13. Ronny
13
RONNY
LATER THAT DAY
We pull up at the clubhouse all at the same time. River, who is the ole lady to Gage from the Grim Sinners Rebels MC, and Techy have spent all night and day getting all of the information. They’re geniuses when it comes to technology.
We are heading out with the Rebels as they wanted a piece of this too. We have some of the younger MC members driving vans so we can bring the kids back.
We got briefed in a hurry in the main room, not wanting to waste time to get to the kids.
The hippie commune is one that lives off the land, off the grid, and they’re prepping for the world to end.
They send the kids out to beg for money on the streets all over the state. They have older members that get a check from the government, then they cash these checks in exchange for safety for the world’s end.
It’s like a messed-up fucking cult.
They learn end-of-the-world shit like fighting, shooting guns, and the women are taught that they must replenish the earth—that it is their duty.
So, they’re raising the kids to be fucking breeding machines. River got more information on the main guy—Jody Benson—who is a normal guy that is great at manipulating people into believing anything.
We are all riding side by side, you can almost feel the ground vibrating as we ride together. People stop and stare in awe, because it’s not every day that four MCs are riding together.
The fourth one is the new club that moved in the next town over and as they pull up next to us, I catch the name on the cut: Devil Renegades Sinners. But that is not what is shocking.
It’s Tiana on the back of the president’s bike, the very one from last night, and her dad almost fucking combusts at the sight.
If looks could kill, this man would be ten feet under at this point. Her brother Zach rides up to them and reaches over with his hand on her arm, like he is going to jerk her off the bike onto his.
The president has his club’s name on the cut—Rampage. He reaches over, pushing Zach’s hand away hard, glaring at him, and I want to punch the two of them because this shit is stupid to be fighting over when we’ve got other shit to worry about.
Zach yells something and slows down to pull back to the rest of the Devil Souls MC, and we all ride the rest of the way to the commune or whatever the fuck it is.
It’s an hour into the middle of nowhere with no service, and the closest town is thirty minutes away.
We aren’t coming up on them easy, we are coming in fast and hard, splitting up to cover the whole area so no one can get away.
They see us coming. I can hear women and kids start screaming and running into the nearby building to hide from us. There are so many little kids, and all of the women and men I see look to be in their thirties.
Fuck me, I don’t like the sight of that.
All of the girls are wearing neutral-colored dresses.
The men run out of different buildings, looking at us in shock before ducking back inside, and I know they’re coming back with weapons or they plan to run.
Christopher, Lane, Dad, Smiley, and I all stop in front of what looks like the main door of the building.
It looks like an abandoned school that is made of aged bricks, the glass on the windows looks outdated, like those older schools used to have that are stacked up on top of each other with the wood lining each pane.
We park our bikes and run straight to the main door. I try the doorknob and find it’s locked.
I take a step back, slamming my foot onto the door and busting it open, glass shattering on the ground around me.
The lights are off inside and it’s fucking hot. It smells like old, rotting vegetables and either meat that is spoiled or decomposing animals.
It’s one of the worst smells I’ve ever smelt, and these people are living in this. It’s enough to drive someone insane.
I can see a few girls running around the corner, trying to hide and get away. I can’t image how terrifying it must be for all of us big fuckers to be thundering through their already fucked-up home.
I take out my gun, keeping my finger on the trigger, ready to shoot any fucker that shows their face.
We make our way down the hallway before stopping at the first door, where there is a small window in the center. When we peer inside, we see small cots lining the floor.
Lane pushes the door open and we storm in one after the other. We check every corner of the room, then we see a set of little feet behind a desk.
We make our way over, and I get down low to not seem so intimidating. “Hey there.” A blonde-haired, blued-eyed little girl that is probably around thirteen years old watches me. “We are not going to hurt you.” She is looking at me so sad, it’s heartbreaking. “We are going to get you out of here, no one is going to hurt you.”
She rises and Smiley steps up. “I will take her to the van.” He picks her up, keeping her head tucked into him in case someone tries to fire a bullet.
Brian runs by the door, stopping when he sees us. “We still haven’t found the leader yet, we have to go deeper into the building.”
Door after door we bust in, finding more and more kids hiding in random places, but the weird part is, we haven’t seen a single man since we rode up to this place.
So many kids, they all look almost alike, and it’s really fucking freaky. They’re all terrified and have the same haunted look on their little faces.
The hallways are completely silent after the kids are taken out behind us outside, and we move to the center of the building. Here we find rooms with bunk beds and single rooms that look like they used to be offices.
The second to last door is suddenly slammed open, and we all lift our guns in sync, shooting at the same time. I couldn’t tell you whose was the killing shot, but the target’s chest is obliterated.
“We haven’t had any action yet and it shows,” Lane jokes, and I laugh under my breath with Christopher.
We step over the fucker’s body, and I note that he looks to be around fifty or sixty years old. His eyes are open, staring up into nothing.
Christopher tries to open the last door but it doesn’t budge, and I smirk. Lane nods and kicks the door, causing it to fly off its hinges and slamming down onto the ground.
We walk right in to a gun pointing at our faces. Another is pressed against a teenage girl’s head, and she is crying with tears rolling down her face.
Fuck me.
“Leave, heathens!” Jody, I recognize from a picture, is the one with the gun pressed against the young girl’s head.
Lane steps farther into the room, and we all join him. I eye the fucker that is to the left of the room with the gun pointed at us.
He looks like he is seconds away from shitting his pants, sweat is dripping down his face. His eyes are wild, frantically moving side to side, volleying between us and the leader, like he is waiting for him to tell him what to do.
My dad tries to put his body in front of me and Christopher, but I can’t have that. I wait and hold my breath, until he looks away again at the leader.
The second he glances away from us, I lift my gun and shoot him right in the center of his forehead. His eyes are now looking at us like he can’t believe we shot him. His hand drops the gun, and it slides across the floor, stopping in front of us.
The girl starts screaming at the top of her lungs, the sound blood-curdling. It sends shivers down my spine. The leader is wide-mouthed at seeing the man dead, and that’s when my dad grabs the girl and the gun before lifting it in the air.
Jody punches my dad in the stomach and he loosens his hand around the gun. “No,” I yell before I start toward my dad just as the gun is pointed down.
Jody grins and a gun goes off.
* * *
Olivia
I wouldn’t be surprised if I haven’t walked holes into the floor from my pacing. They have been gone for hours and it’s killing me.
We are all at the clubhouse, the men wanted us at the same place so it’s safer—and that’s also the case with the other clubs.
Madeline has been passed around to everyone, she hasn’t laid in her bed at all since I have gotten here.
She is going to be spoiled rotten.
All of the ole ladies, the mothers whose sons are riding toward danger to save these girls, are scared out of their minds.
You can almost taste the fear in the air.
Etta is coming out of retirement to help get these girls to a good home, because if they’re not able to be returned to their biological parents for any reason then we are going to see if we can place the girls with the women who were saved from the cults over the years. They love being mothers, but don’t want the men that comes with motherhood if they were to have the children naturally.
The older girls, we can place them in the main house where it’s set up like a dorm.
Madeline starts crying and I walk over to her, taking her from Adeline. “She is an angel.”
“She is.” I kiss her little forehead. “Are you missing your daddy?” I ask her. I just know one day that she is going to be a major daddy’s girl.
“Has anyone heard anything?” Amelia asks, and we all shake our heads, the room turning silent. The waiting around part is so hard, I hate it more and more every second.
Maci is biting her nails, she’s worried about my dad, so I walk over to comfort her and I hug her. “He will be fine,” I reassure both her and myself.
Not sure how long has passed when a phone rings and I have to stop myself from running across the room to it and beg whoever is on the other end of the line if everyone is okay.
Amelia answers the phone, then she sighs at the voice that replies before she pales. She turns to look at me and Bell.
Oh God, no.
“Ronny has been shot.”
My whole entire world crashes. How can I live without my Ronny? My heart and soul?
I feel sick, so I hand Madeline off to Maci, not wanting her to get hurt.
My head spins and my mouth feels like cotton, and a cold sweat breaks out across the back of my neck.
Then everything goes black, while I hear screaming all around me.
* * *
Ronny
I push my dad out of the way as the gun goes off, my dad yelling and grabbing at me.
Fire burns in my thigh, but I ignore it, pissed off at the fucker in front of me. Jody doesn’t get a chance to say a word as my hands wrap around his throat.
He makes a choking sound, his eyes almost bulging out of his head. I don’t stop, though, I squeeze harder and harder until his body grows slack under my grip.
I then reach behind me, taking my gun and bringing it up under the fucker’s chin. I pull the trigger once, twice, three times to make sure he is officially dead.
I let him drop to the floor, he falls onto a desk chair, slamming it into the wall. His body hits the ground hard, shaking the pens on the desk and causing them to fall to the floor. While my own body is heaving with anger.
My dad takes my gun from me, walking over to the fucker, and shoots him over and over in the face. “No one shoots my kid,” he spits in Jody’s face and turns around, his eyes blazing with fury.
Oh fuck, I am shot. I had forgotten about it.
I look down at my thigh and see the blood running down my jeans. There is a hole in the left side of my thigh that is way too close to my dick for my liking, but it’s nowhere close to anything important to kill me or have me bleed to death.
“Well, at least he shot you in the leg and not somewhere bad,” Christopher jokes, to which I shake my head.
My dad comes up to me, hugging me. “Fuck, you just aged me ten years, son,” he tells me, and I let him hug me because I know he needs this.
I need to get home to my woman and daughter, because seeing this horrible shit and the way these girls are living is killing me.
I rip my pants open at the hole where the shot went through, and I look at the back of my leg to see if it’s a through and through. Thankfully it is and I won’t have to get the bullet taken out.
“I’m good,” I reassure him.
We leave the bodies lying where they are, planning to burn this shit to the ground so it can’t be used ever again for this sort of thing.
I limp out of the building, stopping in my tracks to see Butcher and Zach with Rampage in between them, each of them pressing a gun to his head. The very guy that Tiana was with last night at the club. Rampage isn’t fazed at all, grinning at their antics.
Butcher is in his face, the gun digging right into his temple, and Zach has the back of his head covered. Tiana is looking completely bored with the whole ordeal. “Dad, don’t make me tell Mom that you’re trying to shoot my boyfriends again,” she tells him.
In sync, all three heads turn to look at her. “Boyfriends?” Rampage asks, and he walks past both of their guns without a care.
Butcher looks to the sky. “I should have used my knife,” he tells Zach, who nods, agreeing with him.
My dad is looking between the two of them. “Don’t say a fucking word. Wait until Arianna starts dating.”
Dad then looks at me, horrified that I would even mention her dating someone. “Because it will happen.”
Now it’s like he wants to be the one to shoot me this time. “Don’t worry, Dad, we will be more secretive about killing him, though.” I smack him on the shoulder and hobble my way to my bike, needing to sit down.
Inside of the van you can see the little girls looking out the window at all of us. Their eyes are huge, the whites of their eyes visible even through the tinted window.
Their hell is over now, that’s what matters, and my girl can actually breathe with no guilt destroying her.
I let out a deep breath, my leg aching. Lane lifts his arm, signaling for all of us to ride, with the vans driving in front of us.
They are going straight to the compound, where the victims of the cults are located. There, we have social workers, and the police who are in our pockets will get the kids set up in a safe place.
* * *
When I get to the clubhouse, I see the blue and red flashing lights. Are the police at the club?
We all speed up at that, only to realize it’s not a police car—it’s a fucking ambulance.
My mom is crying, holding on to Elle and Adeline with her in the middle, while staring into the back of the ambulance.
What the fuck happened?
I slam my bike to a stop and I run over to my mom, my dad hot on my heels. “’What happened? Where is Olivia?” I ask them in a rush.
“She heard you were shot and then fainted right on the spot. Olivia hit her head on the floor,” Elle explains to me, and I rush over to the ambulance, almost falling on my ass when I see her lying there in the stretcher.
That is something I never want to see again, and fear strikes me hard. “What the fuck happened to my daughter?” Brian roars behind me, trying to push me out of the way so he can get to her.
I don’t budge, instead I take her hand, kissing the back of it. “Is she okay?” I ask the paramedics as they slam the doors shut after her dad makes his way in even though it is crowded, but I don’t blame him.
She looks pale, her chest rising and falling easily, and that reassures me she is going to be okay.
It’s fucking destroying me that she looks so lifeless right now, my heart feels like it’s going to beat out of my chest with fear.
The ride to the hospital is way too bumpy for my liking, I have to bite my tongue with every pothole we hit.
I hold my finger over Olivia’s pulse, reassuring myself that she is okay.
“Fuck, why isn’t she waking up?” I ask the paramedic who is checking her vitals again.
He shrugs like a fucking doofus. “I don’t know, she might just be needing to rest or there can be brain damage or she could be brain dead.”
I see red when he says the words ‘brain dead.’ Rage hits me hard that he is so callously saying such a thing about my Olivia.
“What the fuck are you saying? You better think carefully about the next thing you say to me, or I will kill you.” I glare at him, gripping the edge of the stretcher and trying to stop myself from jumping him.
I watch him more closely and when he goes to touch her again, he backs away when he sees the look on my face, instead looking around for things in the drawers like he doesn’t actually know where anything is.
He goes to check her oxygen levels, but he fumbles with the pulse oximeter before resting it on the side of the bed.
I look at Brian to see if he is seeing this shit. I will be speaking to this guy’s boss, that is for fucking sure.
“Where did you go to school to be a paramedic?” I ask him, peering to the front to see who the person driving is, thinking maybe they can switch out if they’re more capable than this dweeb.
He jumps in front of my view of the driver, just as we hit another pothole, almost sending me off my seat.
Why don’t they have a collar on her neck in case she has a spinal or neck injury?
Brian moves to stand closer to her, and I have a really bad fucking feeling about all of this.
I can see the sweat beading on the paramedic’s forehead, and his eyes are twitching from side to side. He starts digging through the cabinets, then comes out with a huge-ass syringe. He uncaps it but I grab his hand before he can stab Olivia with it.
“What the fuck is that?” I ask him, my voice deathly calm.
He swallows hard. “I am the EMT here. I’m doing what’s best to help her,” he tries to argue, his voice stuttering, and I grab the syringe before throwing it on the floor and watching it roll under the seats.
“Just get us to the hospital and be more careful while driving,” I tell him and the driver who I haven’t seen yet.
My phone rings in my pocket and I grab it, answering without looking away from the EMT’s face. His clothes are swallowing him. He looks like he is sick the more I look at him, like he is on drugs or some shit.
His hands are trembling like he is going through withdrawals.
“Yeah?” I answer the phone, and the EMT looks terrified now.
Why would he be scared?
This is all so fucking weird, or maybe I’m being paranoid after being shot. But I just know something is not fucking right.
“Brother, listen to me carefully,” Christopher says over the phone, and I freeze, waiting for him to speak again. “Yeah?” I say casually, not wanting to give anything away.
“I was moving my bike into the garage when I saw two people lying on the ground. They were naked, in their underwear, with a head wound. I got them to wake up and they said that when they pulled up in the ambulance, someone knocked them out.”
Holy shit, did someone just fucking steal this ambulance and we walked right into it?
The ambulance comes to a sharp stop and the person driving looks through the small hole that lets the driver look into the back.
Fuck me.
The woman is grinning. “Well, nephew, we meet again.”