Fractured & Formidable: The Sacred Hearts MC Book V (22 page)

Mandy…

Life resumed some semblance of normalcy in the days and
weeks following Grinder’s funeral. Still, the seed had been planted by The
Suicide Kings and the plant that grew from it was an ugly, spikey thing full of
fear and loathing dripping a poisonous rage. It swept through the club,
spawning more secret meetings with the guys behind closed doors, and took
Zander from my side and Dray from Evy’s more, and for much longer than either
of us were comfortable with. We were afraid. As much, if not more, for our men
as we were for our own safety.

She and I were at the club along with Chandra and Ashton in
the media room quietly watching television. Most of the men were out, just
Reaver, Trigger and a couple more here. Dragon and Dray had gone to settle a
dispute in another chapter. Archer, Rush and Nox were finalizing their
permanent move from Arizona and Ghost was out working, Shelly preferring to
ride with him and cement and explore their relationship further. As
dysfunctional as their relationship sometimes appeared on the outside, those
two were devoted to one another. Despite their near constant disagreeing on
this or that, there was something about Ghost that was visibly healing Shelly.
It was good to see.

I missed Zander. He was on his way from his house and his
evening round of training, preferring his home gym to the piecemeal equipment
here at the club. It was quiet, and almost tranquil. Evy, Ashton, Chandra and
I, we were all watching a romance story on the big television screen that
involved time travel and a beautiful story crossing time between 18
^th
century Scotland and 1940’s post WWII. Chandra, with her glasses on was
crocheting in one of the recliners and I was sitting with my Kindle in my
hands, forgotten, as I was absorbed in this particular tale on the screen.

It was tranquil, as peaceful as it’d been for a while at the
club, but still with that edge of worry, of concern… all of us living with that
fractured ache in our chest, in the back of our mind of
what if
. It had
been so very quiet, the animosity between The Sacred Hearts and The Suicide
Kings, since the discovery of Grinder’s body. It felt as if the pressure were
building, mounting, with no notion as to when it was going to explode.

I didn’t realize anything was wrong at first; there was an
exchange of musket fire on the TV and the surround sound in the media room was
really good. It was loud, very loud, but then Chandra was bounding out of her
recliner and there was shouting that was most definitely
not
a part of
what was happening on the screen.

Everett pulled me to the floor and Ashton snugged herself in
a crouch beside the behemoth entertainment center. I blinked rather stupidly at
Evy who was rooting through her purse, but it was the distinctive sound of a
shotgun being cocked that dragged my attention away from my best friend’s
peculiar behavior.

Chandra, a grim expression on her face, was going around the
recliner and couch towards the big, thick double doors. She paused in the
doorway and leveled the shotgun and pulled the trigger. A riot of noise and gun
smoke exploded from the end of the gun and a shout emanated from the other side
of the door. Everett stood up abruptly, a handgun, very black against the palm
of her hand.

I forgot to breathe so fixated was I on the determined and
fierce look on Everett’s face, and so I had no breath to scream with when
Chandra’s body jerked malevolently and she began to fall backwards. Ashton
cried out and shoved her small hands tight over her mouth and I made a grab for
Everett, but it was too late, she was out around the couch and up against the
wall by the door before kneeling, turning and arms straight, she fired three
shots into the hall before ducking back against the wall.

“Stay here!” I whispered harshly at Ashton and she nodded,
her golden eyes wide with fright as I stayed low and crawled across the black
carpet to where Chandra lay. I put my hands over the blossom of blood on her
camisole beneath her form fitting plaid pattered shirt and pressed down. Blood
welled warm and immediate beneath my hands and I checked her face, but she was
gone… her light blue eyes staring sightless at the ceiling. The spark of her
essence, her life, her energy, just dark… gone… a shadow loomed over me and I
looked up into the eyes of a man wearing Suicide Kings colors.

“She’s dead,” I proclaimed hollowly and the man grinned
wider, leveling his gun in my face.

“So are you, bitch!”

I blinked at the man beyond the gaping barrel of the gun
leveled in my face and tasted regret. I had no control over what happened next,
no say on if I would live or die and so I blurted the first thing that came to
my mind…

“I know, and it’s all right I suppose. I forgive you.” I
closed my eyes and thought of Zander, of Everett and Dray… Everett, where was
Everett?

Boom!

Boom! Boom! Boom! Click, click, click, click, click…

I looked up and the man blinked at me, eyes much too wide
and looked down. Blood began to soak into the front of his shirt and he dropped
to his knees. Everett stood behind him hands outstretched, gun shaking between
them as she fired over and over again…
Click, click, click…

She looked at me agape and finally screamed at me, “What the
fuck was that!? You
forgive
him!? Seriously Mandy!?”

I looked down to where my hands pressed against Chandra’s
still chest, wet and slick with her blood and felt the tears run down my face
hot and salty damp, tightening my skin in their wake. I looked up at Everett,
my sister, my best friend since the second grade.

“I don’t know what made me say that,” I said hollowly.

“You’re a good person, that’s what made you say it,” she
grated and reached down and hauled me to my feet by my wrist. I stood and we
hugged each other, shaking in the midst of the wreckage of splintered doorframe
and wall plaster littering the carpet. Ashton came around the couch and bit
down on a low and broken moan and I pulled her in tight with me and Evy. It was
silent… too silent. Eerily quiet after so much violence and ruckus.

“Ethan…” Ashton moaned and her expression was plagued by
fear. A fear all three of us shared. Everett picked up the man’s forgotten gun
and discarded her own.

“Stay behind me,” she urged and we carefully edged our way
out into the hallway. I held Ashton to me as we followed my best friend out
into the open area, skirting around another man’s body in Suicide Kings colors
and past doors towards the common room.

We reached the corner, the turn through the archway
bracketed by the bar on our right and the fishbowl-chapel on our left, the
shattered glass from the windows and door to the small room crunching under our
shoes, the curtains worrisome with no notion as to if anyone hid behind them.
But any thoughts towards the fluttering black cloth were immediately dashed
when we heard him.

He coughed, his breath sawing in and out of his chest in
these rapid fire pants, his head and neck were propped against the top of an
overturned table and his legs splayed out in front of him. Ashton stiffened in
my arms and Everett’s gun lowered.

There was a cell phone, the screen cracked but lit beside
his hip as he choked out to whoever was on the other end, “Promise me, man… You
have to promise me you’ll take her, you’ll get her out of here and protect
her.”

Trigger leaned over Reaver’s prone form and pressed a wad of
cloth, which appeared to be his tee shirt to the younger man’s side. Reaver
wore a white tee with stark black body armor over his chest, but that hadn’t
stopped the bullet from entering his side.

“You’re gonna be fine man! Listen we’re on our way up, don’t
you worry ‘bout a thing!” The voice over the phone was optimistic but strained.

“You gotta promise me, Trigger has Sunshine, you gotta look
after my Doll. She trusts you, she likes you and you…” he coughed, and Zander who
I belatedly realized was by the door, turned around. He was speaking low and
steady into his cellphone which was pressed to his ear and his warm chocolate
brown eyes rose from Reaver’s prone form and met mine. Ashton’s knees buckled
and she emitted a low wail. I held her up; it wasn’t hard, the tiny woman was
so slight. I murmured to her that it was going to be okay. I mean it had to be?
Didn’t it?

A siren sounded in the distance growing nearer while Reaver
continued to urge the voice on the other end of the line to take care of his
wife.

Trigger cursed and shouted at the phone, “Will you just
fucking promise him!?” The silence at his outburst hung thin and brittle before
the voice on the end of the line sighed out.

“I promise man, but I still maintain you’re going to be
fine.”

I tore my eyes from the phone, from my broken and bleeding
friend on the floor and searched Zander for any injury, but there was none.
Ashton was sobbing, big noisy, wracking broken sobs and it was taking both Evy
and I to hold her up. Hayden was out of state again, back in Chicago putting
the finishing touches on the hotel she’d been contracted to do the interior
design work on. She didn’t know, she wasn’t here…

The door slammed open and we three women jumped, a short
startled scream escaped my lips and Zander made six long strides across the
wreckage and reached us. He folded us all in his arms as best he could as the
EMT’s rushed to Reaver’s side with a stretcher. They worked on him, and Trigger
reluctantly relinquished his best friend to the professional’s care.

“Is anyone else hurt?” a medic demanded and Trigger looked
at us.

“The girls, check the girls, take them with you they might
be in shock,” he uttered and stumbled a step back. We couldn’t hold on to
Ashton if we wanted to then, she flung herself out of our grip and at the love
of her life and the big man caught her up in his arms.

“Are they all gone?” I asked, my voice high and breathy,
shaky now that the adrenaline was wearing thin.

“Yeah,” Zander nodded and held me tight and I held on to him
right back. The door blew back on its hinges and Dray and Dragon burst into the
room, police right on their heels. Everett disengaged from Zander and me and
Dray caught her and squeezed her tight as she finally gave over and burst into
tears.

That was Evy. As strong as you needed her to be until she
just didn’t have to be anymore. Now that Dray was here, she most definitely
didn’t have to be. He held her tightly, a string of Spanish escaping his lips,
half cursing half soothing. Dragon surveyed the scene dispassionately.

He made a query in Spanish and Zander answered him. Their
eyes darting over the medics and police in the room. They were taking Reaver
away and people were jostling out of the doorway to let them pass. When no
comprehension shone in the Sheriff Deputies or medics eyes at the Spanish
exchange, Dragon and Zander continued their conversation cautiously until one
of the deputies intervened.

“Hey! Enough of that!” he said gruffly, “There’s a whole
lotta blood on the floor and more than a few dead bodies so you fuckers speak
English until we get a handle on what the fuck is going on!”

I found my voice, “Excuse me, but we were attacked, and I
would appreciate not being spoken to in that tone of voice.” I said and
trembling, drew myself up to my full height. Zander stepped aside, his arms
remaining tight around my waist and I was grateful for that. Extremely grateful
because I was terribly afraid that if he let me go, I would crumble into all
that broken glass and I wouldn’t know how to get up again.

The deputy grumbled out an apology and a female medic came
and took me away from Zander, more fire department and medical people took
Everett and Ashton too and led us outside. I kept staring over my shoulder at
Zander who looked as resigned and as closed down as I had ever seen him, his
brown eyes darker, not in color, but with his rage. It scared me, seeing him
standing in the wreckage of his club, all that raw hatred and deep emotion
playing out over his face and I saw it plain as day, really, for the first
time…
Through me you go into a city of weeping; through me you go into
eternal pain; through me you go amongst the lost people.

I shuddered and closed my eyes, turning towards the frigid
outdoors, the waiting aid car and the scratchy blanket the paramedics were
wrapping around my shoulders. A numbness started to fill me from the center of
my being out, a comforting lack of feeling, lack of emotion, a lack of despair
and I welcomed it because what had happened in there was just too awful to ever
want to think about again.

“What?” I asked and looked into the woman’s eyes.

“Oh Honey, I’ve been asking if you’re hurt, can you tell me
if any of this is yours?” the female medic asked again. I looked at my hands
where they clutched the blanket around my shoulders, detached, nothing…

“Oh, no… it’s not mine. It’s not my blood.” It was
Chandra’s… poor Chandra… I sobbed and my world fractured a little bit. I broke
down and sobbed and keened and longed for it to be just an hour ago or days
from now. Just anything so I didn’t have to feel what I was feeling inside.
This awfulness, this loss, this violation.

I don’t really remember what happened next. I don’t remember
going to the hospital, I don’t remember being checked over or changing clothes
into a set of scrubs given to me by the doctors and nurses since my clothes
were too bloody to continue wearing. I
do
remember Zander finding me, my
love; my rock in this storm swept landscape of emotions no one should ever have
to feel. He found me in the curtained area and with a fierce growl at the
nurses, climbed up into the bed with me and held me close while I cried,
waiting for them to discharge me.

I was treated for shock, whatever that really entailed, I
don’t know. Everything from what happened I just seemed to gloss over, or blow
through, everything hazy and disjointed and not really real. I can’t remember so
well, or rather I didn’t
want
to remember, and I was okay with not
remembering.