Page 36 of Ryder

“What’s goin’ on?”

“We don’t know. All we can tell is that he got his hands on some hard liquor and now he’s out of his damn mind.” Jagger must’ve pulled the phone away as he shouted to someone as I couldn’t make it out.

“What canIdo?” I was clueless as to what good he thought I’d be to an out-of-control Ryder. If anything he’d probably scare me. I thought it best to let them handle him, calm him down until he eventually passed out. “Jagger, I don’t think—”

“Listen, Braylen. Hear me now. I don’t care what you think. I don’t care if you’re arguing or whatever. You need to put all that aside and get your ass to the club. Right. Now.”

“We’re not arguing.”

He cursed into the phone before hanging up on me. I understood he was concerned about the welfare of his friend, but that didn’t give him an excuse to yell at me and then hang up.

“Your boyfriend is a bit of a dick.” I reached for my purse and flung it over my shoulder.

He can be.She smiled but stopped when she saw I wasn’t joking.What’s going on?

“I don’t know, but I guess we’re gonna go find out.”

Braylen

As soon as Kena and I walked in, fear made my heart slam against my chest, and I still had no idea what was going on. A few of the guys were surrounding someone, shouting for him to let go of something or else he was going to be taken down. It wasn’t until we took a few more steps forward that Jagger saw us and came running over.

“Oh thank God you’re here. You need to try and talk some sense into him.” He grabbed my hand and dragged me across the room. I tried to break away from him but the guy was too damn strong.

“Jagger, I don’t know what you want me to do. What’s wrong with him?”

“He got into that shit. That’s the problem.” He released me, flicking back the strand of hair that had fallen over his eye. He had a darkening bruise forming high on his cheekbone.

“What happened to your face? Was that from your last fight?”

“No, your boyfriend clocked me.”

“What? Why would he hit you?”

“Because Ryder is a goddamn psychotic motherfucker when he drinks like this. He hit at least three other guys, and the only way to make him stop is for us to beat the hell out of him. All of us at once. I don’t know why, but when that stuff is flowing through his blood, he has the strength of a goddamn gorilla.”

That was an awful lot of information for Jagger to vomit at me all at one time. Trying my hardest to wrap my head around everything, I made a move toward Ryder. Tripp turned around and saw me, hesitation flickering across his face before he looked to Jagger.

“I really think she can calm him.”

“I don’t know. I think it was a bad move calling her here,” Marek added, taking a step forward to shield my presence. He blocked my view, and when I tried to walk away from him, he grabbed my upper arm and pulled me back. He didn’t hurt me, but his hold was strong. “I think you should leave, Braylen. We got this.”

Choosing to ignore him, I asked, “What happened? Why is Ryder freaking out?”

“We don’t know,” Tripp answered, switching his attention back and forth from me to Ryder and back again. “He yelled something about not being able to do it. That he’s weak and pathetic. He’s not making any sense.” Tripp looked back toward Ryder once more. “He’s got blood on his clothes and his knuckles are split. We didn’t do that to him.” He ran a frustrated hand over his head. “I probably cracked his rib, but that’s it.”

“Cracked his rib? Why would you do that?”

“Because he came at me.” He said it like it was a normal occurrence, like he had no regrets about hurting his friend when he was in an obvious altered state.

“Get away from me!” Ryder roared, throwing a bottle he’d been holding at the crowd of men caging him in.

“Calm the fuck down, man,” someone shouted.

“At least he got rid of his drink,” Marek said, finally releasing my arm. “But I still think you need to leave.”

As if finally sensing I was near, Ryder pushed through the crowd of men and came straight for me. I wasn’t gonna lie—he scared me. I’d never seen him like that before, and the fact that he seemed to be a bit out of his mind was unsettling to say the least.

His dark hair was disheveled. His face was cut and bruised, his gray shirt ripped in several places and spattered with blood. His hands were swollen, his knuckles cracked and covered in the red stuff as well.

---