by Stasia Black
He held on tighter to Drea until she swiveled her head to look at him with the coldest eyes he’d ever seen. “You will let go of me right. The fuck. Now.”
A chill went down Eric’s spine.
“Drea, they might come back. Let’s just w—”
And then Eric’s head exploded with pain.
What the—
Had Drea really just headbutted him?
He staggered back, stunned, hand going to his head as Drea slipped out of his arms and ran over to Maya and Garrett.
“Drea,” he tried to call, blinking hard through the sudden wave of dizziness. He’d always known that woman had a hard head, but Jesus.
The next second, though, he was back in the moment.
Billy was helping Garrett shift over to the side off of Maya and Drea immediately crouched over Maya, fingers to her neck.
“Maya,” Drea called. “Honey. Maya. Oh God, Can you hear me? We’re here, okay, hon? We’re right here.”
Please, please let the girl be okay. Eric didn’t know who the hell he was asking. He hadn’t believed in God for a long time now. But he prayed now, for Drea’s sake.
The blood. So much blood, dripping down Maya’s temple and her arms.
“She’s out cold, but she’s breathing,” Garrett said as Billy ran his hands down Maya’s limp body.
Relief washed through Eric.
“She got shot twice before I got to her from what I can tell,” Garrett said, “both on the left side here.”
But Billy was already at work, ripping the hem of Maya’s shirt and tying a makeshift tourniquet around her upper arm and then another around her thigh.
“Can she be moved?” Eric asked. “We have to go.”
Drea glared up at him but obviously she knew he wasn’t wrong because she got to her feet.
“I can patch her up in the van,” Billy said, scratching at his wrist like he was really wishing this wasn’t the week he’d gone cold turkey. Fucker better stay sober, that was all Eric had to say about it. “But we gotta get the hell outta here.”
Garrett lifted Maya in one smooth motion, easily hefting her into his arms in front of his body.
The next second, Drea was in motion.
“Carry these,” she barked at Eric and Billy, shoving two of the duffel bags Maya had gone back for at them. Then she grabbed the last two herself and stood straight up.
She walked back to the stairwell with a completely blank expression, going past Eric without a word to either him or Billy. When she started running down the stairs again, Eric exchanged a look with the other guys before hurrying to follow her. Goddammit, was she going to shut down on them again?
They’d welded the door to the lobby shut earlier in the week. It was a fire door, made of steel, and the noise of rattling gunshots pinging off the metal shook Eric’s nerves.
Shit. They were already in the building?
Drea didn’t miss a step. She just jumped over the two motorcycles they’d also driven into the first-floor landing to help block the lobby door in case anyone did manage to get it open.
Eric and the guys followed her but no one could move as fast as Drea when she was on a damn mission.
The bottom of the stairwell didn’t just have a door to the lobby. It opened two directions. One door to the lobby and another to a back hallway that took them straight to the garage.
The garage which thankfully, due to the MC’s love of their bikes, also had a huge retractable steel door. Which was down and taking heavy fire from the hail of bullets rattling on the other side of it.
“Drea!” Excited and relieved whispers came from the women all huddled behind the armored truck, heads swinging their way as Drea burst out from the hallway.
Drea only glared at them, stomping across the garage. “Why aren’t you in the truck?” she snapped. “Move. Now!” She pointed in the back of the truck.
Several of the women looked up at the opened back doors of the armored truck with apprehension. Others were outright shaking and clutching on to each other.
Garrett and Billy went immediately to the back as Garrett loaded Maya. Billy stayed with her but Garrett hopped back down a couple moments later.
Gisela stepped forward from the crowd and took Drea’s arm. “I told you this was a bad idea. These are the same vehicles they’re trafficked in. You can’t expect—”
But Drea only jerked out of Gisela’s grasp and turned back to the women. She stabbed a finger toward the wall. “They’re going to get through that door. I can promise you they brought more than guns. Do you want to be standing here with your thumbs up your asses when they do? Now get in the fucking truck.”
Eric cringed at the way several women flinched and backed away from her. But what Drea lacked in delicacy, she made up for in efficiency, because women did start climbing up into the back of the truck. And as soon as two went, four more followed. Then it was a flood, the girls already in the truck reaching down to help the others up.
There were so many of them. Would they all even fit? They’d practiced loading into the truck only once, and that was without making space for the doctor trying to operate on a woman laid out.
But they stood, side to side, barely a breath between them as the last couple of women stepped up, teetering on the edge because they were packed as tight as sardines.
There were plenty with stark terror on their faces. Jesus, they were forcing them to relive some of the worst memories in their lives, being trafficked all over who knew the hell where. Delivered from one evil fucker to another.
Eric thought Drea was going to slam the back doors closed on them without another word but at the last moment she paused and reached up, clasping the hands of those closest to her. “I’ll keep you safe. I swear it on my life.”
And the way she said it, the look on her face—Eric’s stomach dropped out in fear for her. What did she mean she swore on her life? That she’d die if that’s what it would take? She’d already taken far too many risks, she couldn’t—
“Now back up,” she said, her voice gentler than when she’d ordered them in the truck. “And remember, you’re locking it from the inside. You have control. No one’s locking you in.”
She closed the doors as gently as she could and only looked to Eric and Garrett when she heard the click of the inside lock.
And her features were back to being hard as stone. “You two. Up front.”
“What about you?” Eric asked.
“She’s gonna ride one of the hogs,” Garrett said. “I’ll jump on mine, too and we can—”
But Drea rolled her eyes. “No way. You’d just slow me down.”
For a second Eric thought he almost saw a spark of the old Drea. “I’m gonna take Stella. They still had her in the back, gathering dust. Fucking idiots.” She pulled a drop cloth off of a small, bright red motorcycle right by the truck. It was half the size of some of the Harleys scattered around the garage.
Eric read Ducati on the side of the bike. And right above that, stenciled along with a fire decal, Stella.
Eric would have smiled except for two things. Number one, it was a damn motorcycle and his and Drea’s run in with the last one was still far too fresh. And two, all the warmth fled Drea’s face the second she glanced back at the armored truck.
She grabbed a small messenger bag from the floor beside the motorcycle and slung it across her chest. She settled the bag in front of her stomach as she climbed on the bike.
Then she glared their way. “Well, what the fuck are you waiting for? A damn invitation? Go get in the truck. Keys are in the ignition.”
Eric’s jaw tensed and he wanted more than anything to drag her aside and make sure she wasn’t planning anything that would put herself in danger. But he’d been on enough fronts to know there could only be one commander in a battle. And as much as he’d prefer the control, he knew that leader was Drea right now.
So he gave one sharp nod and kept his thoughts to himself as he marched toward the front of the tr
uck. At least Garrett didn’t give him any shit when he took the driver’s seat. He was pretty sure he would have flipped out on Garrett if he’d tried to take what little control he was allowed left away.
Garrett had barely pulled his door shut before a huge BOOM shook the entire garage. The entire building.
Eric’s arm lifted over his eyes instinctively, but then his head swung toward his driver’s side window.
Drea.
He was a second away from throwing open the door to go check on her but in his mirror, he caught side of her. She had her bike right up against the armored truck, hidden from view of the garage door, and she was shaking her head fervently. She held up a hand like she meant for him to duck down.
Jesus. Was she serious?
When he didn’t move fast enough for her, she started waving even more furiously, so he turned around and growled, “get down.”
It was awkward for him and Garrett to duck without getting in each other’s way but they managed.
Eric had only gotten a glance at the garage door before he got down, but it was enough to see they’d blasted a man-sized hole in the damn thing.
Because they had fucking explosives. Naturally.
“So fuckin’ sloppy,” Garrett muttered so low Eric barely heard it. “What’d they fucking use? A goddamn stick of C4? What the hell is Suicide even teaching these new recruits?”
Eric wondered if Drea had somehow signaled the girls to be quiet because they weren’t making a peep. Either that or the back of the truck was soundproof as well as bulletproof.
Shit. What was going on out there?
Eric had never liked this contingency plan, not since the first time Drea had come up with it. And he sure liked it a hell of a lot less now that he was sitting here blind with the enemy right on top of them.
Just wait for the signal. Just wait for the signal.
Another several tense moments of silence followed. Okay, that wasn’t completely true. He could hear distant voices. One man calling out to another. Then, a minute later, more voices.
It wasn’t until he could hear the footsteps that Drea gave the signal: Her revving her motorcycle to life and shattering the quiet was impossible to miss.
Eric sat up, turning the key in the same motion. Then he jammed the old armored truck into gear and pressed the gas with everything he had.
There was only a quick moment when the lights of the truck illuminated the surprised faces of the ten or so bikers spread out all around the garage. Garrett punched the garage door opener at the same time.
The bikers lifted their machine guns and started firing but Eric didn’t spare a glance for them. Okay, so he might have felt a little satisfaction at smashing into one of the bigger bastards and seeing him bounce off the bumper to the side.
But mostly his eyes were locked on his side mirror, making sure Drea was keeping up with the truck so that she was blocked from the hail of bullets.
The truck bumped roughly as they drove out of the garage and onto the pavement of the street and Eric winced for the women standing up in the back of the truck. There was no time to be gentle about it, though. Drea’s bike zoomed out in front of the truck, taking the lead and speeding down the road.
It was late afternoon and not a cloud in the sky. Sunlight blazed down on the road.
Motorcycles roared to life behind them and Eric floored it, knowing there was no time now.
He got maybe another twenty feet down the road before the explosion behind them rocked the car.
“Whooeee!” Garrett whooped, punching the dashboard. “Now that’s how you use some fucking explosives!”
“Jesus Christ,” Eric swore. “Could you not have waited for us to get a little further away?”
“You nuts? Whole point was to fry as many of those bastards as we could.” Garrett leaned toward the window, checking his rearview mirror. “Shit, doesn’t look like we got as many as I wanted. We’ve got about five fuckers on our tail. Three ape hangers who aren’t gonna catch us if you keep the pedal to the medal. D’s right about those Hogs. They can usually only max out at 110.”
Eric glanced down at the speedometer. He was going 85 and he could feel the engine still had plenty more to give.
“But they got a truck that’s gaining on us. And shit, another truck just turned a corner and is after us too.”
Eric glanced in his own rearview and saw the truck Garrett meant.
Okay. Time for a few evasive maneuvers. Back in the war, hasty getaways were a way of life. The Southern Alliance was infamous for chasing Texas soldiers down after winning a battle. Their motto was a dead New Republic soldier today was one more you didn’t have to fight tomorrow.
“Hold on to something,” Eric muttered, wishing he could tell the women in the back the same. They had to know this wouldn’t be a walk in the park.
He’d have to drive them off the road one at a time. It would be harder if they tried to box him in from both sides. But he’d been in plenty worse spots than this before. Maybe not with such high stakes…
“What is she doing?” Billy asked, sitting up straighter.
“Drea,” Eric said in a warning tone as she dropped back from the lead to Garrett’s side of the truck. Not that she could hear him. Or that she’d listen even if she could.
The gunfire had slowed down but as soon as Drea became visible on the side of the truck, it started right back up again.
“Goddammit, Drea!” Eric shouted, looking across Garrett and stomping on the brakes to try to get behind her and shield her again.
But right then, she veered off into a side alley.
“Where the fuck is she going?” Eric yelled.
“Don’t worry,” Garrett said. “D knows what she’s doing.”
Eric looked at Garrett incredulously. Was he serious?
“Everyone back there has a gun. How is that not supposed to make me worry?”
Garrett just grinned, looking like he was insane. “I got a gun too.” He cocked his shotgun. “Plus, most people can’t shoot for shit while they’re on a motorcycle. Anyone who says different is a damn liar.”
If Eric didn’t have a truck full of souls, he would have pulled off and gone to find Drea no question. But he did, dammit. And she knew it. How dare she put him in this situation? If they managed to somehow survive this, they were gonna sit down and have a long fucking talk, that was for damn sure.
Garrett rolled down the window and leaned out, lining up his shotgun at his shoulder.
Boom.
He immediately cocked it again and let out another blast.
“What the hell are you doing?” Eric yelled as gunfire immediately started up and Garrett ducked back in the window.
“Drea just pulled out behind ‘em. I’m drawing their attention to keep them from noticing her right off.”
“WHAT?”
Eric jerked the rearview mirror and rearranged it, glancing back and forth from the road to the mirror.
Fuck. Garrett was right. Drea was behind everyone, leaned low over her motorcycle and creeping up on the truck in the rear.
She pulled so close to the truck that she disappeared from view.
“What the hell are you doing, Drea?” Eric muttered, swinging a wide right onto another road that led vaguely in the direction they meant to go. He’d studied a map, but they’d left in such a hurry, he only had the general idea of where they were.
He was mid-turn when the truck behind him exploded.
He whipped around but again, Garrett was whooping like he was at a prize fight.
“Where the fuck is Drea?” Eric yelled.
But Garrett was apparently not in the mood to be helpful. “Holy shit. I can’t believe she actually did it!” He shoved his hands through his hair like he was riding the high of his life. “We always talked about tossing a stick of nitro into an exhaust pipe, but none of us were ever fucking crazy enough to actually do it.”
“Is she fucking okay?” Eric shouted.
“Yeah man,
chill out. I saw her drive off down an alleyway before it lit up.”
“Jesus Christ.” Eric wiped his damp palms on his jeans one at a time. She was going to be the death of him. He’d survived the teenage years with his daughter only now to be done in by a headstrong maniac he’d been dumb enough to start having feelings for and—
“Awwwww, there she goes again,” Garrett laughed, leaning out the window and letting off another blast of his shotgun.
Eric glared in the rearview mirror. “Dammit, Drea.”
Because obviously they weren’t the only ones who’d noticed the first explosions.
Several motorcycles dropped back and the rat tat tat tat of bullets flying was all Eric could hear.
“We’ve got to draw them off her.” Eric clenched his teeth against the pain as he steered with his arm in the cast and reached under his seat for one of the sub-machine guns he’d stashed there. He clicked off the safety and shoved his arm out the window, aiming vaguely in the direction of backwards.
Then he stomped on the brakes.
The squeal of tires was deafening and the truck began to fishtail. Jesus, Eric hoped Billy wasn’t trying to actually sew stitches at the moment.
Eric gripped the wheel as hard as he could with the fingers of his casted hand, controlling the spinout so that Garrett’s side ended up toward the oncoming truck and bikes.
“Fire!” he shouted, leaning over and joining Garrett in shooting out his window, firing and not caring about how many bullets the machine gun was wasting. He just needed to get their focus off of Drea.
“Go go go!” Garrett shouted. “She’s out!”
Eric felt his eyes widen as he yanked back, tossed the machine gun on Garrett’s floorboard and switched pedals again, this time stomping back down on the gas. Motorcycles sped past him on both sides, bullets whizzing around the truck.
The rearview mirror shattered and Eric yelped but kept the pedal to the floor.
He glanced in his side mirror and saw the truck behind them stop and the passengers flee out into the road moments before it blew up in a plume of fire and smoke.
