Page 16 of God of War

I grin, but it’s forced. The neck of the bottle gripped in my hand, I turn away and lean against the bar top.

The guys are rowdy tonight, but there’s an undercurrent of something else that’s seeping in from all sides. It feels like a brewing storm. Like something’s coming.

Even being not-quite-sober, I scan the room for trouble. For brothers who might take their disagreements a little too far. Who might grab one of the girls a little too hard.

“Fuck Sheriff Jackson,” Razor shouts suddenly. The big bearded dude takes a long drag of his joint and passes it across the table. “Pulled over for expired registration? Fuck that. He knew those boys were Wastelanders — that’s why he went after ‘em.”

His buddies grumble and nod in agreement.

“It’s ‘cause of the shit that went down with the Rolling Jackals,” Razor continues. “Giving up our territory and our contacts. Jackson wants payback.”

I set my bottle back on the bar with a thunk. The club is still dealing with the fallout from what went down a few months back — the kidnapping of Reaper’s niece by our rivals, the Rolling Jackals. To get her back, Griff gave them some of our territory and our list of dirty cops. Sheriff Jackson may not have been on the list, but he should’ve been right at he top. Bastard is as dirty as they come, only instead of accepting Wastelander pay-offs, he tries every little trick in the book to take us down.

“You know how far Jackson will go for a little payback, don’t you, Ares?”

I meet Razor’s slimy grin with a snarl. In a flash, I pick up his friend’s glass and slam it against Razor’s head, shattering it and sending bloody chunks of glass spraying.

The room goes quiet. Everyone’s watching me. Watching the carnage I cause without even trying. Razor wipes blood from his face. He wants to take a swing, I can see it in his dark eyes as he glares at me though the pain.

And then he looks away.

“Who wants a shot?” Bear yells into the quiet. The grizzled old bartender holds up a bottle of whiskey. The room explodes with cheers and then everything returns to normal.

I can’t do this. I can’t be here.

I turn to go, to head back to my room and shut all of this out.

But then I see her.

She’s here.

I blink. Hard. Am I that drunk that even the mention of what Sheriff Jackson did to me can conjure her out of thin air? I wait for her to turn to vapor, to disappear like a ghost or a figment of my boozed-up brain — but she remains.

Real. She’s real.

Delaney Jackson is here, and I wish to God she wasn’t.

She stands just inside the front door, an old backpack slung over one shoulder. Her jeans are baggy, almost falling off her hips, and she’s wearing a dark hoodie despite the heat.

It’s not like I haven’t seen her around town. She’s always working at Rodney’s gas station, or furiously pedalling her bike like she’s got somewhere to be. I think she’s the reason the yard at Gran’s place isn’t just a patch of weeds and dirt.

But none of that answers the question: what is she doing here?

Like she’s made up her mind about something, Delaney charges forward. She weaves through the crowd of leather-clad bikers, most of which don’t pay her much attention. I don’t think she sees me, or maybe she doesn’t recognize me, because she brushes right by and approaches Rev. The lanky, black-haired biker blinks up at her, a bottle of beer in his hand. His tattooed throat bobs as he takes a long swallow, never taking his eyes off her.

“Who’s in charge around here?”

Rev wasn’t expecting that. He sputters his gulp of beer in surprise. Wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

“You wanna speak to a manager, honey? Ask us to keep the noise down?”

The guys around him laugh. Delaney’s eyes turn to steel. I’ve seen that look on her before, but she’s perfected it over the years.

She swings off her backpack and unzips it. “No,” she says casually. “I want to return something that belongs to you guys.”

Two hard blocks of plastic-wrapped white powder hit the table top.

Rev’s laughter dies. As does that of the guys around him. The chilled silence spreads until the entire bar is, once again, completely quiet. Only this time, it’s not because of me and my fucking temper. It’s because the Sheriff’s daughter just dumped our seized cocaine shipment right into our laps.

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