Grenade holds out his human hand. “So what do you say? Wanna get the hell out of here? Go back to your tribe? Because we can make that happen. In less than five minutes we can be on a plane back to your village. Or… you can spend the next few hours nervously awaiting your brutal execution. Your choice. If you’re as smart as I think you are, you’ll shake my hand and we’ll be on our way.”
River eyes Grenade’s hand suspiciously for a few seconds before looking over at me. I nod and smile.
I’m not sure if River believes Grenade, but she finally seems to realize her odds of survival greatly improve if she joins us.
“Sure, I’ll take you to your friend,” River says, shaking Grenade’s hand.
Grenade helps River to her feet. “Smart girl. Now let’s move. And remember, if you don’t want to die, keep quiet until we’re out of the compound. None of us are safe until we’re in the air.”
The five of us practically tip-toe out of the compound. Once we’re outside, we dash to the airstrip, with poor Krystal huffing and puffing the entire way. When we reach our helicopter-plane, Krystal and Boom Boom usher River aboard so they can treat her injures. I’m just about to follow them inside the hatch door when I notice Grenade sprinting to each and every one of Pitbull’s planes and flying cars.
“Grenade, what the hell are you doing?” I shout.
Grenade holds up one of his blinking black spheres. “Making sure we’re not followed.”
Grenade tosses the spherical explosive into a flying car before hurrying on to the next one. When he finishes booby-trapping all the cars and planes, he hops into the chopper with the rest of us.
“I have to admit, that was pretty clever, Grenade,” Krystal says from the cockpit as she starts the plane and prepares to take off.
“I’ll detonate the bombs once we’re in the air,” Grenade says.
I watch as Boom Boom wraps bandages all over River’s battered body. I do my best not to stare at River’s partially nude body, but it’s so damn hard. I mean, even in her battered state she exudes raw beauty. In another time and place, she would be a glamorous model gracing the covers of all the tabloids and fashion magazines. Here, though, she’s a wounded refugee reduced to trusting complete strangers to protect her.
Grenade shouts into the cockpit, “Take us up, Krystal! Somebody’s bound to realize we’re missing sooner or later.”
The sound of a gun being cocked echoes throughout the steel cabin.
“Not so fast.”
We all whip out our own guns and spin around. Alex Sanchez steps out of the shadows and points his firearm directly at my forehead. His visor is glowing bright-red.
“What are you all up to?” Alex asks in a shaky voice. “Going out for a late-night plane ride?”
Boom Boom steps forward, her gun aimed at Alex’s face. “Put the gun down, Alex. We don’t want to hurt you.”
“Speak for yourself,” I say.
Alex swivels his gun from me to Boom Boom. “Stay back, all of you! I won’t hesitate to shoot!”
Boom Boom calls Alex’s bluff and marches right up to him. Alex watches in total shock as Boom Boom grabs his face and kisses him passionately on the lips.
“You have got to be kidding me,” I grumble.
I soon realize the kiss was merely a distraction. In one fluid motion, Boom Boom grips Alex’s wrist and twists it, causing him to release his gun. The gun clatters to the floor and Boom Boom kicks it over to Grenade, who promptly picks it up. Boom Boom then yanks Alex’s face down toward the floor and knees him in the nose. Alex yelps as he staggers back. Boom Boom crouches down and sweeps his legs out from beneath him, causing Alex to fall flat on his back and smack his head against the steel floor. Boom Boom follows this up by planting her foot on his chest and pointing her gun at the top of his head.
“Check mate, bitch,” Boom Boom says like a total badass.
“Wow, your friend is awesome,” River says excitedly.
“You have no idea,” Grenade says with an approving smirk.
I shrug and say, “She’s alright. I was just about to take him down myself, to be honest.”
“Bitch please!” Krystal shouts from the cockpit. “Alex woulda whooped your ass!”
River chuckles as I glower at Krystal for her unsolicited critique.
Alex puts his hands up and says, in a trembling voice that betrays his fear, “Okay, you got me. Please don’t shoot. I saw you get out of bed earlier and head down to the dungeon. I was going to confront you in the compound, but I didn’t want to wake everyone up. So I came out to your plane and waited for you, in case you decided to bail on us. Looks like my hunch was right.”
Boom Boom lowers her gun and sighs. “Damn it, Alex, why couldn’t you just stay asleep?”
Alex scoots himself into a sitting position. “What are you guys doing? Why do you have River?”
Grenade points his gun at Alex and says, “Let’s just kill the kid and get a move on! We don’t have all goddamn day!”
“Good idea, Grenade!” I exclaim.
Boom Boom shouts, “No, we’re not killing him!”
“Well what are we supposed to do with him, Boom Boom?” I ask impatiently. “We can’t let him go, he’s going to tell the others what we’re up to.”
Boom Boom pauses for a few seconds, then says, “We could bring him with us.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Grenade explodes. “We can’t trust him! He’s working with Pitbull!”
“You can trust me!” Alex sputters. “If I was in Pitbull’s pocket, you never would have gotten this far. You would already be dead.”
“He makes a good point,” Boom Boom says.
“Of course you’d side with him,” I say in disgust. “You’re in love with the punk.”
“I am not in love with him,” Boom Boom snarls.
Boom Boom and I start shouting at one another. Grenade finally has enough and hollers, “Will you both shut your goddamn traps?! Whatever we’re going to do, we need to do it fast!”
“Let me talk to him for a second,” Boom Boom says, grabbing Alex by his arm and dragging him into the back of the cabin. She then starts whispering something to him. It soon dawns on me that Boom Boom’s not trying to keep anything from me or Grenade. She’s keeping quiet so River doesn’t overhear her.
After Boom Boom finishes whispering our ‘master plan’ to Alex (at least, I’m assuming that’s what she’s doing), Alex says, “Okay, I’m in.”
“You’re what?” I shout, making my way toward them.
Boom Boom holds up her hand in an attempt to shush me.
Alex ignores me and continues talking to Boom Boom. “You should know by now how much I hate Pitbull’s guts. He’s a sadistic, vile monster. My number one priority is finding Klaxton and bringing her to justice. But if I can do that without slaughtering an entire nation of indigenous natives, then I will jump at that opportunity in a heartbeat. I want to do this the right way… with you guys.”
River cocks her head and starts looking at us funny. Alex is totally screwing up our plans.
“What does he mean by bringing Klaxton to justice?” River asks, her eyes narrowed into suspicious slits.
Grenade laughs it off. “He misspoke. He meant to say that we want to bring Klaxon’s enemies to justice. Don’t pay him any attention, he’s just a stupid punk kid.”
“Here, why don’t you eat something?” I say to River, passing her a can of fruit from the cabinet. While she focuses on that (I can tell she’s famished from the way she pops open the can and pours the syrup-soaked fruit down her throat), Grenade and I rush over to Boom Boom and her doofus boy-toy.
Grenade jabs Alex in the chest with his bionic finger, causing him to grimace in discomfort. “Keep your voice down, you idiot. River thinks we’re on her side. You keep saying stupid shit, though, that ain’t gonna last. We need her help finding Klaxton. Otherwise it’ll be like finding a needle in a mile-high haystack.”
“What we need to do is shoot t
his piece of shit in the head,” I say, jamming my gun into Alex’s side.
Boom Boom smacks my arm away. “Lance, put that down. Alex is a friend.”
“He’s no friend of mine.”
“You’re going to need to trust him, because he’s coming with us,” Boom Boom says.
“No the fuck he’s not!” I holler.
River looks at us suspiciously again.
“Um, guys?” Krystal calls from the cockpit.
I ignore her and continue my tirade. “Only over my dead body is this dickwad coming with us.”
“That can be arranged,” Alex says, reaching for a knife hanging from his utility belt.
“Put your weapons down!” Boom Boom shouts, smacking Alex’s hand.
“Um, guys? This is serious!” Krystal shouts.
“Now wait a minute, Lance, maybe we should let the kid tag along,” Grenade says. “We could use the extra help if… or I should say when… the shit hits the fan.”
“We don’t need any help, we’re fine on our own!”
“Guys!! We have a fucking problem!!!” Krystal screams so loudly that it’s virtually impossible to ignore her.
“What is it?!!” Boom Boom, Grenade, and I holler at once.
Krystal’s response comes in the form of gunfire ricocheting off the side of our plane.
A booming voice off in the distance shouts, “Come out with your hands up!! We know you’re in there!!”
I glance out a window and curse at the sight of Pitbull racing toward our plane, firing a machine gun. Jesse, Cobra, Snake-Eyes, and the others are right behind him.
River grows fearful at the sight of her cyborg abuser and cowers behind a cabinet.
“Fuck fuck fuck!” I shove Alex in the chest, nearly knocking him over. “This is all his fault!! He told them we were leaving!”
Alex shoves me back, banging me up against the wall. “You’re mad! If I was truly with them, you wouldn’t have even made it onto the plane!”
Boom Boom steps in between us and shouts. “Will you two quit your incessant bickering?!”
Grenade sighs and rolls his glowing eyeballs into the back of his head. “I hate teenagers.”
He then storms over to the cockpit and barks, “Take us into the air, Krystal!”
Krystal glances over her shoulder and says, “But what about Pitbull? He’s gonna try and take out our propellers!”
“Just do it!” Grenade snaps furiously. “I’ll handle Pitbull, you just fly!”
“Aye aye, Captain Asshole,” Krystal grumbles, starting the chopper.
We all start sliding around as the chopper lifts into the air. More gunfire bounces off the exterior hull of our plane. One bullet nicks the window next to me, causing a small crack.
“Everyone strap in!” Grenade growls, plopping down in a chair and securing his seatbelt. “This ride is about to get bumpy as hell.”
The rest of us do as we’re told, including River. I glance out the window and notice that we’re about 200 feet in the air. Greande and his crew are getting smaller and smaller with each passing second. But I can still see them clearly enough to detect Bobby Lesnar hoisting a rocket launcher onto his shoulder and pointing it directly at us.
“Holy shit, Grenade, do you see that?!”I shout frantically.
“Relax, kid, I got this,” Grenade grunts, looking out the same window. “Take us a little higher, Krystal.”
“What the hell you think my fat ass is doing?!” Krystal hollers.
“Grenade, whatever you’re planning on doing, you might want to do it now,” Boom Boom says, nervously eyeing the rocket launcher.
“Relax, I have everything under control,” Grenade growls. The fact that he sounds a little nervous himself does little to calm my jittery nerves.
Several excruciatingly long seconds later, Grenade presses a button on his arm and smiles. “There we go. Enjoy the show.”
We don’t so much as enjoy the show as we experience it. A deafening explosion rings out beneath us, rattling the entire plane. We all jerk around in our seats as the concussive forces of the blast nearly flip the chopper completely around. I look out my cracked window and watch as all the flying cars and planes detonate in a massive, blinding explosion. Flaming pieces of shrapnel fly in every which direction, sending Pitbull and his crew scurrying for their lives. One of the explosions engulfs Bobby Lesnar, causing his rocket launcher to detonate. His flaming body flies high into the air and lands with a thud about 20 feet away.
Krystal sees this and starts cursing. “Damn it, Grenade, you killed one of my boyfriends!”
I glance at River as she watches the carnage unfolding below us in awe. If she had any doubts that we’re on her side, they’re gone now.
Satisfied with the carnage and mayhem his hands have wrought, Grenade says, “Alright Krystal, let’s get outta here. Nothing left to see.”
“Aye aye, Captain Asshole,” Krystal says, although this time she says it with a tinge of admiration. The fastest way to win Krystal’s approval is through chaos and mayhem.
I glance down at Pitbull just in time to see him furiously shaking his fists in the air, howling something incomprehensible. I sure as hell hope we never cross paths again. Pitbull is pretty scary when he’s in a good mood. He’s downright terrifying when he’s pissed at you.
“That was insane,” River says, sounding almost giddy. “I have to be honest with you guys; I was going to dip out on you the first chance I got. But after seeing that cyborg freak and his buddies attempt to blast you out of the air… blast us out of the air… and seeing how you just destroyed all their vehicles… now I know you’re the real deal. You really do want to help Klaxton regain power, don’t you?”
“Yeah, like I said, we’re all buddies,” Grenade says nonchalantly.
“We can’t wait to see her again,” Boom Boom says unconvincingly. (Unlike Grenade, she’s not all that great at lying.)
“We think Klaxton’s a great leader,” I chime in.
Krystal snorts.
“Yes, I see that now,” River says, thankfully fooled by our charade. “I owe you guys my life, and I intend to repay you handsomely. I will take you to my village and reunite you with your friend. I’m sure she’ll be thrilled to see you.”
“Oh, you have no idea,” Grenade says, pulling a bottle of champagne out of the mini-fridge and passing out glasses.
Raising his glass into the air, Grenade bellows, “To a new beginning!”
We all raise our glasses in kind and shout back, “To a new beginning!”
“To a new thingy!” Krystal hollers from the cockpit. From the sounds of her slurred voice, she started the party before we did.
Grenade starts talking to River, grilling her about what Klaxton’s been up to since she went into hiding in the Amazon. (Although from River’s point of view, it’s merely a concerned friend inquiring about the well-being of his long-time buddy.) While Grenade keeps River distracted, Boom Boom leads me and Alex into the rear of the cabin, where we can talk in private.
“So are you two going to behave?” Boom Boom asks bluntly.
Adjusting his goggles, Alex says, “Hey, I always behave. It’s your hot-headed friend here you’ve got to worry about.”
“Don’t think just because you lucked out and managed to sneak aboard our plane that we’re all buddy-buddy now,” I growl. “If we hadn’t come under attack, your ass would still be sitting on that airstrip. I don’t trust you, I don’t like you, and I definitely don’t trust you. Oh, and did I forget to mention I don’t like you? Or trust you? Because I don’t.”
Alex looks over at Boom Boom and says, “You really used to sleep with this guy?”
Boom Boom massages her head and mutters, “For the love of God, please stop, the both of you. You’re giving me a migraine.”
Lowering his voice, Alex says, “Let’s get back to business. So if River is telling the truth and Klaxton is hiding out in her village, what do we do when we get there? Are we going to try and t
ake her in alive?”
Boom Boom doesn’t immediately answer, and neither do I. I take a few sips of my champagne and think long and hard before offering up my response.
“Klaxton is way too dangerous to take in alive,” I finally say. “The instant I see her, I’m putting a bullet through her skull.”
Boom Boom frowns, but doesn’t refute my answer.
World War Forever (Highway To Armageddon Book 2) Page 30
