Page 4 of Master's Rise
Giggling draws all of our attention. The girl behind the counter smiles holding Hade’s coffee out to him. She realizes her mistake and her eyes drop to the counter as her arm goes straight out. “I didn’t want to interrupt.” As soon as Hade takes the cup out of her hand, she scurries into the back.
Shorty is pissed at the show of amusement, or maybe us, so I give him another smile. “Now that we’ve answered your question on manpower, response time and my personal Security, where am I sending boundaries? Does Deacon need them?”
The tallest midget moves fast throwing his lidded cup at me. Hade has his gun on Shorty. I laugh hitting the cup at the lip so it flies back drenching them. The lid and cup fall on the floor about a foot apart.
Shorty moves for his gun like it’s better than Hade’s and Raid warns him from behind us.“Right now, you have a sniper ready to fire, two guns on you and our President thinking this is fun. That means he’s hoping you do something stupid. It’s my job to make sure he doesn’t kill you causing a warwedon’t want, but I’m surehe’dlove. He missed the action even if he won’t admit it.”
I nod at the grunge midgets. “I’ve got no problem with a good old-fashioned fight. Daily sparring with these two gets old.”
Hade shakes his head and puts his gun away. “Last real fight you were in, you got shot and broke the asshole’s neck.”
I’m glad he didn’t mention the challenge, but fuck, he’s right. “I did but he shot me twice. He had it coming.” I shrug when they don’t look like they believe me. Lifting my shirt, I show them. “I was in the hospital for a fucking week. He had it coming,” I insist.
Shorty growls as if that hurts him. The other orange-bearded midget puts his hand on Shorty’s shoulder. “Let’s go.” The midget looks at me. “It was his younger brother.”
I shake my head. “He was supposed to kill me. He wasn’t much of a sniper and couldn’t run for shit. I was shot twice and still caught him.”
“Jesus fuck,” Raid pushes the midgets out before they start their brawl inside the café. “Next time, I’m cuffing you to your fucking bike.”
Hade pushes by us. “Drop your guns. Knives are okay, but pulling a gun will have the snipers pumping you full of lead.”
Since he’s talking to the midgets, I turn on Raid. “I train every fucking day. Why do I get shit for dealing with a problem? It’s not like the midget brigade is going to strike me down. They couldn’t do itwiththe guns and a guaranteed time and place.” Hade is the only one that ever gives me shit. I think it’s a habit for him.
Raid watches the midgets laying guns down. “Because you run into the middle of shit that isn’t shit until you get there with your smile and facetious comments. You didn’t need to tell him his brother was a lousy shot or couldn’t run.”
Two midgets run at us. I put my hand out holding Shorty back. “Facetious, I like that word. It fits too. Purposely disrespectful is what I was aiming for.” The little shit pulls a knife so I raise my boot and kick him in the chest. With a good hundred and fifty pounds on him, he flies into one of their bikes. His head hitting the frame sounds loud. “That had to hurt.”
Hade has the taller midget cuffed and the smallest one running around him in circles. He’s trying to hold a boxing stance but looks more like a rabid chihuahua. He’s growling and has spit on his chin. Maybe it’s the coffee I hit at them. With my hands on my hips, I wait for Shorty to get up and watch the other orange-bearded midget try for Raid’s legs. “Rex doing word of the day again?” I ask him. He hasn’t done it since we were kids.
Shorty tries to out growl the other chihuahua with an unsteady run toward me. I swat him away with a forearm and hear laughing on the side of me. Brinks finds the midgets funny too.
Hade watches the orange-bearded midget try to lift Raid while holding his little guy up by his shirt front. “Help your pa out.” He drops the midget at Raid’s feet.
Jinx and Brinks are eating it up. “Cort, your attack minion is coming back for more.” Jinx, apparently, thinks my eyes stopped working.
“Yeah. I have eyes too, Brother.”
“We just had a party for your over the hill ass.” Brinks doesn’t know it but my fist is going to connect to his jaw after I deal with my midget, Shorty.
I wonder what his name is. Holding him at arm’s length again, I ask, “What’s your name?”
He swipes his knife out missing me by a mile. He should go for my arm, he’d be able to reach that. “Ripper. Your worst nightmare. You’ll wake up screaming my name!”
Brinks and Jinx are leaning against the wall laughing. I can’t help it and start laughing too. When I hit the little orange-tinged menace, I miscalculate and catch him on the chin. Orange dust flies like it’s following him back to the bikes.
“His beard is dirty blond. That minion isn’t that old.” Jinx gets out but isn’t paying attention to me.
When Brinks stands up, I punch him on the side of his jaw and watch him fall. He’ll feel that for a few days. Jinx stops laughing as if I flipped a switch. “Huh, guess the impaired vision hasn’t started yet,” I tell him.
Since they’re all laughing and the midgets are all down, I whistle for everyone to clear out. “Jinx and Brinks, get the bikes loaded and drop them with the midgets at the second exit.” That’s a cleanup job but Brinks earned it and Jinx thought it was funny.
“Aw man, you had to fuck with his age?” Jinx is gonna make Brinks pay for that one too. I smile and walk away.
“Cort, they never got the boundaries.” Hade runs to catch up to me.
“Yeah. They know them.”
He doesn’t say anymore and goes back for his bike. Raid rides out with me and Hade catches up.
