Beyond him, farther in the crowd was a girl. I frowned, moving to the side for a better view. Kess Foster. She was a blast from the past, the only other girl in the crew system back at Roussou. Her hair caught my attention first, it was like a beacon at times. Almost pure white, but her eyes were the other recognizable attribute. They were like an ice blue color. Sometimes I swore they were grayish white, but she was looking through the crowd. Seeing me, frowning, her eyes narrowed, she started toward me.

Kess was like that.

Her crew had been small, and one of the ones that most forgot was even a crew, but that hadn’t been her fault. It’d been her crew’s fault. Still. She came from crew roots. She scoped out the situation and was coming to help.

That was, until a guy moved ahead of her.

She stopped, still frowning, and looked up.

The guy—he seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place him. Dark hair. Blue eyes that almost matched Kess’, but not quite. A brother? I didn’t remember if Kess had any other siblings, but no. There was an air about them, about them both. He moved into her, also looking at us, but he wasn’t looking at me.

He was watching Harper, and seeing who Harper was talking to—now he saw me and he saw me watching him. That was enough. He grimaced, swearing under his breath (not hard to read lips when someone says ‘fuck’) and then two guys walked past them, and they were gone.

I looked but couldn’t see them.

That was… odd.

“We want you gone.”

I tuned back in. Harper was taking the charge, motioning for Jordan to leave.

The guys around Harper were rallying, moving in as if they were going to physically force Jordan from the premises.

Cross growled, moving to meet them.

And that was my cue. I went, too, reaching for an old friend of mine. I pulled out my knife. It’d been a graduation gift from Cross. A little wolf had been carved into the handle. I loved it, I now slept with it at my bedside, but it accomplished its desired effect.

The old Bren was here and pushing to join the fight. She wanted out of her cage.

I smiled.

They stopped in their tracks at the knife, but the smile, a smile that I knew was eerie, sent them edging backwards.

Harper didn’t move. His gaze was transfixed on my knife and he paled, his jaw slackening.

What happened next, I’d think back on later.

I’d wonder if we continued how we were going, what would happen. If we would’ve contained the situation, scared the guys off, and Jordan could’ve stayed and had a good night, or if things would have inevitably turned bad anyway?

In a way, maybe it didn’t matter?