Jesus. This guy was seriously cracked.
Ellie was carefully not moving her head—that knife had her chin lifted, and it was close to her jugular. But she spoke up, anyway. “Brian, please put that knife away. Nobody wants anybody here to get hurt. You don’t need it. Just put it away.”
I can’t say I thought that was going to be a successful attempt at decelerating the crazy, but I’d give her points for imagination.
“Ellie, make them go away. It’s supposed to be just you and me. I told you. I told you, on the phone, just you and me. Or…or now, now I have to take that noisy baby away. Why did you lie to me, Ellie? Huh? You promised you’d come alone. Bitch!”
He wasn’t in the best position to do anything other than a fatal slash to her throat, which he obviously didn’t want to do, because instead, he used his free hand to tug away the small blanket she had draped over Peter and her shoulder, to shield them from the sun and prying eyes while she fed him.
She gasped at the movement, but it freed her just enough—and in that exact moment when McAfee’s attention was not on his knife hand—she used her free arm to push his knife-wielding wrist away from her neck as she hefted her body to angle away from him. Brian was caught off-guard, and almost tipped over onto the ground.
If that damned camping chair hadn’t been so low to the ground, Ellie might have had a shot at getting away then. But as it was, it was too deep-set, too awkward—especially with the baby in her arms—and she ended up tipping herself over, almost squashing Peter on the ground.
She caught herself before her weight crushed him, but he started squalling, and she was panicking that she had hurt him and also trying to watch Brian at the same time.
Brian self-corrected from his awkward tip and grabbed the chair-back again—like that was going to protect him—before he realized he really needed Ellie’s body to be his shield, not the chair.
He was clearly about to dive onto her and Peter, probably with the intention of rolling them on top of himself, but our secret weapon—in the form of Target, who was a veteran sniper, served duty in Afghanistan and Iraq—got him first. Thank God for Target.
McAfee was hit in the shoulder before he’d even had a chance to fly on top of Ellie, and the impact of the bullet had his body whip back a bit. Target took another shot, and McAfee was down on his back, too shocked even to make a sound.
We all came running forward at that point. Most of the guys went to secure McAfee, while me and Grath and a couple other guys headed for Ellie and the baby.
She was crying, Peter was wailing—but they were both unharmed. I was so relieved, I couldn’t do anything but put myself on the ground beside her, pick her up—while she clasped Peter—and hug the both of them in my arms, feeling their heat, and hearing their breaths. I buried my face in her hair for a minute, before I lifted my head.
Brushing loose strands of hair off her cheek, I held her eyes. “It’s over. You okay? Peter okay?”
“Yeah, I think so. I think we’re both okay.”
We sat there a minute, just breathing, before she pulled herself away from me and, focusing on Peter, started baby-talk soothing him. Grath had grabbed the baby bag and set it nearby, and she dug in for a pacifier and a clean blanket.
Bull came over with some water and granola bars for all of us, which were accepted and ingested with great appreciation.
The circle of men who secured McAfee while I had been focused on Ellie had opened up, and it was clear from his bloody and somewhat rearranged face that he’d been treated to a classic MC smackdown. Good. He deserved it.
Watching him, I thought about the hell he’d put Ellie and Peter—and me, and all the rest of us—through in the last thirty hours.
Fuck that. The man had murdered my brother. He stole that life from us. From Peter. From me. I fucking hated this motherfucker. I needed to get some payback.
“Grath!” I called out.
“’Sup?” he asked
“Make sure she does not see this.” Grath followed my eyes to McAfee, and he nodded. “On it.”
I made my way over to him, leaned low to get in his face, and said, “You remember me?”
“Yessssssss.” He was still capable of some attitude, then. Good. Gave me more to work with.
“You remember my brother?”
“Yo’…who?”
“My brother, dickwad. Big guy, bigger than you. Little smaller than me. Was friends with Ellie at that bar last year. Took you down one night, I heard. My brother.”
“That was…” And he started laughing, in that horrible nasty way that bloody fucked-up faces laugh, like death was knocking at the village gate.