Knuckles (Dragon Riders MC #4) - Savannah Rylan Page 0,36

nothing.”

I didn’t waste any time getting up the stairs, either.

I emerged into a room that had bins upon bins of clothes in it. And I was shocked to see women’s clothes as well. I dug through the brightly colored clothes and picked out a few things for myself. Like, loose dresses I could easily run in, and flat that would be more comfortable on my feet. I snatched up a pair of flip flops and a couple pairs of shorts. Many tank tops, and a pair of sweatpants I’d have to roll down so they could fit. And after grabbing around eight outfits for myself, I made my way back downstairs.

Passing Justin on the way down.

“Ten minutes, then we’re gone. I want you to stuff as much food as you can in there and don’t worry about ammunition. I’ve got weapons and shit in my bag for us.”

I nodded. “Good. Because I don’t know shit about guns.”

“I figured!” he called out.

I turned and made my way for the kitchen and I tossed everything I could into my bag. Packages of MRE’s and powdered packets to flavor water and other liquids. There were other things I came across, too, that were odd. But I threw them in my bag anyway. Like vacuum-sealed baked beans that weren’t in a can, but rather in that plastic that people use with a personal vacuum-sealer machine. I took most of the contents of the pantry, from sealed corn and green beans to ramen noodles and rice and shoved it all into my bag. I stuffed probably three weeks’ worth of food on top of the clothes before I sat my bag down onto the floor, stepping on it to get it to zip all the way.

Then, I heard Justin hopping down the stairs. “Time’s up!”

I hoisted my bag over my shoulder. “Ready when you are!”

After shoving our shit into the oversized saddlebags he had on his bike, we took off again. Heading to, well, God only knew where at this point. All I knew was that I had to trust Justin. I had to trust that whatever had happened back at that bar, it meant we were about to get to safety. Where I could breathe for just a second. I still hadn’t even told JayJay about why I came to see him in the first place.

In some ways, I was glad someone else had a problem that seemed to be greater than my own at that moment.

I talked into my helmet microphone. “Where are we going?”

His voice sounded in my ear. “You just have to trust me, okay?”

“So, you can’t even tell me where we’re going?”

“No.”

I nodded slowly. “All right, handsome. Lead the way.”

With the sun hanging heavily in the sky, I started to sweat. But it didn’t stop me from hanging onto Justin. Some turns, my grip on him was the only thing keeping me from sliding right off his damn motorcycle. I didn’t complain, though. This man had already saved my life more times than I could count. The least I could do was show him that I was dependable in a high-stakes scenario.

After all, I didn’t need to be giving him any reasons to leave me behind.

Like he did when we were kids.

Stop it. You know why he left.

Yeah. Justin left because our foster parents kicked us out. Because they thought he was nothing but trouble. I knew better than to think he had intentionally left, especially with all of the post cards he sent me while he was on his wild trips.

It still hurt to think about it sometimes, though.

The memory of him dragging his trash bag of things out the door and slamming it behind him. While I was stuck in that house with them, ready to finish high school and get the fuck out of there.

Just trust him. Just trust him. Just trust him.

So, as the wind whipped around my body and the sun pushed more sweat down my brow, I curled as closely into his body as I could get and clung for dear life.

Hoping and praying that our destination came upon us sooner rather than later.

Because I needed a fucking drink.

15

Knuckles

One punch after another. It always seemed to be like that with this crew nowadays. For years, we kept our heads low after the first Fed ambush. We had taken painstakingly careful consideration of our operations and how we ran them. And we always—always! —kept our noses clean.

Because last time the Feds started watching us, Sly