Page 32 of Twisted Steel

“I’m a paramedic.Some women have emotional support lip gloss.I have trauma shears.”

Saint makes a quiet sound behind me.Steel’s expression doesn’t change, but I swear something flickers in his eyes.

“Come on,” he says.

“Bossy.”

“Yes.”At least he knows himself.

We cross the yard, and the whole place seems to adjust around him.Men straighten, conversations dip, and eyes move off me the second his shoulders tighten.He doesn’t say a word, but the warning travels anyway.

Don’t stare.Don’t approach.Don’t breathe too close.

I should hate it...I do hate it...Mostly.

The clubhouse door opens before we reach it.A woman stands there with gray-streaked dark hair, a dish towel over one shoulder, and the expression of someone who has buried bodies emotionally, if not literally.

Her eyes move over me once.Fast and thorough.Kind in the way a battlefield medic is kind.

“You Harper?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Mama M.”

I grip my duffel strap tighter.“Is that a legal title?”

She snorts.“Around here, it might as well be.”

Steel steps in beside me.“She needs a room.”

Mama M’s eyes cut to him.“She needs food.”

“I’m not hungry,” I say.

Mama M and Steel look at me at the same time, and it’s deeply unsettling.

“Fine,” I mutter.“I’m maybe hungry.”

Mama M nods like she has won a war.“Kitchen.”

I glance at Steel.“Do I get a phone call, or is this kidnapping with casserole?”

“You called me,” he says.

“I called because a man was at my window, not because I wanted to join the ‘Outlaw Summer Camp’.”

Mama M laughs, sharp and delighted.“I like her.”

Steel’s mouth snaps shut, and he grinds his teeth.We step inside.The clubhouse smells like whiskey, smoke, leather, motor oil, and old violence.It’s louder than outside, but not chaotic.Men sit at tables, some with drinks, some with cards, some with guns visible enough to remind everyone that peace here is a temporary arrangement.

Every head turns, then every head turns away.Fast.Except a woman with dark hair and an enviable figure who watches me from the bar where she stands drinking a beer.She assesses me in the same way the men did, and I wonder who she is.

Steel’s presence presses against my back without touching me, but I still feel it everywhere.

A man at the bar doesn’t lo

ok away fast enough.Steel doesn’t move, doesn’t speak, but the man’s face drains of color, and he suddenly becomes fascinated with his beer.