Page 27

Inside, Scout breathed a sigh of relief as he drifted along the edges of the crowd, seeking out the space the fighters would use to change and prepare for battle.

As short as he was, it was difficult to see much of anything until he reached the back side as one of the fighters was called out among an ocean of boos.

Scout watched him stalk up a guarded hallway while some people hollered obscenities and a few others threw things, prompting the buff-looking man guarding the hallway to rush from his post to help calm things down.

Now to find Sawyer before someone spotted him where he didn’t belong.

Five men were behind the first door he opened, their animated conversation ending abruptly as he scanned the room.

“Sorry,” Scout muttered, ducking out once he determined that no one was in there with them.

He pulled the hood of his hoodie lower as he slunk to the second door, revealing an empty space with a couple bags on the floor.

Must belong to one of the guys fighting then.

One by one he checked, startling women in the middle of a heated embrace and later a man attempting to give himself a pep talk.

It wasn’t until he reached the end of the hall that he encountered a downed fighter being attended to by a sobbing woman, but it wasn’t Sawyer, though her eyes lit up when they landed on him.

“Are you the EMT?” she asked. “They said they were sending someone back.”

“Do I look like an EMT?” he snapped, his patience just about at an end. “I’m looking for my brother; he’s big, blond, and wears a black leather jacket with a three-headed hound on the back of it.”

“He got his ass beat too,” she declared, “but I haven’t seen him since they dragged him to the back.”

The fact that she’d said dragged and not walked made Scout’s blood run cold.

He’d seen Sawyer lose fights before, but his brother had always been able to stagger away, bitterly muttering curses, though it had never been in an environment like this one.

Heart hammering in his chest, he tried the next room, spying Sawyer’s jacket on the floor, several feet from his brother’s prone form.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Scout growled as he rushed to his side and fell to his knees beside him. “Sawyer, can you hear me?”

“Shouldn’t be here,” Sawyer muttered before deep, wet coughs wracked his body.

Scout spotted blood on his lips and immediately tried to drag his brother into an upright position, hoping that would help him breathe easier. As it was, he didn’t know if he’d be strong enough to get him up, and on his feet, let alone walk him out of the building.

And what then?

The voice in the back of his head was a harsh reminder that he only had his bike, a machine he’d struggle to maneuver if Sawyer wasn’t capable of balancing himself and staying upright.

For a moment, he considered calling Kong, only the man had made it clear that Scout couldn’t count on his help or protection.

Even now that the truth had come out, he didn’t know where he stood with him.

He’d left the meeting at Creature’s place without saying a word to him, riding in the opposite direction from the one that led back to the Joker’s compound.

Since then they’d only had a brief conversation in which Kong had offered a halfhearted apology that was mostly just a bunch of excuses and justifications.

Recalling the encounter left Scout hesitant to reach into his pocket for his phone.

Best to handle this as they always had, together.

Hadn’t Sawyer always said that there wasn’t anything they couldn’t handle if they had each other’s backs?

They were all the other needed. Well, and their old man, who he absolutely could not call because it would literally kill him to know how his sons were getting the money they were bringing in.

He’d never approve of the fighting, let alone the porn.

No, it was up to Scout to get Sawyer out of here and to the ER.

Fuck.

He couldn’t leave Sawyer’s jacket.

Easing his brother down onto his side, Scout gathered Sawyer’s things and discovered his wallet on the ground, his ID missing when Scout checked it.

Son of a bitch.

Okay, that was a problem, but not as big as it would have been if the address on it was still that of their childhood home.

Instead, it was the one for Sawyer’s apartment, five towns over, in Hound’s territory.

Whoever had it would be in for a rude awakening if they went looking for him there.

He shoved it and the jacket in Sawyer’s bag with his clothes, slung it over his shoulder, and returned to his brother, who wheezed and batted at his hands when Scout reached for him.

“You need to get out of here,” Sawyer rasped.

“We’re both getting out of here,” Scout declared, bracing himself as he hoisted his brother to his feet.

It was a slow, shambling walk to the door, where Scout staggered as he fumbled to get it open.

The hall outside was empty, and Scout whispered a silent plea for it to stay that way until he figured out the best way out, since he doubted trying to walk Sawyer through the crowd would go unnoticed.

There had to be a backway, though. There was always a back way in and out of these sorts of places, in case the authorities showed up and people needed to scatter in a hurry.

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” A deep, booming voice asked as Scout neared the end of the hall.

Rather than respond, he tried to hurry his brother along, only to have Sawyer lurch, stagger, and send them both crashing into the wall.

“I asked you a question,” the man growled, having already caught up to him.

He wasn’t the only one, either. A second, even larger man stood to his left, a menacing shadow looming, as if waiting for the first one to give the word to smash them both.

“My brother’s hurt,” Scout tried, opting for the truth and hoping they’d take pity on them. “He needs to go to the ER.”

“And what do you plan to tell them once you get him there?”

“That he wrecked his bike, so I put him on mine to get him there in a hurry when I couldn’t get enough cell reception to call 9-1-1,” Scout offered, hoping that would be enough.

It wasn’t a lie, either. That was exactly what he planned to say.

He’d think of something else to tell them when they didn’t find the bike or the accident site.

Maybe he’d just play stupid, tell them he didn’t know the area, had gotten scared and fucked up the location, suggest the bike had been stolen, and give a vague enough description of it that it might go undiscovered until he was able to sneak back here and retrieve it.

The lies were beginning to come so easily, he’d forgotten what it was like not to have to tell them.

“You can leave, if you want, but he’s not going anywhere until he pays what he owes,” the second guy declared as he folded his arms across his chest.

“How much?” Scout asked.

“Five hundred.”

“I don’t have it, but I can get it and bring it back,” Scout said. “Just let me get him to the hospital first.”

“What part of not going anywhere don’t you understand?”

“What good is the money going to be if he ends up dying?” Scout said, clinging to his brother when Sawyer tried to shove him away.

Fortunately, there wasn’t enough strength left in him to do more than give Scout a weak push.

“Money’s good whether he’s breathing or not.”

“And you’ll never see it if something happens to him,” Scout threatened. “Just let me take him to the ER, or you can take us there and to the ATM, and I’ll get it for you.”

“How about I just take you to the ATM and you get what he owes?” the second man declared. “Then you can take him wherever you want.”

“I’m not leaving him here,” Scout declared. “Can’t you hear the way he’s breathing? He needs help now. You’ll get your money. You have my word.”

“Unless your word comes with five Benjamins, it ain’t worth shit,” the first grumbled. “Now step away from him.”

“No.”

“Look, kid, I get it,” the second guy said. “He’s your family, and you just want to help him. But we’ve done told you that he’s not leaving until we get that cash, so you might as well stop wasting time and go get it.”

When the man reached to yank him away from Sawyer, Scout nailed him with a knee to the jaw, throwing all his body weight into it, only to be shoved to the ground.

He’d staggered him, though. Too bad the other guy was unfazed.

Rolling, Scout avoided the first kick the man aimed his way, but the second caught him in the belly, driving most of the air out of him.

A heavy boot landed on his shoulder, then his hip, before he rolled, trying to protect himself only to be kicked in the back.

Several more kicks and stomps followed, one catching him on the side of the head, the force of it hard enough that the world spun.

Gasping, he managed to drag himself over to his brother, who lay crumpled on the ground.

Had he fallen once Scout had no longer been supporting him, or had the bastard he’d kneed taken his anger out on Sawyer?

He shook his head to try and clear it, everything growing spotty as the men approached.

“There was no need to make us hurt you,” the second one said as he bent down to muss up Scout’s hair. “You got guts, though. None of my brothers would ever fight this hard for me.”

He was really beginning to hate that gesture.

“Maybe that’s ‘cause you’re a prick,” Scout grumbled, squirming, vision blurry as he hooked his foot behind the big man’s.

With a growl, he put everything he had into the kick he delivered, driving his boot into the big man’s knee, satisfied with the loud crack and bellow that resulted when the man’s knee buckled and sent him spilling onto the floor.

He rolled, clutching it and cursing, while Scout felt a brief moment of triumph, right up until the other man aimed another kick his way, and the world exploded.