Page 46 of Ruckus

“Josh,” I hear her voice come from behind me, all high pitched and full of concern. “What happened to you?” She races past me and goes straight to him, aiding him off his saddle and checking him over.

“Don’t just stand there, help me,” she cries out at us, and Rocco takes hold of the guy’s bike while me and Wrath stare at each other in confusion.

“Drew lost his temper when I told him you weren’t ever gonna come back and we… we got into it.”

“Josh, I’m sorry.” She looks hurt by his suffering and the way that makes me jealous is pathetic.

“You need a doctor.” She starts to walk him inside.

“I got no health insurance.” He laughs then winces from the pain it causes him.

“You're a stunt rider with no health insurance?” Rocco looks at him as if he’s crazy.

“Come on, we can have Polly fix you up.” Wrath sees his sister struggling and rushes over to help her, taking the guy’s arm and pulling it round his shoulder.

“How the hell did you ride here in this state?” she asks Josh, or whoever he is, as they help him through the arch.

“They kicked me out.” His eyes drop in shame.

“Seriously?” Freya looks stunned.

“He’s gonna come for you, Freya, you know what he’s like. I came to check you were okay, and to warn you. I guessed after he took you that you’d be here and so will he.”

“Let’s not worry about me, right now,” Freya tells him softly. “Let’s just get you seen to.”

Freya’s buddy has the attention of everyone here as he sits on a chair and has Polly and Freya seeing to his injuries, and when I see that Wrath is about to lose it, I grab his arm and drag him into church.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Wrath throws the glass he’s holding at the wall once I’ve closed the door and with his palms resting flat on the table, I see him seething.

“I can’t sit back and lose another sister, Ruck.” He shakes his head. “I’m gonna head to that show and?—”

“You ain’t going anywhere, not like this. It’s too fucking public.” It feels a little hypocritical after what I pulled last week, but that was different. I had nothing to lose then. All that seems to have changed now.

I can’t have Wrath going off the rails and doing something that could get him arrested.

“So what do we do, Ruck? Sit back and wait for the fucker to come to us?” He looks at me as if I’ve lost my mind.

“He ain’t gonna come to us, we got this place locked down,” I remind him.

“I can’t rely on that, look at what happened today. Rocco was right when he said about Jenika. It’s gonna be tight, and it ain’t ideal, but I’ll just have to have Freya stay at the houseboat with me and Eden.”

“No!” I call out, sounding way more desperate than I intended. “I mean, you got no space there, and you and Eden ain’t been married five minutes, you need your privacy.”

“So what do you suggest, Ruck? Because I can’t have her here alone at night, not with murderers, Reapers, and now crazed ex’s all on the loose.

“I don’t know, maybe she could stay with me.” I shrug.

“Stay with you?” Wrath laughs, despite his bad temper. “Are you forgetting that the two of you hate each other?”

“I don’t hate her, she just rubs me up the wrong way sometimes.” I don’t count that point as a lie. In fact, it’s totally true. “I can watch out for her, either here or at my place, between us we can figure something out. What matters is, she’d be safe.”

“You’d do that for me?” Wrath narrows his eyes.

“You're my best friend, ain’t ya?” The words burn my tongue like they are laced with acid. I swear I just secured my place in hell.

“I don’t know how she’ll take it, you know how stubborn she is.”

“She’s just gonna have to accept it. I can take the couch in her room or the one in my apartment. It’s only gonna be until this asshole and his show move on,” I point out, feeling like a fraud, but being close to her every night just became fuckin’ essential.

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