by Skye Knizley
“Very good question,” the Russian replied. “I am looking for someone named Higgins. Ashley Kae Higgins. I know she is here.”
Unconsciously, half the people in the club looked toward the DJ booth where Ashley was standing. Smoak could tell Ashley hadn’t understood everything, but by the look on her face she’d gotten the gist.
“My name is Ashley,” she said. “What do you want?”
The Russian turned in her direction and smiled. “Miss Higgins? You are Miss Higgins? The DJ?”
“I am,” Ashley replied. “Who is asking?”
“My name is unimportant,” the man said. “What is important is that you cost me millions of dollars and some of my best people. You and that associate of yours made me kill poor Gregor.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ashley said. “I’m a club DJ and volleyball player.”
While Ashley talked, Smoak’s mind was racing. The Russian had the club covered by half a dozen men and women, all armed with the same MP7s they’d been facing all week. She was starting to hate Heckler and Koch for ever making the damn things.
She kicked off her shoes and started to rise. Blaze grabbed her hand, stopping her.
“What are you doing?”
Smoak smiled and kissed Blaze’s cheek. “What I do, honey. Stay here and keep your head down. The booth will protect you.”
She let go of Blaze and snatched the glass saltshaker off the table. She threw it at the man guarding Ashley and pushed off the back of the booth to tackle the nearest thug. The saltshaker smashed into the first thug’s face, blinding him.
Smoak didn’t see what happened next, but she heard Ashley yell, “Everyone get down!”
Then all hell broke loose. People screamed, guns fired and drinkware shattered, covering the floor in liquor and broken glass.
Smoak’s maneuver caught the nearest guard by surprise, and she was able to knock him out with little trouble. She was about to leap on the next one when she saw Blaze running toward Ashley.
“Dammit! Blaze, get down!” she yelled.
She followed Blaze, her shoulder blades itching where she just knew she was about to get shot. By some miracle, the 4.6-millimeter bullets missed her, shattering the mirrored wall instead and destroying the neon lollipop sign. Smoak tackled Blaze and dragged her behind the bar just as bullets raked the area where she’d been running. They were joined a moment later by Ashley, who had a look of disgust on her face.
“I didn’t see it coming,” she said.
“See what?” Smoak asked.
“This guy. I should have realized. He was there the whole time, and I didn’t see it.”
Blaze looked at Ashley. “Aren’t you the woman from Shadowlands?”
“Not now, honey, please,” Smoak said.
She looked back at Ashley. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“This guy, he was there all the time,” Ashley replied. “He was with Gregor at the hospital and with Frulov at B-52. I just figured he was the bodyguard, but he’s the guy in charge.”
“Dragov?” Smoak asked.
Ashley nodded. “I think so. He was the nut in the helicopter, I would bet a whole stack of your stupid coins.”
“That’s kind of a leap, don’t you think?” Smoak asked, ducking a shower of broken glass.
“Will someone please tell me what the fuck is going on?” Blaze asked.
Ashley looked at Smoak and back at Blaze. “The short version is, yes, I’m Ash from Shadowlands. These guys are the same assholes who took your sister, and I think the guy running his mouth is their boss.”
“I figured that,” Blaze said. “What does that have to do with Smoak? She’s a dancer. She doesn’t do this stuff anymore.”
“Yeah… B, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you,” Smoak said.
“Are you kidding me?” Blaze asked. “What about everything you told me about needing a change?”
Smoak opened her mouth to answer and another bottle exploded. She covered Blaze to protect her from the spray of glass.
“We don’t have time, Blaze,” Ashley interrupted. “Smoak has the stupidest cover story in history. So do I, but it works. You two can argue over it later.”
Ashley slapped a section of the bar and it slid out. Inside were two Desert Eagle forty-four magnum pistols. The barrels were vented and weighted to compensate for recoil and the grips were engraved with matching death angels.
“She’s right, honey,” Smoak said, drawing the pistols. “You can kick my ass all you want, but right now, we have six screaming maniacs to deal with.”
Blaze stared at Smoak for a beat then frowned. “Fine. What’s the plan?”
Smoak fired two shots over the bar and ducked again as a hail of automatic fire slammed into the bar.
Ashley shrugged. “I’m going to get you and the other civilians out of here.”
“What about Kamryn?” Blaze asked.
“I’m going to do what I do best, love,” Smoak said.
“Kill everyone in the room,” Ashley finished.
Smoak kissed Blaze with all the love and fire in her heart and smiled. “I’m sorry.”
“Just don’t get dead,” Blaze replied.
Smoak nodded and raised the pistols. “Go.”
Ashley grabbed Blaze’s hand.
“Stay close and do what I do,” she said.
Smoak winked at Blaze then popped up from behind the bar. Dragov and his men had spread out across the club, trying to get a clear shot at the women behind the granite slab. Which gave Smoak easy targets. She fired four shots from her pistols, and two men dropped, wounds to their chests and heads. In the commotion, Ashley and Blaze ran. Ashley slowed to scoop up a fallen MP7, and the pair disappeared behind the stage.
Smoak let loose two more shots and took cover again as the remaining guards fired, their attention drawn from the fleeing women to the lethal target behind the bar.
“I want her dead,” Dragov yelled. “I’m going after the other one.”
It’s nice to be wanted, Smoak thought.
She took a deep breath and stood, moving at a walk. Both her guns spat death as she stepped through the room, and men dropped, hearts and brains destroyed by the powerful magnum rounds.
Behind her, Ashley had returned and was pushing people toward the safety of the back door. Smoak only had a heartbeat to wonder where Blaze was before two more of Dragov’s men burst through the door, MP7s chattering. Smoak spun and fired. The bullets hit home and sent the pair spinning head over heels to land in a tangled heap of arms and legs.
The blonde angel of death dropped to her knees and slid across the polished club floor, reloading as she moved. Bullets whizzed over her head, and she laid back, the pistol’s slides clicking home and the barrels spitting leaden death once again. The last guard squeezed the trigger of his MP7 just as Smoak’s bullets sent him to meet his maker. In the chaos, she only heard Ashley’s scream. She turned to see Ashley laying on her side, her chest covered in blood.
She screamed as if she had been shot and ran to her friend’s side. Ashley was unconscious, but alive. The bullet had passed through her body, leaving a clean wound. It would hurt like a son of a bitch when she woke up, but she would live.
“Is she okay?”
Smoak looked up to see Texxxas standing over her, an MP7 in her hands.
“She’ll live,” Smoak replied. “What are you doing with that?”
“Corporal April McCoy,” Texxxas replied. “General Chandler asked me to keep an eye you.”
“That was nice of him. I’ll kick your ass later, where’s Blaze?”
“Ashley left her back stage,” April replied.
“Is anyone with her?”
April shook her head. “No, she was helping everyone else out the back. Isn’t she a Shadowlands person?”
“No, she’s just a very brave women with a really big heart. Look after Ashley.”
Smoak stepped through the backstage door and into the hallway that
lead to the employee’s entrance. The doors to either side were open; she walked past the empty office and changing room and stepped into the locker room. The back door stood open, swaying in the oncoming storm.
April had cleaned Ashley’s wound as best she could and had fashioned her a sling out of a pair of table napkins. In spite of the pain and the blood seeping from her shoulder, Ashley sat at one of the club’s tables, her tablet in front of her. The chaos of the firefight had passed, and the police were taking statements from everyone who hadn’t fled screaming into the night in the wake of the attack. It had taken some doing, but Chandler had convinced the on-site commander not to pursue Smoak, who had borrowed a classic Lamborghini Countach at gunpoint and was racing toward Fisher Island.
Come on, Ash, give me something, the TTY read.
“I’m working on it, SK, keep your panties on,” Ashley responded.
If he kills Blaze…
“He’s not going to kill her,” Ashley said. “Right now, she is all he has. We’ll find them, just keep heading west.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw McCoy salute, and she turned her head to see John Chandler striding through the club as if he owned the place, his three-piece suit immaculate and a cigar dangling from his lips. He hadn’t changed much.
“How’s it coming, Higgins?” he asked.
“Are you really going to smoke that in here?” Ashley asked.
Chandler looked around and waved a hand at all the bullet holes in the windows. “I think this counts as outside, don’t you?”
“Funny, John,” Ashley said. “If you aren’t going to help, go away.”
“I’m helping, Ashley. It’s why MacKenna isn’t being chased by every cop in the city. Now what have you got?”
“I’m trying to trace the GPS in Blaze’s phone, but the storm is interfering with the satellite signal. I know she was on the interstate heading toward Miami, but I can’t pinpoint her,” Ashley replied.
“Then it’s up to MacKenna,” Chandler said.
“It usually is.”
Good luck, Smoakie, she thought.
The bright yellow Lamborghini growled through the Miami streets, the single-blade wiper struggling to keep the sudden Florida storm at bay. Smoak wished, not for the first time, that the nearest vehicle had been a Subaru or even a Jeep, anything better in wet weather than the Lambo.
She skidded around the corner onto Sixth Street and pushed the car’s accelerator to the floor. The Countach’s tires slid on the wet pavement, but she held the drift and kept going. Blaze and Dragov couldn’t have gotten far.
At the end of Sixth Street was a line of traffic waiting for the light. Smoak swerved her car into oncoming traffic and pressed the horn, hoping anyone coming had brains enough to get out of her way.
They did. The Lambo slid through the A1 intersection, a yellow blur in the middle of the storm. She righted the car and raced up the ramp onto MacArthur Causeway. Not far ahead, she could see the taillights of another car driving at breakneck speed through the rain. It had to be Dragov.
She leaned back into the seat and shifted. The Countach responded like the hypercar it was, accelerating to the point where the tires were just barely gripping the pavement. Within seconds, she was behind the other car, a purple Diablo with a license plate that read LEGS2NV.
Sorry, Maenia, Smoak thought. I hope you have insurance.
She pressed the pedal again and nosed closer, drafting the somewhat larger car. She could see Blaze and Dragov in the lights of the Countach and bit her lip. Blaze was wearing a seatbelt, but Dragov wasn’t.
She changed lanes and gained on the Diablo, nosing up next to its rear wheel. When she could, she swerved left, letting the Countach’s bumper push into the Diablo’s rear quarter. The Diablo fishtailed, but didn’t crash, and Smoak fell back. She could see Dragov doing something inside the vehicle then the windshield exploded into a mess of spider web cracks with a bullet hole in the center. Smoak slammed the brakes before she went off the road and started kicking at the windshield with her bare feet. It took her several tries, by which time her feet were cut and bloody, but the windshield fell into the street. Glaring into the rain, she started off again, refusing to let Dragov get away.
She caught up to the Diablo in the middle of the bridge. The cars were almost evenly matched, but Dragov wasn’t pushing the Diablo as hard as Smoak was pushing her stolen Countach. He wasn’t as crazy as the angry blonde. She saw him reach for his pistol and she made her move. The Countach’s nose smashed into the Diablo’s rear tire. Both disintegrated under the impact, and the cars started to spin, eventually ending up in the guardrails on either side of the bridge.
Smoak didn’t know how long she’d been unconscious, but she guessed it hadn’t been more than a few minutes. Her feet stung from the dozens of tiny cuts and her arm oozed blood from a gash that ran from her elbow to her hand, but everything still worked. She picked up her pistols and climbed out through the broken windshield.
The Diablo was behind her and on the opposite side of the road, it’s warning flashers flicking on and off in the rain. Both doors were open, but there was no sign of Dragov or Blaze. She turned and spotted them running on the opposite side of the road. Blaze was fighting Dragov every step of the way, but he was dragging her like a child with a toy doll.
Smoak ran, her bare feet slapping on the pavement. She crossed the bridge and ran up onto the guardrail. Her momentum carried her over the gap, and she tucked into a shoulder roll that brought her back onto her feet.
“Let her go, Dragov!” she yelled.
Dragov slowed and fired two more shots. Both went wide but caused Smoak to hit the ground. When she was up again, Dragov and Blaze were on the catwalk that ran along the southern edge of the causeway.
Smoak vaulted the railing and ran behind them, her guns glistening in the streetlights casting yellow shadows onto the bridge. Lightning flash and thunder rolled, so close, she felt the catwalk shake beneath her feet, but she didn’t slow. She was gaining on Dragov.
Dragov must have realized this as well. Smoak watched as he dragged Blaze to a stop and pointed his hand-cannon at her, forcing her to stand precariously on the ledge.
“Stop right there!” he yelled at Smoak.
Smoak kept coming, counting off the range in her head.
“I said stop!” Dragov yelled. “One more step and I put a bullet in the girl’s brain!”
“You kill her and you’re dead before you hit the ground,” Smoak replied.
“Girl, I’m dead already,” Dragov replied. “I’ve lost my cargo, I’ve lost my men, it is only a matter of time before the Brothers catch me. Their punishment will not be quick, I assure you.”
“Then what do you want?” Smoak asked, still walking.
“A head start,” Dragov replied. “Minutes are better than seconds.”
He jabbed the Colt’s barrel into Blaze’s face, making her cry out in pain. “I said stop walking.”
Smoak stopped, both guns pointed at Dragov.
“No way do you walk out of here, Dragov,” Smoak said.
Dragov smiled. “If you want this girl to live, that is exactly what you will let me do. Drop your guns.”
Smoak looked at Blaze and knew she would rather die than let anything happen to her. She released both triggers and placed the guns on the ground in front of her.
“Stupid, girl,” Dragov said, pointing the Colt at Smoak. “You could have shot me and lost her. Now I kill you both.”
Smoak could almost hear the tendons in Dragov’s hand tighten as he pulled the trigger. His weapon spat fire, and she felt the bullet hit before she heard the noise, a ripping heat that tore through her body and spun her around like a top. She fell to her knees and her ribs exploded in pain.
“You bastard!” Blaze yelled.
Smoak heard the resounding slap of flesh on flesh and looked up to see Blaze slap Dragov with enough force to bloody his nose. He roared in anger and pushed, forcing Blaze off the edge.<
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Smoak didn’t know how she did it. One moment she was kneeling on the pavement, and the next, she was laying on her stomach, Blaze’s hand gripped tight in hers. She looked down into Blaze’s green eyes and saw her fear, but it was overpowered by another emotion. Love.
“Nice catch,” Blaze said.
“Thanks,” Smoak replied. “Sorry I’m late”
She saw Blaze’s eyes widen, and she knew Dragov was behind her. She didn’t let go. She stared into Blaze’s eyes and held tight, caring only about saving this woman.
“You really are a very stupid woman,” Dragov said.
“So everyone keeps telling me,” Smoak answered.
The first kick made her spit blood. His second cracked ribs, and the third made the world spin until it became nothing but her and Blaze, hanging there only a few feet away.
“Let go, Kam,” Blaze said.
“No,” Smoak replied.
“He’s going to kill you,” Blaze yelled. “Let go!”
“No!” Smoak yelled back.
Blaze gritted her teeth, and Smoak watched the fire rise in her eyes.
“Tell Ashley I figured out what my favor was,” she said.
Blaze let go. Smoak focused all her will on her hand and squeezed.
“Blaze, no, hold on to me, my hand is slipping!”
“I’m sorry, Kam,” Blaze said. “I can’t let you die like this. One of us has to kick this guy’s ass.”
Smoak reached out with her other hand, but it was too late. Her hand slipped.
Blaze didn’t scream. She just mouthed the words, “I love you” before disappearing into the blackness below.
Smoak stared into the inky void for what seemed forever before the pain in her side hit her, and she came back to reality. Dragov was standing over her laughing in his stupid, annoying, melodious voice.
“See? You both die, and I will live as like a king for as long as I can,” he said.
“No,” Smoak said.
“What?” Dragov asked.
Smoak pulled herself from the edge and stood. “I said, no. You’re not walking away.”
Dragov raised his pistol and pulled the trigger. The Colt clicked. He squeezed again and again, but the weapon was empty. He tossed it aside and assumed a boxer’s stance, his massive fists held in front of him.