"Walk away." Two words. No volume. A statement delivered with the certainty of gravity.
Creedy holds for a long count.
His gaze slides past Rookie one more time, finding me over his shoulder. The I-see-you look. The I'm-not-done look. The look that says this conversation isn't ending, it's pausing.
Then he turns.
He walks to his truck. His engine fires up, and his headlights go on. He pulls out of the lot without hurry, lifting two fingers off the steering wheel in a wave as he passes.
The second the taillights clear the road, Rookie turns to me. His face is white around the lips. Controlled, held together with wire and will, but the fury is visible in the tendons of his neck.
"Get in my truck." His voice is rough. "You're not going home tonight."
I don't argue.
* * *
Once we get back to the clubhouse, we head straight to his room.
His laptop is closed on the desk for once.
He's pacing. Wall to wall, raking through his hair until it stands up in every direction. The parking lot calmness is gone.
"He was right there." He stops at the wall. His forearms press against the concrete. "While Beats was inside. While I was twenty feet away."
I sit on his bed and watch him burn.
The anger radiating off him fills the small room. It's different from my father's anger. My father's anger was selfish, inward, the fury of a man who couldn't control the world, so he controlled the people in it.
Rookie's anger is aimed outward. At Creedy. At the smiling man who stood in a dark parking lot and said my daddy's name like a password. At the threat he couldn't eliminate with a conversation and a cold stare.
He's angry because someone he cares about was in danger. Not angry at me. Not angry because of me.
Angryforme.
The difference is everything.
"Rookie," I say it to his spine.
He doesn't turn.
I stand, cross the room, and press my palms flat against the bare skin of his lower back. His muscles are coiled so tight under my touch they vibrate.
"You were there," I say it between his shoulder blades.
He drops his arms. Turns. His expression is fractured.
Anger and fear, something raw and hungry, and barely leashed.
"He was close enough to touch you. He could’ve put his hands on you. He could’ve—" His voice is a jagged scrape, raw with a possessiveness that makes my skin prickle.
I slide my palms up his chest, feeling the hard muscle bunch under my touch, moving over his collarbone to the sides of his neck.
His pulse is a violent hammer against my thumbs, erratic and demanding.
"He didn't," I whisper, locking my eyes onto his. "You were there. You're here now."
I don't wait for him to respond.