let himself fall onto his side and twisted into a fetal position,
shaking like the nancy he was—
Lash was down on the tile right next to him . . . and his throat was cut wide-open.
The guy was trying to breathe, trying to hold his blood in, and it wasn’t working.
John looked up in horror.
Qhuinn stood above them both, panting. In his right hand was a bloody hunting knife.
“Oh, Jesus . . .” Blay said. “What the fuck did you do, Qhuinn?”
This was bad. This was life-altering bad. For all of them. What had started as a brawl . . . had
likely ended up as a murder.
John opened his mouth to holler for help. Naturally, nothing came out.
“I’ll get someone,” Blay said, and ran out.
John sat up, whipped off his shirt, and leaned over Lash. Taking the guy’s hands away, he
pressed what had been on his back to the open wound and prayed the blood would stop. Lash
met his eyes, then brought his own hands up as if to help.
Lie still, John mouthed. Just lie still. I can hear people coming.
Lash coughed and blood came out of his mouth, spattering over his lower lip and running
down his chin. Shit, the red stuff was everywhere.
But they had done this before, John told himself. The two of them had fought right here in this
shower, and the drain had run red then, too, and it had been okay.
Not this time, a voice inside of him warned. Not this time . . .
A roar of panic flared, and he started to pray for Lash to live. Then he prayed for time to go
backward. Then he wished for this to be a dream. . . .
Someone was standing over him and saying his name.
“John?” He looked up. It was Doc Jane, the Brotherhood ’s private physician, and Vishous’s
shellan. Her translucent, ghostly face was calm, her voice even and soothing. As she knelt
down, she became as solid as he was. “John, I need you to step back so I can get a look at him,
okay? I want you to let go and step back. You’ve done a good job, but I need to take care of him
now.”
He nodded. But even still, she had to touch his hands to get him to release his hold on his shirt.
Someone picked him up off his knees. Blay. Yeah, it was Blay. He could tell by the guy’s
aftershave. Jump by Joop!
There were a lot of other people in the locker room. Rhage was just inside the shower, and
next to him was V. Butch was there.
Qhuinn . . . where was Qhuinn?
John looked around and found him across the way. The bloody knife was gone from his hand,
and Zsadist was next to the guy, looming.
Qhuinn was paler than the white tile, his mismatched eyes unblinking as he stared at Lash.
“You’re under house arrest at your parents’,” Zsadist said to Qhuinn. “If he dies, you’re up for
murder.”
Rhage went over to Qhuinn, as if thinking that Z’s hard tone wasn’t helping the sitch. “Come on,
son, let’s get your stuff from your locker.”
Rhage was the one who led Qhuinn out of the locker room, and Blay followed them.
John stayed right where he was. Please let Lash live, he thought. Please . . .
Man, he didn’t like the way Doc Jane kept shaking her head as she worked on the guy, her
doctor’s bag cracked open, instruments flying as she tried to stitch up Lash’s neck.
“Tell me.”
John jumped and turned his head. It was Z.
“Tell me how it happened, John.”
John looked back down at Lash and replayed the scene. Oh, Jesus . . . he didn’t want to go into
the whys. Even though Zsadist knew about his past, he couldn’t bring himself to tell the
Brother the reason Qhuinn had hard-cored it.
Maybe it was because he still couldn’t believe his past had come out like that. Maybe it was
because the old nightmare had just been renewed.
Maybe it was because he was a pussy who couldn’t man up for his friends.
Z’s deformed lip tightened. “Listen, John, Qhuinn’s in deep shit. Legally he’s still a minor, but
that’s assault with a deadly against a first son. The family is going to come gunning for him
even if Lash survives, and we’re going to need to know what happened here.”
Doc Jane stood up. “He’s closed, but he’s at risk for stroke. I want him to go to Havers’s. Stat.”
Z nodded and called forward two doggen, who had a gurney between them. “Fritz is ready
with the car, and I’ll be going with them.”
As Lash
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