by Violet Blaze
I listen to the sound of feet, of breaking glass, of marijuana plants rolling across the floor in their plastic pots. The three men in the basement with me spread out, one of them taking the wall to the right of the bottom landing, the other kneeling behind the couch I'm sitting in front of. Nobody seems to notice me anymore.
There's a good chance I'll be killed in the cross fire.
I stare at the staircase through the thin wood railing that bisects my view, waiting for a pair of sensible shoes and a pantsuit. Come on Agent Shelley! I think, praying like hell to whatever gods will listen that the woman's as badass as she looks. In the back of my mind, I wonder if Royal will ride to my rescue again, but then I realize how impossible that is. This isn't like last time: we're in the middle of goddamn nowhere. We might only be a half hour from the city, but in these woods, we might as well be invisible.
I cut that train of thought off right there and focus on the situation at hand. I can save myself; I know I can. Well, with Agent Shelley's help.
More gunfire. Silence.
“Roberto?” Machine Gun Guy calls as the door at the top of the stairs unlocks and a body appears, stumbling and falling down the stone steps. It's Buzz Hair, smearing blood along the wall as he shouts something in Spanish and then falls forward, rolling down to the bottom landing with a thud.
In that split second of distraction, Agent Shelley ducks down and puts her pistol under the railing, hitting Machine Gun Guy directly in the top of his skull, dropping him before he can fire that gun in his hand. He drops in a ruby red pool of red while I watch Agent Garza push his way into the room behind another other cartel member.
The guy around the side of the wall doesn't hesitate to shoot his friend, nailing Agent Garza through the man's shoulder. They stumble, but Garza doesn't go down as Shelley streams past him and I turn, lifting my shackled ankles up and kicking out hard at the back of the man's knees.
It's enough to give Heather time to swing around the corner and take three shots at the guy's chest, red blossoming like rhododendrons at the yearly parade.
When she finally looks down and sees me, her expression is half-horror, half-relief. My mouth is gagged, but I scream at her with my eyes and gesture with my chin. There's a man behind the couch.
She gets my message, but it's too late. The man behind the sofa takes a shot at her, hitting her in the right shoulder, sending her staggering back across the faded rug. Agent Garza isn't far behind, lifting his pistol and firing several shots. The moment the last one goes off, he slumps forward and rolls past Buzz Hair down the last two cement steps, his gun sliding across the pavement to lay next to me.
“Miss Rentz,” Heather says, blood dripping down the sleeve of her beige suit jacket. “Are you hurt?” She drags the gag from my mouth with a shaking left hand; she doesn't let go of the gun in her right, pausing to reload only after she's pulled a Swiss army knife off the keys in her pocket and cut my ropes.
Upstairs, the sound of boots moving across the floor sends chills down my spine. Without hesitation, I reach for Agent Garza's gun. It's a semi, a nice solid weight in my hand. I check the magazine and find six rounds left. José must be a careful shot.
“How many men are there?” Agent Shelley asks me as I stand up and try not to stagger; my feet are still numb and my head is pounding. Also, I'm pretty sure I'm deaf. Gunfire indoors is not a pleasant thing to experience.
“I have no idea. I only saw five, but …” I decide how much I want to add to this. My decision: all of it. “There were members of Mile Wide here, too. They left, but I don't know for how long.”
Without having to talk about it, Heather and I move over to José and kneel down next to him. His pulse is faint, and he's bleeding like crazy, but there's not a lot of time to deal with his injuries. Shouts in Spanish sound from upstairs and a few radios crackle down here, attached to the dead men's bodies.
“Help me move him,” Agent Shelley says with a grim expression on her face. Her lipstick though, it's still perfect. I nod, leaning down to help her move her partner's body. I don't really want to touch the guy, unsure of the damage we could be doing to him, but then again, his only other option is to lay in the center of the room and possibly get shot again.
We make it around the ratty sofa in time for the door to swing inward again. I hadn't noticed Heather had even closed it, but now I'm glad she had. It gives us that extra millisecond of advantage.
I kneel on the floor, lifting both arms up, the gun held steady in my hands, and think of Royal. I imagine the cool, calm calculation in his face when he aimed his gun through the broken window of the truck and took down several Mile Wide guys, each with a single shot.
Easy, slow, calm.
I have to swallow bile down when I realize that I'm going to have to kill people today. Like you already killed Mia. A weird biting pain nips at my conscious, but I slap it back. Lucky people get to be worried and depressed about their own morality; dead people don't have the luxury.
Shots spray the room from the top of the stairs, but the angle isn't right for us to be hit down here behind the sofa—although I'm absolutely positive that I'm now deaf. I don't look at Heather, don't take my eyes off the staircase.
Several men move down the steps in quick succession, guns out, radios buzzing. They don't stop to check on their fallen brothers, kicking Buzz Hair's corpse out of the way as I suck in a breath and ready myself to take the shot.
Choosing the man on the far right, I aim carefully, between his eyes; I don't close my own as I pull the trigger.
The slough of mud beneath my bike splatters against the trunk of a massive old-growth redwood, the circumference of its trunk about the same length as the front of that fucking house. Good thing my bloody brakes are in order because I almost splatter against the deceptively soft looking bark myself.
The lush quiet of the forest explodes into the staccato whimpers of gunfire as I turn sharp and let my bike go out from under me. It's a planned fall, one that sends all six hundred pounds of my 66 Bobber sliding through the mud like a chrome bowling ball.
The forward momentum, the slick wetness of the earth, it lends for a perfect storm. The Bobber crashes into the trucks that are parked across the driveway like roadblocks, offering a split second of distraction for me and my Wolves.
I roll through the mud as my own momentum drags me towards the waiting vehicles. I don't bother to get to my feet as the gunfire starts up again. Instead, I use my bobber as cover to get around the front of the black truck on the left. My Ruger GP100 slides into my hand like a lover as I aim around the front wheel and shoot one of the men in the side of his head.
A spatter of red and pink mists in the air, dampened by the droplets of rain that fall from the thick branches above, lit strangely by the truck's headlights. The guy that drops looks vaguely familiar to me. Must be one of the actual, unpaid members of Mile Wide. Well, before the cartel started padding their pockets. They're not even an MC to me anymore, just a gang of well paid thugs.
There are a lot of men out here hiding in the dark, I realize as I take another shot and hit a man in the chest. I can hear gunfire to my right, from above in the branches. There are a hell of a lot more men here standing for Mile Wide than there are Wolves.
But then, they don't have me, and they don't have Smoky, and they sure as shit don't have Glacier.
The crazy psychopath moves up behind me, kneeling down with his back to mine as he lifts up the crossbow he had strapped to his back, and takes a shot into the darkness of the green canopy above us. Seconds later, a body tumbles from above, crashing into the wet earth with a sickening squelch.
With Glacier behind me, I know I've got the luxury of peace, calm, time to take my shots. I aim carefully, adjusting the muzzle of my gun as the men behind the trucks move around in the wet black of night. Most of these assholes are just firing off whatever rounds are in their magazine like quantity over quality will win their little war for them.
I wait carefully, ma
king myself breathe, making myself forget about Lyric. There's a chance that I'm wasting my time here, chasing ghosts. She might not be in that house, might be on her way to Ukiah or San Francisco or Mexico for all the fuck I know.
But I can't think like that.
Now is not the time for messy mistakes.
One of the men finally realizes there are snakes in his grass, refocusing his attention on Glacier and me, shouting something that I can't hear over the roar of my pulse and the groan of the downed bobber's engine.
It's Clayton fucking Moore.
“Shit,” I curse. “We gotta move.”
Glacier and I rise as one and swing around the front of the truck. My finger tenses on the trigger, but before I can pull it, the psycho next to me is tossing his crossbow hard, hitting Clayton's arm and knocking the man's shot wide.
“Out of bolts,” Glacier explains as I fire a round into Clayton's chest and watch as he stumbles back and fumbles under his cut for another weapon. Fucking body armor. But that's okay; I got me some too. “You want to check that house out?” he shouts over the roar of weapons and blood. Some of the Mile Wide motherfuckers have finally pulled their heads outta their arses and noticed us standing back here.
One of the men turns towards me and I cap him in the center of his throat. I get no satisfaction from it, not a goddamn lick. But I can do this, and I can do it well.
It's not everyday you see some thirty-two year old take the mother chapter's presidency; there's always a reason for everything.
“Cover me,” I tell Glacier as he steps forward and takes a shot to his right arm. The bullet grazes a bloody path along his tattoos, burning his skin but passing by him without causing permanent damage. It's got to fucking hurt, but the man shows nothing in his ice blue eyes.
I take that moment to dive behind him, working my way towards the strangely quiet house. Shouldn't there be people taking cover in there somewhere? As I get a little closer, my back to the forest, my attention split between Mile Wide and the house, I realize the front door is partially ajar and I can hear gunfire from inside.
Shit.
It must be those FBI douches. Got to be, right?
I hear a sound behind me and turn just in time to stop a man in a red t-shirt and Mile Wide vest from shooting me in the bloody back. Fucking coward. I open the cylinder on my revolver and dig into the pocket of my cut for some extra rounds, loading the empty chambers with militaristic precision. When I refocus my attention back on the fight, I see Smoky and Mug, Dober, some dumb prospect kid that we'll have to patch-in ASAP after this crap.
My movement toward the house has been noticed, and several men take fire through the dark in my direction as I duck behind the trunk of a tree and wait out the spray of bullets. Can't pierce the wood of the thousand year old tree at my back though, not by a long shot. When I spin around the side, I hear Glacier shout something at me and then Clayton Moore is just right there.
I snap my arm up and hit him in the soft spot of his inner elbow, breaking the aim of his gun and forcing his round to fly into the trees. He retaliates by hitting me square in the face with the palm of his other hand as I grab his wrist and loose his hold on his weapon. I drop mine a second later when his hand reappears with a knife, slashing messily at me as we fall into the mud.
Clayton fights like a man possessed, something I can't for the life of me figure the bloody hell out. I've met the president of Mile Wide all of a half-dozen times in the past ten years, none of our meetings particularly personal. But this, this is a fight with passion.
I knee Clayton in the bollocks and roll him off me, reaching into my cut for the semi-automatic I tucked into the right shoulder holster.
I level the gun on his head.
“Tell me about Landon,” I say, my breath coming in rough pants, mud stuck to the side of my face, the back of my hair, soaking my pant legs up to my waistband. “Tell me how much the cartel paid to get him to go rogue on us.”
Clayton Moore stares up at me with his blue eyes. There's a strange detachment to his expression, like he knows he's not walking away from this.
He's right.
He'll be taking a little ride back to Glacier's place in the back of a truck.
“Landon? Hate to tell you this, asshole, but he was dirt cheap.” A small smirk. “Kind of like his wife.” I disengage the safety and tense my finger on the trigger, moving the muzzle down to Clayton's genitals.
“I can blow your cock off before I blow your goddamn head off. Your choice. How much did you give him?” Because I need to know how much Landon's friendships, his family, his brothers were worth.
Clayton rubs a hand over his face.
“Do me a favor? Leave Rebecca out of this?”
My hands squeeze tighter, my trigger finger cramping. That's it right there, the passion in his gaze. He's in love with Rebecca. Rebecca White, Landon's wife.
“Tell me he didn't bloody know,” I whisper as Clayton sits up straight and takes in a deep breath. The bastard doesn't bother to answer my question.
“Thirty grand. That's how much your buddy was worth.” Clayton looks me right in the eyes. “You think you're better than me, don't you? Well, I'll tell you a secret, Royal McBride, we're all the fucking same. Everyone has a price. Trust me, the Saldañas, they'll find yours.”
I blink once, draw in a calming breath, and pull the trigger.
Special Agent Heather Shelley and I wait with our weapons raised as gunfire echoes around the house. It's clearly coming from outside and there's clearly a lot of it.
“I called for backup,” she says, but we both know not to hold out a ton of hope for that. There's a reason this area is referred to as falling behind the redwood curtain. The nearest metropolises are six hours North or South in either direction, nothing West but the ocean and nothing East for hundreds of miles. The Trinidad Police force is small and overworked and dealing with the situation at Sea Salt; the county police are stationed in Eureka. It'll take them at least thirty minutes to get here.
“What happened up there?” I ask, just to take my mind off the bodies around me, the labored breathing of Agent Garza. “How did you find me?”
When it's obvious nobody's on their way down into the basement just yet, Shelley moves back over to José and speaks into her radio.
“Officer down. Code 999. We need backup at 761 Forty-four Creek Road.” There's a crackling response that I can't hear over the shots outside and the ringing in my ears. Agent Shelley responds again and then shrugs out of her jacket, ignoring her own injuries as she tries to save her partner's life. Me, I keep my gun trained on that fucking door. “We were out here on a routine check. Never expected to find shit.”
“You're telling me this is a coincidence?” I ask as she puts pressure to the bright red splotch of a stomach wound. I'm afraid her partner isn't going to make it, but I don't say anything, keeping my opinion to myself. “What about the shoot-out at the grocery store?”
“We heard about it on the scanner, but we were already out here checking some other properties. There was nothing we could do. Finding you, that's just …” Agent Shelley snorts and shakes her head. “Just dumb luck, honey.”
It feels like hours before that radio buzzes again.
Help is on the way. ETA five minutes.
The sound from upstairs has died, giving way to a disturbing silence. Seconds later, boots move across the floor towards the basement door.
“Get that gun ready,” Shelley whispers as she continues to put pressure on her partner's wounds. She starts to let go, but the red bubbles and spills, staining her hands, the hideous faded carpet, her slacks. “Shit,” she murmurs, glancing up at the stairs before she looks back down at her partner. She's sitting next to me, against the edge of the couch, the only place to grab cover in this dank, depressing room. This puts her back to the door, but it's the only place she can sit safely and deal with her partner.
It's also the only thing that saves her life.
The fo
otsteps start down the cement stairs, and two steps in, I already know: this is Royal.
His legs appear, encased in muddy denim, then his top half splattered with blood, his brutally gorgeous face.
Our eyes lock and electricity shoots through me.
Royal's gaze is dark and feral, wild with violence and heat. As soon as he sees me though, the brown color of his irises seems to glow with the warm, heady kiss of relief. In that one look alone, I can see it: he really does love me.
My heart patters in my chest and I open my mouth to call out to him when I realize what's going to happen next: Heather Shelley is going to see him. And he's a member of an outlaw gang. And he shouldn't be here. And he probably killed people upstairs. Lots of people. If all that gunfire was Wolves' gunfire then … if Heather Shelley sees their president, she becomes a loose end.
Royal could go to prison; an FBI agent could die.
Without thinking too hard about it, I move forward, raise my gun and hit the woman as hard as I can on the side of her head, right over the temple. Honestly, if she wasn't already halfway to unconsciousness because of her injuries, I doubt she'd go down. But thankfully for her, she does. Heather slumps forward with a groan, right over the comatose form of her partner.
“Jesus Christ, Pint-Size,” Royal murmurs as I drop my gun and stand up. He vaults over the couch and takes me in his hard, strong arms, wrapping me tight, pressing his lips to my hair. There's nothing in this world I want more than to let him hold me, take me home on the back of his bike, make love to me. This feeling right here, I need to capture this and keep it forever.
“You need to get your boys out of here,” I whisper instead as I put my hands against his chest and try to put some space between us. If there was ever a good time for my practical side to come racing to the rescue, now would be it. “The cops are on their way. They'll be here in minutes.”
“Fuck,” he growls, cupping the side of my face with his tattooed hand. Royal's fingers scald my skin as they slide along the side of my jaw and bury themselves in my hair. He leans down to press his forehead against mine. “We have got to stop meeting like this, sweetheart,” he says and I chuckle softly, leaning back so that our lips are mere inches apart. Warm breath feathers across my mouth.
