Chapter Twenty-one
Ice flicked the flashlight on and off in response to Briley’s signal that she (hopefully) had Iris, maybe another woman or two, and was ready to get the hell out of the compound. He glanced over at Dux, Drake, and Viking – they weren’t the largest seek and destroy party on the planet, but Ice would take these three guys over a full platoon any day.
Despite his non-stop irritation with the twins in general, when it came to shit like this, there was nobody better. He’d trusted them with his life more times than he could count – and he was going to trust them again tonight. He had no doubts that if he didn’t walk away from this, it would be through no fault of the twins. They’d take a bullet for him if it came to that – Drake had done it once before, and he’d do it again, no hesitation and no regrets.
As for Viking, he’d insisted on flying over to Utah for this storming of the evil castle, arriving a few hours before the van had pulled up with Iris in the back. He was an excellent body man, a great guy to have in your corner during a fight, a swift and lethal shot… and he had a wildly personal reason for being there too. The woman that he cared about deeply was in trouble, so he showed up for her.
He was half-pissed at her too, though: he’d told the guys that as soon as they had Elle back safe and sound and all patched up, he was going to give her the world’s worst talking-to about wandering out of the bar without him. Ice suspected that after he’d done that , and if she wasn’t hurt, he’d take her to his bed and fuck her senseless.
“OK,” Ice whispered. “Into positions, men. Move.”
Dux stayed where they were, just outside the fence and close to the forest edge, while Drake, Ice and Viking walked around the perimeter, and straight up to the guardhouse. As they’d observed, the guards were unbelievably lazy and uninterested in what was happening around them. They perked up when a woman approached with food, and when a vehicle drove up to the gate.
Besides that, they seemed to be reading books, drinking coffee, chatting, ignoring the monitors, and generally acting like assholes killing time. You’d think that after Iris’ little escape, they’d have learned to be slightly more alert, but clearly all of these Guardian pricks shared a single brain cell, and it was someone else’s turn to have it tonight. All of this meant that the guys could stroll on up behind them and smash in the door before they’d even looked up and clocked their massive physical presence.
“Hiya,” Drake said amiably as the guards stared in shock at the three guns pointed at their heads. “How you guys doing?”
“What –” sputtered one. “What the hell –”
“We’re just gonna open the gate here, if you don’t mind,” Ice said, pressing the button. “We have some people inside that we really, really want to get out. We won’t be a minute. Promise.”
“You can’t –”
“I just did , idiot,” Ice said. “Jesus.”
“Master Gideon is going to kill you,” the younger guy said. “There is no way that any of you walk away from this.”
“Yeah, well, we’ll see,” said Drake as he texted his brother a message to get the women moving. “But with morons like you running the show, I like our odds. Seems that all you’re really good for is beating on drugged, defenceless women. When you’ve got another man in your sights, you’re fucking useless.”
“On your knees,” Ice snapped. “Hands behind your heads. One wrong move and I’ll smash your goddamn faces in, then I’ll tie you up anyway. You guys choose how you want things to go down here.”
Totally uninterested in anything happening in the booth, Viking stepped into the compound and looked to the left. His heart was beating double-time in his chest, and all he wanted was to see Elle again. He hoped hard that she wasn’t hurt.
Drake came over and stood next to him. “Dux texted back that he’s cut through the fence and he’s got them. They’re moving now.”
“Are they OK?”
“Seem to be. He hasn’t asked for any help.”
All Viking wanted to do was take off at a run around the side of the structure and get to Elle. But Ice had relentlessly drilled everyone on their jobs, and he’d told Viking that if he couldn’t be trusted to hold his position at the front gate, then he wouldn’t be allowed to take part. So Viking held his ground, watching the front door of the building, ready to shoot anyone that came out if it came to that.
Ice joined them, gave the bound men in the booth a contemptuous glance back over his shoulder. “It’s pretty damn clear that this Gideon prick doesn’t recruit the best and the brightest – these guys are stupid and mean and that’s about it.”
“Yeah, well.” Drake shrugged. “Cowards and weaklings rule by fear, so for that they need people who they can make afraid. Besides, he doesn’t want to worry about the guys with guns challenging him, right? You think he’s worried about getting toppled off his throne by Dumb and Dumber in there? Hell , no.”
Drake squinted as he saw movement over by the far wall. “Look.”
“Thank Christ,” Viking breathed as the small group appeared. Dux was leading them, Briley was taking up the rear, and they kept Elle and a woman sandwiched between them. “Almost there.”
“Not true,” Ice reproved him. “This is the danger zone boys – if anything is going to happen, it’ll be in these twenty feet of concrete. Don’t get sloppy and complacent now.”
Viking stared hard at his woman, his eyes taking note of the bruises on her beautiful face, the long shirt that went to her knees, the socked feet. She was holding the other woman’s hand, tugging her along, and he got the distinct impression that the brunette was out of it, either drugged or maybe she’d suffered a blow to the head. The kindly doctor in him was worried about the injuries, but the enraged beast in him was ready to beat senseless the people who had done this to them.
They were close now, close enough that Viking really started to believe that they were going to drive on out of this place without any problems – and as soon as he finished having the thought, that was when all hell broke loose.
The first shots came from the roof, the bullets hitting the ground inches from Dux’s boot. Right away, so fast that it seemed that he didn’t even think , Ice fired back into the night sky. There was a curse from above, and the sound of a body hitting the ground and then dragging itself away. Injured wasn’t quite as good as dead, but the man was in retreat, so they’d take it.
“Come on!” Drake hollered at his brother, as he scanned the now-darkened building anxiously. “ Move it, man!”
The group was running now, but they weren’t going to get away unscathed: gun barrels poked through the front windows, and the shots rolled away and echoed all around them. Briley dove behind a tree, while Dux grabbed Elle and the woman and practically carried them, one under each arm. That was when he went down.
“Dux!” Drake shouted as the two women hit the ground and cried out in pain. “Jesus Christ.”
“Go!” Ice commanded. “Get them!”
Drake darted forward, ducking to avoid getting hit by Ice and Viking, who had hidden behind a white van and were unloading round after round through the building windows. He crawled to his brother and the women, his heartbeat and breath steady and even. This is what years of taking fire did to a man and good damn thing, because this was no time for hysterics and panic. Indulge in the luxury of fear and you died, guaranteed. It also helped that the shooting from the windows had stopped while he was moving: Ice, Viking and Briley had forced the men down to the floor, or maybe even back further into the building.
He crawled the last few feet, saw that Elle and the other woman were face-down on the ground, their heads gripped in Dux’s large hands, their upper bodies covered by his arms. They were shaking but staying put, which made things immeasurably easier. People running off wildly in all directions would be a headache right about now.
“Hey,” Drake said. “You better not be dead, man.”
“No such luck.” Dux’s face was on the ground and his voice was muffled. “You’re still stuck with me.”
“It’s your leg?”
“Yeah. Caught me in the back of the fucking thigh. I can’t walk.”
“You can pull yourself.”
“Shit.” Dux turned his face and grinned. “Here I thought I’d get a fireman’s carry out of you, but no such luck. Lazy bastard.”
“Maybe next time you get shot, big brother,” Drake said, using the one and only term of endearment that he had for Dux, one that he used rarely.
“Don’t call me that!” Dux scolded. “Makes me think I’m gonna die.”
“Not today, you’re not.” Drake looked at Elle and the woman. “You guys OK?”
They both nodded, their eyes huge in their snow-white faces. Elle looked worse for wear, with bruises blooming as purple as her eyes across her cheeks and forehead, and the other woman’s pupils were crazy-huge, so big that there was just a tiny circle of cool green around the jet-black pupil.
“What do we do?” Elle asked. “They’ve stopped shooting so do we stay here?”
“Terrible idea.” Dux grimaced as he moved his leg. “Ice and Viking and Drake will cover us, but we gotta move. You got it, ladies?”
“You mean – we get up and run?”
“That’s exactly what I mean.” Dux stared at his brother. “You ready?”
“Yeah.” Drake looked over his shoulder at Ice and Viking, raised three fingers. Ice nodded, and Drake saw him explaining to Viking what was going on as he reloaded.
“Count of three, you two get to your feet and you fucking run ,” Drake instructed. “You get me? Don’t look back and don’t stop until you’re behind the van. Clear?”
They nodded.
“Here we go.” Drake tightened his grip on his gun. “Ready? Three… two… one… go!”
He leapt to his feet and started shooting into the windows again, while Ice and Viking did the same. Briley looked over her shoulder from her place behind the tree, saw what was going on, and followed suit. The women took off in a sort of stumbling run, holding hands as they made their way to the van.
“Come on, baby!” Viking shouted at Elle. “Move that ass now !”
“I’m moving my ass!” she screamed back at him. “Shut up!”
Dux guffawed as his brother pulled him painfully off the ground and flung his arm around his shoulders. Dux tried to take a step, but Drake practically carried him. “Attagirl! I like her, Drake.”
Drake was backing up with his brother, moving his gun between the windows and the roof. “I too like her spirit, but she’s taken, man.”
“I know.” Dux groaned as his leg almost gave out under him; Drake was dragging him now, literally pulling all his weight with one arm. “Lucky Viking.”
“C’mon, almost there.”
With one final massive heave, Drake managed to get his brother to the van. Right away, Ice took Dux’s other arm and between the two of them, they got him in the back lying down. The brunette was already in there, wrapped in a blanket.
“Hey, doc!” Ice shouted. “You want to come take a look at this gunshot wound?”
Viking wasn’t listening, however. He had lifted Elle in his arms and he was holding her like he would never let go: he was pressing her dark head into his chest, his lips in her shining hair. She had completely disappeared into his large body and all the men saw were her tiny socked feet, swinging in the air.
“It’s OK, Ice,” Dux said. “Give them a minute.”
“Seems that stern talking-to has been shelved for the moment,” Drake commented. “No big surprise, huh?”
Ice glared, then looked back at the building, checking on Briley, wondering why she hadn’t followed the twins out. He froze.
“Oh, fuck,” Dux said; that look was never a good thing. “What? Ice, what?”
Drake rushed over to stand next to the chief Enforcer and he followed Ice’s line of sight. What he saw was not comforting in the slightest.
A man stood in the building doorway, his blond hair illuminated from behind. He was a huge man, broad-shouldered and muscular, and he was holding a gun. The gun was pointed at Briley, who was still hidden behind the tree.
“Fuck,” Drake muttered. “Our girl is in trouble.”
**
Briley peeked around the tree trunk, saw Gideon standing there, so calm and arrogant, just hanging out in the doorway totally exposed. Like he didn’t have a care in the world; like he couldn’t die.
Maybe he does actually believe he’s immortal?
Well, I’m happy to disabuse you of that notion, you prick.
“Hello, Briley,” he said as casually as if they’d just met in line at the grocery store. “You hit me over the head and then you tied me up, you bitch.”
She looked at him again, saw the blood matted in his hair, and she grinned to herself. It had been incredibly satisfying to hit that sick fuck over the head with the two-by-four that he had in his office corner, leftover from a bookshelf that the Guardians had built him.
“I did do all that,” she agreed. “Who untied you?”
“Guardian Noah.”
“Suck-up.”
“What did you do with all my other Guardians?” he asked her. “I seem to be missing about four of them, not including the two who appear to be tied up in the guardhouse. I’m down to just five righteous men by my side.”
“The two-by-four made the rounds,” she said. “I especially enjoyed using it to knock out your new Right-Guardian Michael down in the basement.”
“When you stole my woman-servant away from me.”
“When I saved a kidnap victim.”
“When you led Servant Violet astray and onto the path of wickedness.”
“When I did what Violet asked me to do.”
“Oh, let’s not quibble about vocabulary,” he said, waving his hand airily. “We have something far more pressing to discuss, do we not?”
“Probably.” Her finger twitched on the gun trigger. She thought about shooting him in the chest right away, but first, there were a few things to get sorted between them. She needed him to die knowing that she was free. “You start.”
“My pleasure.” He cocked his head at her. “You do realize that you and your friend Cheryl are completely done? She’s going to jail for killing that man, and you’re going to join her, after being humiliated and fired in disgrace from the police department.”
“Nope.”
“Nope to which part?”
“To all of it.” She shifted on her feet, gauging the angle to hit him smack in the heart. “Cheryl and I are going to be fine.”
“I strongly disagree. I have four men going to pick her up right now.”
“I figured you would, when this all went down. That’s why I called her this morning and told her to get a plane and head east, but not to tell me where. She’s in the air at the moment, far out of your reach.”
He stared at her, and for the second time that evening, she’d actually managed to surprise him. The first had been when he’d been on his knees on the floor, looking with confusion at the blood on his hand from the blow to his head.
“But you’re still here,” he said slowly. “You haven’t tried to run.”
“That’s correct.”
“So – you’re going to stand trial as a dirty cop?”
“That’s in correct. I’m not a cop anymore.”
“Since when?”
“Since I handed in my gun and badge at noon today. I then called a property agent and put my house on the market immediately. I actually already have an offer, so I doubt it’ll be long before it sells.” She took a deep breath. “I’m free, do you understand? I’m out from under your thumb, I’m out of your reach. You have no power over me – and you never will again.”
The look of stunned disbelief on his face was priceless. “But – but none of that will matter after I tell the cops what I know about you. About how you protected Cheryl, about how you covered and worked for me for years. You think that just quitting or trying to run is going to make any difference?”
“What on earth makes you think that you’re going to tell the police anything about me?”
“Why the hell wouldn’t I?”
“Because,” she said as she cocked her gun. “As you know full well with Lily and Jonah – the dead can’t bear witness, George.”
And with one last smile right into his stupified, panicked, disbelieving face, Briley pulled the trigger, shooting George Bennington straight in the heart.