Page 74 of The Evening Wolves

“Go outside.”

Emery straightened. “What did you say to me?”

John met his gaze and tossed the van’s keys. Emery caught them out of the air without breaking his glare.

“Go outside,” John said, his voice low and hard. “Right now.”

A wild noise caught in Emery’s throat. He grabbed Ashley by the arm and towed the boy out of the house. The cold felt wild too, the wind slashing at them, pulling on Emery’s hair, slicing at exposed skin. Ashley shrank inside his blazer. Some of his hair had fallen loose, and it hung in front of his face. In the weak light, the rich auburn color had been stripped to gray.

“Talk,” Emery said.

“Mr. Hazard—”

“You’re covered in food, you’re scared out of your mind, and you brought my son home injured after I trusted you with him!” The shout echoed up and down the street. Ashley tried to pull away, but Emery tightened his grip. “What happened?”

“We went to Tucker’s. You know, the steakhouse.” Ashley started to cry. He wasn’t fighting now, but Emery didn’t relax his grip. He was aware, distantly, that his fingers were biting into Ashley’s arm. That it must hurt. Good, that distant part of him thought. “We made reservations months ago so it would be special, and my parents said it would be ok if we went straight there and came back, and—and he’s been so worried lately, and then everything with basketball, I just wanted him to have one good night.”

Ashley wiped tears away with his free hand. He snuffled, sounding like he was on the verge of full-on sobs.

Emery released the boy’s arm and flexed stiff fingers. “What happened?”

“There were some kids there. Some other kids, I mean. And I knew they wanted to start something with Colt, and Colt wanted to start something too, but the restaurant was busy, and I figured if we just ate and left, nothing would happen. Then Colt went to the bathroom, and after a while, when he didn’t come back, I went to make sure he was ok. They were—they’d followed him.”

It was strange, Emery thought, that on such a cold night, he could be sweating. That his cheeks could feel so hot. “Who were they?”

“Mr. Hazard, please. He made me promise not to tell.”

“Do you know why?”

Ashley blinked. He ran his arm under his nose, sniffling.

“He is protecting them, Ashley, because they threatened to do the same thing to you if he told. Do you understand that? He is doing this for you. So, I’m going to ask you one more time who did this, and I want you to think long and hard about how you feel about my son.”

Ashley was crying harder now, and when he finally spoke, the words were almost unintelligible.

But Emery recognized the names.

“Go inside,” he said. “Help John get him to the hospital.”

Sobbing, Ashley stumbled toward the front door.

Emery got in the van. He backed out of the driveway. He eased past the cars lined up on either side of the street, past the partygoers, past everyone living their safe, normal, happy lives. He drove out into the black of a dying day. And as he drove, he called Tucker’s.

“Yes, that party is still here,” the maître d’ said when he came back to the phone. “Would you like me to give them a message?”

“Sure,” Emery said. “Tell them I’m on my way.”

16

John-Henry had learned a long time ago to trust his gut, and right then, as he raced to catch up with Emery, his gut told him something terrible was about to happen. Luck. Luck. Please, he thought, let me be lucky again. All the luck of his golden life, which had run dry over the last few months—maybe it had been saved up for tonight. Because tonight, he needed to be lucky, or Emery might literally kill someone.

He’d been lucky so far, or lucky enough, anyway. Lucky that Jem and Tean had gotten home when they had, and lucky that they’d been willing to take Colt and Ashley to the emergency room while he went after his husband. Lucky that the roads had been empty of traffic, clear of ice, that the Mustang had felt weightless as he’d dropped the accelerator.

And now here he was, the roadside steakhouse glowing like a beacon, windows warm with yellow light, and he might not be too late.

When John-Henry pulled into Tucker’s parking lot, the Odyssey was parked at the curb, directly in front of the restaurant. Leave it to Emery to find a way to make even his parking dramatic. John-Henry pulled the Mustang behind the van and ran.

Inside, the restaurant was a pressure cooker: too hot, too loud, too many bodies crowding every available space. Men and women dressed for an evening out laughed over drinks as they spilled out into the vestibule. A crush of people surrounded the bar, hands outstretched as voices called out orders. The smell of seared meat mixed with the cutting sharpness of juniper, a hint of musky perfume, wool warmed by sweat and friction.

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