The bikers broke formation and soared towards the building, whipping out pistols and firing a few warning shots. Nobody fired directly at the building – they recognized the unknown on possible hostages.
Returning gunfire matched our efforts, and one of ours was knocked from his bike as we made it to the farmhouse. All around me, bikers dismounted and took tactical positions along the porch.
“Possible abductees. Known two, maybe more,” Hunter hissed quietly, before issuing brief objective reminders. “Shoot to kill. Save the girls if you can. Scour the house. Watch your six, and move in pairs.”
Everyone gave a rapid-fire nod.
He gave the order. “Dragons, move!”
The men immediately followed the commands, forming pairs that moved in all directions. The majority of the bikers descended into the house, kicking open the front door as Hunter hung back with me.
We remained crouched by the front steps as he quietly hissed to me: “We’ve got to get to that fence. The men will run distraction and back us up from doorways and windows as we make our approach. You ready and armed?”
I nodded, brandishing my glock.
“Good. Follow my lead. Stay behind me.”
Keeping low, he crept around the side of the house, following the first pair that slid around the side. We heard the sounds of gunfire from ahead, and spotted them crouched near the far corner.
Just when I was starting to wonder if there were any hostiles inside the house, gunfire began to rain on the other side of the wall. I heard shouts and screams and I could only hope that it wasn’t our side taking the brunt of things.
“What’s the scope?” Hunter hissed to one of the two bikers hiding behind the corner ahead of us. They were crouched in preparation – one held a shotgun up, while the other was quietly wielding a pistol.
“Two trucks and a van. Can’t see anything else… didn’t get a good look, but they’re being guarded by a few–”
Bullets fired out again, but they weren’t aimed our way. Instead, the sound of breaking and splintering wood panels told me that they were aiming straight ahead at the house.
Before Hunter could spot the danger that I was putting myself in, I took the risk of peeking out from cover…
I spotted the formations of visible cartel members. There were six in total… I ducked back behind cover, and a few bullets whizzed into the dirt near us.
“What did you see?” Hunter demanded.
“We’ve got half a dozen guarding the van,” I explained. “Three on offense, three on defense. Defense is clustered by the van – that’s where the girls are. They’re firing potshots at the house…”
Another few bullets fired off, mostly aimed at the other corner. We heard shouting and returned fire, but no anguished screams from our side.
“…And the three on offense are attacking the windows and back door. They’ve got the advantage, and we’ve gotta do something fast, or…”
Another hail of bullets fired out, and we retreated a few crouched strides backwards.
“I don’t know if this is such a good place for a woman!” One of the bikers hissed to us. “Why did we bring her? She’s just going to get hurt!”
Something inside me snapped.
I leant forward around the cover, already aiming down the barrel of the gun. One of the cartel members stumbled in dirt, stepping clearly into view. He looked me square in the eyes and fumbled to lift his rifle…
BANG!
With one good, clean shot, I let off a bullet that immediately dropped him to the ground.
A few of the others rushed over to fire bullets against our corner of the house, but we retreated backwards. The pistol biker dropped to a knee in front, hugging his shoulder against the wall as he prepared to defend against anyone who rounded the corner…
The enemy chose to hold their ground, turning most of their attention to the other bikers, who saw their chance to return fire from multiple vantage points.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” Hunter demanded, cupping his hand beneath my chin and sharply turning my head. “What if you took a bullet? This isn’t the time for stupid fucking theatrics like that!”
“I saw a chance, and I took it,” I retorted.
He gazed into my eyes. His stare was filled with a mixture of dominating anger, and the very real fear over losing me.
“Be more careful,” he warned me, allowing defeat to cloud his features. “Swallow your pride. Don’t you dare let proving someone wrong get you killed.”
I nodded, accepting his words.
Hunter let go of my chin. Checking the chambers of his pistol, he crept in front of the kneeling biker.
“Alright… we don’t have a lot of time here… we’d better mount an assault, and fast…”
We heard more bullets inside the house, and then a conspicuous lack of gunfire. Hunter and I shared a quick look before a biker rounded the back corner and called out to us in a hushed voice.
“The house is clear, boss! We sure showed those fuckers, eh?”
A fresh round of bullets hitting the dirt up in front told us that the battle, while swaying in our favor, was far from over.
“Okay.” Hunter, weighing his options, finally decided on a clear course of action. He nodded to each of his nearby men in kind. “Victor, Ricochet, defend this corner. Sarah and I are going to mount an offense from the front.”
The two bikers nodded.
“Good shooting,” Ricochet quickly threw in, nodding at my pistol.
“Top shot in the academy… You should have seen how pissed the boys were.”
“I don’t doubt it,” he smirked, turning his attention forward, loading a pair of fresh slugs into his shotgun. “Keep the boss alive, and let’s bring these girls back home.”
“Yessir,” I replied, turning and rising to a lowered gallop behind Hunter.
We circled back to our original position and crept into the house. A biker defending the front door escorted us forward, gun at the ready in case those further inside had missed someone.
The house was pitch-black. He led us via flashlight, guiding us around or over a few stray corpses as we crossed through a couple of rooms and over to the stairs.
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“Up or down?” He asked.
“Up,” Hunter replied immediately. “Better for us to strike from the high ground.”
The biker handed us the flashlight and felt the wall, sliding around a corner to attack the outside forces from a ground-floor window.
Gunfire continued from outside, returned from his men defending strategic assault positions. Hunter led me upstairs, greeting one of his men who laid in wait in the darkness at the top.
It was Grizz, motionless in the shadows with a pair of pistols at the ready.
“Continue defending this point… I don’t want anyone sneaking up after us,” Hunter ordered him, and the burly biker nodded silently, his eyes focused dead center down the stairs.
Hunter flicked off the flashlight as we came in view of the upper floor windows, gazing out over the dirt. A couple of bikers were reloading weapons as we approached, both crouched low on the floor.
“Skid, what’s going on out there,” Hunter requested.
The younger biker of the two glanced our way, his fingers pushing bullets into his revolver chambers. “We’ve downed a few of them, but a couple more climbed out from the van. A couple of the fuckers were hiding in the truck, too.”
“What about the girls?”
“If they’re here, they’re in that van,” he replied, flicking his revolver closed and giving the chambers a quick spin. “We’re going to have to kill ‘em to get down there, though. We keep picking these bastards off, but they ain’t surrendering.”
“Damn,” Hunter hissed. “I knew they weren’t the white flag type… these assholes are going to return fire down to the last man…”
Gunfire hit the wall near us and all of us instinctively hit the floor.
We heard a shriek from outside as another couple of cartel members dropped to the ground, and slowly climbed up to the window.
More gunfire forced us to retreat.
It sounded like they were assaulting every defensive point at once, firing everywhere that they knew held one of our people.
“They’re staggering their fire,” Hunter realized aloud. “They’re distracting us, keeping us out of position … which means… oh, fuck, we’ve got to get down there and–”