Chapter 6 #2
She spared me a brief, irritated glance. “If you think that was a very bad man with a very real gun, then yeah,” she said. “Congratulations. You’re not completely stupid.”
Her eyes flicked to my shredded phone on the floor, then to the backpack strap over my shoulder. She noticed everything. Fast.
Heavy footsteps pounded at the far end of the hall. Not the smooth measured ones of our shooter. Closer to a jog. Security or a cop, I didn’t know which.
The speakers repeated their mantra. Code Silver. Lockdown.
The woman swore quietly.
“We have to move,” she said.
“I’m not leaving him,” I said, jerking my chin toward Miami.
She closed the distance between us in three strides and grabbed a fistful of my cut at the chest, hauling me up enough that we were eye to eye. For someone her size, she was strong as fuck.
“You leave him or you both end up dead,” she said, low and fierce. “Those shots weren’t for practice. That was a clean-up. They’ll send another if this one bled out in the stairwell. You want to keep him alive, you bring the fire away from his door.”
Her breath smelled of winterfresh and a cleanliness that only arctic air could achieve.
Her scent, that of jasmine, vanilla, and a lingering aroma of leather and motor oil hung like a noose around my senses.
Fuck. It was poetic, pragmatic, and intentional.
Her pupils were blown wide with adrenaline, but her hands didn’t tremble.
“What about security?” I asked. “Cops? We’re on the cameras.”
“Security will ask the wrong questions and file the wrong reports,” she said. “Cops will take one look at your patch and make you the problem. We don’t have time to babysit their learning curve.”
She released my cut long enough to yank the door the rest of the way shut. The little window offered no clear view of Miami’s bed now. Just white.
“He won’t be alone,” she said, softer. “We have a girl on the inside here. We’ll make the call.
She’ll keep an eye on him until we can get someone on him full time.
She’ll scream bloody murder if anyone so much as looks at his chart funny.
As for the cameras, we’ll get someone on that to wipe them. We have someone in the station.”
“You do?” I asked.
“We take care of our own,” she said. “And right now, like it or not, your dumb ass and your half-dead friend in there are under our umbrella while you stand in my hospital.”
Another set of steps joined the first, closer now. Radios crackled. Someone shouted “Fourth floor?” from the stairwell.
She grabbed my wrist and tugged. “Move. Now.”
We cut away from the main elevators and into a narrower side corridor. She clearly knew the layout. I followed, the backpack bumping between my shoulders, every nerve screaming not to turn my back on the direction the shooter had gone.
We slipped through a fire door into a stairwell. It smelled like dust and metal and institutional paint. She took the steps two at a time, boots sure on the concrete.
“So, Jersey Boy,” she said without looking back. “That’s your name according to the patch on your cut.”
I nodded, then realized she couldn’t have seen that. “Yes,” I confirmed. “What’s yours?” I asked, realizing I never took a second to even glance at hers.
“Valkyrie,” she said.
Of course it was. A Norse female warrior. Fitting.
We spilled out onto the second floor through another door, then cut through a half-awake ward. Nurses stared. One opened her mouth like she was going to say something, then clocked the look on Valkyrie’s face and thought better of it.
A side exit took us into a service hallway that smelled like industrial detergent. At the end of that, we went through another door and exited out into the early morning light.
The parking lot looked different now. Less calm. A couple more cars pulling in fast. A security cart angled awkwardly near the main doors where two guards were arguing with a woman who clearly wanted to get inside and clearly didn’t give a damn about their “lockdown procedures.”
Between the rows of parked vehicles, a blacked-out SUV peeled out of a far space. Big, high ride, dark windows, no visible plate. It took the corner too hot, tires squealing, then shot toward the exit like the driver couldn’t get away fast enough.
Might’ve been our shooter’s ride. It left a bad taste in my mouth.
Valkyrie didn’t hesitate. She sprinted toward her bike.
“On yours,” she called over her shoulder. “We move together.”
I ran for mine, every movement reminding me of the weight on my back. I stole one last glance at the hospital entrance, at the row of windows that concealed Miami’s room somewhere above. Then I swung my leg over the seat and turned the key.
Engines roared to life almost in unison.
She pulled out first, smooth and aggressive, cutting through the lot toward the exit opposite the one the truck had taken. I followed, staying on her back tire.
We hit the street just as a squad car screamed past in the other direction, lights spinning, and headed for the main entrance. Nobody gave us more than a glance. Just two more bikers on the road.
Valkyrie leaned into the turn, heading away from the hospital, away from the immediate mess, north.
I edged closer, enough to shout across the wind.
“Where the hell are we going?” I called.
“Back to the clubhouse,” she yelled without looking at me. “Liberty needs to hear what just happened. Plus, whatever you have in that bag on your back. I can see you guarding it more than yourself. She needs to know what you told your President.”
“I didn’t even finish telling him,” I lied. “Phone ate a bullet.”
“Then he’ll just have to trust you’re not dead until we sort this out,” she said. “We’ll get word to your people once we’re on our own ground. In the meantime, you keep that bag close and your eyes open.”
“What about Miami?” I asked. It came out harsher than I meant.
She finally glanced at me, just long enough for me to catch the steel in her eyes.
“He’s under our roof now,” she said. “We’ll call in a favor, put one of our girls on him like I said before. Nobody gets through her without losing teeth. Nobody tries to do a hit on our turf and gets away with it.”
She faced forward again and rolled on the throttle.
I matched her speed, heart still pounding, brain still replaying the image of the man in the suit walking calmly toward 417 with a gun in his hand.
Somewhere behind us, in a locked-down hospital, my best friend lay under thin blankets, fighting to heal from injuries from going down. He had no idea about the war we had just stumbled into.
Somewhere ahead of us, behind whatever walls the Shore Vipers called home, a woman I had only ever heard about in stories waited to decide whether we were allies, problems, or both.
The backpack dug into my shoulders with every bump, a constant reminder of the storm I was now carrying on my back.
But at least I wasn’t alone. We rode forward together, patches on our backs, engines loud, and wildfire licking at our heels.