Vicious Rebel (82 Street Vandals #2) - Heather Long Page 0,27

not your bitch to mark and keep.”

The earlier anger billowed into a detonation of fury. She didn’t belong to either of them. But she had shared herself with me.

“What did you call her?” Jasper had a gun in his hand, and Doc stood between me and him. Three things happened that I could not explain. Jasper’s bloodshot eyes were a little wild. The gun he pulled out never actually made it up to be aimed at Doc. In fact, Jasper barely made it to Doc before Doc had disarmed him and wrenched an arm behind Jasper as he slammed Jasper against the wall.

I took two steps forward, but Doc pointed the gun at me and I stopped. I’d take the hit if I had to, but Jasper’s face was a rictus of pure rage. Doc hadn’t done anything but defend himself, and fine…fair.

Withdrawing a step, Doc released Jasper, then gave him a shove into the room with me.

“Now,” Doc said in that same cool voice he’d used earlier. I’d seen him stop wholesale slaughter using that tone. He’d backed down more than one would-be gangster with an axe to grind or some meth head flying on a bad dose. “Let’s get a few things straight. I help the Vandals because you kids need it. I look after your injuries. I patch you up. I clean up Freddie when he falls off the wagon.”

Jasper exhaled and started forward a step, but I gripped his shoulder. He shot me a dirty look but stopped. Doc wasn’t pointing the gun anymore. Better to keep it that way. “Just listen,” I advised. We could still take him if we had to, but I really didn’t want it to come to that.

“I’m not one of your rats to push around, and you’re going to learn you catch a lot more flies with honey than vinegar,” Doc continued.

“I’d catch plenty with your bloated corpse too,” Jasper countered. “Your point?”

“Explain why Emersyn is here. I checked. Raptor’s in the hole. There’s no way he knows.”

Oh.

Shit.

Jasper gave a little jerk. I glanced at him. Raptor was in the hole? What the hell happened to land him in solitary?

“She doesn’t belong here. The injuries I got, you brought her in pretty damn beat up. But that problem has been dealt with.” It wasn’t a question, and neither of us confirmed or denied it.

However, that particular problem was in so many different pieces and scattered for fish bait. He wouldn’t be appearing again.

Ever.

“But she’s healthy now, and in one piece. So why are you keeping her? You damn well know Raptor will tear your head off your shoulders when he finds out, if he doesn’t already know.”

Fuck. I hadn’t considered that. If he did know, it may be why he’d ended up in solitary. At the same time… “She needs us,” I answered before Jasper could, and he shot me a look. I ignored him. Unlike him, I had been paying attention to her. I’d tasted her pleasure and her pain.

Worse, I’d felt the fear she ruthlessly tried to bury and the flinches that told me so much worse had happened to her.

“She needs to be with us where she is safe and she can heal the wounds we can’t see.”

That earned me a measured look from Doc and a deeper frown from Jasper. “What do you know?”

“Enough,” I said with a shrug. “You weren’t the only one backstage and watching her before shit went sideways with the dick. More, I’ve seen how she is now. How she watches and gauges our actions and reactions before she does things, like she isn’t positive we won’t react negatively. And more…she’s still here.”

That got Jasper’s attention more effectively than slapping him. “You think it means something she hasn’t tried to escape again?”

I shrugged. “Of course it means something. What exactly? I have no idea. But I agree with you that she needs to stay with us.” I ignored the surprise in his expression. “Try getting to know her, Hawk, and stop snarling at her. You might find out more. When she trusts us enough to tell us where the other threats are…”

“We’ll eliminate them.”

“Agreed.” Doc’s singular nod and the hard emphasis he put on both syllables confirmed we were in lockstep on that issue.

I didn’t think Doc could shock me more than he had when he disarmed Jasper.

I was wrong.

He stripped down the gun, unloading it and removing the clip before he handed it back to Jasper. “The next time you pull