Tastes Like Candy

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Six

Michelle

She was ready for the mobile to ring. Raven had texted her earlier: Be ready for call. One a.m. your time. And so she'd had an extra cup of coffee before bed, and at ten 'til one slipped silently from bed, out of the sanctuary, and down the hall to the common room in her bare feet, cool floorboards under her toes making her shiver.

She reflected that she knew the clubhouse so well by now – almost as well as she knew Baskerville Hall – and hadn't needed a single light. By feel, like a cat with twitching whiskers, she found a stool and climbed atop it, a wraith in the darkness.

That's what she'd always been, wasn't it? A ghost, thin and vaporous at the edges of this MC life, a nonessential element in it all. Echo of a legacy, but not a real one.

The phone vibrated in her hand and she passed her thumb across the screen, pressed it to her ear. "Tom." Not a question. She knew Raven wouldn't have gotten her hopes up for nothing.

He took a breath, a shaky one, and even that was an identity marker. "Yeah, it's me."

She took a shaky breath of her own, emotion crashing over her. It was easier, in a way, not talking with him, because then the ache of a lost sibling didn't hurt so acutely.

"How's the hand?" he asked.

She wiggled the fingers inside the brace, though she couldn't see them. "Better. It doesn't hurt anymore. Only itches in this bloody thing I have to wear."

"I'm sorry." Deep regret. Sadness. Sympathetic pain, telegraphing through the satellite connection. "Shit, I'm so sorry."

She forced an unsteady smile, just in the hopes it would bleed into her voice. "Not your fault."

"You shouldn't be over there."

"Not like I had a choice."

Tommy exhaled. He'd been drinking, she thought. Liquoring himself up for this conversation. "I never left London."

"I didn't figure."

"Da...Phil," he stressed. For a while there, when they were kids, he'd called Phillip "Dad." "Phil was afraid you'd come home, and..." Another sigh. "Maybe you should come home. If shit's sideways there."

"I want to come home," she admitted, and it was true. She did. But why did it pain her to say so? What was this sharp stab of...of...grief in her chest?

"What about Candyman? You won't stay there for him?"

"I...he hasn't said he wants me to."

"He wants you to."

"You don't even know him."

"Trust me."

"I..." She didn't know. She had no idea about anything. "What about Dad? Which is more dangerous? A cartel? Or anarchist assholes?"

"Fuck your dad," he suggested. "Just do what you want. Have you ever done that? Ever? In your whole life, Chelle?"

Yes, she thought. Yes, she had. That first night she let Candy kiss her. That had been exactly what she'd wanted in that moment.

"Maybe," she said, quietly, mostly to herself.

"What's going on with the cartel?" he asked.

"I don't know. They think the boys sold them out to the feds. Something. They want blood, though." She took a deep breath. "What about that crew you're dealing with?"

"They're onto us. We've got security watches doubled. We're on our toes. And the good news is – ha – they can't lay off their agenda long enough to really hit us back."