The night began with a simple enough plan.
A noticeable but overall group of us would come in from the north, the equivalent of appearing to make a bull rush. On its own, it would have looked stupid, and that was the point. Up to this moment in our history with the Bandits, we’d fought with ego and stupidity leading the way; in some respects, that almost played into our favor.
But on this night, with the guidance of club veterans like Lane and actual military veterans like Patriot and Axle, our attack to the north would merely serve as the run-up to something much more savage.
A pincer attack from the south.
Such a route required an extraordinarily long drive to circle back around, for there weren’t a lot of good side roads to choose from. But this was the destruction and annihilation of the Bandits that we were talking about; we would have driven to Peru to make this happen if necessary.
The plan, once we closed in, was simple. To shock and overwhelm. Ideally, this would not be a battle of attrition, but of annihilation. While we were all more than willing to sacrifice our lives if that was what it took to destroy the Bandits, we would have preferred to live for what we had left.
And fortunately, the first casualty of the night was not one of our own, but a fucking Bandit.
The first man to fall was a Bandit who stood on the road outside the NME Services office. It looked like, from afar, that they had essentially swarmed the place with a multitude of bikes and tried to force everyone out by intimidation. In some respects, it was fortunate that it appeared there were no office fatalities, but it was also kind of smart on their part—the less human life they took, the less urgent the rush would be to help.
And in a tiny town like this, even with some proximity to Albuquerque, people were generally left to their own devices. Even the death of Sheriff Davis had not brought about the wrath of the state and federal forces like we thought it would. It was, as usual, up to us to deliver some twisted form of justice.
The Bandit had probably seen those of us on bikes approaching from the north, but he couldn’t have anticipated those of us sneaking up from the south, having taken an enormously long roundabout way for a pincer attack. I landed a clean bullet to his skull, dropping him dead where he stood.
It was likely to be the easiest shot I’d have all night. The rest were bound to be a hell of a lot messier, uglier, and more dangerous.
And sure enough, as soon as I pulled up, the whole place became like a fucking hornet’s nest with an endless spawning of Bandits. There were far more than I could have ever anticipated, even having made a run at their neighborhood before. The only good news was that because we had surprised them, we managed to find cover behind vehicles and other obstacles at the parking lot of the building but getting to the entrance was going to prove enormously difficult.
Within minutes, the fog of battle started to descend. I’d experienced it before and knew it would come, but that didn’t make it any easier. All around me, men roared in anger, screamed in pain, and went silent in death. That went for both sides—the Bandits fell quickly, but our own men got hit and fell too. Two prospects were bleeding out on the ground. Connor had taken a shot to the shoulder. Brock had gotten struck in one of his arms. Even Butch looked to be limping when he moved, but his face gave away nothing.
“Shit’s just as bad as when we came after Lucius,” Axle said, “if not worse.”
I had no idea who the fuck Lucius was, and I really couldn’t concern myself with such fucking matters right now.
“At least those bastards were on their last legs. Seems like here they’re trying to draw us in so they can mow us down.”
“So it’s a fucking trap?”
Axle shook his head.
“Difference between an enemy down to its last stand and an enemy that wants to put you on your last stand,” he said. “I suspect these assholes are like the Saints. Kill the head, the body dies.”
Kill Eduardo.
Get Rachel back.
That’s all that fucking matters.
“Axle,” I growled, “we gotta get inside that fucking building and rescue Rachel. The rest of these fucks don’t matter. We kill Eduardo and get her.”
“Easier said than done,” he shot back.
He tried peeking over the edge and got a few seconds of viewing before gunfire made him take cover.
“You know what you’ve got to do, right?” he said.
I nodded, knowing what was coming before he even said it.
“Just like we trained,” I said. “You move, I cover.”
I’d get my chance to move soon enough. And besides, it wasn’t like we’d trained any other way.
I raised my gun over the clearing, laid down fire at the nearest round of Bandits, and gave Axle the chance to keep on moving. He got to his spot behind a shot-up van and laid down fire, waving me down. I took note of the opportunity and hurried over.
