GUNNER: The Immortal Devils MC

by Zoey Parker

  She struggled for a little bit more with the ties, and then she felt them starting to loosen up. It would only take her a few more squirms to make sure she had everything going right for her, and then they would just fall off. But she had to do it fast. She felt tension build in her chest; what if she couldn’t do this? What if she was trying this for nothing? There was no way she was going to be able to get out of here, she was just a girl.

  The zip-ties at her hands fell off.

  Her feet were still tied, though, and she had to fix that now. She heard something come from the hallway, and lifted her head up in fear. Was the guy back already? Had he just gone to the bathroom? It didn’t take guys that long to pee. Looking deep inside herself for some kind of hope (the kind that she’d lost ages ago after dealing with too many people’s bullshit), she hoped that the guy was busy pooping.

  Her hands went to her ankles. These ties were easier to get off because her hands weren’t bound, and she freed herself in seconds. Springing up to her feet, she made her way to the door.

  Now what was she supposed to do?

  She didn’t know what was going on out there. She had no idea where anyone was, if anyone was there, and how many people were out there. More importantly, she didn’t know how many people out there were willing to kill her if they saw that she was free. To that last bit, she guessed the answer was all of them.

  There was no point in waiting, though. Even if that guy wasn’t going to be back for a while, someone else might come looking for her. There was no way she could just sit here, unbound, in this room forever. But…

  How was she supposed to fight her way out of here? She was just one woman; the people out there were an unknown number of probably armed creeps. What would happen if Darren showed up looking for her? But what if he didn’t? She had to rely on herself, but it wasn’t really clear what she could do to make sure things turned out the way she wanted – the way she needed – them to.

  The door was closed, and she couldn’t really tell how far it would spring open if someone pushed it. If she was behind it, though, at least no one would be able to see her immediately. So she did the only thing she could do, and went there.

  A few seconds passed. Then a few minutes went by. Nothing was happening, and the guy who was supposed to be watching her wasn’t even back yet. Or, if he was, he was standing in a way that made it so she couldn’t see the back of his head.

  But that meant that he couldn’t see her either, so it was more likely than not that the man just wasn’t there. This couldn’t be good. Where was he supposed to be? She loved that he wasn’t there, but she was also concerned. If no one was watching her, that meant that something was going on. And that was either very, very good for her, or very, very bad.

  That’s when she heard it.

  The gunshot rang through the air like a deadly bell. It was quickly followed by several more gunshots, and then there was the sound of people shouting and the din of running feet on tile.

  The feet were running away from where she was, though, so that must mean that the gunshots were coming from closer to where she was. Kind of far away, but still close enough. Why the hell didn’t people just punch each other anymore? Why did they always have to bust in and then try to shoot each other and murder each other? It was ridiculous.

  But it helped her.

  If there was gunfire and there was shouting, that meant that whoever was here wasn’t on the friendliest of terms with these people. And unless it was some weird coincidence, that meant that the Bloody Saints were here – and that meant that she was this close to safety. All she had to do was a find a way out of here, and that meant she was home free.

  There was still shouting, but she couldn’t hear what was being said outside of the walls of this room. If the door was locked, that meant she was shit out of luck. Moving so she wasn’t hiding behind the door anymore, she brought her hand to the knob.

  It opened.

  Was this a trap? The guy had left her and the door was unlocked. There was no time to think about that now, though. She just had to make sure she got out of here. Besides making sure she somehow survived this thing, she also had to make sure she didn’t run into Darren. She didn’t know if she could take that.

  As soon as she was out in the hallway, she realized it probably wasn’t going to be as hard to get out of here as she’d originally thought. The turn she’d thought was there earlier was barely a turn at all, and just led down the same hallway. For the most part, this hall was clearly straight – and there were only two directions you could go. She went in the opposite direction from where the chaos was coming from. The gunfire had died down in the last minute or so, but there was still shouting and now there was the sound of things shattering as they were thrown to the ground.

  This, of all places, was the last place she wanted to be in the world. She should be back at her apartment. Why the hell did she get involved with Darren in the first place? He might not even be here. It was almost definitely the Bloody Saints that were here, but Darren had already told her about their rivalry with the Broken Skulls. Whatever was going on here, it probably had nothing to do with her. And it probably had even less to do with the feelings that she hoped Darren had for her.

  She ran down the hallway. Her heart was hammering the entire time; what if someone ran and decided to go this way instead? Just because there were issues going on over there didn’t necessarily mean that everyone had forgotten about her, and if they hadn’t –

  There was a turn in the hallway. She took it and kept going left. If going right meant she was going to go right into everything else, then she sure as hell wasn’t going to go that way.

  She didn’t have a long way to go before she found a door. She turned her head to make sure that there wasn't someone behind her, someone chasing her that she just hadn’t seen for some reason. Like she’d expected, there was no one there, but the worry didn’t go away as she pushed her hands on the thick weight of the door.

  This door had to be unlocked.

  It needed to be.

  The door opened at the second push; she must not have been putting enough weight on it the first time. Pushing the door open enough so she could squeeze through it was work, too, because the door was heavy. Eventually, she made her way through it, rushing out to the parking lot.

  And there, she saw the last thing she’d intended to see. The last thing she’d wanted to see, actually, but regardless of what she wanted, it was there. It was parked haphazardly, leaned up against the wall of a building and left there like whoever had abandoned it had been in a hurry. It might’ve just been a coincidence, or belonged to just about anyone else, but the sheen of it was too much for it to be anything other than what it was.

  It was Darren’s bike. She’d seen it countless times at the bar.

  That meant that he was here, and that he was looking for her. Every single muscle in her body acted like it stopped working at just the same time, and she didn’t know what to do. She froze. Should she just run out of here and away from all of this? Maybe he would find her later. But part of her didn’t even know if she wanted him to find her, and she didn’t know what would happen when, or if, he did.

  She ran back inside.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Darren

  He rushed into the building, looking for her. The boys had agreed to go hunt her out, and eventually they’d gotten word that she was probably in the headquarters the Broken Skulls used: a small factory that had been re-purposed, for means of torture and kidnapping. And by “gotten word,” that meant that he’d hunted down some guy and punched it out of him, but that was basically the same as a little bird telling him where she was.

  The other guys still didn’t want him involved. It was too risky, and it was probably a trap. Grabbing the girl to make the guy come along was a classic move, and this was probably exactly what that was. That didn’t matter. If something could maybe happen to Victoria, that meant he had to stop it.

  The gunfi
re he heard was coming from the next room over. They’d agreed that the guys would break in from the front, and a few more would break in from the back; a little while later, while everyone was distracted and freaking out, he decided would bust his way in from the side. The door was a little hard to find and he had to kick it down, but he didn’t give a fuck. Getting charged with breaking and entering wasn’t his biggest concern right now.

  Victoria was.

  These halls seemed like they went on forever. It was way too hard to make his way through here. He turned down another hall, searching for somewhere Victoria could possibly be, and came to another dead end.

  He held his hand at his pistol, which he kept by his side. If anyone came at him, he could raise it in an instant and shoot them; if someone came towards him and it was one of his friends, well, at least he wouldn’t have a gun pointed at their head.

  He tightened his grip on the pistol, reminding himself that it was still there. Then he made his way down another hall. This would be easier if he could shout for Victoria, but that wasn’t a good idea. If he called for her, someone would know he was here looking for her. And if someone knew he was here looking for her, they…

  He couldn’t think about it. All he could do was find her.

  The second hallway led to another dead end. He made his way to another, sliding so that his back was against a wall as the thump of hard footsteps came pounding past him. His heart was beating fast in his chest – was he scared? No. He was excited, thrilled at the chance to pull off a rescue. If he could pull off a rescue.

  Another part of him, though, was afraid, and he tried to push that side away from him as best he could. He didn’t get afraid, but Victoria just had a way of screwing with all of his emotions in the best way she knew how, without even knowing that she was doing it. The footsteps passed. He moved on without even having to turn around and get into a confrontation. That was for the best. The sooner he found Victoria, the better.

  That didn’t mean it was getting any fucking easier to make his way through this place, though. Instantly he was hit with pangs of regret, trying to figure out what he could’ve done to make this any easier for himself. He should’ve punched that guy a few more times and gotten some information about where they were holding her. He only hadn’t because he was concerned someone would find out somehow. That emotion – worry – was proving to be a massive pain in the ass, and he hated how much it managed to control him.

  Eventually he made his way through a hall, passing one door. He kicked it open, bringing his gun up in his hands and lifting it to check around the room. Bringing his hand up, he flicked on a light switch. The room lit up immediately, revealing that it was a men’s bathroom.

  Cursing under his breath, he moved on for the hundred time.

  Finally, he got to the back of the warehouse. There were no other hallways that he could venture to from here; he was at the very back, and every move he could take would just bring him back to where he’d already started out. Or just bring him to the front of the warehouse, and he already knew that Victoria wasn’t there. She couldn’t be there.

  But if she wasn’t here, that could only mean one thing. Maybe they had already killed her. If they had killed her, everyone who had ever done anything to hurt her was going to die. There was nothing they could do about it, he was going to kill them. He could already feel the hot heat of tears gathering behind his eyes, and he shoved them away as best he could. The wetness was still there, and he hated it. It reminded him of his weakness.

  She couldn’t be dead. She wasn’t allowed to be, and he had to keep looking for her.

  The back of the warehouse wasn’t as big as the rest of it, and it was overwhelmingly gray. There was one long wall that spanned the entirety of the structure here, and there were a few doors that looked like they were almost engraved in the stone there. He counted three, and then four. Three were closed, but one was open. He went to that one last, not wanting to see what might be in any of them.

  There was nothing in the first three closed doors. In the last, somewhat-open door, there were zip-ties left on the floor. Nothing that showed that Victoria was even ever here. Holding onto the last shreds of hope he had in his body, he turned to go search the front of the warehouse. She wasn’t allowed to be dead – he didn’t know how he was going to manage to live without her. It wasn’t like they'd been together that long, or like they were even actually in a relationship, by some people’s standards, but already she meant the world to him.

  That’s when he saw her, standing in the door off the hallway he’d just burst through.

  Victoria.

  # # #

  Victoria

  She wasn’t thinking about where she was going. Making her way back to the warehouse probably wasn’t the best idea and might not work out for her, but she wasn’t exactly running with logic right now. She was simply running and the only place she could go to get away from what lay ahead (Darren) was to go back. And what lay behind her was the warehouse she’d been kept in. So she did the only thing she thought to do, and went back there.

  She just didn’t expect to see him the moment she actually got there. She was still in the doorway, and the way he was looking at her was making her freeze up. He had this look of surprise and of something else on his face, and she couldn’t recognize the emotion. She didn’t need to stop and think about it.

  He went to her immediately.

  For a second, he was frozen too, but then he spurred himself into action. She saw that he held a pistol in his hands, but he tucked it into the holster he’d hidden in the waist of his jeans. Then he went to her, walking so fast it seemed like he was trying to keep himself from running.

  She wasn’t sure what she could possibly say to him. He’d abandoned her, and that had put her in a situation where she had almost died. And it was all his fault. The part of her that wanted to go to him was just about outweighed by everything else that wanted to run away from him, but only because he had run away from her first.

  She didn’t have the energy or brain power to deal with anything. But she didn’t even have time to try to come up with something to say. Before she could open her mouth to get a word out, he was grabbing her.

  His arms went under her legs, gripping her by the thighs as he scooped her up so he was holding her like a princess. He couldn’t grab his gun by the way he was holding her, but it was okay. They were going to get out of here quickly, and if someone tried to stop them, he was just going to bash their head in.

  The rest of the guys could deal with this themselves. All that mattered was getting her out of here.

  Now.

  She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do, but she threw her arms around him the minute he took her in his arms. It seemed like it was the right thing to do, and everything in her was used to this. It felt so right being held by him, not only because he was trying to grab onto her and take her away from a place where people wanted to murder her. She was happy to see him, even though she didn’t want to admit it. She just had to get past the fact that people were killing each other a few rooms away right now.

  Outside on the street, things looked way calmer than they surely were in the warehouse they’d just left. She couldn’t really dwell on it, though. She was still in his arms, and he was heading towards the motorcycle that was set right up against the wall of some other building.

  He put her on the motorcycle before he climbed on. The feelings of anxiety and relief racking through him right now weren’t letting him think straight, and this, among other things, told him that he needed to get away from here as soon as possible.

  The feelings Victoria was experiencing were even worse. She was happy to see him, but she held more anger than she did happiness. He was holding her, though, and then she was on the bike, and they were driving away before she could say anything about it.

  # # #

  The buildings on that street passed by them quickly. Darren wasn’t going as fast on the motorcycle as Victor
ia was expecting, and she wondered if that was because she was on it with him. The heat of him in front of her was distracting her, and the way her arms held around his waist as he gripped the handles made her think of other ways they had embraced each other.

  More buildings passed them, turning from shades of gray making up various, decrepit buildings to nicer ones. These new buildings weren’t all that great, but the stone and brick making these up were at least decent. Victoria couldn’t really fathom a murder happening here, so that meant that they were getting out of that part of town. There were nicer portions that scaled their way out of bad districts, and then quickly fell into them again, though, so that didn’t necessarily mean anything.

  She realized that she wasn’t even wearing a helmet, because Darren just been focused on getting her on the bike and then on getting her out of there. They weren’t going slow, although they weren’t going that fast; still, though, she wasn’t about to trust her life in the hands of Darren Saylor. Not again. She wanted and needed him – she could at least admit that to herself now – but that didn’t mean she could make herself vulnerable. Not to this man.