “So get the fuck out of my face.”
I do, and the tears that keep falling aren’t elegant or pretty. Because this isn’t the movies.
And there won’t be any happy ending here.
12
Stone
It’s a silent ride back to the barns. No congratulations come from the other fighters in the van, though most say something to Log Cabin. But to me, nothing. Probably because of what they see in my face.
Or don’t see. Because I’ve got a big fucking hole inside me. Where the man I was used to be.
And right now, something my mom once said is echoing around inside that hollow space. She’s a high school counselor now, but wasn’t always. Back in the day, she was some hotshot psychiatrist up in Portland. That was before Anna got sick with childhood leukemia, before the long cure and recovery meant my mom wasn’t putting in as many hours in at the office, before our family moved to a little town in Central Oregon. My mom gave up the flashy job, but didn’t give up her calling. Growing up, Anna and I got all kinds of shit drilled into our heads, my mom teaching us all kinds of lesson—sometimes so subtly we didn’t know what she was doing until it was done.
But most stuff, she just said flat out. One of those things was that some people have big fucking holes inside them. So they fill them up with something else. Drugs, sex, violence, television, kale—whatever makes them feel like less of a big, empty piece of shit. And some go overboard and it ends up killing them.
A lot of people don’t end up choosing what fills them up. They just fall into it. A drink here, a puff there. But sometimes, she said, they choose what fills them up. Knowing it can’t get them through forever. But it can get them through long enough that they can make it out the other side.