Returning to the port where our SUVs are parked, we pile in and head for the hotel where the women are. As the building grows larger in the windshield, I feel a rise in tension inside the vehicle—wondering what fresh mayhem we'll find awaiting us.
The parking lot is half-full, with nothing amiss—no blacked-out Suburbans, nothing on fire, no one running screaming from the lobby, no gunfire, no law enforcement descending like a swarm of vultures. Just a quiet hotel on the edge of the desert.
Moving as a group, armed only with pistols—tucked behind waistbands until we're on our floor—we approach our bank of rooms.
We check them one by one in turn—empty, empty, empty.
Sol, as we reach the last room of the ones we've reserved, pauses with his hand on the knob, listening, waiting, the keycard hovering near the reader.
He looks at me, at his brothers. "Am I the only one expecting the worst, here?"
"No," Saxon grumbles. "Just open the fuckin' door already."
Guns drawn, all ten of us—Rev, Chance, Kane, Saxon, Silas, Solomon, Lash, Inez, Scarlett, and myself—surround the door. Sounds from within reach our ears—chatter, laughter, a hysterical squeal.
"Sounds…fine," Solomon mutters.
"Just open the goddamn door, bro, Jesus," Saxon snaps.
"Fuck, fine," Sol mutters.
"Yourwoman is right here with you," Saxon says. "The rest of us are on pins and fuckin’ needles."
Sol taps the key to the reader, the light flashes green, and the lock clicks. Sol shoves the door open with one hand, pistol in the other, and slides in, shifting to the side so Silas and Saxon can flow in after him.
A bark of male laughter greets my ears. "Mierda," Toro says, rumbling a laugh. "I almost shoot you, Solomon."
I watch as, one by one, the Cabot brothers lower their pistols. Kane nudges through the brothers, shoving his pistol into his waistband, and the rest of the Arrows follow suit, entering the room.
Sophia and I hang back in the hallway, watching.
“Be right back,” she mutters to me. “Gonna clean up real quick.”
I peck her on the lips. “Alright.”
I enter the room, where all the women plus Toro, Taj, and Fonz are clustered together, half of the women on one bed and the rest on the other, with Taj and Toro on the floor just inside the doorway. Fonz, the strange man, is on the far bed, bad leg stretched out while Myka and Tatiana paint his toenails a violent shade of pink.
Kane, as Anjalee scrambles off the bed to greet him as effusively as if he'd been gone a week rather than less than twelve hours, stares at Fonz over Anjalee's shoulder. "Fonz, buddy, should I even ask?"
"Nope," Fonz says.
"Well Iamaskin'," Rev says. “The fuck, man? Why is my girl painting your goddamn feet?"
Myka giggles, not taking her attention away from Fonz's giant, scraggly, cracked toenail. "Relax, baby. We're bored out of our minds and Fonz is our entertainment."
Tatiana dips the brush into her jar of toe paint, or whatever it's called, grinning at Lash. "Are you jealous as well, Nico?"
Lash snickers a laugh. "Indeed not. I think maybe Fonz is your honorary gay friend."
Fonz, who's had his arm draped over his face up until now, moves his arm away to peer at Lash. “Straight men can have platonic friendships with straight women, I’ll have you know. Furthermore, straight men can have their toes painted pink by their straight female friends." He turns his attention to Rev. "And as for you—you jealous, big boy? I'm sure your girl will do your nails next if you ask her nicely."
Rev is silent for a moment, and then, moving oddly slowly, he unties his boots, removes them, peels off his socks, and plants one foot on the bed in a Captain Morgan pose.
His toenails are bright purple. "That's not the issue, jackass."
For a moment, the room is silent.
Myka finishes Fonz's big toe, plugs the brush back into the jar, looks from Rev to Fonz and back to Rev.
