The Iron Predators, Part IV [SAMPLE]

Chapter 2

KNUCKLES

I wake up at 10 am, go down to get some breakfast, and then head to the Chapel for church. Trigger and I fill everyone in on what went down with the mother chapter, then I head to the gym to keep my fit body in shape for the ladies.

When I'm showered, changed and go down again, I hear that terrible sound again—the laughter of children. I stop in the stairs and see that little girl that attacked me yesterday. The one with the blue princess dress. Fiona's daughter.

Today, she's wearing a navy blue dress. She and Quinn are sitting on the floor, playing with toys. Fiona, Carla and April are sitting on the barstools, blabbering. I walk around the couches on the other side and let out a breath when I sit down on the couch in front of Bull and Kane, without the kids noticing me.

"You okay there?" Bull says teasingly.

"Yeah, why wouldn't I be?"

They chuckle at me.

After sitting there, talking for a while, Quinn stands up on wobbly legs, manage to walk over to the side of the couch in front of me and hold on to get around to his dad—Bull.

"Hey, little man. You're doing so fucking good walking around on your own," he says, lifting him up on his lap.

"Stop cursing!" Carla scolds him from the bar, and he rolls his eyes.

"He's gonna end up a Predator anyway. He might as well get used to the cursing."

"The hell he is," she says.

"Hey, now you're cursing."

"Hell is a lot better than the f-word."

They keep bickering and I'm glad as fuck that I'm a single, free man. No one's nagging me or telling me what I can and can't say.

I chuckle at them, but feel a presence next to me and a shiver running down my spine. I turn to my right and there sits that little girl staring up at me. I jump a little to the left and tense up.

How and when the fuck did she get here?

Creepy as fuck.

"I'm Penelope," she says excited as hell with a huge smile on her face, holding on to that little bunny she had yesterday.

"Um, yeah...hi," I say awkwardly and scoot a little more to the left.

"What's your name?" she asks me.

"Knuckles."

"Nucklis."

"No, Knuckles."

"Yes, Nucklis," she says, smiling.

"No, K. N. U. C. K. L. E. S," I spell out.

"Nucklis."

I sigh and give up. How the hell can she say Penelope and not Knuckles?

Bull and Kane are amused as hell, and so are the girls at the bar that have turned around in our direction. Penelope scoots a little closer to me and I lean against the armrest to make some space.

"Why do you have big arms?" she asks me.

"Because I work out."

"Mom works too. She hasn't big arms."

"No, not that kind of work. Work out."

"Outside?" she asks me with her head tilted to the side, and I feel like groaning.