Fighting Chance (Misty Grove Book 1) (27 page)

Matt speared her an incinerating glare, clearly displeased that she had exposed herself to the perceived threat.

“I could wring your neck,” he muttered when Cassie joined him. “This wasn’t what we planned.”

Before Cassie could think of a reply, Matt spoke to the group.

“The garage is closed, gentlemen. The bays are full. You’ll have to head on to the next town.”

There was a roar of mocking laughter from their unwanted guests.

“I’m afraid we have no use for your services, Matt Foster, but our boss would love your head on a pike.” A man with buzz cut blond hair sneered. He was wearing a white wife beater, cargo pants, and motorcycle boots. No cut. Cassie looked at the other guys. She had seen enough bikers to know these were not of the Motorcycle Club variety. These were military—or rather ex-military. Mercenaries.

Matt stiffened beside her and Cassie was confused as well. They were not here for her?

“Before we take the girl,” Buzz Lightyear added, looking at Cassie with a leer.

“That might be difficult seeing that I’m not amenable to being taken,” Cassie retorted. God, did they have to do this today when it was so frigging hot? Sweat trickled down the side of her neck.
 

“Now, now. Cassandra, is it? Or do you want to go by Scout?”

“Neither. It’s Ms. Reed to you.”

“You might want to be nicer to me,” Buzz Lightyear cautioned. “We’ll be working closely together. You don’t want to be a bitch like your sister.”

“Piper is here?” Cassie whispered. She searched the bikers, but all of them appeared to be male.
 

“Do you really want to cause all this bloodshed?” the biker continued. “You’re outnumbered, outgunned. There’s no way of calling for help.”

“You’ve jammed the phone lines.”

“Bingo.”

“You’re not taking me alive,” Cassie said, inwardly apologizing to Trent. She was bluffing of course.

A hard edge entered Buzz Lighyear’s eyes.

“Enough, Hugo!” a voice spoke from the back. A man hanging off the eighteen-wheeler door jumped off and sauntered toward them. Piper emerged and a dark-haired woman followed. Wait a minute, was that Nurse Pia? Was she involved this whole time?

“Kurt Leroy,” Matt snarled. “You son of a bitch.”

The man called Kurt Leroy clutched his heart dramatically. “Now is that how you greet an old friend, Foster?”

“I was never your friend.”

“You betrayed me, Foster.”

“You were selling guns to murderous warlords. You deserved to be taken down,” Matt snapped. “I killed you. How are you alive?”

“First of all, you didn’t know I was an ES like you.”

Oh, crap
. Cassie was starting to fear for everyone in a big way.

“And as you know, Foster, we are hard to kill.”

“That’s impossible,” Matt muttered.
 

“Secondly, Kurt Leroy
is
dead,” the man said. “I go by Lee Monroe nowadays. Of course, that’s not my real name either, but in this iteration, I am.”

“Iteration?”

“The iteration that will kill you.” Cassie saw the manic flash behind Monroe’s eyes, so she didn’t waste time reacting. She tackled Matt away from Monroe and felt a hard blow land on her back.

“Cassie!” Lucas roared.

She and Matt landed on the ground, but her brother rolled on top of her, concern in his eyes. “Dammit, Cassie, are you okay?”

Before she could answer, Monroe loomed above them. She noted briefly that Piper had engaged Lucas. Her back screaming in pain, Cassie pushed Matt off and kicked out at Monroe, but the other man caught her foot and twisted it.

Cassie yelped as agony ripped up her leg. “Don’t make me destroy you,” Monroe warned. His attention turned in time to catch the tire iron Matt wielded toward his head. He caught Matt’s wrist, released Cassie, and drove a fist into her brother’s solar plexus. Matt grunted, the punch causing him to drop the tire iron. Visibly shaken, Matt weakly blocked another hit coming toward his face and it glanced off him. He staggered back, but Monroe didn’t let go of his arm, intending to make him a punching bag.

A mechanic tried to help by drawing his weapon from behind his back, but was methodically shot down by Hugo.
 

“Anyone else who interferes will be shot!” Monroe yelled, issuing the warning belatedly, and this time succeeding in punching Matt in the face. Cassie, still on the ground, forced herself to get up, dragging her abused leg behind her as she limped over to help. She linked her hands and walloped Monroe’s kidney area. It was an unfair punch in any fight, but their adversary was unbelievably strong, and her brother’s life was on the line. She could play dirty. The man turned his attention to her, staring at her like she was a pesky gnat. “I barely felt that. Did you lose your strength, Scout?” Without waiting for her to reply, he struck her across the face, sending her to the pavement. Her blood ran cold as the full import of his words sunk in along with the burn on her face. This was the worst possible time for her to turn all human. Her pulse pounded in her ears as she glanced at Piper, who had overpowered Lucas. Cassie’s breathing grew choppy as the smell of defeat gripped her. In that moment, her thoughts turned to Trent, already feeling the loss of a life she could have shared with him.
 

 
“Worry not, all the more reason for you to come with me, don’t you think?” Monroe’s taunting brought her back into focus. “Now be a good girl and step aside while I—”

“Don’t listen to him, Cassie!” Matt snarled, striking their tormentor in the same area with a two-handed fist. “Piss blood, motherfucker!”

Monroe flinched. He definitely felt that one as he bared his teeth and collared Matt’s neck with one hand and slammed him against a van parked in front of the garage.
 

Cassie crawled toward her twin and Piper, intending to make a last-ditch effort to reason with her younger sister. They needed her on their side.

“Piper, don’t let him do this!”

“There’s only one choice, Scout, you come with us,” her sister said coldly as she punched Lucas across the face to make a point. “I’ll let Lucas live.”
 

Despite being the underdog in the fight, Lucas laughed derisively. “I’m not out yet.” Piper scowled at him and slammed his head on the ground.

Red hazed Cassie’s vision. She was about to pounce on her misguided sister when a horrible choking sound had her twisting around.
 

Matt’s eyes had rolled back and his body jerked as if in the last stages of life. Monroe could easily snap his neck, but was deriving sadistic pleasure in toying with him.
 

With a roar of fury, Cassie pushed up from her knees and ran toward the two.
 

Knowing Piper was coming after her, she sidestepped her sister’s flying tackle and went straight for Monroe, grabbing the tire iron that Matt had dropped. Anticipating a backhand, she ducked to avoid it. She hit the ground as if sliding into home base and swung the iron bar viciously against Monroe’s ankles.
 

“Feel this, asshole,” Cassie growled. Stupid man. He should have worn biker boots like the rest of his crew. She hoped as all get out that she’d crushed his fucking bones.

Monroe howled in pain as he crashed backward on the ground.
 

“You fucking bitch!” Monroe raged angrily at her. “Kill her twin, Hugo!”

Terror gripped her lungs. She wouldn’t get to Lucas in time.
 

She rushed to her twin. Lucas picked himself off from the ground, grim determination on his face. He wasn’t going down without a fight. “No! Lucas!”

“Monroe!” a loud female voice called from the direction of the tractor trailer.
 

Everyone froze.

Kate.

She was holding a man hostage with a gun pointed to his head.

Cassie’s eyes narrowed. Dr. Moses Devlin. A surge of fury arced through her veins.

“Kate, what the hell are you doing?” Piper screamed.

“What I should have done a long time ago,” Kate returned calmly.
 

Monroe struggled to his feet with the help of two bikers, his face blotchy with fury. “You kill him, then you kill all your siblings. I will have no use for Scout or Piper.”

“I know. Death is preferable to life in a cage,” Kate said. “This has to end here.”

“Kate has gone mad,” Cassie whispered to Lucas.
 

“Oh really, Kate?” Piper sneered. “You wouldn’t mind if I end Scout’s miserable life right now?”

Cold metal pressed against Cassie’s head, sending a chill through her overheated body. A 9mm ratcheted ominously behind her.
 

Kate didn’t say a word, but a visible tremor ran through her arm holding the gun.

The silence was deafening. Cassie closed her eyes as Lucas gripped her hand. She felt his frustration. Half the guns were pointed at Kate. Hugo had his weapon pointed at Lucas. And apparently, Piper had hers pointed at Cassie.

Bang!

Cassie couldn’t breathe as she watched Kate’s face crumple in anguish and her gun hand drop from Devlin’s temple.
Who got shot? Who got shot?
Lucas was still holding her hand.
Was it Matt?
 

“Piper!” Kate’s heart-rending wail tore through the silence after that single gunshot.

“I have no use for melodramatics and Piper has been on my last nerve,” Monroe declared with disdain. “I guess that answers whether Kate was bluffing. Let’s wrap this up. We’ve delayed enough.”

Cassie finally turned around, looking at Piper’s fallen form. Monroe had shot her through the side of the head. In Cassie’s own shock at the turn of events, she nearly missed the cues Matt was communicating to her. He was sitting against the van’s tire, but he was alert and his hand signals were telling her to hit the deck. Like right fucking now!

Monroe, who had turned the gun on Matt, stiffened as he picked up on her brother’s warning.

Cassie whirled and put herself between Hugo and Lucas, praying she was still indispensable, before dragging her twin to the pavement.
 

Gunfire exploded.
 

Monroe and Hugo went down first.

The rest of the bikers started firing toward the Crowder General Store.

Lucas crawled on top of her, shielding her with his huge body. The firefight didn’t last very long, probably less than a minute. When the last shot was fired, Cassie raised her head to look around.
 

Most of the bikers were dead, while some on the ground were groaning.

There was a sound of sirens in the distance and an approaching chopper.

If the cops were just on their way, who the hell had saved them?

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

As Trent broke cover from John’s store, he let the ice melt away from his raw, pulsing fear. Residual adrenaline sent his heart racing as he shortened the distance separating him from the woman who was his life.
 

Though his eyes were focused on Cassie, he was still alert to possible dangers lurking around. Cassie got up from the ground with a little tug from Lucas. Her eyes surveyed the carnage around her before looking around. Searching. Inquiring.
 

Their eyes met. She bent forward in relief, hands on her thighs, and exhaled a short, disbelieving laugh. Then she straightened, glancing heavenward and shaking her head before their eyes locked again. By then he had reached her, and she threw her arms around him. Trent pulled her in tight, as though trying to fuse their bodies together, before kissing her fiercely and letting loose all the desperation he had bottled up inside. Nothing and no one else existed at the moment.

Even when the sirens were upon them, he continued to kiss her. Drinking her in. It had been the longest damned forty minutes of his life.

He felt Cassie push away from him at the same time he heard a clearing of the throat.

“Sheriff?” It was Frank who had arrived with the cavalry. He saw Brooks turn over some of the collected firearms to the other deputies converging on the scene. Lucas and the other mechanics had aided in sifting through the dead or injured bikers to retrieve their weapons. They stood back now so as not to alarm Trent’s men.
 

“How do we want to process this?”

Trent held up a forefinger, signaling Frank to give him a minute.
 

“Are you okay?” he asked Cassie, stroking her swelling cheek. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”

“I’m sore all over,” she admitted. “But nothing is broken.”

He had the urge to strip her down himself and do a body check. An EMT was already working on Matt, and another was treating the mechanic who had been shot and who, fortunately, was alive.

“Can you do me a favor and have them look you over after they’re done with Matt?”
 

“I’m not going to a hospital.” It was more a statement than a question.

Trent sighed. “We’ll see. I’ll feel better if you do.”

“How did you get here so quickly? The lines were down.”
 

“I’ll fill you in later, babe,” Trent told her gently. He looked around him as he counted almost five squad cars with all lights flashing. His men were already herding the crowd that was forming. “I need to get the situation under control.”

He kissed her forehead and gave her another hug before facing the long day ahead.

The FBI arrived within the hour; the ATF and DEA were not far behind. He’d heard the rumblings of drug vendetta and Mexican cartel from his deputies as they helped the fed investigators document the scene. The tractor trailer supported this theory as it contained what looked like a makeshift laboratory. A
meth
lab, one of his men surmised, but Trent knew better. It was all he could do to contain his rage when he spied the titanium cage at the rear of the trailer. It didn’t make sense to anyone, but to him it did. It was a cage meant to hold Cassie. Trent wasn’t a religious man, but today he had prayed like he never had before. He’d begged God and whatever higher power to get him to Misty Grove in time, and he thanked God again that he did.