Just as he starts to guide me into the tattoo parlor, a loud motor revs, drawing my attention.
It all seems to happen in slow motion.
I see the guy on the motorcycle seconds before I notice the gun in his hand, or hear the loud boom that echoes off the walls of the alley. My heartbeat drums in my ears as I feel myself falling, realizing belatedly that Axle has just shoved me down.
He comes down on top of me as an unbidden cry leaves my lips, forced out of me from the pain shooting through my hands and knees. His heavy weight pins me down as loud gunfire deafens me, sounding too close to my ears.
The guy on the motorcycle jerks, his gun falling as more gunfire registers. It takes me a second to piece together the fact he’s being shot.
He falls off the bike, obviously dead by now, but they don’t stop shooting. I don’t even know who they are, other than Axle, who is shooting his damn gun right above me, his body still pinning mine down.
All at once, the gunfire stops, or at least I think it does. My ears are ringing from being too close to the action in such a closed off area, so I could just be momentarily deaf.
It feels like a mountain lifts off my back when Axle pushes up to his feet. Air rushes into me as I take a big, much needed breath, and roll onto my back, wincing when I feel a sharp pain in my side.
Axle bends, his face hard and his jaw tight, as he grabs me under the arms and lifts me to my feet. As soon as I’m standing, his eyes rake over me in quiet appraisal, as the flurry of footsteps racing around dimly register to my temporarily impaired hearing.
I hiss out a breath of pain when his hand touches a tender spot on my face. Sheesh. I’m going to need to take inventory, but at least there aren’t any bullet holes in me.
That has me patting down my body and looking at my side that hurts. I breathe out in relief to see my shirt is just torn and the abrasions are left behind from the pavement and not a bullet.
“Just superficial stuff,” I tell Axle as he bends, getting a closer look at my side.
My eyes dart to his arm, and a sick knot tightens in my belly when I see the ripped material there and the blood trickling from his shoulder.
“You were shot!”
He bats my hands away when I try to take a look, but I’m persistent. Blowing out a breath of frustration, he lets me look closer at it.
“Just a graze,” he finally says.
I look at him like he’s an idiot. Technically, it is considered a graze. But it’s a big freaking graze from a damn bullet!
“You need stitches. And some hardcore germ-killing stuff. And antibiotics—”
“You two hit?” Drex’s voice has me snapping my head to the right as he walks up, his eyes hard and lethal.
“We’re fine. Where’s Eve?” Axle asks him, his hand moving to the back of my neck like he needs to make sure I don’t plan to walk off.
“She and Drake are inside.”
They both look down the alleyway as Drex calls out, “Get that cleaned up before the cops roll in. They’ll give us ten minutes before they send a black-and-white.”
The guys at the end walk into the garage, and back out, emerging with bleach, a tarp, and some garden hoses. They begin spraying away the blood before two guys even get the body rolled into the tarp.
Another guy starts splashing around the bleach, and they continue to spray the water, cleaning away the evidence of a dead guy. But there are plenty of bullet casings to prove something happened.
My guess is that the cops don’t really ask too many questions as long as there’s not a body present.
At least that’s how it works at home. Then again, at home, we could have four bodies strung up and there’d still be no questions.
“It was Garren,” Drex tells Axle quietly.
I idly notice the Death Dealer cut they’ve pulled off the guy and tossed to the side.
“Herrin sent him on a suicide mission.” Axle’s response is just as quiet as Drex’s, and I wonder if I’m not supposed to be listening.
Hell, I’m just happy that my hearing seems to be okay again.
“Pop was just sending a message,” Drex says. His jaw clenches so hard the muscle along the jawline actually jumps.
“Yeah, and the message is that he can come at us any time.”
“Or that he’s not afraid to come after you,” I point out, then clap my lips shut when Axle shoots me a look I don’t particularly like.
“Herrin is definitely afraid,” Axle tells me. “He’s just a coward who plays like he’s fearless. It’s easy to sentence someone else to death. If he wasn’t a coward, he’d have already rolled up in here himself and opened fire.”