It also meant that there was no need to try and fight my way past the cops on my way out of town…
Treading lightly, I slipped into the lobby corridor. A couple of bikers in the distance were panicking, so I kept a wide berth, slipped past them and firing off another blast of pepper spray in my wake before I continued on.
There was no telling where they were keeping Kate, but I wagered that I had some time before the air in here cleared up enough to give chase.
But I realized soon enough that they weren’t about to get their shit together. The panic rolling through the building wasn’t going away anytime soon. These idiots were yammering away in a blind frenzy, and it saved my ass on a few of my louder footsteps.
The train station was small. It was only five or ten minutes before I’d surveyed the area, noting where the train tracks and obstacles were while gassing out another couple of bikers in the locker rooms and barring the door with the leg of a metal chair.
As I swept the building, I found what looked to be a couple of drug labs in the back of the station. Things were in disarray, and none of these morons looked smart enough to pass ninth-grade chemistry. I almost felt bad for anyone who came to these assholes for their filthy fix.
I rounded back and found the man in charge. He was a stocky fucker with a rifle, clutching onto it like it gave him some kind of authority.
The lights were off and I was here.
I had the motherfucking authority.
“Shut the fuck up, you idiots! He’s in here somewhere!”
The man who I assumed to be the Bayou Boys biker president was barking orders in the dark, but none of his men were listening. He was a little smarter than the rest of them, but it didn’t help him now.
When I lifted the canister of bear spray to fire a stream in his direction, I swear that he turned and looked me right in the eyes.
Aw, shit.
Instinctively, I dodged before he fired a few shots in my general direction. He tried to hear where I was going, but the idiots around him were still covering my tracks with their panicking.
He tried to back away from the fog of pepper spray, but he was already positioned in a corner…
That gave me the opening to hit him again, a long stream exhausting the can as I filled the room with a noxious cloud. In his confusion, he fired a few more shot, grazing one of his boys in the shoulder.
“Jesus! Fuck!”
The Bayou Boy slumped to the wall, clutching his shoulder and cursing up a goddamn storm.
The president tried to stagger forward, gagging and coughing with his leather sleeve covering his face, but I took the chance and slipped forward.
One solid punch to the side of the head later, and the asshole dropped into the mist and didn’t get back up.
After a few minutes of scouring the building, I came across a room in the back where my old pal Mudflap was out cold on the floor. A quick glance brought a half-empty dish and a bundle of blankets in the corner to my attention.
It was pretty clear to me what had happened here, and I couldn’t have been prouder. I left the fucker to his nap as I tried to trace Kate’s footsteps. I found her behind some crates, a crowbar in her hands. Defiant to the goddamn end, I grinned.
Unfortunately, she was already coughing and trying to breathe through what was left of her tattered shirt. I came up up on her from the side and firmly grabbed the crowbar from above her hands. Surprised and defensive, she tried to rip it free, but I used my spare hand to cover her mouth.
Kate tried to bite my fingers, but when I remained persistent without making any more threatening moves, she paused.
I slowly relinquished my grip on both.
Her voice came as a whisper.
“Grizz?”
I placed a finger against her lips.
I gave her some help, pushed the crowbar back into her palm, and took her free hand. Almost all of the Bayou Boys were already cleared out of the building, but I knew that there were still a few around. I just needed to get us out the back door.
With pissed off bikers still shouting and cussing up a storm in our wake, I led us out through an old rusted exit and into the warm, humid night. With the moonlight to guide us, I led her along the warehouses and back to the bike.
“I knew you’d come,” she finally said as we reached the motorcycle.
Time was slipping away. The Bayou Boys were probably gathering out in front of the station trying to catch their breath, and it wouldn’t take them long to realize I might have gone out the back.
They were going to be pissed.
“You know, I had things under control,” she observed, climbing behind me onto my bike. “I don’t really do the damsel in distress thing. It’s not my style.”
“And I suppose you were going to take them all out with that crowbar?” I chuckled, turning the ignition.
“Grizz, you of all people should know I’m damn good with a hard rod in my hands.”
I pulled the kickstand up.
“When we get where we’re going, I’m fucking the shit out of you, and that’s all there is to it.”
“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” Kate said, her arms wrapping around me.
I revved the engine and pulled us onto the main road.
Mudflap
Let me tell you: waking up to pitch-black darkness while gagging on a cloud of pepper spray ain’t a good way to come back.
At first, I stumbled through the darkness toward the angry voices of my club outside before remembering the flashlight on my cellphone. Lighting my path forward, I knew the truth.
The bitch up and went with that fucking nomad…
Before I could continue my walk through this cloud of choking shit, something caught my ear.
The distant rumble of a Harley.
That fucker…
It’s gotta be that biker prick…
Ooh, how the blood boiled in my veins!
I turned, following the sound down the hall and past some old crates, finally bursting out into the back alley while gasping for breath. I was just in time to watch the two of them roll of into the darkness on his bike.
Fuck!
I bolted around the side of the building. If I could get to my bike I could give chase and sneak up on the asshole on the open road… I made my way across the street to the closest warehouse as fast as I could manage with my lungs burning and eyes stinging. As I came across the parking lot where we parked all our bikes, I quickly realized they weren’t going to be doing me any good. The fucker must have known we’d come after him. Every last bike was sitting on rims, the tires slashed through and destroyed.
I glanced around for an alternative, quickly s
potting Tread’s old beater car nearby.
Fucker might be expecting a bike…
I ran over to it and shattered the driver window with the butt of my gun before popping the lock and jumping inside. It had been awhile since I hotwired a car, but I knew I wouldn’t need to. Tread wasn’t much for brains, and he sure as shit kept a spare set of keys on the car. I flipped down the visor and came up empty, then threw open the glove compartment. I’d hit paydirt, pulling the keys and a small taser from the glove.
Tread, you’re too good to me. Sorry I have to take your ride, but you’ll understand.
I fired the shitbox up and noticed the tank was full. I had plenty of gas for what I needed to do. I knew where they were heading, too. Grizz would take my little bitch west, and there’s only one road headed out that way.
I tossed the taser into the cup holder and pulled out of the garage to chase my woman down.
Think you’re so smart, huh? Punk ass biker. Got another thing coming, buddy…
Didn’t matter how smart he was.
I wasn’t about to let him take her back to those bastards. She was being a little hard, but I knew that my girl would see the way things really were soon enough.
I pushed the accelerator to the floor, roaring down after them. It wasn’t long before I was on the interstate, flicking the little piece of shit cage from lane to lane to catch up. They had a couple of minutes on me, but chances were that they weren’t stopping off anywhere anytime soon…
There.
I spotted them two cars ahead, shifting lanes. Now that I knew where they were, I could hang tight and let them think they’d gotten away for good…
It gave me all the time in the world to think about how I was going to make him beg for his fucking life.
I’d put that asshole on his knees.
He’d cry like a little sissy bitch.
I’d be the bigger man, of course. With my pistol against the back of his head, I’d make it a quick one if he told me to my face that I was the better man.
If he apologized a dozen times over, I’d give it to him nice and clean. Two bullets in the back of the skull would drop that stubborn ass-wipe to the ground.