Chapter 25 #2
“A little on the nose, isn’t it?” I said, smirking at his joke.
Together we crept forward. The shooting had died down.
Kilo was on my left. Further down, at the other end of the loading dock, I could see gunshots where Ruck and Relay were closing in from the far side.
Drifter darted past as he moved from one shelving unit to a stack of barrels.
I didn’t see Hype, but knew he was around.
If any of us were down Drifter would be with them.
A group of men, four or five, made a run for it across the bay and through the doors we’d come through, back to the cattle holding area. We held our fire for fear of overshooting and hitting Ruck and Relay.
“I guess they don’t want to get sandwiched,” Kilo said.
“You keep sweeping toward Ruck and the others. Bolo and I will go after them.” Kilo nodded and kept going. Bolo and I headed for the doors.
He posted up against the door and grabbed the handle.
I stood just outside of where it would swing open, leveled my pistol in front of me, and crouched low.
Then I gave him a nod. Simultaneously, he pulled the door open and I took a side step to the right, keeping my body out of the doorway, but my gun was trained on the opening.
There was a dickhead behind the door. As soon as it opened he started firing. The shots whizzed by my left side and over my head. Three shots from my pistol and he went down.
I swept the opening and it was clear, so we crept in.
Shit. They were hiding among the cows. More than that, I was hit with the sudden realization that after this fire fight I would have to answer to a higher power.
If even one of my stray bullets hit one of these cows, Light would kill me.
Didn’t matter that she didn’t know about them yet.
She’d find out. My brothers couldn’t keep shit to themselves when they told a story.
My knife was still stuck in some fucker’s eye, so all I had was this gun.
That wasn’t going to work in tight quarters with the animals snorting, stamping, and panicking from all the noise.
Fuck! I motioned to Bolo to draw his knife.
He looked at me like I was insane. I bit my lip angrily and motioned again, and my eyes screamed, hurry the fuck up!
He rolled his own eyes and drew his knife. I pointed to the right side of the stalls and he moved that way. I took the left. Jumping over the railing, I started to move through the oversized corral and in between the cows. “Nice cow, quiet cow, don’t freak out and trample me to death,” I muttered.
They were not happy. I didn’t know much about cows, that was Warrant and Toxic’s world, but I knew what an angry and distressed noise sounded like.
Against all reason, I moved closer to the angry cows.
I had my trigger finger indexed across the pistol’s slide.
With no knife, I had to be extra deliberate about where I pointed the gun.
I also needed to keep these guys from seeing me.
If they emptied a mag, the cows would get hit, and I’d be in trouble.
“The shit we do for women…” I huffed.
Crouching low again, I used the cows to block my approach.
Do I move in front of them or behind? Horses kick you if you go behind them, right? Do cows kick like horses?
So many useless animal facts were suddenly not so useless. Should’ve paid more attention when Warrant spoke about this shit. I decided to move behind them. Some had horns and a kick seemed favorable to being gored.
The angry moos were getting louder. I had to be closing in. I tried looking under the cow in front of me but all I saw was udders and hooves.
A few more steps, an angry moo, and, “Oh shit!” I jumped back as a body went flying over a cow’s back.
“Ha ha ha, holy bad luck for you,” Bolo’s voice echoed through the area. I shook my head with a grin.
Apparently the cow had had enough of him and slung him out of the way.
I dropped a knee onto his chest and before he could say anything proceeded to bludgeon him to death with the pistol.
Better that than firing a few rounds and starting a stampede in here.
I’d never beat so many fucking men to death in my life.
I was going to have to keep track. Could be a world record.
Okay, maybe not, but a record amongst my brothers.
I heard a scream from across the corral. Bolo found one. That left one more. Which of us would find him?
Me. I would find him. More accurately he would find me.
I heard the footsteps rushing up behind me and turned in time to catch a flying knee meant for my face in both my hands.
My gun went skidding away from me. We went to the ground and tumbled in the mud and shit.
The cows were not happy. Both of us were so muddy that neither could get any purchase over the other.
“Fuck it.” I punched him in the face, jumped to my feet and looked quickly for my pistol.
I saw it, dove for it, and fired two shots in the air.
The cows went ballistic. They ran in all directions, thankfully away from me, though that had been a risk I’d had to take.
I heard a scream. Carrick’s man went down under the trampling cows.
Once they calmed down I went to check on him. He was alive, barely. I grabbed him by the ankle and dragged him out of the corral.
“Other side’s clear, holy fucking shit what did you do to him?” Bolo said, meeting up with me.
“I didn’t do anything. He pissed off the Moo Bears.”
“...moo bears?”
“Yeah. Cows that are angry like a bear.”
“Wha…Whatever. You’re an idiot.”
The man groaned, bringing our attention back to him.
“Tell us where to find Carrick or I’m throwing you back in with the cows.”
“Fuck you,” he groaned.
“Okay. Bolo grab his wrists, let’s heave his ass back in.”
I grabbed his ankles and Bolo had his wrists. As soon as we lifted he squealed like a pig.
“Okay! Okay. Fuck… He’s over at the Black Cholla Lodge!”
“Think he’s telling the truth?” Bolo asked.
Studying his face, I watched as the guy’s gaze swung wildly away from mine. He couldn’t maintain eye contact. “No, I think he’s lying. On three. One…” We began to swing him.
“Okay, okay! He’s at The Cactus Pine Car Wash! Please, don’t!”
“Now that sounds like panicked truth. I believe him,” Bolo commented.
“Me too,” I replied. We dropped him on the floor.
“Can I?” Bolo asked.
“Of course, I don’t want to be greedy.” I smiled at him.
“You said you’d let me go…”
“No, I said talk or you go back in with the cows,” I reminded him. “Never said you were going to live through this.”
“Oh…Oh shit.” Realization dawned in his voice.
“He he he, yeah, you fucked up,” Bolo said. I turned my back to go find Ruck and make sure everyone was okay. I heard a short, muffled scream as I left them.
By the time I caught up with the rest of my MC brothers Ruck was already on the phone. He frowned at me as I approached. Wasn’t sure what the hell that look on his face meant.
“You fucking stink,” Drifter told me, his lip curling in disgust.
I looked down at my clothes. He was right. I’d been rolling around in the piss and shit inside that pen. Bolo wasn’t going to be any better, but there wasn’t time to worry about that right now.
Movement caught my eye and I paused as I watched Relay ransack some of the dead bodies. “You that hard up for new weapons and ammo?” I asked as he pulled mags out of the dead guy’s pockets.
“Can’t ever have too much,” he said.
He had a point, so I bent over and grabbed a new knife off one of the guys. I was going to go find mine here in a minute, but I wanted to keep an eye on Ruck. I didn’t like the way he kept looking over at me. Something was up.
“What?” I demanded as soon as he got off the phone.
I glanced over as Merc nudged me. “Thanks.” I pocketed my switchblade that Merc had found.
“Carrick-”
“We know where he is,” Bolo said, walking in and interrupting our president. We all looked over at him, scowls on our faces. He just shrugged. “Just thought you’d want to know, shit.”
“Yeah. I know where he is, too,” Ruck said. Then his eyes landed on me again. He looked…wary.
Uh oh.
“What is it?”
“Drifter,” Ruck said, ignoring my question. “I need you to head back to the clubhouse. The guys got jumped. They’re not sure how Strike is doing. He got hit pretty hard.”
Every muscle in my body stiffened. Drifter ran out without another word. He didn’t ask for back up. We were going to need all the manpower we could get to go after Carrick and the rest of his crew. Plus, he had the others waiting for him at the clubhouse.
“How are the women?” Kilo asked, eyes flicking to me then focusing back on Ruck.
“Mercy’s fine. Code managed to get her into the makeshift safe room.”
“And Rue?” I asked, already knowing what he was going to say. It was written all over the grim expression on his face.
“They took her.”
Fury filled me as I looked around at the sympathetic looks on my brothers’ faces. “Then let’s go get her back.”