Atlas and Naomi look up as I enter. Atlas is slumped behind his desk, face etched with weariness, eyes bloodshot and hollow. Naomi is perched on the edge of the desk, back rigid, every line of her body thrumming with barely contained energy. The tension in the room is thick enough to choke on. One glance at Naomi and I can tell she already knows I don’t have good news.
“Well?” Naomi demands before I can even close the door behind me. Her fingers drum a rapid tattoo against her thigh.
“Nothing,” I say, not bothering to sugarcoat it. “Place was empty. No sign anyone’s been there in months.”
Atlas sighs, rubbing a hand over his face, the gesture seeming to age him another decade. “You’re sure?”
“We tore the place apart,” I confirm, leaning against the wall. My legs feel too heavy to keep standing, but I don’t want to sit. If I sit, I might not get back up. “Checked every inch. Nothing.”
Naomi makes a sound — part scoff, part laugh — that raises the hairs on the back of my neck. “Of course there wasn’t,” she says, sliding off the desk to pace the small office. “You reallythink Demon would be stupid enough to go back to a property we know about? A property we’ve already raided once?”
“We had to check,” I say, too tired to match her fire with my own. “We’re following every lead, Tech.”
“Following leads,” she repeats mockingly, her red curls bouncing as she whirls to face me. “Following breadcrumbs is more like it. Demon is out there, and when we aren’t cowering in here, we’re stumbling around in the dark like blind men.”
“Tech,” Atlas says, his voice carrying a note of warning. “Viper and the brothers have been out all night. They’re doing everything they can.”
She turns on him; her freckled face flushing with anger. “It isn’t enough! I’m tired of being confined to this clubhouse like a prisoner. I’m tired of waiting for that psychopath to make another move.” She slams her hand down on the desk. “This is why I told you we need to be more aggressive. We need to hunt him down. I want to tear apart the countryside until we find him.”
Atlas pushes himself to his feet, his expression hardening. “We’ve already talked about this. We don’t have enough men to launch a full-scale manhunt. And we’ve got that deputy sniffing around more than usual—“
“Who gives a shit about some small-town deputy?” Naomi cuts him off. “Are we the Devil’s Rejects or not? Since when do we let cops dictate what we do?”
“Since we’re smart enough to pick our battles,” Atlas snaps back. “Demon’s organization was destroyed. He can’t have more than a handful of men still with him. He’s dangerous, but he’s also running out of places to hide! We’ll find him, and we will deal with him. But we’re not going to risk everything we’ve built because you’re impatient.”
Naomi grabs her half-empty beer bottle from the desk and hurls it against the wall. Glass shatters, amber liquid showeringdown on the faded carpet. “So until then, I just sit here?” She shouts, voice rising to match the violence of her action. “I just wait for him to try again? Maybe next time he’ll succeed, and then what?”
Atlas looks at me, fatigue and frustration battling in his eyes. I push off from the wall, stepping between them. This dance is becoming too familiar: Atlas and Naomi at each other’s throats, me playing peacemaker. It’s wearing us all down.
“We’re going to find him,” I tell Naomi, making sure my voice is steady, confident. “We’ll find him, and this time, we’ll make sure he doesn’t get back up.”
Naomi turns her glare on me. “You will, huh?” she scoffs. “For how long? How long before you give up the chase because the plant lady complains it’s taking too much of your time?”
The jab finds its mark, piercing deeper than she probably knows. Last night’s missed date with Kayla flashes through my mind; her carefully chosen dress, the reservation she was so excited about, her disappointment when I told her I had to go.
“Nothing is more important to me than your safety,” I tell her, holding her gaze. “Nothing. I will not stop until we’ve found Demon and ended this threat for good. That‘s a promise.”
Something in my tone must convince her, because the hard edge in her expression softens slightly. She smiles, the smile quickly becoming laughter. ”Good,” she says, whirling away to perch on the edge of Atlas’s desk again.
Atlas clears his throat, breaking the moment. “You look like shit, Viper,” he says, not unkindly. “Go get some rest. We’ll regroup this afternoon, figure out our next move.”
I nod, suddenly aware of just how close to collapsing I am. “I’ll be upstairs if you need me,” I say, turning to leave.
The main room is still quiet as I cross it, heading for the stairs that lead to the bedrooms on the second floor. I’m almost there when Naomi’s voice stops me.
“Viper, wait.”
I turn to see her following me, her earlier anger replaced by something else, something I can’t quite read. She stops at the bottom of the stairs, and something in her expression makes me uneasy.
“We could really make a great pair, you know,” she says, her voice dropping to an intimate level. “We could take the fight to Demon together. You remember our talk yesterday? We could make the Rejects into a force no one would dare mess with.”
She climbs the first step, bringing herself closer to me. I don’t move, watching her warily as she places a hand on my chest, her touch burning through my shirt.
“Naomi,” I say, my voice coming out rougher than I intended. “What are you doing?”
“What does it look like?” she asks, tilting her head. There’s a challenge in her eyes, mixed with something hungrier. “I’m offering you a partnership. A real one. You and me, we understand each other. We want the same things.”
I gently remove her hand from my chest, holding it for a moment before letting go. “You‘re my sister in the club,” I tell her, choosing my words carefully. “I owe you my life. But I won’t betray Kayla. Not for you, not for anyone.”