Page 64 of Twisted Steel

“To keep you from eating the guards alive.”She glances at the red-bearded one.“They’re fragile when pretty women yell.”

He suddenly becomes fascinated by the elevator numbers.

“I am not pretty yelling,” I mutter.

“No.You’re terrified yelling.The pretty part is unfortunate for everyone trying to think clearly.”

My cheeks heat.“Are all women in this club this irritating?”

“No.Some are worse.”

“That’s comforting.”I roll my eyes before looking away.

“Comforting you is not my job.”

We sit in silence for a moment.The kind that isn’t soft, but doesn’t ask me to fill it either.

“You’re waiting for him,” Raven says.

“I’m waiting for news.”

“Same thing.”

I glare at her and she smiles like she enjoys it.

“I don’t know what this is,” I say before I can stop myself.

“With Steel?”

“With any of it.”I gesture vaguely at the hallway, the guards, the surgery doors, my bloodstained shirt.“Two days ago, my life was shifts, bad coffee, Milo stealing my pens, and arguing with drunk men who think chest pain is cured by denial.Now I’m under guard because a rival MC psychopath knows my name, and the man I keep looking for is probably making someone bleed in a warehouse.”

Raven listens, actually listens.Not with pity.Not with shock.With recognition.

“That sounds about right,” she says.

I laugh, but it comes out wrong.“That’s your advice?”

“No.That’s confirmation.Advice comes after coffee.”

“I’ve had four.”

“Then you’re medically doomed.”Despite myself, a breath of amusement slips out, and Raven’s expression softens by half an inch.“You don’t have to pretend you’re okay with the blood.”

“I’m not.”

“Good.”

“I’m also not okay with wanting him to come back with blood on him, as long as none of it’s his.”

Her gaze sharpens.

There it is, the ugly thing, the confession I couldn’t say to Milo, the thought I keep trying to bury under morality and medical training.

Raven doesn’t flinch from it.“That doesn’t make you a bad person,” she says quietly.

“It feels like it should.”My voice is soft and strained.

“It should.”She leans forward, elbows on her knees.“If it stops feeling bad, worry.”