Chapter Six

"Who is she?" Hallie asked from her and Gunner's front porch.

Captain narrowed his eyes at her, then ignored her and went back to stoking the firepit fire.

"No answer means she's important," Hallie called out.

"How many of those have you had?" Captain said, pointing to her canned mango margarita.

"First one. You want one? Let's girl-talk."

"I would rather swan dive into a portable potty and then live there."

"Rude."

He sighed and glared at the Second of the Fastlander Crew. His brother's mate, his sister-in-law, the splinter, the one who figured out everything about everything. "I'm allowed to have a life."

"Agreed."

Captain crossed his arms over his chest. "You just want information so you can take it to Gunner, and then he will take it to our parents and try to be the favorite son, which is impossible because he sucks."

Hallie shrugged up her shoulders, rocked in her porch chair, and took another sip of canned margarita. "What if I pinky-swear I won't go to Gunner with any information you give me? What if I'm just curious about what has you feeling lighter lately?"

Captain smelled a rat. "No thank you."

"I'll give you fifty bucks—"

"Her name is Sloane and I knew her in high school. Pay up."

"That was way easier than I thought it would be."

"Her kid is cute," Corey called, and gosh dangit, she was sitting on the porch she shared with her mate Ace, drinking a stupid margarita like she'd been there all along.

"You have to pinky-swear to not go to Gunner either!"

"Boy, have you ever even pinky-sworn before? None of this is binding until you hook your pinky in ours."

"I fuckin' hate this Crew," he muttered as he strode over to Hallie and leaned over the porch railing. He pinky-swore her, and then made his way to Corey's house to do the same. When a third female voice spoke up, he realized Silver had drifted out onto the porch of the replica of the original ten-ten, and he wanted to flip a table.

"Why do you females keep multiplying?" he yelled.

Something sailed through the air, and he caught it on instinct right before it pelted him in the forehead. It was a goddamned, stupid, motherfreaking canned margarita. "I'm not a girl!"

"Ruger is a cute name," Silver said.

"How do you know his name?"

"Hallie overheard you talking to him at the soda machine the other day, and then she told Corey, and I happened to be standing close to them, and I overheard it all."

"She's just a childhood friend."

The stupid lie in his voice was annoying, but bless the girls, they didn't point it out. They just exchanged stupid knowing smiles.

"Single moms are a new thing for you," Hallie pointed out. "Getting bored of the twenty-something toxics?"

"I haven't slept with a twenty-something in years. Nice try. Wait, are you girls tracking my love life? Seriously?"

"Kind of," Silver admitted. "It's been boring around here."

"Boring? Ace and Owen have been in two fights this week, and Gunner and I get into a yelling match every day. What kind of entertainment do you need?"

Silver shrugged. "Maybe we need to go camping or something."

"We live in a fucking trailer park, Silver. We are camping."

"So testy."

"Hey, if you want some entertainment, I'm sure your old Pride can provide that when they try to kill us all."

"Dramatic," Silver said blandly, and took another sip of her drink.

Everything was stupid. Captain cracked the tab on the canned drink and chugged it.

"Does she party?" Hallie asked.

"Who?"

"Who do you think? The girl you're trying to bone."

"I'm not trying to bone her! She's…" He frowned. He didn't know what she was. "Also, I honestly don't know if she parties. She was a good girl in high school, I remember. All A's. Pretty sure she led prayer circles at lunch. Teacher's pet, and all that."

"Why was she friends with you?" Hallie asked.

"Because I was, and am, awesome. Where are your mates? I thought we were supposed to start the meeting at six."

"Oh, they're all running late. It's girls' night tonight."

"I'm not a girl."

"Neither is Wreck," came a deep voice, and holy crap, Wreck was here. And he was talking in third person, which was weird. "Your fire sucks."

Captain was just staring at the terrifying shifter that had melted out of the woods and was descending on him.

"Bro, too close. Stay over there," Captain told him.

"If I wanted to, I could kill you from over here too," Wreck enlightened him.

"Hey, remember that time you tried to kill all of us? And you were on television, trying to kill your own Crew?"

"I missed," he said smoothly as he sank down into a bright-pink plastic lawn chair beside the firepit. He lifted the palm of his hand and a flame appeared there, floating just above his skin. He lifted churning gold eyes to Captain and waited. For what? Captain didn't know.

"Cool party trick, weirdo."

An evil smile stretched across Wreck's face, and he tensed. The fire shot straight into the air, and a bolt of lightning flashed down from the sky. The firepit exploded.

Captain was blasted backward and landed hard on the ground. Shocked, he checked the sky, but there weren't any storm clouds above them. Wreck could conjure lightning? Holy shit!

The firepit was completely destroyed, and all of the fine hairs on Captain's body were lifted from the electricity of the lightning strike. There were a couple pieces of wood on fire scattered across the yard.

"Dude!" Captain yelled, standing. "We built that firepit as a Crew! Why did you destroy it?"

"Because you built it as a Crew," Wreck said cooly, standing.

He walked back toward the tree line and Captain followed. "What does that even mean?"

"I am Crew too!" Wreck roared, turning on him. He blurred to him and stopped inches away from Captain.

Captain steeled himself to Change. He would die, but this motherfucker needed a lesson in manners. He could at least rake a claw down his torso before he burned Captain to ashes. "You don't act like Crew," Captain growled.

"Maybe that's because you assholes do shit like build firepits as a Crew, and fail to invite me."

Unable to come up with any coherent response, he waited until Wreck turned and headed back for the woods, and then looked at Hallie and mouthed, What the fuck?

She looked horrified. She shook her head and murmured into the phone at her ear, "Wreck is here. We need you boys back at the trailer park now."

At least she was useful for something—calling her stupid mate, Gunner. He wouldn't be able to stop Wreck's destruction, but at least Captain could throw his useless brother in the path of the monster and buy himself some more time for survival and stuff.

An image of Sloane's face smiling up at him so sweetly at Moosey's flashed across his mind. She was human, and her little boy was human, and she'd spoken of complicated as if she understood. She didn't. Captain's life was so much more complicated than he could ever explain.

A good man would leave them alone.

A good man would delete Sloane's number and never seek her out again.

A good man would let her move forward with her life in safety.

Even standing here watching a true monster walk out of the territory, knowing Wreck was attached to his life, Captain knew what he would do. He would go to Ruger's game and tease Sloane, because he liked the hunt. He liked hunting her forgiveness.

A good man would leave Sloane to live a life of peace.

He wasn't a good man though.

Or was he?