With Conrad’s face inches from mine, I don’t know whether to feel spooked or disgusted. I want to spit on him, but he’ll probably pull a lecherous face and explode in his pants from being spat on by a woman.
Vile creature.
“I think it’s time to take mommy and baby home.”
“And where is home?” I question. “Pardon me for being honest, but I assumed it was here with the rats.”
“A woman as beautiful as you doesn’t deserve to live among rats.”
No, but it’d be much more pleasant.
I flinch as his ice-cold finger strokes my chin.
And flinch again at the sound of a gunshot.
It rips through the warehouse like a firework, leaving behind an echo and a ringing in my ear. Before I can catch my breath, a second bullet is fired.
And that starts a chain reaction of many more.
Conrad disappears, leaving me alone in the shipping container.
And this is arguably even more torturous than before. Because now I’m in here, trapped, going insane thinking about who’s holding the guns and who’s dying.
21
SKIPPER
They breed like cane toads,hopping from every direction toward us. We filter into the warehouse with guns and knives, aiming blindly at opponents since our eyes haven’t yet adjusted.
After a few minutes of firing bullets and dodging others, I eventually begin to see. The warehouse is how I imagine black holes in space to look—no end in sight, producing nothing but destruction.
“I see him,” Vex shouts between shots.
I turn my head and see Carter barreling over to Otis. He cuts through the ropes that bind him to the chair, picks the small child up and hauls him over his shoulder, making for the exit.
He moves two steps.
And then comes into contact with a masked O’Neill.
Carter plummets to the ground, and his opponent takes the boy back over to his chair. He’s far enough away for the bullets to not hit him. For now.
Anger rushes through my veins. The O’Neills are well and truly psycho. To sit a two-year-old boy down in the face of a gun fight, you have to be dead inside.
I lower my gun and chamber a round of bullets, preparing for the massacre.
Watching Carmen walk into the warehouse earlier was more painful than receiving a bullet wound. She was screaming Otis’s name, and all I wanted to do was hurl in and save the pair of them.
I got as far as the barbed wire when three O’Neill men obstructed my path, each holding a gun. They didn’t shoot. They didn’t get time to. I slipped the butcher knife from my pocket and thrust it straight into the middle one’s heart.
Vex and Carter took care of the other two.
Wiping my blade clean afterward in the grass, I realized something huge—how much I enjoyed that. I’ve killed over the years, but that was always for someone else. It was duty, part of the job that came with being an outlaw biker.
But earlier tonight, I discovered a new passion.
It feels good to kill in order to save someone you love. Someone worth sticking around for. Someone who’s profound enough in your life to make confronting the demons worth it.
I hear them now in my head, questioning why I’m doing this.
