The gunfire pauses, just long enough to warn me of something worse — I hear heavy boots. Multiple. Spreading. Flanking.
In seconds, they’ll be over the bar and we’ll be dead, or wishing we were. I inhale once, sharp and fast, then reach under the bar to where I keep my insurance policy. My fingers close around cold metal, and my shotgun comes out like an old friend.
Evan’s eyes flick to it, then to me. Even bleeding, even pale, he looks at me like I’m a goddamn miracle.
“Jesus,” he mutters. “You keep a twelve-gauge under the bar?”
“It’s Oregon,” I hiss. “We keep firearms next to the napkins.”
I shove shells into the shotgun with hands that don’t shake. This clubhouse is my castle, my home, and these assholes won’t take it from me without a fight. A shadow moves beyond the bar’s edge. Someone crouched low, trying to creep up on the margins. I rise just enough to sight over the counter and fire.
The shotgun booms. The recoil rocks into my shoulder. The blast sends the man scrabbling backward and a cloud of red misting the wall behind him.
“Just try me, assholes!” I shout, before I fire again two more times, each time aiming towards an asshole who thinks his cut and his gun give him the right to encroach on my space. Fuck them and their entitlement.
Their answering booms send me ducking while shrapnel rains down on me and the air fills with the smell of gunfire.
Evan laughs, a harsh, broken sound. “Goddamn.”
“Not the time for admiration, though I do fucking deserve it,” I snap, shoving more shells into the chamber. “Where’s your gun?”
He shifts, reaches behind his back, and, while grunting in pain, draws a pistol from the back of his jeans. “Got it.”
“How bad are you hurt?” I say. I punctuate my sentence by rising a moment and sending a booming retort toward the Sons.
“Shoulder. Through-and-through, I think. I’ll be fine.” His words are reassuring, but the blood that keeps streaming from his shoulder is anything but. My throat tightens. I do not let myself look at his face too long, because if I do, something in me will crack and the resolve I feel right now will break; I’ll probably go soft, try to talk emotions with Evan, and die with my lips locked to his.
Fuck him and his handsome, self-sacrificing face.
Motion moves in my peripherals. On the left side. And the right. They’re going to rush.
I duck lower, press my back to the hardwood counter, and force my voice steady. “They’re gonna storm us.”
Evan’s eyes track the bar’s ends. “Yeah.”
“You ready? We’re going to have to hold them off. Hope the Devils can get here in time.”
“Ain’t got no fucking choice,” Evan says. He shifts, readying his weapon.
I catch a glimpse of Midnight in one of the broken shards of mirror still clinging to the wall behind the bar. He’s smiling, watching like he’s enjoying the show.
Evan sees him too. His face goes dark.
“I want him,” Evan says.
“You’re bleeding out.”
“I’m fine.”
“If you say ‘I’m fine’ again, I’m going to shoot you myself.”
He actually grins, pained. “Bossy. It’s kind of hot.”
“Damn right. To both counts.”
“I want you to cover me.”
“Cover you? So you can fucking run out there?”
