Page 79 of Purgatory
OK, Fine! Back to the more important task at hand...We wait there, patiently, silently, for Cole to do his thing. After a few minutes, the bag of dicks in the front of the house starts talking again.
“Alright, you asked for it. Boys, light ‘em up!”
About thirty seconds goes by and I can hear the people both inside and out closing in on us and feel the adrenaline pulsing through my veins. My heartbeat is in my head and my stomach in my throat when all of a sudden...
BOOM!
The whole fucking floor shakes from the blast. Hawk yells over it all as he starts taking out the guys in the back.
“Game time, sweetheart. You heard him. Light ‘em up!”
It’s over before I barely get started. I shoot off three or four bursts but Hawk and Jax are proficient with their weapons, taking out six of them within seconds and leaving my way open. Before I know it, I’m being lifted from my position and lowered to the trellis that runs the length of the back of the house.
BOOM!
Another explosion sounds but this time the house doesn’t shake nearly as much. Jax looks down at me as he releases my hands so I can grasp the wooden braces.
“It’s just Cole, he’s sending off more grenades out the front to keep them looking that way. Go. We’ll be ok.” With one last look, I steel my nerves and start my descent. Once I touch the ground, I take off like a bat out of hell, doing exactly what they told me and not looking back even as I hear more explosions going off and gunfire sounding like it was way too close to me for comfort.
I finally reach the water and run as far in as I’m able before I start swimming to the small fishing boat.
“This wouldn’t be so fucking difficult if you weren’t so damn paranoid and kept the mother fucking docks!!!!”
But.... itwashis paranoia that made sure y’all had all those motherfucking sweet baby death machines hidden in the bedrooms like they were readily available sex toys, huh?
I stop my complaining and pull myself onto the boat, locating the flares, pulling up the anchor and turning the ignition on in what felt like seconds. I’m whirling around like a tornado, wanting to get that flare in the sky as fast as I can so my boys could get out of there.
Pushing the throttle as far as it could go, I count to ten before shooting off the flare. Unconsciously, I turn around, not able to keep myself from looking back at the house now thatI was clear from it. I can’t help but imagine what sort of hell they must be dealing with now. And I can’t stop myself from repeating what I told myself earlier as a tear escapes my eye.
“They can do this. They’re professionals. They’ve been in worse shit.”
I turn my face away from the house and furiously swipe the tear away from my eye. No, I can’t break down now. I need to be strong. For me and for them. They can do this. They said they could. I say it over and over and over again, but a second later, my world upends.
BOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!
My heart stops. I can’t breathe. I look back in the direction of the house but there’s no house there anymore. The roof top that I was literally just on? Gone. The bedroom I woke up to a beautiful morning in? Poof... dust. The living room and kitchen that held so many memories to fill years but was actually only a few weeks? Non-fucking-existent. In its place are flames that seem to touch the sky and an ache carved into my soul.
Where are my guys? I need them. I need to know they’re safe. Why the fuck did the radios have to be downstairs? I can feel my heartrate spiking and sweat start dripping down my temple. Fuck, I’m having a panic attack. But now’s not the time to have a fucking episode. No. I need to get a grip on things before I accidentally kill myself on this damn boat. So I do the only thing I can think of to ground myself at the moment and repeat my words from earlier.
“They can do this. They’re professionals. They’ve been in worse shit...”
All the way to the place Jax showed me on the map, I repeat the words. I can’t look back anymore. I just need to reach my destination so that I could wait for them. They’ll be coming for me. I needed to be there for them when theyshowed up. Like the damn Terminator, I had my mission and I was determined to complete it, come hell or high water. My boys needed me to do this, so off I go.
The lake whips by me in a blur, unable to focus on anything else around me. Not the ducks flying next to me, as if they were the guiding angels to my salvation. Not the sounds of the wild animals coming alive on the land around me. Not even the horde, making its way up the shore in the opposite direction from me, could hold my attention. All I could see before me were visions of my men at the end of my journey. Hawk smirking at me as if to say ‘I told you it wouldn’t be anything to worry your sweet heart about.’ Cole pushing his chin up and crossing his strong arms, willing me to still be strong and defiant in the face of danger. Jax, with his silent fury and lust-filled gaze, urging me to look forward to our reunion and the adrenaline filled nights yet to come.
Earl’s lake house finally comes into view, and it’s only a few seconds before I can see the dock to the next lake house just beyond it. According to the map, I’m supposed to dock here, disembark and travel down the connected road until I reach a gravel road on the left. At the end of the gravel road, I’d find a small, rustic cabin, or at least that’s how Cole and Hawk described it when Jax took off.
I take the rope and tie off the boat at the dock and set out to find the safe house. It’s a miracle I even make it off the dock in the first place seeing as the plank boards were rotted to hell. I almost stepped right through a few of them on my way off.
Not to mention, the adrenaline rush that bombarded my system seems to be subsiding, leaving my muscles a mess of goo and in protest of cooperation. I needed to rest for a month after this but I couldn’t think like that right now. Find the house. Wait for the guys. That’s what I needed to think about and nothing else. At that thought, my stomach gurgled.
Oh, my cheese and crackers. No. No food dammit! Yourhangry ass can wait!
The fucking gravel road must have been, like, twenty damn miles away from the dock, or maybe just like four but, shit, it sure as hell felt like it was twenty. The sun was practically setting by the time my unfit ass got there.
Note to self: find a book on Pilates or suck it the fuck up when they get here and go on a damn run with Jax. No damn excuses allowed! It’s the end of the world, for crying out loud. This huffin’ and puffin’ shit is embarrassing.
After a long fucking day, I finally trudge my tired feet up the steps to the safehouse and look around. What am I supposed to do now? Find a wall? Like some Andy Dufrain Shawshank Redemption shit? Nah, that doesn’t seem right. I crane my head back and forth, looking around the front entryway for a pot or welcome mat, you know, something obvious when the song “Push it” by Salt N Pepper starts playing in my head. I can’t help but sing the words to myself and by the second verse my brain finally starts working again.
