Axl (Sons of Chaos MC #1) (10 page)

All while I risked life and limb—not to mention my future with the Sons—just to keep her safe.

This was just one of the many reasons the club lifestyle made sense to me. No bullshit diplomas, no bullshit authorities hanging over your head. Just money and mayhem.

But at the same time, no matter how much she pissed me off, no matter how much she didn’t understand the new world she was in, I wouldn’t be able to fucking live with myself if something happened to her.

I was opening my mouth to snap at her when I heard the gunshot. A civilian might’ve thought it was a car backfiring, but I’d been around enough fucking gunfights my first year in the club alone to know the difference. I knew the sound of gunfire like I knew my way around pussy.

I didn’t even realize I’d been hit until I saw her eyes lock onto my shoulder in horror. She stood there, frozen, not having developed the street instincts that I had—the ones that told me to get the fuck down.

And the crazy thing is, as I pushed her to the ground behind a nearby SUV and saw the blood pouring out of my arm, my only thought was to thank God that it’d been me and not her.

The Reapers had somehow fucking found us.

“Oh my god,” said Holly, clasping her hand over her mouth. “What can I do?”

I gritted my teeth in pain, crouching down behind the vehicle, trying to simultaneously cover Holly with my body and pull my Glock out of my belt holster with my uninjured arm. “Pressure,” I said. My shoulder felt like it’d been hit with the claw end of a flaming hammer.

Holly pressed her palm against my shoulder, and pain seared through my chest and arm. Phantom pains fired out of the wound, triggering nerves in my neck. I clenched my teeth and fought through the pain, peeking out from behind the SUV, my eyes scanning for the shooter. Tourists were running and screaming, piling into their minivans and sedans in the parking lot. Not only did I have to protect Holly, I had to work against the clock and get us out of here alive before the place filled up with the ice.

As I peeked around the corner, another shot rang out, and I felt a shockwave traveling through the air as a bullet whizzed past my head. Fuck. That was rifle fire.

“What the hell do we do?” Holly asked in a panicked, urgent voice. “You’re bleeding a lot.”

“I’m going back into the plaza,” I said, “Can’t see a goddamn thing from here. Stay put.”

I gripped my Glock hard, and dashed out from behind the safety of the SUV, sprinting back toward the bench we’d been sitting at earlier. There were more gunshots, but they echoed across the surrounding valley and it was impossible to tell where they came from.

As I ran toward the bench, I caught a glint of light off a metal object in the window of a Ford Explorer parked across the plaza. The barrel of a rifle. There was no fucking way to know if it was the only shooter. But no matter what, I’d have to take out this fuck if I had any hope of getting Holly to the bike.

I snaked my way around the perimeter of the plaza, taking cover behind trees as I rounded the circle. I was going to complete the circuit and flank the Explorer on the rear, get close enough to where I could light it up with my Glock. And if someone tried going across the plaza toward Holly, they were fucking fodder to me.

But I didn’t make it all the way around. I was bleeding heavily and by the time I’d gotten three-fourths of the way to the Ford, I felt lightheaded and fell to my knees, wheezing. I tried to stand up but my legs were lead, my body low on blood.

I sat on my ass, and backed myself up against a tree. I rotated around the trunk, taking myself out of the shooter’s line of sight.

Fight
, I told myself.
Reapers won’t show her any mercy.

A voice called out from the other side of the tree. “Archer!”

I twisted my head and yelled around the tree trunk. “She ain’t a part of this, you fucks!”

“Archer,” the voice boomed, “Surrender and she lives.”

“I need a guarantee,” I sputtered as loudly as I could. My voice was weakening, hoarse.

“You ain’t got a choice. Plaza’s covered in your blood.”

Fuck. I was fucked up, and I had failed. I knew these cunts all too well. They’d finish me off, then Holly, no matter what they promised.

“Fuck you,” I coughed. “You want me, come get me.” I pulled my knees up to my chest and held my Glock out in front of me, steadying it against my knees as best I could. If I was gonna go out, I was gonna take as many piece of shit Reapers with me as I could.

“Don’t need to. You’re gonna bleed out behind that tree.”

Anger surged inside of me. I wanted to fucking murder this piece of shit. But I was frozen in place, unable to muster the strength to stand.

Suddenly, there was a dull thud and a gurgling moan. Then Holly came into my field of view, holding a brick dripping with blood.

“Holly,” I said, my voice a gurgle.

“I couldn’t just sit there,” she said.

Goddamn. She had fucking saved my ass. I felt a new surge of strength inside me.

“Help me,” I said, and I took her arm, hauling myself to my feet. I was dizzy, but my shoulder had finally stopped pouring blood.

Leaning against Holly, I hobbled over to the man laying on the ground, a pool of blood seeping out from under his black ski mask. I reached down and pulled it off his head. I recognized him—Mario Gutierrez, a veteran of the Demons MC. What the fuck? Sons had no beef with the Demons. Something was fucked up.

Feeling my strength come back to me, I howled into the air. I smashed my fist down onto the dead man’s face over and over again, until it was a bloody stump.

I stood over the man, brick in my hand, heart pounding in my chest. When I’d brought it crashing down on his head from behind with all my strength, he’d let out an anguished, garbled cry and collapsed to the ground like a sack of rocks.

There hadn’t been time to think. When I’d seen Axl stumble and press himself up against the tree, I knew he was losing his strength, and that I had to do something. So I’d grabbed a loose brick from the wall I hid behind, and rushed straight across the plaza with it in hand, snuck up behind the masked intruder, and caught him by surprise.

Then I’d helped Axl up. He’d pulled off the intruder’s ski mask, and I instantly knew that something was wrong. Even more wrong than it already was. Then he pounded the dead man’s face into the cement. I was aghast at the display of violence and brutality. I’d never seen anything like it. And even though it was all crazy, I was fucking glad that Axl had come out on top.

“Goddammit,” said Axl, supporting his own weight with one arm around my shoulders, “Why would a Demon do this?”

“Axl,” I said, replaying my mental image of the brick hitting the man’s head, “We’ve gotta go.”

“Right,” he mumbled. Up until now, I hadn’t seen him so distraught. “To the bike,” he said, “Fast.”

I turned around, still supporting his weight, and started to head back across the plaza the way I’d come.

“No,” grunted Axl, “Could be another shooter.”

“Damn,” I said, the urgency of the situation boiling in my belly, “I didn’t think about that.”

“Yeah, they don’t teach you that in college,” said Axl. “We go around the perimeter, the way I came.”

We rushed as quickly as we could around the circular plaza, ducking behind trees and buildings along the way. Axl’s strength seemed to return to him as we hurried, and by the time we got back to the bike, he wasn’t leaning his weight on me at all anymore.

The entire area had become eerily quiet and empty. The couple dozen visitors that’d been milling around had all disappeared nearly instantly, fleeing in their vehicles. No doubt many of them had called 911 already. With blood on my hands now, I was more acutely aware than ever of our need to hurry.

When we got back to the bike, I hopped on the back seat while Axl holstered his Glock, grabbing the passenger helmet and holding it in my lap. “I’ll get this on later,” I said, my voice tense, “Hurry!”

Just as Axl began to swing a leg over the bike, I heard a quiet whimpering sound. “Do you hear that?” I asked.

Axl turned his head and scanned the area. “Fuck,” he said, shaking his head. “By the bench.”

My eyes followed the direction of his gaze, and then I saw it too. The little boy who’d been flying the kite earlier was crouching underneath a wooden bench, knees pulled up to his chest. His mother was nowhere in sight.

“Dammit!” shouted Axl, pounding his fist on the bike’s handlebars. He gingerly pulled his leg back over the bike, one arm across his chest, holding his injured shoulder. He moved at a half-walk, half-jog toward the bench, extending an arm to the boy underneath.

The boy reciprocated, reaching his hand out to Axl as well, when a loud shriek broke the silence. The boy’s mother came running toward Axl, screaming hysterically.

“Don’t touch my son!” she screamed, her voice chaotic and uncontrolled. She reached out, slapping Axl’s arm, and pushed him away from the child. “Killer!” she shrieked.

Axl backed up from the woman, hardly reacting to the rain of slaps and swipes the woman was directing toward him. I could barely make out his face, but I thought that I saw a pained look on it. But as soon as I saw it, it vanished, and Axl turned back toward me and the bike, jogging as fast as he could.

Without saying a word, he grabbed his skullcap helmet from where it hung on the handlebars, slapped it onto his head without bothering to fasten the chin strap, and started the bike.

I put my hands around him, holding on for dear life as we thundered away from the Four Corners park. The bike growled between our legs as Axl twisted the throttle hard and pushed it to its limits. As we roared onto the highway entrance ramp, Axl dipped his head down, looking into one of the rearview mirrors that extended away from the bike’s ape bars. He raised his fist, his thumb pointing backward, and jerked his arm to indicate for me to turn around. I twisted my head as we rode further away, and I saw flashing red and blue lights back at the park. But they weren’t coming after us.

We’d gotten away just in the nick of time. We were safe.

For now.

Overhead, the sun had passed well beyond the sky’s apex, as the arid desert environment settled into the groove of another summer afternoon.

But for me, it wasn’t just another afternoon. I couldn’t get the image out of my head of the man falling. The way it’d felt when the red brick in my hand struck his head. It was unlike anything I’d felt before. A soft crunching, rigid yet organic. I’d never hurt a soul in my life, nor had I ever truly felt the desire to do so. And as much trouble as I was having coming to terms with what I’d just done in the heat of the moment, I was surprised at how little remorse I felt.

That man had come to kill us, and in this new world I’d found myself in, it was dog-eat-dog. Him or us. If I hadn’t done what I did, it would’ve been me and Axl laying in a ditch, being discovered by the cops right now. Whatever else I felt, I felt sure of that.

I also felt sure that I’d done exactly what I wanted to. Yeah, I could’ve kept hiding behind the wall. Waited for the cops, and told them everything. Cleared my name. But it would’ve come at the cost of Axl’s life. And although I didn’t know what we had, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if that had happened.

A chill came over me. I had entered a new world indeed. And as we rode on the highway, it didn’t just feel like we were riding away from the Four Corners park. It felt like we were riding away from everything I’d known in my life.

I held onto Axl for dear life, the pavement rushing past us just inches below my feet. The engine roared, and the wind whipped through my hair faster and faster.

A Demon. The motherfucker had been a Demon.

It didn’t make any fucking sense. Demons were based out of Nevada. Had never been interested in pushing up against our territory. I wouldn’t fuckin’ turn my back to one of ‘em if I didn’t have to, but this… This’d come out of nowhere.

Ryker and the club would be pissed to hear from me, but I had to get in touch with them. And fast.

As the bike cruised down the open highway, my thoughts drifted to Holly.

She’d killed for me, just like I’d done for her. She’d kept me breathing on this miserable fuckin’ Earth for a little bit longer.

And I didn’t know what I thought of that. I was grateful to still be kickin’, yeah. But I’d never wanted her to get blood on her own hands. She was too good for that. My hands were too stained to ever come clean, but she’d had a chance.

Hated to see that happen. But goddamn, was she a loyal woman. Maybe even worthy of becoming an old lady. Wasn’t everyday that you found a woman that’d do something like that for you.

I reached back with one hand and tapped her on the arm. I turned my head and shouted over the wind, “Water.”

I felt her shift her body, dipping her hand down into one of the bike’s saddlebags, and then she handed me a canteen after unscrewing the lid for me. I took it from her and brought it to my lips, drinking deeply. The water was hot from sitting in the saddlebag all day but it still rejuvenated me. Provided my body the raw materials it needed to rebuild, for my heart to pump me full of all the blood I’d lost.