Page 186 of American Hellhound
A low drone like bees.
Reese materialized at his elbow, and Mercy didn’t startle thanks to sheer force of will. “They’ve been doing drive-bys. Every few minutes.”
“Hmm.” Mercy unlocked the front door and walked out beneath the pavilion, the concrete biting cold on his bare feet.
The rumble of engines drew closer, and then he spotted several headlamps. They crawled by, unhurried, until they finally slipped out of sight.
“Your old boss, I’m guessing,” Mercy said.
“Yes, sir.”
“Look, cut the ‘sir’ shit. I ain’t the boss around here. That’s Ghost. You met Ghost, you remember?”
“Yes, s…”
Mercy sighed. “I’m gonna call him. Go wake the others.”
Reese slipped soundlessly back inside.
Before he devoted himself fully to the problem at hand – the looming war – Mercy allowed himself a moment to think about Reese pulling the same horror movie routine on Roman and his crew: the silent specter beside the bed. He smirked. Served them right.
~*~
There was something people didn’t understand about living in fear: eventually, it stopped being fear at all. The human body couldn’t maintain a constant state of panic. Instead, a person developed an unnatural tolerance for horror. Numb, unresisting, the victim lived without expectation, joy, or extreme emotion of any kind. She became a sort of husk, soulless, half-alive.
Kris knew this to be true, because she’d lived that way for a long, long time. The funny part, to her, was that it was now, once she was more or less free, that anxiety turned her into a fretful mess. Every day, she felt like she wasn’t enough. Wasn’t intelligent, wasn’t strong, wasn’t capable.
For most of her life, her knowledge of pop culture, customs, and propriety had been limited to what occurred in the rooms where she was kept. She knew all along that the men who owned her werewrong. Even that they were evil. And she understood biker slang and lifestyle for the most part, thanks to observation.
But she wasn’t used to living like aperson. To having opinions, preferences, urges that were anything besides the most basic and bodily. Ever since Roman took her out of that nightmare, she’d been a paranoid, stressed-out mess.
Keeping busy was the only way she knew how to fight her anxiety. So when she heard footsteps and voices in the hall, she got up, dressed, made the bed she’d been given to sleep in, and went to investigate the kitchen she’d glimpsed yesterday.
An insistent voice in the back of her head told her to ask Roman if she was allowed, first. But then another, newer voice reminded her that she didn’t need permission to do things now. Roman and the boys had told her so on many occasions.
It was the nicest kitchen she’d ever seen in person; not the gorgeous showpieces she’d seen lately on HGTV (Boomer said she was addicted to the channel), but leaps and bounds above the cramped galley they’d had in Denver. Big, stainless steel appliances, a walk-in pantry, plenty of cabinets and enough prep space for four or five cooks to work at once. She stood in front of the open fridge a moment, baffled by the amount of food it contained.
Boots scuffed the floor behind her and she whirled, one hand still on the fridge door, heart already halfway up her throat. They were in a new place full of new people, and she was spooked as a rabbit.
It was only Roman, though. Fresh from the shower, hair wet, shirt clinging to the damp expanse of his chest. She noted that he was barefoot – he must feel safe here.
She had her own boots laced up tight.
“Hey,” he greeted. “You sleep okay?”
“Yeah,” she lied. She never slept okay, but there didn’t seem much point in talking about it.
His eyes moved up and down her, assessing. It wasn’t a lecherous gaze, though. He was just checking, making sure she wasn’t pretending she was alright when she wasn’t. That was one of the mistakes this new president – Ghost – had made the afternoon she’d met him: he’d thought she and Roman weretogether.
But they weren’t. And they hadn’t ever been.
She thought Ghost’s assumption might be one of the reasons he hated Roman – aside from the obvious history she wasn’t privy to. But she couldn’t bring herself to correct him. Not yet. Speaking her mind was still too new, and still carried the taste offorbidden.
She wanted to ask Roman what would happen next, both with their ragtag, runaway family, and with her personally. She wanted to know if this new club would treat her the way Roman had, or if they’d expect her to act like a groupie. Or like a slave. Could Roman trust them really? Or would they betray him?
But a lump formed in her throat and she couldn’t ask any of those things. They stared at one another, their now-familiar impasse. He always seemed on the verge of asking her things, and then kept them to himself. The same way she did, she supposed.
This particular staring contest was broken by a polite female voice saying, “Excuse me,” and a pretty brunette stepped around Roman and entered the kitchen.
