Page 17 of Blade

Sloane answered first, then Sage, finally Ember. All I could hear were voices on the other line, but they sounded slightly panicked. I hoped it was my imagination, but the way the girls all stared at each other wasn’t comforting. Sage focused on me, and I grew antsy.

“I’ll keep her with me.”

There was a knock at the door and Sage got to her feet. To her credit, she barely swayed as she hurried to answer it. “Yeah, he’s here now. Just be careful. We’ll be okay. I love you.”

She ended the call and swung the door wide to let an older guy in. He had a longer salt-and-pepper beard and was wearing a ball cap and an RBMC T-shirt. “Hey, One Short. Raptor and the boys just called us.”

He gave a curt nod. “With Rhino and Tigger up in Iowa now, Torque and I are the only ones here, but we have everything secured. If you need anything, call. If the phones have issues, use the radio. Raptor has a few of his kin on the way.”

“I know,” Sage assured him. “Thank you.”

“Ladies,” he said as he dipped his chin. Then he left and she locked the door before going around and checking the locks on the windows.

“What’s going on?” I asked, unable to wait any longer to find out what was happening.

Sloane was walking through the house with her hands out waving slowly and murmuring something I couldn’t understand. Every so often she stopped and made what appeared to be symbols on the door and window frames with her finger.

There were a few soft thuds from outside, and I whipped my attention to the window. My jaw dropped at the three large hawks sitting on the railing of Sage and Raptor’s porch.

“They’re friends,” Sloane softly assured me. All I could do was blink. Giant birds were “friends?”

“There’s been an uh… accident.” Sage stood there with her arms crossed tightly and hands holding her sides. The other two gave her sharp, startled looks that didn’t set my mind at ease.

My blood ran cold. “What kind of accident?”

Sage looked shaken and swallowed hard. She started to speak, but her lip quivered, and she choked up. I rushed to her, and she held me tight. I made eye contact with Ember as Sloane continued whatever the hell she was doing.

“Several of the RBMC chapters were attacked,” Ember quietly murmured.

Chills skated over the surface of my skin.

“Ankeny?” I asked with a wobbly voice. Sage whimpered.

Ember nodded and Sage quietly cried into my shoulder.

“Is everyone okay?” I asked finding it suddenly hard to breathe. For three years that had been my home. The members and their families had become my friends. More like family if I was being honest.

“No,” Ember whispered.

“DoesItReallyMatter”—TheoryofaDeadman

“Motherfucker, that hurts!” I shouted through clenched teeth.

“Hold still, goddammit!” Duckie exclaimed as he rapidly cleaned my wound and applied pressure to it. There was blood everywhere. Duckie was the medic in the Brownsville chapter we had gone down to support because they had some shit they’d been dealing with.

“Well, that didn’t feel too fucking good!” I shouted back.

“No shit. Maybe you should’ve listened to me and left the damn thing alone,” he dryly shot back. I glanced down to seewhere he was doctoring up my thigh where a broken off chair leg had gouged into my leg and stuck. He’d been afraid to pull it out, but I figured fuck it, if I died, I died, and yanked it out.

I grinned and shrugged. “Not like I was gonna be able to leave it in and go to the ER. What was I gonna tell them? I sure as hell wasn’t going to say I was at the RBMC clubhouse, and it got blown up. So, it was either you take care of it, or nothing.”

Because I couldn’t help myself, I dipped a finger in my blood and brought it to my lips. It settled something deep, dark, and ugly within me.

“You’re fucking nuts,” he muttered as he shook his head. After he was satisfied that it wasn’t an arterial bleed and he’d be able to close it, he started stitching. “It ain’t gonna look pretty and it’s probably gonna leave one helluva scar, but it will work as long as you don’t overdo it.

He started to carefully dress the now closed wound. As I glanced around again, I noticed a set of boots sticking out from behind a tipped over table and with their lack of movement, I figured that wasn’t a good sign for him.

“How the fuck did this happen?” Raptor was asking Rocko, their president. Raptor had a trickle of crimson running down his face from a gash on his forehead.