Holly was now surrounded by five large men who had started to use the term gangbang.
Blondie had jumped off her barstool and got to Holly before Max could. She swung her backpack. “You get your hands off of her, you filthy piece of crap. All of you better back away from her.”
Chaos. Wow. It was just taking over. One minute everything was fairly peaceful, and now it looked like Armageddon was about to happen. One of the assholes screamed as blondie’s backpack hit him in the head. She moved well. She was trained and not in a cardio-at-the-gym way. She was some form of law enforcement. Or she had been before she’d decided to backpack across America.
“I’m not underage,” Seth said with a confident grin. He stood at the bar talking to Sawyer. “I have the ID to prove it.”
“It’s a fake,” Sawyer shot back.
“Prove it.” Seth held out his ID.
Sawyer rolled his eyes. “I don’t have to. That’s Logan Green. He’s barely nineteen. He just graduated from high school last year.”
Seth held up a second ID. “You’re wrong. His name is Orion Buchwald. He’s twenty-two. We don’t know this Logan Green you speak of.”
Logan just sighed. “Please don’t call my moms.”
Nell’s eyes met Bishop’s and then quickly slid away, refocusing on the bartender. “Do you have any organic liquor?”
A rough shout pulled him back to the Holly issue. “Look, bitch, I can take you, too.”
He was really going to have to deal with the muscular assholes. The whole bar was watching the scene play out.
“You better take a step back.” Max got off his barstool. “These things can get nasty.”
“Don’t you try anything.” Blondie reached into her bag as Max stepped up. It was obvious she didn’t know he was trying to play savior. “I have pepper spray.”
“Why would you pepper spray me? I’m trying to help. Damn. I get sprayed too much as it is.” Max took a step back.
“I don’t think violence is the answer.” Nell just kept coming, her hands out in a placating gesture. “We should sit down and have a sharing circle.”
Why did he want her? Oh, yeah. Her boobs were really nice. And she had those freaking lips. “Don’t get closer.”
She was about to get into the middle of this and that meant he would be forced to take over.
“I’d like a beer.” Seth just bellied up to the bar like he didn’t have a care in the world. Little bastard.
Bishop got off his barstool. Fuck all. He would just pick Nell up and leave, but she would likely protest that action, too. “Nell. Get back, now.”
She frowned his way. “Why should I listen to you? You left me.”
She’d come after him. No doubt about it. So the sweet thing was really interested. Now the only problem was the way the world was kind of falling apart around him. “I was thirsty, Nell. Get back.”
“You didn’t say good-bye.” Nell crossed her arms over her very nice breasts. He could remember the way her nipples had pressed into his chest before the Stark kid had interrupted him.
“I’m not giving you a beer.” Sawyer rolled his eyes at Seth.
“Hey, you should get your hands off her.” Logan seemed to have stopped worrying about his moms once he finally caught sight of what was happening with Holly.
“Hey!” Seth followed his friend’s eyes and stopped bitching about his lack of a beer. He came off his stool and started making his way toward men who outweighed his skinny ass by a hundred pounds of muscle. “I don’t think she wants you touching her.”
“You two kids better step the fuck back, and blondie there can come with us, too.” The biggest of the mean assholes, whom he now numbered one through five since he would prefer to kill them in a neat order because when it came to killing, he was a little OCD, managed to get a hand in blondie’s hair. He tugged back.
“My name is Laura, bastard. I’m the blondie who’s going to kick your ass.” She struggled, trying to get those killer heels into his foot.
Max took a punch to his gut, but it oddly seemed to make him happy. He threw himself at his opponent, his fists flying.
Everyone got in on the action. Almost faster than his eyes could track, the entire bar erupted in pure chaos. Bishop sighed and eyed the door, hoping for a clear path out. The truth was none of this was his problem. Holly had come to the wrong place looking to get laid. The blonde chick was obviously in some sort of trouble, likely on the run from something she’d done. The two kids were obnoxious, and a near-death experience would just toughen them up. Max Harper seemed to have found his nirvana, and the dude behind the bar was a baby criminal with the patch to prove it.
Not his problem.
Nell, on the other hand, was. He took her hand and started to lead her out.
“Henry, what are you doing?” Nell asked, her cruelty-free shoes scooting across the floor.
Bishop kept walking. “Getting you out of here. They don’t want to join in a sharing circle, Nell. You’re going to get hurt.”
“My friends are already getting hurt.” She tried to pull away from him. “What’s wrong with you? We can’t leave them.”
He heard a crash and someone screaming. He totally could leave them. He was going to get a headache. “They’ll be fine.”
She pulled at his arm, finally dropping to the floor, her dead weight causing him to turn. He was surprised to see tears streaming down her face. He was amazed at how much the sight kicked him firmly in the gut. “You go on. I have to go help my friends.”
She weighed maybe a hundred and fifteen pounds. She’d almost surely never been in a fight in her life. She claimed she abhorred violence, and he believed her.
“They’re fighting, Nell. What are you going to do?” Bishop asked.
“I don’t know, but I can’t leave them.” She got to her feet.
“You’re going to get hurt.”
“Then I get hurt. I’ll hurt worse if I know I didn’t try. Let me go.” She would do it, he suddenly understood. She would walk into that chaos and try to talk reason to people who would just as likely kill her. She was stupid, and Bishop sort of admired her. He finally got what Sawyer had been trying to explain. Nell believed, but even more than that, Nell was willing to put herself on the line for her beliefs. They weren’t empty words to her. They were who she was.
He pulled her back. “I will take care of it on one condition.”
“Take care of it?” She was shouting over the chaos. “How?”
He wasn’t about to tell her the how of it. “I’ll take care of it but you have to go out with me tonight and you can’t blame me for what I’m about to do.”
She nodded. “Don’t kill anyone, Henry. That kind of karma is hard to shake.”
He had so much of that karma he was up to his ears in it, but he just gave her a nod. “And, Nell, don’t watch. Just trust me. Can you trust me?”
She put a hand on his chest and closed her eyes. “Don’t get hurt, Henry.”
It was five against one, like that could hurt him. The main problem he had was saving the civilians, though Max Harper was doing a fine job on his own. He was gleefully taking apart his guy and Sawyer had another in a headlock. Asshole Number One was trying to pull both Holly and Laura around the bar, likely to get them to the parking lot. Assholes Three and Five were dealing with the kids. Three had Seth Stark’s lanky body dangling from his hand, the kid’s sneakers kicking for the second time that day. Logan was faring better surprisingly. He was taking a chair to his asshole’s back.
Bishop started with the girls. He walked straight up to Asshole One, no hesitation.