Page 36 of Sparrow

His father, who pulled him up, slapped his face. “You there, boy?”

“Yeah,” Romeo said, annoyed before his father’s hand cracked across his other cheek. “Stop! Jesus. I’m fucking fine.”

“You’re shot,” Tex argued.

Pulling his hand away, Romeo looked down to see the red stain from his wound. “Seems so.”

“Get off me!” Pipes continued to holler at those holding him down.

“Somebody better take his fucking colors for shooting my son,” Tex barked into the chaos.

The room went out of focus, so Romeo blinked to bring it back. Another set of hands touched him, and he felt weightless. “Shit. Dad,” he mumbled.

Coolness greeted his back, and he realized he’d been laid on the table. “Someone find Dash,” his father ordered.

Why was it so cold anyway? He’d been wearing his cut and a shirt before. Where did they go?

No matter how hard he blinked, he couldn’t get the world to stop blurring. So he stopped trying. Closing his eyes seemed to be the least amount of effort. His head pounded with the shouting around him.

“Jacob!” Her shrill cry pierced him and his lids flew open.

“Hang in there, man,” Dash said as Romeo turned his head, looking for her.

The younger biker grunted the moment Dash jabbed his fingers into his side. “Fuck off, man. That hurts.”

Snorting, his brother shook his head and pinched something, causing Romeo to hiss. “Just a graze, nicked something good though. A lot of blood here. I need the bag on my bike.”

A small, warm hand took his, and Romeo looked up into the most beautiful green eyes he’d ever seen. “Heyyyyy, Lollipop Girl,” he cooed, trying to sound cool, like he wasn’t lying on the table bleeding out while her boyfriend was held down by four bikers. “I think we have to talk about your boyfriend.”

Somehow, she managed a smile. Truly, in the condition of her face, it was sort of grotesque, but worth it.

Romeo drowned out the shouts from the voices around him and focused on her face and the feel of her hand in his. God, her face, it looked awful. Pipes would die for that. He didn’t care about getting shot. That was inevitable. Sure, being shot by someone in the same colors sucked, but it was what it was.

“What happened?” she asked him, using her free hand to swipe tears away from her face.

Wincing as a needle slid through his skin without any sort of numbing, Romeo ground his teeth. He coughed. “I told him the truth.”

**Sparrow**

Sittingon the bed in what used to be her father’s old room, Sparrow held Jacob’s hand. His brother, Dash, had given him something for the pain once he’d been stitched up. He’d passed out after they’d moved him to the bed. Shirtless and cut-less, Jacob laid with a bandage on his side. The only movement was the steady rise and fall of his chest. She took solace in that. It could have been worse.

It felt like hours, but it could have been minutes that’d passed while she sat there watching him breathe and sleep. A gentle knock on the door caused her to lift her chin just as it opened, and Bowie appeared.

The bags under his eyes, the strain in his face, and the weight on his shoulders had him slumped forward. With a groan, he dropped into a chair in the corner. “How is he?” His voice seemed more raspy than usual.

“The same,” she said, trailing her fingers up and down the back of Jacob’s hand.

“How long has he been hitting you?” Bowie asked out of the blue.

Sighing, she bowed her head. She didn’t want to talk about that. She didn’t want to admit it. But it was Bowie. “A while.”

“You should’ve told me.”

She should have. If she had a better understanding of what it meant when he called her property, she might have. All she had to reference was her mother, and the choices her mother made.

Perhaps it was some sort of self-penance for cheating on Pipes. He hadn’t always been the crazed, wild-eyed, mad man they saw today. He’d been a good guy once.

Her gaze dragged up Jacob’s chest, over his beard, and to his face. Gingerly, she trailed her fingers along the edge of his beard and his cheek.

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