Rae

Being in Cash’s house was beyond strange, but not even the creeping sensation of knowing he was close enough to hear my call was enough to keep me awake. Fuck the pain throbbing through me, I felt like shit everywhere.

I woke sometime later to a banging headache, a hacking cough, and bright winter sunshine streaming through the huge bay window. Shielding my scratchy eyes, I sat up, gaze darting around the unfamiliar room. My boots were in the corner where Cash had left them, my coat on the back of the door, but I couldn’t see my T-shirt anywhere, or my jeans.

Damn it. That made a quick escape unlikely, unless I wanted to skulk out in just my coat, stripper style, something I wasn’t necessarily averse to until I remembered Cash had the keys to the van.

Fucker. I lay back on the bed and rubbed my temples, shivering in spite of the warmth the sunshine brought to the room. I should’ve probably checked in with Meg after the garbled voicemail I’d left her sometime around dawn, but I had zero idea where my phone was, and the thought of getting up to look for it made my head spin.

I dozed off again and woke to knocking at the bedroom door. “Uh, come in?”

Cash slipped into the room and shut the door behind him. “You’re awake.”

“Yup. What time is it?”

“Four.”

“In the afternoon?”

Cash nodded. “I checked on you before I went to work, but you were too out of it to notice. Sorry I abandoned you, I left a note.”

I followed his gaze to the sheet of paper on the bedside table. Fuck. How had I not seen that? I picked it up and scanned it.

Rae,

I’m going to work. If you want to chip, your clothes are drying in the downstairs bathroom and the van keys are on the kitchen table. If you stick around, Rhys can take a look at you later.

Cash

“Who’s Rhys?” I wondered aloud before I caught myself.

“A friend. He’s good at fixing people.”

“Oh.”

“Oh?”

I shook my head. “I don’t fucking know. I feel like I had ten pints last night.”

Cash frowned and ventured close enough to crouch by my side. He covered my forehead with the back of his hand and his golden eyebrows shot up. “Jesus, you’re hot.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t be a dick. I mean it. Maybe you’re ill.”

I felt ill, but I wasn’t about to admit that to Cash. I wasn’t here for him to nurse me—in fact, if I’d done what Fletch and Meg had asked of me, I shouldn’t have been here at all. “I’m fine.” I shrugged his hand off. “And I’d better get going. If your van holds up, we can use it next weekend for the meet in Buckinghamshire.”

“You cover two counties?”

“No, but we help out when we can, share skills and resources.”

“And you think you can chase down quad bikes like this?”

Irritation flashed through me. “What do you think? But if I don’t do it, who does? Meg? Fletch?”

“You won’t be around to do it if you take another hit like the last one—”

“What the fuck do you care about that?” I snapped. “About any of it? You’ve given me a van, and a bed for the night, but I’m pretty sure you made it clear to Meg and Fletch that there wasn’t anything else. They think you’re some kind of legend, but I don’t see it, so what is it to you if I get myself killed?”

Cash absorbed my rant with a neutral expression, then he rose and walked out of the room, only to return a moment later with my clothes and the keys to his van. “Whether I care about you or not is irrelevant. The point is you have a cause relying on you, and responsibility to stay alive to serve it. I wrote my number on the back of that note. Call me if you have any problems with the van.”

He walked out again, and a moment later, his front door banged, leaving me alone with a pile of clean clothes and regret.

***

Cash

Dom rarely came to the garage, and if he did, it was to see Lucky, so I was beyond alarmed when he came looking for me later that evening. “Something was wrong with your mate.”

I crawled out from beneath the SUV I was working on, gripped Dom’s arm with grubby hands, and hustled him into the empty staffroom. “What do you mean?”

Dom shrugged. “I mean he could barely walk, let alone drive. I offered him a lift, but he left anyway.”

“Fuck.” I automatically reached for my phone before I remembered I didn’t have Rae’s number. “Did he look hot to you?”

“What?”

“Not that kind of hot. I mean—never mind.” I searched my contact list for the unnamed number Rae’s crew leaders—Fletch and Meg—had given me last night. “When did he leave?”

“About an hour ago.”

“An hour? Jesus. You couldn’t have come to find me before then?”

“I was working,” Dom retorted mildly, though his eyes flashed with warning. “And I called you a million times. What the fuck did you want me to do? Lock him up?”

I had no idea, but the thought of Rae dragging his banged-up self home in that van scared the shit out of me. What if—?

Dom’s hand on my arm startled me. “What am I missing here? He a good mate of yours?”

“Not exactly.”

“Relative?”

I snorted. “Does he look like a Walsh?”

Dom had only met my rowdy family a handful of times, but we all looked the same—blond, green eyes, daft grins that hid who we were from the rest of the world. He shook his head. “Not in the slightest, but he reminded me of Lucky, in a weird way, and you seemed freaked enough right now for me to wish I had locked the bloke up.”

I wished he had too, but there was nothing I could say to Dom to explain the inexplicable panic he clearly saw in me. I waved my phone at him and forced a grin. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll call him in a bit.”

Dom had a thing about minding his own business. He gave me a man hug and left me alone, pulling his cap low, and slipping out of the back door.

Heart pounding, I staggered backwards and sank onto the lumpy couch, staring at the number on my phone screen. It would be the easiest thing in the world to send a message, enquiring if my van had arrived Bedfordshire safely, but the words stuck in my brain, jumbling incoherently until I didn’t know which way was up. Anxiety clawed at my chest and I hated Rae for putting it there. Whatever state he made it home in, he wouldn’t be fit to sab a hunt at the weekend, and I was as worried about that as I was about him.

Fuck you, Rae.

***

I lasted all of an hour before I caved and called the number in my phone. It rang and rang, and I was about to hang up when the line crackled to life.

“Yeah?”

Fuck. My scratchy heart skipped its millionth painful beat. “Rae? That you?”

More crackling, then a heavy sigh that rattled the speaker on my phone. “Yeah. You want your van back already?”

“Nah. I was just calling your crew to make sure you got back okay. I didn’t realise this was your number.”

“It’s not. My phone got smashed at the weekend. Meg gave me hers for the journey.”

“You still driving?”

“Kind of. I stopped at Watford for a kip.”

I crossed the road in front of my house, bypassed the front door, and let myself in the side gate. “Did it help? The sleep, I mean. My mate thought you were half-dead.”

Rae chuckled darkly. “I felt it, but I threw up on the hard shoulder and I’m over it now. Maybe it was Sprig’s casserole. There’s a reason we don’t let him cook.”

My soul missed the easy companionship of communal living. Lucky and Dom were awesome, but they had their own lives, mostly spent fucking upstairs. I wanted Sprig’s casserole, even if it would kill me.

“Cash?”

“Hmm?”

Rae cleared his throat. “You went silent on me.”

“Sorry. I’m just trying to picture it.”

“Picture what? Me puking or Sprig’s slop?”

“Uh, the slop, I guess. I like campfire cooking.”

“Not Sprig style, you wouldn’t, but Fletch—fuck. I’ll tell you about it another time.”

That he was holed up at a service station, sick and sore, belatedly returned to me. I stole Lucky’s fags from the back porch and lit up. “Sounds good. Are you going to be okay driving the rest of the way?”

“I think so. But Cash?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for asking.”

The line went dead. I drew the phone away from my ear and stared at the screen, but there was nothing to tell me if we’d lost connection, or Rae had simply hung up.

Pride kept me from calling him back. The last few days had stripped me of my fucking senses, but I’d about reached my limit of being ruled by my screwed-up obsession with Rae. He had my number. He’d call if I could do anything for him…right?

As hard as I tried, I wasn’t convinced, but there wasn’t much else I could do. I dragged myself inside, thankful the house was quiet, and retreated upstairs. A hot shower cleared my mind a little, but I still couldn’t decipher the disquiet churning in my stomach. Hooking up with Rae had seemed so simple, but everything that had happened since was so convoluted I couldn’t think straight. I hated Rae for reigniting the fire in my belly, and I hated myself for fighting it, but most of all I hated the inhuman bastards who had lit the first spark.

The hot water ran out. Dazed, I turned the shower off and went to bed. Sleep seemed far away, but somehow I was barely awake when my phone buzzed a little while later.

Unknown: I’m home.