Chapter Five
Icouldn’t see Micro anywhere, on our way to the building housing Grease’s tech office, and that terrified me, because I needed to know he was safe. He was the centre of my whole world, and the father of my unborn child.
“Stop dragging your heels, Sophie, this is hard enough with Lissa away with the fairies!” Cammy snapped at me, as I hesitated yet again, my eyes scanning the mass of leather clad bodies as they all acted out on whatever the hell they were seeing, or hearing, or experiencing.
It had to be some kind of hallucinogenic, because it wasn’t the behaviour you’d expect from ecstasy or speed, or even heroin.
“I can’t see Micro,” I hissed at her, slowing as we reached the door.
“And I can’t see Stitch, but Ice is right, we need to keep out of the way for now. Once we’re in Grease’s office, we can see all the cameras, and find them then.” Oh, the cameras!
We ran through the doors, and pulled them closed, making short work of the hallway, and I grabbed the handle of Grease’s office door, but it was locked.
“Grease? Are you in there? Can you let us in?”
“What if he’s tripping too, and thinks he’s in ‘Nam or something?” Cammy asked fearfully, as I started banging on the door.
“Fuck’s sake!” Grease yelled from the other side, “it’s jammed, some fucker put my lights out, and trapped me in here.”
Ice came crashing through the doors, after we spent a few moments trying to force the door open.
“Fucking hell, it’s insane out there, and I can’t find Grease… why the fuck aren’t you locked in there? I asked one fucking thing of you!”
He shoved past us, dragged Lissa behind him, while her hands started lazily stroking him, and she made cooing noises at him.
“Chase me, sexy hunter man. I’m your prey,” she murmured, licking his ear. Ew, I guess we knew what they were into then.
“Why won’t the fucking door open?!” Ice yelled, kicking it in frustration.
“Ice? Fuck, is that you? I’m trapped in here, man.”
“Thank god you’re here. Can you call for help? There’s a jammer in operation, so I can’t get a signal out.”
“Same here.”
“The landline, fuckhead.” Grease fell silent, and I turned as the doors crashed open again, and Ryder dragged Tori inside, pushing them closed, so he could pull her away from there.
“What the fuck is going on?” He yelled at us as he approached. Thank god. More sober people.
“Did you see Micro? Is he safe?” I asked, and he shrugged, checking the door was still closed behind him.
“You’re not tripping too?” Ice asked, looking like he was ready to lose his mind, especially as he dragged Lissa’s hand out of his pants for what must have been the third time already.
“We were uh… distracted, and uh… everyone was nuts when we… emerged.”
I realised they both looked flushed, and Tori’s t-shirt was half untucked, and her hair was scruffed up. Great. They’d been off fucking, while this was going on.
“You couldn’t have kept it in your pants, until the party went without a hitch?” Ice snapped at him, as Grease suddenly cursed out, and something crashed to the floor in the office.
“Phone lines are dead too. We’re cut off.”
“Sat phone?” Ice asked, and Grease cursed.
“In my bedroom. Locked in my safe.”
“Fuck’s sake!”
“Give him the combination then!” Cammy yelled, and Grease yelled the word ‘fuck’.
“Come on, man, it’s an emergency!”
“You know I fucking can’t! I need to get it myself.”
“Why doesn’t he just give you the combination?” I asked Ice, and he sighed heavily, banging his head against the door.
“Because we’re not privy to the things he keeps in there.”
“What about Micro? I’m his old lady, or I will be. Can’t I look?”
“NO!”
Ryder nudged Tori past us into the dark hallway. “Can the ladies all move over there a minute? We need a conflab over here.”
I let Tori drag us with her, and we sat Lissa in the corner, hoping she’d find more imaginary shit to enjoy while we were stuck here.
“How did this happen?” Tori hissed at us, as the men argued through the door on the best course of action.
“Spiked drinks, apparently.”
“That stuff from my father was safe, I promise you that. I knew he was sending it, but he’s fucking careful.”
“He’s mafia, babe, of course he was. But they were using the mass of kegs over by the back of the storage area.”
I grabbed Cammy’s hand suddenly.
“If those were spiked, and they keep drinking…”
We all stared at each other in horror. If they kept drinking, someone would die, maybe many of them.
“We need to put those fucking kegs out of commission. Asap. Ry?”
He immediately put his focus on his wife and old lady, and she pointed to the door.
“We need to stop them drinking any more. It’ll kill them.”
“FUCK! Who else is sober? I can’t do this alone.”
Ryder
What we should have done is make sure some people were allocated to stay sober, like at least every fucking prospect was supposed to be, or something.
Fuck, if Tori hadn’t wanted to try making out, and getting handsy without me being drugged, as long as I was uh…
slightly incapacitated ahem, we’d have been drinking too.
Right now, my priority was to stop anyone drinking any more of the tainted alcohol, but we also needed to get help here, because I didn’t know what they’d been dosed with, but they’d need fucking medical help.
Doc was here with us, but I’d bet money on him being one of the first to kick back with a drink, since he was actually not on duty for once, and his kids were with his actual brother.
Grace was probably tripping too, because she’d been drinking with Ally, when this shit was just a fucking normal party.
“Ice, leave the door, and come with me. We have to trash those kegs before anyone drinks any more, or we’ll have a mass of dead brothers here. Grease, get that fucking door open by any means necessary.”
“He has a head injury, he might not be up to full strength right now,” Sophie snapped at me, turning to kick the door with her pointy boot.
“Sophie, brainstorm with him and the others, and find a way into that room. Lives depend on this.”
“No shit,” she murmured, turning to talk to my woman. My wife. My fucking life.
“Tor, you stay here, babe, please don’t try the hero thing.”
She pressed a hand over her heart, and nodded at me, but I knew her. She was fiercely fucking independent, and getting stronger all the time.
“Please. I’m begging you.”
“Let’s go, dammit!” Ice shoved his way past me.
I cursed and ran after him, wishing I could barricade those fucking doors.
We ran for the vans, and the tools we carried as standard, and took anything remotely dangerous with us, so nobody else would get their hands on them, since who fucking knew where the keys were at this point.
From there, we ran to the rows of kegs on the shelving.
“Fuck me. This looked like a good thing, when I imagined us all getting nicely sloshed, but now? This is gonna take too long.”
Ice clambered up on the storage crates, beside the shelving lined with kegs, and hid the rest of the tools as high up as he could, then he started working his way along the shelving, carefully keeping one hand on the edge for balance, while he removed the top plugs from each of the kegs, as I followed him, with the largest fucking wrench I could find, smashing it down on the beer-taps, and epically failing to dodge the shower of fucking lukewarm beer gushing from each of them in turn.
Ice barked a laugh as I took a blast of it to the face, and slipped over in the sodden gravel, landing hard on my ass.
“Fuck you,” I sniped, struggling back up from the rapidly flooding ground, and heading for the last keg.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Stag flew at me, knocking me back into the fucking beer lake I’d created, while the final keg suddenly spewed down on me like a fucking waterfall, as Ice kicked down hard on the beer-tap.
“Stag, back the fuck off,” I tried shoving him as I spoke, “get the hell off me.”
“Fucking asshole!” A fist crashed into my face, and I slammed my knee up into his guts, as Ice jumped down with another splash of fucking beer in my face, and dragged Stag away.
“You trashed the beer, you cunt!”
Jesus Christ, this guy. We moved him away and then I got up, and shoved the fucker down onto his ass, because if I was going to be fucking beer-soaked, then so was he.
“Oh come on. I’m not here to watch fucking beer wresting, can we please get back to the ladies?”
Tori
I’d been to some messed up parties, back before what happened to me, but this was insanity, and I had no idea how the hell it’d happened.
“Grease?”
“Yeah, I’m still here, just fuck… you’ll need to smash the door in. There’s something broken and jammed into the lock.”
“Can we try and pry the hinges off like they do on TV?” Sophie asked, realising a second later that the hinges weren’t even accessible from our side.
“Doesn’t really work like that since the lock is jammed. Grease, do you have clearance to get out of the way?”
He laughed, and something crashed behind that door.
“Yeah, but who’s gonna smash it? Fuck me, if I could get up into the ceiling… but I’m barely fucking standing right now.”
The ceiling, hmmm… I paced around by the door, ignoring Lissa, who was humming some kind of fucking nursery rhyme, and intermittently begging fairies to dance for her. I kinda wished I was wasted too, so I didn’t have to try and figure this out.
“Grease, I’m going to figure out the door, so while I do that, get thinking about who the hell might be doing this, because someone deliberately dosed everyone, and I doubt it’s a member.”
Cammy groaned then. She’d taken to leaning against the wall, with both hands bracing her huge baby-bloated stomach.
“Yeah, unless Micro is back to his old tricks,” she murmured quietly, but not quietly enough.
“For fuck’s sake! What does he have to do to prove himself to you people? He has done nothing except what they’ve been demanding of him, for the last six months, and all of you just keep accusing him of every little thing that happens! Enough is enough, dammit!”
“Yeah?” Cammy demanded, “then where is he, Sophie? Huh? Where’s your fucking perfect husband right now, while the club’s descending into anarchy, and anything could be happening out there? Don’t forget there are still old ladies trapped out there with that lot!”
“Yeah?” Sophie mimicked, “and where’s your man? Huh? If he’s so fucking perfect, where’s he? For all we know, he’s the one who cracked, and doped everyone up!”
“How fucking dare you? I’ll slap that fucking smug smile right off your face!”
I stepped between them, and yelled until they shut up threatening each other.
“Can we try to work together, at least until we’ve saved everyone? Then you can have some kind of fucking chick fight or whatever. Grease?”
“What? For fuck’s sake, I’m doing the best I can!”
I rolled my eyes. I’d been about to ask him another question, but I’d just remembered something.
“I have an idea, just wait here.”
“Oh, well I was gonna go for a fucking walk or something, since I’m trapped in a fucking room, and can’t do a fucking…” he trailed off, “sorry, I’m being a prick, but I’m so frustrated, and useless right now.”
I glanced at Lissa who was now lying on her back, merrily making starfish patterns, and at the heavily pregnant Cammy, and the angry woman still glaring at her, and wanted to tell him to suck it up, but let’s be honest, it all fucking sucked. So much for a fun patchover party.