I suppressed a shiver at the screaming possibility that any step I took from this moment might inadvertently alert some unseen member of the Carrion Crew of my attempted escape.
And then what?
Would they finally just grow fed up with trying to juggle the whore and finally put me out of their misery?
For Jace, I thought then. For us!
I leaned a bit more, craning to get a better angle, and saw an opening to a hallway a short way to my left. Beyond that, though the angle was bad and offered only what looked to be either a TV stand or a bookshelf from the side, was what I imagined could be a living room. Seeing this, a bizarre-yet-plausible idea came to me, and I had to fight to keep from laughing.
Had they truly been keeping me in a plain, old house?
I’d been expecting to find untold horrors up here—body parts on meat slabs or stacks of blood-stained cash neighboring giant bricks of drugs—but, instead, it looked like my late grandmother’s summer home back in Florida! I was suddenly under the impression that there was a picture of Jesus playing poker with a table occupied entirely by cigar-smoking dogs somewhere in this place.
Dodging laugh-inducing thoughts of Carrion Crew members catching me and wielding rolled-up copies of Reader’s Digest or, worse yet, folded up dinner trays, I found a fresh well of courage and snuck forward.
No time to be thinking about home ownership, Mia! Find. Jace.
I nodded to my own thoughts and shook my head, glad no one was there to see how crazy I must’ve looked just then. Turning towards the hall, where the sounds of gunfire got louder, I began to head down the area. The entire house was dark and I fought not to let fear take hold of me. I was so close to Jace, just a bit longer and I’d get to him. I continued down the hall, wondering just how long this damn hallway was.
Get a grip, Mia. This is just your fear talking. It’s a normal hallway!
I took a deep breath and suddenly I was standing in a dining room with a large window to the right. I looked over, seeing that the window looked out to a driveway leading out to a circular drive area. I frowned, realizing that they must’ve set up in some sort of housing community. I wondered (again) if they owned all the houses.
That’s when I saw him.
Jace.
Standing back-to-back with Danny, shooting out around the area. My heart swelled at just how awesome he looked; how strong he was.
I’m dating a badass! I crooned to myself.
The gunfire stopped suddenly, though the two still stood poised—guns raised and sweeping here-and-there along with their scanning gazes—and I realized that the last of the Crew they’d been firing upon must have been killed. As the sudden silence swept the immediate area, a distant series of pops telling me that there was still killing being done elsewhere, I began asking strange-yet-logical questions.
Will the police be responding to all this noise?
Just how much of this area is owned by the Carrion Crew?
Will the next people to arrive likely be with us or them?
And, riding just behind these questions: How much time do we have?
That question, on its own, was enough to motivate me to move forward. Unfortunately, it was also enough to motivate me to move forward without being mindful of my surroundings…
I turned away, from the sight of Jace and started to head towards the door.
I was so close now!
Then cold metal pressed against the nape of my neck, stopping me in my tracks.
“Imagine my surprise,” Mack kept his voice low, but he sounded confident and empowered. I muttered a soundless curse to myself for offering that to him. “I told them, ‘I think she’s up to something.’ I said, ‘She’s never that quick to let you leave a room without talking your ear off.’ I told them that the only time my bitch-whore of a sister wouldn’t go around acting like a whiny victim…” he pressed the gun that much harder to my neck, “was when she actually thought she wasn’t a victim.” He took a deep inhale then, seeming to huff up the aroma of what he viewed as success. “So imagine my surprise when they told me—allowed me, more like—to stay behind and make sure you stayed put until somebody came with a dog carrier to cart you away properly?”
“You like surprises, don’t you?” I muttered, feeling a hot rage cook in my stomach. “You like this?”
I spun then. The gun barrel tensed against my skin, and I let my knees give out—letting my body drop in mid-spin—and felt the air burst from my lungs as the sound of the gun firing forced me to exhale in surprise.
I felt the heat from the shot against my head; felt the damn bullet kiss the topmost hairs of my head!
Something like a cry escaped me then, but it was distant and muted through the ringing in my ears.
But I was alive, and I was facing my brother.
But I was also on my knees in front of him, a fact that, in an instant, I saw him reveling in.
Disgusted by the wide grin on his face, I did what whores do best in that situation:
I went straight for the guy’s dick.
That I went straight for it with a closed fist was just a personal bit of Mia-sass, I decided.
EIGHTEEN
~JACE~
Fuck.
I’d never shot for this long. Truth be told, I’d never really been the killing-type. There’d been deaths, sure—a decent number some might even say—and some had even been directly by my hand. That number was substantially less, however; while I might have been partially responsible for the destruction of T-Built’s first drug lab, and while there might have been a decent number of drug-peddlers still inside when the place went up, one couldn’t exactly compare this to personally taking aim with a gun and pulling the trigger.
So, depending on who you asked and the perimeters of their beliefs, I was either responsible for the deaths of roughly thirty people or exactly five. Before T-Built, that would’ve meant somebody could count the number of people I’d personally killed on one hand while still letting a finger take the day off.
I’d more than doubled that number in just a few minutes.
Fuck, I thought again, reminding myself that, yes, it had only been a few minutes.
And, just like that, the number of people I could personally claim to have intentionally killed—looking them right in the face when it happened and everything—was up to eleven. I felt numb to the reality of what that number represented and more perplexed by the realization that eleven just felt like a weird number of people to have killed. Hell, eleven just seemed like a weird number in general.
Didn’t it?
Or was I in some sort of funky killer’s shock?
If Mack was still out there then I could make it an even twelve. Something about that seemed right. I couldn’t be sure if it was the Mack-part or that the number twelve seemed more appealing than the number eleven.
I paused on that thought, circled it, studied it, and came to the conclusion that it was a truly fucked-up thought to be thinking.
“Thought to be thinking.”
Thinking thoughts makes the thoughts that I’m thinking into thoughts that I thought I thought… I think.
Fuck. I think I’m…
Think I’m thinking?
“Jace!”
I thought I felt thinks—no, slaps! I felt slaps at my cheek. There was a ringing in my ears—that was something real I could hold onto in that moment; like a thought preserver in the vast, roaring sea of my rattled mind—and a face inches from mine.
“Mercury?” I grumbled. “I’ve killed eleven people.”
“No, son. No,” he gave me a few more slaps then, beckoning me back to the here-and-now. “Today ye’ve only killed six. Nice try, though; no stacking points ya ain’t earned, got it?”
I didn’t have it in me to tell him I meant in total.
Either way, I was coming to a shaky realization that I wasn’t the killing-type…
But Mack!
Oh, boy! For Mack I’d be happy to make an exception.
That thought brought me back in my entirety.
“Any sign of Mia?” I asked.
“Not yet,” Danny admitted. “But that’s where Candy said they were holding her, so…” he trailed off, not bothering to finish.
I nodded, scanned the immediate area for any straggling members of the Carrion Crew. Taking down those men had taken longer than I had wanted it too. By some miracle, my men hadn’t been too injured in the fight and as I looked around, I felt a swell of pride again at how loyal they had been. Then, confident that it was safe to do so, I started for the house.
That was when I heard a gunshot ring out from just inside. A gunshot…
And Mia!
I think I said something then—probably calling her name; hers or Danny’s, either seemed a good thing to say then—and I was running for the door.
A sane mind hears a gunshot and runs in the other direction.
But haven’t we established that I’m not…
Well, you already know.
I distantly heard Danny call after, “GET YER ASS GOIN’!” and I realized that he must have had a bit of the crazy in him, too.
Why else would he encourage such insanity?
“We’re all mad here,” I muttered, surprised that I hadn’t just thought it. Then, remembering my dazed moment seconds earlier, I said, “The time for thinking’s done, anyway.”
****
It took longer than I was proud to admit to get through the door. In my defense, it was a well-built door—solid oak or some shit like that—and, after finding the damn thing locked, I busied myself by kicking away at it for an embarrassingly long time. I was starting to feel something like a lumberjack working on a particularly stubborn tree when my boot finally came down just beside the polished doorknob and the first sweet sound of strained wood beginning to splinter let loose its rumbling groan. Motivated, I pummeled the wooden slab a few more times with a series of violent kicks—tiny, enraged screams belching from my lungs in increasing volume with each one—until the door finally shrieked around its thrown deadbolt and swung open.
Inside was…
Nothing.
No Mia, no Mack, no sign of whoever had fired the gun or anything. There was just nothing.
No noise at all.
Either I’d gotten through in time, or I was already far too late.
The cold dread that began to swim its way inside was washed away with hope. I couldn’t let myself think Mia was gone. If she was…
If she was…
Well, Heaven and Hell would have to join forces to protect the world from Jason Presley if that had been the case.
Because I wasn’t going to chase off the craziness a moment longer if I wasn’t doing it for her.
I shook my head, glad no one was around to see how crazy I must’ve looked. Though, for my men, that look probably was what they were used to. But I’d changed since then, I could feel it and from their reaction, they could see it as well. I had to use that strength now, had to hold onto the hope that Mia was inside here and that I would get to her in time; that I’d be able to protect her.
I deserved at least one success story before I died, didn’t I?
I closed my eyes for a moment, wishing that I could have her back in my arms.
Time for sentiment’s later, Defense warned. Now you gotta get some killing done.
Or, you know, just find Mia and get the hell out of here, Logic offered. No reason you can’t let the others finish all this while the two of you—
“Enough,” I interrupted my own thoughts and, as I did, took a cautious step into the house.
I raised my gun, holding it at the ready—smelling the occasional wisp of lingering gun smoke ooze from the barrel as I worked my way deeper into the house—and mentally counting how many shots I’d fired since my last reload. It was nothing like the movies. There was no stylized action to the whole mess. Bullets started flying, and everyone involved was just a drying leaf on an Autumn tree branch: terrified for its own safety while hoping the elements would tear the others from their perch. If the first shot didn’t do the trick—didn’t finish the deed—then everything after that was a frantic follow-up that practically sang “oh shit!” until the first bullet’s job was finally done right.
And, meanwhile, there were a bunch of other assholes’ first bullets, second bullets, and, yeah—for the shitty shots, at least—their thirteenth bullet screaming for you while all this went on.
Far as I was concerned, the only “oh shit!” more pressing than every bullet following the first that didn’t do its job was the one bullet you had to wait on; the one bullet you knew you were about to fire, but the when and the where weren’t yet upon you.
Now that was an “oh shit!” for the ages.
And, ladies and gentlemen, I was officially up to my eyeballs in “oh shit!”
As I looked around the empty rooms, the dread began to grow and this time, I was struggling to rid myself of the feeling.
Come on, Mia. Where are you?
I froze, hearing a creak in the floorboards and turned towards the source of the noise. As I made my way down a ridiculously long hallway, I side-stepped into the neighboring living room, gun raised—leveled and ready…
And I froze.
Mia stood there, a look of pure terror on her face, with Mack practically hiding behind her. I’d thought he was a scrawny fuck before, but, seeing how easily he concealed his entire form behind his sister, save for his rat-like face and wide, peering eyes, it occurred to me just how small he really was. Mia’s head was cocked back at an awkward angle, her throat stretched and bulging hideously around each breath. It took me a moment to realize that Mack was tethering her by hair, pulling it down and back. Judging from the way her midsection jutted forward, I could only imagine that the gun I’d heard fired was presently slammed so hard against her lower back that it was forcing her to hold that awful posture.
“Heya, lover-boy,” Mack called out to me, his voice chummy—almost to a horrific degree given the circumstances—and the part of my brain that knew I was crazy actually started to doubt the awful scene before me solely because of that tone.
I imagined I was seeing one thing while, in fact, he was just sitting in that recliner over yonder, caught in the middle of passing his sister an iced tea.
But that would just be crazy.
“Mack,” I said, but then realized I had nothing to follow it up with; the name just hung there on its own, a morbid sort of greeting in its own right.
“My sister punched me in the cock,” Mack said, delivering the news as one might inform a buddy of last night’s sport’s scores.
“That a fact?” I answered, only because I imagined a statement like that demanded an answer. “Everything… uh, still working?”
“Oh, yes, yes.” Mack’s voice rose, excited, and I realized with more than a little discomfort he sounded like he was hissing on the word “yes.” “Working very well, actually. Isn’t that right, Mia?”
Mia’s throat only distended with another nervous breath, her eyes boring back at me; apologetic.
That she looked sorry in that instant was almost enough to send me into a blind rage…
Except that would be ensuring things went very badly very quickly.
“ISN’T THAT RIGHT?” he repeated in a shrill yell, yanking Mia’s head back roughly before relaxing his grip enough to let her speak.
“Y-yes,” she croaked, her voice little more than a whisper.
Mack leaned in, his lips fluttering by her ear.
“I-I… can feel… him, J-Jace,” she went on, seeming at that moment to be little more than a toy built to repeat the words spoken into her. “A-against… me.”
Mack grinned at this—a pet owner grinning at a successful trick—and he let his tongue snake out and flick her earlobe before he returned his gaze to me.
“This isn’t me, Jace,” he said, once more conversational. “Isn’t who I am—what I am, I mean. Between the life I lived, the
struggles after I left home, all that business with the Carrion Crew, and prison—ah, Jace-Jace-Jace; they’ll love you in prison, you and your pretty mouth—it’s just that I’m so… so worked up, you know what I’m saying, Jace?”
Not a fucking clue, bucko!
“Yeah, sure. I guess that makes sense,” I said.
“Can’t help it,” Mack muttered, his eyes drooping away from me and down to…
I fought any number of urges as I realized he was staring down Mia’s shirt; trying to get a decent look at her breasts.
“Best thing about whores,” he said, and I got the impression he wasn’t talking to me anymore, “is that they’ll do anything for anyone. Anyone. Even… their own…”
If only you were fast enough.
Just a little faster.
You can save her.
You can save her.
You must save her!
Mia and I locked eyes then, and I saw the slightest hint of a nod. I had no idea what it was she was conveying in that instant…
But something in me did.
I was running then—thinking, this is crazy! with each step—and closing the distance. Time slowed as it had a funny way of doing in moments of death. Mia, seeming almost to move in slow-motion, was twisting and side-stepping; seeming all the world in that instant to look like a cat righting itself in mid-fall. Her hair went taut, but the rest of her didn’t seem to care as she twirled—a bizarre, almost ballerina-like vision—and Mack’s hand started to drag out as he maintained his hold. Mack, all the while, seemed only confused that the pair of tits he’d been working to ogle were no longer occupying the field of vision he’d established for himself.
Then, twisting free of her brother’s hold, Mack was standing before me without his human shield.
Just as Mia had been forced to confess, there was a steely erection waiting in his pants. It was almost as threatening as the gun he still held in his hands; the gun that wavered uncertainly between me and Mia. Then, deciding, it started to swim through slowed time in Mia’s direction.
I heard Mack say, “We die together then, like Romeo and—”
Riding On Fumes: Bad Boy Motorcycle Club Romance (The Crow's MC Book 2) Page 29