“MACON!” SANTOS CALLS out as if announcing the pizza’s here. “Got some problems for you, man.” And then under his breath, “As if you don’t have enough already.”
“Put her down now,” Callum tells him, but no one listens.
We enter the body shop, Clay’s party following close and yelling, creating a ruckus as Dallas, Trace, and Army head over to see what’s up.
“Let me go!” Clay shouts.
The bar is only a hundred yards from the body shop, so it was as easy as carrying a sack of potatoes for my brother’s friend.
Trace smiles wide, his plaid pajama pants hanging low on his hips with no shirt. He fits his baseball cap on backward, covering his messy hair. “Oh, I’m gonna enjoy this,” he mutters, and then to Santos. “Drop her.”
Dallas wipes off his hands, and the rest of the Sanoa Bay patriarchy with an average age of twenty-seven crowd around, leaving their hobby bikes and beer, ready to drip all their machismo at any given opportunity. Normally, I shun it, but it’ll be useful tonight.
Santos flops Clay over and drops her on the old sofa, the brat shooting up, her eyes spitting daggers. I lean back against a worktable, ready for the show. She deserves this.
I can’t believe I dropped my guard in that locker room. She just felt so good.
I watch her, every muscle primed and ready and the fire in her eyes. God, she felt good.
But she’s not good. Emotions just bottled up over years without any outlet, and I was finally able to take them out on her and I guess it didn’t matter how. That’s all that was.
Macon steps out from underneath a car, grabbing the shop rag out of his back pocket as he looks around to see what the commotion is.
Taking one look at Clay, he turns away, bored. “Get ’em out of here.”
But Trace steps up. “Oh, come on, Macon—”
But Macon twists his head, the look we all know well leveling Trace. He shuts up.
“Liv said we were welcome tonight,” Callum points out. He walks over and takes Clay’s hand in his, pulling her to his side.
“My sister doesn’t get to extend invitations,” Macon tells him, tossing me a warning look.
I shrug. “What’s the harm in letting them absorb some local color?”
“Keep it up.” He wipes his hands. “You’re gonna absorb my boot in your ass.”
Yeah, yeah .
“Finish your fucking Night Tide on your side of the tracks,” he tells them.
Clay stares, her eyes shifting between my brother and me, looking like she expects me to intervene, and why the hell would I do that? Honestly, they’re lucky to get out of here unscathed. Macon is taking it easy.
“Come on, Clay.” Amy pulls at her friend.
“It smells like shit over here anyway,” Milo adds.
They start to drift toward the bay doors, but Clay refuses to budge. She pulls her hands free. “No.”
“Come on,” Amy urges. “I’m already fucking bored.”
You mean scared, Amy? I hold in my laugh.
“I said no.” Clay steps up toward my brother, and my heart stops for a moment. I stand up straight.
“So, what were you?” she asks him. “Navy? Air Force?” But she doesn’t wait to hear his answer. “It’s a free country. Everything you fought for.”
“I fought to preserve democracy, not practice it.” He still doesn’t look at her. “Get the fuck off our land.”
My eyes dart between them, Clay to my left and Macon to my right, alert. No one, except maybe family, speaks to him like that, and while I’m kind of enjoying it, she’s going to find out why really soon if she’s not careful.
No one leaves, the air in the shop thick with tension. Macon looks over, his dark eyes looking black under the bill of his cap. “If you don’t move, I’ll move you.”
Clay glances to me. A slight urge hits to intervene, and if he touches her, I might, but…
But Macon is right. Clay is an extension of everything wrong with St. Carmen. How they bully us. Take from us. Shame us. Keep us poor and ignorant and pregnant, breeding more servants for them.
I’m tempted to throw the key to Fox Hill into Macon’s hands right now and let Callum answer for it, but he’d just deny it. And even if Clay didn’t believe him, she’d still take his side. I’m not going to waste the only card I have to play quite yet.
“Two things can happen here,” Clay says as everyone listens. “One. We can refuse to leave, because we don’t really have to. This isn’t your property. Not for long anyway. Tryst Six’s days are numbered.”
Macon turns and listens, his gaze calm.
“So, out of anger,” she continues, “which is all you really have, you’ll kill me and then the rest of us, so there’s no witnesses.”
Trace and Army laugh under their breaths, a few of the other guys joining them.
But it’s not completely impossible. The swamp cooks bodies down to a stew in no time, and Clay knows the stories out here.
“Or two, you’ll rough us up,” she tells him, “we’ll complain to our parents and a shitstorm will consume Sanoa Bay, risking lots of unwanted attention on your ‘business’.”
She does the little air quote thing, because she knows those stories too. The rumors of how Macon and Army sold to the college kids—Oxy, Molly, Adderall—to make ends meet after our parents died.
I never asked if it was true, and I never will. Macon doesn’t allow drugs in our house or in Sanoa Bay, but I also know he’d do anything to feed us.
“Either way, it’s not good for you,” Clay goes on. “Because the power you have is an illusion, because you have no — and never will have any—money.”
I swallow, kind of wanting to smile and puke at the same time. That’s gonna piss him off. While I’m glad it’s not me, I’m kind of glad someone is biting him back.
Everyone turns to Macon, waiting for his response, and I almost think he’s at a loss for words, because he’s quiet for several seconds.
Aracely and her friend Carissa hover next to Iron, and I can tell by the pinch of their lips that they both want Clay’s scalp.
“Well,” Macon replies, blowing out a heavy breath. “Shit. You were right.” He looks at me. “She is smart.”
I nod, bracing for what’s coming. “Told you,” I play along.
Aracely and her pals move in, Dallas and Trace following as the circle closes.
“Damn, I’m…” Macon shakes his head, and I watch as his guys slowly shift around the room, taking up position behind each Saint.
I blink long and hard. Shit .
“I’m really at a loss for words,” Macon says. “What do you say, men? Five-hundred years of keeping this land from them, and now, here, today, is finally the day they call our number and take us down?”
Laughter fills the room, and I curl my toes in my boots, my muscles burning ready.
Macon smiles at Clay. “All at the hands of Baby Collins and the Preppy Posse.”
“I’m shitting my pants,” Trace says.
“Shakin’ in my boots,” Dallas coos, eyeing Callum.
Macon moves in front of Clay, hovering over her, and Callum leaps, ready to grab her, but Santos grabs him instead.
“What the fuck?” Callum growls.
All hell breaks loose. Swamps grabbing Saints, holding them in locks, and I watch as Clay’s pieces fall around her, leaving the Queen unprotected.
I look to Macon, opening my mouth, but I clamp it shut again. She asked for this, didn’t she? Let her find out how false her security was with me. How much I let her get away with when it could’ve been so much worse.
“Can I show you something?” Macon asks her, not breaking a sweat. He grabs her by the back of the neck, and she screams as he drags her over to a motorbike on cinder blocks, someone already started the engine, the tires spinning wildly.
I squeeze my eyes shut for a split second. Goddammit. Goddamn her.
She just had to open her big mouth.
“Clay!” Krisjen screams, but she can’t move. Trace is holding her.
“Get off her!” Callum bellows.
I hear Amy yell, “Liv! What the hell? Do something!”
But I don’t budge.
Opening my eyes, I watch Macon push Clay to her knees and squats down next to her, pushing her fucking face and a fistful of her hair within inches of the spinning spokes, “See that?” Macon asks her.
Someone’s dried blood coats the chrome spokes, and I can’t see Clay’s face, but she doesn’t fight or speak. Shoulders squared, she won’t give him that satisfaction.
“You’re right,” he tells her. “All we have is anger. And it is not without its uses.”
He pushes her nose closer, and Krisjen cries out.
I watch, my chest rising and falling, and my stomach roiling. I force away the feelings I remember from the locker room when I let myself think for a minute that her desire was real. She deserves this.
I still haven’t gotten all the Sharpie off my body, and I will never be free of that video of Megan and me. Clay terrorized me for years. She brought this on herself.
“You won’t do it,” I hear her say.
“The question is…” He looks at her. “Do I have to? Does Liv have to deal with you when she knows your grandmother and the old sheriff had a hideaway out at Two Locks where they would meet for long afternoon hours?”
Clay remains silent, and I want to move closer to see her face. Did she know that? I know things about her family that could have shut her fucking face up years ago.
“When Garrett Ames was found with his sixteen-year-old stepdaughter in a hotel room last May and quietly paid for it all to go away?” Macon continues. “Or when your mother had a little procedure done before Christmas to take care of an unwanted pregnancy?”
I can see Clay breathing harder.
“You’re right,” he tells her. “Money is power. But do you know what’s more valuable? Secrets.” He jostles her. “Secrets are power, honey. There’s a reason we’ve survived here, keeping the wolves at bay as long as we have.” He gets in her face. “We may be your maids and your dishwashers and your pool boys, but we’re always there. For smart, you’re really good at stupid.”
Her shoulders shake, and I don’t know why, but it’s killing me inside. I’d rather suffer a million of Clay’s snake bites than see her shrink.
“Do it, then.” She remains still, offering herself up. “Be like us. Hurt me.”
Do what? What is she doing?
“Do it!” she yells at him.
“Clay, knock it off,” Callum barks.
Apparently, she doesn’t speak for all of them.
“Come on, badass,” she sneers. “Go for it.”
I step forward. “They want Bellona,” I tell him, shutting her up.
Bellona is the Seminole flag, shredded and faded, but still flying at the lighthouse a mile up the dunes. It’s on her scavenger hunt.
Macon glances at me, still fisting her hair. I know he doesn’t want to hurt her. She’s not worth the jail time.
It takes him a moment, but he exhales and releases her, a half-smile on his lips. “Of course, they do.”
It would be the ultimate ‘fuck you’ from St. Carmen.
He rises and pulls Clay to her feet, but she shoves him away, scowling. Macon shuts off the bike.
“Can they take it?” Army taunts.
Macon tsks. “Doubtful.”
“Come on, Macon…” Trace bounces up and down on the balls of his feet. “I want to stretch my legs. Let’s play.”
My brothers, their friends, and their girlfriends—their faces filled with excitement—look to my brother for his permission.
He casts me a glance. “Oh, what the hell…”
And then he turns to Clay and her posse. “Go capture your flag. If you can.”
“Whoop!” Our guys cry out.
Clay, looking uncertain after almost losing her nose to my brother’s bike, flashes her gaze to me, and I can tell she’s not done for the night.
I grin, shouting to my brothers. “Move!” I yell.
Whoever gets it first, wins.
Everyone runs, scattering out into the night, but Macon grabs me as I try to leave.
He yanks me into his face. “You lose my flag, you lose Dartmouth. Deal?”
My chest caves. “Macon…?”
“Nah-uh.” He shakes his head. “You’re grown up enough to invite them here without asking me first, it should be no problem to make sure you don’t lose that flag to a country club princess, no matter how pretty her ass is. Put your money where your mouth is, Livvy.”
Fucking prick.
“Fine,” I grit out, pushing away from him. “Fucking fine.”
And I run, because there’s everything to lose now, especially time I don’t have.
