Page 94 of Twisted Steel

No.I can’t use that word.Not here.Not with a dead man behind Steel and blood cooling on my hands.

We load Tyler, and I give a report.I climb into the ambulance because my place is with the living.As the doors close, I look back.

Steel stands in the yard, alone despite the club surrounding him.Blood on his face, his blood-coated knife hanging loose in one hand, and eyes fixed on me like I am the wound he can’t close.

For one second, I see the man from the hallway again.The one who kissed me like he was coming back.The one who said he needed every night.The one who waited.

Then my gaze drops to the dead man being covered behind him.The line returns, bright, red, and impossible.

I press my palm to the ambulance door, and Steel’s shoulders shift, like the touch reaches him through metal and distance.The doors shut, and the ambulance pulls away from the Sons of Sin compound, carrying me back toward bright lights, sterile halls, and the lie that saving lives makes the world clean.

I don’t cry until the sirens start.And even then, I do it silently.

Chapter Twelve

Choice in the Slaughterhouse

Steel

Harper leaves in an ambulance, and for the first time in years, I don’t know what to do with my hands.They’re still wrapped around the knife.Blood drips from the blade onto the dirt between my boots.

A dead man lies behind me.A wounded prospect is on his way to County with Harper beside him.And I stand in the yard while every brother around me pretends not to watch me crack open.

Good men would feel shame.I feel absence, and that’s worse.

“Steel.”Savage’s voice comes from my left.Quiet and controlled.

I don’t look at him.Instead, I watch as the ambulance lights disappear beyond the gate.Red flashes fade against the dark road until there’s nothing left but dust and silence.

“She’s safe,” he says.

I almost laugh at the absurdity of the fucking word.

Safe.

Harper came into my world because I dragged danger across her path.She slept in my bed because I made violence feel like shelter.She put her hands on me and called it choice, and then she watched me gut a man on his knees.