SURVIVING SAVANNAH: GODS OF CHAOS MC (BOOK 16)

by Honey Palomino

  “You are our leader, our master! Our blood is your life, your life is our blood. We bow to you, oh great one, we worship you, we honor you with an offering of eternal life, with the blood of the young and the ageless, the blood of the innocent, we drink it and give you life!”

  Maggie and I exchanged a look and it took all my strength not to run and put my arms around her. For this to work, we had to make them think we were with them.

  Anton spun in a circle, his head turned up to the stars as Bradley spoke next, his turn to worship the old man.

  “Master, the world lives on in eternal gratitude for the gifts you have bestowed upon us. We honor your knowledge and wisdom, oh great one! Let us fall at your sacred feet and be worthy of your love.”

  Anton lowered his arms and placed his hand on each of their heads. “I bless you, sons.”

  They rose to their feet and Anton walked over to Maggie, nodding solemnly as he looked into her eyes.

  “It is time, Child.”

  She nodded and I saw a twinge of fear in her eyes. He grabbed her hand and led her towards the bonfire, the flames sputtering and sending sparks dancing up towards the hanging moss.

  Finley reached down and picked up a large package wrapped in burlap from the base of the bonfire and offered it to Anton.

  Time seemed to stop as I watched Anton’s eyes light up with glee. He parted the burlap and pulled out a long, thin, shiny knife. He held it up to the moon and ran a finger over the sharp blade, licking his lips as he looked back at Maggie.

  Disgust churned in my stomach.

  He grabbed Maggie’s hand and pulled her arm towards him. A whimper passed her lips as he placed the cold blade against her skin, pressing down gently as a slow smile spread across his lips, his face lit up eerily by the sputtering flames.

  Right as the knife was about to break through her skin, the Gods broke through the darkness around us, guns drawn, surrounding them in an instant.

  I pulled out my own gun and turned it on the closest guy next to me — Bradley. He put his hands up but moved to try to take the gun away. I cocked right towards his head, and he froze.

  “Drop the fucking knife, old man!” Ryder growled, startling Anton. He dropped the weapon out of surprise. It fell to the ground at Maggie’s feet and she reached down and picked it up, running over behind me.

  Ryder’s gun pressed into Anton’s forehead, his face now drained of all color.

  “You sick fuck,” he said. “Don’t fucking move!”

  Slade, Riot and Blade held the others at gunpoint, and they looked just as scared and helpless as their leader did.

  “We got a whole gaggle of sick fuckers, it looks like,” Slade said, forcing Rothstein to his knees near the bonfire.

  Blade took the end of his gun and put it right against Finley’s forehead. “Especially this one.”

  We’d spent the week planning and putting all of this in place, and I’d grown to respect Blade immensely. He was a good guy and his love for Rose was apparent.

  Slade had quickly become one of my favorite Gods, too, even if I sensed he hated me as much as Blade did. He didn’t mince words and he was funny as hell in the process.

  Once I’d woken up Cherry and they’d seen she was going to be okay, they’d decided to let me live. I was grateful, because seeing them in action now was thrilling and terrifying, and I knew I’d have never survived if they’d turned that wrath on me.

  “Your own granddaughter, you fuck?” Blade sneered to Finley. “What the hell is wrong with you? What kind of man does that? You’ve done nothing but try to ruin Rose's life since she was a kid. You don’t deserve her, you prick.”

  “I don’t think you gentlemen understand exactly what you’re doing here,” Anton’s lawyer spoke up, despite Slade’s gun pointed right at his face. “These men are prominent members of the —.”

  “—prominent members of the murder society? Is that what they are?” Riot asked, digging his gun into Carlisle’s cheek. “Because you’re all about to be members of the fucking prison community, if we let you live.”

  “That’s absurd,” Anton scoffed, his voice shaking. “Clearly there’s been a mistake. Is it money you want? I have money.”

  “We could give a shit about your money, you sick fuck!” Ryder shouted.

  “I saw you!” Maggie screamed from behind me, her voice soaring over the roar of the bonfire. “I saw you kill Lily! I saw what you did to Josephine! I told them everything!”

  Anton looked over at her with rage in his eyes.

  “Child, shut your mouth!” he cried, his eyes wild with anger.

  “It’s over, old man,” Ryder said. “You’re done for.”

  “What do you think you’re going to do?” he challenged.

  “You’re about to find out,” Ryder replied.

  At that moment, Grace, Rose, Hannah and Cherry came out of the dark shadows surrounding us, their hands filled with restraints. When the men saw them, their eyes widened.

  “Make one wrong move, motherfucker,” Slade said, cocking his gun. “Make my fucking day, please.”

  Ryder directed them all over to the trunks of nearby trees, and the women began tying them up. Rose walked over to her father, staring down at him with disdain dripping from her eyes.

  “My own father,” she said, shaking her head. “I cut you out of my life a long time ago, but now I see it wasn’t soon enough. You make me wish I was never born. You make me wish I didn’t carry your DNA in my body. I hope you rot in prison.” Tears streamed down her face as she backed away.

  “What’s with all this prison talk, for fuck’s sake?” Bradley spoke up. “I’m the fucking sheriff of this town! Nobody’s going to jail, you fucking idiots!”

  “You’re wrong. We’ve already contacted the FBI,” Riot said, shutting him up.

  “You don’t have any fucking evidence!” Bradley cried.

  “I have video,” Cherry said, laughing at him. “It was hidden under the seat of my car. I guess your excellent police work didn’t find that, huh?”

  “They know all about your corrupt ass,” Riot continued. “They should be here in the morning, so if you mother fuckers actually make it through the night alive, without getting recruited by a bunch of ghosts to the afterlife, or become tonight’s dinner for some hungry wildlife — aren’t there bears here occasionally? — then you can expect to see the FBI at dawn.”

  They grew silent, one by one hanging their heads in defeat.

  Within a few moments, they were completely restrained and their chances of getting free without help were non-existent.

  “Good luck, fuckers,” Slade called out, laughing as we left them there, the moon watching over them to make sure they never hurt another soul.

  Epilogue

  CHERRY

  Looking around the big round table at my extended family filled me immense joy. I was so happy to be alive, even though I had to live on this side of the veil without Doc, the love of my life.

  Once I’d woken up and my head cleared, I knew that my time with Doc had been merely a hallucination, but I still considered that time with him as sacred. He’d always be in my heart, until the day I died.

  In the meantime, I had this crew of misfits to keep me company. I was immensely grateful they’d come to take care of me, and if it wasn’t for them, I’d probably still be unconscious, or worse.

  We’d all gathered for a party at Slade’s hotel room before they all headed back home. He’d insisted he wanted us to meet his new ghost friends, so there we were having a seance and trying to summon the dead.

  “You’re crazy, you know that, right?” I said to him across the table.

  He’d found a ouija board somewhere, insisting he needed to meet someone named Zelda. We all knew he was out of his mind, but we loved him so much, we were all playing along.

  It almost felt like old times.

  Almost.

  Grace and Ryder were happily sitting together while Riot and Lacey watched Slade be Slade.
Even the kid I had just met, Blade, seemed to fit in perfectly. He sat with Rose in his lap, his arm flung casually around her waist. Maggie and Clem played with Sadie in Lacey’s room, and Maggie was excited about her upcoming graduation trip to Hawaii. Rose had bought a ticket for Tara, too, and they were going together, but definitely coming back home, at least until school started.

  “Okay, everyone hold hands,” Slade said.

  We followed along, grabbing each other’s hands over the table and exchanging mocking glances, as Slade closed his eyes and began chanting.

  “Spirits, come to us tonight under the light of the full moon. We are open to you, opening our hearts and souls to you that you may visit us from the other side.”

  He paused, listening before opening one eye in a wrinkled squint and looking around the room. When nothing happened, he continued.

  “Spirits, bless us with your presence. We call on you to impart your magical light and um —”

  He stopped, then looked down at the book in his lap, reading from a passage in some book he’d bought. “—divine enchantment. We offer you these gifts in exchange.” He let go of Riot’s hand and placed a long, black feather and a small crystal on the table in front of him. “Please accept our offerings and bless us with your presence.”

  “Release your hands and place them on the board, please.”

  He put his hands on the ouija board in front of him and we all did the same, covering the edges as he continued talking.

  The candles on the mantle began flickering and Slade almost jumped for joy.

  “You’re here!” He cried out, as excited as a little boy. “Who are you? Please tell us your name!”

  He put his hands on the lever, his eyes widening as it began moving. I hadn’t thought this would work at all, but it was amazing to see that lever moving on its own. Slade was barely touching it. We all held our breath as we watched it move down towards the bottom letters.

  Slade looked over at us, muttering. “It’s Zelda, I just know it.”

  “We’ll see,” Riot said, shaking his head.

  The lever kept moving, stopping on the ‘O’.

  We all froze, our mouths opened.

  “O!” Slade said, just as the lever began moving again. It headed to the ‘L’ and stopped for just a second before continuing to the ‘I’.

  “O, L, I…” Slade said, shaking his head.

  The lever kept going and we watched in awe. It traveled down to the bottom of the board, stopping at the ‘V’ and then speeding back up towards the ‘E’ and then all the way back down again until it got to the ‘R’ and then it stopped completely.

  “Oliver!” Slade cried. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “Whoa,” Riot said, shaking his head. “That’s weird.”

  “Who’s Oliver?” Rose asked.

  “Oh, my god! Look!” Grace said, pointing to the terrace. Our heads turned together and we all gasped when we saw the owl sitting on the iron railing.

  “Holy fuck!” Slade said, standing up quickly, his chair flying across the room. He ran towards the balcony, but the owl flew away.

  Slade turned back to us with his eyes full of wonder, like a child that had just seen Santa Claus.

  “Did you fucking see that?” he exclaimed. We all laughed as he danced around the room. “I told you there were ghosts.”

  “That was Oliver, not a ghost,” Riot said. “And come on, we know it wasn’t really him. How could he get across the country? It was just a coincidence!”

  “A coincidence, my ass!” Slade insisted. I jumped up to make another drink, giggling, my heart full. I missed these people so much. A good dose of them was just what I needed.

  There was just one person missing. It was bittersweet being around them. It made me miss him more.

  I walked over to the bar in the corner to refill my glass with whiskey, and felt a slap on my ass. I jumped, then heard a familiar voice whisper in my ear.

  “How’d you like that trick? I love messing with that boy.” Doc asked. “I did that for you, babe.”

  “I loved it,” I whispered, my heart swelling with happiness.

  “I was going to use that board to call him a prick, but he would have known it was me.”

  “It was perfect,”I replied, laughing. I felt his curls brush against my ear.

  “I gotta go, babe. See ya around, Red,” he said.

  “See ya around, Doc.” I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath and counting my blessings.

  I turned back to the others, smiling at them from the corner, knowing with all of my soul that they would always be my family, no matter how far away I was from them.

  Surviving Savannah hadn’t been easy, but it had all been worth it.

  THE END

  About the Author

  Honey Palomino lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and two hilarious dogs.

  She’s best known for her Gods of Chaos Motorcycle Club Series, which follows a group of golden-hearted bikers on their journey to help people get out of troubling situations when they can’t turn to traditional resources for help.

  Most days, she can be found sitting under the towering pines in her backyard and dreaming of twisty new plots to entice her readers with.

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