“So, just kill her yourself. If she’s asking you to take Camden permanently, there has to be a real reason, right?” My advice earned me a grimace, and Cole squeezed his cheeks before shaking his head.
“I mean, it’s entirely possible, but Kayla got with Mathew over a coke binge in the first place. She doesn’t have the willpower to kick her drug habit. Maybe, she did get into some trouble with her supplier. Maybe she’s in debt. I don’t know, and I don’t care. And this is all about her, too. I don’t want to be Camden’s father figure. I don’t want kids. Not even him. If that makes me a villain. so be it.” My heart ached for him, and I reached to squeeze Cole’s shoulder. He jerked and inhaled deeply, visibly shirking off the conversation before changing the subject forcefully. “So, I’m glad Spyder took your advice the other day.”
“What advice?” Taking a turn toward suburbia, my question never got an answer as a massive, jacked-up truck came shooting out of the cross street. Alarm bells rang in my head over the rev of an engine too powerful for the truck, but I couldn’t react before the impact. Glass shattering rattled up my arms, and I ducked as my truck was pushed off over a temporary, concrete barrier.
My head spun, and I shook myself out as my ears rang and glass lodged in my face and arm. The truck that slammed me backed up, a heavy battering ram attached to the grill, and I blinked hard to see straight.
“Bruiser!” Parker grabbed my arm to pull me out of the driver’s seat, and my seatbelt caught as the truck revved threatening. “Fuck!”
Out of the corner of my eye, Cole crawled out the shattered back window, and I fumbled with my belt before Parker cut through it. Adrenaline surged through me, and my truck heaved with a horrendous crunch as I pushed Parker out of the cabin. He tumbled into the bed, and I followed closely as the left side tires lifted off the ground.
“Fuck! Fuck!” Jumping out of the bed as the truck rammed mine over the boundary and flipped it, I rolled across the asphalt. My heart raced wildly, trying to escape the tight confines of my chest. At least a dozen Hellraisers poured out behind the house they’d been hiding behind, and I glanced over at Cole and Parker. “We need to run—”
“Fuck that shit we need to take them on, or they’ll get worse.” Snarling at Cole’s snap, I rubbed my head roughly. Nicole’s better at it than me. Man, I expected shit to go down, but not in less than a day! Pulling a pocketknife out, I wished, suddenly, that I’d taken Rook here instead of leaving him at home. My palms tingled wildly around the warm metal, and I grabbed Parker as that stupid fucking truck raced off with skidding tires in a plume of toxic smoke.
The noise was atrocious whooping and hollering and metal bats tapping on the asphalt. I couldn’t think through the sounds whirling around me, and I panted shallow and fast as bodies closed in on us.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Nicole
“Oh, God! You said not to panic!” My voice crackled harshly, and half a dozen eyes locked on me as I stormed over to Bruiser. He couldn’t even look sheepish through the horrible bruising on his face, and I pointed an accusatory finger at him as my worry morphed into irritation. I couldn’t stop it, and tears pricked my eyes as I struggled to contend his current image with the one from just last night. “Why’d you come all the way to Provo! You’re not gonna die, right! I’ll be so mad!”
“Shh . . .” My cheeks nearly melted at his drugged-up slur, and Bruiser grabbed me to pull me onto the hospital bed. He was shaking and cold, and I pulled up the blankets over him as he spent all his energy. Peeking under the sheet, I squawked in shock at the stitches holding the holes in his skin closed. “They got nothin’.”
“You’re the chick he’s been shaggin’, right?” My head whipped up at the question, and I nodded as the big guy, Spyder, frowned at me through his thick beard. So much happened that day we met, I barely remember. We weren’t properly introduced, either. “He’s fine. Surface wounds and a concussion from being clocked in the head with a bat, but nothing that won’t heal fine.”
“B-but why . . . why did you come all the way to Provo? There’s a hospital in Saint George?”
“They refused to treat him and Parker.” Tensing up at that, the air rushed from my lungs, and my heart squeezed painfully. Spyder gestured around him in a sweeping motion, with a little shrug that told more than any words could. “Saint George is hostile territory for us. Thankfully, this convinced my mom to move. Parker got an airlift, but I don’t blame them for not wanting to antagonize the Hellraisers.”
“Yeah, because now Bruiser’s fucked up, and Parker’s in a coma. Think about what they’d do to a little woman that wears superhero underpants.” Muttering more to himself, a guy I vaguely recognized sighed as he shoved his hands into his jeans. He looked beat up but not nearly as bad as Bruiser, and I could barely keep up with the conversation. “I didn’t
