Chapter 22 Ranger
RANGER
Her cries of pain killed me. I hated hurting people. Despite my military background, I took an oath with the Rangers to do no wrong to innocent humans. Mass casualties weren’t what we did. Friendly fire wasn’t an acceptable side effect of anything the Army Rangers were part of.
But we didn’t have a choice.
“Ghost,” I said as I bounced Lizzie on my shoulder to get her in a slightly more comfortable position.
“What?” he hissed as he peeked out into the hallway again.
“My phone. Turn the camera toward the world and slip it into my pocket.”
Ghost quickly finagled what I needed him to, and then we were off.
His head was on a swivel while I did my best not to move Lizzie as much as possible.
I knew she was in pain. I heard it in the muffled moans she tried swallowing down.
I felt it in the way she twitched whenever we came to grinding halts.
We were halfway up the steps before a booming voice sounded from below.
Wait, below us?
Weren’t we on the lowest level of—
“Find them!” a voice boomed. “And bring me their fucking bodies!”
“Shit,” I hissed.
“Come on,” Ghost muttered as he rushed up the steps, two by two.
It had been a long time since I moved like that with a whole body over my shoulder. But we got up those stairs in record time. Boot falls still echoed downstairs, which meant they were still, most likely clearing the rooms.
“Mike! Ginger! Oh my fuck!”
“brING THEM TO ME!” the voice boomed with anger.
“Oooooh, boy,” I muttered.
Ghost didn’t panic, however. We eased ourselves through the top door of the stairwell and back into the cheap tiled, cinderblock-walled facility first slipped into.
“Sit rep!” a voice echoed down a hallway somewhere in front of us.
“In here. Now,” Ghost said.
He tugged my arm and I went stumbling with Lizzie over my shoulder. We tucked ourselves into a dark room and, for a while, there was nothing.
Until footsteps rushed by us, one by one.
I cupped my hand over Lizzie’s mouth. I hated to do it, and I felt her flinch when I did, but her breathing was so fucking heavy. Most likely, because of the damage done to her nose. I felt wetness dripping onto my hand, and it killed me to think that she was crying.
She’s alive. Just get her back to Marla.
We waited until the boot falls completely disappeared before Ghost motioned for us to head out.
I looked for the notches in the walls, denoting the corridors we already explored.
But Ghost seemed to have this place mapped out in his head.
We took a few aimless turns and my legs burned until we took one last turn…
…and found ourselves at that same side exit.
“Oh, thank fuck,” I said breathlessly.
We busted out into the night and it was like taking a fucking victory lap. Lizzie let out a little muffled cry, almost of relief, and I patted the back of her thighs.
“Just hang on,” I muttered as Ghost leapt down the concrete steps.
This was where we excelled. We were already four blocks from the law firm by the time they got to patrolling the outside of the building. We perched in the shadows of an alleyway, watching the patrol teams running around the building like a gaggle of fucking geese.
I couldn’t help but grin as Ghost tapped my shoulder.
“I’ll call the crew,” he said as he pulled out his burner phone. “Let’s get to walking. I’ll let Doc know we’re coming with her.”
“Come on,” I muttered as I hefted her up my shoulder one last time. “Almost there.”
Lizzie whimpered. “Thank you.”
“No problem. We’ll get you seen by Doc. He’s who tended to your friend, Marla. He’s the—”
She gasped and whipped her head up, damn near coming off my shoulder. “You know Marla? You’ve seen her? Where is she!?”
“Sh,” Ghost hissed with his phone to his ear as we stuck to the back alleyways.
We had to get back to the storage shed before we were seen.
“I’ll explain everything,” I whispered as I coaxed Lizzie back down onto my shoulder. “But for now, you need to rest. We still have to get back to our bikes.”
“I’ve got movement over here, Boss!” a voice boomed.
A voice that was much closer to us than I liked.
“Fuck,” Ghost whispered before he grabbed my arm and tugged.
It was time for us to take off.
My legs burned. As we ran through the bushes and the darkness, weaving up and down alleyways to avoid the footsteps we now fucking heard, my lungs heaved for air. Fucking hell, it had been a while since I carried dead weight.
“You got a gun?” Lizzie rasped out. “I can guard your back.”
“You just rest,” I said with a soft chuckle.
She really was a spitfire.
“There! I see moving shadows!” someone called out.
“Fuuuuck,” Ghost growled as he whipped around and checked my phone camera that was still recording above the hem of the breast pocket of my leather jacket.
I paused and caught my breath for a moment while he fiddled with it. I felt him pull it out and do something before he tucked it back in.
“There. Got a new video started,” he said as he turned back toward the direction of the storage unit. “Keep recording no matter what.”
“Didn’t have any other plan,” I said as we started up our efforts once more.
Ghost didn’t tell me how the call went with the crew, but at that moment, we had to prioritize other things.
I wanted to know how much he told them, though.
Did he tell Cap to keep this from Marla?
I didn’t want her worked up without me there.
I wasn’t sure if anyone knew the grounding techniques I used with—
THWIP!
“Fuck,” Ghost growled as we slipped back through the fencing of the storage sheds.
Lizzie moaned. “Was that a—?”
“Stay quiet,” I said as I passed her off to Ghost through the fencing.
I peeled it back and crawled through myself.
THWIP-THWIP!
“Should we shoot back?” I asked as I wrapped Lizzie’s arm around my neck.
“No,” Ghost said as he motioned with his head. “We need to keep moving.”
TINK!
A muffled bullet bounced off one of the storage sheds just as we passed it.
Lizzie did a good fucking job of staying quiet, especially in the pain I knew she was in.
We got to our bikes. I scrambled to get her onto mine.
It took me a second to get her to stay propped up so that I could get onto it and get her situated.
She definitely wasn’t strong enough to ride on the back of a bike. But we also didn’t have any choice.
We just barely got helmets on all of our heads before bullets pinged off the building we were in.
TINK-TINK!
THWIP-THWIP!
“They’re getting closer,” Lizzie mumbled through her pain.
“Here,” Ghost said as he tied a piece of fabric around me and Lizzie, so she’d at least stay propped up onto my back.
“Thanks,” I said as I watched him tie it off at my stomach.
“Now, let’s get the fuck out of here,” he grumbled, rushing over to his bike.
Within seconds, we tore out of that storage unit, not even bothering to close it back up. Our bikes revved, bullets whizzed by our heads, and we veered our bikes side to side in order to play defense.
It shouldn’t have shocked me when we heard tires squealing onto the road behind us, though.
“God damn it,” Ghost growled as his voice came alive over the headphones in my helmet. “They’re gonna chase us out of the fucking city.”
It was worse than that, however.
We bobbed and weaved, losing a lot of the cars at stoplights or tightly-fitted alleyways that cars simply couldn’t get down. It took some fancy maneuvering to reach Bryerville’s outer city limits.
But when we soared past the goodbye sign…
… so did the cars.
Ghost whipped his head over his shoulder before his voice sounded again. “The fuck are they doing?”
I peeked over my shoulder before a bullet soared right by my fucking leg. “They’re still shooting.”
“Yeah, no shit. Why the hell are they following us out of town?”
“They followed Marla out of town.”
He stayed silent at that.
What started out as an escape turned into a chase.
Lizzie grunted and groaned every once in a while behind me, her voice echoing through my helmet, and it was the only sign I had that she wasn’t hit by any of the flying bullets.
We rode five minutes up the road. Ten. Fifteen, with the wind whipping around us and the clouds gathering overhead for a midnight storm.
But when we got halfway back to the clubhouse, we were still being pursued.
So I slipped my hand into my pocket and looked down just long enough to dial Cap’s number.
It didn’t even ring once before he answered it. “What’s wrong?”
“We’re still being pursued, Cap,” I said as a bullet flashed by my helmet. It made Lizzie whimper. “They’re fucking shooting at us.”
“You’re joking,” he snarled.
I shook my head. “I don’t know how far they’re gonna follow us, but we can’t divert. We’ve got to get Lizzie to Doc. She’s really banged up.”
“Oh, don’t you fucking worry about that,” he said as I heard a gun cocking on his end of the line. “We’ll be ready for those fuckers. You guys stay safe and roll up alive. That’s your mission.”
It’d been a long time since I’d taken orders from anyone even remotely sounding the way Cap sounded in that moment. And it flushed my veins with a renewed sense of brotherhood and vigor.
I’d reunite Marla with her best friend.
No matter what it took.
“Understood, sir. See you in twenty,” I said.
I cut the call, revved my engine, and sped up to where Ghost was.
Time for us to get the fuck back home.