by Hazel Parker
I had no idea what he was talking about. And frankly, as long as Lane killed Damon and rescued me, I trusted him to figure out the rest. It couldn’t possibly be any more dangerous or worse than this.
“That’s what you think,” I said, feigning confidence. “You can’t kill the brotherhood that they have. You can’t separate them. I was with Lane, and he chose the club over me. If you know I couldn’t separate him from the club, if you know that I couldn’t break apart that bond, what the hell makes you think that you and your little plan can?”
Damon just cackled, looked over his shoulder at me and shrugged.
“There are things you are unaware of, Carrie, and things Lane and the Saints are unaware of,” he said. “As for me and you and Lane…we shall see.”
He laughed again before repeating those ominous words.
“We shall see.”
Chapter 21: Niner
Every member of the club stood before me, Marcel, and Biggie.
Every member, except for Uncle, who would stay behind to safeguard the building, would be following us out of the door after we finished debriefing them.
And I expected every member to have our back and fight by whatever means necessary to get Carrie back, Damon killed, and the Bloodhounds eliminated. They hadn’t gotten the moniker savage for nothing.
“One more time, here’s the plan,” I said, my voice loud and audible to all. “Biggie and I are each driving vans to the warehouse in question. We will form a perimeter around the building. On our cue, we will storm in. You are to eliminate all hostiles except for Damon, whose photo you have received. Under no circumstances are we to have any, any civilian casualties. Do I make myself clear?”
Everyone loudly said yes. At this point, as a police officer, I would have heard enough. I didn’t need a rah-rah speech or anything to get me “hyped up.” I had my mission; emotions just clouded me.
But as I looked around the room, and as I sensed for the vibe from the Stones, I felt a responsibility to ignite the kinship that would help us win. So many of the men in the room had either barely experienced violence of any consequence, or they had done so in an individual context. They needed someone who had been on the front lines as part of a team.
“This mission,” I said, “will only succeed if we work together and we have each other’s back. Look to the person to your right. Look to the person to your left. They are your family here.”
Unlike my time in the police. There are no politics to be played here. Just a mission to carry out.
“Whatever happens on this mission, fight for your brothers. Fight for the good of the Savage Saints. Fight for something bigger than yourself. Do this, and we will emerge victorious.”
“Yeah!” Biggie shouted, generating cheers and shouts from the crowd.
It was just as well Biggie got things going. Even that moment of “inspiration” was a bit dryer than I think most would have preferred. But that was why I was the sergeant-at-arms and he was the vice president.
“Let’s go,” I shouted.
We split into groups of ten, with me commandeering one van and Biggie the other. The other nine members—including Marcel and Fitz—piled into the back, rifles in hand. Biggie and I had walkie talkies we could use to communicate as we approached, but we would discard them once we got on site.
I took a half-second before I turned the van on. I knew there were risks in this mission. I knew the minute that we barged in, Damon could choose to kill Carrie, rendering anything else I did after that meaningless. They could have already left the warehouse in anticipation of a preemptive strike. They could have used this to lure us in, only for them to destroy the repair shop.
But the possibility of a rescue and of accomplishment would never again be so promising. If we waited until tonight, we were fighting on the Bloodhounds’ terms. No matter how “favorable” those terms may have seemed, we would still be in a losing battle.
I turned the van on.
It was time to save Carrie.
It was time to avenge all of the victims I was unable to save.
It was time to kill Damon.
* * *
I parked my van about a tenth of a mile from the building. While the broad daylight made subtlety impossible, I had to figure which route would provide us the greatest element of surprise. In my estimation, we would be able to sneak up on foot a lot more easily than we would by driving right up to the warehouse.
“Niner?” Biggie said over the radio. “What’s going on? Shouldn’t we get closer, over?”
With my eyes still trained on the warehouse, looking for any sign of a trap or of danger, I grabbed the walkie-talkie.
“Negative. Feet are quieter than engines. We’ll have to move in silence. Over.”
I gave Biggie a few seconds to respond, in case he had an idea counter to mine.
“Roger that, let’s move. Over.”
All I need to hear.
I cut the engine off, went to the back, and opened the doors. The nine Savage Saints all had their rifles at the ready, their eyes steeled and determined. They might have been a nervous, sick wreck on the ride over, but with the battle at hand, adrenaline would have its place.
“It’s time,” I said.
I passed by the passenger’s seat, grabbed my rifle, and led the nine Savage Saints around the perimeter of the building. I saw several Bloodhound bikes, complete with fang marks on them, as if that somehow made the sickos cool, but no actual Bloodhounds. We were going to suffer some casualties on this run; of that, there was, unfortunately, no doubt in my mind.
But if someone signed up for an MC thinking that there wouldn’t be the risk of death and violence, then they deserved the rude awakening that was about to come.
I waved over Biggie and his group, and we met up at the far entrance, away from the windows and any doors. I motioned for him to take the north-facing side, and we took the south side. As best as I could tell, there were only two entrances to the building, and we had each covered. If Damon was going to break free, he was going to have to go through our men to do so.
This was where we had to trust the other team to do their part. We had each looked at our watch before we moved out and had agreed to run in at the top of the minute. At that point, the goal was simple.
Kill as many Bloodhounds as possible. Capture Damon. Rescue Carrie. Any other goal had to fall under one of those three categories.
I checked my watch. Twenty seconds till. I looked at the Saints. A couple were saying prayers. Two of them were taking very deep breaths. The rest were in position, ready to move at my command.
Fifteen seconds. I’m coming for you, Carrie. I’m sorry I got you into this, but I’ll make sure you get out of it. You can return to Georgia and never have to worry again about me or anything connected to me.
Ten seconds. Damon, it’s time to head to the grave. You’re going to burn for a very long time for what you did. I will make sure that your path there is as painful as what you’ve done to this world.
Five seconds. I readied my gun.
Four.
Three. For the Saints.
Two. For everyone who fell to him.
One. For Carrie.
I turned, chambered my leg, and kicked down the door.
“FREEZE!” I yelled.
I was immediately met with shouts and cries of surprise from the Bloodhounds. I shot down two before they could react. My men fanned out behind me, and we quickly took cover as we engaged in a shootout with the Bloodhounds.
“The hell did they come from?”
“They’re everywhere!”
“Shit, what the fuck?”
“Take them out!”
I listened closely for Damon’s voice in the madness. Surely, he would be a part of this.
But so far, I hadn’t heard him shout at all. Don’t tell me we’re too late. I shook the thoughts long enough to lay down fire and eliminate a couple more Bloodhounds.
My men advanced in the warehouse as t
he enemy fire dwindled to practically nothing.
But something didn’t seem right. I hadn’t heard Damon at all, and for that matter, I hadn’t heard Carrie screaming or yelling for me. I would have thought that the sound of gunfire would have at least drawn a terrified scream for her.
“Hands up!” Marcel yelled as he moved in. “Hands up, Bloodhounds! Gig is up! Hands up, or we will shoot!”
Marcel, to his credit, quickly took control of the situation. We had wiped them out. What few Bloodhounds remained quickly surrendered.
But among them was not Damon…
What had I missed?
A motorcycle.
I heard it outside. It was faint, and if the gunfire had still been going on, I would never have heard it. But there was no mistaking it. I turned and sprinted outside.
I came out just in time to see Damon picking up speed on his bike, escaping. I had one shot, but I needed to be true. Damon had Carrie, seemingly unconscious—hopefully not dead—slung over his shoulder. I was much too far away to see if she was alive, much less unhurt or undamaged.
I acted without even thinking. Years of being in the NYPD had taught me to be a steady shot under pressure, and just because I had left the force didn’t mean I had lost the skills accompanied with it. I aimed my rifle at the tires and fired.
My aim was true. The bike tire popped, the motorcycle tossed Damon and Carrie into the air, and the bike itself fell to the ground. I sprinted over as Damon quickly got back up.
“Carrie!” I shouted. “Carrie!”
But Damon, somehow still mobile, reached for her, threw her over his shoulder, and used his free hand to fire at me. He wasn’t accurate, but he did slow me down enough for him to continue getting away.
I chased him around the side of the warehouse until he came to a ridge over the water. He dropped Carrie off his shoulder and let her ragged body hang just barely on the edge. He held her hand, and if he let go of her, her body was going to fall into the water.
“What did you do?”
“Me?” Damon said in mock confusion. “I was just trying to take her someplace private. That’s what you would be doing, isn’t it, Officer Lane ‘Niner’ Bentley?”
He cackled with laughter. I raised my rifle at him. The laughter stopped instantly.
“You might want to reconsider doing that,” he said, a smirk slowly spreading across his face.
“Is she alive?”
“Duh,” Damon said. “You think I would lose my leverage with you just for a momentary thrill?”
There was nothing about him that gave me any reason to believe him, but to consider the alternative was too much. My fingers remained steady and by the trigger.
“You know, Lane, I think you and I got off on the wrong foot before,” he said. “All the violence between us. It was just too much. So, let me make amends by giving you a choice.”
He then pulled out a pistol with his free hand, his other hand still holding Carrie.
“Here is your choice,” he said. “You let me shoot you, and Carrie does not fall into the water and drown. Or, you try to shoot me, and she drowns, and then I kill you anyway. So really, it’s a question of if you believe in an afterlife, isn’t it? Maybe you’d want her to die if that’s the case. At least you won’t be waiting that way. Of cour—”
BANG!
One shot straight to Damon’s forehead silenced him forever.
As soon as the blood had begun to splatter out of his skull, I had already dropped my gun and was sprinting over to Carrie. Damon’s body staggered forward, meaning there was a brief moment where his momentum carried Carrie forward, but his instant death had otherwise released her.
I lunged just in time to grab her by the ankles.
“Oh, shit,” I muttered to myself.
I slowly dragged her up to safety. I took her pulse.
She was alive.
Unconscious, but alive.
“Oh my God, Carrie,” I mumbled.
I looked over at the corpse of Damon. I’d waited far too long to do that. I had cost far too many lives by taking so long.
But at long last, he was done.
He was gone.
The women of New York City could breathe a little bit easier knowing this nightmarish sociopath would no longer wander the streets.
I thought of saying something, but there weren’t words to express how much this man had tormented me and had been a nightmare for the world. So, as was my custom, rather than speak, I took action.
I grabbed him by the jacket, took him to the edge, shook my head in disgust at him, and then hoisted him into the water. His body sunk within seconds, and I knew then that even if the bullet had somehow not killed him, the water would.
“Never again.”
Those were the only words I could find on my tongue at that moment. I turned back to Carrie. I picked her up gingerly, feeling for any broken bones. She didn’t seem to have any, though she’d probably have to go to the hospital.
I started to move her to the van when she stirred.
“Lane?” she said, her eyes slowly fluttering open.
“Carrie!” I said.
I crouched down and embraced her tight. Her arms were slow to return the favor, but only because she’d just been knocked out. Slowly, as she came to, she understood she was safe with me. She hugged me back, repeating my name over and over again.
“I really thought I was going to die,” she said. “I thought you might come, but I just…Lane, I got scared. I didn’t know, I should have listened, I—”
“Shh, Carrie,” I said.
We pulled back and shared a gentle, sweet kiss. It was a comforting kiss—a kiss that let her know that I would protect her forever. It was a kiss that told her that even after she moved to Georgia, I would do whatever I needed to protect her.
“It’s over,” I said. “You can go back to Georgia in peace now. Damon is dead.”
“Oh,” she said. “Good, I guess.”
She rubbed her head.
“Can you just take me back to your place for now?” she said. “I want to lie down someplace safe. And you seem like the best bet.”
“You sure?” I said. “We can get you to the airport—”
“I already missed my flight,” she said with a slight smile, her first since she woke up. “Might as well hang out for a little bit.”
Might as well, indeed.
“OK,” I said, kissing her on her forehead. “Come on. Let me take you back.”
Chapter 22: Carrie
My first goal when Lane helped me to his place and I sat on the couch was to relax my mind as best as I could.
Lane was kind enough to get me a glass of red wine, which helped calm me down a little bit, but it didn’t totally relax me. After all, the person who was making my mind run the most wasn’t dead. He was right in front of me.
“I checked the flights just now,” Lane said as he sat on the other end of the couch, careful to give me space to breathe while also being close enough to hold me. “It looks like you can get on something tomorrow for pretty cheap. And I’m pretty sure if you can explain what happened to the airlines, maybe you can get the ticket rolled up. I know airlines are notorious for not being super friendly, but—”
“Lane,” I said with a weak but grateful smile. “You don’t have to do that.”
“Oh, I know, I know you’re capable of that, but—”
“That’s not what I mean,” I said.
It was starting to come together. I’d actually had the thought in the time between when Lane had left on Sunday and when everything had happened this morning, but it hadn’t felt legitimate. It had felt like the thought of a desperate woman trying to hold on to a relationship that just needed to fade.
But the past few hours had told me that maybe they weren’t thoughts of desperation. Maybe they were thoughts of the heart that I had effectively buried and prevented from reaching the surface before.
“You know, there’s the practical reason tha
t I wanted to go back to Georgia, which was that the restaurant failed and I had no income. I’ll need to take outside investment to get a new restaurant going, but a practical problem can have a practical solution.”
I decided I didn’t need to ask right now if Lane would help go in on such a restaurant. As it was, I hadn’t even yet decided to stay behind—but I hadn’t decided to go yet, either. What was once a clear-cut decision had developed some much-needed confusion.
“But any time someone uses a practical problem to make a dramatic life choice, it’s usually done to hide an emotional one as well,” I said. “And I think a large part of me has missed the feeling of being home. Or, perhaps more precisely said, the actual feeling of being home, not being home itself. My partner at Southern Comfort was a party girl that I knew through connections. My employees are all teenagers. Everyone is wonderful, but no one knows what it’s like to grow up in the South and to be a Southern lady. No one, well, except…you.”
Lane was trying to fight a smile from forming on his face. Maybe he feared if he let himself fall into the smile, he’d let himself get hurt again when I supposedly decided to leave.
So, to make him feel comfortable, I just smiled back at him. It seemed to do the trick.
“Like I said, I have some practical problems I have to figure out, chief among them money,” I said. “And that’s not insignificant.”
“But it can be taken care of,” Lane said with unshakable confidence.
“Exactly. And I would never expect you to solve my emotional problems; that’s unfair to you. But…”
I beckoned him over. He did as commanded, and I fell against his shoulder as he put his arm around me.
“Your actions today made me realize that no one back home is going to care for me like you do,” I said. “If home is where the heart is, then I’m home right now. People say there’s no place they’d rather be than where they are, but in my case, I can say it sincerely. You make me happy, Lane. You get me. I get you. I’m sorry I won’t be able to provide you barbeque anymore, but hopefully I can provide a Southern comfort of a different kind.”
