Page 40 of Kick

“And what the hell’s he doin’ here?” Red says, tilting his chin in my direction.

“Sayin’ goodbye.” I pull my gun from the back of my jeans and point it at Red, and then I slide the barrel back and forth between the two men, shoving Lauren behind me.

“Think about what you’re doin’ here, brother,” Tank says, putting his hands up in surrender. Red reaches for his piece. I turn the gun on him and shoot him once, right between the eyes. Fucker falls to the ground like a sack of shit. Lauren sucks in a sharp breath. Tank checks for a pulse. I assume there isn’t one—he’d have to be pretty fuckin’ lucky to survive a bullet to the brain—because he fishes Red’s gun from the holster in his pants and hands it to me. “You gotta shoot me, and then you gotta move.”

“Yeah.” He’s right. It sucks, but it’s the only thing that makes sense. Tank’s unarmed. Hand to hand he’d take me down in seconds flat, but no man ever argued with a bullet and expected to come out standing. “Where do you want it?”

Tank shakes his head. “It’s gotta be an arm shot. That way it looks like you were aiming for my chest, but missed ’cause you’re a fuckin’ lousy shooter.”

“Screw you, arsehole.”

“Hurry the fuck up. If you take any longer they’re gonna be out here and we’re both gonna be runnin’.” He squeezes his eyes closed and waits for the bullet to hit him. It’s only a graze, not enough for anyone to believe that he still couldn’t take down his shooter, especially if she were a girl. He sucks in a deep breath through his nose.

“Fuck. Sorry,” I say, and fire off three shots. One hits him in the bicep. The others burrow into the wall behind him.

“Ah, fuck!” he shouts, clutching his hand to his arm to stem the flow of blood. His eyes are narrowed into slits and he looks like a bull, ready to charge. “You owe me, motherfucker.”

“I know,” I say.

“Well, get the fuck outta here or I’m gonna shoot you myself.”

He’s right, I don’t have time to worry about Tank because I’m guessing I have all of about five seconds before my brothers come streaming out of the clubhouse, wonderin’ what the fuck is goin’ on. I jump on the bike and rev the throttle. Lauren climbs on behind me, and we tear away from the garage, toward the front gate.

Jumping off at the booth in order to open the gate, I hold the handlebars steady while Princess slides into place. She could always just take off—she’s spent a lifetime around the club, and I don’t doubt that Slayer would have taught her how to ride, but something tells me she won’t.

While she’s keeping the engine running and the revs up, I hit the button for the gate and I yank out the video feed. I have to trust that Tank will remember to erase the tapes, before they cart his pansy arse off to the hospital, or we’re both dead. I climb back onto my bike and we fly down the street, taking practically every back alley we can to avoid being seen. I don’t think we’ve been followed, and all that shit with Tank was probably a wasted effort because as we tore away from the clubhouse I didn’t see a single brother comin’ outside to see what all the fuckin’ noise was.

It’s full dark when I pull up to her father’s clubhouse. I flip the kickstand down and climb off the bike. Princess stumbles off, but her whole body’s quaking so much that she falls to the ground. I scoop her up, cringing when I feel how cold she is. She tucks her head in against my chest. She’s listless, probably from the ebb of adrenaline through her system. I’m surprised she didn’t fall off the damn bike. She’s been in that dungeon for only a few short days, but they must’ve felt like an eternity to her.

The Severed Sons don’t have a booth like we do—they’re a relatively small clubhouse, even though Slayer is notorious for being one of the scariest motherfuckers out there—but I know without a doubt they’ve got cameras, and possibly a gun trained on my head as I push the buzzer.

“Yeah?” a bored sounding voice says through a crackling speaker.

“Tell Slayer I have something he wants.”

“Who is this? And what the fuck could you have that Slayer wants?”So maybe they don’t have cameras on me. I glance up at the decrepit-looking camera above my head and notice the red light isn’t flashing.

“Turn on the fuckin’ video feed.”

The little red light begins blinking and there’s a muffled crash, like smashing glass and an, “Oh fuck.”

I walk over to the gate as it’s opening and wait.

One.

Two.

Three.

Ten angry mother fuckin’ Sons storm me from the clubhouse. All have guns trained on my head, though if they shoot me they risk hurting Lauren, and if what Red said was true, that Slayer wasn’t bargaining whatever the fuck he could to get his daughter safely back, maybe he doesn’t care that the fall could crack her head open. Or that she could get hit with one of the shots intended for me. Maybe he just doesn’t give a shit about what happens to her.

“You alright, baby?” Slayer says, making out like she’s his number fuckin’ one priority. If he really gave a shit, he woulda traded whatever the fuck he could to get her back. The longer I think about this, the more I wanna wedge a bullet into the space between his eyes. I wanna shoot that dumb fucker in the face for letting a man she barely knows be the one to risk his life for hers, when her own father wouldn’t.

Lauren nods but tucks her head against me.

Slayer takes a step forward and then his gun is at my head, even though I’m the only thing keeping his daughter from cracking hers against the concrete. “What the fuck did you do to her?” he curses, getting a good look at her face.

“I didn’t do anything to her,” I say, though I know he doesn’t believe that, and it’s not exactly true. There’s no telling what I would have done if that raid hadn’t been so damned well-timed.

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