Chapter 10 - Ares

10

Ares

“A trailer park? Seriously?”

“You expected a beachside villa?”

Delaney doesn’t say anything else. She rises up in her seat and frowns out the window. I get where she’s coming from — an abandoned trailer park that’s barely outside of the town’s borders doesn’t exactly scream ‘safe house’.

I steer around a collapsed trailer awning that’s fallen into the road and continue on to the end of the row.

“Where is everybody?” Delaney’s question is quiet — thinking out loud, rather than asking me directly.

“They all must’ve moved on,” I say, navigating around a couple cracked lawn chairs. “We had a few people living here — homeless, guys just out of prison with nowhere else to go.”

“The Wastelanders owned social housing?” Delaney asks in disbelief.

“No. We’re not a fucking charity. We controlled the territory. We just made sure nobody was out here cooking meth or whatever. There was a thing a few months ago, we had to give up the mountain pass to the Rolling Jackals.”

“Why?”

Because they held Reaper’s niece for ransom. Because unlike the Wastelanders, the Jackals don’t care about pulling innocent civilians into club business.

If the situation were different, if Delaney had walked into the Rolling Jackals HQ with a bag full of drugs, asking them for help, they wouldn’t have hesitated in putting a bullet between her eyes. That, or she’d be trussed up in the back of some van right now, drugs pumping through her veins, ready to be sold off like cattle.

My chest goes tight and my hands flex on the wheel, the leather squeaking.

“Doesn’t matter,” I answer. “Point is, this place belongs to them now. Not on paper, exactly, but it might as well.”

I pull up in front of the last trailer in the lot. “I guess nobody here felt safe anymore, so they left.”

“The devil you know…” Delaney murmurs. “So we’re going to hide out in a rival club’s territory. Sounds like a great plan.”

I let the car idle for a long moment, trying to pick out any dangers in the flood of the headlights. There’s no movement. No sign of life.

Delaney huffs quietly. “That was me being sarcastic, by the way.”

Turning off the car, I thrust open the door. “Get your shit,” I tell her, nodding to the backpack at her feet. “Let’s go.”

***

The Wastelander ‘safe house’ is the last trailer in the row. It’s still standing, though the windows are caked with dirt and the porch sags under my weight. I dig the spare key out of a hidden notch in the porch awning. The lock turns smoothly, almost like new, and I freeze uncertainly with my hand on the knob.

Unlike the rest of the trailers, this one is intact — at least from the outside. Either the folks who abandoned this place respected the Wastelanders enough to not trash it on the way out or… or the Jackals found this place after all and rigged some sort of trap.

The wooden porch creaks as Delaney steps up behind me. She waits a moment, then sighs. “Are we waiting for an invitation?”

I can’t stop her. She’s too quick. Or I’m just too big and dumb and slow. Delaney slips around me, lays a palm on the door and pushes it open. She swans into the gloom of the trailer and all I can picture is her getting her face blown off by a shotgun that someone’s rigged up just inside the door.

I spring into action, slamming into Delaney and pitching us both to the floor. I land on top of her, and there’s a noise that I think could be a gun going off.

Only it’s not.

There is no gun. There’s just me, flattened against the length of Delaney’s back on the living room floor, and a broken TV that I’ve knocked over in the chaos.

Delaney groans beneath me. “What the fuck… Ow…”

She wiggles, her ass practically grinding into my crotch, and I push up off the floor, my hands on either side of her tiny frame. She rolls over, face flushed and chest rising and falling in quick little breaths.

“What the fuck is your problem?” she grumbles as she sits up. She rubs her chin, glaring at me. She must have banged it on the floor when I knocked her down.

My embarrassment at my mistake is overtaken by a rush of anger.

“I was trying to save your life.”

“From what? Dust mites?” She groans as she heaves herself to her feet. She brushes off her shirt and my eyes track her hand as it swishes over her tits.

Fuck, those tits.

When she peeled off that disgusting hoodie and sat back down in the car beside me, I wanted to gouge my eyes out, only because they wouldn’t stop flicking over and raking over her curves.

“Fuck,” I growl, and turn away, running a hand through my hair. “Just… just let me go first, okay? You wait until I say it’s all clear.”

There’s a beat of silence behind me. “Okay. Sorry.”

Goddamnit, why do I feel bad now? She’s the one who— Never mind. I clench my eyes shut and pull a long breath, hoping that it’ll calm the pounding of my pulse in my ears.

When I open them, Delaney has moved away from me and is picking her way through the rest of the trailer.

So much for letting me go first.

“Looks pretty clean,” she says over her shoulder. Her backpack is still clutched in her hand and she sets it down carefully on the small kitchenette. She turns the tap in the sink. It gurgles and a spurt of brown water rushes out before turning clear.

“There’s running water.”

She comes back in my direction. Stopping by the open door, she reaches for the light switch and flicks it. One bulb sparks, pops, and dies, but the second, over the living room, is enough to cut through the shadows.

“Nice,” she says. I can’t tell if she’s being sarcastic or not. I reach over her and flick the light off.

“No lights.”

“Are you a bat, Ares? Do you have some special eco-location skills I don’t know about? Because us regular humans tend to need the lights on so we can see.”

Growling, I shove past her and squeeze into the tiny kitchenette. I rifle under the sink and find what I’m looking for. I slam the two battery operated lanterns on the counter and turn them on. White, glaring light spills from them.

“No overhead lights,” I tell her, as I come back. I shove one of the lanterns in her hand. “I’m going to make sure the rest of the trailer is secure. Stay here.”

I slide my gun from the back of my jeans and Delaney’s green eyes catch on it, flashing wide for half a second. When I head for the rear of the trailer, Delaney mutters something under her breath, but I can’t hear it. Probably calling me an asshole or something.

I check the rooms. Of which there’s only two — a small bathroom with a toilet and shower, and a bedroom with a dusty but mostly clean-looking double bed. Everything clear, I glance back down the hall. I can’t see Delaney but can hear her moving around the living room.

There’s no immediate danger, and yet adrenaline won’t stop pumping through my blood. I feel wired up, angry, and fucking stupid for throwing her to the ground like that. Tucking my gun back into my jeans, I pull a deep breath and sag against the flimsy trailer wall.

My pocket buzzes and I snap to attention. There’s a text from Griff. A single word.

Status?

I reply quickly.

Safe. Package secure. No tail.

I wait for his response.

“Delaney?” I call, over my shoulder.

“Yeah?”

“Just checking,” I reply. This time I do hear her call me an asshole.

Another buzz.

Both packages?

He means the drugs and Delaney. The back of my neck prickles, like I’ve got eyes on me, and I scrub at the skin with my blunt nails.

Yes , I type back. I hesitate before adding: Orders?

Griff would never give a direct order to do something illegal via text. He’s too smart for that. But part of me is on edge, waiting for the bomb to drop.

How would he say it, if he did text it? Something vague, like telling me to ‘Take care of it,’ or this time would he cut the bullshit and just write, ‘Kill her’.

The phone buzzes again.

Stay put. Will update soon.

Okay. Okay, I can work with that.

My muscles relax. The sharp knife of fear dulls to something manageable.

“Ares?”

I sigh and stride back out to the living area, only to find Delaney bent over and digging in a lower cabinet. My tongue is heavy in my mouth. Delaney Jackson is not allowed to have an ass like that. She’s a scrawny little foal, just a dumb kid, and I do not find scrawny little nosy-ass kids attractive.

She straightens up and turns to me. Her mouth stretches into a beaming grin, like she’s forgotten for a minute what kind of situation she’s in.

“I found beans!” she exclaims proudly.

Something creaks open in my chest — a rusty door latch — and I see that kid again. Sweet and feisty and just needing a friend.

“Cool beans,” I reply.

She frowns, confused, and turns one of the cans over to read the label. “Well, I was thinking we could heat them up somehow.”

“No, it’s like… Y’know… Cool beans. People say that.”

“People like who?”

“It’s a thing,” I growl, feeling my face heating “Or it was. It means just… cool.”

“Cool beans?” she says, eyebrows raised questioningly. Her lip twitches. It takes me a second to realize the little bitch is making fun of me.

“Whatever, just fucking… Here.”

I yank open a drawer, find the can-opener, and slide it across the counter to her. She takes it, eyebrows still raised, and I stalk past her to the door. I flip the lock and while I’m peering out through the flimsy blinds, I hear her crack into the can. Then I hear her soft laugh.

“Cool beans,” she murmurs to herself.