Page 7 of Saber's Surrender

Brick steeples his fingers and I watch as a myriad of emotions cross his face. “Honestly, our club has never had any issue with the town. I don’t see any problem with letting them know that both you and Saber are part of the club, there are children here and of course, with our businesses, there’s always a chance for someone to hurt themselves. Letting them know that you would prefer that one of you be available here just in case isn’t a bad thing, because it would mean we wouldn’t take up valuable resources for someone who might need it more.”

“Let them know that, like Brick said, but also advise them that if there’s ever an emergency that requires you both, they shouldn’t hesitate to make that call,” Dragon adds, giving Brick a look I don’t understand. “Because in the short term, we’re more than capable of handling shit.”

“What about if the club ever has to go on a lockdown?” I ask, having heard that term a few times since I’ve been here.

“We’d get y’all to the hospital,” Brick asserts. “We have enough brothers around here that we can safely ensure everyone here while providing y’all a detail at work.”

“So we’d have a presidential escort,” I joke, snorting. When both of them look at me with blankness on their faces I clear my throat. “Sorry, I tend to say stupid shit when I’m nervous.”

“Don’t worry,” Dragon says, his mouth tilting upward on one side. “We have a lot of clowns in our midst, we’re used to it. Doesn’t mean we’ll always find it funny and if we did, we’ll laugh right alongside of you.”

“Good to know because I’ve been known to say some doozies,” I confess.

“Have you met the Bobbsey twins yet?” Dragon inquires.

“Prowler and Striker?” I ask.

“That’d be them,” he acknowledges as Brick smirks. “Last week, they decided to utilize some of their corny pickup lines on our old ladies. And since it was done in fun, we decided to let them keep their teeth.”

“I still can’t believe they asked my old lady if she’d fallen from the sky because when she landed she brightened up their lives,” Brick snickers.

“Prowler asked Bella if she had an extra heart because she stole his,” Dragon laughs.

Brick wheezes as a memory assaults him and when he shares it, I giggle so hard that I end up crouched over with tears streaming down my cheeks. “And when Striker asked Harper if she had a map because he got lost in her eyes, I thought Wrecker was going to pound him into the ground.”

“Yeah, but Selah’s reaction was the best when Prowler asked her if she believed in love at first swipe,” Dragon adds. At my raised brow, he continues. “She pulled out her laptop, cued it up, then transferred all his money into an old lady account she set up. Then she said if he wanted it back, he’d swipe left instead of right.”

“Okay, so maybe my mouth vomit isn’t nearly as bad as theirs,” I admit. “Those two are great for comic relief.”

“Wait until they try out those cheesy lines on you then let me know how you really feel about it,” Dragon recommends.

When we wrap up and I walk out of that office, I feel lighter than I have in a very long time. Almost how I used to before I made the sacrifice I did.

CHAPTER

FOUR

Saber

Days turninto weeks as Foxy and I navigate our newfound relationship—if you can call it that. I’m not sure what we are at this point. We’re polite, but that’s about all. We don’t confer with each other much unless we have no other choice. We work opposite shifts and hardly see one another, which has made our encounters lighter.

Our enemies have been quiet but that doesn’t mean that every spare second we have we aren’t trying to lock down a location for them. Freeing all of those innocent men, women, and children are on the top of our priority list. Wrecker has been eyeballing me a lot lately, but I have a feeling it has more to do with my foster cousin than anything else.

I didn’t confess to Wrecker, until later after Jiovanni sent Harper some threatening letters to his old lady, that I was a foster kid. I always referred to Mr. and Mrs. Pena as my parents because they’re the only ones I ever knew. No matter how spiteful and abusive they were to both me and Roxy they were the only parental figures I had. People tend to look at you as if you’re a piece of shit when that detail is provided so I learned to steer away from that subject.

I’d rather be known as the dirty kid who never had clothes that fit him than a kid whose parents didn’t want him. I think that’s why I have so many issues with Roxy and the fact that she decided that fate would be laid on our boy’s shoulders. I never wanted that for my children and with Draco—the name I gave him when he was born, being my first born, the fact that it became his truth tasted like acid on my tongue.

My worst nightmare for him became my reality. I think it’s why, even to this day, I can’t stand to be in the same room as Foxy or look in her direction. All of my insecurities are now his to bear. After all of these years you’d think I’d have moved past this, but my heart has been shredded into ribbons and I haven’t figured out a way to start the healing process to put that organ back together.

“Hey, got a minute,” I hear asked from Roxy as I sit at my desk in the Cedar Creek’s community clubhouse internalizing my life. Since she came along, my office is no longer attached to the infirmary, so I gave that to her. There’s no way the two of us could share a space as small as it is and continue to work with any sort of professionalism. So Dragon turned one of the larger closets into a space for me to use the computer and keep my personal files in.

“Yeah, come on in,” I say, never glancing away from my monitor where I was inputting some recommendations into a patient's files. Luckily, the hospital allows us to use the same software as them that connects to our home computers so we can complete charts if necessary. Only those with certain ranks within the staff have that availability. My clearance level put me on top of the list when they did the trial run and I’ve never lost that privilege.

“Since you have access to the hospital records, can you look at one of my patients for me? I think I have an idea of what’s going on with her, but I’d like a second opinion,” she states as she strolls into the small space.

“Sure,” I answer. “What’s the patient's name?”

“Viola Stamos. She’s seven and showing signs of whooping cough but I haven’t come across a case like it before and don’t want to misdiagnose her if I’m wrong.”

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