Rubi guarded the door. “Everything okay?”
“I need a pen.”
“Pencil do ya?”
“I don’t fucking know.” My voice cracked on a shaky exhale.
Like magic, Orla appeared and ducked under my arm. “Is he okay?”
“Doctor’s with him.”
“What doctor?”
“Same one who treated River.”
“I wasn’t there for that.”
Ah. But Locke had been. And somehow he’d got away with both his nuts for keeping it from Orla, while I’d worn mine as a hat for a week and a half.
“He treated Em too,” Rubi intervened. “He’s good people. Think we’re gonna get uncled before he’s done here, but we can take that if it gets Locktipus what he needs.”
I concurred.
Orla did too. “I brought more water and some energy bars. Can I go in?”
The unwritten code we’d lived with for so long dictated that I keep her a million miles away from a war-wounded mobster and a man we didn’t know. A primal instinct said different. If I couldn’t be by Locke’s side, then she had to be. I couldn’t live with him being alone, not now, or ever again.
Me and Orls... we didn’t need words. She stretched up to kiss my cheek and disappeared inside.
Rubi cocked a brow, something I didn’t want to hear bubbling out of his fat mouth.
I dead-eyed him, a phenomenon he rarely acknowledged, and for once in his life, he shut the fuck up.
He ambled off to get me something to write with. I slouched against the bunkhouse wall, tired but wired, a standard state of affairs in a crisis this bad, willing any of the phones in my pocket to make a goddamn sound. Cam and the others had been silent a long time. Had they been attacked? Or worse, picked up by the feds? It was D-Day with Bear and his slimy mate—a deadlineI’dimposed on us that we hadn’t come anywhere near close to meeting. Now what? Would they punish us? Would they punish our brothers who had no idea that a fuckingfedhad been hiding in plain sight among us all this damn time, letting us believe he was nothing but a dumb-fuck creeper? Mats and Embry were both on the road right now. If they didn’t come home, it left two kids without their fathers.
Rubi came back. He gave me a notepad and a hug. “I’m right here, Nashie. Don’t be lone-wolfing this apocalypse. The lone wolf?—”
“If you quoteGame of Thronesat me right now, I’m gonna Nickleback you.”
“No need for that kind of language.”
Rubi tightened his arms around me, and I knew he wouldn’t let go until I submitted to his affection. Trouble was, if I did that, I’d break. And I couldn’t be broken right now.
Rubi settled for a backslap and released me.
I braved the bunkhouse again.
Orla was with Viktor.
“Where’s Locke?”
She inclined her head to the bathroom. “He didn’t want me to see his arm.”
“How’s Viktor?”
Orla shrugged. “Lida keeps nudging his face, and I’m pretty sure he squeezed my fingers. The doctor said that might mean he’ll come round soon.”
“He squeezed your fingers?” Blind affection for a man she’d never met wasn’t Orla’s style. I tried to picture her holding Viktor’s hand, and my confusion must’ve shown.