A sound like rushin’ wind roared nearby, overtakin’ our laughter.
There was a squeal of tires as disturbin’ as a pig at its own slaughter outside the clubhouse and then a horrible thwunk as somethin’ heavy dropped to the pavement.
We were on our feet in an instant.
“Stay here,” Z barked to the women as he, Lion, and me filed after one another to the front door, hands on our weapons.
“Watch ’em,” Zeus ordered Priest as the rest of us pushed through the front door out onto the lot.
There wasn’t much out there but long, liquid shadows and the bright yellow splotches of light spillin’ down from the motion sensor prompted spotlights.
But we could see it.
A body layin’ in a pool of black that looked like leakin’ motor oil in the night.
We knew it was blood before we even got close.
We didn’t know who it was or if he was alive until we loomed over him.
“Fuck!” Zeus bellowed as he dropped to a crouch beside our beaten prospect, Ransom, and checked for his pulse.
There was blood everywhere, bubblin’ up from a stab wound in his side, crusted over his entire face, and still leakin’ from the multitude of abrasions and splits in his swollen flesh from landed punches and the cutting edge of brass knuckles.
He was fucked up so badly, if we hadn’t known the kid so well, the short pelt of dark hair, the long, hawkish nose, and the tattoo of a ram on the inside of his bicep, we wouldn’t have been able to identify him.
“Easy,” Bat ordered as he and Lion started to lift Ransom who let out a gurgled moan. “Easy, brother. We got you.”
The seventeen-year-old prospect groaned again then seemed to pass out as we lugged him into the clubhouse. The girls were huddled in a corner with Priest standin’ before them, two guns trained at the door, the dead look in his eye said he’d kill the entire population of Entrance if they tried to enter with the intention of harm.
“Oh, my God, no,” Loulou gasped as they watched us carefully carry the kid to a pool table.
Lila and H.R. hopped up immediately. My girl grabbed a blanket off the couch and rushed over to lay it out before we placed Ransom on the felt, and Harleigh Rose ducked behind the bar to grab the first aid kit.
“I got this,” she told us with absolute authority as she swept me aside and opened the kit on the side of the table. “Li, go get me some hot water and clean cloth, yeah?”
Lila nodded, dashin’ off before H.R. was even finished speakin’.
“What the fuck?” I muttered as I noticed somethin’ peekin’ out from under Ransom’s back. “Hey, help me roll him a bit.”
Bat appeared beside me, and together we lifted him enough for me to see what it was.
A sheet of blood-drenched paper was nailed to Ransom’s back through his plain black prospect’s cut.
* * *
Spy on me again, and I’ll start felling The Fallen one by one.
Xx,
Irina
* * *
After readin’ the script aloud, I looked up at the pale faces surroundin’ our fallen prospect, each one of them impassioned with fury and grief.
No one fucked with ours and got away with it.
Fuckin’ no one.
Violence radiated off of Zeus from beside me. He looked forty feet tall under the low ceilin’ of the clubhouse, big as some kinda mythical beast and just as fuckin’ scary.
The sight of him so filled with wrath only roused the same beast within me, an alpha wolf howlin’ to his brethren. I felt it stir, yawnin’ wide, sharp jaws open in preparation to stir, hunt, and fuckin’ ravage whoever did this to our guy.
“Call up the chapter,” Zeus said, his words rumblin’ like thunder through the quiet room. “Church starts in thirty minutes, and everyone better fuckin’ be there.”
“Good, now unless you’re going to help me, back off,” Harleigh Rose ordered as her deft hands flew over Ransom’s wrecked form. “I need to stop the bleeding now.”
“Can we take him to the hospital?” Loulou asked, lookin’ pale as she reached down to hold Ransom’s hand, comfortin’ him even though he was unconscious.
“We should,” Lion cut in, his cop instinct’s kickin’ in. “There’s no way The Fallen could feel any fallout from the cops ’cause one of your own men got jumped, and he needs serious attention. Let Rosie and I take him in, get him settled, and you can coral the troops to visit in the morning.”
“It is the mornin’,” I said as I caught sight of a flashin’ light out the window and went to investigate. “And the cops’re already here.”
LILA
I didn’t notice her right away.
I would later wish I had.
There were cops crawling all over The Fallen compound, a search warrant in their possession that allowed them to do so because they had reasonable cause to believe the club had kidnapped or was harbouring two local women who had gone missing in the last two weeks.