Twisted Hearts

by Keta Kendric

  With Megan on my mind, I ran out into the opening between the first SUV and my truck and immediately started taking on gunfire. The darkness and the fact that I was wearing night goggles were likely the only reason why I could contend with this group. I dived behind a tree in the nick of time as more bullets striking at the opposite side hit with deadly impact. My back kissed its scaly body as I inched up the thick bark of the tree.

  After shoving the gun into the back of my pants, I allowed my body to fall forward, catching myself when the palms of my hands broke the fall. Aligning my movement with the thick bark of the tree, I crawled away on my belly hoping the men hadn’t spotted me approaching the next set of thick trees that lined the woods like a burly squad of dark soldiers. With multiple branches to keep me hidden, I intended to make the task of them finding me more difficult.

  No later than I thought it, snapping twigs alerted me to someone’s approach. One was at the tree that I had just left. With my body crouched low to the ground, I chanced a quick peek and noticed the figure was peeking around the tree, searching for where I’d disappeared to. I side eyed the other as he attempted to creep up behind me. They probably thought that they were trapping me. A sinister smile crept across my lips knowing I’d been right about their tactics.

  Certain that he hadn’t spotted me yet, I placed my back to the one in front of me, the tree keeping me concealed, as I aimed at the one that thought he was about to sneak up on me. They apparently had no idea that I was wearing night goggles or that I knew what they were attempting to do.

  Since I’d grabbed the silenced pistol from the one that I’d stabbed, I allowed three consecutive shots to flow in the direction of the one that had been approaching me from the rear. One of the bullets had landed in a vital area that caused him to halt his approach. His buddies loud and forceful snaps and breaks revealed that the man was barreling towards me firing off round after round. The thick bark of the tree kept me safe as the man’s angry roar echoed throughout the woods.

  I reached around the fat trunk of the tree and fired. One, two, three shots didn’t take him down. I was unable to get off a good enough shot to hit him where it would hurt.

  He roared towards me, ducking and zigzagging as the silenced pistol in my hand made a snapping noise, indicating it had run out of ammo as my thumb snagged at the trigger on reflex.

  I dropped the useless gun and flung my blade with as much force as I could muster, catching him in the face or neck. The man’s anguished squeal livened up the woods, quieting the animals and insects. He was close enough that I could tell that his haunting howl escaped through an opening other than his mouth.

  The horror riding his voice was laced with a hair-raising shriek that I’d only heard from the dying. I remained behind the cover of the tree in case his last thoughts were to take me to hell with him.

  His cries finally turned into a moan that crept through the darkness and made you pause to listen. I’d heard the distressed moan many times before. It meant that death was standing at the man’s shoulders and so was I a few seconds later.

  After relieving him of his gun that he’d let slip from his trembling hand, I kneeled over him, bearing witness to death dragging that bastard’s soul straight to hell.

  He’d tried to kill me, had followed me into these woods to take Megan’s life and mine. Therefore, I had no remorse, not a hint of sorrow for his suffering. I yanked my knife from his twitching neck and the drip drops of blood hitting the ground registered before the rusted scent snuck up my nostrils.

  My eyes focused on the part of his face I could see in the darkness before I placed my hand over his mouth and nose. The air that I’d blocked from passing through his nose and quivering lips hissed out of the hole my knife had left in his neck. With the strength he had left, he clawed at my hand and scratched at my arm, but he was too weak to do anything but lie there and allow me to assist death in getting him to hell faster.

  Megan and I were the hunted now. Other than the one I was sure she had killed, there were at least two more of these assholes out here. The eerie silence let me know that they were hiding, biding their time until Megan and I revealed ourselves. But, there was one thing they either hadn’t counted on or simply didn’t know. I knew these woods. I’d hunted in these woods. I’d buried bodies in these woods. The hole I’d hidden Megan in was supposed to be a grave for a man I’d decided to let live because he was going to suffer more alive.

  It took precious time, but patience had landed me on the trail of one of me and Megan’s enemies. Although I held a certain level of confidence that she could take care of herself, I also felt guilty for what I’d dragged her into.

  This was the second time the dangerous life that I led had put her life in serious jeopardy. No wonder the woman wanted to move away from Florida so badly. Maybe I was reading too much into her actions by thinking she was running from something. Maybe I just needed an excuse to keep her instead of letting her go. Maybe she was just a woman haunted by her past, who, by unconventional means, had tried to fix herself.

  Maybe. My thoughts were cut short by the sliver of movement that caught my eye. Death was in my corner this night with a spit bucket and a towel as he cheered me on. A smile glided across my lips and disappeared when another blast from a gun sounded, that could have only been Megan firing off another shot.

  My anxiety shot through the roof. I couldn’t just get up and run towards her because of the asshole limping into my direction with his weapon raised. With most of his friend’s dead, he was liable to fire at anything that moved.

  With my weapon drawn up to my chest, I prepared to step out and shoot. The element of surprise should give me at least a second or two of reaction time. “Fuck,” I mouthed silently as the light steps the man attempted to take stopped. My eyes widened behind the lens of the goggles as I peeked over my shoulder, around the tree and drew my head back as quickly when hot lead flew in my direction.

  The tough bark of the tree dug into my back as the far side of the tree protected me from the onslaught of oncoming gunfire. This asshole was determined to kill me, but his ammunition was not going to last forever.

  A three second pause was long enough for me to believe that the shooter was dropping and reloading a magazine. I spun away from the cover of the tree, blasting his ass. Bullet after bullet struck him, sending his body back violently.

  One of the bullets made such a hard impact, his pistol went flying south, clanking to the ground. Since his body armor had stopped my bullets from damaging his body, I rushed at him with my knife, sending it plunging into the side of his face when he turned at the last minute. The blade collided with the side of his teeth, causing the man to release an ear-splitting howl of pain, but also stopping the level of damage I intended to inflict.

  Retracting my blade quickly, blood gushed from his jaw. Despite his injury, he still attempted to slap a new magazine into his weapon, but his attempt was useless as I spun, giving the knife maximum force as it plunged into his neck to the hilt. His legs gave as the man’s body jerked and convulsed, trying to fight off his impending death. His mouth remained open as desperate gasps escaped his throat. After retracting, I jammed the blade in once more, twisting and forcing it upward as the wet sound of ripping flesh floated thought the air.

  I left the man twitching on the ground as I ran towards Megan, praying and hoping that she’d defended herself as honorably as I knew she could.

  26 Megan

  A series of gunshots sounded, and all I could make out were flashes on the far side of Aaron’s truck. A hair-raising roar sounded that made my lips twitch with a smile. I’d recognize Aaron’s roar anywhere. The scuffing and body-shaking strikes indicated anther fight.

  How many guys were out there? From my location, it was hard to tell how many vehicles had driven up.

  Heavy steps beat rapidly against the uneven, leaf and twig-littered ground. Someone was running, and the sound was growing close enough for me to make out the rasp of their win
ded breathing. They were at my back, so I flipped my body, raised and aimed my gun towards the approaching noise. When the green form came into view, I was hesitant to shoot because I didn’t know if it was Aaron or one of the bad guys.

  There was no way this guy was six-feet-two, but he’d gotten close enough to discover my hiding spot. My grip tightened around the stiff metal in my hand before my finger flexed against the trigger. Bam!

  The shot rang out loud and long and seemed to hover in the air above me. The bullet struck the man someplace in the upper torso where the impact snatched his body back. A series of guttural grunts sounded before the second bullet struck him in the head, my finger squeezing the trigger instinctively when the man didn’t go down fast enough.

  Green sparks of what must have been blood flew into the air, and his body followed as it fell back and hit the ground with a final thump.

  Heavy steps beat angrily at the ground behind me and sent me back onto my stomach as my head darted towards Aaron’s truck. Another green form was heading my way at an alarming pace. I raised my gun, prepared to shoot, but I held back. This guy was damn sure over six feet, but was it Aaron?

  “Megan. Are you okay?”

  Sweet relief swept through my body at the sound of Aaron’s voice. He was alive, and thankfully, I hadn’t mistakenly shot him.

  “I’m okay,” I called back to him in a low tone, unsure if we were alone or still under attack.

  I jumped when Aaron’s firm grip reached through the darkness and wrapped around my wrist. He lifted me out of that ditch like my five-foot-five, one-hundred and thirty-pound body was nothing more than a small sack of potatoes. No sooner had he’d released me and my feet were planted on the ground, did I hear the familiar sound of him slapping another clip in one of the two guns he carried.

  “Let’s go. I think they’re all dead.”

  Think?

  The night goggles had started to slip from my eyes when Aaron yanked me up. I held the gear to my face with one hand, and the warm gun swung in my other hand as I jogged to keep up with Aaron’s quick steps.

  Aaron yanked his driver’s side door open, and I blindly stepped on the running board before swinging my gun hand into the seat, unwilling to let go of the gun. I climbed over the center console and shoved the night goggles off my head since they had started to hang lopsided on my face.

  The flash of headlights and the roar of a vehicle’s engine breathed new life into the dark leafy woods and sent both my and Aaron’s wide gazes into the lighted view.

  My body lowered in the seat, but my eyes remained peeled, wondering what the vehicle would do. Instead of remaining inside the truck with me, Aaron hopped out and took quick steps to the back of his truck. The headlights allowed me to peek and see the top of Aaron’s head at the back of his truck. He was back there, fixing or maneuvering a large object. I could hear the unmistakable clink of metal.

  My brain froze when he left the cover of the back of his truck and took off running towards the headlights whose brightness made him a clear target. Aaron had said that he thought they were all dead. Was the driver unarmed? Injured? Was that the reason he wasn’t shooting at Aaron or attempting to run him down with the vehicle?

  With light directly in front of him, it clung to Aaron enough that his shadow danced behind his urgent movements as he inched closer to what appeared to be a dark colored SUV. The driver revved the engine, but Aaron didn’t move. He stood there prepared to go head to head with two or more tons of revved up metal.

  My mouth dropped wide open and utter disbelief hit my system when my eyes latched onto the object Aaron had pointed at the vehicle. Aaron was out there with a fucking grenade launcher. At least that was what I thought it was called. I could plainly see him shift or adjust something on the large weapon that was as thick as his muscular arm but longer.

  He lifted the thing over his shoulder and fired it as the vehicle’s tires scratched into the dirt in an attempt to move away from Aaron at a fast rate of speed in reverse. A loud swishing noise came from the weapon, followed by a whistling sound that floated through the sky, chasing the vehicle Aaron aimed at.

  Aaron immediately dropped to the ground, respecting what came out of that weapon more than the vehicle that could have run him over. The SUV had taken off, rolling backward to get away from what could only be described as flying death, but it was too late.

  Although I couldn’t see it traveling through the sky, the grenade must have made a direct impact with the vehicle because the boom shook Aaron’s truck and vibrated the glass so hard that I ducked, thinking the blast would bust out the windows.

  The vehicle exploded into a mass of burning flames that lit up the woods and spewed thick black billowing smoke. I rose in time to see Aaron running back my way. Knowing that we needed to get away, I climbed over the console, stomped on the brake and turned the truck’s ignition. Its engine stuttered for a few scary seconds but roared to a start.

  Once Aaron reached the back of his truck, the loud clink of the weapon hitting the metal bed of the truck sounded before he slammed the cover shut. As soon as he climbed into the cab with me, Aaron shifted the truck into drive and sped off.

  My neck twisted to keep the spectacle in my view when we passed the burning SUV. We sped over the untamed ground faster than we should have but with justifiable reasoning.

  “That vehicle is going to attract a lot of attention. We need to get as far away from this shit as possible. The seven bodies we dropped are going to bring the feds and every other high-level law agency that believe they have jurisdiction,” Aaron informed me while directing the truck and glancing back at the scene we were leaving behind.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked me, continuing to wheel his bouncing truck wildly.

  “No,” I answered. “Are you?”

  “A few scratches, bumps, and bruises. Nothing life-threatening, though,” he replied.

  A long pause followed before I climbed atop the seat to be closer to him. I rested my head against Aaron’s strong shoulder. My hand rested on his chest as my ass hung off the center console. Our heart rates pumped as fast as the pistons under Aaron’s hood, still amped up from our out back experience.

  After our breathing finally slowed to steady breaths, the words, “I’m sorry, Aaron,” fell out of my mouth.

  While steering the truck through the last of the wooded terrain, he caressed my wrist before pulling my hand to his lips to place a quick kiss to the back of it.

  “What are you sorry for?” he asked, glancing back once more through his cracked back window.

  “Unless you know who those guys were, it’s my fault that you had to kill them. They were probably after me, and now your life is in jeopardy. I can’t let anything happen to you because of me.”

  “This is not your fault,” he voiced with stern certainty in his tone. “Those guys could have been after me as much as they could have been after you. You remember what happened at my house a few days before you left. Chuck, Clint, and Dutch weren’t there to hold hands and be friendly. My life teeters on the edge of death every day. I’ve been hanging on to death’s fucking coattails since the day I was born.”

  He had made a good point, but every instinct within me said those guys had caught up to me because I’d stayed in Florida too long. Aaron’s voice interrupted my thoughts.

  “When I do find out who the fuck that was, you’d better believe they are going to figure out that I’m not some backwoods redneck they can run all over.”

  I believed him. Anyone who carried around a fucking grenade launcher had undoubtedly seen more action, death, and destruction than I could have imagined.

  27 Megan

  Aaron talked to his father on speakerphone while I tended to his wound. He’d been stabbed in his left side during one of his scuffles with the bad guys. The wound was deep enough that I suggested he go to the hospital, but Aaron wouldn’t hear of it. Like the act was something simple, he insisted on coaching me on how to clean and sew him up.r />
  There was no use in me arguing with him about it. Aaron was going to do whatever Aaron wanted to do. It hadn’t taken me but a few quick interactions to know that he was an alpha male that was not going to bend to the whims and demands of the rest of the world.

  However, there were moments when he’d drop the armor and allow me small peeks at the parts of him that I was certain no one else had ever seen.

  “No, it was not the law,” Aaron urged. He talked into his phone sitting on the table next to us, but his eyes remained on my tense face as I played nurse.

  “Those motherfuckers had military-grade weapons. They were aiming to kill and they didn’t give a flying fuck about collateral damage. They didn’t count on me having the kind of weaponry that could contend with theirs.”

  The sound of a weapon being charged on his father’s end of the call hinted that Shark heeded Aaron’s warning and was preparing for battle.

  “So, what were they? Black, White, Mexican? Who the fuck are we dealing with? Can’t be the Russians. We didn’t leave a trail for them to connect the dots to us, right?”

  Aaron glanced down at my work before he answered his father’s question. “I heard Spanish and not the usual Spanglish mix they speak here in Florida. This group was Mexican and not Tex-Mex either. And fuck you. You know fucking well I took care of the Russians. They don’t call me Grave Digger for nothing.”

  Grave Digger? I’m sleeping with someone known as Grave Digger?

  My mind reeled at the conversation I was hearing between Aaron and his father. What the hell had I gotten myself into? I’d seriously underestimated Aaron and his MC. I knew the August Knights had a reputation. I knew that Aaron was dangerous based on what had gone down at his house the first time I’d stayed with him. But, some of the things they were revealing now had elevated their danger status. It had me thinking back to all those times that Shark and Aaron had warned me that they were dangerous people.