Finn looks at me, nods and gives me a rueful smile.
I suppose anyone with a vagina is expected to sit together, and at least it will give me respite from Finn for a short while.
Knowing my hands are shaking, I fix my eyes on Swift, and make my way across the room, praying I won’t be stopped or touched. Unimpeded, I find my way to her.
One man already sitting at the table nudges his companion. “Looks like we’re going to be listening to girl talk.”
Swift makes a V sign with two of her fingers. “Fuck off, Duty. If Cat wants to talk makeup and nails, she’s out of luck. Unless Honor joins in the conversation?”
Presumably it’s Honor who snorts. “What you going to talk about? How fast you can strip down a Glock and put it back together?”
“Glock?” Swift shakes her head and winks at me. “An FN Minimi perhaps.”
“Christ woman, do machine guns get you wet?”
“Probably as much as handcuffs get you hard, Duty.”
As a few more good-natured jokes go around, I find myself relaxing. Enough that eventually I enter the conversation. I hold out my hands. “I’m not much of a nail girl myself.” All mine are bitten down to the quick.
“What do you do, Cat?” a man sitting opposite me asks. “I’m Bolt, by the way.” He holds out his hand to me.
A man’s hand. I stare at it, feeling panic, suddenly realising it’s not so much how they’re going to treat me, it’s how I’m able to treat them. I no longer feel comfortable doing everyday normal things. I can do this, my internal voice lectures me, worried about making an example of myself. I reach out, tentatively take it, but let go almost immediately. My eyes at first widen, then narrow. It felt almost real, but cold.
“I’m a nurse,” I answer him. “And I’m sorry, but is that prosthetic?”
“Yup,” he replies without candour.
“A nurse?” Honor tilts his head to one side. “So, what’s your weapon of choice?”
Weapon? Oh, he must be referring to Swift and her perchance for machine guns. I think for a moment, then say, “I have been known to use an anal thermometer.”
“Hey, Duty,” Bolt exclaims, thumping his non-prosthetic hand on the table. “She sounds just right for you.”
I notice Honor and Duty are sitting close together, closer than most other men. Are they a couple? It makes me wonder. But good on them, if so, and on their friends as it doesn’t seem to bother them. Bolt just gets a good-natured finger from the man he named.
“Grub’s up,” Swift observes, and stands. To me she instructs, “Just stay here.”
“Yeah, stay and keep me company. Being one-handed, I’m sure someone will wait on me.”
“Fuck off, Bolt. We paid a fuckin’ fortune for that hand. If you can’t pick up a plate with it, we should demand our money back.”
But Bolt stays seated, as does Duty. After a moment, Swift returns carefully balancing three plates. She places one in front of Bolt, one she hands to me, then sets down the third for herself. Honor returns with one for Duty.
“You’re not vegetarian, are you?”
Shaking my head, I stare down. It’s so not what I expected. “What is it?” I ask, gingerly.
“Roasted breast of pigeon with confit leg and beetroot spaghetti,” she informs me, as if they eat this every day. Grinning she betrays herself when adding, “Or that’s what Cowboy informed me.”
Gingerly, I peck at the dish, surprised when after a few moments it’s completely clean.
Conversation picks up again, all kept lighthearted. I realise after the main course has been served, a fish dish with some delicious sauce, that they’re purposefully avoiding certain subjects: what’s happened to me, Finn’s place in the club, and what they’re doing to find the man who kidnapped and sold me.
After a meringue, cream and fruit dessert which I again enjoy despite the circumstances, I broach the topic myself. “Have you found any sign of Gun, yet?”
Swift settles her eyes on me. “Not yet, but we’re closing in. I can feel it.”
“Got some things which we might be able to tie together.” Honor, his face now serious, confirms.
“We’ll get there, Cat. This is what we do.” Bolt’s sincerity has me believing him. “All you’ve got to do is hunker down until we get him out of your way.”
“I want to leave,” I tell them, honestly.
Swift shakes her head. “We need you to stay. Stormy seems to have pulled himself together right now, but if you went away? Hell, he’d be uncontrollable.”
I stare down at my now empty plate. He’ll survive. He had before me, and he will again. He won’t want long term with a woman as damaged as me.
34
Stormy…
The dining area was crowded as it so often is when Cowboy’s in the midst of his depression, so if I was going to eat, I’d had to take the only space open. That was on a table alongside Grinch, Mystic and Goofy.
“You got your head out of your ass?” Grinch starts on me as soon as I sit down and while he’s helping me place the crutches on the floor by my side.
Three months ago I would have exploded, now I make the first of what will probably be a hundred apologies. Or as much as I’m capable of. “Yeah.”
“You trust your brothers now?”
I grimace at Mystic. “I never stopped. Trouble seemed to follow me. I was better off out of it.”
“You think we wouldn’t have had your back come what may?” Goofy snorts.
“It was the ‘come what may’ that had bothered me.” I admit. Things had happened with no reason, how could I have stopped the same happening again?
Grinch leans back, staring at the pigeon that the prospect had brought over to him. “Fuck this. When’s Cowboy going to cook a decent fried chicken steak?”
“You needn’t have come, Brother,” Mystic reminds him. “Could have gone to a KFC or something.”
“Fuckin’ KFC.” Grinch picks up a knife and fork and starts dissecting the tiny bird on the plate in front of him.
“Two mouthfuls and it’s gone,” Goofy observes. “Fuckin’ gourmet food isn’t worth eating.”
I’ve been toying with mine. When Mystic looks over hopefully, I pass the remainder to him. It only takes him a chew and a swallow to finish it up.
“I spent the day checking the plane. It’s refuelled and ready,” he assures me. “Whenever you need to go get Gun, just say the word.”
The next course is served. I wonder how these old-timers have got the prospects running after them while the other brothers get up to help themselves. But I don’t say a word, just accept when a new plate is placed in front of me, appreciating their special status as carrying a plate while hopping on crutches is probably beyond me. As I dig my fork into a plate that looks good but seems completely tasteless, I wonder whether I’ll be on the Satan’s Devils plane when it heads out after we’ve got Gun’s location.
I also wonder, watching the prospects helping Cowboy, whether I’ll be a kitchen hand next time I’m in here. As far as I know, I’ll be joining their ranks for six months. And that’s the best I can hope for.