by K. M. Fawkes
“You want to save your girlfriend?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Then no funny business,” she finally said. “I’ll shoot you without thinking twice.”
“I believe you,” Pete said. “I just want to help Marie.”
“Go ahead,” she said. “Pick up the gun.”
Pete picked up the Glock and checked the magazine. There was still plenty of ammo.
Hilda watched him warily, no doubt wondering if she’d made the right decision in trusting him.
“I’ll go first,” Pete said to her. “That way you’ll have a gun on me.” What he didn’t say was that if the armed man was waiting to shoot someone, Pete would drop, letting him take out Hilda.
He’d deal with the guy afterward.
He gripped the doorknob and yanked the door open, standing to the side so he wouldn’t be a target in the doorway. No one from inside the building fired, though, so he leaned in to take a better look.
“Clear,” he told Hilda.
The front room was empty, which meant Marie and her assailant had to be in the next room.
Without Pete telling her to, Hilda made her way across the floor so quietly that no one on the other side could have heard. Pete did the same, and within seconds the two of them had made it to the door that would admit them into Clearview’s jail. Jack began shouting.
“Stop it, you shitbag! I’m telling you to stop! You’re going to be sorry!”
Pete wanted to rush in, but knew that was the kind of action that could get a man killed. If he was dead, he’d be of no use to Marie.
“Same thing,” he whispered to Hilda.
She nodded and raised her rifle. “Ready when you are.”
Pete turned the knob slowly, and when the latch cleared, eased the door open a sliver. So far, so good. Except now that the door was open, he could hear two people struggling and knew exactly what was taking place inside.
Once again, he quelled the desire to rush in, carried along by rage instead of reason. Jack was still shouting, mixing pleading for the guy to stop with obscenities. The noise worked in Pete’s favor. He eased the door open wide enough to pass inside.
Jack saw him and paused his diatribe, but Pete swirled his hand. Amp it up. Keep it going.
Jack immediately began yelling again, louder than before. He added the things he would do to the guy if he ever got out of his cell to his list of obscenities.
Two cells over from the one Jack was in, one of the bikers had Marie pinned on the cot. Her coat was off and her pants had been pulled down, and the guy was struggling to pull down her underwear.
Marie wasn’t making it easy. She bucked and kicked and squirmed and flailed. The guy chuckled, seemingly amused by her efforts, but then one of Marie’s punches connected.
It must have hurt, because the guy stopped laughing and grabbed her throat with one hand.
Pete took that opportunity to get closer to the cell, taking care to move quietly. Marie’s body became still, and she focused her efforts on loosening his grip on her throat.
She caught sight of Pete coming up behind the guy, but continued struggling as though nothing had changed.
Pete cocked the trigger and thrust the muzzle of the Glock against the back of the guy’s head. “Hands up, motherfucker.”
Jack stopped shouting. The guy released Marie’s throat and held his hands up while Marie gasped for air. Pete read the tension in the guy’s shoulders and back, though, and knew he was going to make a move. He aimed the Glock to one side and fired, the blast deafening in close quarters.
Marie yelled in surprise and the guy flinched hard, but as Pete had hoped it would, his body language changed from making a move to resigned, at least for the time being. The biker turned around slowly to face Pete, eyeing his rifle, which he’d left leaning up against the bars.
“Don’t even think about it,” Hilda said.
“Okay. Cool,” the guy said. “No need to get your panties in a knot.”
Pete wanted to get the guy away from Marie, whose expression kept shifting between terror and fury. The last thing he needed right now was for her to do something really stupid. Not that he’d blame her. But right now wasn’t the time. He directed the guy out of the cell into the open area, and the guy strutted out like he didn’t have two guns pointed at him.
Merle came into the room, hand pressed against his bleeding arm. All the color had gone from his face, and his mouth was locked in a thin, grim line. He took a moment to catch his breath and said, “I’ve got the keys in my pocket.”
Marie, who’d been busy sorting out her clothing, came out of the cell as Hilda went to Merle to retrieve the keys. When she had them, Merle shifted over a couple of feet so he could lean against one of the cells. He looked like he was going to faint. Pete had half a mind to tell him to sit down before he fell down, but his ribs were still singing the blues where Merle had pummeled them earlier.
Suddenly, Marie was in front of the biker, blocking Pete’s ability to keep the gun trained on him. Pete shifted to regain an angle of fire, but it was too late to stop Marie, who kicked the guy in the balls so hard, Pete winced involuntarily. The biker dropped to the ground, moaning and clutching his balls, at least when he wasn’t dry-heaving.
“Not such a big man now, are you?” Marie said through clenched teeth.
Pete drew her out of the man’s reach, in case he miraculously came up with the presence of mind to grab hold of her.
“When he can stand,” he said, “or crawl, we can lock him in one of the cells.”
“Not on your life,” Hilda said. She strode over to the biker writhing on the floor and blew a hole in his head as nonchalantly as if she were sweeping the floor.
“Jesus,” Pete said.
If he never had to see brains sprayed all over the place again, it would be too soon. He hadn’t seen Hilda shoot the men in Thomas’s house, but he’d heard it. In her own way, she was as crazy as Thomas. Where, Pete wondered, could she have gotten the kind of experience that turned her into such a proficient killer? She literally didn’t blink.
A sudden and overwhelming longing came over him for a quiet evening at home, where he’d sit in his favorite chair and drink a beer or two. And watch a game on TV. And order pizza. Might as well wish for the Wizard of Oz to send him home like Dorothy.
“Thank you,” Marie said to Hilda. Then she marched over and spit on the dead man, interrupting Pete’s momentary fantasy.
“Don’t thank me,” Hilda replied dryly. “You’re still going into a cell.”
Marie was going to try to reason with Hilda. Pete recognized the look. But then her shoulders slumped. The diamond-hard light in Hilda’s eyes must have told her it would be a lost cause.
“Which one?” Marie asked, and turned to face the cells. “So long as it isn’t the one I was in with this piece of shit.” She kicked the dead man halfheartedly.
Pete still had the Glock—and the Kimber—and he wondered suddenly whether he could just take Hilda out. And then Merle. But Hilda was watching him, and she was ready. He flipped the Glock around so he could hand it to her, grip first.
She had no fucking clue that he had another gun in his back pocket. And if he was lucky, she wouldn’t look for it.
She took it from him with a nod. “That was the right call,” she said, and waved them toward the same cell they’d escaped from earlier.
Two steps forward, three steps back.
“I’ll put in a good word for you two when Thomas asks,” Hilda said. “Maybe Merle will, too. If he’s conscious.”
Merle muttered something, but it was incomprehensible.
“All we want to do is leave,” Pete said.
Hilda hauled Merle toward her, supporting his weight with one arm around his waist, and walked out without answering.
Marie watched her go, then clenched her fists, tipped her head back, and screamed. When the scream had burned itself out, she said, “I hate this fucking town.”
Pe
te couldn’t have agreed more. But he also knew something she didn’t.
They might be locked in this damn cell. But he had a gun—and he knew exactly how he was going to use it.
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ALSO BY K. M. FAWKES
ESCAPE THE DARK
Dark Tides
Fearful World
Into the Ruins
Caught in the Crossfire
Do or Die
ENTER DARKNESS
The Longest Night
Dead of Winter
The Survivors
Thin Ice
First Light
AT ANY COST
Survive The Dark
Fight For Everything
Bleak Horizons
SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST
The Fall
Shallow Graves
Final Ride