Page 73 of Absinthe Dreams
“Shut the fuck up and turn off up here. Take the next exit. Goddamn, you’re a dumbshit, Savage. What did you fuckin’do?”
“I didn’t doanything,you fucking asshole!”
“Gun it, out run ‘em!”
“Are you fuckin’ kidding me? In a fuckin’ Econoline when they’re in an ungovernedCharger?”
“You wanna go to prison?” Viper demanded loudly.
“It’s better ‘n fuckin’ dying!” Savage argued back.
Viper pointed his weapon at the driver and said, “I said,punch it.”
I exchanged frantic looks with the other girls as the siren wailed behind us and the van surged forward underneath us.
Shit.We weren’t secure. We weren’t strapped in. If we wrecked, we werefucked.
“I’m pulling over!” the driver hollered.
“Don’t you do it! Don’t you fucking—” the driver jerked the wheel toward the passenger side, and the road gave way to gravel, and then we were bouncing. The gun went off and shattered the driver’s side window. All of a sudden, the driver was out of his seat, one hand bashing the passenger’s wrist against the dashboard, the other fist crashing into the passenger’s face over and over again. The gun went off again out the windshield this time, and we all started screaming and kicking out at the van’s doors and walls. When the back doors of the van suddenly opened, Alina and Jessie-Lou went sprawling onto the ground outside it.
Sandy went next, jumping out and lying flat as two cops pointed their guns into the back of the van atme,and I threw myself down flat over Corliss next to Velina.
There was confusion, shouting, screaming, and masculine voices arguing. Then a shot from behind us, and all hell broke loose with the cops in front of us firing over our heads and into the front of the van. My ears started ringing, and I was deafened.Everything going into this rotten muffled deranged cacophony of sound that didn’t make any sense as my brain tried to process the visual horror I’d just endured of watching the two men in the front seat turn into hamburger right before my eyes.
Out of nowhere, hands grabbed me by the arms and started pulling. In my panic and confusion, I started resisting and trying to hang back when, finally, incrementally, the sound started to return and a male voice shouted in my ear, “You’re alright! You’re safe! We got you now. Stop it! You’re fine, you’re fine! You’re all good.”
I froze, tightening up, and stopped all motion, concentrating on my breathing, on dragging air in and out through my nose as I was dragged out of the van and set on the ground. The tape was ripped from my mouth and lips, and it stung as some of the layers of skin went with it.
“Don’t tear!” I shouted. “Jesus Christ, it’s not like ripping off a Band-Aid! Go slow!” I chastised and looked up at the bewildered officer and the pile of police cars pulling up behind them.
“Doctor Bordelon?” one of them asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s me. Now untie me, so I can check everyone out.”
Pictures were being snapped, and video was being taken as more officers poured forward and tried helping the other women of the Voodoo Bastards MC. I went to Jessie-Lou first, who snapped at me, “I’m fine!” Then to Velina, who waved me off, too. Alina was looking after Corliss, and then I got to Sandy, who looked up at me with rage and tear-filled eyes and said, “This is all my fault!” before crumbling into my arms. I hugged her tight and soothed as best I could.
“No, no, no! You had no way of knowing. It’s okay, it’s okay…”
I was just barely into trying to calm her down when the roar of motorcycles accompanied the sirens of approaching ambulances.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Chainsaw…
The nearest hospital was in Slidell, which is where they took the girls. We didn’t hang around. There were two dead Bayou Brethren in the front of the shot-to-shit van, and all the girls seemed okay. But they were still being transported to the local hospital to get checked out and held for witness statements.
It was a long night.
We were cooperating with the cops, and when they asked where we’d been, we stared them dead in the eye and lied, saying “charity ride.”
It was the last bit of charity that the Marchesi’s were ever going to see from us. If they knew what was good, they would already be packing up and leaving the fucking area.
They wouldn’t let us back to see our women at first, but as soon as we were able, we made a beeline for their rooms and bays they were being kept in.
The curtain was whisked back, and I got to see Genesis, at long last.
“Hey.” I slid onto the doctor’s stool and wheeled myself up to her bedside railing. She took one of my hands into both of hers.Her lips were swollen and missing some skin, and there was a mark on her face, resembling a burn, in the shape of the corner of the tape.
