Page 58 of Whips and Chains
She shrugged. “I’ve been trying to get out of that life for years. I’ve been lucky so far. My dad hasn’t tried to marry me off to anyone. But I know he’s been saving that drawcard for when it best suits him. That’s all I’m good for to him. I’m just a bargaining piece to play when he needs a new alliance.”
“That’s…a lot.” I didn’t know what else to say.
She nodded. “But I’m out, at least for now. They’ll come after me eventually, I’m not stupid enough to think otherwise, but right now I’m free.” She raised a shoulder. “But whatever your guys are into, whatever you’ve found yourself in, I’ve probably seen and done worse.” Her laughter filled the car. “I just need a friend. I don’t know anyone here, and I’ve never been alone in my whole life.” She sniffed. “Wow. Sorry. I just really dumped all that in your lap, and now you probably think I’m a desperate loser who needs therapy for her family issues.”
I shook my head. “I could really use a friend too.” I took a deep breath then let out the words in a rush. “I watched a man get decapitated, and then I watched my best friend bleed out in front of me, and those three guys we’re following? They all murder people ’cause they like it.”
I waited for Nyah to admit my story was worse than hers. For her to be shocked or worse, fearful. I waited for her to slam her foot down on the brakes and demand I get out of her car.
Her stolen car, but I guessed it was still hers more than mine.
But she just gripped the wheel tighter. “Sorry about your friend.”
Out of everything she could have said, that was probably the most normal response I could have imagined.
I burst out into uncontrollable laughter.
Nyah’s expression morphed to concern, but just as quickly turned into laughter of her own. “Did we just become best friends?”
I was pretty sure we had.
16
WHIP
“Murder crew, murder crew. Whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do when we come for you?”
I pressed my fingers to my temples, trying to fight off the pounding pain building behind my eyes that seemed to always be present when X was around.
Levi groaned as X repeated his little singsong mantra for about the hundredth time since we’d left Psychos. “Please. For the love of all things holy. Would you pick a different song?”
Ah, fuck. That was the absolute worst thing he could have said. I knew what was coming.
X warbled loudly and off-key. “Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall, ninety-nine bottles of beer…”
I groaned, scrubbing my hand through my hair.
Levi grimaced. “I made a mistake there, didn’t I?”
“Ninety-nine bottles is his default. The murder crew ditty was definitely preferable. He’ll go right down to one bottle and then he’ll start over.”
“We could kill him instead?” Levi offered.
X snorted from the back seat. “You could try. But you would fail.”
I think both Levi and I realized there was a high possibility that could be true. Levi and I could probably go head-to-head in a fight and I would have a fifty-fifty chance of coming out on top.
But neither he nor I had a screw quite as loose as X did. We might have been bigger than he was, but he had unpredictability on his side.
I wasn’t stupid enough to mess with that. Maybe we were something that resembled friends, but that didn’t mean I forgot to keep a healthy dose of fear in my heart when it came to him. It would be stupid not to, and I tried not to make a habit out of being stupid.
X quit singing, only to say, “If you prefer, we can talk some more about how you two got all up and intimate with each other in that viewing room. I still don’t have any details on that. Was it just a bit of friendly sucky-sucky between friends? Or did someone take a ride on the Hershey Highway?”
“Hey, X?” I called to him in the back seat.
“Yeah?”
“You wearing your seat belt?”
