The walk to my place after leaving The Bar isn't long. I don't ever bother buying a car anywhere I go. It's too easy to track down and too expensive for something I end up having to ditch after a few months. It's much easier and more beneficial to just find a place that's close enough to everything for me to walk. 

Kansas summer isn't too bad either. Not much is after growing up in the humid hell that is southern Georgia. Out there the air tries to drown you, here it goes down easy.

Four blocks away from The Bar is the old two story building that probably used to be blue but now who can really be sure with the amount of 'art' that covers the exterior walls. Two brick stairs lead to the front door that is always propped open since the glass window in it is shattered out anyway.

I push in and head down the hall, bypassing the stairs that lead up to my place, and walk into the open door at the end of the hallway. The smell of weed smacks me in the face the moment I walk in, practically having to shove through the clouds of smoke to find the back room. "Dom?"

"Back here." His voice calls back.

I follow it into a side office which is really probably supposed to be a closet. He stands in the doorway, hand out towards me.

"I owe you $200 more that I'll slide under your door when I get back from my shift tonight." I explain, putting the $300 I do have in his palm.

He brushes his stringing beard with one hand while he counts through the bills with the other. "This going to be a regular thing?" He asks, looking back up at me.

"No." I shake my head. "There was just this asshole-."

Dom steps to the side as another man emerges from the office.

"Hello again." The guy from the bar, Toby, with the cool tattoos, grins. "Doll, was it?"

"Alyssa." I roll my eyes and he laughs. He's got the same jacket as Daimon, but his doesn't have any patches on the front.

"Right, Alyssa." He nods, looking down at me. Was being a freaking tree a requirement for their little biker club? "I know Kross can be a little...cross?" He chuckles to himself.

"You come up with that one all by yourself?" I raise a brow and he sighs, still pleased with himself.

"I've been holding out for someone to use it with that won't kick my ass."

He winks but I shrug, always playing it cool. "Never know, I might."

"You always so feisty?"

"Yup." I blow a bubble with my gun, letting it pop loudly.

"Figures."

I look past him to Dom who is now being dwarfed by the giant beside him. "Anyway, I will have the rest of your money tonight." I tell him.

"Don't let it happen again." He warns as I turn.

I shoot him a salute on my way back through the apartment. "You got it."

"I think we're done here," I hear Toby saying. "Daimon will be in touch." I'm hardly a few feet away when Toby takes two steps and has already caught up with me. "I'll walk you out."

"You going to be my muscle?" I ask. "Who knew bikers were so chivalrous."

"Trust me, we aren't." He says under his breath. "But you couldn't have picked a worse place to hole up in. This place gets rough at night."

"Well I work at night, so I'm never here. And right now it's light out, and I'm a big girl, so I think I can handle myself." He follows me nonetheless, right out of Dom's apartment, up the stairs, two doors down to my place. "Plus, beggars can't be choosers." I shrug.

He leans against the door frame. "I can't picture you ever begging for anything."

I smile. "You're right. It's just cheap, and I don't need a lot. This is me." I point to the door, waiting for him to get the hint and leave so I can go in.

"Question." He says, rubbing the underside of his beard. "Why Kettle's Bell? Of all the places you could have ended up?"

"Why not?" I shrug. I'd hopped a train from New Orleans, two busses from Alabama to Missouri, then hitch hiked the highway into Kansas, walked a few miles, wound up here.

"This isn't really the town for strangers, Alyssa." There was something ominous in his voice and the way he looked at me so evenly, but I shook it off.

"So I've heard." I roll my eyes, deciding I'm sick of the mildew smell of the hallway I unlock the door and walk in, tossing my bag onto the small wooden table in the kitchen area, then turn back to make sure he stays where he is. "You boys run this town and yadda yadda."

"It's not yadda yadda, we do, and you should be careful." He turns so that he's leaning against the doorframe facing in.

I step forward, blocking the entry. "Is that a threat?"

"It's a warning, not a threat. At least not yet."

I roll my shoulders and stretch my neck from side to side. "Cool story and all, but I've got things to do before I need to get ready for work so if your plan is to murder me can you maybe come back and do it tonight after my shift so that I can at least die debt free?"

His mouth opens and closes twice. "Did you just invite me back over tonight?"

I throw my hands up in exasperation. "Of course that's what you heard, not the murder part."

"What's your story, Alyssa?" He asks, smiling now.

"I thought you had one question."

He rolls his eyes back and slumps his shoulders like he's bored. "Yeah, so did I."

"I don't have a story." I say, pushing his arms a little to try to further my point of being ready for him to go now.

He plants his feet though, holding onto the doorframe with both hands on either side. "Why don't you talk to Daimon?"

I drop my arms. "Is he what this is about? Did he send you here?"

"No," he says too quickly. "just answer."

"I don't talk to you either!" I toss my hands up again.

Somehow Toby manages to look just as annoyed with this conversation as I am. "More than him, which is a problem," He says, then out of the side of his mouth I swear I hear him whisper, "apparently."

I cross my arms and give him a steady glare. "What is my name?" I ask.

He blinks once. "Alyssa."

"Exactly."

He shakes his head at me, trying not to smile. "Is that really all this is about? He called you a name you don't like?"

"Bye." I wave, pointing out to the hall.

"Seriously, he starts calling you by your name and you'll give him the time of day?" He's asking while I'm shoving on his chest to force him out of my door and back into the hall.

"Yes!" I shout. "If he looked and me and said ' Hey, Alyssa? What time is it?' Then I'd say 'Hi, Daimon, it's time to get a watch." I laugh to myself.

Surprisingly Toby chuckles too. "I like you." He says and then stiffens, twisting his head to the side. "Not like that, shit."

"What?" I furrow my brows, now questioning his sanity.

"Nothing." He shakes it off. "Anyway, for real? Just use your name?"

I sigh. "No."

Now he's the one tossing up his tree trunk arms. "But you just said-."

"Look, it doesn't matter what he does, I'm just not interested."

"But-."

"No," I cut him off again. "I know what he wants, and I'm not interested. A guy like him wants to own, push, pry. I've been broken before. No man will ever do that to me again." I don't know why I went with honesty, but it's already out there now. "I don't know if you're little friend sent you to spy or what but you can tell him he's wasting his time. I'm not interested in playing any games with him."

"You've already started playing." Toby says, his eyes boring into mine with an intensity that makes me uncomfortable. "He never gives up."

"Well neither do I, and soon I'll be gone and he'll be on to finding the next girl to head fuck or entertain him for a week."

Toby shakes his head once. "No, when he decides he wants something he goes after it until he has it."

I can feel the heat in my face and ears I'm so angry. "That's exactly my point!" I yell, noting that someone down the hall has opened their door, likely trying to see what the commotion is coming from. "I'm not something to be had. I won't be, so you're free to go."

"Not until you-."

I'm over it, I've played nice as I can. I grab the bat I keep beside the door and I swing it into view. "I said, get the fuck out of here." I bite through my teeth.

His eyes find the bat and he smiles. "You wouldn't da-."

I slam the bat into the side of his neck and his whole body shakes as he jumps back. "You're fucking crazy!" He shouts, turning away, his muscles all coiling up. He looks like he's been set to vibrate. "You've got no idea what you-."

"Tell your story walking!" I shout, slamming the door and locking the deadbolt.

I'm no ones. I'm Alyssa fucking Barnes. I bow to no man. Not even Daimon Kross.