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

Tough wouldn’t look at me. He just kept rubbing his wrists where the handcuffs had been.

I couldn’t think of anything to say. I wanted to hug him and be glad he was alive, but I wanted to hit him worse.

“Nashville?” I asked him.

Tough shrugged.

“How long you been back in town?” I asked.

“Couple days,” he said.

“Been staying with Mitzi and Jason?”

“You know labels won’t sign underage singers?” Tough said. “Like, it’s a law. Got to have signatures from your legal parents. Uh, guardians. Whatever.”

That’s when I realized he was slurring and leaning a little bit to one side.

“You’re shitfaced,” I said.

He laughed. “And you’re not? What, am I early?”

“Did Mitzi give you something so she could get high off you?” I asked. “Pills or something?”

“It doesn’t work like that, dumbass,” he said. “It was just some…some…”

“Some what?”

Tough straightened up and got this punk look on his face like he wasn’t going to answer.

I grabbed a fistful of his jacket. “What’d she give you?”

He knocked my hand off.

“Don’t touch me,” he said.

“Why not? Mitzi and Jason own all the rights to you now?” I shoved him. “A man-whore?” Another shove. “Are you serious?”

“I said don’t you fucking touch me!”

“You going to stop me?” I said. He tried to get ahold of me, but I dodged at the last second and smacked him upside the head. “Or are your protectors?”

“Do you fucking know how long it would’ve took Ryder to die?” Tough yelled.

“You’re going to tell me?” I yelled back. “I picked up the pieces while your coward ass was halfway to Nashville!”

“I’m not ready to go in the fucking ground yet. Why is that so hard to understand?”

“You are a genius, Tough,” I said. “Why didn’t I ever think of that? Just bend over and grab my ankles. That ought to work!”

“Suck my cock. Then suck it again, you OCD jizzwad.”

“All right, but only if it gets me protection.”

I wasn’t fast enough to dodge him that time. His shoulder hit me in the gut and we tripped off the porch. Falling flat on my back on the frozen ground knocked the wind out of me. Tough landed a few sloppy punches. I took an awkward swing, but it didn’t even faze him.

“You want to die, Colt?” Tough was screaming now. “You want to die before you’re twenty? ‘Cause I don’t. You’re fucking crazy if you think—”

It was like a bomb went off. First Tough was sitting on my stomach trying to punch like he wasn’t high off his ass, then when I could see again, I was standing over him, choking on the cold air and coughing out these big white breaths. Tough’s cheek under his eye was swelling and his nose was broken and bleeding.

“Come on, bitch,” he yelled. “Hit me like you mean it. Do Ryder proud!”

I backed up until I was leaning against the side of the cabin. I didn’t do that to Tough. I wouldn’t have done that.

Tough got up on one knee. “Feel better?”

“Get the hell out of here,” I said.

When he snorted, a spray of blood and snot dotted his jacket. He winced and put his hand over his nose.

“You jealous fucking asshole,” he said, stumbling a little as he stood up. “I should’ve seen it sooner. I got friends, I’m banging a smoking hot nympho—”

“Don’t dress it up,” I said. “You’re screwing an undead pedophile so that dumbass Jason’ll keep Kathan off your back.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s right. I ain’t got to watch my six anymore, either.” Tough pointed over his shoulder. “That’s your two plus two plus two, in case you couldn’t translate it from not-crazy.”

I shook my head. “I hope to God Sissy can’t see this.”

All Tough’s teenager bullshit dropped. He stood there staring at me like I’d whipped out a gun and shot him.

“What?” I said. “You going to cry now? You made your choice. Sissy would be disgusted.”

“Fuck you.” Tough started backing toward the tree line. He tripped, then screamed so hard his voice cracked, “Fuck you!”

“Go see if Mitzi and Jason’ll let you sleep between them.”

I hate that memory. If I knew where it was stored in my brain, I’d take a knife and gouge it out so I wouldn’t have to think about how stupid I was, how bad I messed up.

Mikal’s laugh jangled around inside my head like chain links.

Fuck you, I told her. But the last of the ants were gone. I’d made it.

Desty

I couldn’t find the diner Mayor Dark had been pushing, but there was a bakery on the square with a sign in the window that said it had NP-protected wireless internet, so I went inside. It was more sophisticated than I was expecting for a place as rural as Halo—more coffee shop chic than farm-town eatery—but being the NP mecca of the US probably had something to do with that.

There were three people in line in front of me, so I had time to count the money I had left after my idiotic recon of the Dark Mansion. Just under two bucks in coins. Halo was an expensive place to look for somebody.

“What can I get you, hon?” the woman behind the counter asked. Tiffani, according to her apron. She was middle-aged, with hair that dark shade of reddish-maroon that no one actually has, and her irises were a weird, brassy color, but the real attention-getter was her fangs. She caught me staring at them. “Yeah, I’m a vampire. Now, what can I get you?”

I checked the price board.

“Um, a plain bread knot,” I said.

Tiffani sized me up and I wondered if I was starting to look like someone who lived out of a backpack or if