by C. M. Owens
He pulls out the single earbud he has left in, and I idly notice the music has stopped playing. “It’s a shit show out there,” he reminds me. “Run to the suburbs. The cops still give a damn if we fuck around there. No one’s going to shoot up the cardigan-wearing folks’ properties. At least not out in the open.”
I salute him like the smartass I am, and he gives me a bruising, punishing kiss as a result, before he abruptly steps away from me. I don’t realize my legs are a little unsteady until I pitch forward in the absence of him holding me up.
I watch as he puts the earbuds back in, and he drops to the couch in the back room of this terrible pool hall in the middle-of-nowhere outside of Halo.
“Curious minds can’t help but inquire what the two of you were doing in this shit hole,” Sarah says as I climb in on the passenger side of her hideous clown van.
“I was wondering the same thing,” comes a jarring, familiar woman’s voice from behind me.
I squeal as my head whips around to find Maya and Drake both lounging comfortably.
“What the hell are you doing back there?!” I snap without thinking, because my heart is racing and fear makes me a little angry, dammit.
Maya grins. Drake groans like he’s miserable.
“Eve’s confined to the warehouse, and Drake is supposed to be watching me at the warehouse,” Maya informs me. “Per Axle’s orders.”
“I fucking ink people. I’m not cut out to be the constant guardian of the uncontrollable vagina squad. I need better friends. My current ones are psychopaths with tits,” Drake continues, shaking his head. “I have a healthy fear of death. I rather enjoy living.”
Sarah drives off, stomping the gas so hard that I squeal and quickly face forward again. I reach for an oh-shit handle, but much to my heartbreak, there’s not one. Someone else has already ripped it off, because only two holes remain where it once was.
I settle for clinging to the seatbelt after I tighten it on me, just as her ass end slings to the side the second we hit pavement.
“I refuse to fucking die in a clown car. Don’t make this how it all ends for me. Even in death, I’ll never hear the fucking end of it,” Drake gripes from the back.
Glad he did it.
“I’m a good driver,” Sarah says, cursing as she runs all over the road, trying to get a handle on the semi-out-of-control van that hasn’t recovered from the stomp-attack. “I’m just used to a car that handles better than this.”
“Why are you driving a clown van?” I ask as I screw my eyes shut.
Nope. That makes it worse. Every swerve or bump we hit on this van’s horrible shocks feels worse than it actually is.
“It’s a long story, but the short version is that mine blew up, and I haven’t replaced it with something more permanent than this just yet. Besides, who thinks to look for me in this ridiculous thing? People kept finding me in my car. Dad knows I’m coming for him,” she says like this is common knowledge.
“For the record, you girls really need to get some emotional distance from your fathers. I think this desperate revenge thing is a little played out when there’s two of you doing it at once,” Drake says from the back seat.
“I don’t want revenge. I want him dead,” Sarah and I both say at the same time, making it sound practiced and planned.
We both look at each other during a beat of silence.
“Watch the fucking road!” Drake shouts from the back as Maya squeals.
We both jerk our heads back to the front, while I reel from relating to this freaking woman.
My breath comes out in a rush, and my right hand slams to the roof, just as the seatbelt catches me so hard it knocks the breath out of me.
Sarah has hit the brakes hard, and it isn’t until the entire van comes to a screeching halt that I see why.
Up ahead, at least a hundred yards up, there’s a barricade.
Five cars are blocking the road, and two men are standing up front with guns aimed directly at us.
“I saw a coyote. Not the fucking men-in-black army. I don’t suppose anyone is hiding tentacles up their skirts and those guys are going to erase my memory so I never remember you again, huh?” Drake babbles from the backseat. “Because that sounds awesome. One flash of light, and this all goes away like a bad dream that never happened.”
“Can we outrun them?” Maya asks.
“No, because there’s a convoy of black SUVs heading this way from the back,” Drake groans.
Through the colorfully polka-dotted back glass, I spot the convoy he’s talking about.
“Call your boyfriend,” Drake tells Maya, reaching over and slapping her knee.
“Three of them. Big fucking convoy. I’m not calling him to his death,” she hisses, slapping his hand back at him.
“Speak for yourself. Those fuckers get me shot at all the time. They owe me by this point,” Drake snaps.
Sarah cocks a pistol, while grabbing another, uniquely altered gun from under the seat.
“I’ve got this,” she says like it’s a wasp to hit with a flyswatter.
One of the cars pulls around, and a window slowly lowers as a very large war-freaking-head pops out.
“Is that a motherfucking bazooka?!” Drake snaps. “Ah, hell no! I didn’t sign up for this shit!”
“I don’t got this,” Sarah says as she drops her guns and raises her hands. “They clearly plan to take me alive. When I step out of this van, hit the blue button,” she says like I’m supposed to know where the blue button is.
“Driver, reach both hands through the window, open the door with your left hand, and step out with your hands in plain sight above your head!”
She slowly does as instructed, as Drake curses and rocks around in the backseat.
“My ex told me this club would get me killed if I wasn’t a member. Seemed smart to just make friends with the bad guys instead of being one,” Drake goes on, still babbling like it’s a nervous habit. “My life looks a lot different when it’s flashing before my eyes. I feel sort of naïve, and it sucks.”
“Would you shut up before I shoot you myself?” Maya whisper-yells.
“I’d already be dead if they didn’t want me alive. The ones who get an easy shot at killing me are always arrogant enough to take me alive. However, once they have me, you’re all dead. So…I’ll distract them after you hit the blue button. You find a way to steal a ride,” Sarah says like it’s a piece of pumpkin cake, and we’ve somehow discussed the details of how to make this really stupid, vague plan work out.
“Are you out of your mind?” Drake hisses.
“Are you really asking her that question?” I bite out.
He blinks at me like he’s just realized his own error. “Fucking hell. We’re all going to die,” he deadpans.
I nod, since he’s probably right. Still, I cut my eyes back around, emotions shutting down as I study the one small, blue button on the old radio system.
As soon as Sarah takes a few steps to the side and stops, I press the damn button.
I see her drop just as a hiss sounds from the van.
Drake screams, Maya screams, and I scream a little, when the van suddenly shoots out fireworks like it’s the Fourth of July. I watch in fascinated horror as they zip horizontally toward the vehicles to the front and back of us. Screams sound out as they explode, and it takes me a minute to realize that the eruption of beautiful colors is also a catalyst for sending out knives.
A few of the fireworks are apparently actually fucking explosives, because a few of the cars blow up.
Drake, Maya, and I all roll out of the van when gunfire starts pelting us. The fireworks have stirred up the desert enough to create the illusion of a sand storm, when coupled with the still wind and smoke.
Fires blaze from beside us as a SUV crashes into the back of the van, the entire carload of people already dead.
Maya is practically dragging me through the thick cloak of sand and smoke. Several patches of dead brush are blazing beside us, and I squeal a little
when I almost run into one.
“What the hell did she put in all that shit? Smoke bombs?” Drake asks so quietly I almost don’t hear him over all the chaos, gunfire, and a few squeaky fireworks.
It takes me until this moment to realize I’m squeezing a gun in my hand that I don’t even remember picking up. It’s the uniquely altered one Sarah dropped to her seat.
My survival instincts are pumping so much that my head almost feels like it’s in a fog.
I finally get my feet fully under me, catch up to the situation, and start running toward the back of where I last noticed that encroaching convoy.
Something else explodes, and a flaming clown horn lands right in front of us as it dies. We all stumble to a stop and stare down at it as it makes a disturbing sound that will be in all my clown nightmares from now on.
I’m the first to start running again.
I really hope this gun isn’t on safety, because I don’t even know where the safety is.
The sparks from multiple gun muzzles gets closer, and the smoke thins enough for me to see the three men taking cover and firing from behind the doors of a black SUV.
Without hesitating, I make two quick headshots, and I gut-shoot the third guy before clipping his hand enough to disarm him as well.
“Now she seems more like Drex’s sister,” Drake states very quietly, shooting me some side-eye like now he doesn’t trust me.
“The smoke is thinning,” Maya says as she quickly goes to the Suv.
Both she and Drake start dragging one of the guys to the rear, and I glance up to see the smoke definitely clearing quicker and quicker.
But everyone’s attention is on the blonde who is grinning wickedly as she casually puts her hands on her head, dropping her knife as she does so.
There’s a lot of dead men, and half of them look like they’ve shot each other in their vain attempts to shoot her.
“So you got me. Now what will you do with me?” she goads, keeping all the attention trained on her.
I very discreetly start dragging the third man toward the driver’s seat, using every dormant, untrained muscle in my body to do it. The struggle is freaking real.
“We’re all going to die,” Drake says as the back hatch closes and he starts sneaking around to the back seat.
I take the driver’s seat, pulling the thin—but incredibly heavy man—into my lap. I’ll thank the adrenaline for that burst of strength later.
A team of men rush her to start chaining her up, taking one cheap shot that knocks her out cold.
Maya climbs into the back, and I glance over my shoulder to see her staring incredulously at me.
“Why have you got a dead guy in your lap?” she asks like I’m insane.
“It really is like Men In Black. The second movie now. You know…when the inflatable guy pops up to drive the car?” Drake rambles nervously.
I look back around the dead guy’s shoulder as Sarah gets dragged away in chains, and tossed into the back.
A few hand gestures are given in the air, and suddenly the convoy starts moving. No one ever glances toward the back of the line.
“Why are we following them?” Drake hisses when I pull out onto the road.
“Because that’s what the crazy, lethal chick said to do. I’m sure she has another fucked up phase two to her plan,” I answer as I adjust the dead guy in my lap, letting the seatbelt do most of the work to hold him up, as I peer around to drive.
We pass the smoldering remnants of the clown van that is nothing more than a piece of scrap metal at this point. Weirdly, I notice three charred bodies hanging out of it, and wonder if Sarah had something to do with that in an effort to disguise our escape.
“This is wrong. So fucking wrong,” Drake groans. “If we make it out of this, I’m moving somewhere safer. Like the back alleys of Vegas or some shit,” he adds.
“Give me the gun. I can’t take it anymore,” Maya says.
“Call your fucking boyfriend and tell him to bring the entire fucking club to come save us,” Drake volleys.
“Why do we need saved? We just need our driver to slow down, let the convoy get ahead, and then let Sarah save herself. Trust me, she can do it,” Maya harps from the back.
“They think we died in that clown van when they blew it up,” I point out. “If I slow down, they’ll notice, and someone will turn around to come investing—”
“Car thirty-two, respond,” a foreign voice says in the car, startling the shit out of me and causing Maya to squeak.
When no one responds, the voice comes over again.
“Car thirty-two, respond. Car thirty-two, respond,” it says again.
“Why does it feel like we’re car thirty-two?” Maya asks with a weighted tone of dread.
Awkwardly holding the wheel around my lap-corpse, I quickly use my other hand to toss back the walkie where the beckoners await.
“Car thirty-two, respond. What’s our tail look like?”
“What the hell am I going to do with this?” Drake hisses.
“There are two dead men in the back, and one on Drex’s sister’s lap like a bad fashion accessory. You’re the only guy in here, and they’re expecting a man to talk. Clearly, it’s not a specific man,” Maya gripes.
“Car thirty-two, respond,” the voice says again.
I notice a car up front slowly pulling out like it’s looking back in the rearview at a broader angle. The desert is a hard thing to gain visibility or depth-perception in when the heat is this thick.
The darkly tinted windows surrounding us will help keep Maya and Drake from being visibly spotted.
“Answer them,” I hiss.
“They’re going to expect code talk or some shit,” Drake barks.
“Car thirty-two, respond.”
I hear a click of a gun, and my eyes widen as I spot Maya holding Sarah’s gun on a wide-eyed Drake. He doesn’t blink as he lifts the walkie to his mouth.
“Breaker, breaker. Our tail’s a waggin’, but the pigs are still in the pin and not on our ass,” Drake says, sounding like…an idiot.
Maya drops the gun and scrubs a hand over her face, while I groan from the front seat.
“You held a fucking gun on me?” Drake asks in righteous outrage.
“Car-thirty two, no wise cracks. Any road rage in the rearview?” the voice asks.
“What the fuck is road rage?” Drake snaps.
“Has to be talking about the club, since they know Sarah is affiliated with them. It’s not club related, though. Eve would be a much easier, and more realistic target,” Maya says.
“Nope. Just dust and cactus pussy in the rearview,” Drake says…still sounding like an idiot.
“Roger that. Keep a close eye.”
“Cheese and fucking rice, I can’t believe that worked,” Drake groans as he goes completely limp with a whimper.
“Okay. So now we just have to stay close, since there’s no way of outrunning them, pretend we belong, and somehow not get captured or killed when we reach our unknown, likely horrifying destination,” Maya deadpans from the back seat.
“All I do is fucking ink people,” Drake grumbles in a daze. “The vagina squad is going to get me killed one day. Probably today.”
Chapter 28
RUSH
Two orderlies fall out of my way as I take a turn, quickly stalking down the hospital corridor, searching the waiting rooms one by one.
“Maya’s still not answering,” Axle grinds out.
“Maybe they stopped for ice cream just to piss you off for being such controlling dicks. AJ is a bit of a free spirit bitch that way,” Jude drawls, running a hand through his blond hair as he chews the end of his straw.
“You should have given Kara a fucking phone,” Axle snaps at me.
“Then he wouldn’t have her under his thumb,” Jude adds as he absently glances in the next waiting room.
“They found nothing on the roads surrounding our area?” I ask Axle in a calm tone that belies the storm brewi
ng just under my increasingly incensed surface.
“Scorch marks from what looks to be a hazardous fireworks show, and a lot of shell-casings, but no sign of Drake and the girls. I’m telling you, it’s just AJ being a cunt—”
Snake stops talking, his brow furrowing as he reads the phone in his hands.
Fucking idiot gets distracted too easily.
“Can you call Maya’s people to trace her phone? Maybe Drake’s?” I suggest to Axle.
He runs a hand through his hair. “Drake and Maya are probably in on this too. You have been a super controlling ass over a girl who is a necessary guest. Not a fucking captive. Not to mention the outrageous fucking way you’ve treated the President’s sister.”
I just barely stop myself from drawing my gun on him.
“My relationship is my motherfucking business,” I say in a growl.
“Relationship is a very loosely used terminology at this point, don’t you think?” he fires back.
“Going to act like you’re a damn saint?” I grind out, taking a step toward him.
His eyes narrow as he meets my step, taking one of his own.
“The point is, I think you’re freaked out for nothing. Eve’s practically lived at this hospital while Dash has been down,” Axle states. “Jude’s right.”
“No,” Jude says, drawing both of our attention to him as he cracks his neck to the side. “I’m not.”
He casually tosses his phone to me, and I snatch it out of the air. My eyes fall to a crispy mechanism of some type in the desert…
“I’m not really sure what I’m looking at,” I confess, my brow furrowing as I force myself to remain as calm as possible. “What do you mean you’re not right?”
He’s too calm for anything to be wrong.
His eyes level mine. “It’s a customized horn with an internalized—”
“Spare me the technical gibberish. What the fuck is this?” I ask as I toss his phone back to him.
He catches it as he narrows his eyes. “It belonged to that fucking clown van Sarah owned.”
“How did it get charred on the desert floor?” Axle asks as he takes a step forward, leaning over Jude’s shoulder to get a better look.
