Page 67 of Savannah Royals
“Savage,” he pants, eyes flicking to the dead man beside us.
“Abe.”My hands fly everywhere, all over him. Checking.
“My ribs.” He closes his eyes again.
Across the room, there’s one man still standing. Tony and Paul have him cornered. They have their knives now, and it’s over quickly. I stay with Abe, scanning the floor for movement from the downed attackers.
“Check them all,” Paul roars. He plunges his knife into the temple of the nearest Magpie. Tony thunders to the next and does the same. I inhale sharply at their brutality.
“They saw our faces, Kat,” Abe whispers between pants. He’s wiggling, trying to rise. “We have to make sure.”
He’s right. We do.
When it’s finally done, Paul crosses the room.
“Kat.” He crushes me to his chest. “Oh, Kat.”
He doesn’t say anything more, but I feel his fear and his regret—his apology—nonetheless. Feel it in the tremoring grip of his arms, impossibly tight around me.
I bury my face in his shirt to hide my tears. There’s nothing I hate more than showing weakness in front of the guys, but the memory of Craig—the slimy feel of his hand on the back of my head, moving up and down mybody—is too real, too fresh. My cheek burns where he slapped me. I sniff loudly.
“Kat.” Paul’s arms flex around me. Abe and Tony are there too, forming a cocoon.
“I’m fine.” The words come automatic. A reflex.
“It’s okay to not be fine,” Abe murmurs. “Just for a minute. It’s just us.”
It’s just us.
I exhale shakily, drawing inexplicable comfort simply from their nearness. Their protection, their love. After one final hiccup, I turn to look at the fellas. “What are we gonna do now?” I whisper, peeking at Farley, cold and still beside his beloved bar.
Paul releases me. “Now we have to…” He surveys the room with clinical precision, but his hands tremble. “We have to make it look likewehit this place.”
“Likewehit it?” Tony repeats.
“You got a better idea?” Paul whirls on him. “We’ve got seven bodies in here and a shit ton of blood. We’ll never be able to clean it up. It’s a slaughter.”
Abe slumps against the wall and nods.
“We’ll finish emptying the register, move our stuff out of the back,” Paul continues. “Then we’ll put our mark on the wall. No one will ever know different.”
“The other Magpies will know.” I point to the men. “They’ll know different.”
“I’ll deal with them. I’llannihilatethem.” Venom, pure and undiluted, blazes in Paul’s eyes, from his lips. It’s a promise, and I know he’s good for it.
Silently, we enact the plan. Cleaning house.
Before we depart, Tony walks behind the bar. He pulls a coin-sized tub of paint from his pocket and dips his finger. Slowly, he paints our black wolf on the wall. It feels sacrilegious.
“Lo siento, mi amigo,” he whispers to Farley as he finishes. He crouches over our friend, resting his paint-stained hand on the man’s chest before ducking his head. “Padre nuestro, que estás en el cielo. Santificado sea tu nombre…”
I blink furiously and whisper my own quick prayer to the heavens, more for Farley’s sake than mine. Like always, I’m filled with the frustrating sensation that no one is listening, that no one cares. That Paul and Abe and Tony and I are walking out of this pub by the tenacity of our own hands, not by the grace of any god.
Paul takes the paint from Tony. He crosses to the wall, blackens his finger, and slowly scratches one line below our wolf symbol. Not a prayer, but a message. Not for God, but for the Magpies.
He writes slowly. Deliberately. Anger bleeds from his fingers into the dripping black paint on the wall.
No guns in my bayou.
