17. Louise #3
My body swings into the metal fire escape railing with a painful slam as the shattered board gives way beneath my feet and splinters on the pavement below; Seb and Quentin—my lifelines, keeping me suspended long enough for Caz to scramble to the railing and help pull me over the ledge.
Once I’m safely reeled in and set on my own two feet, the four of us make way—opening a space for Frank on the black iron fire escape.
“I’d get a running start if I were you, Frank,” Quentin warns grimly—his eyes only skimming the drop below; the remnants of our ad hoc bridge scattered below.
Even though it’s only a momentary glance, I can tell Q has imagined Frank’s broken body in place of the treated wood—his complexion a ghostly white.
Frank backs up from the ledge—shaking his arms out as he prepares to make his leap.
“We’re about to have some visitors,” Seb warns, reaching into his pack for another bit of boom.
I draw my guns just as the doorway to the roof swings open, and squeeze off a couple of shots into the two burly plainclothes DEA guys who burst from the frame.
Frank, to his credit, doesn’t bother with a backward glance—just pumps his arms madly as he sprints for the edge of the roof; one boot launching him from the ledge as the other pedals wildly into open air—his body arcing clumsily from the roof to Quentin and Seb’s waiting arms at the edge of the fire escape.
I open my stance, establishing a solid base as I fire at the pack of agents that begins to flood from the door to the roof, their bodies crumpling and dropping as they step through the frame.
A pile of bodies begins to form—both blocking the others from an easy exit, and announcing the threat of gunfire to those who may not yet know we’re returning fire.
Frank slams against the bars of the fire escape gracelessly—but clamors easily over the rail with the help of Q and Seb.
Instantly, Frank falls into line beside me—the resident dead-eye of the group; his gun appearing from the holster at his lower back as he squeezes off several perfect shots into the brave and stupid agents still trying to clamor over their fallen friends onto the roof.
P’ting! A sharp whistle and loud metallic ping sound frighteningly close to my head—then I catch the whiff of burnt hair—one of my dangling strands of wig singed by an errant bullet.
“Hit the deck!” I scream—eyes already darting to the other rooftops in search of a sniper.
We’d been in enough of a rush that we hadn’t scoped out possible sharpshooters on the nearby roofs.
Though I had thought the breach would have taken into account the residential area of Beach City—deeming it too dangerous to come in with this much heat.
After the revelations of this morning, I’m starting to understand that everything I’ve ever known is a lie.
The preservation of human life just isn’t as important to these people and organizations as I once thought.
I was never one of the ‘good guys’ I was just a goodie-two-shoes-fool who believed in the intrinsic ‘goodness’ of man.
Well, fuck me running—right?
“We gotta get out of line of sight!” Frank barks—the five of us shimmying on our bellies to the drop down ladder to the next level of fire escape.
“Working on it!” Quentin sing-songs impatiently—weaving his way down the metal ladder with graceful speed.
TINK!
Another bullet ricochets off the metal landing and Frank grits his teeth—head swinging from me to the others as he weighs his options.
“Get down to the car—Lou and I are pinned. We’re going to have to go with ‘plan B’; we’ll catch up to you.
Head for the Parker tunnel, we can break off down the access way—regroup, head for the safe-nest,” Frank booms, the other Saints only hesitating for a second before they spring into action.
“Cover my ass while I make us a path!” he shouts at me, pulling his hand into the sleeve of his leather jacket, making a fist beneath the hem of the cuff and closing the opening in his curled fingers before driving his protected fist through the glass window behind us.
“There’s a motorcycle out front once we get downstairs,” he explains as he knocks away the largest spires of glass from the edges of the pane, clearing the way inside the apartment.
“No chance I’m driving?” I grunt—still firing at the trepidatious agents slowly trickling over the bodies of their fallen brethren; the other Saints, already streaming through the alleyway over the splinters of broken boards in my peripheral vision, on their way to the getaway car.
“Abso-fucking-lutely not,” Frank honks a gallow’s laugh, popping the second window open behind me, taking a knee at the broken window’s edge, aiming to give me cover.
“We’re riding double-dutch, someone needs to keep the Feds off our tail.
” He nods to my smoking guns before I dive through the open window—rolling roughly over the floor strewn with dog toys inside the apartment.
“Better not be a fucking tiny sports bike,” I bitch, the two of us tearing through the hallway of the apartment on our way to the emergency stairwell; feet pounding each step as we race toward the bottom.
True to his word, there’s a bright red Ducati parked directly outside the apartment building.
Frank holsters his gun and kicks one leg gracefully over the glistening crimson 250 horsepower monster, that manic glee making him crackle with electricity from head to toe as he grins wildly at me.
I’m struck with the dizzy realization that I could run. I could plug Francis Stone right here and take off—become a wraith in the night; living only to exact my revenge on Susan Lowry, this so-called ‘White Knight,’ and anyone else who has ever done me or my family wrong.
No, that isn’t quite true—I wouldn’t be living only for revenge; my sigma curse—without support from powerful pharmaceuticals—will leave me helpless every four to six weeks; unable to function without an alpha to knot me, an omega or other sigma to lock-and-key.
Even that’s another lie; a convenient obfuscation of the fact—that I felt with Caz, with Q, sensations and passion that stirred the darkest, untouched places of myself—are skeins of truths I’m not yet willing to begin to unravel.
There isn’t time for this kind of contemplation.
With a deep breath and a sharp exhale, I kick my leg up—swinging into the saddle, straddling Frank’s lap.
His hands already grip the handlebars, arms threaded beneath mine as I extend my aimed guns over his right shoulder, my entire upper body molded against his, my legs wrapped around him, my boots crossed at the ankle behind the small of his back, atop the small leather padded passenger seat as he throttles us out of the parking spot—my eyes never leaving the pack of agents swarming from the apartment building they failed to extract us from.
This close, it’s hard to tell which frantic thudding is his heart or mine, the mix of our scents so strong, so incongruous it's nearly obscene.
There’s a whizzing whistle and a muffled ‘ thuk!’ beneath my elbow. I can’t spare the glance, but the small wobble of the bike and Frank’s surprised yelp of pain lets me know he’s been hit.
“You ok?” I shout over the din of the engine and the air rushing past us.
“Just grazed my shoulder,” Frank groans before adding. “Don’t worry about me—just make sure you keep those bozos off our tail. We wanna lose ‘em before the tunnel if possible.”
I do as I’m told—firing into the windshield of a nondescript black sedan—the shatterproof glass soaking up my slugs without blinding the driver with spiderweb cracks across the windscreen.
Great, Fabulous.
Another bullet followed by the high, brittle sound of breaking glass as the tiny right-side mirror peeking up from the handlebars explodes into glittering splinters and dust.
“C’mon Lucifer,” Frank teases. “You’re better than this! You really gonna let a little bulletproof glass stop you?”
Refusing to take his bait, I close one eye—taking aim at the agent in the front passenger seat as he pokes his head out of the window, one eye peeking down the sight of his gun.
Thanks, buddy.
Boom ! Right between the eyes. He goes limp—his bleeding forehead, still against the edge of the rolled down car window—his gun falling from his fingers to the rolling blacktop below as his grip goes slack.
“Attagirl!” Frank whoops triumphantly—our bodies generating serious heat where they press together, despite the cold air whipping around us as we speed down the Lewis Surface Road toward the Beach City Transit tunnel, and our temporary freedom.
It’s only a momentary reprieve though, the driver of the clandestine sedan extends his left arm out of the driver’s side window as he grips the steering wheel with his right—firing at Frank and I as steadily as he can muster while carrying on an active car chase with two lunatics on a sportbike.
I take a deep breath, doing my best to focus on the tiny target of his pale hand, a weapon wrapped tightly in the gunman’s fingers. I may be good—but this is more than a long shot—it’s basically impossible.
Lucky for me, it looks like help has just arrived.
At first I’m so focused on aiming for the driver’s gun hand I don’t see the ugly, boxy station wagon until it’s nearly ramming the black sedan from behind; Caz with his peroxide blond fuzz and mirrored aviators gripping the steering wheel with both hands as Seb hangs halfway out of the back seat passenger side window—tossing a DIY pineapple grenade into the lap of the sedan’s driver before Caz floors it ahead.
I can’t help the squeal of fright that escapes me as the sedan blasts a column of fire and smoke into the air as it flips into the air—sprawling haphazardly across the road behind us; the sounds of sirens moan in the near distance.
“Best fucking demo man in the business!” Frank hoots his hurrah, revving the bike into a higher gear as we approach the opening of the transit tunnel.
Satisfied that I have a moment to look away, I turn my attention to something warm and wet spreading across my right knee up to my thigh.
A cursory inspection of the black denim only yields the existing information: Warm, wet,soaking the leg of my jeans so that it shines like the hide of a seal.
Then I see it, the telltale bullet hole in the sleeve of Frank’s jacket—the blood flowing in gouts from his shoulder onto my leg below.