I take aim and shoot one off his throne. He tumbles into the dirt, holding his chest. After that, I run.
Rowan manages to stay on the calm side. I, on the other hand, have found a covered area I can hide near.
I close my eyes.
I don’t want to see any of this. I don’t want to be here for this. What if I lose Rowan? This is exactly why I wanted to go back to Pennsylvania.
When I open my eyes again, Rowan is standing over me. “It’s okay now. They’re dead,” he says.
“Who the fuck was that?” I ask, shaking.
“An ambush,” Jeffco says. “We need to move. Now.”
“Hunters,” Rowan says. “We need to get out of here, and we need to do it fast.”
We run down to the camp. “Let’s take the bikes instead,” Iago says. “We’ll be better able that way. If we get ambushed again, it’ll be easier to escape.”
“Good thinking,” Rowan says, grabbing a bike.
But I’m just standing in the darkness.
I’m horrified.
I’m not sure I can take another day of this. We need to find the Hell Squadron.
We need help.
25
Rowan
Tonight has been one hell of a ride, but I can tell Caroline is a bit shaken up. The only thing I can do is try and make things easier for her.
She shouldn’t have come. It was a bad idea, right from the start. But when a woman insists, you eventually just have to acquiesce and let her have her way.
“Hop on,” I tell her, revving the engine.
It’s been too long since I’ve been on a bike of this caliber. This one is fairly new. Poor guy. He lost a beauty. Now she’s mine. I can’t wait to gut it for the parts.
Caroline places her hands around my abs, and we take off into the distance.
Along the horizon is a sliver of the sun’s orange beauty. After a few miles of driving in it, we cut into the highway, and we roll full speed ahead, wind slapping against our faces.
There’s no talking anymore, just driving. Iago knows the general direction we need to go, and that’s enough for me.
Not too far ahead, we stop at a roadside bar. Jeffco looks at the wooden sign that reads: “The Holy Trinity.”
“What is this place?” he asks.
“The Hell Squadron stays in one area at a time, moving every couple of months or so,” Iago says. “The best we can do is ask around. Last I heard, they were nearby. Someone here ought to know.”
We walk in and all eyes turn to us. The music shuts off. We’ve got some balls walking in here with our gang symbols posted on our bodies.
Everyone knows who we are. There aren’t any Hunter-affiliated people. If there were, we’d be dead.
“Four whiskeys,” Iago says to the bartender.
“Ya’ll from around here?” he asks him, while he pours. His gaze and pour are both very steady.