Page 69 of Cage's Fall

“Morning.” Aaron was the only one that replied to me.

“Well let’s get this shit done. Is it unlocked?”

I nodded my head, and they headed in. I waited for a moment, noticing a car going slowly past. Guess the boys always knew how to attract attention. The car came to a complete stop out the front of the gym.

I tilted my head. Then it flashed through my head, the warning sign. But it was too fucking late. The window wound down. And my eyes landed on the AK barrel.

I spun on my feet, running for the shelter of the gym. The glass shattering as I made it through the doorway, tripping down the stairs, my body hitting the ground as the loudness of the gunfire deafening my ears.

CAGE

“Moving this equipment is going to be a nightmare,” Lit muttered, shrugging his vest off.

“You hear that?” Aaron paused.

I looked back for Autumn, only to see the car pulled up out the front, next thing I saw was her running. The glass around the front door started to shatter, her body hitting the floor. Didn’t think about it. Didn’t give it a fucking second thought. I pulled my gun from my holster.

Moments like this, was when I was counted on. Moments like this was when my ability to take headshots was counted on. They were reloading, when I stood over Autumn, gun raised. I didn’t fire blindly back. No. I aimed and I fired.

Didn’t need to breathe through it. I had been trained with a gun since I was running the streets as a thirteen-year-old.

Learned the hard way what happens when you fucking miss your target. The boys stepped up behind me, cover firing. But my eyes were on the ski masked man with the AK. The same bastard that thought he could shoot at my girlfriend and live.

One shot, and his body slumped. His head going to the side. The pressure could be tight, and boiling; regardless I would make that fucking head shot. The car took off. And Lit knew the drill. Someone was to go after them, firing shots, and chasing them down.

He took off on his bike.

While I holstered my gun I turned to look back. And then the fact Autumn wasn’t moving, sent panic through my body. The broken glass surrounded her.

Then I must have seen it the same time as Aaron because his face dropped of any expression.

I dropped to my knees, crushed glass piercing my jeans. The blood across the crushed glass. It was coming from her side.

I pulled out my phone. Didn’t give a fuck what this looked like. I was calling an ambulance. But Aaron snatched the phone from my hand.

“Can’t call the ambos.” Aaron was speaking logic but I didn’t fucking want to hear it.

“She’s been shot!” Didn’t he see that was more important then if the club copped some heat from this!

“We need to get her back to the clubhouse. Call the medics in.” Aaron was speaking like a fucking president, more worried about the club getting blow back. Then the fact thatmy womanwas bleeding out.

Fuck him.

Aaron then locked his eyes with mine. “It’s not a suggestion Cage. It’s a fucking order. We don't involve citizens. Get her car keys, we’ll take her back to the clubhouse.”

Right fucking then. In that moment. I knew, I no longer wanted to be the one taking orders. I wanted to be the one fucking giving them. Never had my eyes on the president patch but as I carried Autumn, who was going in and outof consciousness to her car.

I wanted to be president and when I set my mind on something. I fucking got it. Didn’t know when. Didn’t know how I’d earn it. But I knew that president patch would be sewed onto my chest in the future, with mother Chapter underneath it.

From this point on. I realized the club wouldn’t control me if I controlled it. It was a beast, and while most presidents keep aligned with the rules set by other presidents, I’d be fucking breaking those rules, and creating my own.

Like I said it wasn’t if I’d be president- it was when.

When I was the Mother Chapter President, I’d be controlling the beast of the club and when that happens, no one, and I mean no one, would cost me what I loved. As I sat in the back of Autumn’s car, my hand applying pressure to the wound on her side, I realized that Autumn said me being loyal to the club would be our problem. I didn’t know it till minutes ago, that our problem, wouldn’t be one if I controlled the club.

No one was to know that on that day, after a drive-by shooting, it would change the direction of The Vultures future; and as a result, would one day change everything that club stood for and it would all be my doing. The blood baths that were to come, would all be my doing, and I’d be doing it for the sake of my love for a woman.

The woman currently bleeding in my arms.

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