Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 75833 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75833 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
My jaw clenched so hard it hurt. The name wasn’t one of ours. “Logan who?”
She stared at me, something like dread crawling up behind her eyes. “From back home. I told you we came from a place with horrors. He’s the worst of them.”
Montana. The cult town. The life she’d run from. The one that had tried to trap her in a marriage to an abuser. I felt rage uncoil in my gut like a chain coming off a sprocket.
“And the passenger,” she added, voice barely there. “BJ. Lyric’s husband.”
“You sure?” I kept my tone level because she didn’t need my anger. She needed ground under her feet. “You’re not guessing?”
“I’m sure.” She nodded, slow and steady, like each movement set broken glass shifting inside her. “The scar on Logan’s cheek. He got it when we were kids. Fell off the back of a tractor. He never let anyone forget it.” Her breathing hitched. “BJ—he was laughing. I saw his mouth. He always laughs when he’s scared. He—he laughs, Thrasher. He laughed at what might be her,” a sob escaped cutting her off from finishing the statement.
I had to steady myself because the room tipped for a second, the world narrowing to the fuzz of fluorescent lights and the taste of metal in my mouth. I saw it like she did: the truck, the moment before impact, the faces. They ran the light and took my brother and his girl out like they were bowling pins.
“Okay,” I said, and each letter was a nail I hammered into something solid. “You did good telling me. You hear me? You did good.”
Her eyes flooded with tears. She nodded like a little kid, and I pressed my forehead to hers for a beat, my palm cupping the base of her skull so she’d feel the anchor of me.
I straightened and lifted my chin at DK across the room. He was leaning against the far wall, texting like his thumbs were on fire. He clocked my look and came over, broad-shouldered and controlled, the way a man moves when he’s holding back a storm.
“What you got?” I asked.
“Plate,” he said without preamble. “Sweeper and Widower tailed ’em at a distance when they peeled off. Didn’t engage. Got the tag twice, plus a partial from a waitress at the corner diner—truck had almost clipped her crossing. All three match.”
“Run it?”
“Guru put it through one of his programs or hacks, I don’t fucking know. Came back registered to a Byrum Jenson, old man in Montana.” He jerked his chin toward Melody, checking himself at the last second and glancing away like this was hers to own, not ours. “That track with what she just said?”
Melody’s fingers dug into me. “BJ is Byrum Jr,” she whispered. I covered her hand with mine. “It tracks,” I stated. “you know what to do.”
DK blew out a breath through his nose, the muscle in his jaw flexing. “Hit and run with critical injuries. We got witnesses, phones out the ass, traffic cams. Cops’ll have it in an hour anyway.”
“They already talked to you?” I questioned
He grimaced. “Uniforms came through for statements. I told ’em what they needed to hear and not more. We’re the victims here, and we’re gonna act like it. But—” he leaned in, voice low, “if these boys are out-of-towners with a line on our people, I don’t love cops making the first contact while we sit on our hands.”
I looked down at Melody. Her eyes were on me, wet and blazing. She was terrified, yes, and guilt-ridden in that way survivors get—like she’d failed Lyric by breathing—but there was steel under it. She’d come from a place that tried to crush her, and it hadn’t worked. Not all the way.
“BJ’s dad,” she said faintly. “He’s dangerous, Thrasher. He… he owns the property a lot of the families work. Has pull. If the truck’s in his name, he’ll make them disappear.”
“Not from me,” I said. I didn’t raise my voice, didn’t have to. She felt the promise. “Not from us.”
Tires on gravel. A girl’s scream cut off. Tiny’s body hitting the road. The images played behind my eyes like a loop, and every time the truck ran the red the anger inside me got cleaner, sharper, easier to use.
Sweeper came in with Widower on his heels. Both men had that feral look they got when fight energy had nowhere to go.
“You tailed ’em,” I expressed what was actually known. “Where’d they land?”
“Pulled off backroads toward the state line,” Sweeper shared. “Lost ’em for a mile where the pines get thick. Hoped they’d ditch the truck we saw, but we found fresh ruts cut across an easement the county maintains. Gate lock was busted. We didn’t push it. Not with just two.”
“Right call.” I glanced at Melody. “Anything around here those names would know? Any friends, family, land?”