by Avelyn Paige
Bad move, pal.
“Eugene!” she whisper-cries as I slip out of the bedroom and down the hall, my gun up and ready to fire.
My mind races as I listen. Who could this be? Is this the same person who broke the window out at the garage? Is it that fucker, Aaron? Whoever it is, he’s bold. He’s pulling this shit in broad daylight, and could’ve been seen by any number of nosy neighbors on this block.
Slow, careful footsteps creep toward the hallway, and I wait. I don’t want to give the son of a bitch a chance to run out the front door.
When a shadow crosses the floor close to me, I make my move.
Jumping out from the hall, I aim my gun, my feet planted apart, ready to fire.
But Henry Tucker couldn’t care less. He doesn’t stop. He storms toward me, a gun clenched in his own hand, his face twisted with derangement and pure anger.
Before I know what’s hit me, my gun is flying to the ground somewhere out of reach and Henry’s on top of me, biting, scratching, and clawing at me. The sounds coming from his throat are terrifying. I’ve never heard noises like that come from a human being.
His hands go around my throat, and we both fall to the ground in a struggle. There isn’t a lot of room in my tiny living room, and every which way I roll, wanting to take this asshole by surprise and get him off of me, ends with us slamming into a wall or a large piece of furniture. I’m trapped beneath him.
Henry’s eyes are red and empty of everything, except his rage. When he pulls his fist back, getting ready to slam it down into my face, I realize how much danger we’re both in.
Grace is somewhere close by.
Henry Tucker’s fist bashes into my skull once, twice, and then a third time. The ringing in my ears grows, but still, I fight.
I’ve been in my share of fistfights, and I’ve never lost one. I’m not about to lose this one, either.
“Eugene!” Grace shrieks.
Henry’s head whips up to look at her, and I take my shot. I fist his hair in my hand, twisting it in my fingers as close to the scalp as I can manage and throw him off balance.
Using the momentum, I push with my legs to toss him up and over me. I jump to my feet, rushing to get my gun, but Henry reaches his first.
“Don’t you fucking move!” he screams. Looking back, I find him standing with his gun aimed directly at Grace. My heart sinks as I freeze. I couldn’t move now if I wanted to.
“Get over there and stand with her,” he orders, waving the gun between us. “Now!”
As I approach Grace, I stare into her pale, terrified face, wondering how I could have fucked this up so bad. I fucked up, and now she’s in danger. We may not make it out of here alive.
Grace
“You don’t have to do this,” I plead, pressing my back against the wall, my fingers like claws in the back of Eugene’s shirt.
Henry’s lips move, spouting off unintelligible words, but he doesn’t lower the gun. “Where are my fucking kids, bitch?”
Eugene lifts a hand, turning the psycho’s attention onto himself. “Calm down, buddy. Let’s work this out like adults. Nobody has to get hurt here.”
Henry’s lips stop moving as he lowers the gun to his side, but his whole body trembles with aggression. “My kids. They’re my kids, not yours. Mine. Give them to me.”
I tug on Eugene’s shirt, pulling him tight against me. With the blood pounding in my ears, the room around me spins as I force myself to stay still and calm.
“Gene, look what Karma got me!”
Kevin pushes through the back door and into the kitchen before I can stop him, with Natalie right behind him. The moment she lays eyes on Henry, she screeches to a halt. My heart plummets.
Things just went from bad to a million times worse.
“This kid’s gonna be a—” Karma stops mid-sentence and quickly pushes Lindsey behind him.
Oh God. Now we’re all here. Six of us held hostage by a man who’s obviously tweaking and has a loaded gun.
“Well, who do we have here?” Henry smiles when he notices Lindsey. I watch in horror as every drop of blood drains from Lindsey’s face when Henry reaches for her.
“Leave her alone,” Karma growls. “She’s pregnant.”
Karma moves to intercept Henry, and that’s when the loudest sound I’ve ever heard blasts through the room, leaving my ears ringing.
For a moment, I don’t understand what’s happened or where that sound had come from, but as a red circle blossoms and grows on the front of Karma’s T-shirt, I know. My screams mix with those of Lindsey’s and the kids’ as Karma gapes at Eugene. Dropping to his knees, he falls forward, landing directly on his face.
“Nobody move!” Henry roars, now pointing the gun at Lindsey as he yanks at his hair with his free hand, moaning as if in agony. “Oh fuck, fuck, fuck. Oh, God.”
I stare at Karma’s motionless body, and send a silent prayer out into the universe, begging for him to be okay. Everyone’s sobbing except for Eugene, who looks ready to throw himself into battle, gun or no gun.
“You killed him,” Lindsey cries. “You fucking killed him, you son of a bitch!” Tears stream down her face, but she looks heartbroken. She leans forward, as if to check on Karma, but then she’s on the ground before the sound of another gunshot even registers in my mind.
“No!” I scream. “Please, stop!”
Lindsey wails, clutching her stomach, and Karma’s words from just a few seconds ago repeat over and over in my mind. She’s pregnant. She’s pregnant. Lindsey’s pregnant.
No, no, no! This can’t be happening.
Kevin and Natalie stare down at her, their faces frozen in shock, their eyes glistening with tears.
“Kevin?” Henry asks, his voice going from psychopath to sweet as sugar. “Natalie? Remember me? I’m your father.”
Kevin looks back down at Lindsey and Karma, both of them lying in their own puddles of blood getting bigger by the second.
“Natalie?” he asks again, this time reaching out and stroking her hair. “Baby, I’m your daddy.” Natalie sobs and shrinks away from his touch.
Whatever hold Eugene had been keeping on his temper disappears in that instant. A growl of rage ripping from his throat, he moves toward Henry once again, but Henry is fast. Inhumanly fast.
I’ve seen it before when someone’s high on meth or something similar. They become extremely fast and incredibly strong. But I’ve never seen anyone move as fast as Henry.
“Henry, no!” I scream as he brings the butt of his gun down on Eugene’s skull. Grabbing onto the children, I shove them behind me, unable to believe what I’m seeing.
My mind races for a way out of this at the same time my heart stutters in my chest as Eugene crumbles like an accordion and falls into a heap onto the floor.
“Oh my God, Eugene,” I sob. “Please, say something.” I watch helplessly as a single drop of blood falls from his temple and onto the hardwood floor.
I want to go to him. I want to make sure he’s okay, but I can’t. I can’t because I’m the only thing standing in the way of Henry Tucker and his kids. I have to keep my shit together before I end up like the others. All I can do is watch and pray. Pray for all of us. Pray that I can find a way out of this.
My body trembles uncontrollably while I stare at his chest, desperate to be sure he’s still breathing. Seconds feel like years until his chest heaves once. Twice. It’s labored, but he’s alive. Eugene is still with me.
Henry turns away from him with a sick, satisfied smile.
“It’s just me and you now, Grace,” he slurs, stepping closer to me. “You and me. You and me,” he mutters to himself. “This didn’t have to happen, you know. All you had to do was give me my kids. My kids. Not yours. Not his.” He points his handgun in Eugene’s direction. “All I want is my kids!” Rubbing the gun against the side of his face, Eugene’s blood drips from the butt of it and onto his skin. Wiping it away with his other hand, he looks down with a sickening smile.
He steps toward me, and Natalie presses tighter against my backside, while Kevin tries to push in front of me, but I shove him back. He’s been a hero for his sister long enough. He needs a hero to take care of him too. This is my fight now.
Setting his eyes on Natalie, Henry reaches out his hand, beckoning her. “You’re a pretty little thing, aren’t you? A looker like your mama.”
“Leave her alone,” Kevin snarls.
Henry’s lips pull back, baring his rotting teeth. “You shut your fucking mouth!”
He charges toward us, and I shift in response, moving us closer to the open kitchen entry. If I could just get us a little closer, I can distract him and get the kids out that way. It’s the only shot we have with him blocking the front door.
I thrust out my hands in front of us. “Take me,” I beg him.
Screeching to a halt, he tilts his head to the side. “What the hell am I going to do with an old bitch like you? My buyers want young, pretty little things like her.”
I gape at him. “You don’t mean... You’re her father!”
Sell her. Oh my God. He doesn’t want them back to take care of them. He’s a trafficker, just like their uncle.
His words from our first conversation pops into my head. I lost my business when she left. That’s what he meant. She took his cash cow when she took the kids. He’s been planning to sell Natalie since the day she was born.
“Why the fuck do you think I want her? I never wanted kids in the first place. That bitch started pumping them out like a fucking vending machine. Randall fucked me over big time when he didn’t make his sale at the border, and now they’re coming after me to collect. She’s my only fucking option.”
“You can’t have her!” Kevin screams. “I won’t let you do it!”
“Who’s going to stop me, boy? You? Her?” He presses the gun into my chest. “I’m going to kill your friend Grace, and then I’ll sell you to someone who likes pretty little boys.”
“Henry, listen to me. These are your children. This is just the drugs talking.”
He digs the barrel of the gun in deeper. “Shut the fuck up! You’re just like their whore mother, always trying to tell me what to fucking do.”
“I’m sorry. I know what she did was wrong. She should have never taken the kids away from you,” I lie, but the words still burn like acid on my tongue.
“She deserved what she got. I’d have done it if Randall hadn’t beaten me to it.”
That’s how their uncle got them. He killed their mom to get them, just like their father has done here. There’s no way out of this. Death means nothing to this man. The only way these kids will make it out of here alive is if I do something drastic. The plan forms in my mind. The kitchen has a back exit, and we’re only a few feet away from the entrance. If I could only get us closer, I could charge him, and the kids could escape out the back. I have to keep him talking, keep him focused on me while I enact my plan.
“I know she did. She was a horrible person.” With each word, I take a small step back, inching us closer to the doorway. Kevin tugs hard on my shirt, but I can’t answer him. I can’t acknowledge him. The second Henry’s focus slips from me, it’s all over for us. So I do the only thing that I can. I ignore it.
“He should’ve let me kill her!” he bellows, dropping to his knees and clutching his head between his hands, screaming into the floorboards. With his focus turned away from us, I take two big steps, herding the kids behind me until both slip into the opening of the kitchen.
Reaching back, I grab Kevin’s hand, giving it a hard squeeze before I scream, “Run!”
The next few seconds are a blur. Kevin and Natalie slip out of the room as I charge Henry. His eyes raise from the floor just before I tackle him.
He shoves at me, trying to get to his feet, but I keep fighting. I claw at him, bite him, doing anything I can to keep him down long enough for the kids to get away. The gun slips from his grasp with a clank next to my head, and I scramble for it on my hands and knees.
Just as I’m about to close my hands around the butt, Henry’s on me. His foot slams into my chest, kicking me back as he reaches for the gun.
I gasp for air, but I know that if he gets that gun before I do, it’s over. With as much strength as I can muster, I reach for him again, but he moves so fast. The gun is at my temple before I can get to my feet, and the hammer clicks back.
“You stupid bitch,” he spits, his finger dancing on the trigger in slow motion. I close my eyes, waiting for the world to disappear around me, finding peace because my sacrifice won’t be in vain. The kids got away. They’ll live on.
A heavy thunk echoes through the room, followed by the thud of Henry’s body hitting the ground beside me. I whip around in shock to find Kevin shaking like a leaf, a cast iron pan clutched in his hands.
“Holy shit,” he whispers.
Sirens wail in the distance as I stare at the carnage around us.
Judge
“Just stitch it up. I’ll be fine.”
The doctor rolls his eyes. “Sir, I get it, you’re tough, but you have a severe concussion, three fractured ribs, and a deep laceration on your scalp.”
I glare at him. “So stitch the laceration, and I’ll be careful with the rest. My family is out there with worse injuries than mine, and I need to be there for them.”
“I’ll take care of him,” Grace assures the frustrated doctor.
Nodding, he sets out to stitch the wound left on my forehead by the butt of Henry’s gun.
“Lindsey?” I ask, turning my attention to Grace.
Her mouth turns down. “She was pregnant.” It’s no less of a shock now as it was when Karma had said it to Henry Tucker earlier.
“You said was. Is the baby okay?”
A tear falls from her eye and down her cheek. “She lost the baby.”
“Is Lindsey going to live?” I ask her, my teeth clenched as the doctor starts in with the sutures.
“Sir,” he admonishes. “If you don’t stay still, you’re going to be in here even longer when I accidentally punch this needle through your eye. Stop moving!”
Grace and I both ignore him. “Yes, Eugene, Lindsey is going to survive, but the bullet destroyed her womb. She not only lost her baby, but she’ll never be able to have another one. She’s devastated.”
Devastated, I can deal with. At least she’s alive to be devastated.
“And Karma?”
“We don’t know yet. He’s in surgery.”
“Is he going to make it?” I demand.
Another tear slides down her cheek. “We just don’t know. If you’re the praying kind, though, this is the time to do it.”
I gape at her in shock. Karma is one of my best buddies. He’s a good shit. Reliable. Funny. Always ready to help out with a slap for Twat Knot when he’s being an ass. I don’t think I can handle life without him in it.
“Kevin and Natalie are out in the hall,” she continues, dashing away her tears and forcing a shaky smile onto her lips. “They were so brave, Eugene. You should be proud of them. And Kevin…” She takes a deep breath and blows it out slowly. “Kevin saved my life. He saved all of us.”
“You almost done, Doc?” I feel like I’m about to crawl out of my bruised and battered skin. I just want to see my kids, reassure myself that they’re really okay. I want to go to Lindsey and hold her, tell her everything is going to be okay. I want to get the hell out of here so I can be there when Karma comes out of surgery.
“Yeah, yeah, Rambo, keep your chaps on.”
Grace stares at me with wide eyes, stifling a laugh behind her hand. Gazing up at the doc, I raise my brow. “You’re a brave man, Doc.”
He shakes his head. “Nah. I’m just tired of people bitching at me to move faster when I’m doing my damn job.”
I’m in no mood for his annoyance, so I open my mouth to tell him exactly what I think about him and his damn job, but Grace beats me to it.
“He’s sorry, Doctor. We’ve just had a
very rough night, and some of the others that were with us are hurt badly.”
Grabbing a pair of odd-looking scissors, he brings them to my head, cuts the thread, and winds some gauze around my noggin over and over again. “There. All done.”
I hop down off the table and follow Grace to the door.
“If you feel nauseous at all, you get your butt back in here,” the doctor calls out as we round the corner.
Kevin and Natalie are right outside, just as Grace had said. I don’t know which one of them hugs me tighter, but I don’t even care. My arms wrap around those kids and I hold them against my fractured chest, ignoring the pain and just reveling in the fact that my kids are here, and that I still have them with me.
“I was so scared,” Natalie sobs into my blood-stained shirt.
“Me too, kiddo. Me too.”
She looks up at me, surprised. “You were scared?”
“Terrified. I thought he was going to hurt us and take you guys away. I thought he was going to hurt you both.”
Kevin’s eyes flash with anger. “He hurt Karma and Lindsey.”
Swallowing hard, I follow Grace as she leads us all down a long corridor. “I know, but that’s all he was able to do.” I reach over and place my hand on Kevin’s shoulder as we walk. “You did good, bud. So fucking good.”
“I didn’t save Karma and Lindsey, or their baby,” he mumbles.
Their baby? Lindsey’s baby was Karma’s? I knew he had a thing for her, but he’d never once come to me and told me he was going to pursue it. Probably because he knew I’d rip his fucking dick off.
“You were amazing,” Grace assures him.
We enter the waiting area on the third floor of the hospital a few moments later, where leather clad bikers are sprawled out around the room. Some are asleep, and some are awake, mumbling to each other, all of them looking worried.
“Have we heard anything?” Their heads whip up, and one by one they come to me, slapping me on the back. It sounds nice in theory, but with broken ribs, they might as well be stabbing me right in the chest.
“Glad you’re okay, man,” GP says, going in for the final hug of the group. “You just missed the doc about twenty minutes ago. He said Karma is out of surgery, but for now, it’s touch and go. He took a bullet directly to the heart.”