“Some out-of-towner they stuck me with,” I said in a disgusted tone. “Doesn’t pull her weight. Texts on her phone all goddamn day.”
Sid eyed her a moment longer, then returned his skeleton gaze to me. “Let’s take a walk, friend.”
He turned and walked back toward his bike. I followed because it was better than being dragged across the asphalt.
We passed between the rows of Copperheads seated on their bikes. Their sunglasses couldn’t conceal the glares they fixed on me, and each of them turned to spit at my feet as I passed. I stared straight ahead and suffered it. They wanted to provoke me into doing something dumb. I wasn’t going to give them the pleasure.
Be cool,I told myself.Take your beating, then they’ll ride off without hurting Charlotte.
“You stole something from me,” Sid said in an ominous tone. His sweeping gesture took in the other Copperheads. “You stole something fromus. All of us. We’re a family, Jayce. You know that.”
“I didn’t steal anything from you, Sid.”
“As a family,” he continued as if I hadn’t spoken, “we’re supposed to trust one another. Have each other’s back. It’s what makes us strong. A closed fist and all that. Do you understand me?”
I grunted. He took it as a yes.
“When someone within my family steals, it wounds me to the core. It chips away at my trusting nature.” He narrowed his eyes. “It disappoints me.”
I remained silent. One thing I knew about Sid was that it was best to let him lecture. He got off on it. Pain would soon come, and it might be less severe if I let him make his speech first.
Stay away,I told Charlotte in my mind.Keep picking up trash.No matter what happens.
“I’m a simple man,” Sid went on as we walked down the twin rows of bikers. He gestured with his cigarette. “All I want is one thing. What’smine. Return it to me and all is forgiven. I’ll accept you back into the family with open arms. So we canheal.”
When we reached his bike, he turned and put his hand on my shoulder in an affectionate gesture. I clenched my jaw. This was what Sid did. He gaslighted people. He was pretending likehewas the one who kickedmeout, when in reality I was the one who left. Sid twisted the truth until it was whatever he wanted, and then repeated it so often even he believed the lie.
He looked at me with a calm, dangerous gaze. Waiting for a response. He was standing awfully close, which I was pretty sure was intentional. Trying to bait me into attacking him. Even though I knew it was a trap, I couldn’t help but consider the option. I might be able to wrap my hands around his throat and crush his windpipe before his goons could stop me. Snap his neck with one swiftjerk. Drive my pocket knife deep within his gut, twisting and twisting until no doctor could put him back together.
The urge to do it was raw, primal. I’d been dreaming about it these past few weeks. For what Sid had done to me, but more for what he’d done toTheresa. I deserved a chance at revenge. I had a window right now.
But Sid was waiting for it.Expectingit, even. That’s the only thing that stopped me: the fact that I wouldn’t be successful. He would live, and I would die.
I chose my words carefully. As if that would make any fucking difference.
“I don’t have it,” I said. “That’s the truth, Sid. I don’t. And killing me won’t change that fact.”
I could have ended it there. Maybe he would believe me if I told him enough times. But all this talk of family was igniting something within me I couldn’t ignore. I couldn’t just leave it at that, because it wasn’t who I was.
The words poured out of me before I could stop them.
“But even if I did have it,” I said bitterly, “I wouldn’t give it back to you. This ain’t a family. Families love one another. The Copperheads? You just use them to get what you want. They’re only family as long as they’re useful to you. And the moment they aren’t…”
I snatched the cigarette from Sid’s mouth, dropped it to the ground, and grinded it underneath my boot.
“…you extinguish them.”
There was a quiet moment while Sid and the other Copperheads processed what had just happened. The wind rustled the surrounding trees, and leather creaked as more than one biker shifted to reach for a weapon. Preparing for what their leader would command.
Rage, psychotic rage, flashed in Sid’s eyes.There it is, I thought.The real Sid.But it lasted only for a moment, and then he laughed.
“That’s funny.” He pointed at my face. “You always were a clown, Jayce.”
The other bikers laughed nervously. I stood, tense, waiting. I knew Sid. I knew what would come next.
In one smooth motion Sid reached over his shoulder, pulled free the crowbar, and swung it across his body. It smashed into my upper arm, in the middle of the muscle, and a flash of pain filled my arm like fire before going numb. I stifled a cry and fell to my knees.
Sid laughed some more, high-pitched and hysterical. The laugh of a madman. “He says he wouldn’t tell me even if he knew!” he announced, which drew more laughs from his henchmen. “What kind of an idiot would say such a thing?”