Page 9 of Sparrow

This time my swing connects with his cheekbone and his stumbles to the side, then comes charging back, and within moments we’re half wrestling, half laughing in the echoing quiet of the garage, though our punches are half-hearted and neither one of us is taking it seriously.

I would never hurt Mars on purpose, and I don’t think he’d ever actually hurt me, either. The man is, after all, responsible for pulling me off the streets of New York when I was just nineteen and homeless. Caught up with a level of people I should never have messed with.

Probably on my way to an early death, if I’m being honest.

He was in the city for parts and to visit family–his sister is married to some guy in the city, though Mars has never told me who–and happened to go to a junkyard a knew.

A junk yard where I was living, all of my stuff piled into one of the rusted-out cars in the corner of the lot. I was nineteen and had been on my own for seven years by that time, barely surviving on the streets of the Big Apple and doing everything I could to stay out of the hands of the organization that was supposed to protect orphans. I’d seen where they put kids who didn’t have parents to look out for them–even spent a day in one of those shelters when they caught me–and had decided immediately that I didn’t want to go back. Too many kids packed into each room. Beds as hard as rocks and sheets too dirty to ever be clean again. Not enough food, not enough privacy, and adults who abused the kids more than they helped them.

I ran away the first chance I got, and never looked back. And then I spent the next five years regretting that I hadn’t taken any of the other kids with me.

Though I wasn’t sure taking them to the streets would have been much better. I was the son of two public defenders and thought I’d heard everything there was to know about the streets and what went on there. I thought I knew about the criminal element and how to defend myself again. Figured, with the cockiness that only happens to boys between the age of twelve and eighteen, that whatever happened, I could deal with it.

I was wrong.

It had taken two weeks before I joined one of the street gangs and started running cons for the older boys, and two months before I was dealing in stuff no twelve-year-old should know anything about. Two years and I’d progressed to things I would never wish on anyone.

By the time Mars found me, I was trying to leave the syndicate I’d been working for, and failing at it. I’d been in the junkyard for two weeks and hadn’t been discovered yet, but I’d known it was only a matter of time.

Which was why I tried to steal his truck. I had a bike, of course–a black Royal Enfield Interceptor 650 that I’d built myself out of any scrap I could find–but I didn’t think it could go more than a couple miles at a time–the throttle still wasn’t working quite right–and from where I’d been sitting, his F250 had looked like it had a better engine and a bed I could fit my bike into.

Long story short, he caught me trying to steal his bike, took one look at my ratty jeans and even rattier haircut, and told me he had a certain cure for my ills.

A cure called Hawke’s Wood. Hauled me up here, installed me in the MC, and told me I was his new assistant in the garage.

That was ten years ago, now, and I think he’s regretted it every day since then. Not that he’d ever tell me that.

Mars Hawke has trouble telling people things he thinks they don’t want to hear.

“You gonna stand there looking pretty or actually help me, here?” the man in question snaps.

I jerk myself out of the shadows and rot of a New York junk yard and remember where I am: in the Black Oak garage, helping Mars himself fix a truck that’s needed rehabilitation almost as much as I did. I open my mouth to reply–something smart about having to be the only pretty one in this entire gang–when a buzz in my pocket stops me.

Then a chime that I recognize.

Shit.

I pull the burner phone out of my pocket, my blood freezing in my veins, and look down at it. It’s the phone connected to the syndicate’s network, and honestly I don’t even know why I still have it. It doesn’t represent anything good, just the life I once led, but for some reason I can’t name, I’ve never done the sensible thing and thrown it out.

Never had the heart to truly cut the cord, I guess.

No one knows I have it. Hell, no one even knows about the syndicate I once worked for. I can’t bring myself to tell anyone, and I don’t know why I would. I don’t want to think about the skeletons in my closet, and I don’t know why anyone else would.

And now the damn thing is signaling that there’s a text. A message going out to the network, something the higher-ups want done.

The thought makes my stomach turn.

Usually I ignore those texts. Turn the phone off and put it out of my mind as something I don’t actually need to know about. But right now, for some reason, I open the phone and hit the icon for text messages.

Something inside me, something I barely recognize, tells me I need to know what’s in that message.

Girl, I read quickly. Needs a keeper. Worth a lot of money. Delete this after you read it, don’t tell anyone.

I frown at the first word, but then tip my head at the lack of detail. These texts are sort of like help wanted ads, crimes that need committing, and this one leaves out some important details. Like who this girl is and what exactly they want done with her.

Her current location.

Then another text comes in, and my blood freezes.