Chapter 29 Mason
Mason
Myles takes punch after punch. He had the upper hand until the fucker dug his finger into my brother’s wound.
I should be worried, but I've seen him do this before. If there’s one thing he can do, it’s take a punch and roll with it.
He's biding his time, conserving his energy. While the dirty fucker is punching the shit out of his ribs, he’s not going for his arm.
He laughs and it catches Hopper’s guy off guard.
In the time it takes him to glance at his president, Myles jumps on him and bites the tip of his ear off.
The crowd goes wild, but Myles isn’t distracted by them.
While Dirtbag is cupping the side of his head and crying out like a little bitch, Myles shoves him down on the floor and drops down on top of him.
Forgetting about his arm, he lands punch after punch until the guy is knocked out and Hopper sends in two men to drag him away.
He's dumped at our feet and though I can’t move my hands to help him, I kneel and look in his eyes. I need to see for myself he’s truly okay.
“I’m fine, brother,” he assures me.
“You want some more?” Hopper yells and the crowd cheers. He picks another name from the bucket and shouts, “Iron!”
That's the guy Shane fought. I pray I am chosen, JJ won’t stand a chance against him with his shoulder, and Dad and Cas are nearly double his age.
The big fucker makes his way through the crowd and Sparky tells me, “Shane done him, you’re more than capable of taking him down.”
With the rage over-fucking-boiling, the guy doesn’t stand a chance. I ache to kill him with my bare hands.
A fight breaks out in the crowd, but I focus on my brother. Cas drops down beside me, and frantically says, “Run, Mase. The side gate is open, and they’re all distracted with the fight!”
I go to question him when Myles tells me, “Run, brother! It's the only way we’ll get out of here!”
Hopper yells for the fight to be broken up but how loud the cheers are, I doubt he’ll be heard.
“This is our chance,” Cas urges. “Get out, call Zach, Luca, fuck, call everyone in and hide yourself until they get here. I’ll look out for your brother, you know I will.”
They are the last words I hear as I stand and quickly look around for the gate, as soon as it’s in my sight, I take off. I don’t stop and weave behind people, praying like fuck they don’t notice me, more interested in the fight between their own people.
I reach the gate, my heart pounding in my chest so fucking hard I feel like everyone can hear it over the music and cheers for blood.
No one mans it and I burst out onto the street. Once I'm clear, I pound the sidewalk and run, picking up speed until I can no longer hear the club, only the rush of my labored breath. I can’t remember the last time I had to sprint. It must have been over a thousand cigarettes ago.
It doesn’t feel right leaving my brothers behind, especially my blood brother, my twin, but all I need to do is get to a phone.
I pass one, then two, phone-booths, but I continue to run.
I need more distance between me and the Hogs in case they come looking.
They must have noticed I'm not there any longer. As long as they don’t take it out on Myles, my guilt won’t grow.
After putting a couple of miles between me and the Hog’s clubhouse, I slow to a walk and collect my breath.
Slipping into a side alley, I crouch down and slip my bound wrists under my legs and stand with my hands in front of me.
I look around for something to cut them but there’s fuck all.
Back on the street, a couple walks toward me, the guy on the phone.
The woman’s eyes widen as she glances down at my hands and clings tighter to her man.
“I need to use your phone, just for a minute.” At the last minute, I add, “Please.” The woman urges the guy to do as I ask, no doubt wanting it to be over so they can be on their way.
He hands it over and I punch in Zach’s number. Grumps kept on at us to lock numbers to memory, that cell phones made us lazy storing the numbers. Between Myles and I, we know every brothers’ phone number from memory.
“Zach?”
“Mason?”
“Yeah, it’s me. Tell me you’re near the Hog’s main clubhouse and you’ve got a plan.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m at...” Where the fuck am I? “Hopper brought us to his clubhouse. I got free...” Looking around, I look for a street sign. Glancing over my shoulder, I ask the couple, “What street is this?”
The guy tells me, “Western Avenue, in the meat packing distract.”
“Did you hear that?”
“Yeah. We’re here, JJ told Leo he thought Hopper would take you to his main base. It was the only place we could take a good guess at.”
“Leo? He's alive?”
“Yeah, he’s moving slow, but he’s okay.”
I exhale a shaky breath. “He’s alive. Good. That's good.” JJ never wavered in his belief that Leo was alive. “Now come get me, before they fuckin’ find me.”
I hang up and thank the guy before handing him his phone back. They walk off at a fast pace and I tuck into the next alley I go to pass.
The occasional van or car passes and I keep out of sight. When the club get here, they’ll call for me. I can’t risk being found now when help is so close.
I bite at the plastic zip-tie but it doesn’t budge.
“Mase?”
I step out of the shadows and Zach and Luca are by a van on the curb.
“Man, I've never been so happy to see you fuckers,” I beam.
“We could say the same about you,” Zach murmurs.
Once we’re in the van, I can only relax so much. I'm away and safe but Myles, JJ, Cas, and Sparky are still in danger.
“Who’s alive? Who’s dead? And then tell me everything,” Luca orders as Zachery drives.
“All alive,” I begin. “We spent a few days driving before we got to his clubhouse. He had JJ and Myles shot and then took care of them when we got here. Wanted them fit enough for fight night.”
“Huh?” Luca grunts.
“That’s what I got away from. Brothers played the lottery and whoever’s name he pulled out the bucket got to pick one of us to fight. Myles was first up and won, I ran before the second fight.”
“So Hopper’s going to expect you to call in help as soon as possible,” Luca murmurs. “I would if I were him.”
“Let’s hope he doesn’t know we’re already here. We’ve tried keeping a low profile.”
He pulls out his phone, taps away, and presses it to his ear.
“Leo, we’ve got him. We need to move tonight.”
He listens then without another word, he hangs up.