Page 48 of Save Me

CRUNCH, SMACK.

“Yeah.” I purse my lips and wave my fingers at Princess, who ignores me and continues to open-mouth chew. “I mean no, but yeah.”

SLURP, crunch, crunch.

“Are you drunk?”

“No! There’s someone…a bad person…he hurt someone I care about.”

I wince. I sound like a child, but I’m suddenly remembering that phone conversations aren’t exactly private, and if I want to ruin this guy’s life without ruining mine as well, I’m going to have to be careful about it. “Can we talk in person?”

There’s such a long silence, interrupted only by Princess’ chewing, that I question everything. Did I not read Logan correctly? Even if I did, why the heck would he help me? I hear shuffling and some muttered voices.

“Hell yeah! Let’s do it!”

“Wait, what do we kn-n-n-ow?”

“Nothing,” Logan’s voice is muffled. “Would you guys chill?”

Then, there’s a long sigh at the end of the line. “Fine. We can talk at the shop. Twenty minutes.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

So I won’t be going on any list for ‘world’s best gangster’ or anything. I brought Princess to the let’s-jump-this-freak meeting.

Before you judge. I can’t leave Princess with Maddox when he doesn’t even know he’s on the clock, and–I check the car time–03:06 in the morning isn’t exactly business hours anyway. Plus, I’m not gonna lie, I’m a little scared.

Okay, I’m a lot scared.

So here I am, parked next to Logan’s ‘67 Mustang, Princess in the front seat, sniffing the crack for any crumbs, and I’m sweating through my t-shirt with my gun stuck in the front of my pants. Which makes me feel like a criminal, even though I’m allowed to carry it.

I’m just gonna get Logan to help me with Arthur. How? I’m not exactly sure. I can’t intervene in a way Arthur would know it’s me or do anything that could fall back on Maddox. Of course, I could just off Arthur. I thought about it. But I have this awful feeling that Maddox would get mad like Tyler did, but even worse. And maybe he wouldn’t talk to me again. And I can’t risk that.

But I have to do something. And I’m sure Logan has ideas. Right?

My skin gets hot with a mixture of excitement and fear. What am I doing? Questioning every decision is what I’m doing. Sometimes I wish that self-aware part of me would zip it because it really wars with the healthy dose of stupid I also have. But if I can bring a little bit of justice where it should have been in the first place…I’m gonna do it with a smile on my face, because duh I’m happy to do it and smiles make everything better. I’m not sure if that makes me a good person or the villain.

I don’t really care.

So, I tuck Princess up under my arm as emotional support and head into the shop. Logan is sitting back in one of the seats, arm thrown over his eyes. Dakota is standing behind him, arms crossed, and Ronan is pacing when I walk in, the little bell tinkling as fast as my heart is racing. I think I might puke.

All three of them fix me with a look when I walk in. Dakota is serious, Logan is annoyed, and Ronan…has a dark kind of excitement. Then his gaze flits to Princess in my arms.

”Fuck yeah, he brought the skunk!”

Logan groans.

I clutch Princess closer to my chest, but he’s having none of it. He scrambles to get free.

“Do safety regulations mean nothing to you?” Logan is staring at Princess, who is doing his best to beat the world record of fastest upward and downward dogs.

“Can I hold him?” Ronan walks up to me, making puppy eyes at Princess.

No. No? I came here to ask them to help me fuck someone up, and they expect me to trust them with my best friend?

Princess nails me in the gut with his well-endowed nails and wiggles just right, exploding out of my arms. He leaps to the ground, escaping my retrieval attempt, blue tail fluffed in the air.

”Princess,” I hiss, but to no avail. Princess is now cosplaying the world’s most infuriating adventurer and is scrabbling all around the office, evading Ronan.