Page 16 of DOG Part 2
I hesitated. His plan was obvious. I had known Deuce long enough that often all he had to do to reveal the workings of his mind was send me a well-timed look. He wanted me to cover him as he moved. Meanwhile, the other three would pick out the Arroyos Bandidos and take them out.
I took a deep breath, looking over at the rest of our team. Skate was watching us closely, already on to our plan. He gave us a sharp nod, then said something to Big Tom and Kyle.
“I’ll go,” I told Deuce, putting a hand on his shoulder to stop him.
“I’m smaller than you, and faster.”
Bullets pinged off the bike, and we both flinched. Any second and we could be dead men.
“All right,” I conceded. “Wait a couple beats.”
He nodded again, adrenaline fueling the fire in his eyes.
I gave the other three the hand signal to go, and then we slipped around the bikes, a second behind each other, letting loose a string of shots. Deuce flew, moving like the wind, and one of Chavez’s men extended his torso around a bike to shoot. I got him first, sending him crumpling to the ground. Deuce was safe behind the fallen billboard, but I kept shooting, aiming at any part of the Arroyos Bandidos that came into view.
A gun being thrown from the other side signaled surrender. At the same time sirens blared, a few miles away still, but close enough to cause panic.
“Kane!” Kyle’s voice called from somewhere behind me.
There were only three of the five Arroyos Bandidos left. Chavez and the two others stood with their hands in the air. I hesitated, pointing the gun right at Chavez. It could all be done with right then and there. The attacks on my club. The fear that Kim lived in.
Except it wasn’t right. No matter what the circumstances were. If I killed three men who had their hands up in surrender I would never forgive myself and I knew it.
The war had to be ended in the right way.
“Kane!” Skate yelled at me. “We have to go.”
I walked backwards, keeping my gun pointed at Chavez even as I got on my bike. It wasn’t until we had pulled out onto the highway and headed in the opposite direction of the sirens that I noticed Deuce was riding on the back of Tom’s bike, his own motorcycle left behind at the scene of the crime.
He was pale, his head falling to the side, and between the clutched fingertips at his side dark blood seeped through his leather jacket.
The desert blurred as we raced down the first side street we came to, taking twists and turns until I signaled for us to pull off at what seemed to be the first safe place. We killed our engines behind an old barn and I flew off my bike so fast that my foot caught on the seat and I almost fell over.
Tom and Skate already had Deuce laid down on the ground between the shrubs. His eyelids flickered as he stared up at the sky.
“Deuce!” I yelled, ripping off my vest and then my shirt to press it against the wound in his side. “Deuce! Can you hear me, buddy?”
His pupils shifted slightly, moving to look me straight in the eyes, seeing me, I knew, but also slipping into seeing nothingness at the same time.
“We need to get him to a doctor,” Skate said, his voice shaking.
No one answered. There was no need. Deuce’s eyes were already closing, his hand falling limply at his side.
He was dead.
