Chapter Twenty-Four #3
She was clawing his hands, her face was red, her eyes bulging.
No one else said a word. King grunted when she kicked him and punched at his chest where she’d shot him, but he never stopped.
All of his strength was aimed in his hands.
It wasn’t easy to strangle someone, no matter how it looked on TV and movies.
It didn’t happen within seconds. Even if the person passed out, they weren’t necessarily dead.
I wasn’t sure he’d have the strength to keep going and saw Dirt walk around War and Waverley.
“Don’t,” King told him. “She’s mine,” he gritted out.
We could all see he was waning though, and Dirt was no longer concerned about whether he could kill Danica, it was whether she had managed to fatally wound his Prez.
“I hope you burn in fucking hell,” King spat out, releasing her only long enough to snap her neck.
The sound was sickening, and Danica immediately stopped moving, her arms and legs falling limp.
He dropped her like a sack of shit and stumbled back.
Dirt was there to catch him and stop him hitting the floor.
Waverley fought her way out of War’s arms and ran over.
“Dad,” she cried, trying to see where he was hurt.
“It’s all good, kid,” King told her, his eyes moving to Danica’s lifeless body. “I fucking got her.”
War and I both ran over as Dirt stumbled, trying to keep King up. He was still awake but he was losing a lot of blood. Ink and Casper appeared and hurried towards us.
“Get him to the car,” War said, stepping back and lifting Waverley up who was crying. “Casper, burn this fucking place down.”
“Is that the right thing to do?” I asked. “It’ll draw way too much attention. We can’t keep burning buildings down, War.”
“There is evidence everywhere, the bodies in the basement and this bitch doesn’t deserve any respect now that she’s dead,” War told me. He gently pushed Waverley towards me. “Get her out of here. Casper, do it.”
He ran and grabbed the backpack he’d brought.
Ink and Dirt were busy hauling King out.
I pulled Waverley into me, she didn’t shy away, or try to hide.
She stared down at the woman who had kidnapped her, the woman who murdered her mother, a look of sheer hatred on her beautiful face.
I’d thought she would have freaked out at witnessing something like this but she didn’t.
“Come on,” I pulled her away. “We need to make sure King is okay.” Waverley pulled out of my grip and rushed out.
I turned to War. His face was a grim mask as he watched Casper working. I’d expected he’d have some kind of accelerant, but he took out a box with wires coming out of it. Jesus Christ.
“You’re gonna blow the place up?”
“It’s just a small charge, it’ll work faster than setting a fire. I’ll set it off in the basement where the others are, find everything flammable you can and pour it around.”
War looked at me. “Get her somewhere safe. I’ve got this.”
I hated leaving them. But someone could have heard that gunshot. We had been here way too long since it went off. War didn’t hang around for my crisis of conscience, whether to stay and help or go after the others. In the end, I chose her and ran out of the porch.
Widow had pulled his car up and they were loading King in the back.
I didn’t know where they intended to take him, we were miles away from the compound and Medic, going to a hospital would draw suspicion.
Ink was on the phone though, watching Dirt positioning King as best he could.
Someone had pulled his cut off him and had something pressed on the wound.
King was holding it but not hard enough.
“Move,” Waverley pushed Dirt out of the way and got into the car, she knelt beside her dad and grabbed what I now realized was Widow’s top, and pushed it hard, causing King to wince. “Sorry but I have to stop the bleeding.”
“Ok there is somewhere we can take him, about ten minutes away,” Ink leaned into the car. He gave Widow an address.
“I’m going with him,” Waverley said, no room for argument.
No one did. Dirt told Ink and me to go to Kansas and wait for War and Casper. I looked at Waverley, her cheeks were damp with tears but there was a determined look on her face. She wasn’t going to let her dad die. We all got out of the way and Widow took off.
“Come on, we gotta get off the street,” Ink said. “We’ll go to my van, War and Casper can go to the other car.”
Against all the odds, no one seemed to have heard anything, but silent alarms could have been triggered, there was no way of knowing.
Kansas was sat in the back of the van a few blocks away from the house, he opened the rear doors, and we got in, Ink clambered past him and climbed over so he was in the driver seat.
He made another call, letting War know what was going on then hung up.
I followed and got into the passenger seat.
Ink was on another call, starting up the van, letting Bear, the other driver know to wait for War and Casper.
He made another call, this time, looking out of the window away from me.
Whoever it was, he was giving the address, some basic info of what went down and telling them we would be out of the area in the next two minutes.
My best guess was it was the O’Connell’s contact. King was pulling in a lot of fucking favors with those guys lately. I didn’t know what he was giving them in return but if they were going to help us get away with this, cover anything up, then it would be a big favor.
I called War as Ink finished and we pulled away. “We’re in the van.”
“Yeah, just getting in the car now…. What do you mean wait?” he wasn’t talking to me.
“Range,” I heard Casper say.
“Well hurry the fuck up,” War told him. “How’s King?” he asked me.
“He seemed okay, he was conscious, talking, but he had lost a lot of blood, I couldn’t see where the bullet hit him. We’ve got him going to a doctor nearby.”
War paused and I heard him breathing. “That was… he was like a fucking machine,” he said.
“I don’t think it went down the way he planned. Pretty sure he had things he wanted to say.”
“At least he got to look the bitch in the eye when he ended her.”
I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me.
A distant thud drew all of our attention back to where Danica’s house was.
It hadn’t sounded too loud from this distance, but it would have definitely alerted the other houses in the area something bad just happened.
Casper detonated whatever he’d put in the basement.
“Okay, you can go,” I heard him calmly tell War.
“You’re a fucking lunatic,” War said to him. I heard Casper laughing. “Okay, get back to the compound,” War said. “Has Ink made the call?”
“He’s made a number of calls,” I looked at Ink. He glanced at me as he turned a corner, he nodded, letting me know whatever War wanted to know was done. “Yeah, it’s done. Waverley is with King, we need to go get her,” I protested. I didn’t want to leave her.
Ink didn’t stop driving in the direction of the Interstate, I had no idea which way Widow went.
“She’ll be alright, we go to the compound. Dirt will call when he can.”
“Fuck,” I should have gone with them. But this was an order from the VP. “Fine. Stay in touch.” I hung up and scrubbed both hands down my face.
This was a fucking disaster.
“Well, apart from that one minor hiccup, I’d say that was a fucking success,” Ink laughed.
“Minor hiccup?” I turned to him incredulously.
“He’ll be fine. He’s King Curtis.”
I hoped so, because King would be fucking pissed if we got through all of this, he got his revenge, and Danica ended up killing him too.