Chapter Six #2
I knew I shouldn’t eavesdrop, but I couldn’t seem to help myself. I pressed my back against the wall beside the door, my legs suddenly weak from the words I could hear.
A silence descended, broken only by the pounding of my heart in my ears. I wanted to push through that door, to stand beside Doc as he laid out our evidence.
The voices resumed, words overlapping as the debate intensified.
I couldn’t make out all the words, but I did pick up on enough it made me think they really didn’t want me here.
My hands went numb. The folder slipped from my grasp, papers spilling across the hallway floor.
I dropped to my knees automatically, scrambling to gather them before anyone came through that door and found me there.
As my trembling fingers collected the scattered evidence, I heard Doc’s voice again.
I let his words settle over me. My throat closed up, emotion threatening to overwhelm me.
Doc was risking everything -- his place in the club, maybe his life -- to defend me.
To help me find justice for Mom and Dad.
And in return, I’d brought danger to his doorstep.
Shoving the last paper into the folder, I scrambled to my feet.
Letting Doc sacrifice himself for me wasn’t an option.
Losing his family the way I’d lost mine wasn’t something I could allow.
The decision crystallized in my mind, hard and clear as a diamond.
I would leave -- but on my terms, not theirs.
I would finish what my mother started, with or without their help.
The evidence was all here, in this folder and in my head.
I just needed one more piece to complete the puzzle.
I turned away from the door, from the men deciding my future behind it.
I knew where he kept the keys to his truck.
If the Dixie Reapers wanted me gone, I’d go.
If I hadn’t just discovered Jeanette Miller had died in a tragic accident -- as if I believed that for a moment -- I’d have gone straight to her to find out what she knew.
But now that wasn’t a possibility. One more lead had been buried. Literally.
* * *
Doc
I pushed out of Church, shoulders tight with tension, the President’s last words still ringing in my ears.
“We’ll finish this discussion later.” Not a dismissal, not an acceptance -- just a postponement that solved nothing.
Brothers filtered out behind me, the weight of unresolved conflict hanging over all of us like a storm cloud ready to burst. My eyes scanned the main room immediately, searching for a tiny figure with brown hair.
Nova. I needed to find her before someone else did, before she heard garbled versions of what had just happened in Church.
But the crowd of cuts and beards revealed no sign of her.
“Has Nova stopped by?” I asked the Prospect behind the bar, not bothering to hide the urgency in my voice.
He shrugged, gaze skittering away from mine. “Saw her heading toward the back a while ago. Looking for you, I think.”
My stomach dropped. Had she heard? Had she been outside the door during our debate?
Tempest caught my arm as I turned to head back down the hallway. “We ain’t done, Doc. You stepped over a line in there.”
I jerked free, adrenaline from the confrontation still running hot in my veins. “Get your hand off me unless you want it reattached surgically.”
His eyes narrowed, but Venom appeared between us before the situation could escalate further. “Save it for the real enemy. Both of you.”
I didn’t wait for Tempest’s response, pushing past them, my mind racing. The Prospect said Nova had come this way, which meant she might have ducked into one of these rooms, especially if she’d overheard the meeting. If she knew some of the brothers wanted her gone --
The first shots cracked through the air like thunder, followed immediately by the sound of shattering glass. Someone shouted from the front of the clubhouse. Then everything happened at once.
“Down! Everybody down!” Savior’s voice cut through the chaos, steady even in crisis.
I dropped instinctively, combat training kicking in as more shots peppered the building. Brothers dove for cover, overturning tables and reaching for weapons stashed in strategic locations throughout the clubhouse. Outside, engines roared -- motorcycles and at least one car, from the sound of it.
“Blood Pagans!” Saint shouted from near a window. “At least ten of them!”
The noise intensified -- more shots, breaking glass, the thud of bullets hitting wood. Then came the sound I’d been dreading: a pained cry as one of our own took a hit.
“Doc!” Savior called over the din. “We got wounded!”
I was already moving, keeping low as I made my way toward the back of the clubhouse. I needed to get to my medical room for supplies, and I needed to find Nova. The thought of her caught in this firefight made my blood run cold.
The hallway was empty, the medical room door closed. I burst through it, expecting -- hoping -- to find Nova safe inside. I found her crouched behind the metal cabinet where I kept surgical supplies, a small pistol clutched in her trembling hands. Her eyes were wide with fear.
“Nova,” I breathed, relief flooding through me at the sight of her unharmed.
“Doc,” she gasped, lowering the gun slightly. “What’s happening?”
“Blood Pagans,” I explained, already moving to gather medical supplies. “Stay down, stay here.”
“There are men hurt out there.” She watched as I filled my trauma bag with gauze, pressure bandages, and other supplies. “I heard the shouts.”
Another volley of gunfire punctuated her words, closer now. A scream of pain followed the sound of breaking glass from the main room. Not the time for discussion.
“Stay down!” I ordered, slinging the medical bag over my shoulder. “I mean it, Nova. Don’t move from this spot.”
I didn’t wait for her response, already racing back toward the sounds of fighting. The main room had transformed into a war zone in the minutes since the attack began. Tables lay overturned, glass crunched underfoot, and the air hung heavy with gun smoke and the metallic tang of blood.
Three brothers were down -- one clutching his thigh where blood pumped between his fingers, another with a shoulder wound, and a third lying too still near the overturned pool table. The rest of the club had taken defensive positions, returning fire through broken windows toward the parking lot.
I dropped to my knees beside the brother with the leg wound. “Pressure here,” I warned, pressing gauze against the wound, then I prepared a tourniquet while he held the gauze in place. The bullet had come incredibly close to his femoral artery.
The sound of more shattering glass barely registered as I worked, hands steady despite the surrounding chaos. I tightened the tourniquet above the wound, the brother’s face going pale as the pain intensified.
“Hold on,” I told him, already moving to check the next wounded man. “Keep pressure on it.”
I’d just reached the second brother when Tempest shouted a warning. “They’re rushing the door!”
Shots rang out, louder now as the fight moved indoors. I shielded my patient with my body, feeling bullets whiz past as brothers returned fire. The wounded man beneath me groaned, blood soaking through the bandage I’d hastily applied to his shoulder.
“Doc!” A small voice cut through the firefight, so close it made me jerk around.
Nova moved to my side, somehow crossing the battleground to reach the wounded. Before I could shout for her to get back, she pressed her hands to the bleeding shoulder and applied firm pressure exactly where it was needed.
“What the hell are you doing?” I demanded, even as relief that she wasn’t hit warred with fury at her recklessness.
“Helping.” Her gaze met mine with a stubbornness I was coming to recognize. “Tell me what to do.”
There wasn’t time to argue. Another brother cried out as he took a hit, collapsing against the bar. “Keep pressure there,” I directed Nova before moving to the new casualty, sliding through broken glass and spilled beer to reach him.
The fight intensified around us, but Nova and I worked in a strange bubble of focus, moving from wounded to wounded.
Her hands were steady as she followed my instructions, passing supplies and holding pressure bandages while I dealt with the more complex injuries.
Blood coated her small fingers, but she never flinched, never hesitated.
“They’re retreating!” someone shouted after what felt like hours but was probably only minutes. “Saint and the others are driving them back!”
The gunfire gradually tapered off, replaced by the roar of motorcycles as the attackers fled. I didn’t slow my pace, continuing to work on a brother with a chest wound that bubbled with each breath -- a pneumothorax that needed immediate treatment.
“Need a chest tube,” I said, more to myself than anyone else.
Nova appeared at my side with exactly that, pulled from the medical bag I’d abandoned in the heat of battle. “This?” she asked, holding up the sterile package.
I nodded, impressed despite the dire circumstances. She’d either guessed correctly or knew enough about medicine to identify what I needed. Either way, she’d just saved precious seconds that might keep this man alive.
As I worked, I became aware of Savior standing over us, watching as Nova assisted me with the makeshift surgery.
Blood streaked her face where she’d pushed hair from her eyes with stained hands.
Crimson stains soaked through her T-shirt in several places.
But her eyes remained clear, focused, as steady as any combat medic I’d served with in Afghanistan.
When the tube was in and the brother stabilized, I finally looked up to meet the President’s gaze. His face was unreadable, but his gaze moved between Nova and me with new assessment.
Nova didn’t flinch under his scrutiny. She stood, her chin lifting in that defiant way that had drawn me to her from the start.
“Still think I should leave?” Blood dripped from her fingertips onto the floor, joining the growing puddles beneath our feet.
Savior studied her for a long moment, taking in the wounded she’d helped stabilize, the brothers who might have bled out without her assistance.
“I think,” he said finally, “we need to talk.”
I rose to stand beside Nova, my hand finding the small of her back -- a gesture of support, of unity. Whatever came next, we would face it together. Because you couldn’t fight some battles alone, and some warriors came in unexpected packages.
Nova Treemont might have been Mary-Jane’s daughter, Bats’ niece, but in that moment, covered in the blood of his brothers, she became something more.
She became a Reaper.