40. Camile #3
He jerks his chin to the men standing with their hands in the air. Rook’s old gang member, Clay, is one of them, and what’s happened dawns on me. They’ve broken out of prison because his brother, the man we used as a fake Ledger, is now missing and, they rightly assume, dead.
The deputy nods and starts to shout rapid fire instructions to the officers he brought with him. My heart is only just starting to slow down after that adrenaline buzz, and I’m glad this was all contained so quickly.
Finally standing and walking out from behind the dumpster, to go and be with my men, I falter when Megan let’s out an unholy screech. It’s a sound of anger and torment, and she runs at one of the cops.
“You!” she screams. “It was you!”
“Megan! Stop,” Shelley shouts, but her sister is not listening.
“You piece of shit,” she yells at the police officer.
She clearly recognizes him from somewhere, and understanding hits me. She said she was abducted by two men posing as cops, but what if at least one of them hadn’t been posing, and he’s found his way here now? He most likely thought Megan would be dead.
The cop raises his weapon and time slows.
“Stop right there.” He aims the gun directly at Megan, his eyes widening with recognition.
She doesn’t stop, and now Bear is moving. He pounds across the ground, racing after Megan, and the cop waves his gun between Bear and Megan then pulls the trigger.
Boom.
Bear crumples and hits the ground hard.
“Nooooooo!” Shelley screams.
She straightens from behind the bike, and I realize, in shock, that she has a gun, too.
The cop is now aiming at Megan. She’s no longer running but is staring down at Bear, her eyes wide, and her jaw slack as she sucks in air.
He clearly wants to shoot her, but with half of his department watching, and with her now clearly posing no threat, he must understand he won’t get away with it.
From the corner of my eye, I see Phoenix also has a weapon raised, as has Zoo. They’re also behind the bikes, and the cops wouldn’t have been able to see easily that they’d not laid their guns down.
I can’t even breathe as the milliseconds tick by so painfully slowly.
A shot rings out.
Just one.
Loud and whistling, the sound seems to herald very bad things.
The bullet hits the cop in the neck, and he staggers back as a red bloom appears on his skin.
The cops’ view of Phoenix and Shelley might be obscured by the row of bikes between them, but from my vantage point I can see them clearly. Phoenix does something odd. He rushes to stand right beside Shelley and takes her gun, giving her his.
Shouts come from the deputy. “Officer down, officer down! We need paramedics here ASAP. Nobody fucking move.”
“Hold your fire.” Ace waves his arms. “Everyone, fuck, hold your goddamn fire.”
The deputy points at Shelley. “Arrest her. Now.”
“Your man shot her husband,” Jack states. “For no reason. Bear wasn’t armed. This isn’t right.”
“She’s got to face the music.” Deputy Dawson strides from his response vehicle toward Shelley.
“She didn’t do it.” A voice cuts through the stunned silence. “I did.”
It’s Phoenix. He’s taking the blame for shooting the cop.
What’s he playing at?
Shelley’s legs have buckled and she’s slumped on the ground, sobbing. Then she crawls over to her man and cradles Bear’s head in her lap. It’s unbearably sad, and my heart breaks for her.
“Fuck.” Ace watches the scene.
One of the cops has been checking out the injured officer. “He’s alive, pulse is strong but rapid. Are paramedics on their way?”
“ETA five minutes,” another cop confirms.
The man tending to his fallen colleague stands and races to Bear. He skids down on the ground beside him and puts two fingers against his throat.
“He’s alive, too,” he shouts. “Got a pulse.”
“If my officer dies, that’s murder,” Dawson points out, magnifying the seriousness of this and of Phoenix’s position. It’s as if he doesn’t quite believe what Phoenix is saying, and with good reason, too.
Phoenix pales but he still stands stoically, waiting as two cops descend on him, taking the gun from him that he didn’t fire.
Won’t evidence show that he didn’t do it? Things like gunshot residue? Then again, if he confesses and pleads guilty, they’ll just be happy to have someone to lock up and most likely won’t investigate too deeply. Why is he doing this?
From out of the stunned silence, noise takes over again as everyone starts talking at once. The cops quickly round up Clay and his motley gang and push them into the backs of their police cars.
Nerves on edge, I do a check to make sure all my men are okay. There’s Ace, sad, but safe. Jack, whose jaw is set so tight it looks like it might shatter. Ghost, talking with one of the cops.
Finally, there’s Rook, and he’s standing by the cops rounding up the guys who came after him, looking absolutely stricken.
He’s going to blame himself for this.
Why did this have to happen? Just when it looked like the club could breathe a sigh of relief, and Rook was celebrating, this blows up in our faces.
Will we ever catch a break?