THARNISHED HEARTS

by Allen, J. C

  The man glanced down in horror, seeming to only realize then that he had indeed peed himself. That this seemed to bother him more than the gaping, gushing wound in his foot was something of a curious fact for me. A sudden look of rage had grown like an invading ivy across his features.

  He moved down, starting to try and draw what looked like a knife. Before he had the chance, I shot him in his hand and he cried out again, dropping the gun and cupping his wounded hand.

  “I’d rather not deal with knives again, thanks,” I said as the man continued to howl in pain like the wimp that he was.

  “A-are you gonna kill me?” he asked through a pain-soaked sneer. “Pl-please don’t!”

  “Not if we don’t have to,” I said, though I wasn’t sure how true that actually was. If it was up to me, it was, but it probably wouldn’t be.

  “But we will,” Tara said with a wicked smirk. “And we’ll likeit, too!”

  Something in the man’s demeanor changed. For a while, he looked like the complete bitch that was going to cry for his uncle because he was getting beat up. But somewhere around Tara saying “but we will,” his eyes had grown narrower and his face had turned more red. He went from a coward to a man determined to fight to the last moment.

  “Fuck you!” he said, narrowing his eyes. “Falcon won’t let you win! You’ll fucking see! I may die here, but you’ll come with me!”

  He slid out a small device that looked like a TV remote.

  “The fuck? You tryin’ to TiVo us?”

  “Tara!” Matty boomed from downstairs. “Get the fuck out of there! Now!”

  I’d heard plenty of yelling from Matty up to that point, but I had never heard him speak with such conviction as that moment. Without waiting for Tara, I grabbed her arm and hurried down the stairs.

  “What are you—”

  “No, Tara, now!” I shouted.

  I think she got the urgency from my voice, because for once, she didn’t try and talk back and demand something. When we got to the bottom of the stairs, I watched Roost’s face grow in alarm. Then, to my surprise, he grabbed both Tara and me in his meaty arms and rushed outside, moving with speed that a man of his size shouldn’t have.

  I could hear the man’s laughter behind us. It wasn’t hard to figure out what he had done—he was going to die.

  But it sure seemed like we weren’t going to move fast enough.

  “You won’t get out in time! You will all die!” he screamed.

  Then I heard the single beep.

  “Roost!” Tara shouted.

  “Shut up!” he roared.

  We made it halfway towards the waiting door at the end of the stretch when the whole place went bright and hot, exploding in flames. In that moment, as the air seemed to get heavier around me and a smell like burning metal saturated the area, it felt like somebody had stuffed me in an cannon and proceeded to shoot me like a human cannonball straight through every single level of hell. I really thought, as I closed my eyes, that I was about to burn to death.

  Then we were soaring out the front door, falling behind a large metal dumpster as the building exploded behind us. I cried out, the roaring in my ears jarring me. Roost, still holding us in his arms, sheltered both Tara and me still. I was in a ton of pain, and my body felt like it had jumped into hell.

  But.

  We had survived.

  Moments later, things died down, and I glanced over at the remains of the factory. Roost helped Tara and me up and then turned to look as well, shaking his head.

  “That’s a lot of product gone to waste, and I’m glad fer it,” he said, running his hand across his neck. “Buddy ain’t gonna like this.”

  “Buddy?” I asked.

  “Friend of mine who works on the force,” Roost said. “We’ve been buds since middle school and he’s helped me out so far.”

  A silence came over the three of us as, at least as I saw it, we admired just what the hell we had accomplished.

  Somehow, two whores and an out-of-shape man in his fifties, at best, had managed to take down an entire Black Falcons hideout. We had done it despite two of us having no formal training, one of us having a near-suicidal wish, and myself still learning to get comfortable with shooting and combat.

  I don’t know what that said about us or the Falcons, but I was a goddamn happy girl, especially because of what had happened this morning.

  “Well, good riddance to this place!” Tara said, kicking a nearby pile of rubble. “Fuck you, Falcons! We’ll burn down the next one tomorrow!”

  “Actually, Tara,” I said, putting my arm around her and quickly thinking of the right words. “Why don’t we take a couple of days to celebrate this one? Maybe tomorrow or something we can have a girl’s night out.”

  “Fine by me!” I said, and I winked at Matty, who just shook his head in disbelief. “Alright, let’s get out of here!”

  “Couldn’t have agreed faster,” I said.

  “Eve,” Matty said. “A moment, please?”

  I looked at Tara, who motioned for me to go to Matty. I told her it wouldn’t take more than a minute and headed over. Matty waited until Tara had gotten in the car, and then gave me a stern look.

  “I’m tellin’ ya this cuz yer the only one of ya two that listens,” he said. “What ya two did was beyond stupid. It was… part of me can’t believe yer asses are still alive. We play that scenario out a hundred times, ya caught the one instance ya ain’t dead.”

  “Matty—”

  “Uh uh, honey. Ya gotta listen to what I have to say.”

  It wasn’t that I didn’t want to hear this, but I felt sure Tara was the better audience. But, then again, he had said I was the only one who listened, so maybe it made sense for him to be speaking only to me.

  “Next time she goes and does somethin’ full retard like this, ya gotta let her go do it on her own.”

  “What?”

  “Sorry, but she been warned more than ‘nough times to know better.”

  While I understood the logic behind it, that just seemed downright cruel, almost like I would be guilty of murder by omission instead of commission.

  “I know ya like her, and ya got better words with her than I do,” he said. “I know she likes me, but she likes me cuz I’m somethin’ she can stand up to. Yer actually a peer to her. So do what ya can to keep her out of the way. Cuz if she gets caught in the crossfire or goes all Mission Impossible on us, I ain’t gonna stand up for her anymore. K?”

  I nodded.

  “OK,” I said.

  “Good,” he said. “Now follow me back to the shop. I need ya with me when I show up so Derek don’t murder me.”

  5

  Derek

  “Where is she?”

  I had gotten back to the shop about twenty minutes ago with AK, Rucker, and Bones, only to find a shop more or less deserted. A few men remained, handling some of the menial tasks, but none doing anything related to our work with the Falcons.

  But now, Tara and Eve were both gone.

  And so was Roost.

  “The fuck did they go?” I said again, my frustration growing.

  I looked for the nearest member, a newest member without a nickname named George. I went over to him, a stern look in my eyes, and saw him immediately drop everything that he was doing.

  “Y-yes, sir?” he said.

  I took a deep breath, trying not to sound intimidating, although part of me worried that that action had only made it worse.

  “When did you get here, George?”

  “A-about an hour ago, sir?”

  “And was Roost, Tara, or Eve here when you arrived?”

  “No, not at all. Roost’s bike wasn’t here either.”

  So at least they were kidnapped. Well, Roost wasn’t. Tara and Eve might be, though…

  “Thanks,” I said, hurrying to the garage to see what I could find.

  And, unfortunately, I found exactly what I didn’t want to find—my father’s Camaro. As much as I loved that car,
and as much as I loved that it stood for my father, there was nothing I loved about seeing it. In fact, if anything, it sent me into an even greater rage.

  “Where did they go!” I shouted.

  Blind panic began to set in as I assumed the worst. The Falcons had come while we were gone and kidnapped Eve. Roost had done what he could, but now he was probably unreachable.

  I called him on his phone, but sure enough, it went straight to his voicemail. There was no reaching him at this hour, now that he was undoubtedly on his bike.

  “Damnit,” I said.

  I then called Tara and Eve. I’m not really sure why I expected that they would pick up, but if I was in a bit of a blind panic, maybe some blind actions would also get me out of this spot.

  Nope. Nothing.

  I cursed loudly and kicked the ground. We had succeeded in taking out one of the hideouts of the Falcons, but it might as well have been the most Pyrrhic of victories we could have ever had. We took out their base; they had grabbed the girls. We took out their hideaway; they took my spirit.

  Roost, you just had better not fall.

  And then I remembered something. We had security cameras. They would tell us—hopefully—everything we needed to know.

  I brushed past the three Marines, asking them to come with me. I didn’t want to risk an ambush from a Black Falcon who had had the bright idea to stay behind while the rest of the crew left, the better to attack us while we were limited in numbers. They kept an eye out for me, sweeping the area, but nothing of the sorts came.

  Inside the office, I tried to make sense of anything out of the ordinary. I saw a half-eaten sandwich from Roost, which was in itself a giant red flag. The fatty never, ever, ever left food uneaten, so that told me something drastic had happened that had caused him to stand up quickly. Unfortunately, this only fed into the narrative that someone had captured Eve and Tara even more and that Roost had run after them to rescue them.

  Still, I couldn’t say for sure until I actually went onto the shop computer and pulled up the software that showed the security cameras. Using the mouse, I rewound the cameras until I last saw Roost sitting in the office. For good measure, just to be on the safe side, I went back about ten minutes before then.

  For the first five minutes or so, nothing of interest happened. Roost ate his sandwich, belched, and went through his papers. The other cameras didn’t show anything of interest, other than a couple of Saviors here and there coming and going—nothing out of the ordinary.

  And then I saw it.

  From the camera that oversaw our lot of vehicles, Tara hurried to a truck, wearing… a smile? And multiple rifles?

  And the keys to the truck?!?

  Then I saw my girl, my Eve, running into view. The truck almost pulled out of the lot, but Eve banged on the windows, said something… and then appeared to get into the truck completely of her own accord. I replayed the tape a few times, trying to see if Tara had gone vogue, but no matter how often I looked at it, I could only say that Eve had gotten in on her own.

  It was about this same time that Roost, perhaps hearing the truck take off, began barreling through the shop, getting outside just in time to see the truck take off. He had then moved way faster than I had ever thought possible, jumping on his bike and chasing after them.

  Where the fuck did they go?

  And for that matter, how long is Tara gonna live before I kill her myself?!?

  “Good news, boys,” I said, pushing back from the chair. “Tara and Eve left here of their own accord. Bad news is, I think I’m gonna have to kill Tara for it.”

  I said it with a smile in case they took it too literally, but a part of me couldn’t really pretend that I didn’t want some literal action in it. For her to have taken Eve somewhere… and I highly doubt that they went to get ice cream. Knowing Tara, she had probably taken them right into the line of fire somewhere else.

  Damnit, Tara.

  I ran my hand through my hair again and frowned, wondering if I was going to go bald from all the stress. I pulled my phone out and tried to call Roost again, but again it went to voicemail. I looked at the three Marines—they’d already done so much in the past week for me, and I was about to ask them to help me again. I had no idea how much patience they had for this sort of thing, but it was certainly far more than I would have had for myself.

  “Alright guys, we need to get a search party going,” I said. “They’re in a black pickup truck. You know what Roost’s…”

  My voice trailed off as I heard the sound of tires over the gravely surface of the shop’s parking lot, followed by a motorcycle coming up.

  “Well, better news, party found,” I said, calling back as I headed outside. “You’re free to go home for the night!”

  I rushed towards the door, slamming it open and saw Roost, Tara, and Eve making their way to the door. Tara was laughing, Eve looked like she was humoring Tara, and Roost looked frustrated beyond all measure.

  I blinked.

  Did I miss something here?

  “Where the fuck did you guys go?”

  Eve stiffened immediately. Roost bit his lip.

  Tara just kept talking.

  “You’re welcome, Mr. Knight!” she said, carrying with her the usual cocky attitude she had that I had a particular disdain for in this very moment. “Thanks to our efforts, we took out a second compound for you guys!”

  “What… wait, seriously? The fuck?”

  “It’s true,” Roost said. “I already read ‘em the riot act. Yer welcome to give yer own two cents if ya like.”

  “You damn right I am!” I shouted, noticing that their clothes were covered in black soot. “What in the actual fuck were you thinking? Actually, I’m addressing only one of you right now, because I know only one of you is responsible for this.”

  “We’re very convincing,” Tara said, giving me what only could be described as a Cheshire cat’s smile.

  “No, you are an arrogant fool who nearly got my girlfriend and my sergeant in arms killed! Are you fucking crazy?”

  “Yes,” she said with a smug smile.

  God, how I fucking hated this scene so much. Not just because Eve had taken those two to another compound… but because, by all accounts, they had actually succeeded.

  “And why the fuck did you think it was a good—”

  “Oh, don’t go givin’ me that attitude, Derek,” Tara said, drawing a stunned wide-eyed look from me that she had the gall to speak to me like that. “You know damn well I helped your asses at that neighborhood riot. Poor girl here would still be gettin’ club-raped by the Falcons if not for me sucking dick and getting information.”

  I snorted and groaned with my mouth shut, my way of demonstrating my displeasure, if not my disagreement. She was right, but that didn’t ameliorate my anger, most especially when she seemed to be giving it a sort of middle finger.

  “You left me, Eve, and Roost all by ourselves here, and what did you think was going to happen?”

  “That you’d realize there was probably two dozen Falcons, at least, at any of the places you went to, that Eve had gotten stabbed and escaped death by about half an inch this morning, and that as good as Roost is, he wasn’t going to take an army down by himself?”

  A tense silence filled the air as even Tara went silent. I never considered hitting her, but I was giving serious thought to banning her from the shop and my apartment at the rate she was going.

  And then, as if to encourage me and dare me to fulfill that thought, she started laughing.

  “Well, guess what? There were only about ten Falcons at the compound. Eve and I killed about three of them, one of them tried to murder-sui himself, and then Roost here took out all of them. So, you. Are. Welcome!”

  I couldn’t take another word of Tara’s attitude. Right or wrong, her behavior was making me think I couldn’t have her for these final three, maybe two missions—two to take out the remaining hideouts, and one for the final hunt for Falcon. It worked wonders here, bu
t I had no faith it would work again.

  “Eve, Roost, let me talk to you two in my office,” I said. “Tara. Do whatever the hell you want.”

  “Finally!”

  “He’s not sayin’ that as a compliment, ya know,” Roost said.

  But Tara ignored him, moving somewhere into the shadows of the shop while I led the two of them back to the office. I actually found my anger subsiding as I moved with my two favorite people. They were alive despite their foolish, brash attempt to… well, to support Tara, I guess? That was really all that mattered.

  Once they got inside, I closed the door behind them, locked it, and let out a long, long sigh—and even smiled.

  “OK, let me ask the sane people. What happened? You guys look like you just came out of an explosion.”

  “That’s actually pretty on point,” Roost said.

  “Wait, what? I wasn’t… OK. I’m feeling good that you two are alive. I want to keep it that way. So, Eve. Can you tell me what happened? Why did you get in the truck?”

  “Of course,” Eve said.

  I was surprised that she looked more resolute and less apologetic than I had expected. It actually, weirdly for the situation, made me proud. It made me believe she was becoming stronger and could better handle herself in combat.

  Unlike, well, Tara.

  “I was trying to sleep and had trouble doing so, so I asked Matty and Tara to let me, and they did,” she said.

  I noticed some lip movement from Roost, as if Eve had just saved him from a more vulgar truth. But, all things considered, that didn’t seem that big a deal.

  “Tara then woke me up, said Roost was snoring.”

  “She did?” Roost said, surprised.

  “Yeah, cameras show he was eating a sandwich.”

  “Oh,” Eve said. Tara’s even more crazed than I thought. “And so, anyways, she tried to get me with her to go to the second site. I didn’t want to and told Tara as much. But then she just took off without me, and I realized she was serious. She was gonna move forward without me. And I wasn’t about to leave my best friend behind on something that dangerous.”

  “And that’s when I heard ‘em roarin’ off, and I thought ‘hell naw, I ain’t losin’ my job cuz of this.’ So I joined them and we went to the second building.”