Page 7 of The Red Rider
“Ass kisser,” Aeron muttered.
I threw up my hands.
“What is your deal? You too, Leif. I get not wanting your stuff broken, and I’ll admit the gum was gross, but you’re both being a little mean to Dice.”
“Yeah, the both of you are being mean to poor little me.”
“You aren’t helping!” I snapped.
“He’s not supposed to be here!” Leif exploded.
“He was supposed to wait for us to come to him. He’s supposed to be getting things ready for us to come to him!” Aeron snapped.
“Well, he’s here now. Maybe he can help.”
“He could help by going back to Florida and building delivery devices for my serum. That’s what he needs to be working on.”
“He’s here flirting instead,” Aeron said. “He’s here because of that painting.”
I nearly spit out my food. Out of everything I’d ever painted, I think that was the one I regretted the most. If I could crawl under the table and die, I would have.
“Can we forget I ever painted that?”
“She said no, and she has the power to change it,” Aeron said.
Hold up. Wasn’t Aeron all gung-ho about the orgy? He seemed to be all on board with me banging his friends. Why was he getting pissed about it now that Dice was here? I finally just asked him about it.
“We need the Horseman of War on point. You don’t know Dice when he gets distracted.”
“Well, wouldn’t he have just gotten distracted anyway when we got to Florida?”
I was so confused. Aeron and Leif made it seem like they wanted my painting to come true, and that meant me getting involved with Dice and Asher too. I wasn’t even sure why I was defending Dice so hard if he was supposed to be working on a delivery method for the serum instead of being here with me.
I guess that was it. He knew what he was supposed to be doing. We all knew what he was supposed to be doing. All he knew about me was what Leif and Aeron told him. He risked pissing them off to teach me how to defend myself.
And he was right. I could puff my asshole out all day about bashing Isaiah’s brains in with Smurfette, but I spent my entire childhood petrified of him. Scared enough to run all the way across the country to get away from him. I honestly had no idea how I would react when I saw him again. I could either go John Wayne and beat his face in, or I could lose my shit and get us all killed.
Yeah, I could appreciate Dice coming here to help me not get killed. I also didn’t want to lose my shit in front of my new boyfriends. How embarrassing would that be? I’d lost my shit plenty of times, but I think daddy issues beat Nazis in terms of losing your shit.
“I’mnotdistracted. If you can get me parts, I can start working on a device while I teach Ariel.”
“If you weren’t distracted, you’d be in Florida,” Aeron growled.
Dice finally lost his cool a little.
“Fuck you, Aeron. If I’d met Ariel first, fell in love with her, and couldn’t stop talking about her, you’d be here too. Especially if you knew a fucking Harbinger painted all of us getting in on the love. You’d be here trying to figure shit out too. And I’m doing what you’re trying to do too. I’m teaching her to defend herself. You know how Asher and I feel about this.”
“Excuse me, howdoesAsher feel about this? Is he going to show up and try to make my painting come true too?”
Dice just grunted.
“Asher wants nothing to do with you and thinks we should drop you back with Mabel before we go to the White House. I’d feel better if you were with her too, but I get you need blood.”
I turned to Aeron, who was one big pouty angel at the moment. Leif seemed to be tuning out the entire conversation and glowering at the gum on his door.
“It would be smarter if I stayed with Miss Mable while you went to the White House, but I can’t. If I’m not the one to kill him, I need to see him die. If Dice can work and teach me, then I need his help because I don’t know how I’ll react when I see my father again.”
“I’ll have your back, Ariel. We all will.”
