I came up empty handed at the first place, a run down dump just a few blocks from the Heel. The ratty looking bastard at the front desk told me nobody named Summer Olivers ever checked in.
Second motel, a strong runner up for cheapest shit stack in town, turned up the same damned thing. An old, middle aged woman with a thick European accent told me there wasn't anybody with Summer's name staying there, even when I asked her twice.
What the fuck? She'd either changed her legal name – not too fuckin' likely – or somebody else had brought her here on their dime, under their name.
The hairs on the back of my neck pricked up.
If she was here, then I definitely wasn't leaving empty handed.
I'd walk the whole damned lot, crawl up on that cracked balcony, and look through every fuckin' window if I had to, just to find her.
Figuring out what the fuck was going on here wasn't just about me anymore. It might easily be club biz, too, and I never defaulted on the patch.
I'd parked my bike next to the front door. Decided to take it down the next street, put it out of sight, in case there was anybody here waiting for the Pistols with a bullet. I was rounding the corner, pulling out toward the road, when I saw the shit in the bushes.
A greasy looking sonofabitch crouched down. Hiding. A rifle in his hands, perched on his shoulder, one eye on the sights.
The laser cut straight through somebody's window. How bad did I want to bet that was Summer's?
Revving my engine told me. I didn't stop, didn't think, didn't second guess as I plowed my bike straight into the shitty crop of trees.
Fucker never saw me coming. He screamed when my front tire rolled over him. I punched the brakes, stopping me from skidding into the wall.
I jumped off, holding my arm over my mouth, fighting smoke and dirt kicked up in the air while I went for my nine. Had to kick a couple branches aside before I felt the gun on the ground.
My boot knocked it further away from fuckface, who was on his side, his leg torn to shit, looking at me.
He was holding a pair of shitty looking night vision goggles. One look at his cut told me everything I needed to know – the severed hand sewn into his side.
Our mortal enemies were here. In our own goddamned territory. Maybe aiming through my fuckin' girl's window!
“Fuck, shit, please,” he sputtered, holding a hand over his face. “Hatch is gonna –“
There wasn't time to contemplate all the fuckin' whys, and not a spare second for mercy.
My gun barked, slamming a bullet through his brain. Easy.
Finding Summer and getting her the fuck outta there before anybody else saw this shit show wasn't gonna be as simple. I stood up, dusted myself off, took one look at the window he'd been aiming for and ran.
Never bothered knocking. My boot slammed into the door and flattened it, leaving me a clear path.
I stepped in and saw – what the fuck? Summer in the corner. With a kid. Clutching him close to her chest, his little face tucked into her bosom, her hands across his ears.
“Joker?” she whimpered, her eyes going wide, as if she couldn't believe it was me.
Well, fuck. That made two of us.
Couldn't believe the fuckin' shock and awe I was seeing right in front of me. Shit that stirred up a hundred more questions than there were answers.
“Who else?” I growled, stepping into the room, coming up to her, trying to do my damnedest not to startle the kid.
“I thought we were done for,” she said, tipping her head for a second to kiss the little boy through his dark hair. “I mean, when I heard the bike, and saw him go down, I expected it to be one more of them. I need to –“
“Babe, you're gonna shut your fuckin' mouth right now, is what you're gonna do.”
Boom. Lips sealed. Still just as sweet and biteable as ever before, but fuck if they didn't make my blood boil, because I had proof right in front of me that she'd been lying about an awful lot.
Shit, what else was she hiding?
“Where are your keys? You're coming to my place. I just killed a fuckin' man out there. We've got about ten minutes, maybe less, before some jackass here phones it in and every cop in Knoxville hits us like vultures.”
She didn't dare fight. Just looked at me, stopped breathing for a second, and then closed her eyes and nodded.
“Over there.” Her little hand pointed to a big green purse over in the corner.
I walked over, ripped it up, and carried it over to her, pushing it into her free hand. “Listen, when I say go, you're gonna get in your car. Follow me every fuckin' mile like your life depends on it. Because babe, I ain't shittin', it absolutely does.”
The toe of my boot pushed against something on the floor. I looked down, saw it was a busted out screen. A shitty looking cellphone, like the kind the club used for burners, now smashed into a couple pieces.