Page 19 of Iron Hearts

I landed over her and held her down to the ground, shielding her with my body – butfuck. She’d seen it, and she’d just been the one to savemyass.

Sirens were approaching, and more shots rang out, but up higher. I got up and screamed at her, “Stay low! Go, go, go, go,go!” She did what she was told, staying low, using bikes as cover, shrieking and jumping as a round pinged off the bike next to us.

She made for the exit, and I stayed right on her six, dodging bodies and leaping back as a blade flashed and caught me in the stomach. Pain seared along the knife’s edge, and I punched the little Scorpion in the face who’d come at me. The knife flew out of his hand, and Rarity picked it up, tossing it into the garbage collection bin hitched to the back of one of the bar's Gator ATVs.

She ducked as cups and shit flew down from the upper deck but never stopped surging forward, dodging past Scorpions and other Royal Bastards alike, until we surged down a narrow passage between the original bar’s squat building and the fence next to it.

“Aw, shit!” she called and stuttered to a stop. I crashed into her back and held her steady as we faced in front of us the cops coming our way.

More shots popped off behind us, more screaming, and the cop shoved Rarity and me aside screaming,“Move!”

Didn’t need to tell me twice. I shoved the girl forward as her friend barreled ahead of us and into the arms of a medic, sobbing and hyperventilating. The medic, another girl, turned her away from the furor and shoved her in the direction of her waiting ambulance.

Rarity grabbed my hand, pulled me behind her, and called, “This way!” I went with her, running across the parking in front of the gas station, through the pumps, and across the road.

She had her keys out and was dragging me toward a black Jeep Wrangler with a lift kit. I let her, curious, and she hit a button on her key fob. The lights flashed, the locks popped, and she looked at me and said, “Get in or get a ride from the cops. Your choice.”

“My brothers,” I said.

“Your choice!” she called, and she got in.

“Hey!” a cop shouted in my direction. I pretended not to hear him and dove for the passenger door.

She was reversing before I’d even fully pulled myself into the passenger seat, throwing it into gear and taking off as cops ran in our direction, only to duck as more popping went off.

They abandoned us and went for the real danger. I worried about my brothers and crew but knew that Skull and Bones would have my back.

“Shit, that was fucking close,” I said.

“Too close,” Rarity agreed.

I felt the burn of the deep cut in my front, all sorts of other points of pain starting to blossom, popping up like mushrooms after a rain all over me. I sucked in a breath and pressed a hand over my stomach, coming up with blood in the darkening gloom of the cab of her Jeep.

“Shit!” she cried. “Are you stabbed?”

“Cut,” I said. “It’s not bad. It’ll be fine. I’ve had worse.”

Maybe two miles up the main drag into Ormond Beach, she turned into a housing subdivision, and I didn’t say anything. She looked like she knew where she was going.

CHAPTERTEN

Rarity…

Jesus Christ, this was a bad idea, but I didn’t know where else to go and he was fuckingbleeding.

I pulled into the driveway, relieved my grandparents were still out of town, but Mom and the boys were home.Shit.

“Listen, we’re going in the front door,” I said. “Butyouare immediately going in the door on the left just as soon as we get in there as quickly and asquietlyas you can. Shut it andstay there.Okay?”

He eyed me and warily said, “Alright.”

“My mom is going to freak out bad enough as it is that I was even there during that mess. I need to mitigate the damage with quickness. If she knew I brought a Bastard home? Let’s just sayfuck my life,I would never hear the end of it, and if I have to give her a heart attack, I try to limit it to one per day.”

He was grinning at me now and started to laugh softly.

“I mean it,” I said. “Inside, and immediately through the door on the left andnot a fucking word!”

“You got it,” he said, and we bailed out of the Jeep. We shut the doors in perfect unison, and that was just a happy accident – unless he’d done it on purpose.

---