It was hard to maintain eye contact, but he managed.
“I get what you were trying to do,” Mercy said.
“I don’t.” Ghost had his arms folded, and his shoulders jacked up. His anger was mostly for show tonight, Carter thought, rather than the brewing-storm-cloud rumble of true fury. He was worried. “You were the only patched member present, which means you were in charge, and you started a goddamn interrogation without us.” His frown flickered, and deepened; Carter thought it almost looked concerned. “You were the only patched member present, and you let Reese and Tenny be in the room while this little charade was happening.” He nodded toward the three chairs lined up in the middle of the first bay. “You didn’t see that situation going south ahead of time?”
Carter started to respond, and Mercy cut in.
“Nah, boss, don’t lump Reese in with that other one. Reese is dependable.”
“Reese is a trained assassin who didn’t know what the hell TV was until he got here. They’re both a liability.”
Mercy turned to shoot a dark look at his father-in-law. “And yet you sent them both out on a mission just a few weeks ago.”
Carter hedged a step backward in the face of the ensuing stare-down.
“You put cuts on them, boss. They’re part of the club, even if they’re not patched.”
Ghost snorted, expression going wry. His voice was firm, though, when he said, “They can’t go off half-cocked and cut teenager’s throats. I won’t have that, no matter who’s around.”
Mercy nodded.
Ghost turned to Carter. “The next time either of them are around, and shit turns south, you stop and wait for us. Mercy or Fox needs to be here to handle them.” He spoke about them like they were dogs in need of special handling. Which…wasn’t too far off the mark, unfortunately.
But Carter agreed with Mercy. Reese had been the one to step in, while the rest of them were freaking out. Carter had tried to lever some authority into his voice, to give Ten a true order, but he’d never been a respected superior. He didn’t have the reputation, or the experience to deal with that sort of situation. Reese, though, had leaped right into the fray. Had gotten cut up for his efforts. Carter had thought, for a moment, when Tenny bared his teeth, his eyes flashing, that he would stab Reese outright. That they might start dueling to the death right there in the middle of the shop. Reese had kept his head, better than anyone. Had diffused the situation.
He wasn’t going to argue with Ghost right now, though. “Yes, sir, understood.”
Ghost nodded, as if to say,good. “What did the little shit tell you?”
“Nothing.” Carter shrugged, frustration returning. “He had a camera and some flash drives, and according to my contact at the school, he’s been bragging about having photos of us abducting Allie. I think he was going to snap some pics of the buildings out here, up close, you know? And then try to edit them to make it look like Allie had been here.”
“That’s a lotta damn effort for a dumbass kid to go to.”
“I don’t think any of this is his idea, really,” Carter said. “He did something, I know. Something that’s gonna get him in deep trouble. But his fear didn’t seem fake. Tenny had a knife to his throat, and he wouldn’t talk. He said hecouldn’t– that they would kill him and his family.”
“Who’s they?”
“I don’t know. That’s what I was trying to find out when Tenny…” He gestured to the chairs. There were droplets of blood drying black on the floor: Reese’s blood.
“Hm. Come on, then,” Ghost said, and headed for the door.
As they walked across the parking lot, Mercy slung an arm across Carter’s shoulders and gave him a gentle shake. “I get it,” he said, quiet enough that Ghost, ahead of them, wouldn’t be able to hear. “You wanted to step up.” It wasn’t said with any censure, but Carter groaned.
“I was just trying to handle the situation.”
“I know, which is stepping up. You’ve not had a lot of practice flying solo, QB, and that’s on us, we shoulda been giving you more to handle here and there. Tonight was like jumping in the deep end first time out, and that’s not really fair.”
“You act like you guys told me to do this.” He made a useless flapping gesture toward the clubhouse. “Shit happened, I was here, so I handled it. Or, I tried to.” He sighed. “It would have been okay if Tenny wasn’t here.”
Mercy chuckled. “I feel like that’s what most people think about him. Poor shithead.”
~*~
“Go clean up,” Walsh told him the second he entered the clubhouse, and Reese didn’t argue; went back to his dorm, and got out his med kit, frowning at the way he smeared blood all over the clasps and lid. His hands were slippery with it, the cuts on his palms trailing crimson trickles down each finger; they dripped onto the bedspread, and into the tidy interior of the kit. He pressed squares of gauze into each palm, the blood gluing it to his skin immediately.
The laceration on his arm was still weeping, though the flow had slowed, and, under the lamplight, he could see that it was deeper than he’d initial thought. When he wiped the blood away with a bit of cotton batting, he glimpsed the yellow shine of fat beneath the top layers of skin; pressed the batting tight when fresh blood welled, applying hard pressure with one bloody palm that had already soaked through the gauze. Laceration to laceration, both stinging sharply.
When his door opened, he lifted his head expecting to find Mercy.
