Текст книги "Walk Through Fire"

Автор книги: Kristen Ashley

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Blindly I ran in the direction of the Trench, turned the corner that would take me out of the Chaos zone and ran straight into something solid.

I stepped back, looked up, and stared in horror at Tack Allen.

He also stared at me before his face went hard and he growled, “Fuck me.”

He hated me and even in those two seconds I knew it because he didn’t hide it.

Not again.

I couldn’t take this again.

I turned, nearly ran into the redhead at his side who I distractedly saw was not Naomi but was looking at me curiously right before her head jerked visibly, her eyes got wide, and her mouth opened.

I darted by her and raced into the night.

Tyra

“Do you know her?” I asked.

My husband didn’t answer.

He started stalking (stalking, not walking) quickly toward High’s RV.

“Tack!” I snapped, dashing after him. “Do you know that woman?”

Tack didn’t get to the RV before the door was thrown open and High prowled out.

“Brother,” Tack called.

High didn’t even look at Tack. He marched right to his bike that was parked by his RV and threw his leg over.

“Brother!” Tack shouted over the roar of High’s Harley that he’d fired up, my man quickening his steps, which meant I quickened my steps, now running behind my husband.

High revved his bike, his head turned to look behind him as he began to back it out.

“Brother!” Tack bellowed just as he stopped close to High’s bike, and I skidded to a halt at his side.

Then I didn’t move a muscle as High turned his head and looked to my man.

I also didn’t breathe.

I was close with all of the brothers. Over the years, and there had now been many, through ups and downs, births and deaths, breakups, makeups, fuckups, we were tight.

But if I was forced to list which brother I was least close to, it would be High.

He was a good guy. He was a good brother. He was nice to me. He respected me truly and did this in word and deed and not because I was the president of the Chaos MC’s old lady but because he felt that for me.

But we weren’t that tight.

And I’d noticed he wasn’t close to any woman attached to the Club, not even, when he’d had her (which now he did not), his own wife.

I knew he’d bleed and die for his brothers. If it came down to it, he’d even do it for the old ladies.

That didn’t mean he’d shoot the shit with us at a Chaos hog roast.

Thus he didn’t.

And I had an idea that I’d just found out why.

Because that beautiful woman with tears streaming down her face who looked like she’d just been told the man she loved with every fiber of her being had been shot dead on the street had just come from High’s RV.

A High who looked like he was off to wrestle the devil himself to take over hell and had enough fury in his belly to win.

He didn’t address Tack. He backed out and roared away.

I stood next to my husband and looked into the darkness where High had last been.

When Tack moved, I shifted quickly, turning to face him.

“Who was that woman?” I asked.

He looked down at me and said the wrong thing.

“Do not get into this, Red.”

There it was.

This was big.

This was why High was High.

So this was something that I needed to know.

“Who was that woman?” I repeated.

Tack turned fully to me, got close, and bent his neck to capture my gaze through the dark.

“Do not get into this, Tyra,” he also repeated.

“Who... was... that woman?” I demanded.

I watched my husband’s jaw grow tight as he studied me.

We’d had a decade together.

He knew me.

So it wasn’t a surprise when he stated, “You know men got dream women, just like women got dream men, you bein’ mine.”

That was a good way to start, buttering me up, because I did know that.

He was my dream man.

I was his dream woman.

We didn’t just wear each other’s rings.

That was the truth of it.

And we’d shared that with each other in a myriad of ways over the years.

“Yeah,” I answered.

“Her name is Millie Cross,” he went on. “And ’bout twenty years ago, she used to be High’s woman.”

“I think I got that part,” I informed him.

“No, Red,” he said, getting closer, lifting a hand to curl it around the side of my neck. “She was his and she was his. As in, his dream woman.”

Uh-oh.

“Crap,” I muttered.

“Yep,” he agreed. “And you know how High got himself addicted to the rush of doin’ stupid shit that was also felonious in order to make a shitload of money for the Club?”

Uh-oh!

Now ancient history, the Club doing felonious shit, my man had seen to that, dragging his brothers along for the ride.

Though, truth be told, most of them were willing and invested every step of the way to the point they bled for the Club to be clean.

And one died for it.

High had been harder to convince that the Club needed a new direction.

“Yes,” I replied slowly.

“When she gutted him, gettin’ shot of his ass, tellin’ him he had no ambition and she had graduated from college and had a golden life ahead of her so, since he was tainted with Chaos so deep, she knew he’d never get a real life. This meant he had to fuck off. Which he did. And that was when he went so deep into that shit, it took what happened to you years later to pull him out.”

What happened to me was that I’d been kidnapped, and stabbed repeatedly, by an enemy that used to be an ally of Chaos. An enemy that High had wanted to reaffiliate with.

Until that enemy nearly killed me.

“Shit,” I whispered.

“Yeah,” Tack agreed. “That bitch is not a bitch. That bitch is a biker-hating cunt and I have no clue why the fuck she’s here except to fuck with High’s head ’cause she spent three years doin’ that and got way the fuck off on it.” He looked beyond me and muttered, “Probably got herself dumped. Maybe has kids to take care of. Lookin’ for some fuckwad who’s stupid enough to take on her shit and thinkin’ wrongly with the way he fell for her that’d be High.”

I stared up at my husband, the sharpest man I knew, wondering how, at least with one thing, he could be so dumb.

“Uh, I don’t think so.”

His gaze cut back to me. “Come again?”

“The woman we just saw was the female adult equivalent of a six-year-old who just learned there’s no Santa Claus, no Easter Bunny, and she was adopted.”

He looked to the heavens and muttered, “Fuck.”

“Seriously,” I snapped.

He looked back to me. “Red, I’m tellin’ you,” his fingers on my neck squeezed, “do not get involved.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “As his brother, seeing him, seeing her, how could you not get involved?”

He dipped his face close to mine. “ ’Cause she was runnin’ away, which means I hope like fuck she stays away. And if she doesn’t, I’ll do everything in my power to set her away in a way she gets my goddamned message and stays... the fuck... away.”

“Tack—”

“Tyra, do not get involved,” he ground out.

“Whatever happened between them, she was devastated,” I hissed.

“Good,” he clipped. “She rained that shit on High, she deserves it and a fuckuva lot more.”

Loved my man.

But I was right.

Like any man blinded by loyalty to a brother, about this shit he was so dumb.

“Has it occurred to you that a biker-hating woman would be nowhere near Wild Bill’s field no matter what she might need unless what she needs is what she needs?” I asked.

“Nothin’ occurs to me except takin’ my brother’s back, Tyra,” he returned. “And you need to listen to this, baby, and let it sink way the fuck in. Every brother is gonna do the same and you do not wanna go against Chaos on shit like this. The ones who didn’t live that with him will hear about it and we’ll be all in in a way you’ve experienced once. When we all put our asses on the line to save your life.”

I drew in a sharp breath.

He heard me do that and muttered, “You get me.”

“Tack—”

“Let it go.”

“Tack!”

“Red.” He got super close. “Let... it... go.”

He stared into my eyes.

I stared into his.

Neither of us said a word.

Tack broke the silence.

“You gonna let it go?”

“I haven’t decided yet,” I snapped.

He drew back a bit and grinned.

“Take your mind off it.”

I rolled my eyes.

He came back in and brushed my mouth with his. “Still riding the high of the Trench, baby. Now wantin’ to ride something else.”

It sucked but even after a decade with this man, I knew he was a very good rider, so even ticked at him, that did it for me.

I reached out and grabbed his hand, declaring, “We’ll talk more about it later.”

“No, we won’t.”

“We so will.”

He shook his head, turned, and tugging my hand, grinning again, he led me to our tent.

We got in it and my husband took my mind off High and a woman called Millie Cross.

He did it thoroughly.

But even so, I was me.

So it was only temporarily.

Millie

Twenty-three years earlier...

“Five?” I asked incredulously.

“Five,” he answered, grinning up at me.

I was naked on top of Logan in his bed in the two-bedroom apartment he shared with some guy who was not Chaos.

But, since Logan figured his time as a recruit was coming to an end, and his pay at work would increase, this meant he was planning to move into a different place that was only his.

He’d just made love to me after taking me to a fancy steak dinner at the Buckhorn Exchange.

It was fantastic. I got to dress up. I got to see Logan’s version of dressed up (nice shirt, not-too-faded jeans, the ever-present Chaos cut).

He’d not blinked an eye when I got carded after I ordered a beer and showed my fake ID (though he’d teased me about getting away with it when the waiter was gone).

He’d talked me into trying Rocky Mountain oysters (not my favorite) and elk (delicious).

We’d laughed, talked, held hands over the table, and played footsie under it.

In other words, this, our fourth date, was just as good as all three preceding it.

Now we were in his bed and Logan had just told me he wanted five kids.

Five.

My “Seriously?” was again incredulous.

He shrugged against the mattress, still grinning up at me, and explained, “Only got a sister and we’re close. All a’ us. Don’t know why my parents didn’t have more. They didn’t share. Maybe by the time they made their own, they were worn out from the ones their folks had made. Though I think in the beginning it was money and not bein’ able to afford havin’ more. But my folks both came from big families. My dad’s got two brothers and a sister. Ma’s got two brothers and two sisters.”

His arms wrapped tighter and he kept talking.

“Love my family, Millie. Love spendin’ time with them. And I got a lot of that growin’ up. The best times were holidays. Nearly all Dad and Ma’s kin still lived around Durango and we’d get together all the time. Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas. Lots of food. Loud. Wild. All the kids would go trick-or-treatin’ together, big brood, terrorizin’ the neighborhoods. Huge graduation parties. Big sweet-sixteen parties. We were tight and it was a blast.”

I was no longer incredulous.

I was deeper in love.

“You miss it,” I said softly.

“Yeah,” he replied. “Think, later, my folks wished they didn’t stop. All except for two of their brothers, the rest went whole hog with makin’ babies and not many have moved away, so they still got that in Durango. Same goodness, gettin’ bigger all the time. Fuck, my uncle had to put up a tent last Thanksgiving and heat it so he could put tables out there ’cause there was no room in the house. Which meant, all a’ us out there got to be even louder and rowdier and he didn’t give a fuck. Loved it. We all do.”

I smiled at him. “Sounds like fun.”

His arms around me gave me a squeeze. “Take you there next Thanksgiving.”

That was a future date I was very much looking forward to.

Then again, four days, four dates, and I looked forward more and more to every one.

“I just have a sister,” I told him, changing the subject because I didn’t want to scare him with showing just how much that was true. “Always wanted a brother too.”

He lifted a hand and touched his finger to my temple, trailing it down and back, over my ear until he cupped his hand around the back of my neck.

“You’re young, baby, but you think about kids?” he asked.

“My sister is the absolute best and no way in hell I’m gonna live a life where I don’t have two girls who can share a room and have bunk beds and giggle every night so much me and my man have to shout threats at them to shut up,” I declared, and watched in wonder as his face got soft.

Seeing that, I decided I wasn’t done.

“If this means I have to have three boys before I get my two girls, or five boys, I don’t care. I’m going until I get two girls.”

He started chuckling, his brown eyes lit with humor and warmth, but that soft look never left his face.

“So, you’re prepared to push out seven kids,” he remarked.

“That would not be the optimal scenario,” I replied. “But, yes. To get what I want I’m prepared.”

“Well, I want boys. I’ve got a sister, good friends back in Durango. Havin’ that, not losin’ it even leavin’ town and leavin’ them behind when I headed out to see what was up next in life meant I looked for it here in Denver. And that led me to Chaos. So I know what havin’ a brother is but wish I had it all my life. Want my boys to have that.”

“So, best case, two boys, two girls. Worst case, two boys, two girls, and various wildcards,” I replied, and Logan chuckled again.

“Yeah, though, worst case don’t sound too bad either.”

He was right and I didn’t care that we only had four dates and it was early.

Four dates had done it for me.

This was my guy.

So the thought of giving him as many babies as he wanted thrilled me to pieces.

I didn’t want it the next day or week or month.

But when I got close to graduating from college, I wanted to start thinking about it because I wanted it early so I could be young and enjoy my kids and then be young and enjoy my grandkids.

“Start early,” I whispered hesitantly.

“Oh yeah,” he agreed instantly.

See?

This was my guy.

We agreed on everything. Not just everything that meant something, everything as in everything.

His gaze grew intense on me right before he rolled us so he was on top.

“Gotta get you home soon but want a little more of you before I hafta let you go,” he told me.

Oh yes.

We agreed on everything.

I melted under him.

“Okay,” I agreed.

His eyes warmed a different way before he slanted his head and kissed me.

Logan got a little more of me and I got a lot more of him.

Then he took me home.

I hated to say good-bye at my parents’ front door.

But it wasn’t that bad.

Because we had plans the next night.

CHAPTER FOUR

A Tragedy

Tyra

“RIGHT,” ELVIRA, SITTING in my car next to me, stated. “I’m wired for sound. I go in, you listen in. Now, I’m likin’ this ’cause for me, it kills three birds with one stone. It breaks up the tedium of herdin’ commandos all day. It gets you intel on your girl. And, seein’ as she’s a party planner and I called all her references before I set up this gig, she and me do this sit-down, I get the prelims done for my wedding.”

She then clapped her hands together and held them palm out in front of her, indicating done.

“Uh... don’t you think it might be bad luck to start planning your wedding before Malik actually pops the question?” Lanie, crammed in my backseat, asked Elvira.

Elvira twisted around to glare at her. “Uh... no, seein’ as Malik’ll be the one with the bad luck if that man don’t put a ring on it and soon. He don’t, I got two choices. Kick his black ass out or kill him. And, just sayin’, I’m leanin’ toward door number two.”

She didn’t have to “just say.” She’d been ranting about this for months, so we already knew.

I didn’t blame her. Elvira was my girl and Malik was her man and had been for a long time. He needed to make a move.

I felt for her because I loved her.

But this was not the time for that.

“Not to change the subject from one this important,” I put in. “But I don’t have a good feeling about our current mission.”

It was only three days after Wild Bill’s rally.

In that time, I had taken into consideration my husband’s warnings to stay out of it.

Then I (and all the boys) had been treated to High’s foul mood.

So I decided to go for it.

To that end I’d roped in Elvira, my friend who also worked for Hawk Delgado, who was a kind of private investigator, kind of commando, but mostly unsung superhero (in my mind). I’d also pulled in Lanie, my bestest bestie, who had traveled my path. She’d just done it years later when she, too, married a Chaos brother, Hopper “Hop” Kincaid.

Once she heard, being one to dive in to something like this with both feet, Elvira made short work of doing the legwork, utilizing Hawk’s superhero resources at his command center.

Therefore we knew a fair amount about Millicent Cross.

We knew she was forty-one. We knew she’d never been married (something I found telling, and Lanie and Elvira agreed). We knew she also had never had children (again with the telling). We knew she’d lived in her house for eleven years.

But we also knew that, years ago, she’d shared a rental with High and they’d done that for three years.

Further, we knew she had one sister, who was married with two kids and lived local, and two living parents who had moved to Arizona three years ago.

And last, we knew she owned her own business.

She planned parties.

All parties.

Weddings. Anniversaries. Bar mitzvahs. Bat mitzvahs. Quinceañeras. Corporate gatherings. You named it, she planned it, and after Elvira had called the references listed on her website, we’d found that she did it very well.

She also had an add-on to this business where she’d design the schemes, then decorate houses or offices, inside and out, for holidays. Any holiday (but mostly Christmas). And from the pictures in the gallery on her website, she was really good at that.

After learning all of this, Elvira had concocted a plan where she scheduled an appointment, ostensibly to plan her upcoming nuptials, this happening so we could get a “feel” for Millie and from that feel, decide for ourselves if we should officially wade in.

And without girl posse consensus, Elvira had put that plan into action.

Thus we were there, sitting in my Mustang on the street in front of Millie Cross’s (very quaint and unbelievably pretty) little old house in Cheesman Park.

We were there because, at the back of the main house, there was a small mother-in-law cottage where Millie had a studio in which she ran her business. You got to this going up a drive that was two narrow strips of concrete between wider strips of tufted lawn. These were under an overhang that was, back in the day, probably to protect cars or even carriages and it had a wall of trellis covered in wisteria.

And Elvira’s appointment was two minutes away.

Elvira turned her attention to me. “How can you not have a good idea about this? It’s the perfect plan.”

She would think that, it was her plan.

“Well, you might not have gone through the initiation ceremony, that being becoming an old lady, but you’re still de facto Chaos,” I stated. When Elvira opened her mouth to retort, I kept going. “And you know it. Which means, if Millie Cross is who I think Millie Cross is, and we can fix what’s broken with her and High, which means she might come back in the fold, do you think the first thing we should do as her possible future Chaos sisters is pull a fast one?”

“What I think is you gotta know what you’re dealin’ with here and you got your man’s strong words. She’s got her man’s strong words.” Elvira jerked a thumb at Lanie. “And those two boys are far from dumb. Loyal, perhaps to a fault, but not dumb. So I think you gotta proceed with caution.”

Elvira wasn’t wrong. Lanie had gently probed Hop about his knowledge of the history of High and Millie.

Hop’s response had been, “Heard she showed her face. I’ll say what Tack said to Cherry. Bitch is not welcome anywhere near Chaos. So do not stick your nose in that, woman. You do, you won’t be prepared for the extreme.”

Lanie being married to a biker and the mother of one of his sons, getting this warning and sitting in the back of my Mustang with crazy Elvira on a mission was one of the many reasons she was my bestest bestie.

I still didn’t have a good feeling about this.

“I hear you,” I told Elvira. “But I think you should call her, reschedule, and we should talk this out further before—”

Her phone beeped before I finished. She held the screen out to me.

I saw the appointment alarm on the display just as she said, “Go time,” turned to the door, tossed it open, threw out her Valentino pump, and hauled herself out.

The door was slammed and she was gone.

“Shit,” I muttered.

“Shit is right,” Lanie agreed, and I looked to the backseat. “I can’t help but feeling, one way or another, this is going to go south for us.”

I had that feeling too.

I was worried Tack and Hop, who both knew Millie and had been around when whatever went down went down, were right.

I worried more seeing Millie Cross’s neat, trim, pretty old house that obviously was lovingly restored and taken care of.

It did not say biker babe.

Nor did her clothes say it at Wild Bill’s.

Then again, before I met Tack, mine didn’t either and in many cases, at least with my clothes, they still didn’t.

Lanie’s didn’t either. You took one look at her, you thought, Retired Supermodel and Current Muse to Couture Designer. You did not think, Biker Bitch.

So Millie’s look and her house meant nothing.

Millie’s expression that night meant everything.

And I was hanging a lot on that because the boys did not like meddling in their affairs and Tack was not wrong. If one of the guys got a hangnail, the rest of them would rally around staring balefully at the unfortunate who wielded the cuticle clippers until it was successfully clipped out.

Okay, so that was a slight exaggeration.

But there was a lot expected of earning the Chaos cut.

Loyalty was at the top of that list.

If High was done with this Millie woman, he was done.

The thing was, no man was in a foul mood for three days after he saw an ex unless he wasn’t over that ex, if she was an ex for twenty minutes, but especially for twenty years.

Since it had been twenty years, something was going down.

And I intended to get to the bottom of it for High, who I might not be tight with but I liked him. I respected him. And he was the only Chaos brother I knew who wasn’t happy.

He lived. He loved his brothers. He loved his kids. He put up with his recent ex-wife.

But down deep, the man was existing.

Joy came from his two girls.

That was it.

And I wanted more for him.

So did Lanie.

So did Elvira.

So we were here.

Elvira wasn’t dumb but—as hard as it was to believe, it was true—she was even more loyal to the sisterhood than Chaos was to the brotherhood. If there was a sister in need, she was there, one hundred percent, and she didn’t even need to know them to be there.

I knew this from experience.

So did Lanie.

And I worried in her zeal she was going to fuck it all up.

“I think we should go in, introduce ourselves, and come clean,” I told Lanie, even though I was worried that Millie would recognize me from Wild Bill’s.

“I don’t know about that but I do know we should go in and stop Elvira from starting to plan a wedding before Malik proposes,” Lanie replied, shaking her head, her tone turning dire. “That’s bad juju and every girl knows it.”

This was also true.

“Elvira?” We heard through the speaker Elvira had requisitioned from Hawk’s equipment room that was right then in my car, connected to the mic that Elvira was wearing.

“Damn straight,” Elvira answered. “Millie?”

I could actually hear her smile through the speaker as she replied, “That’s me. Please come in. Do you want some coffee? Tea?”

“Let’s go,” Lanie said over Elvira’s response on the speaker.

I nodded, turned off the speaker, threw open my door, and got out, lifting the seat so Lanie could curl herself out of the back.

Then, both of us coming from work to do this, thus both of us in high heels, tight skirts, and fabulous blouses, we hurried up the concrete strips to Millie Cross’s studio.

To get there, we hit a large back courtyard that was covered in attractive pavers, part of it overhung with a pergola that radiated out diagonally from an L in the house. The pergola was also covered in dormant wisteria. There was a shiny red Mazda SUV back there and enough room to park two more vehicles. There were also enormous, eye-catching pots dotted around that had been planted for autumn in purple-pink, lavender, and white cushion mums.

And beyond the courtyard, between the house and the studio, an area you got to under an arch, there was terraced garden, the grade going down. I couldn’t see much of it, but I could see a gazebo.

This, the clothes Millie wore to Wild Bill’s, and her website told me she was a single woman with not much in her life so she spent her money on herself and her house.

This also made me think we were doing the right thing because I knew what it was like to be a woman of a certain age who was doing the same.

There were good parts about it.

But there were also bad.

And the bad had been written all over Millie’s face in the dark at Wild Bill’s.

I stopped at the door to the studio and looked at Lanie.

She nodded.

I nodded back, took a deep breath, opened the door, and entered.

Two heads turned our way and two sets of eyes got huge.

I ignored Elvira, who looked pissed, and turned my full attention to Millie Cross.

Her hair color was too rich a red to be strawberry blonde, and yet it wasn’t red either, more a deep-hued reddish gold. It had an amazing wave to it that wasn’t kinky or curly, just pretty, and that wave looked natural. It was pulled into a soft, side ponytail that managed to look graceful at the same time professional. She had big, dark brown eyes and a pixie face with one of those moles by her mouth that defined why they were known as beauty marks.

She was wearing a pretty cream blouse that was both immensely feminine with some gentle ruffles down the front, but it, too, was professional. High-heeled, dark brown pumps that, at a glance, I pegged as Manolos.

And, like Lanie and me, she was wearing a pencil skirt, hers tight, brown tweed, and to die for.

Her face started to pale as she stared at me.

“You—” she began.

“I’m so sorry,” I rushed out my words. “Really. Truly. I just...”

Crap!

I hadn’t planned this, so I didn’t know what to say.

“You,” she whispered, face now very pale and her eyes still huge.

“You screwed this pooch,” Elvira hissed as Millie didn’t say anything and I didn’t either. “Say something.”

“I’m Kane Allen’s wife,” I stated. “Um... Tack.”

Something moved over her face.

Not pain. Not fear.

Emptiness.

No.

Armor.

Shit.

“I know Tack,” she stated coldly.

“Well, um... we ran into each other at—” I began.

Her voice was ice when she cut me off to say, “I remember.”

I nodded and threw out my hand. “This is my friend, Elvira. And my other friend, Lanie.” I indicated Lanie, who’d come in behind me. “Lanie’s married to Hopper Kincaid. I think you might know Hop.”

“Indeed I do,” she replied, her words brittle.

Okay, this was not going too well.

I had to lay it out.

“We had a plan, the girl posse and me,” I admitted. “Elvira actually does have a man she’s been living with for a long time and they’re close to...”

I didn’t finish that just in case I’d hex her because Lanie was right about that bad juju.

However, unfortunately, I also didn’t grab my friends and bail.

I struggled on.

“But, well, I saw your face at Wild Bill’s and I talked with Tack about you and I thought that maybe...”

I trailed off when she continued to sit behind her tidy, pretty, delicate, white desk with its squat bunch of pale pink roses shoved tight with green hydrangea in a round vase at the corner, staring up at me emotionlessly.

I’d seen her once for maybe a second and that one time I’d seen her, there was so much emotion pouring off her, I could swear I could taste it.

Right now, void.

Nothing.

“We’re here to help,” Elvira chimed in.

Slowly, Millie Cross’s eyes moved to Elvira, and even Elvira, who feared nothing and no one, not even any of the badass commandos she worked with or the badass bikers she hung with, I could see shiver when the frost of Millie’s gaze touched her.

“You’re here to help,” Millie repeated.

“With High,” Elvira went on.

That was when I saw it. I heard the noise Lanie made behind me and I knew she saw it too.

But I was too busy flinching at pain that wasn’t mine but was visible to extremes. Pain that slashed through Millie’s face before she hid it.

Oh yeah.

There was something going on and as awkward as this was, we were right to come. I knew it. I sensed it with the surety of a woman, the certainty of a mother, the definitiveness of a sister.

“You’re here to help with...” she paused strangely, then emphasized the word, “High.”

“Boy’s in a foul mood,” Elvira shared, either powering through the chill Millie was emanating or she’d put up her shields and was impervious to it. “Spreadin’ that wide through Chaos. Somethin’s gotta be done.”

Again with the strange emphasis. “High is in a foul mood.”

“That’s what I said,” Elvira replied.

“You,” Millie started, then looked to me, “and you,” her gaze went beyond me to Lanie, “and you all came to my place of business, which is also my home, to inform me that High is in a foul mood and you’re here to help.”

“Listen.” I took a step forward. “I know this may seem strange. And we’ve obviously taken you off guard. But I saw High after whatever went down and the boys aren’t really sharing much about your history but you should know that he—”

Millie interrupted me.

“Get out.”

I saw Elvira straighten with a jerk in her seat even as I felt my own body jerk, not to mention the surprise coming from Lanie, who was now standing beside me.

“I think you may mistake me,” I tried again. “We’re sisters. We’re—”

She interrupted me again.

“Get out.”

“Girl, you don’t get us. We’re here ’cause—” Elvira tried.

Millie interrupted her too.

Except this time, she did it by straightening out of her chair and screeching, “Get out!”

We all went completely still.

There was no other reaction to have.

The mask had slipped.

The anguish had been bared.

And it was so immense, so impossible to process, witnessing it was paralyzing.

“My apologies,” she said, her voice shaking, as was her body.

Visibly.

“I was wrong,” she went on. “You can help. Please follow me.”