Page 56 of Knocked Up by Her Daddy's Friends

“Got it!” we all chorus.

Buzz and I split up, both heading in opposite directions taking a wide arc to avoid being seen from the front and running as fast as we can to the back of the house. As I near the house I can hear gunfire, the guys have clearly encountered the Demon Riders inside and it’s become a shootout.

I hear the sound of glass breaking and screams coming from inside.

Skye.

I run as fast as my legs can carry me, driven by pure adrenaline. As I approach the back of the house there’s one of Brute’s goons standing there, guarding the door. He spots me a second too late, lifting his gun to fire. But I’m faster. I fire off a couple of rounds and he goes down.

The man screams in pain. “Fuck! You fucking shot me!” he cries out clutching his side where I hit him.

“I’ll fucking kill you if you don’t shut up,” I growl, grabbing his gun and tossing it away.

The man continues to cry like a fucking baby, “Please. Please don’t. I was just doing as they told me to. Those bitches killed Brute, and they’ve locked themselves inside. I needed to flush them out.”

It’s then that I smell it. Gasoline and smoke. Fire.

The back door is boarded up, there’s no way to get in or out quickly. The window next to it is broken from where the man tossed a flaming Molotov cocktail through it. I peer inside to see the fire quickly spreading, the old wooden furnishing of the kitchen and living room acting as tinder, fueled by gasoline. The house, like the rest of the houses here, has a wooden frame so it won’t be long before it’s an inferno. In the corner, two figures are huddled together, surrounded by flames.

Skye and Veronica.

Those bastards. There’s no way out for either of them. They weren’t trying to flush them out, they were killing them. Someone’s poured fuel under the only other exit from the living room, the fire’s already licking at the doorway.

“Skye!” I call out desperately as I try to pull apart the wooden boards, nailing the door shut.

“Drifter?” I hear her shout, confused and hopeful, before descending into a coughing fit.

“I’m coming, just hold on!” I cry, my heart racing, and the usual sensation of panic spreading through my body.

The familiar feeling of a panic attack creeps its way into my mind every time I’m close to fire.

But I force myself to ignore it. I cannot, will not, let Skye die. Even if it means facing the thing I fear most.

“Give me your jacket,” I shout at the bleeding man on the floor. “Give it to me now or I will shoot you in the fucking head!” I shout when he doesn’t react fast enough.

This does the trick and he pulls it off, squealing like a stuck pig as he does so. I wrap it around my fist and knock out the rest of the glass in the window, pulling myself up and squeezing myself through the narrow space. The window is barred, and there’d be no way I could normally get through but, by the grace of god, one of the bars is missing, leaving a small gap. It’s a good thing that I’m the one who found them. My wiry frame just about fits, any of the other guys wouldn’t get through. I land on the floor with a thud, grateful that I’m wearing my leathers for once. At least they offer some protection from the flames.

As I stand, the sight of the fire freezes me to the spot as ice-cold fear floods my nervous system and I can swear I smell my own flesh melting and burning like it did that night so many years ago.

If there’s a hell, this would be mine.

“Drifter!” Skye’s voice calls out again, breaking through my fear and giving me the strength I need to move.

“I’m coming baby, I’m here, just hold on!” I cry out, bracing myself as I rush through a wall of flames to where she is, still safe in the one pocket of the room not yet on fire.

“Drifter, oh my god, I thought I was going to die and never see you again,” she cries as she sees me before she starts to cough again.

I glance at Veronica who, with her slight frame and years of heavy smoking, has already started slipping into unconsciousness before turning my attention back to Skye.

“Here cover yourself with this,” I say removing my jacket and throwing it over Skye so it covers her head and shoulders. “We’re going to make a run back through into the kitchen and I’m going to push you up through the window, got it?”

“What about Veronica?” she asks. My beautiful girl, even now in a life or death moment she’s thinking of others, someone who’s been nothing but horrible to her.

“Fuck Veronica,” I grunt.

“We can’t leave her, Drifter, she saved me.”

Reluctantly, I agree. “Okay, can you walk? I’ll carry her.”

---