Chapter 3
1303 Words
CHAPTER 3
“Why would someone try to sabotage us by poisoning our produce? I mean, stores exist. It’s not like we’ll starve.” I take a bite of sausage to emphasize the point. We might live like peasants, but we certainly aren’t. Moving out to the boonies was a decisive act—like an old grouch shaking a cane at the neighbor kids, we just wanted a little peace and quiet.
“It’s not just the produce—yeah, we can get that at the store,” Ryder says between bites. “But we’re looking at a complete loss. They took out everything.”
Ah. I’ll admit that I’m not entirely sure what vast array of items Rooster grows back there, but Ryder uses plants to make designer drugs, some manner of hallucinogenics. Safer than synthetics, and they fetch a high price with a very specific—very wealthy—Grunge clientele.
And if those plants died, we might be screwed. It’s how we’re currently paying the bills, though I still have a storage unit in the states that will pay our way for a while if we’re extremely frugal and take odd jobs to fill in the gaps. It was a nest egg for me, but I’m not sold on supporting six people with it.
Mack slams the cabbage into the trash bin and heads for the sink to wash up. “Obviously, someone hates us.”
“Lots of people have a reason to hate us, but I don’t think anyone has a reason to come here and f**k with us,” Ryder fires back from the table in the alcove. He forks another bite of potato into his mouth, then goes on: “Anyone who has that deep of a vendetta would have shot us, not screwed with your carrots.”
“Screwed with carrots? There’s an idea.” Blade winks at me from his spot in the corner—short dark hair, vibrant blue eyes, crossed arms sheathed in leather. He looks like a biker waiter standing behind Ryder and Cue as they eat, but he always stands at mealtimes, symbolic of his current position with the club.
“Shut your mouth, Prospect,” Mack snaps, sliding into the chair beside Cue. He plunks his plate on the table. “I don’t know how you used to do things, but we don’t need vegetables to take care of her.”
“Just a little sausage.” Ryder chuckles.
I spear a piece of meat for good measure, as if reminded of its existence by Ryder’s words, and slide it between my lips. Salty and sweet and smokey.
“Aye,” Rooster says from beside me. He glances at his plate. “But a good Scot would never call this sausage.”
I eat another bite in defiance.
Mack shrugs, but says nothing else—he shovels food into his mouth as if he hasn’t eaten in weeks.
“I was joking, Jesus.” Blade shakes his head, but his eyes have hardened.
I’m a little surprised that he’s stayed here as long as he has. He’s not great at coloring between the lines, or at taking orders from others. Sure, he spent his time with the Grunge as a hired assassin, but he had a lot of freedom in the way he executed those hits—literally.
Now he’s an errand boy, and he doesn’t even get to touch me. Bummer for him. But it is a little hot, a constant source of s****l tension. I can feel it radiating off him every time I brush against his arm, a prickling tension that electrifies my blood with anticipation.
“This isn’t the time for jokes,” Mack snaps, dropping his fork with a barbed look at Blade. “I found prints at the back edge of the yard.”
“Footprints?” My fork, piled high with potatoes, pauses in midair, halfway to my lips. “Are you sure they’re not our footprints?”
“I can’t be positive but—”
“We all go out there, Mack. I went running in the woods with Cue just yesterday.”
Cue nods, but his eyes are tight. Mack has been crying wolf for a few months, and so have I, but clearly there’s something going on that we missed. Mack seems to believe the same; he pushes himself to standing, leaves his shockingly clear plate on the counter, and heads out the back door. Cue glances once more at me, then stands and follows Mack.
I watch their receding backs until they vanish through the front door, then turn toward the alcove, trying to see both Rooster, still sitting beside me, and Ryder finishing his meal at the table. I fork up my last bite of potato, then say: “Why would someone wait until now? If they don’t like us, wanted to punish us, why poison our crops months after we got settled?”
The others look at one another, even Blade, which makes is appear that he’s one to them, if only for a heartbeat.
Rooster shrugs. “Maybe they’re just bein’ a royal t**t, is all.” The man does have a way with words. “But I’ll let the rest of ye figure out that mystery. I’ll take care of the garden. There’s no time for another growin’ season in the cold that’s comin’, but we can navigate through that if I rig up a greenhouse. Won’t take much besides some two-by-fours and a whole lot of plastic sheeting.”
I nod. “While you’re doing that, a few cameras will tell us for sure if this is natural causes or an intruder.” An intruder… of course, it’s an intruder. You’ve been feeling it for months, Isabelle. I shove the thought aside. “We’re new to this plot of land, so it’s possible there’s something going on that we don’t know about, right? Underground seepage, some chemical leeching up from the soil? Maybe that’s why the house was vacant for so long.” We’d purchased the property “as-is” at auction.
Ryder shrugs, but his eyes narrow. He does not look convinced. He has a PhD in chemistry, which is why he’s in charge of the mixing and testing, but Rooster’s the farmer. I turn his way.
“Aye, it’s a valid idea,” Rooster says, stroking his red beard in true contemplative-sexy-supervillain style. “I’ll have Cue run some electrical once he comes back from wanderin’ around the fields. We can get the cameras tomorrow.” I’m not sure if Cue is formally trained or not, but he has mechanical and electrical skills far beyond most. “And we’ll retest the soil. It was fine when we arrived, but it may be there’s something leakin’ in the ground.”
That wouldn’t be a great thing, but natural phenomena is better than someone coming after us.
“Let’s finish the food and get to bed,” Ryder says.
Wait… to bed? I glance at him, but his eyes are locked on my chest. “It’s been a long day,” he says, “and we’ve all been so distracted by putting this place together that we’ve hardly had any time to enjoy our freedom.”
This much is true. By the time we fall into bed at night, we’re all so exhausted that we’re asleep almost immediately. But I took a nap today. My muscles ache a little, but I’ve got energy to burn.
Rooster’s looking at me now too—they all are. “What’re you wearing under that robe?” Ryder asks.
That’s all it takes to set my blood tingling. I push myself to standing, untie the knot, and let the terrycloth drop to the kitchen floor.
- Writer
