“Always a fun time around here,” Hawke mumbled, shoving his hands in his pockets and leaning against the bar. “I miss this shit.”
20
“Everybody back in Chambers,” Marek shouted, and while he didn’t sound angry about what just went down, his tone was filled with impatience.
“Can I check on Maddie quick to make sure she’s okay?” I asked as I walked up in front of him, hoping he would at least let me see how she was doing.
“Hurry up.”
I rushed off without another word. If anything, I wanted to tell her I’d be in a meeting and for her not to worry. I hated that I had to be separated from her for who only knew how long. She’d consumed my thoughts, my worry for her physical and emotional well-being something I wasn’t used to.
That’s not to say I was a self-centered person. If anything, people who knew me would say I cared about others as much as the next compassionate person, but to worry so much about a relative stranger was new for me.
My knuckle hit the wood of the door once before I entered. Maddie lay in the middle of the bed with her eyes closed and her arm thrown over her face. When she heard me enter, though, she scrambled to sit up but didn’t quite make it. She clutched her head and eased back down, blowing out several quick puffs of air.
“Are you okay?” I was next to her two steps later.
“Just dizzy.” She averted her eyes, looking everywhere else but at me until I cleared my throat. Only then did her gaze land back on me. “Your mom… she said I might have a bladder infection or a…” She shrugged, looking puzzled, clearly not remembering what the other option was, but I wasn’t gonna fill in the blank because I didn’t want her to think my mom said anything to me about her possible situation. “She said dizziness could also be a symptom.”
“Well, she should know what’s wrong soon. Then she can give you some meds.” Silence ensued after I spoke. I wanted to ask her what she was thinking, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer. If she mentioned the Reapers, I’d be pissed off. Not because I didn’t want her to be able to confide in me more about her awful time with them, but because I wanted to kill every last one of them as it was, I couldn’t imagine how much more furious I’d become if she elaborated on her time there with them.
“Can I take a nap? I’m not feeling very well.” She tucked her dark hair behind her ear and looked up at me with such innocence all I wanted to do was wrap her in my arms and promise her the world.
“Of course. I actually came in here to tell you that I have to go to a meeting. If you change your mind about the nap, you can either hang out in here, or if you get hungry, you can always go to the kitchen to fix yourself something to eat. I think there’s stuff for sandwiches.”
“Okay” was all she said, pulling on the bottom of her T-shirt.
I stood next to her for another ten seconds without speaking. Out loud, that was. Internally, each of my questions mixed with the next until I didn’t believe I was even forming coherent thoughts.
“Lincoln!” Ace shouted from down the hall. “Let’s go, brother!”
“That’s my cue.” I smiled at Maddie before slowly turning around, leaving the bedroom and wondering if she’d ever get to a place where she trusted me implicitly. There was no time to dwell on such things now, however. Marek had called us all back into Chambers.
Dropping my phone on the table outside the room, I walked in and took my seat. I was the last one to sit, and both Prez and my ol’ man didn’t seem to appreciate it much.
“Now that we’re all here,” Marek started, “there’s some stuff we need to discuss, and although I never intended on bringing this up ever again, I now see it’s a necessary evil.” I heard the older guys grumblin’ under their breath, but their words weren’t coherent enough for me to understand.
Leaning toward Brick, I whispered, “Have any idea what he’s talkin’ about?”
He shook his head, replying, “I’m as confused as you are.” We were far enough down the table, Marek couldn’t hear what we said, but when his eyes landed on me, I straightened in my seat and acted like I wasn’t having a side conversation, no matter how brief it was. Whatever reason he called us all back in here, I was smart enough to know it was important.
Our leader rubbed his hand over his bearded jawline, his expression flattening. He appeared to be conflicted over whatever was about to come out of his mouth, but he continued regardless.
“When most of us weren’t much older than you guys,” he said, jerking his chin in the general vicinity of us younger members, “our club was run completely different.” Oh… more generalities. “We were involved with running drugs for the Los Zappas cartel.” I wasn’t gonna lie. I almost choked on my spit when I heard him say that, not used to him giving specifics, other than the small bit he spewed in the basement about Tag’s father and what he did to Sully. “At one point, we were responsible for two-thirds of the cocaine supply smuggled into central Cali. And even though we had many people in our pockets to help keep the profits high and the risk low, there was
