Man Made Murder (Blood Road Trilogy Book 1) Read Free Page A

front room, stepping over the hump in the floor. His toe sent an empty soda can skittering, his shoulders pulling tight at the noise.
    The walls were sprayed with graffiti, the kind bored kids left when they got a hold of a can of spray paint. No art in it, just memorials to the fact that they existed: We were here they all said, one way or another. Jimbo ’72. Hell no, we won’t go. Cara & Michael 4-eva.
    No one here gets out alive.
    The dog’s pitch grew higher, more urgent.
    A door off the room led to the kitchen. From where he stood, Dean could make out cabinets with their doors missing and a gap in the counter like a missing tooth where a stove might once have been. A tree grew against the window, one of its branches reaching through broken glass like an arm.
    He stepped back, knocking over a glass bottle with a dull clatter. Looking over his shoulder, the glint of something caught his eye. Crouching, he lifted a thin silver bracelet, dangling it over his finger. He didn’t know much about jewelry, but it felt like it was worth something.
    Letting it slide back to the floor, he straightened. It was cooler inside the house than out, like the place was an icebox, keeping the cold in. He looked at the ceiling again, cracks crossing the plaster, a dark hole near the corner exposing part of the wooden skeleton above his head.
    He was starting to think he didn’t want to be here, didn’t really need to get high this badly. He hadn’t handed over any money. He was free to walk out the door and go get drunk instead. The guys were probably just pulling up to Shorty’s right now. He was just going to be sitting on a bus for five hours come morning. With enough aspirin, orange juice, and road vibrations, he’d be over a hangover in time for sound check.
    He turned, and the biker came around the corner, almost walking into him. Putting him off-balance.
    It felt intentional, the way he’d pushed right in, but as the biker raised a hand, a sandwich bag tumbled in his grip, hanging from his thumb and finger. The thin plastic caught the moonlight like rippled water.
    Dean reached for his wallet.
    “Need papers?” the biker asked.
    “Yeah.”
    “Consider me your one-stop shop.” He put the baggie in Dean’s hand while he reached inside his jacket. “These are on the house even.”
    Dean had a finger in his billfold, the other hand weighing the weed, his thumb rubbing the surface of the baggie—and the biker flipped the packet of rolling papers into the air with his thumbnail. It turned as it rose before arced back down, landing between their feet.
    “Whoops,” the biker said.
    He just stood there.
    Dean added the baggie to his wallet hand and bent to scoop the packet of papers off the floor.
    The biker’s hand dropped to the hilt of the knife strapped to his thigh.
    The biker’s weight shifted to one foot.
    Dean’s brain matched the movement with the consequences too slowly—it was only starting to send his muscles the signal to move when the toe of the biker’s boot caught him under the ribs.
    The blow twisted him. The baggie slid off his wallet. He caught the floor with the flat of his hand, hard, the impact jarring his wrist.
    The biker’s boot swung back again.
    Dean got a knee under him and pushed forward, clutching his wallet, his eyes locked on the front door. The closest path to it meant squeezing between the biker and the wall.
    The biker’s kick grazed his flank as he pushed against the rucked-up boards.
    The biker’s punch caught him in the side of the head.
    His shoulder hit the wall.
    Adrenaline spiked, bristling his nerves, but his reactions were half a beat behind. He brought an arm up to shield himself, but the biker’s leather-gloved hand caught his face, cranking it aside, grinding his cheekbone against the wall.
    Leather and dust and lightly mildewed wallpaper assaulted Dean’s nostrils. Gritting his teeth, he clutched the biker’s wrist. The grip on his face clamped down harder as the