Wrong Ways Down by Stacia Kane Read Free Book Online Page B

weren’t really treating her right. No. He didn’t think it. He knew it. And he knew why, which was worse.
    The thought stuck in his head as he got up and pushed through to the bar. Thursday night, and especially crowded causen of the cold. Were hot inside Chuck’s; lots of people ain’t had heating, or tried to save what they had causen they couldn’t afford to use it all the time, so anyplace that were warm inside found itself awful fucking popular in winter. Just like places with air conditioning in summer.
    But it meant a lot of people to shove aside, and feeling off like he was it only pissed him up more till he got to the bar and held up two fingers. Last time he’d been there he’d met Chess; they’d stood in the back then headed to her place, and he’d stayed til about four. That had been fun. A fuck of a lot more fun than he were having now, with Amy glowering from the booth and the memory of Sue’s face and ghost rumors and trouble from Slobag and the way Chess might think he ain’t trusting her … 
    Somebody banged into him, hard. On purpose; nobody hit that hard, that direct, without meaning to. He paused, turned around real slow.
    He ain’t knew the dude. But he knew what the dude wanted, knew that look. Happened every once in a while, somebody got a few beers in em and decided they was gonna give him a try, prove to some dame or some gang of equally dumb fucks how tough they were.
    The gang of equally dumb fucks stood behind him, off to the left, watching.
    Normally he wouldn’t bother much. A stare and they backed down; if they did try to swing he caught it and knocked em over or something. Weren’t worth his time.
    But this night … this night he were in a bad mood already, and that bad mood made his body feel tight and anxious. This night, instead of being bored or half-amused, heat started building in his chest the second he turned around, the kind of heat that turned into anger. The kind of heat that wanted to get out, like something living inside him, like an itch everywhere he could only scratch by hitting somebody. 
    The kid—he were a kid, maybe twenty or twenty-one, and big enough that he probably thought he were real hard causen he’d never tried to fight anybody his size, though he were still smaller than Terrible—gave him a smirk, lifting his chin the way dumbasses did before they got smart enough to know they were offering a target to somebody and making oncoming punches harder to see.
    Terrible grinned back. The kid wanted to get beaten on? Fine with him. Better than fine; just what he were looking for. He could feel how ugly his grin was, saw it reflected in the way the kid dropped his and tried to take a step back.
    Too late. His hand was on the back of the kid’s neck before the kid had a chance to get away, and the feel of the kid’s head slamming into the bar, the way all the bottles on the bar jumped, made his grin widen.
    The kid made some sound; Terrible ain’t paid attention. He just grabbed the kid’s hair, yanked it to lift his head—weren’t really necessary since it bounced—and slammed it into the bar again. Then a third time for good measure.
    The kid’s friends took off. Some fucking friends. Terrible let go and watched the kid slide to the floor. Then he grabbed the beers from the now-bloody bar and turned back to Amy. A few people were staring; they looked away fast when he met their eyes. The others just went on with whatany they were already doing. Weren’t like him beating on people were a surprise.
    What was a surprise was seeing Roley sitting in the booth with Amy. Shit. The tension that had just left him started coming back. Aye, could be Roley just happened to be there and thought he’d say hey—Amy ain’t met him before, what Terrible could recall, but he’d probably have seen her and would know who she was. Iffen he wanted to talk to Terrible it’d make sense he’d go sit with her.
    Or maybe he ain’t knew who she was and were tryna