Page 117 of Lone Star

“Yes. Fine.” He glanced down at the floor; there was blood on his shoes, too, gummy smears of it against the worn black leather.

“Hmm. You don’t sound fine.”

“I am.”

“Nah.” He sounded fully awake now, his voice warm the way it was when his eyebrows went concerned. Reese could picture him frowning at the wall, absently rubbing at his arm with his free hand. “You definitely sound like something’s got you bothered. You wanna tell me about it?”

Reese lifted his head, startled yet again. How many things were going to happen tonight to freeze his normally-logical thoughts in their tracks?

“Reese?”

He swallowed. “You didn’t ask about the club.”

“What?”

“You didn’t ask if something was wrong with the club.” His pulse throbbed, and he was suddenly aware that he hadn’t had anything to eat or drink in hours, that he needed to rectify that soon. “You asked if there was something wrong with me.”

Mercy was silent a beat, and then chuckled. “Well, the club didn’t call me at five a.m., you did, so I figure it’s you I needed to ask about.”

Huh.

“I know I run my mouth a lot,” Mercy continued, “but I’m a damn good listener when I try. Something on your mind?”

It continued to amaze him, even months and months after first landing in Knoxville, the way the people there kept asking him to talk. Kept wanting to listen to him. It was the strangest thing he’d ever encountered in his life.

He wasn’t good at it yet, talking. Relaying information in a way that held meaning for other people. But he was getting better, he thought.More human, a small voice in the back of his mind chimed in.

There were ways to introduce certain topics of conversation. Kris kept trying to tell him that, her gaze earnest and worried – but Ava had waved and said, “Nobody around here’s got an ounce of tact, so don’t worry about it. You can’t shock me.”

“He’s a blurter,” Maggie had said, smiling. “Doesn’t beat around the bush. I like that.” She’d looked at Ghost, then, who’d thrown up his hands and made one of those grumbling comments about “women this” or “women that” Reese didn’t get.

He supposed he blurted when he said, without preamble, “Tenny got shot tonight.”

“Shit, is he dead?”

“No. I stopped the bleeding.” His pulse slowed, remembering. He’d stopped the bleeding. Tenny was still alive when they loaded him on the ambulance. This he could do: give a mission report. No finesse, no social skills required, just the facts. “The wound was a through-and-through, at the very edge of his throat. .45 caliber. It only nicked the carotid.”

“Shit,” Mercy said again. “You did good, then. Who shot him?”

Reese listed off the physical attributes of the shooter, from the hair, to the earrings, to the ridiculous gun. “He matches the description several of our witnesses gave for a man named Luis. He’s the son of the Chupacabra boss.”

“Little prince charming, huh?” Mercy said. “And he winked at you?”

“Yes.”

“It was a message, then. A power play. He wanted you to know that he could have done a lot worse, but he didn’t. He didn’t mean to kill him.”

“I don’t understand,” Reese said, and heard frustration enter his voice.

“I know, kiddo. I don’t get it either – the way people gotta be jackasses toying with each other. It’s a lot easier to just bash heads in and get it over with, all out in the open.”

That was why Mercy was his favorite.

“So I take it things just got even more complicated with the cartel out there.”

“I guess.”

“Did you tell Fox? About the winking I mean. He’ll need to know all the details.”

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