Page 247 of Boys Who Hunt

I laugh so loudly that the whole building could probably hear, but I don’t care.

I haven’t laughed so freely in a long time, and the feeling overwhelms me with joy.

“Good job, Donut,” Silas says, clapping his hands before cringing from the pain in his bullet wound.

I abruptly stop laughing and glare at him with a raised brow. “Donut? His name isBagel.”

Silas awkwardly stares back with a stupid grin on his face. “Not anymore.”

“Uh-oh,” Max mutters while Heath begins to snigger.

My brows furrow suspiciously whenBageljumps down onto the floor and begins to curl his tail against Silas. “What have I missed?”

CHAPTER 60

Silas

“This should be tighter,”Mom says, tugging at my bandage.

“Ow!” I yelp, swatting her hand aside. “Stop.”

“I wouldn’t have to do this if you didn’t get knifed in the first place, Silas,” my mom growls.

“It’s just a flesh wound,” I retort.

“Stay still.” She retapes the bandage onto my skin. “There. Better.”

“You really think you can do it better than the nurses?” Dad asks, leaning back in the plastic chair in the corner of my room.

“Yes.” Mom folds her arms. “They do a piss-poor job here compared to a real hospital.”

“Arealhospital. Where they will be asking questions about why our son was shot,” my dad grits.

Mom rolls her eyes and throws her purple hair over her shoulder.

“It’s fine,” I say, leaning back in the bed. “It’ll heal.”

“My heart won’t,” she says. “Do you know how worried I was when you called your dad? You should’ve told me you were going to go on a goddamn hunt for the Bones Brotherhood Mafia.”

“She’s right. When you’re out of here, you’re in a fuck ton of trouble,” Dad hisses. “Do you even know what the Bones Brotherhood is?”

“Whatever,” I reply. “The guy was a piece of shit who sent his men to drag a girl off the streets. He hurt his wife and her kid, and almost killed her. He deserved it.”

“I can’t believe you went out there on your own,” Mom rages. “Why?”

But I’m not sure I’m ready to say the words out loud yet, so I let the silence speak for itself.

“Twenty corpses, Silas. Twenty. Maybe more. That’s how many my men had to clean up. Do you know how much blood there was left?”

“Mom …” I sigh.

“No, don’t Mom me.” She grabs my chin, forcing me to look at her. “I know what it was like to be young, okay? I was there.”

“She’s right. She killed a ton of people,” my dad says nonchalantly while staring at the wall ahead.

“Many more violent than the ones you encountered,” she adds.

“And?”