Page 50 of Own
Why shouldn’t he?
“Apparently, he’s more of a cockroach than we realized.” Acid threatened to etch Lunchbox’s words into the concrete floor of this little box we occupied.
“And working with Reznik.” Voodoo looked thoughtful. “Apparently, they are both tied up in this syndicate of human trafficking operations…” He tested the words like he wanted to test their veracity.
“They’d have to be considering where they’ve turned up,” Alphabet stretched out his right leg and began to rub his hand up and down his thigh. Goblin let out a grunt as he flipped over onto his back on the floor before he started snoring.
At leasthecould relax.
“But why?” Voodoo asked the question and none of the others answered. “That’s the part that bugs me. This doesn’t seem to fit O’Rourke’s profile, unless we were just wrong about fucking everything.”
The emptiness in the last part of that question scraped against me. I hadn’t seen Reznik, or met him. I had O’Rourke. I couldn’t answer the question for them either. With the exception of the bite, he hadn’t hurt me.
He’ddefinitelyhad time to do more harm if he’d wanted.
I managed another two bites, but the food turned to ash against my tongue the more I turned over all the chances O’Rourke had. Since I was already full anyway, I handed what was left to Lunchbox.
“I ate plenty,” I told him at his frown, raising a hand. “I’m stuffed.”
He studied me briefly, then nodded once. “Okay.” His expression gentled. “You still doing okay?” He dipped his gaze to my hand and I turned it over to show him my wrist.
It was definitely not pretty. “I don’t think it’s infected, and I scrubbed it in the shower.”
“We’ll keep an eye on it,” Voodoo said. “Does it still hurt?”
“Just like a bad bruise.” It stung like hell when he did it, between the pinch and scrape of his teeth. Alphabet shifted next to me and I dropped my left hand down to his thigh to try and massage the twitching muscles. I would have tried to be gentle, but he kept white knuckling when he dug his own fingers in.
“Fuck,” Alphabet said, elongating the word with a groan. He tilted his head back and gritted his teeth. “Don’t stop…”
“It’s hurting you AB.” So yeah, I was a little worried.
“It always hurts, Gracie,” he assured me. “You’re also loosening it up, so don’t stop.”
Scraping my teeth over my lower lip, I dug back in and twisted so I could use both hands. My bruised wrist wasn’t a huge fan, but the fact Alphabet let out another deep groan encouraged me.
“Pretty sure that shouldn’t sound as dirty as it does,” Voodoo commented with a hint of a smile. Alphabet lifted his left hand and flipped Voodoo off. A rough chuckle spread around the men. “Hey now, I don’t judge. Firecracker is definitely my kink too.”
Lunchbox snorted behind me, but he rubbed my shoulder as he stood. “She’s a good kink to have. Anyone else hungry? If not, I’m gonna pack us supplies for the drive tomorrow. We’re going to have to avoid the larger motorways, which means fewer options to refuel.”
“Pack it up,” Bones said, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. “We should stay here for the next twenty-four hours.” Not that he sounded committed to it. If anything, he sounded less inclined.
“We could hit the road tonight,” Alphabet speculated verbally, his words punctuated with hissing breaths and little gasps as I kept loosening up the cramp that kept trying to seize the muscle. “It’s late, but we change out the plates. We could change the van's appearance, or just swap it out entirely.”
“Four of us,” Lunchbox said, rejoining the conversation. “We tag out the driving…”
“Five,” I volunteered. “And I do know how to drive.”
That got me four frowning looks, but Bones said, “Five drivers. But eight hours is more than enough time to get to just about anywhere we want to near Paris—even taking backroads.”
His gray eyes went distant.
“We haven’t replaced the safe house there.”
Voodoo sighed. “No, we haven’t. I was supposed to do that next month, but the work has been piling up.”
“I could probably find us a short term rental,” Alphabet said on a longer sigh. “Fuck me, Gracie. You have magic hands.”
Heat actually scorched my face at that admission. Still I didn’t let up because those muscles were still spasming. “What do you need for a safe house?”
