Page 131 of Priest and his Anarchist

Neither of them get a chance to answer because Mom swats the back of my head, fluffing up her dress and taking a seat on the chair beside mine, right where Halen was.

“Why?” Unlike Dad, she doesn’t lower her voice, and unlike Dad, she’s been pissed at me often and never hid the fact.

“Why what?” I slide my glass across the table.

“Priest D’mon Hayes. Don’t try to play coy with me. You forget I made you.” Her fingers come to my chin, and she forces my eyes onto hers. Mom’s aging exactly the way she wants to. With her best friend Botox and side-piece filler. Pretty sure she’d hit me if I mentioned it again, since the last time I asked why there were doctors here pumping fat into her and her friends’ faces, she almost chased me out of the kitchen with a butcher knife. “Son.”

But on the same coin, I never need to hide from her.

Mom knows everything about me, including the dirty parts that I try to hide. She never mentions them, never tries to polish them with gold and glamorize them. She’s allowed me to be the unpolished version of myself in all its ugly gore and simply loves me anyway.

“Because she’s no use to me. To us.”

Mom’s eye twitches.

Dad told her everything, so she knows about Luna and why she is with me. She knows it was me who killed the Axton Brother of Kiznitch. I saw it in her eyes that very day that Luna—Darling—was bleeding out in the snow, telling them it was her who did it. She helped after the fact. What we did that day continues to turn my vision red. She took his organs out with a glint in her eye that I thought only existed inside me. We laughed.

Joked.

She removed his scalp and wore it as a hat while singing the lyrics to a Slipknot song. I drew the line when she cut herself to see if her blood was the same color as his. Crazy bitch.

Mom hesitates, placing her hands on her lap. “Selling her to your enemy is not the answer. You can’t help what happens onceshe’s there.” She turns over her shoulder, enough to gesture to me but not enough to show her interest.

I follow her until my eyes land on the Gentlemen. Suits, ties, and big fucking lies…that’s all they exude.

“Why the fuck are they even here?” The words leave my mouth before I can stop them. Vaden wouldn’t want them here. I sure as fuck don’t want them here.

Brantley wouldn’t either.

Why my father and Danny Dale are hell-bent on keeping peace for the sake of their kids is pointless, because Moses Dale and Vaden have hated each other with a fire that would burn through any treaty.

“Because your father needs them alive for a bit longer.” Her eyes settle on me. “Find another way. Don’t use the Gentlemen. Theywill notbend. Their hatred for us, Priest.” She leans in farther as if I can’t hear her loud enough. “Is not superficial. Who they are, what they do—” She pauses. “They’re not who you think they are, and every ugly thing you know, everydisgustingimage you can think of happening to that girl? You can bet that entire one million that theywilldo to her.”

With a light pat, she retreats back through the swarm of tables and to the curtains that hide the backstage.

“They’re hiding shit about the Gentlemen.” War taps me with his leg. “Listen to her. You know your mom. She doesn’t say anything unless it’s the truth.”

We’ve tried everything else. Now I’m back at square one. I need an enemy, but it needs to be one I can trust enough to not hurt her for any reason. One with a moral code. One I thought the Gentlemen had.

I need air.

Vaden’s footsteps catch up to me as I head through the main doors. They die out when I stop, and in the blanket of the night, everything pieces together like a puzzle.

“I know what we’re going to do.”

Vaden trails down the steps, watching me with careful eyes. “I know that look…”

Restlessness clings to me, the world shifting to a colorless shade of gray. “We’re going to sell her.”

Vaden pauses. “Mommy Mads already said no, and no offense, but she’s terrifying and I don’t much want to get on her bad side.”

Vaden and I both know that he’s her favorite, so it’s impossible for him to be on her bad side, and second, she doesn’t much have one since having us, unless, well, you fucked with one of us.

I step closer into my best friend, the constant whispers around me finally muted. “She willthinkshe’s been sold.”

“To who?”

“Me.” His voice is the exact trigger for Vaden’s rage, and when his smile falls and his head whips around to find the owner of it, my hand flies out to stop him.

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