Page 42 of Silver Fox Daddies

“He had a foul mouth, the guy I shot. The way he spoke about her made me furious. It brought out this animal side of me, and I haven’t ever felt like that before.”

“Hm,” I say, knowing full well that I felt the same about my latter two kills. “I know how you feel.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s Melissa,” I reply. “She’s doing something to us. Come on.” I jump up from my seat, abandoning the beer. “Let’s go and get her out of here.”

Cash and I make our way down the corridor, but we’re obstructed by the two patch members on their way back inside from taking the dead body out to the fire.

They look at us strangely.

“We saw her,” one says.

“What do you mean?” I ask, feigning confusion.

“The outsider girl.” He eyes us both. “Is she still alive?”

Begrudgingly, I say, “Yes.”

“What’s she doing here? You know our main focus is war right now, not women.”

Using my higher ranking to my advantage, I push past the two patch members, telling them to mind their own business.

“Will this get back to Grizzly?” Cash asks.

“Probably,” I say, Cash and I walking side by side down the corridor. “So, we better get rid of her before he does.”

I open the door to the pungent smell of rotting bodies. Under the bed is Melissa, and she seems to have put herself into a kind of sedative trance, since she doesn’t register us when we first walk in through the door.

“Get them out of here,” I say to Cash, gesturing to the bodies.

I’m glad he’s able to do it without my aid, dragging them across the floor one at a time, down the corridor. Melissa needs somebody with her to shake her back to reality. Being surrounded by dead people for a long period of time tends to kill something inside of you.

“Hey.” I duck down under the bed and offer my hand. “It’s safe. You can trust me.”

“Can I?” she retorts, arms wrapped around her legs. Her voice shakes. “You killed two men with your bare hands. Is this why you never told me what you do here?”

“I didn’t want to scare you.”

She turns away, evidently not in the mood to talk.

“I’m sorry you had to witness that. We didn’t plan on anything happening.”

“They almost tried to—” Melissa cuts herself off, head still turned away.

“I know. I know, and that’s why they had to go.”

This shoots her head back around. She frowns, waiting for me to elaborate.

“They think they can lay their hands on you and live to see another sunrise?” I shake my head. “They’re mistaken.”

Her eyes soften as she looks at me. After a moment’s contemplation, she shuffles out and comes to sit on the foot of the bed, staring up at me. Blood is still drained from her face, turning it gray. The red skirt from her dress is splayed over her legs. I notice a small tear and feel the anger start to surface again, picturing them trying to ride up the material to?—

“Thank you.”

I nod, but can’t bring myself to bring up taking her back to the city yet. As selfish as it is, there’s something about her eyes that soothes a part of my soul. My pulse starts to rise as I stare at her longer, her pretty blue eyes shifting something inside of me that feels repulsed by the idea of us saying goodbye. I don’t want to yet.

But we need to do it today at some point.