Hunter (Sons of Rebellion Book 2) (6 page)

Brent elbowed him in the face and then swiped his legs so that he fell down. He kicked the guy's face until his boots were splattered with blood. He didn't move after that. One down.

The four other guys turned on Brent. They jumped on him, arms swinging. There was no place for him to go. So that's how they were gonna fight, was it?

I pulled a guy back, grabbing him by his shirt collar. I threw him to the ground and kicked him right in the nuts. He curled over. Someone noticed me and grabbed me by the neck. He tried to choke me with his arm, but I rammed the back of my head into his face. He screamed and stumbled away. I turned around and jabbed my fist into his nose, breaking it and letting out a gush of blood.

Brent and I were back to back. We had each other covered. If they wanted to take us, they had to take us
both
. There was no way one of us was going down without the other. Brothers for life. That's what we swore, and no shitty Treasurer with his lackeys was going to change that.

Four against one wasn't exactly ideal, but we could manage. A fist rammed into my face. I could feel the bones breaking, dislodging and bending in my nose. I let out a yell. Before I could even get the full sound out, another fist rammed against my jaw and knocked me backward.

I fell, and there the big lug was. The guy was a giant. Must've been a foot taller than me and twice my weight. He loomed over me, smiling. I saw him raise his boot and get ready to smash it into my chest. I turned to move, but I wasn't quick enough. His foot came down, but somehow it never touched me.

When I looked up, Brent had tackled the guy. He grabbed his jacket, ripped the patch off of it, and started to punch his face until even Brent's knuckles were raw and bloody. The guy's face didn't look too good either.

After the beginning, everything was a blur. The adrenaline pumped through my veins, and things came to me only in flashes. An arm swinging out to punch me. My body swerving to dodge. The burning pain as fingers try to gouge out my eyes. The feeling of my elbow meeting flesh and crashing into bone.

One of the fucking bastards tried to break my fingers. I grabbed his head with my other hand and threw it into the ground. His skull cracked against the concrete and his body went limp.

Before I knew it, the Treasurer was on me. A gun pressed into my stomach.

"I bet you wish you had looked for another gun," he said.
 

He smiled and pushed it deep into my gut. That was all the time I needed. I grabbed his hand, pushed the gun off to the side, and slit his stomach open. He fell off of me, trying to hold his bleeding gut together.
 

"I bet you wish you didn't bring a gun to a knife fight," I said.

I looked around. It seemed like there was no one left. Their bodies littered the ground outside of the bar.

"That it?"
 

"Think so," Brent said.

I counted. One, two, three, four… Weren't there
five
of them?

TEN

ONE OF THE BIKES roared to life.

Fuck
.

There was our missing number five. He barely looked like he could hang on, but he managed to drive off before we could get to our bikes. He stuck his middle finger into the air, flipping us off until he was out of sight.

Fuck!

I kicked one of the dead guys' bikes, knocking it over. This is what I get for going along with Jase. I ran up to him and shook his shoulders.

"'Going to wipe you off the face of the earth,' huh?" I yelled. "What happened to that?"

"Hey, calm down," Jase said.

I shook him again. "We're not supposed to leave any witnesses. That guys going to go back to the Midnight Stalkers and tell them
exactly
who we are. This is all because you wanted to get drunk as fuck in some stupid bar, and –"

I fell backward. Blood coated my tongue. Jase rubbed his knuckles.

"I
said
calm down."

I spit the blood onto the ground.

"Oh yeah? Then do you have any bright ideas? The plan's fucked. We can't exactly go around surprising them if everybody knows who we are," I said.

Jase didn't say anything.

"Yeah, I thought not. Dammit, how do you always get me into shit when Slayer is not around?"

Jase pulled out his phone, but whatever he saw didn't make him happy. He looked like he was about to throw it into the woods.

"
I'll
call 'im!" I yelled.

 
I dialed his number, but no matter how many times I called, he never picked up. All I heard was the operator lady droning on and on the other end of the line.

I shoved to my phone into my pocket.

"Look," I said. "Whether he's here or not, we gotta keep going. After all this we are going to have to fast-forward. Let's get Tyson Grenadine before he gets
us
."

ELEVEN

ONCE HUNTER HAD LEFT, Jonah made me spend some quality BFF time with her. And of course that meant only one thing. TV dramas and terrible junk food.

The microwave dinged.

"Popcorn's ready!" Jona said.

She came over to the couch and plopped down beside me. The huge bowl she held in her arm smelled buttery and delicious. I dumped my hand into the greasy goodness and shoved a hand full of popcorn into my mouth. Jona jerked the bowl away.

"Hey, slow down there! We haven't even started watching the show yet," she said. "You owe me a few episodes before you head home."

"Then hurry up!" I said. "That pint of ice cream is just too tempting to be sitting there."

"All right, all right."

Jona picked up the remote and turned on the TV. Soon enough, our favorite show filled the screen.

"You never watch
Once upon a Time
with me anymore," Jona said. She munched on some popcorn kernels.

"It's been hard to get out of the house, even if I'm telling them I'm going to you."

"And they don't even know what you're
really
doing," Jona said.

My stomach sunk. Yeah. That was right.

I pushed the thought of Hunter out of my mind. I didn't want to think about him. Already, I felt my skin getting hot. I grabbed the bucket of ice cream and shoved the spoon in my mouth.

"Hey, slow down there," Jona said. "You're not starving, you know."

As the show played, I calmed down. The story kept me away from my thoughts and Jona kept me laughing. The night was gonna be okay. We were just going to have fun.

Or at least that's what I thought.
 

Belle and Gold locked lips in the next scene. He was lying to her, but she believed him because she was that kind of girl. She
trusted
him. All the while, we were screaming at the TV, telling her not to.

That was all it took. Before I knew it, hot tears were streaming down my face.

"I know you get emotional about these things, but you don't have to cry so much," Jona said.

I tried to stop them, but the tears kept coming. My face burned and it was hard to see.

"Nadia, what's wrong?"
 

Jona grabbed my shoulders and made me face her. I looked up at my best friend's face. Her eyebrows were knitted together. I was making her worry. What a great friend
I
was.

I started to cry again, burying my face in my hands.

"What's wrong?" Jona asked. "Just
tell
me!"

"I can't!" I yelled.

She grabbed my shoulders again and shook me.
 

"I've kept every secret you've ever told me since we were in elementary school. Every crush. Every time you cheated on a math test. Even that time you stole from Mrs. Wilkinson's gift shop and the whole town was wondering who did it," Jona said. "You're my best friend. What is there that could ever exist that you couldn't tell me?"

I held my breath. My hands were shaking, but I couldn't keep it to myself anymore.

"I think that Hunter killed Slick," I said.

Jona's hands dropped from my shoulders. She slumped backwards, her mouth open and her head shaking slowly from side to side. I felt like I was going to throw up.

"See! I
told
you-"

"
I
told you that no matter what it was I would keep your secret," Jona said. She paused and ran her hands through her hair. "It's just…
Uncle Slick
?"

I nodded. Somehow, hearing somebody else say it sounded even worse.

"W-why? Did he
tell
you that? How do you know?"

"No, I just… I just
know
… I
think
I know."

Jona just stared at me. Her eyes were wide, like she couldn't believe what I was saying. I didn't blame her. I wouldn't know what to do either. Hell, I
didn't
know what to do.

"You think I'm a traitor, don't you?"

"No, it's just… Nadia, you
have
to tell them," Jona said. She took my hand in hers and squeezed it tight. "You have to promise me that you're going to tell them. You can't keep doing this. You're not going to see him anymore, are you? Tell me that you're not!"

I couldn't look at her anymore. The way she looked at me was so pained, and I couldn't tell her what she wanted to hear. I pulled my hand away.

"I don't know," I said. My voice was quiet.

"What do you mean, you don't know? He could be using you. This could be a trick! He could be spying on you!"

"I don't think so."

Jonah was practically screaming. "Why not?"

"I trust him," I said.

For the first time, the tears stopped. That was the one thing I was certain of. I trusted him.

"You trust the man who killed Slick," Jona said. Anger slipped into her voice. "You trust the man who killed someone who was like family to you?"

"You wouldn't understand," I said.

Jona got off of the couch. She stood in front of me, staring down while her body shook with rage.

"I wouldn't understand? Why, because you're shacking up with him? Because you let him
fuck
you? You barely know him. What's next? Is he going to come for your brother? Your dad?
You
?"

Jona took a deep breath and clenched her fists. Then she stared deep into my eyes.

"Look, I made a promise. I said I would keep your secret. But I'm not going to help you see him again.
Stop this
. Let the Midnight Stalkers crush him like the bug he is. End it. Before something happens that you'll regret for the rest of your life."

TWELVE

(THIS SCENE HAPPENS AT the same time as chapter 11. It starts off as Slayer drops Nadia off at Jona's place.)

Nadia waved to me as I drove off. Jona stood next to her, but she didn't wave. Her arms were crossed, staring me down like she was Nadia's big brother or something. Good, she
should
be suspicious of me.
 

Nadia needed someone to look out for her when I'm not around, and Jona looked like the kind of chick who didn't give two fucks about what anyone thought. Good.

As soon as they were out of view, I switched gears. It was time to get back to business. Jase and Brent had been calling me all day like some kind of lovesick teenagers. What did they want? Couldn't they be alone for a few hours?