Sinclair

Chapter Twenty-Five: Dumfounded

SINCLAIR AND THE GUYS end up coming back around twenty minutes after the woman told me about The Sandman's message for me. The sound of multiple bike engines is what pulls me from the daze that I'm in. Carla and Sonny have both given me space, assuming that my mood—which had been crappy before but had plummeted even further down the drain thanks to The Sandman and his ever-growing ways of sending me messages through other people since he couldn't get to me himself—was because of how worried I was for Sinclair. And while it was true that I worried about him the entire time, it was also true that my head was filled with the message that woman had relayed to me.

I like to consider myself a somewhat logical person where self-preservation was concerned. It was why I'd told Sinclair about the greasy haired man who had followed me and why I allowed Sinclair to protect me despite how inconvenient it could be at times. I knew that it was better than the alternative which included me in a body bag or, in this case, being killed, burned and turned to ashes. There were certain times when it was necessary to be protected. If this was any other situation, I would tell Sinclair what that woman had told me as soon as he walked in that door.

This wasn't any other case, though.

My mother was involved.

And while, yes, Sinclair was incredibly good at what he did and there was a large possibility that he could take this guy down without my mother getting hurt, there was also the possibility that something could go wrong and that The Sandman could have some kind of trick up his sleeve that could result in my mother being killed.

That was a risk I just couldn't afford to take.

My mother's life isn't something I can't bring myself to gamble with.

Sinclair comes waltzing in as I frown down at the table, glaring at bullet hole that was located along the left side as if it has the answers to all of my problems but is refusing to help me. He slides into the booth beside me, stretching an arm across the back of the seat as he gets comfortable.

"You're not dead, " I say, trying hard to sound nonchalant but even I can hear the relief in my tone.

He nods, looking mildly amused.

"You doubted me, little goddess?"

"What exactly did you do?" I wonder, eyeing him suspiciously.

"Nothing major. I just burned down a couple of The Grave Rebel's businesses. This is my town, after all, and he's conducting business here without consulting me. It was about time I made an example out of him. If I continued sitting on my hands and doing nothing, people would stop respecting me."

I can also hear the second unspoken reason Sinclair did what he did: Lucky had threatened me and when it came to someone trying to hurt me, Sinclair was known to go psychotic.

"You're always getting yourself into something," I mutter, shaking my head.

"I would stay out of trouble if you'd let me slip into you instead," Sinclair says, shooting me a wink.

I rolled my eyes so hard at that comment, it was a wonder they didn't get stuck in the back of my head.

Convincing the men who followed me around to leave me be for a little while had not been an easy task. They had driven with me from Willow's Creek all the way to the little library located across the street from the university my mother worked without fail. As one of them had started to get off his bike to follow me inside, I stopped him and somehow—after a long, vigorous session of begging—convinced him that my "friend" would feel uncomfortable if they saw him hovering over me. The guys had all looked at each other, all of them undoubtedly thinking of the punishment they'd face if anything happened to me because they took their eyes off of me. I begged some more and finally, they had agreed, giving me thirty minutes before they'd come inside to check on me.