And he smiles.
Heat exploded in my back, radiating through my shoulder, followed by the mind-numbing pain as the bullet connected with bone, tearing through the front of my shoulder. I’d been shot before, but it’s not a feeling you can get used to. Tiny grenades tearing through your skin and muscles then exploding once it’s sunk deep enough inside of you. Every nerve in my spine jumped and my arms contorted, steering the bike sideways, causing it to swerve all over the road. “FUUUUUUUUCCCCKKKKK” I screamed through my teeth while white-knuckling the handlebars, righting my bike just seconds before my front tire was about to dip into the ditch lining the side of the road. Grass and dirt fanned out from under my tires, mud rained down on top of me as my tires again took purchase of the road.
With bullets still whizzing around my head it took everything I had to keep the bike straight and keep up my speed. Just a few small ticks on the speedometer in the downward direction and I was a dead man.
I may not have been wearing a cut, but I wasn’t some bitch, I was running toward Thia, not running for my life.
I slammed on the breaks, spinning my bike around to face the bitches who were coming at me full speed. Tank and Cash. Two brothers I’d personally recruited as prospects.
Ungrateful motherfuckers.
Two brothers who were also about to learn the hard way that just because I wasn’t wearing my cut didn’t mean that I was weak.
Or that I forgot how to pull a motherfucking trigger.
My bike continued to spin as I lifted my hands off the handlebars and pulled both guns from my shoulder holsters. Pain ripped through my back at my sudden movement, but my aim was steady.
I enjoyed the look of shock on those motherfucker’s faces as they barreled toward me and I began firing. Cash went down first, his bike turning on its side as I put two in his chest. Tank followed, flipping over his handlebars after I put one through his right cheek.
My bike spun out of control, but it looked like it was the world around me spinning instead of me. Orange groves circled me and so did the smell of something rotting. I careened off the side of the road, smashing into the ditch I’d managed to avoid only minutes earlier. I sailed over my bike, flying through the air, smiling.
I might have been going out, but at least I was going out knowing that I took those two motherfuckers with me.
My last thought before I hit the ground was of a girl with pink hair.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Thia
Mr. Carson had wobbled away on his own accord and I ran into the orange grove before he could remember he had a gun of his own. I was disgusted with what I’d done, and even more disgusted with the fact that I didn’t regret it.
When my lungs burned and I couldn’t run any more I dropped down to my knees. “I’m so sorry, Dad. I’m so sorry I couldn’t save all this for you. For us. But most of all I’m so sorry I couldn’t save you,” I said into the trees. The leaves around me rustled with the wind, every so often I heard the THUD of a falling orange.
I briefly contemplated burning it all to the ground, going as far as picking a leaf off a nearby tree to test how dry it was and how fast it would burn when the ground beneath me rattled, little bits of foliage and loose chunks of dirt jumped around my knees.
I’d lived in Florida my entire life, and we’d never had an earthquake before.
Was an earthquake even possible?
A rumbling sound started in the distance and I stood up in a panic, preparing myself for the earth to shift. The rumble grew louder and louder and my heart beat faster and faster, every muscle in my body tensed as the seconds ticked by, slowly filling the silence.
It was a sound you felt before you heard. A rumble that grew louder and vibrated in your bones.
An earthquake on two wheels.
A motorcycle. And from the sound of it, maybe more than one.
Bear.
He’d come for me.
Don’t be stupid, Thia. Millions of people ride motorcycles besides him, it’s not him.
But it could be the MC.
And then…BOOM.
An explosion so loud my hair blew into the wind like a bomb had gone off.
A burst of bright orange light flew into the night followed by the contrast of billowing grey smoke against the cloudless black sky.
I was running toward the explosion before I could talk myself out of it, reaching the road in less than a minute.