by Brook Wilder
It was that thought that finally pushed her to her feet. Bowie followed docilely after her as she led him to the small bathroom adjacent to the bedroom. She only made it just a step or so, though when a loud crash echoed through the apartment.
“We know your hiding them, asshole! Capone knows the truth about your friendship with the traitor and his lawyer whore. Where the hell are they!”
“I don’t know. I swear! I mean, the last I saw of them they were in a burning trailer, so my bet is that they’re both ashes if you know what I mean. There was no way they would have got out of there alive.”
“Our sources tell us that they are back from the dead… and staying here with you.”
“I swear, no one else is here!” Charlie said frantically.
But Olivia could hear the disbelief in the others’ voices.
“If they’re not here, you won’t have a problem with us searching this shithole then, do you?”
Before Charlie could form an answer, the door to the bedroom burst open. Luckily, Olivia and Bowie were standing tucked just beyond it so they weren’t spotted right away.
For one perfect moment, Olivia was sure that the man would just turn around and walk back out without even realizing they were there.
But the next minute he was stalking inside, turning his head and staring straight at the spot where she still stood, just steps away from the door. Olivia watched the way he jumped and a shocked expression come over his rough, bearded face, and nearly had to bite back a laugh.
No! Wrong reaction. You should be terrified. You should be running for your life! These men tried to kill you! They killed Johnathan! It’s not funny!
But the voice screaming inside her head was muted and fuzzed by the shock and numbness that still held her firmly in their grasp. So, she just stood there. Not moving. Not running or screaming or fighting, not any of the things he obviously expected.
The gang member looked at her oddly for a moment, as if unsure how to react to her lack of fear, but the next moment Charlie came barreling inside and tackled the man to the floor.
The sound of their struggle seemed overly loud to Olivia’s ears and Bowie cowered behind her, the big dog shivering at the back of her legs. The gang member cried out as one of Charlie’s punches landed square on his jaw and then the other man was rushing inside as well.
They were constrained by the small space of the bedroom. There was barely enough room to maneuver around the bed and dresser that took up most of the floor plan.
Charlie had the one man pinned but he couldn’t fight off both. Olivia watched it all happen from the corner of the room. She knew she should do something. She should act. She should help. She should do anything at all, except watch another friend lose their life to the violence of the Devil’s Martyrs.
But she was frozen in place. Not just her emotions, her thoughts, but even her reactions seemed frozen. It was like she was watching everything happen sped up, too fast for her to even react to. She couldn’t move her feet. Her vocal chords were iced over so she couldn’t make a sound.
Charlie kicked out viciously, catching one man in the groin and sending him toppling to the ground with a pained shriek. Mentally, Olivia wanted to cheer him on, offer any sort of encouragement, but she’d become a statue. No longer human, just a being of cold marble, incapable of action or speech, emotionless.
Honestly, if I’m about to die anyway, I’d rather feel nothing.
The thought echoed clear and sharp in her numbed mind. It settled over her like an extra layer of stuffing in the blanket that already insulated her from the world.
It was as if she’d reached her max. She’d felt all the fear she was capable of, and she didn’t have the capacity to feel any more. An odd sense of calm filled her then. Olivia knew she was going to die. As she watched the fight go on and Charlie get more and more tired, she knew it like she knew the sun was shining outside and that the sky was blue.
The knowledge was driven home by the razor-sharp glint of the muzzle of a gun that the downed gang member pulled from the waistband of his jeans.
He pointed it straight at Charlie’s back while he was distracted by the other man and Olivia saw what was about to happen before the trigger was even pulled. The bullet would hit Charlie square in the back and he’d topple, bleeding out on the floor as the gun was turned on her. There was nowhere for her to run. She would be next.
Olivia wasn’t sure where the shout came from. Maybe it was that distant part of her that still pleaded for survival, she wasn’t sure. But just as the man with the gun aimed it at Preston’s friend, Olivia opened her mouth.
“Charlie!”
It was just his name, a single word, but it was enough to have Charlie ducking and flinging his body to the right just as the sound of the gun firing exploded in the small room. Everything happened so fast Olivia could barely process it all.
The man with the gun snarled, swinging the dangerous looking gun to point directly at her. But then a black blur was streaking forward, and Bowie’s growl sounded low and mean as his teeth bit down hard on the wrist holding the weapon.
The man screamed, and the gun went sliding across the floor. To land just a few inches from Olivia’s feet.
Without an ounce of hurry, Olivia bent down and picked it up, feeling its surprising weight in her palm before pointing it at the man. The other had been knocked unconscious by Charlie’s fist and, alone, he didn’t put up much of a fight now that the gun was pointing straight at his chest.
“Don’t move, asshole,” Charlie sneered, holding his arm as he stumbled to his feet. Blood seeped down through his fingers, but it didn’t seem to slow him down as he stepped over the unconscious man, giving him an extra kick on his way for good measure.
Olivia kept the gun trained on the other gang member as Charlie moved closer. He gave her a wary look, but her hands remained steady on the handle of the weapon. She hadn’t flinched once.
She still stood in the same spot, not moving from her post, as Charlie knelt to tie up the other man’s hands. She saw the intention flash in his eyes a second before he moved, lunging at Charlie and Olivia didn’t hesitate to pull the trigger.
The sound erupted, leaving a buzzing in her ear that muffled all other sound, as Charlie turned to her in shock and then at the quarter sized hole in his wall.
“That was a warning shot,” Olivia said calmly.
It was note of calm in her voice that more than anything else had the other gang member putting his hands up, his eyes wide with fear. But he didn’t struggle as Charlie tied up his hands, and then hit him with a well-placed blow against his temple that had his eyes rolling back in his head as he slumped over onto the floor.
After a long moment, Charlie looked over at her and gave her a wide, lop-sided grin.
“Well, that was close.” He let out a breath, wiping the blood from his split lip, but it just smeared it across his cheek, “A little too close. Capone will be expecting to hear back from these two soon and, when he doesn’t, he’ll send more men with more guns.”
Olivia nodded. Then, after Charlie’s pointed look, she realized she was still holding the weapon and slowly lowered it to her side.
“We’ll need to get out of here as soon as we can. We’ll try and reach Preston, let him know not to come back. In the meantime, we’ll have to leave Bowie…”
“We can’t leave him,” Olivia said, the only words she’d spoken since firing off her warning shot.
Charlie shook his head, about to argue, but Olivia refused to back down.
“He saved our lives. Bowie is coming with us.”
The dog’s ears perked up at the sound of his name and his tail wagged furiously as he stared up at her. Olivia scratched his ears as Charlie shrugged and hurried to pack a few things to take with them.
“Good boy, Bowie,” Olivia said as she patted his head, the gun still clenched in one hand. “Good boy.”
Chapter 17
Preston raced down the highway. He di
dn’t care about speed limits and he barely saw the traffic that flew past him, little more than a blur on the pavement. The only thing he focused on was getting back to Charlie’s apartment as fast as he could.
With every mile that passed, the feeling in his gut grew louder and louder, more impossible to ignore or dismiss as his thoughts turned on him. He never should have left her. He never should have let her stay anywhere alone. He knew that Capone was still after them, damn it, or anyone close to them that he could get his hands on.
The knowledge was like a cold grip on his heart, squeezing it until he felt like his chest would burst apart under the pressure.
It took every ounce of will he possessed just to keep breathing as Preston turned onto the street that Charlie lived on. And then he couldn’t breathe at all as he drove close enough to see the two motorcycles parked hastily in the parking lot out front of the brick apartment building.
Preston slammed on the brakes, nearly stalling the engine before it stuttered into silence underneath him, but he barely noticed. His gaze was locked on the motorcycles. He knew they belonged to two members of the Devil’s Martyrs, but he was still too far away to recognize either one of them.
Preston barely payed any attention to his own actions as he threw down the kickstand and left the bike where it was on the side of the street, well concealed by the overgrown branches of a blackberry vine.
As he paced cautiously closer, his thoughts raced, those same accusations echoing louder now. He never should have left her alone. What the fuck was he thinking? How could he have been so careless with her? He knew what she had gone through, knew that she was nearing her breaking point.
And, to be honest, anyone else would have shattered into pieces a long time ago. But not Olivia. She was strong. She was a fighter. But all he could think of at the moment was how fragile she was, how delicate. Like a sweetly scented rose. He knew she had thorns of her own to protect her, but he knew they wouldn’t be enough. Not against two of Capone’s thugs.
His stomach clenched in dread as he walked close enough to get a clear look at the motorcycles parked out front. He didn’t know their names, but he recognized them as belonging to two of Capone’s inner circle, those members who were far more loyal to Arthur Capone Johnston than they were to the crew or the family that the Devil’s Martyrs was supposed to be.
Capone had twisted the gang into something else, something to feed his paranoia and greed for power. His need to be in control of every situation. He couldn’t tolerate the idea of anyone challenging him or his dominance. It was why the president of the Devil’s Martyrs hated Preston so much. The other crew members had respected him, not feared him like most did Capone, and for good reason. The man was bat shit insane.
Preston was still cursing himself when he hopped over the fencing that blocked the side of the building and moved in even closer, trying to stay out of the line of sight of any windows. He didn’t know where the men were in the building, or even if they were inside, but all of his worst fears were confirmed when the sound of a gunshot ricochet from inside.
Preston froze. For the space of a heartbeat he couldn’t move, he couldn’t think, he couldn’t breathe. Fear, icy cold and terrible, paralyzed him. All he could do was repeat the same two words over and over again in his agonized mind. Too late. Too late. He was too late.
He never should have left Olivia on her own, and now she could be hurt, or worse, dead, because of him. All of this shit was because of him. He was the one who had dragged her into the violent world of the gang. He was the one who had asked her to take on his case, never knowing what it would cost either of them.
And now she might have paid the ultimate price, and it was all his fault. Every god damned mistake that he’d made along the way reared its head, accusing him over and over again, until the weight of the guilt was nearly enough to drag him to his knees.
He pushed it away before it could crush him and instead focused on one thing that he could use to fuel the fire inside him, could use to force his body into motion once more: revenge.
His face was already twisting into the lines of a grimace as he started forward once more. No more sneaking. No more hiding. If they wanted him, well they would fucking well have him. He just prayed he could catch them by surprise. He would make the pain last for them. He would watch as they realized that they were about to die because of what they’d done. Because of all the pain that they’d caused Olivia.
Nothing that had gone before compared to the rage that filled him now at the thought of Olivia’s death at the hands of his own crew, the men who were supposed to be his family. They had betrayed him, and betrayed any trust that the crew might have once had.
He pushed out the agony of thinking of Olivia’s lifeless body, her blood spilling out onto the floor, and instead grabbed on to all of the rage and all of the anger he could muster. He used it to light the bonfire inside him, to keep him warm as he stalked towards the front door.
Preston reached out to grasp the handled of the door at the same time that two people came barreling outside. Two people, and one very excited dog.
“O-Olivia?” Preston said dumbly, staring at her in shock.
After hearing the gunshot, he’d been so certain that his gut instinct had been warning him of her death that it took him by surprise to see her standing there in front of them. A frantic Charlie fidgeted in the doorway behind her.
“Preston! Thank god man. We were going to stop at a gas station on our way out of town to try and call you.”
“Wait a minute. Call me? I don’t understand.” Preston shook his head, trying to calm the rage inside him and make sense of his befuddled thoughts. “I heard a gunshot.”
“Oh, yeah, that was Olivia,” Charlie said with a shrug, but then he grimaced as if the movement caused him physical pain.
“Red?” Preston asked, directing a questioning look at her.
But she just shrugged. She still hadn’t said anything and that bothered the hell out of him. It bothered him almost as much as the blank look in her normally bright green eyes.
“Capone got suspicious of me,” Charlie finally said, offering an explanation, when it was clear that Olivia was going to remain silent. “He sent two of his thugs to come hassle me and check out the place. I couldn’t get them off my back, Preston, but…” He paused with a sideways glance towards Olivia that spoke volumes. “They’re upstairs unconscious and we got out. But we don’t have much time before Capone sends more men after he doesn’t hear back from those other two assholes.”
Charlie gave Preston a look a lot like the one he’d given Olivia a moment before.
“You’re cover is blown now. They know Olivia is alive. And if she is, it’s not that big of a jump to realizing that you’re still alive too. Capone won’t stop this time.”
Preston let out a sigh as Charlie’s words washed over him. He knew he would have to deal with it eventually, but not right now. Right now, all he could focus on was the fact that Olivia was still alive and not lying dead in a puddle of her own blood upstairs in that tiny apartment.
“Okay, we have to get out of town, for the moment at least,” Preston said slowly, looking around the parking lot. The two bikes were still parked where they’d been left by the gang members, and Olivia’s car was partially hidden in the deepest shadowy corner of the lot.
“We’ll leave the bikes. They are too noticeable, and they would recognize the license plates. They don’t know Olivia’s car. We’ll take that.”
Preston glanced at Olivia out of the corner of his eye, but her face was tilted downward as she scratched Bowie behind the ears. The dog seemed little worse for wear after the whole ordeal, but Olivia looked like she was barely hanging on.
“We’ll drive out until we pass the town border. I know a place we can stop. It’s inconspicuous and out of the way. We should have a little bit of time at least to figure out what the fuck we’re going to do next.”
He waited for either of them to speak up wi
th their own ideas or plan, or at least to question his orders, but neither did. Olivia refused to look at him and Charlie was growing paler by the minute as he shrugged his arm uncomfortably.
Preston jerked his head towards Olivia’s staid sedan as he pulled out the keys and unlocked the doors. They all piled in silently, and Preston didn’t say a word until he had the engine purring and had scoped out the parking lot in the rear view mirror to make sure their coast was still clear.
“Alright, let’s go.”
Chapter 18
Olivia couldn’t look at Preston. It hurt too much, threatening the comfortable emptiness that she wore like a second skin. So, as he pulled the car onto the road, careful to drive the speed limit so they wouldn’t run into any trouble from police, she kept her gaze locked on the passenger side window.
