“I made a smokeless fire, just to keep off the radar. Found a little sheltered outcropping that protected some kindling from the snow. Found some bear dung. Built a fire. Made coffee. Made bacon, too, but that didn’t make it. I was hungry. But, here, have some coffee.”
“Thanks, brother,” Crash says as he takes it. He takes a drink and then passes it to me. It tastes like burnt wood, but it’s the best coffee I’ve ever had in my life.
“So, you two look like shit. What the fuck happened?”
“I slept beneath a blanket of moldy upholstery, how the fuck do you think I should feel?” Crash says.
“Serves you right for completely ignoring my instructions,” he says.
“We found Kendra,” I say.
Blaze’s smile drops. “You saw her too, huh?”
I’m not surprised Blaze found her. The man has serious wilderness skills, and he hardly looks phased despite spending a night in the same miserable conditions that we did. He probably found her within thirty minutes of us splitting up.
“How many did you spot?” Crash says.
“Four. Excluding Kendra. All of them are carrying some serious firepower and they’re stocked for a lengthy trip up here. I think Switchblade wants to break her. Like, serious psychological shit. Keep her prisoner, twist her all up until she thinks she loves him. Which is good, considering.”
I stare. “Good? How the hell is that good?”
Crash puts a hand on my shoulder. I can’t tell if he’s trying to comfort me or restrain me. “It means he will keep her alive for a long time. We have time to plan this out.”
It comes out so casually, like a woman being tortured worse than I could ever imagine is a positive. Like I should be grateful that my best friend is going through hell right now because it makes things more convenient for me.
Crash and Blaze both take my stunned silence as acquiescence. They’re both so inured to this lifestyle that these atrocities hardly phase them.
Can I really love this man? That he can see a positive in what’s happening to my best friend?
In one moment, he goes from being a man I can cry my heart out to, to a man that I can’t get far enough away from.
Our hike back to the bottom of the trail takes hours and I don’t speak the whole way. My mind and heart both sink into a pit of despair, a dark morass full of sickening thoughts about what’s happening to my friend and other thoughts about what I plan to do to get revenge — thoughts that shock and surprise me.
Blaze and Crash both talk, though.
They talk, they plan, they even joke.
How can they be joking right now? It’s like this is just another day for them.
But then, just when I feel at my darkest, he takes me by the hand; he slows me down a second so we fall back from Blaze and, when I look to him in curiosity, he smiles. It’s a different kind of smile, warm, comforting, and it touches his eyes. I can tell it’s one he’s not used much before.
“Hey,” he says. Simple, a statement, but with a lot of question behind it.
Yet it’s one that, if I disregarded, he’d let it go without pushing me.
Was he giving me space because he cares?
“Hey,” I answer. Even manage a smile.
“I know this is hard for you right now. Hell, it’s hard for me, too. Seeing what your friend is going through, well, that’s shocking and scary shit for anybody.”
“It is,” I say. I squeeze his hand again.
“When it hurts like that, it helps to focus on the job. Use that to keep control.”
I don’t answer.
He’s trying to care for me, but hearing that everything is still about the job for him is enough to shock me back into silence.
It’s not until we’re at the base of the trial and ready to leave that I speak again. Though Crash speaks first.
“Where to now?” He says.
He and Blaze are both looking at me expectantly.
Now I have a say.
And I don’t give a shit about putting my emotions aside, don’t give a shit about professionalism, about ‘the job’. All I care about is getting my best friend free of that monster, Switchblade, no matter what the cost.
“We’re going back to my bar. We’re going to plan. And then, tonight, we will come back here and get my friend free.”
“Tonight?” Crash says.
“Tonight. And you can either come with me, or I’ll do it myself.”
Chapter Eighteen
Crash
An ultimatum.
Not only is she holding over my head the truck repair, but now she’s giving us a do-or-die ultimatum. One where, unless I put myself and my brothers at risk because of some hasty deadline, I have to deal with the fact that she will go charging off half-cocked on her own. And I can’t let that happen because I care about her. There’s no way in hell she’d manage to rescue her friend. She’d die or, even worse, be taken by Switchblade and used for something so sick I can’t even wrap my head around it.
What she needs to do is get a handle on her emotions, stop letting her desperation dictate how she reacts, and plan this shit out like a logical person.
But she won’t.
She won’t back down, she won’t cave, and she won’t change her mind. That much becomes obvious the second we get back to her bar, and she announces that she will be closed for the day.
Instead, she clears off a table, spreads out the maps and other information we got from Bowen Dale, and then pours hefty glasses of top-shelf bourbon for me and my crew. Every single one of my brothers is here
