Honkytonk Hell: A Dark and Twisted Urban Fantasy (The Broken Bard Chronicles Book 1) eden Hudson (best book club books txt) 📖

Normally, I tried to stick to the Social Contract Theory because I liked rules and order and because I wouldn’t do well in anarchy. But seeing the shocked look on Motocop’s face made breaking the law this once worth whatever small amount of damage we’d just done to the system.

Through the back window, I watched Motocop sprint back to his motorcycle and jump on. By the time he got the thing started, Tough had shut off his headlights. We turned down a heavily wooded gravel road, then pulled through an open gate into an overgrown pasture. The truck lurched in the wheel ruts. I had to keep both hands on the dash to keep from bumping off of the seat. Beside me, Colt had ahold of the handle over the window. He looked over at Tough.

“Just like riding a bike,” Colt said.

Tough laughed, maybe just a little crazily. Mom would’ve said he was having entirely too much fun, but man did it look good on him. I wanted to jump into his lap and kiss him until I could taste that crazy streak.

We drove down into a creek bed and Tough shut off the truck.

Motocop’s bike sounded angry tearing up the countryside. The beam from his headlight shined out over the pasture. I was all flight-response, breathless and jittery. He was coming our way.

“All right, Bo and Luke, what now?” I asked.

They popped their doors at the same time. Tough grabbed my hand and dragged me splashing out of the cab and into the creek. Then we were scrambling up the sandy bank and running through the woods.

The air was hot and thick and hard to breathe. Dead leaves and dry sticks crunched under our feet and brush snagged my bootlaces, but we kept running until the motorcycle came to a stop and the engine shut off.

Tough pulled me down into the leaves beside him. Somewhere along the way we had lost Colt. The woods were silent, though, so Colt must’ve known to stop, too.

My body was full of sparkling, bubbly adrenaline. I was panting and sweating and starting to feel the wet sand in my shoes and all the little scratches that come from running through the woods in shorts, but I laughed.

Tough covered my mouth with his hand, then his lips.

“Boy, you better show your fucking self,” Motocop yelled. “I don’t care what Kathan says, I’ll shoot your ass if I have to come after you.”

Motocop’s macho posturing made me want to laugh harder, but Tough took care of that with his tongue. We were stretched out on the ground in no time with Tough on top. After some trial and error, we figured out how to make out without his fangs bumping against my teeth or poking my lips.

I pressed my face to the cool skin of Tough’s neck and took a deep breath. His sweat-beer-body-spray smell was there, but fainter, as if it was fading away, and underneath of it was this spicy smell like the habanero sauce Dad used to put on everything. I got one foot planted and flipped us over so that I was on top, just like yesterday afternoon.

But that memory turned out to be a paper cut—it happened, then a few seconds later it started bleeding and hurt like heck.

“You left me,” I whispered. It was getting too dark to see Tough, but I stared at where I knew his face was. “I know you did it to save Colt, but you didn’t even tell me what you were doing. You just left me and— I thought you—I thought—”

I squeezed my eyes shut tight when I realized what I’d thought.

I was one of those stupid, stupid, unforgivably stupid girls who thought sex equaled love.

I pushed myself off of Tough and dropped onto the leaves beside him. I wrapped my stupid arms around my stupid legs and rested my chin on my stupid knees—the ones I’d been about to spread for Tough because I thought that him screwing me meant that he loved me. A black hole opened up inside my chest.

In the distance, plastic crunched under something heavy.

“You got a taillight out, boy,” Motocop yelled.

A few seconds later Motocop started his bike. The headlight filtered through the trees as he turned around. I had just a second to see Tough lying on the ground with his hat in one hand and massaging his temples with the other before the light disappeared.

In the dark, Tough took a breath like he wanted to say something, then let it out. I know he couldn’t talk, but I wanted him to grab my hand or something so I’d know he at least cared about me, that I wasn’t as stupid and naive as Tempie had said. Tough could do that much for me, couldn’t he?

He didn’t.

I pressed my face against my knees, but a couple of tears got out anyway.

Hearing someone else’s footsteps in the leaves startled me out of my pity party.

“You all can stay out here if you want to. I’m going to the cabin,” Colt said. “Hell yeah, good for me. I recognize the place where I live. Gold fucking star.”

Tough

Even though the moon was less than a quarter full, I could see fine with the vamp senses. The cabin was sitting at the tree line. Colt’s Explorer was parked by the shed, one tire low from sitting for a month. I could hear the punching bag swinging on its rope in the shed and smell the gunpowder and plastic-ex. So the arsenal was still there.

The place looked pretty much like it had five years ago when I left, minus the snow. If I’d landed on my ass with Ryder yelling, “Get up, Baby Boy. Ain’t no foot soldier just going