Pop is more calculated and cunning. My brother is a Hulk-smash sort of guy.
Both are unapologetically ruthless.
The difference is, in his own way, Drex actually fucking cares about the ones he calls family. Herrin only cares about himself.
Rush pops back in with a bottle of water, looking both surprised and relieved to find me sitting right where he left me.
“That was your only chance to run,” he tells me as he hands off the bottle.
“My brother is going to get himself and all of you killed if his emotions run too high. He has two gears—anger and thoughtless retribution.”
“He has a few more gears in his wheelhouse now that the girl from the suburbs shares his bed on the regular,” he answers quietly. “I’m more concerned with what happens if he pictures her being the one lying in that hospital bed next. It may quickly dissolve those new gears and put him back into his old frame of mind. I knew she was trouble from day one, but she also made Drex open his fucking eyes to Herrin’s true sociopathic self, so it’s a double-edged sword.”
I nod like that makes sense. A girl who doesn’t understand her power is curled up against a homicidal killer…who would wreck the world for her. Drex doesn’t just care about anyone that strongly—not even his own sister. It’d be romantic, if it wasn’t so damn dangerous for her to be so forwardly weak.
I scrub a hand over my own face and inwardly groan.
Rush pulls out a flask from his jacket and takes a long sip. “Welcome to the shit show. It’s been a nightmare. Nice of you to join in during the witching hours,” he drawls, passing me the flask like we’re now teammates.
“Can Eve really not shoot a gun? Or fight? Or do anything at all badass?” I ask him on a tired sigh before I take my own long sip of the—
I cough harshly, because I really was not expecting gin. The taste of raw pine-needles assaults me, and I see his lips struggle to keep their stoic, serious line as I shove the flask back at him a little angrily.
“Some things never change,” he murmurs like he’s amused as he takes another sip. “But no. Eve is decidedly anything but badass. She’s Suzy Homemaker playing house at the club. Drex likes her that way, which is why he keeps her heavily surrounded and makes excuses for the two of them to stay in the clubhouse. She’s not sick and stuck in bed, Kara. He just can’t afford to look weak right now, so he tells her when she’s not feeling good, and she complies.”
That makes more sense. Glad my brother sent me off into the thick of an ongoing war with very little warning of the gravity of the situation and how it’s already escalated. Meanwhile, he tucks his girlfriend into bed like a fragile doll.
I feel overestimated.
“I’m in the final quarter instead of half-time,” I note, using football metaphors because…it’s Texas.
“Glad you’re finally figuring that out,” he says as he drains the last of the liquor from the flask, turning it up and gulping heavily.
“You covered me with your body,” I also note, because…he reacted like an unlikely human shield.
My eyes move to study his profile, but his jaw merely tics as he shrugs a shoulder. “Drex would have ended me if I’d done anything any differently.”
I was so fully surrounded by him that a bullet would have had to pierce him first to ever touch me.
“Why did Drex put you in charge of me?” I ask, but he stands and pockets his flask.
Instead of answering, he says, “Come on. There’s nothing left to do here but wait, and we have work to do now that you’re finally committed to this.”
I don’t argue as I guzzle the bottle of water. He pauses at a vending machine in a little room off to the side to buy me another. My eyes narrow on him as he passes it off to me without a backward glance, moving like it’s normal to be so attentive to another.
Even normal guys don’t usually give a shit if I feel like ass. I’ve learned most guys are just selfish assholes. Most people in general, in fact.
If you can’t beat em’, join em’. That’s been my motto for a while now.
“Are you close to Dash?” I ask him as we board the elevator.
He stabs the button to the ground floor. “I only have one person I’m close to in the club. I know better than to forge too many attachments,” he replies without looking in my direction. “Someone warned me against that in the very beginning. It was good advice.”
So…he’s still only attached to Sledge—his unofficial, weirdly protective father figure. Sledge’s heart has always been too soft for the club.