Page 112 of Fearless

A cold, wet nose touched the back of her hand, and Ava gapped her fingers, finding Ares standing in front of her, head cocked to the side, expression curious and concerned.

She sat up. “Hi, sweet boy.”

He wagged his tail and thrust his muzzle into her palm, begging for a scratch behind the ears, which she was happy to give.

“Did you know I needed a friend? Huh?” She smiled as he leaned into the scratching. “Good boy.”

Minutes had passed, but she felt like she’d traveled through a wormhole and back, physically bruised from the memories.

“Ares,” she said with a sigh. “Why did I think it’d be easy coming home?”

The purposeful scuff of boots on the hardwood told her that she wasn’t alone. She jerked, glancing across the room, pulse thumping.

Michael stood at the mouth of the chapel hallway, watching her with mechanical scrutiny, not a single muscle moving, not even blinking.

Ava shivered involuntarily. Mercy scared the piss out of most people. Michael scaredher, the stillness and silence of him.

Ares swiveled around, and stared back, giving Michael a dog to Dog flinching contest.

“Hi,” Ava said, giving him a stupid little wave.

He didn’t respond, in any way.

Another set of footfalls, these coming from the dorm hall, entered with much more noise than Michael had. Ava breathed a sigh of relief to see her brother come into the common room.

“What up, Mikey?” Aidan asked. He was eating beef jerky straight out of the Jack Links package. “You want?” He offered a piece to Michael.

Michael turned to regard his club brother, and Ava saw the white flash of a new patch above his cut breast pocket:Sgt. at Arms. So he was an officer now, as of that morning’s meeting. Mercy had been bypassed, in favor of the steely newcomer.

“No? Your loss,” Aidan said, coming to sit beside Ava on the couch. He threw himself down and the springs squeaked in protest; Ava felt herself bounced gently as his weight was displaced.

“What about you?” Aidan tipped the bag in her direction.

As her eyes followed Michael’s departure from the clubhouse – out the front door with a familiar squeal of the hinges – she reached in and broke off a little piece of jerky that she fed to Ares.

“Hey, that’s too good for him,” Aidan protested.

She ignored him. “He seriously gives me the creeps.”

“Michael?” Aidan shrugged and folded a long strip of dried beef into his mouth, speaking around it. “He gives them to everybody. He’s just like, I dunno, a robot or something. Like Spock.”

“Spock was a Vulcan, not a robot.”

“Whatever. Michael’s good at what he does, so nobody can complain too much.”

“And what does he do?” Ava asked, feeling a frown draw her brows together. “It’s not anything someone else could do for the club?”

Aidan gave her a measuring look as he swallowed. “What? You want Mercy to be sergeant? Be running around with Dad all the time? In your face every time you turn around?”

She sighed. “No.”

“He’s outside, you know.” Aidan pretended to find the contents of his jerky bag fascinating.

“I know.” She sighed again. “How fucked up is it that I miss him?”

“Pretty fucked up.” He bumped her shoulder with his in what amounted to a big show of support from him. “But I get it.”

“You do?”

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