by Flite, Nora
“I—what? Why not?”
“Because,” I said, peeking out into the hallway. “If the girls are near the docks, it'd be better to exit that way.”
Gaping after me, Claudine took a small step. “Flora, you can't be serious.”
Tightening my jaw, I leveled her with the most severe expression I could muster. “If you don't want to be saved, I can't force you. But those other women? I'm sure they'd love to know someone cared about them enough to try and help.”
My sister watched me, never blinking. Perhaps she wanted to say more, or was expecting me to. After this, I'd never come back, and the chance would be gone.
She never took the opportunity.
Neither did I.
Turning my back, I slid out of the room. The hallway's gorgeous rugs were splattered with gore. Claudine hadn't lied, this was a battle scene. Men leaned on walls, clasping their chests as their eyes stared at nothing. No one was around to stop me.
The back, she said they were...
Rounding the corner, hunching as he stared over his shoulder, Tully ran my way. He hadn't seen me, and clearly, he wasn't expecting to. The large man was nearly on me, his weight making it hard for him to slow down, when he finally twisted.
In the very centers of his eyes, I saw his surprise turn into hatred.
Skidding on his polished shoes, his gun whipped my way. “You!” he snarled, pacing closer as I backed up with my hands held high. “You little fucking liar! You did come here with backup!”
Backup? What was he talking about? Frantically I shook my head, my gaze frozen on the pistol that would cut my life into ribbons. “No, I didn't—”
Curling his lip, he advanced on me, a hand winding in my hair. Screaming, I started to struggle on reflex. The icy metal of the pistol, jamming under my chin, stopped the noise short. “Wait,” I said, my hands at my sides, unsure where to go. “Don't do this. I don't know who's attacking you guys, but I have nothing to do with it!”
“I don't fucking care.” Yanking me further down the hall, Tully terrified me with every jolting step. What if he slipped and put a bullet through my skull? “You're coming with me. I'm getting on the boat, and if anyone tries to stop me, you'll make a perfect shield.”
In my mind's eye, I imagined how he'd hold me up, the lead slugs of other guns studding me like a new leather vest.
Sweating profusely, I willed myself to come up with a plan. I needed to stall. “What—what about Claudine? I thought she was special to you, why not go back and bring her along?”
Choking me as he hurried, Tully laughed. “That bitch isn't anymore special than a regular pair of thighs with a hole between them.” Lowering his mouth to my ear, he made a low noise that would always haunt my nightmares. “You'll be just as good for sticking my cock in, dear girl. Assuming you don't become a corpse, first.”
Tully was laughing, the air punctuated by the occasional gunfire, but it all felt so far away. No, I thought firmly. I'd said I wouldn't become a slave. I'd only come this far to save my sister, and that was done with. I would never let this man use me like this.
I'd die first.
In my fingers, the razor I yanked from my pocket moved smoothly. Tully squealed, throwing me aside as he cradled his bleeding wrist. But I wasn't done; I knew running wasn't enough.
As he hunched low, grimacing, I slammed into his shoulder. The fat man stumbled, I began ripping at the gun in his injured grip. This wasn't someone who was used to being attacked; he had money, and money paid for others to endure the brutality of the world.
Stunned, he released the gun—but he wasn't finished with me. Rushing forward, his full weight pushed me into the nearest wall. Air fled my lungs, my chest straining as I wheezed. With sparks in my eyes, I fumbled to hold the gun, his blood making it slick.
“You little bitch!” he screamed, his knee catching my side.
Moaning, I understood he was going to steal back the pistol. I was too out of it to hang on. In a moment of reaction, I did what I could—I threw it to the side. At least, this way, I could run when he bolted for it.
But Tully wasn't a cartoon bad guy. He made no move to go after the gun. Coiling his hand in my thick hair, he slammed the back of my skull into the wall. The whine in my eardrums was immense.
Dazed, I scratched at his face, cutting his cheek. He retaliated by throwing me to the floor. Then, just as fast, he ripped me back up. Scrabbling for his eyes was my last effort. Tully captured my wrists and pinned me against the wallpaper.
Panting heavily, he glared at me, our noses grinding. “You're dead, girl. After I drag you out of here, fuck you till you bleed, I'm going to cut you up and feed you to the fucking gators and—”
“No,” the low voice said beside us. “You won't be doing that.”
Wavering, I turned, focusing in disbelief on the sight in front of me. I didn't have the power to speak, so Tully did it for me. “Claudine?” he asked warily. “What are you doing?”
Holding the blood-soaked gun high, she kept it so steady on Tully that I would never have known she was a twitching heroin addict. “Let her go, Tully.”
He glanced at me, but didn't ease his hold. “Listen, my sweet girl,” he crooned at my sister. “Don't do anything stupid. You wouldn't want to make a mistake.”
The bold, brave sincerity that lived in my sister's stare was something I hadn't seen in far too long. I didn't want to hope, because hope had failed me before, but this... was this really happening?
Lowering her eyebrows, she said, “I already made one mistake. I won't do it again, believe me.” In her confident fingers, the trigger squeezed.
The explosion deafened me, but I was already woozy from lack of oxygen. Tully's head whipped back as the bullet slammed through his forehead, his body crumpling. Gasping for air, I slid to the floor, coughing while I clutched my chest.
Claudine ran to my side, crouching as she kept the gun on Tully. It was pointless; the man would never move again. “Are you alright?” she asked me, gripping my shoulders so she could study me.
Those eyes were the same ones that had laughed with me as we rode together.
Eyes that had consoled me when our parents fought.
The face of the sister I loved to my core.
Shuddering, I grabbed her hands. “Flora,” she started to say. Wrapping my arms around her body, I leaned into her torso and sobbed. “Flora,” she said again, concern cracking her voice. “What is it, are you hurt?”
Rubbing my eyes, I pulled away. “No,” I said quickly. My smile was unstoppable. My tears more so. “I'm not hurt. Not anymore.”
It had happened.
The impossible had happened.
In the end, my sister was the saint I'd always known her to be. As close had we'd come to our bitter end, she'd turned around and fought back. I couldn't hate her for her mistakes, not when she showed where her loyalty really lied.
All I wanted to do was sit there and hug her, enjoying the shade of my sister that was peeking out of the clouds. Down the halls, more gunfire and voices warned us that this wasn't over with.
“We have to go,” she said, kicking Tully's gun aside. The sight reminded me.
Standing, I crouched by the dead man. “Wait, give me one second.” I'd seen a corpse searched so many times. This was my first, and I was no longer hesitant. I knew what was at stake; fear had no place in these halls.
Digging through his pockets, I yanked Ronin's gun free. Tully must have forgotten he'd even had it. That, or when faced down by the revenge-fueled Claudine, he'd frozen.
“Please,” she urged, hovering over me. “We need to run!”
Gritting my teeth, I found what I was looking for. In my fingers, the well-worn photograph was as good as any energy boost. And just recently, I never wanted to see this again. Baffled by the turn of events, I shoved the photo in my khakis and stood.
Claudine grabbed my wrist, yanking me down the hall. I saw we were going back towards where I'd come in through the window,
and I dug my heels in, wrenching her back. “No!” I snapped. “I'm not escaping without the other girls!”
Deep in the indents of her blue irises, I glimpsed more of the old Claudine; the woman who had shown me how to be brave. Turning in place, she guided me down another path. “Alright, but we need to hurry! This place is going to hell.”
Our feet stomped, all pretense of being sly vanishing. There was enough noise rocketing through the mansion that we were better off moving fast instead of tempting fate. Claudine was right, the longer we waited, the more of a chance there was that we'd be caught.
Killed.
Crushing her fingers in mine, I hoisted Ronin's gun and pushed harder. I had no clue where we were going, and I started to wonder if Claudine really did, either. Each time we came to a bend in the halls, she'd hesitate, leading us deeper.
“Where are we going?” I finally asked, my lungs starting to burn.
“Every way I wanted to go is packed with the Knights. We'll need to go to the front, get outside and come in through the backyard!”
We turned a sharp corner, stumbling into the raised shotgun of a waiting biker. He was clearly shocked to see us, but that didn't make him lower his weapon.
On instinct, I started to aim Ronin's gun. The other man was too wired not to react. Maybe, if I'd done nothing—looked like we weren't dangerous—he would have left us alone. With everything going down in flames, this biker considered everyone a threat.
That meant us.
I held my breath. Shit shit shit. No, we'd been so god damn close to getting out of here! All I could see were those chambers, the place I knew the bullets would eject, puncturing my throat or my skull as they shredded me.
I was in slow motion, praying I'd shoot first, and knowing I would not. The man grinned, the tendons on his bare arms flexing as he crushed the trigger.
On his right, a door slammed open.
Shards of wood dazzled in the air as the hinges gave up on life. Claudine and I jumped back, shielding ourselves. The biker who'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time crumbled under the heavy oak.
Motes of dust filled the hall, blinding me with their white fog. Through the haze, I gazed upon an illusion that I knew couldn't exist. After all, I'd abandoned this string of fate back on the barren roadside.
It can't be.
A shadowy shape rolled over, half-sitting on top of the wooden mess. Another man was clinging on top of him, partially hiding that rugged, familiar face. In my heightened, adrenaline fueled world, every color was saturated. The blood on the walls nearly glowed. It stained his hands, tangled the thick pieces of his hair that I'd once wrapped my fingers in.
“Ronin.”
I breathed the word, almost too scared not to. If this wasn't real, it meant I was pegged with bullets somewhere else in the mansion. Alive or dead already, if this was the last thing my fucked up mind would see, then well...
I couldn't think of a better way to go.
Chapter Thirteen
Ronin
“Ronin, where are you?” Poet asked through the cell phone.
“Approaching The Palace now.” The whole interior of the dump truck rattled. The hell-fire fueled engine beneath me roared like a giant prodded from slumber. I could only imagine that this was what it must be like to surf on an earthquake. I felt like a god.
The Palace's big metal gates loomed before me at the end of the long road. Tully's estate was so massive that, unless personally invited, no one would ever be able to find the place. Even if they didn't have the cops in their pocket, there was probably no reason for them to ever come out this far. No one should live this far into the Everglades.
“That's not a good idea,” Poet said. “We're about to take the fanboats from the Knights and we're lining up to begun cover fire. Don't do this alone, wait for us to catch up!”
Backup sounded great, but I couldn't wait that long. The original plan was that I'd make a hole and the Steel Veins would flood in behind me. It sounded like there was a snag in the Veins' ambush. If even one of the Knights escaped to call Tully...
Flora might already—
I shook the dark thought away. Keep your head in the game, Ronin.
The Knights were transporting the girls up the river by fanboats, via the docks behind the house, so the front gates were locked up tight. They obviously weren’t in the mood for visitors. The gates looked thick enough to stop any commercial vehicle that came at it, but I wondered if it could stop seventy miles per hour of screaming dump truck?
“Sorry, Rem. I got a hot date inside and she's going to be awfully pissed if I'm late.”
I floored the gas pedal and watched the needle in the dashboard dip past the red line. Thick, black plumes of smoke belched out of the twin exhaust pipes on either side of the cab above.
If I survived, this was getting checked off the bucket list.
Poet sighed, he knew he couldn't dissuade me. He couldn't even order me to stop. “All right, give them hell.” His voice was filled with resignation and a little begrudging amusement. “We'll be there as soon as we can. Try not to die.”
The sentry posted in the guard house, just outside the gates, easily spotted me and opened fire with his assault rifle. I ducked to the side, but only a few rounds punched through the window. The rest just bounced off the truck's thick steel sides or got lodged in an engine that was larger than a few apartments I'd lived in. There was no way the guard could stop me, he might as well have been shooting at a tank.
“I make no promises,” I replied honestly to Remy. “Aside from the hole that we both agreed on.” I ended the call and blasted through the gates like they were made of tissue paper.
I'd originally planned to stop once I broke through, but with dozens of enemies pouring out of the building and no friends to draw fire from me, I didn't even bother to slow down.
The truck's massive wheels laid waste to everything in my path. I was unstoppable, until I hit the water fountain before the building's staircase entrance at just the wrong angle.
The dump truck pitched, plowing through the statues, stairs, and front doors like a giant fist. More than half the enormous truck nestled into the main foyer before it stopped moving. The engine almost immediately caught fire. Oil flooded out over the marble floors, sucked up by thirsty Persian carpets.
I had to cut my seat belt straps and kick the front windshield out to escape. I jumped out and stumbled over someone's severed arm from the crash. Who knows where the rest of him was, but by the tattoos he had, I could tell he was one of the Knights. He was still clutching a pistol, which was lucky for me, because Flora took mine.
That girl certainly knew how to raise the stakes in a rescue, I'd give her that.
The unlucky hand had gotten mashed into the trigger guard and firing mechanism. I didn't know if it would still fire, but it was the only weapon I had.
Gunfire whizzed by before I could get the fucking gun free, so I had to take the whole bloody arm with me. I ran through the right wing of the mansion, ducking into rooms and around corners to keep from getting shot.
Rallying cries went out behind me to put the flames out before they burned the whole mansion down. I heard the sprinkler system in that area turn on and several fire extinguishers being used. That was fine by me, I didn't want to set the place on fire until after I got Flora out.
I finally managed to pry out the damn fingers and free the gory gun from the dead man's twisted grasp. I heard someone running down the hall. Tucking around a book case, I hid out of sight.
When the man ran by I grabbed his blazer, slamming him into the nearby wall. He had to be one of Tully's guys. No biker would casually wear a suit and tie.
I didn't have the time to play the game, so I skipped to the part where I shot him in the gun-hand first, then asked him where the girls were being held. “Which ones?” he groaned.
That gave me pause.
“All of them.” Shit, I didn't need options.
Shuddering, the man
said, “Shipped girls are at the back, near the docks. The others are in the ballroom.”
If Flora was with the trafficked girls, Poet would get Veins in to save her, along with the rest. But if she was elsewhere...
By the time I got to the room he'd described, the one with the big oak tables, the piles of coke and quivering, frightened bodies huddled together in the corner, there was no sign of Flora. I tried asking around, but the women were all too out of it to tell me anything useful. I doubled back, locking the room behind me and left. I must have missed something.
Was she with the others? Could I take that chance?
Where the hell is she?
I entered a large pantry, cutting through into the hallway beyond it. There, I damn near crashed into one of the Knights who had slipped into the room to make a phone call. We stared at each other silently as the voice on the other end of the cell asked what was going on.
Standing opposite one another, our guns were drawn, but lowered “I'll have to call you back,” the Knight said, shutting his phone. It was the kind of tension that required a tumbleweed to roll through the middle of us.
“Beeker, did someone just come in—” said a voice behind me. The man in front of me—Beeker, apparently—dropped his phone and brought up his gun.
Caught as I was, I charged forward. It was all I could do. That, and hope to not get shot in the back. Beeker and I both fired; he missed and my gun jammed. My momentum carried me into him, all the same.
I hit him with so much force that we crashed through the door he was standing in front him. We fell into the hallway beyond, landing on top of some other biker that happened to be in the wrong spot at the wrong time.
“Ronin.”
The word was so faint that I wasn't fully convinced I'd heard it at all.
The shouting was definitely real, and the bullets that flew over my head from Beeker's friends behind me, even more so. I grabbed him and rolled us onto my back, just in time for the two other Knights in the pantry to open fire.