The door was shut like I figured it would be. Grandma Jean was supposed to be waiting at the end. So was Billy, but considering what Larry had said, she must have been in the wind and leading old Jason around by the nose. I gave a couple of light knocks on the door, and it swung out. Jean stood there looking harried, but she still paused to look us over, one eyebrow arched in surprise. I was sure we looked some kind of way, me standing there holding Denny under my arm like a big eight-year-old bag of groceries.
I set him down carefully, but Jean took one look at him and said, “You have to go back.”
I was adamant; she didn’t know that there was another guy out there, looking for Billy.
“What? I don’t understand; we need to go now.”
“Listen to me,” she said forcefully, speaking slowly as though I had a hearing issue and she wanted to make sure I read her lips correctly. “That bag is evidence; it needs to stay in that tunnel. Denny comes with me. Max, you need to go back.”
Denny looked at Jean in familiarity, as though he already knew her, but of course he did. In a town that small everyone knew Grandma Jean. He’d be okay with her.
“Alright,” I said as I started down the tunnel. “I’ll head back and drop this off with good old Larry, and I’ll be right back.”
“Is he breathing?” Jean asked, completely without judgment as if she was asking what we were having for dinner.
“He’s taking a nap,” I told her, mimicking a quick jab to the temple.
“Well, he needs to stay that way a bit longer,” was her only response. “Hurry the hell up.”
That was the last thing she said to me before she closed the tunnel door in my face. Damn it, I had to hurry. I sprinted back to the middle of the tunnel. At almost a quarter of a mile, it wasn’t a huge distance but running sucked and I tried never to have to do it. Dropping the backpack next to Larry’s prone form I gave him a little kick in the ribs for emphasis. He didn’t move so I figured he would be sleeping for a bit longer yet, and I ran back to the front of the tunnel. My attempt to knock “Shave and a haircut” out on the door yielded nothing.
No answer.
I had been gone a maximum of ten extra minutes, so I wasn’t sure what the holdup could be. After another couple of knocks with no response, I gave it a push myself and slowly swung it outward.
I was not prepared.
9
The scene in front of me had me stunned to silence. Grandma Jean was standing about fifty feet directly in front of me, right next to her pearly white trike with her hands in the air. About ten feet in front of me and slightly to my right was Steven Colsen, with a Kimber Micro 9 trained directly on her. I assumed Billy was still running the perimeter so I didn’t expect to see her. The one person really missing from the scene was Denny.
Where was he?
“Well hello, friend!” Steven said politely, almost as if greeting an old buddy. “You’re a new face!” He grinned, his teeth white under his nondescript blond mustache. This was another completely normal looking guy. Clean cut, sandy blonde hair, neatly trimmed facial hair, a new pair of Wranglers and a button-down shirt. How dare this asshole look so neighborly? It wasn’t right. I wasn’t sure what to do since I couldn’t reach for my piece without him noticing. There was still no sign of Denny anywhere.
“Now, I bet you are wondering how your little plan got derailed, hmm?” He was still talking nicely, and it was creeping me out, but what made me even more nervous was the gun he had trained on Grandma Jean. His hands weren’t shaking in the least, and I realized suddenly that I recognized those hands. Not personally. But still, in seeing the trained, steady hold he had on the gun, I knew these were the hands of someone who had wielded a weapon many times. He’d definitely squeezed the trigger before, and he looked like he was born holding that firearm. I had to play this cool, so I continued to let him talk.
“See, Jason let me know someone spotted Billy poking around the fence line.” He shook his head in mock sadness and continued. “I should have known better than to send him after her—she’s wild.” He tipped his head towards me like he was sharing a secret. “It took me some work to get her to come to heel for me. Man! It took two grown ass men to hold her down and a third to light her up. I had to punish her though. A woman like that, it’s the only way to make them obedient.”
I would take him out for that statement alone, and a primal growl rumbled out of my throat, but he ignored me like I hadn’t made a sound.
“She was doing pretty well too, until tonight. Do I have you to thank for that?” He was still talking like we were at the dinner table together and I didn’t know exactly how to answer him. I was pretty sure I was going to kill him though. I didn’t know how, but in that moment, I swore to myself I would snuff him out for what he’d done to Billy.
“Where’s Denny?” The abrupt change in Steven’s tone and volume had both Jean and me jumping a little from where we stood, separated still by those fifty feet. “Where is my boy? I know you’ve got him. You give him back right now.” Steven was eyeballing the cargo trunk of the Servi-Pro, and my stomach dropped. Did Jean have Denny in that cargo space to smuggle him out unseen? I had thought I was going to be taking him in Jean's old Buick, but that was the only place she could have hid him in the meantime. Somehow, when I was sprinting in the tunnel for the second time, the plan had derailed. I didn’t know what was going on anymore. How had she even known Steven was coming? Shit was getting deep, and I didn’t pack my waders.
“Denny, you in there boy?” Steven was hollering directly at the trunk now, but his gun hand never wavered. Grandma Jean, to her credit, didn’t take her eyes off him. She didn’t so much as slide her eyes in the direction of the bike. That made me nervous. Steven opened his mouth to yell at the trunk again, and that was when the dominoes fell.
The lid on the cargo box attached to the back of the trike popped open, and out sprang Billy clutching two Ruger LCRs I knew belonged to Jean and normally made their home in her shoulder and hip holsters. She rose up, guns drawn, looking like a Valkyrie- hair and eyes both wild. She must have been folded in half, crammed down inside a space that couldn’t have been more than three-foot square, for how long I didn’t know, but she was every inch a warrior as she trained her weapons and her eyes directly on Steven.
She shocked the shit out of everyone but Jean when she popped the cherry on that cargo box, but she’d especially shocked Steven, who was jolted into firing a shot off at Billy, but in his nervousness the shot went wide. I took my brief opening and lunged across the space at Steven, hitting him square in the side and knocking his gun flying. At the same time, I felt a burning on my left side, straight from my shoulder and all the way down my arm.
Billy fucking Daily had shot me. Damn it all to hell.
The force of the bullet knocked me off of Steven and backward onto the ground, but the first thing to land was my skull. My body decided the knock from my nugget into the concrete was a little too much to stay awake for, and even as I struggled to stay alert, the black started closing in. The last thing I heard before the lights went out completely was the sound of multiple bike engines closing in.
What a weird thing to hear before passing out, I thought, right before the curtains closed.
10
I woke up to white walls and a vague beeping sound, which turned out to be some machinery next to my bed. There was an oxygen tube in my nose and more tubes pumping fluids into my arm. Everything fucking hurt.
The sound of voices, difficult to make out at first, filtered through until I was able to register Billy and Denny talking to each other in hushed tones. I turned my head just slightly to the right and I could see them sitting together on a little loveseat in my hospital room, quietly discussing the cartoon they were watching on the wall mounted television.
I recognized it as the ninja show with the kid in the orange jumpsuit that I used to watch on the all-night cartoon channel when there hadn’t been shit else on TV, but I also hadn’t be
en willing to dive back into my nightmares.
They were bickering with each other about what was better, subtitles or voice dubbing. Denny was arguing the case that he was only eight and it was difficult to keep up with subtitles, while Billy pointed out that it was good reading practice and there really was no substitute for original Japanese voice acting.
I didn’t give a shit what they were talking about; I was just so damn happy to see both of them, they could have been dancing on my wounded arm for all I cared. Thinking about my arm had me remembering how much pain I was actually in and a small groan escaped my lips. Both heads turned simultaneously, and two pairs of concerned brown eyes focused on me.
I gave them a grin to let them know I was okay, but that was about all I could manage. The relief at seeing both of them unharmed was almost enough to make me pass out again, but I was too much of a manly man for that, so I just lay there with a stupid smile on my face. I wanted to tell them how happy I was to see them. I wanted to tell Denny he was safe now, to tell Billy how beautiful she looked sitting across the room with her hair pulled away from her face, a red headband and a black three-quarter length sleeve shirt on. Her arms weren’t showing, but a few her scars peeked out at the bottom of the shortened cuffs, and I was taking that for the goddamn win that it was.
Baby steps.
I wanted to say so many things that were seriously wussy, probably aided by some strong pain medication, but the door to my room opened and in walked a tall and broad man with a stature that rivaled my own. I normally didn’t roll over for any man, especially one I didn’t know. This guy though, his entire aura screamed superior officer just by the way he entered the room. I assumed without knowing that he probably had way more proverbial chest hair than me. I was probably in the company of someone more alpha than myself, but I’d reserve judgment on that until he told me who the fuck he was.
“Oh, and Patient Zero is awake, I see,” the giant said, nodding to Billy and Denny, who didn’t seem alarmed or surprised to see the newcomer. “We’ve been waiting for you to wake up again after surgery,” he continued. “You’ve been kind of useless just lying there like a lump.”
I didn’t say anything; he wasn’t waiting for a response anyway.
I lay there and listened to him introduce himself as Special Agent Gregory Knox with the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration).
Okay, now I had questions.
I opened my mouth to ask but a quick “Shut up, Soldier” had me zipping it quickly. I knew a superior officer when I heard one, and I popped out a, “Sir, yes sir!” before I could even think about it.
It turned out he was there on several different kinds of official business. The web was getting tangled as hell, and I was having difficulty following.
“You, Max Elliott, and Billy Daily, are all persons of interest in the case against Steven Colsen, that sorry sonofabitch we picked up outside of the zoo last night. Child endangerment and abuse allegations aside, we have some solid as hell evidence linking him to drug distribution, and with the two dumbasses who worked maintenance at the zoo, both of whom took little coaxing to roll over on him, I can guarantee we have a pretty solid case against this asshole.
“That being said, I need you all to stick around the area for a while, considering this is still an active investigation. I assume you will be more than happy to oblige with any such information we need – isn’t that right, Miss Two Hands?” That last part was directed at Billy, and I couldn’t help but snort at the memory of her blowing out the top of that cargo box, double fisting the boomsticks and ready for war. She gave me a dead-eyed stare, but did not lip off to Agent Knox.
He turned his attention back to me and handed me an envelope. I opened it, but couldn’t make sense of what I was looking at. It was a check. A shit ton of money, but I was confused. Confused until he unbuttoned the top few buttons of his shirt and pulled it open enough to show me the AOG tattoo on his chest. That tattoo was solid. A patch for when you couldn’t wear a patch—this guy was a lifer. I knew where this was going, and I didn’t need it. But I didn’t even get a word out before another “Shut it, Soldier” had me quiet again.
“This is in an unofficial capacity,” Agent Knox began after clearing his throat. “To us, you are a soldier who has fallen on hard times. It seems to us that since you’ve acquired this young family, you will need a residence, a safe vehicle with ample seating, and you will also need a source of steady income.”
I had to put my foot down at that. The check I was holding in my hands was much more than what he was describing. I had money, it wasn’t like I had anything to spend it on. I declined the check, but he shook his head and grunted, folding his arms over his chest as if to amplify his point of view that I was a dumbass.
“Boy, you might like your rambling life, but you ain't got a pot to piss in. Unless you were thinking about skipping town and leaving this pretty young woman and smart boy? They seem pretty attached to you.”
I looked over at Billy and Denny from my place on the bed, and they looked back, worry evident on their faces. I didn’t like to see that look on either of their faces, so I winked and smiled. Denny tried to wink back, but he hadn’t quite mastered that fine motor skill, so it was more like a sloppy blink instead. My laugh scraped out of my dry throat as more of a bark, which ended in a groan because it hurt to move my upper body. Agent Knox continued, “This check doesn’t come near to what you have given us over the past years, and you know it. You thought by staying anonymous we wouldn’t know, but King rolled on you and your donations years ago. We just let you think we didn’t know so you could feel manly about it. Soldier, let us help you now; let us help your family. This is what our organization does, son; you know that. Let us honor you.”
What the hell could I say after that speech? A choked “thank you” was all I could get out, but I was grateful it seemed to be enough to placate him, at least for the moment. I had already been shot in the arm by a bullet I was going to assume was not meant for me, and lost consciousness from cracking my head open on the pavement. I was not going to add to my manly humiliation by crying like a pussy. I flexed my good arm instead and resisted checking to see if I still had my balls attached.
Agent Knox cleared his throat and looked from me to Billy and then back to me before focusing on Denny and saying, “Kid, want to get something to eat in the cafeteria with me? I think your sister might have something to say to the invalid over there.” He leaned down and stage-whispered to Denny, who giggled. “She might want to start with apologizing for shooting him. What do you think?” As the two disappeared out the door, I heard the agent ask Denny what his wrestler name would be. The stubborn man-child inside me hoped it wasn’t anything as cool as “Mighty Max the Mauler.” The door hadn’t been shut for two seconds before I turned to Billy.
“You shot me!” I accused. My words were strong, but the heat in my gaze wasn’t fueled by anger. Billy Daily looked smoking hot, and I wanted her to come closer.
“Just in the shoulder, and it was your fault! You practically leaped in front of the bullet!” Her tone was defiant, but her expression was exhausted and worried. I knew better of Billy; I just had to give her a hard time. I patted the space next to me on the bed with my good arm and let her snuggle in next to me gingerly, being very careful not to disturb my injured shoulder. She filled me in with the story of how Jean had called King who had called in his own favors, and she hadn’t known Agent Knox or the AOG MC was going to be involved until the very last-minute.
Grandma Jean had passed Denny off to Agent Knox mere minutes before Steven had come upon her, supposedly packing Denny away in the cargo box. While Agent Knox had been taking Denny to a safer place off-site, a large chunk of the AOG MC had shown up right when all the action began. So I really had heard the bikes right before I passed out. At least I wasn’t a crazy person.
“Your nurse is going to be back in about thirty minutes with another dose of pain meds,” Billy whispered to me, leaning so close
to my face I could feel her breath on my cheek. “Do you want to spend it talking about stuff that already happened, or do you want me to make you feel better?”
I narrowed my eyes at her. Nice Billy Daily was scary as hell, but my dick didn’t know well enough to be afraid, and he stood up, begging for attention even though the rest of my body was hurting. Billy leaned in even closer, and I felt the cold metal against my good wrist a millisecond before I heard the click.
Billy fucking Daily had handcuffed me to the bed.
“Now we have to be careful not to move your arm, Max,” Billy chided. “After all, you’re an injured man.”
I was angry at her for turning my game around on me, yet incredibly turned on, the throbbing in my pants now surpassing the throbbing in my shoulder. Billy got up long enough to close the curtain that surrounded the bed, effectively blocking anyone coming into the door from seeing what she was about to do. She pulled the hospital sheet down past my waist, licked her lips, and whispered, “What will it be, Max? Hands or mouth?” My good arm flexed and pulled at the restraint, but the chain and cuff didn’t budge.
Dammit, Billy Daily!
11
Billy
Oh, man, was I in some kind of trouble. Not the previous trouble, where I was worried about the safety of my little brother and ready to die over it. No, this was unfamiliar territory and I was petrified.
I had man trouble.
More specifically, I had Max trouble.
I don’t know what the hell I was thinking, cuffing his arm to the bed like that. I mean, I know what I was thinking, but the follow through? In a hospital?
What was it about Max that made me lose my mind?
Billy Daily Page 5
