Page 29 of Protector

My own smile faded. “Is it?”

I wanted to knock the smirk off his face. Bear’s tip on the Serpents had been worthless. By the time we made it to League City, all traces of them were gone. It was like they’d never even been there. It seemed no matter what we did, we were always going to be one step behind.

“C’mon, Grey,” Slim urged, steering me over toward my bike.

I straddled it, watching Comedian as he made it to the second-floor landing and entered a room. “The fuck has he got to be happy about?”

My wife and daughters were living with two people I hated, and unless the Serpents were going to suddenly appear, ready to surrender, I didn’t see that there was any part of our lives that could’ve been considered good.

Slim rubbed his neck. “You ain’t gonna like it.”

“What?” I answered distractedly, taking in the cracked windows and missing shingles on the roof of the motel. I didn’t even know why we were still here. The place was a complete shit hole. It was a wonder it hadn’t been condemned.

“Betsy’s back.”

Two words that had me climbing off my bike and heading for the stairs. “I’m gonna fuckin’ kill ‘em both.”

“Grey,” Slim jogged up behind. “Just wait a goddamn second. She thinks you’re dead—”

I gripped the railing, not missing the way it moved with my body. “She’s about to be. How many times did I warn her not to come lookin’ for him, Slim?”

“Mikey ain’t a kid anymore. Hell, we just watched him graduate a couple months back.”

I looked up at the door. “What am I supposed to do? Let her come after Comedian like a junkie in need of a fix? Me bein’ alive is the least of our worries if she keeps hangin’ around. You know that, right?”

Slim placed a hand on my shoulder. “Let’s go grab a beer and some grub at the bar across the road. If you still feel like killin’ the two of them after… then I’ll help you bury the bodies. Let’s just think about it first.”

I kicked a patch of gravel with the toe of my boot before following him across the nearly deserted highway. The white and yellow stripes had long since faded, making the area seem like a ghost town.

Given the abundance of big rigs and motorcycles in the bar’s parking lot, the only people stupid enough to be out this way were truckers and criminals.

Luckily, we managed to stay out of each other’s way just fine.

The bell above the door jingled, and every head turned in our direction. Upon seeing who it was, most looked away again almost immediately. The only ones who maintained eye contact were the ones who shared the same patch.

Bear held up a shot glass, but Slim waved him off and led me to a booth in the back. After ordering us a couple of pitchers of beer, he sat back and watched me. “David’s been teaching Mikey to surf; kid’s shit at it but keeps showing’ up.”

The corner of my mouth turned up, and I took a swig from my pint glass. “Sounds like his old man, doesn’t it? Reminds me of the time we went to the lake house with Phantom.”

I made a sign of the cross and added, “God rest his soul. Thought we were just gonna spend the weekend fishin’, but he dug out the damn water skis.”

Slim grinned. “Jesus, I forgot about that. You were awful. My old man said you must’ve been part fish with the way you kept going under. It’s funny… I thought he was invincible back then. I guess in the end, he managed to handle everything but a bad heart.”

We slipped back into silence, drinking our beers and remembering a time when shit wasn’t complicated. It sure as hell hadn’t felt that way at the time, but at least back then I’d known how to fix things. Donald wanted to beat on my mother? I’d step in and take it for her.

Problem solved.

Faking my death was supposed to have ended the threats. Instead, the Donalds of the world had gone after the easiest target.

Her.

“What are you thinkin’ about?”

I picked at the cracked Formica. “It seems a little fuckin’ obvious now, but don’t you think our lives were easier then?”

Slim put the menu down. “You know the guys used to give me shit for settlin’ down right out of high school. Some even tried to say that Lou was forcin’ me into marriage. There were a couple of times I wondered if maybe I should’ve fucked around with other girls, just to be sure I was makin’ the right decision—”

“Did you?” I was genuinely curious. I’d given him hell a few times, but never once thought I’d managed to get under his skin. It always seemed he knew exactly what he wanted—a patch… Lou… even David. If Slim made a decision, he stuck with it, for better or worse.

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