“Let’s give the man a prize,” I said through a smile. Moving around him quickly as I jumped over to the side of the pathway, I kept my footprints away from anything that could mess this up.
“I don’t know, Drew. The place looks pretty untouchedto me. There’s fuck all around here. Not even the tracks of their bikes. This place hasn’t been touched for weeks.”
“Dust marks travel into places dust shouldn’t go,” I muttered over to him, keeping my eyes on the cabin up ahead as my feet hit the dry grass at the edge of the woodland that framed this place.
Slater’s voice fell someway behind me, and I could hear him mumbling something that sounded a lot like me thinking like the old Drew he’d once known, but I pushed it to the back of my mind and kept advancing forward. As much as the old Drew Tucker was still alive and well, he was the poster child for my youth, and the man now in charge was the one that was really holding the reins.
My legs crossed over one another as I moved forward, the twigs under my feet creaking and groaning as the soles of my heavy boots proved too much for them to handle. A loud crashing sound followed by the scurrying of feet quickly had the two of us freezing in place, hands reaching to the backs of our belts for our guns.
“Fuck!” Slater blew out as we both watched a coyote run out from behind the back of the building, two empty crates crashing and rolling over the ground as it sped away like it knew the devil’s children had arrived.
“Coyote,” I blew out in a breath.
“I hate those bastards.”
“Rather them than an Emp.”
“I wouldn’t feel so bad about shooting an Emp.”
Closing my eyes, I couldn’t help but smile and shake my head. The tension was mounting, making my chest tighter and that ball of something in my stomach even more prominent. Irolled my shoulders in my cut, readjusting the leather around me and using it as some kind of security blanket as I opened them up again and continued to stalk closer.
When we eventually made it to the double doors and I saw there were only two locks holding the storage unit closed, I reached back around into the waistband of my jeans and pulled out myGlock, giving Slater a quick wink before I took aim and fired them off. The sound of shots filled the air, my shoulders flinching back and the muscles in my arms tensing to stay firm and enjoy the messed up vibrations that rang through my bones.
Sparks flew off the metal until I knew twe were in, and I pushed up off my feet, flinging both doors open with an almighty shove as the old wood groaned against the ground.
I should have known their resistance meant something was wrong. I should have faltered when I saw just how easy it was to break in, but I didn’t. Before I could fully register what I was seeing and the fact that two lines of wire ran from the handles on the door, into something in the middle of the garage, the triggers had snapped and the shots were fired.
Slater’s shout filled the air as much as the blast did. The only thing I could do was try to duck out of the way before anything hit, but it was too late. The bullet whizzed past my ear, catching the edge and sending a jolt of fire down one side of my face as the deafening noise made me temporarily numb to everything.
“Drew!” Slater called out, skidding over to me once he’d pushed the doors out of the way.
Both hands flew up to cup my ear, my mouth set in a tight line and my face creased with pain as I hissed and cursed at the world that was suddenly ringing really damn loudly. “Fuck!”
“Shit, brother. Shit!”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
“Talk to me. You okay? “
“Yeah,” I croaked.
“Let me see it.”
“The fuck was that?”
Slater pulled my hands away first, and I felt the small trickle of blood pour onto the creases of my lobe before dripping down onto my neck.
“You don’t want to know,” he muttered, brushing his thumb over the blood to wash it away. “How bad does it feel?”
Tipping my head to the side, I shook it slightly, watching as little droplets of red hit the dust covered ground. “Not too bad,” I lied. “Just skimmed the top.”
“You lucky bastard.”
“Yeah, I’ve always wanted a chunk of my fucking ear taken out.”
Turning back to look inside at what I’d already seen a glimpse of, I inhaled slowly, my nostrils flaring as the realization that I’d walked straight into a fucking trap started to sink in. When we both stood in the doorway of the place that once held the life and soul of our rival’s beating heart, my lip curled up in anger and my hand flexed around my weapon.
Because as sure as I was the scum of the earth, there sat a single bike on a platform, two guns strapped to the handles, wired all the way to the front door.
