Page 65 of Fastlander Fighter

She couldn’t breathe! This was an impossible decision, and she couldn’t do it right now. “I need time to think,” she whispered.

Another roar rattled the room, so intensely loud that even Clara lifted her eyes to the ceiling.

Sloane checked her phone, but her messages to Captain still hadn’t gone through. She couldn’t even check on him if she wanted to.

“Is Captain all right?” she asked.

“Yes,” Clara said. “If not, Damon would’ve taken flight.”

And Sloane didn’t know why she did it, but she sent him another picture of them, even knowing she was blocked.

This time she sent him the one of her and him and Ruger in a selfie at the ice cream shop after last week’s game. He wouldn’t see it, but it was her favorite picture of her boys, and in this impossible, overwhelming moment when so much was uncertain, she felt better sharing a picture she loved with the Captain she used to know.

Chapter Twenty-One

Captain slammed his front door and paced the room, made his way back to the front door, opened it, and then slammed it again.

He hated everything!

The entire trailer park was full of smoke. He coughed, made his way to his thermostat, and turned off the air conditioner. He couldn’t filter freaking Wreck’s poisonous smog in here.

He fucking hated the Fastlanders.

He probably needed to eat to heal so he could fight again, but when he went to his fridge and looked inside, he realized he hadn’t gone shopping this week. God, he’d just paused his entire life lately, and for no reason he could understand.

He’d gone to work and back, and repeated every day like a robot.

“Fucking Gunner,” he ground out.

He hoped he died of his injuries.

Owen and Wreck too. And Ace too, for jumping in at the end when he got off work.

His phone rang, and it was such an annoying, grating sound. He ignored it, but after a pause, it started ringing again.

He strode over to it and checked the ID. Silver.

You know what? Fuck Silver too. She was a Fastlander, and the only feeling he felt over the Fastlanders was dislike.

He let it ring to nothing as he pulled on a pair of gray sweats. When it rang a third time, he roared and pushed a blender off his countertop, then answered the phone. “What!”

“Unblock her.”

“Unblock who?” he demanded.

“Sloane! Go check her messages, asshole. They’ll be in a hidden folder because you blocked her. You fucking owe me!” she screamed. “Do it!” and then hung up.

Silver was such a pain, but easily ignored. He wasn’t doing what anyone told him to do. He owed her? For what?

Gah, he was bleeding bad. He’d just noticed the laminate wood floors he’d installed in his single-wide trailer were dotted with drops of crimson. Crap.

He moved into the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror. Oh God. He was hurt bad. Why didn’t he feel any of this?

He looked down at the claw marks and the burns, and he didn’t understand. He hadn’t always been like this. He used to feel. Perhaps his nerve endings had been burned off thanks to Wreck?

Captain punched his fists onto the counter and glared at his reflection in the mirror. He didn’t recognize himself anymore. His eyes were so empty.

What was wrong with him?

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