Chapter 4—Milly
Chapter 4— Milly
B reathe. Just breathe.
I keep telling myself that and hope the ringing in my ears stops soon. This was close—too close. I want to shoot the asshole again, but I know it won’t help anything. The guy’s dead. There’s no walking away from the bullet I just put in his head.
Danny would be proud.
The thought of my brother almost makes me smile as my heart aches. I miss my family, but I need to stay away. It’s for the best. They know it; I know it. Doesn’t mean we like it. I’ll have to figure out a way to let them know that all those summers playing paintball paid off. I’ll leave out the part that I had to get close range to make the shot that Danny tried to train me on since I was old enough to be on his team. He always said the headshot was the only way to get the other team out, and they couldn’t fake it. Didn’t matter that the rules said don’t hit above the neck. My family was never known for playing by the rules anyway.
A noise behind me has me moving out of reflex, but not fast enough. I turn in time but still feel the sting of the bullet in my arm that was meant for my back. I don’t have a chance to curse myself for thinking that there were only two of them; I should have expected that they would start sending more.
On instinct, I lift my left hand to help my right arm aim, cringing from the pain as I fire back. I step back as I do and only get two shots off before all I hear is the clipping of my own empty gun.
Shit!
I thought I had more bullets, but this isn’t a fucking movie. Nine rounds go fast when you’re fighting for your life. I moved too far away from my bag to get my extra clip, and I’ve got nothing else on me to use as a weapon. My only chance is to dive for the guy’s gun below me and hope he didn’t use all his bullets when he tried to get me earlier. Or I can hide. Which is shit, since there’s nothing on this back porch, and I’m in fucking sunlight with how they installed the porch lights.
I barely have half a second to think, but my body is moving for me as I stumble down the steps just as another shot slides by my head. Either I’m getting better at this, or this third guy is a lousy shot. But it won’t matter much longer if he keeps moving toward me. A body is much easier to hit when it’s close—case in point, the guy on the ground.
I dive for the dead guy a millisecond before I hear another gunshot. Praying the numb feeling is me just going into adrenaline overload and not that I’m shot and dying, I grab the gun off the body I’m lying on and roll to fire back, but no one’s there. Moving my head and wiggling my body around, not caring that I’m on top of a dead body or that I’m getting blood in my hair, I stop when I see boots hanging off the porch’s top step. Tilting my head, I rise to stand. My aim is on the guy the whole time, but I don’t fire. There’s no reason. The guy’s already dead.
One clean headshot.
“Drop it. ”
The command from behind me has me spinning like a top, and I raise my gun only to lower it a second later. I know when I’m outnumbered, even if I hate it. My mind’s racing to find another way out of this as I watch four figures walk toward me from the back fence. The yard is pretty damn big, and it takes them longer than I would have thought to get into some sort of light. But I don’t need to see them to know they’ve got four guns on me. However, the lights let me know I’m more fucked than I want to be.
Hounds. They’re all Hounds of the Reaper. The vests make it clear, and I recognize half the group. I curse but then grind my teeth together to keep my anger from showing more than I want it to.
I should have fucking known this was too good to be true. Why the fuck did I ever think bikers were the answer?
“We’re not with them.”
The growl isn’t what draws my eyes to the guy speaking. It’s the arrogance.
I can’t help but snort. Of fucking course . Of all the people to be here, it would be the asshole who started this shitty day for me. I also refuse to believe that I’m shaking a bit and giving myself away more than I should.
“Prove it.” I don’t know why I demand it. I’m outnumbered, outgunned. Got nothing on my side that should let me make the demands, and yet I can’t help it. Call it my upbringing or just a New Yorker thing, but I refuse to just stand here and let this go south. I worked too long and too hard for me and Ollie to be safe to just fall apart now.
“Oliver sent us,” Chains says, as if he pulled the one word from all the others in the universe that would make me believe him .
Shocked by his words, I feel my face go blank, and the glare I had when the other guy spoke disappears.
“He’s with Mama Bear and the cubs.” Chains keeps talking as he steps slowly forward, and I watch him, not raising my gun as I listen to him. “He’s safe. Came over asking us to help.”
He’s less than an arm’s reach away from me, and he quickly takes the gun out of my hands. I don’t fight him, and I hate myself for it. My mind is racing with why I just let him take my only weapon. His words could be a lie. There’s no reason for him to tell me the truth. I can think of a million and one reasons for him to lie, but not to tell me what really happened.
I take a deep breath and try to push my thoughts away. Beating myself up will only drain me faster. I need to concentrate on everything else right now and find a way to get away. To find Ollie and get out. Hopefully with a gun in my hand when I run, but I can make do with less. I have before.
“Anyone else in the house?” Chains asks as he nods to two of the guys I don’t know. I saw them at the party, but I didn’t talk to them. They make their way toward the house.
“Yes.” Everyone stops at my words. “But he’s dead.”
“Which room?” This from the one who’s almost double the size of the other guy who’s walking up the back porch. He’s easy on the eyes, but then again, so is the rest of the club. I can see the name Kooper on his vest as he moves on silent feet toward the door.
“The main bedroom. He thought I was sleeping.” Which is laughable. I never sleep at night, not anymore. Ever since this all started, I learned fast that sleeping was a luxury, and sleeping at night was a death warrant waiting to be signed. I get a few hours in every day, just enough to function. No one has ever messed with us during the day. The sun keeps them away as if we have our own little beacon of sunshine to protect us. I’m not going to question it, as it’s kept me alert enough to keep going for this long.
“Damn, Bass, you need a raise.” The other one—Domino, based on his vest—leans down and stares at the body at the top of the stairs. “You didn’t miss a beat with this one. One clear shot and hit him dead center.”
I shift one foot back, just enough to move my body to see what he means. The guy wasn’t lying. The headshot was something I try for each time, and I usually get it… eventually. But all it took was one bullet from Bass.
Fucking Bass.
I don’t want to be grateful to him. Don’t want to appreciate his skills. I refuse to. So when I look back at him, still standing behind Chains, watching everything, I lock my jaw. My mama drilled into me to be polite. Okay, the shoe she used as a weapon to hit me with till I was polite and had manners kept me from snarking off at him. But it was my pride that refused to show gratitude, keeping me from speaking a word of thanks or smiling in kindness.
Kooper, who had disappeared into the house, shouts, “Clear,” and the others relax a bit. Guess I’m the only one who doesn’t trust well around here.
“I’ll call it in,” Chains says before he turns and hands Bass my gun, who dispenses the clip, pocketing it before tossing the rest of the useless thing on the ground next to the body.
I know I shouldn’t. I can practically hear my brother Vinny telling me to check my attitude before I even start, but I can’t help it. There’ s something about this guy that just sets me off.
“You that scared of me?” I cross my arms and stick my hip out, ignoring the pain in my arm as best as I can, which isn’t much. I feel tired. Hell, I’ve felt tired for a long time, especially the past eighteen months, but I still keep going. It’s what I do. My brothers call it stubbornness, but I just call it survival.
“Nah. Saw how you shoot.”
His smirk has me showing my teeth and hissing at him. I have half a mind to reach out and scratch his pretty face and pull his hair, but I refuse to act like a typical girl. My urge to pull hair and scratch was something I was born with, and something I spend each day trying to curb. I’m in a man’s world, so I need to play by their rules. And that means fists and guns, not nails and shrill screams.
“Yeah, no one else. Koop already cleared it.”
Chains’ words pull our attention to him. He moved a few steps away and made a call. No clue to who, but I bet it’s the man in charge. I might not know this group, but I know how things work. Places like this always have a man in charge, and while these guys have an authority all to themselves, they still don’t carry the “weight of the world on their shoulders” look. Not yet anyway.
I know that look. I’ve lived that look.
“Going to put them on ice till we get this sorted. Yeah, she’s in the cave. Thanks, man, I owe you. Yeah, okay.”
I bite my bottom lip as I continue to listen in. I can only guess at what’s being said. Makes sense that they would just hold the bodies before dumping them. They don’t know me. I could be the psychotic one in all of this for all they know. I’m assuming he’s talking about Maddy being in the cave. They like to call her Mama Bear and the kids cubs, so it makes sense that she would have a cave.
Chains puts his phone away and walks over to us. “Law wants to talk to her,” he says to Bass, who just nods, and my eyes go as big as saucers.
“Law? As in ‘I am the Law’? That’s who wants to talk to me?” I knew he was the boss guy even before meeting him. You don’t call yourself something like that for shits and giggles.
Chains just raises an eyebrow, and Bass shrugs. But it’s Domino, who’s leaning over the railing of the porch, who laughs and clues them in. “Ha, that’s funny. Never thought of him as a Judge Dredd type, but he kind of fits the bill.”
I’m just glad to see that someone watches classic movies around here. Before all this started, I spent more than a few nights with the boob tube. Not that I didn’t go out. Hell, my family sure thought I went out way too much. I didn’t, but the impression was there. But I also like to curl under a blanket and watch TV just like everyone else. And when I watch something, it’s usually of the classic eighties or nineties action vibe.
What can I say? They don’t make them like they used to.
“Let’s go. Domino, stick around with Koop. A few brothers will be by soon to help clean this up,” Chains says before gesturing for me to walk ahead of him and Bass.
I take a hesitant step before pausing. Until I have Ollie back, there’s no reason to run. They might be lying and Ollie’s not with Maddy, but I’ve got a feeling they aren’t. There are some sick people in this world who use kids in all ways, lying about them being the easiest. But I don’t get that vibe from this group. Say what you want, but I don’t think a bunch of bikers would go all out for a one-year-old’s birthday party unless they actually like kids.
“We need to worry about the cops coming?” I say it to pass the time. I really don’t give a shit if the cops come or not.
Okay, that isn’t true. I don’t want the cops, as it possibly leads to getting in the system. A place I don’t want to end up in, as it means putting black-and-white details on what I look like, and what Ollie looks like, out there. And while I didn’t change my appearance much when this started, I still changed enough that it’s difficult for anyone to find us as quickly. Unless, of course, they have fucking pictures of what we look like to show around town.
“Cops know we own the building.” This is from Bass.
I look over my shoulder at them and hear what he isn’t saying. The police will stay out of this. Not sure what kind of pull they have—dirty cops on their payroll or just a working relationship—but it tells me something else.
The Hounds of the Reaper fear no one.
Bass just killed someone, and he isn’t sweating about it. Not even worried he could get locked up for it. Sure, so did I, but I’m also shaking bad enough that I wrap my arms around myself to seem like I’m cold and not trying to hide the tremors in my hands. Which I doubt fools anyone, but it makes me feel better. My body is freaking out about what happened, but my mind is still working, knowing I can’t panic completely. I have to stay alert and keep going. It’s the only way I can survive this, that Ollie can survive this.
As we make it across the road and onto the gravel driveway that leads into the clubhouse, I’m thankful for my little quirks, like always wearing shoes, even when sleeping. Well, I call them survival tips, but Ollie says they’re quirks.
The thought of him makes me smile and also frown. I hope he’s okay.
“When do I get to see Ollie?”
Chains eats up the small distance between us and the door and opens it for me. He nods at me to go inside, but I cock a brow. I might seem like a toddler following them, even if I was in front, and playing the part of a dutiful victim, but I’m not going into a dark building with no weapon. And I think they get that when I don’t move forward.
“We’ve got someone bringing him here now.”
“Fine, I’ll wait.” I slide my hands to my hips and shrug. My arm’s killing me, and I’m colder than an iceberg, but I’ll stick it out. I’m sure the adrenaline will eventually kick off and I’ll feel the heat of the night on my skin again soon, even if it’ll bring more pain to my wound that my body is slowly starting to become unnumbed around.
“Can’t see him till we get some answers first.”
My eyes flash to Bass. His voice dropped a few octaves with that statement, and I refuse to believe that butterflies took flight in my stomach at his authoritative tone.
It’s got to be fear. Fear I can work with. I know how to live with that and mold it into action. If it’s anything else, then I’m fucked. And even though that one word swimming in my head sends my sex pulsing a bit since it’s been forevvvvver since I got laid, I can’t afford to let my mind go that route. It’s a selfish thought that could get someone killed.
I steel my spine and decide that facing who knows what in the building is better than facing the man outside. I choose fear over lust and turn to walk in. But as I feel him take a step with me and then place his hand on my lower back, I almost trip. It’s a slight heat from his skin through the thin fabric, but I swear it’s a damn hot poker. I feel that touch everywhere.
Not good. This is not good.
Even if a small part of my brain says it is.