“He’s not putting one finger on you,” Wylder assured me, his eyes blazing with unrestrained fury.
They stalked through the apartment, checking around all the furniture. Wylder grabbed the baggie that’d held the drugs from where I’d stashed it in the bathroom when I pointed it out. None of them turned up anything that concerned them—as if the bloody walls weren’t a big enough problem.
“I’ll figure out someone we can call on to clean the mess up who won’t mention it to my dad,” Wylder said as we headed back to the van. “Worst comes to worst, we’ll wash it off and repaint ourselves.” He clambered into the back of the van, where Gideon was still hunched over his tablet. “Got anything yet?”
Gideon’s tongue flicked over his lip ring the way he often did when he was deep in thought. “I think so. It’s not the best spot but not awful. It takes a key rather than a lock code, though. It’ll take me a little while to get a copy of that.”
“What do we do until then?” Kaige asked.
“We could take her back into the city,” Wylder said stubbornly, as if it’d be easier to hide me from his dad there.
“Guys, I’m right here,” I said. “You can’t decide for me. I say I stay in the Bend. Xavier’s come right to the Noble mansion before—it’s not like he stays away from the city. It’ll be easier to hide where people are used to looking the other way and questionable stuff is going down all the time.”
“She does have a point,” Rowan said, and turned to Gideon. “I’d like to know how Xavier found out about this place to begin with. You were really careful, weren’t you?”
“I’ve gone over the records I set up,” Gideon said. “There’s nothing in them that should have tipped anyone off—and they’d have needed to get into the Nobles’ servers to look in the first place. I haven’t seen any breaches.”
I grimaced. “It’s probably my fault. I’ve been going out so much. The Storm’s people have probably been able to get access to the traffic cams like Gideon can. All it’d take is catching one glimpse of me and they could have pieced together the footage to get an idea of where I was staying.”
“That means we have to be even more careful this time,” Wylder said.
The tension on his face made something clench inside me, but as much as I appreciated his concern for me, I couldn’t simply accept it. “I don’t know if that’s possible. I can’t stay cooped up in some apartment day in and day out while the Bend is falling apart around me. If Gideon can point out all the cameras to me, I’ll avoid them as much as possible, but… this guy is good, and he has a lot of men on the streets. I’ve just got to make sure he never catches me unprepared again.”
“So do we.” Wylder motioned to the other guys. “I say one of us needs to be with Mercy at all times.” I opened my mouth to protest, and he cut me off with a glare. “You’ll be safer that way than on your own. This isn’t up for discussion.”
“I don’t need a babysitter,” I huffed, not knowing whether I wanted to kill him for his over-protectiveness or kiss him. I didn’t like him bossing me around, but when it was because he couldn’t stand the thought of anything happening to me, it was kind of a turn-on at the same time. Fucking hell.
“Of course you don’t,” Gideon said matter-of-factly. “Safety in numbers is just a logical strategy.”
I found it harder to argue with that. As I sighed, Kaige perked up. “I volunteer for the first shift!”
Wylder rolled his eyes at him. “Big surprise there. Fine, you can stay with Mercy in the van while Gideon gets her new apartment sorted out. I’d imagine she’d like to get some more sleep.”
Kaige waggled his eyebrows at me. “And I’m sure I’ll enjoy getting you ready for that sleep.”
I swatted him, but my lips twitched into a smile. “All right. It’s a plan.”
We cruised along several streets until Wylder found a discreet place to park. It was a small lot around the back of a pawn shop that was boarded up, not big enough to fit more than five cars and with a high picket fence surrounding it. Kaige got out and used a stray board to smash a rusty-looking security camera mounted on the fence.
“Was it even still working?” I asked when he came back.
He shrugged. “Better safe than sorry.”
Gideon had pulled a couple of sleeping bags out from under the seats up front. “I thought it was best to be prepared for a longer stint in here, even if I wasn’t prepared specifically for this situation,” he said, setting them on the floor. “There’s a storage box with various snacks when you’re ready for breakfast.”
“Jackpot,” Kaige declared, and started unrolling the first sleeping bag.
Rowan had sat down on the bench, the pen in his hand flying over a scrap of paper.
Wylder took one last glance around. “We’ll come back to switch off and hopefully get you to a proper home as soon as we can. Don’t call us unless it’s absolutely necessary. We don’t know who else is tracking us.”
I nodded, shaking off a fresh shiver.
Wylder walked right up to me. He grasped my shoulders, holding my gaze, and the heat of his body washed over mine. “For once in your life, be fucking careful, Kitten. The Bend isn’t going to burn down in the next seven hours. Stay in the van until we get back.”
“Fine,” I said, swaying toward him instinctively. I was probably going to be sleeping most of that time anyway. After the late-night waking and all the shocks of the night, I was exhausted.
He kissed me fast but hard and kept his hand on my arm as he looked at Kaige. “Keep your head on straight and make sure she stays safe, or I’ll take that head right off you.”