still have ten minutes, jackass," I said, swinging into the seat between him and Duke, 'accidentally' hitting Moose as hard as possible with my bag. "Oops," I said, hoping I looked genuinely apologetic.
From the smirk that Repo was giving me from across the room, though, I was pretty sure I failed. But whatever. No where in the 'outlaw MC handbook' did it say we had to get along with fellow probates. If anything, we were encouraged to fight, to show the patched members what we were made of.
No one wanted a new member who was all sugar and honey.
They wanted piss and vinegar.
So that was what they were going to get from me.
"Alright, let's get this over with," Repo said, pushing off the wall and moving toward where we were sitting at the bar. "New work assignments. Moose and Fox, you're on the gates in the afternoons. Duke and Renny, you'll do alternating overnights. Maze, you relieve Duke and Renny at four. That's not a problem, is it?"
"Nope." If anything, it was the ideal assignment. I was part of that point-zero-zero-one percent of the population that was a die-hard morning person. The sun started peeking through the sky and I was wide awake. I was half-afraid he would have stuck me with the overnights.
"She gets to patrol alone?" Moose asked, sounding dangerously close to whining.
"Is that... safe?" Fox asked and I heard, for the first time, a hint of malice there. Maybe he wasn't unlike his brother after all.
"Any of you want to get up and do a four A.M. patrol is welcome to join her. Otherwise shut your fucking mouths and do as you're told."
With that, he left, moving out the back doors and across the field to where three different cars were in various stages of disrepair.
"Fucking bullshit," Moose growled, jumping out of his chair.
"That you're still here after talking back like that? I agree. Bullshit," I said, pushing away from the bar and moving off toward the basement.
--
I went to bed early. For one, because I needed to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to do my patrol. But also because it saved me from having to deal with Moose and Fox without Renny as a buffer. Duke didn't seem overly fond of the two either, but he didn't seem overly inclined to help me deal with them. Not that I blamed him. It was an 'every man for himself' kind of situation and, well, you couldn't exactly expect bikers to be the warm and mushy type.
My alarm beeped once before I shot up and shut it off, looking around wildly, praying it hadn't woken anyone up. Across from me, Moose and Fox were both still passed out. I wiped the sleep out of my eyes and climbed down from the top bunk. My feet had just settled on the ground when I felt a big hand close around my right calf. I opened my mouth to scream, but clamped it shut at the last possible second, spinning with raised fists to find Duke sitting off the edge of his bed, watching me with a tilted head.
"Jesus," I hissed quietly, feeling my heartbeat slam so hard that I felt like I was choking on it. "What's wrong with you?" I whisper-yelled at him, throwing up my hands.
He gave me a small smile and I realized how attractive he actually was. His hair was out of its bun, flowing long and blond and soft-looking around his shoulders. It was dark and I couldn't make out the pleasant deep blue of his eyes, but they were crinkled up slightly with his smile as he reached for something sitting on the surface of his mattress. "Here," he said, holding out a pocket knife, flicking it open to reveal an illegally long, sharp, serrated blade. At my drawn-in brows, he shrugged. "They don't give probates guns. You need to have something to defend yourself. Not being sexist here... we all need something in case..."
Okay, well. Maybe I was wrong about him after all.
With a small smile of my own, I planted my bare foot on his bed beside his thigh, leaning down and rolling up the pant leg of my jeans to reveal the band I had strapped around my left calf with