Page 62 of Property of Thrasher
Critical. The word echoed like a gunshot.
I nodded stiffly, jaw clenched so tight I thought my teeth would crack. “Thank you.”
He gave a sympathetic nod before disappearing back through the double doors.
Melody buried her face against me again, sobbing quietly. My own vision blurred, but I blinked it back. I couldn’t break. Not here. Not now.
I was Thrasher. Enforcer. Brother. Protector. But in that waiting room, under those sterile lights, I was just a man desperate not to lose the people he loved.
“DK,” I called out and he came over. “Get Guru looking into this. Make sure it wasn’t retaliation for the club shit before. I don’t see how they would tie us to the shit, but I got a feeling this wasn’t a regular accident.”
He nodded instantly taking out his phone and calling Guru who was back at the compound looking at the street cameras to see the accident over again.
I kept my arm around Melody because it felt like the only thing that kept me from flying apart. Every time the double doors slapped open, some part of me braced for a doctor with bad news, for a nurse who’d say to prepare ourselves. The waiting room hummed with the low growl of brothers murmuring to each other, the squeak of vinyl chairs, the steady rhythm of my own pulse thudding too hard in my ears.
Melody went still all at once.
At first I thought she’d fallen asleep upright, her cheek tucked against my cut. Then I felt the little tremor run through her and she drew in a sharp breath that scraped raw on the way out.
“What?” I said, already tightening my hold. “What is it, baby?”
She didn’t answer right away. Her hands had been knotted in my shirt; now they fumbled at the hem like she was trying to peel it back, like she needed air. I shifted her so I could see her face. It was drained, pupils wide, that washed-out look people get right before they pass out. But she wasn’t going under. She was remembering.
“Talk to me,” I said, softer. “Right now.”
Her throat worked. “I know them,” she whispered.
Everything in me went cold. “Who?”
“The driver.” She swallowed again, eyes flicking to the doors like they might flood her with sirens and screams all over again. “The truck… I saw his face when he—God—when he turned his head. I know him.” She shook her head once, ragged. “Logan.”
My jaw clenched so hard it hurt. The name wasn’t one of ours. “Logan who?”
She stared at me, something like dread crawling up behind her eyes. “From back home. I told you we came from a place with horrors. He’s the worst of them.”
Montana. The cult town. The life she’d run from. The one that had tried to trap her in a marriage to an abuser. I felt rage uncoil in my gut like a chain coming off a sprocket.
“And the passenger,” she added, voice barely there. “BJ. Lyric’s husband.”
“You sure?” I kept my tone level because she didn’t need my anger. She needed ground under her feet. “You’re not guessing?”
“I’m sure.” She nodded, slow and steady, like each movement set broken glass shifting inside her. “The scar on Logan’s cheek. He got it when we were kids. Fell off the back of a tractor. He never let anyone forget it.” Her breathing hitched. “BJ—he was laughing. I saw his mouth. He always laughs when he’s scared. He—he laughs, Thrasher. He laughed at what might be her,” a sob escaped cutting her off from finishing the statement.
I had to steady myself because the room tipped for a second, the world narrowing to the fuzz of fluorescent lights and the taste of metal in my mouth. I saw it like she did: the truck, the moment before impact, the faces. They ran the light and took my brother and his girl out like they were bowling pins.
“Okay,” I said, and each letter was a nail I hammered into something solid. “You did good telling me. You hear me? You did good.”
Her eyes flooded with tears. She nodded like a little kid, and I pressed my forehead to hers for a beat, my palm cupping the base of her skull so she’d feel the anchor of me.
I straightened and lifted my chin at DK across the room. He was leaning against the far wall, texting like his thumbs were on fire. He clocked my look and came over, broad-shouldered and controlled, the way a man moves when he’s holding back a storm.
“What you got?” I asked.
“Plate,” he said without preamble. “Sweeper and Widower tailed ’em at a distance when they peeled off. Didn’t engage. Got the tag twice, plus a partial from a waitress at the corner diner—truck had almost clipped her crossing. All three match.”
“Run it?”
“Guru put it through one of his programs or hacks, I don’t fucking know. Came back registered to a Byrum Jenson, old man in Montana.” He jerked his chin toward Melody, checking himself at the last second and glancing away like this was hers to own, not ours. “That track with what she just said?”
