Protect (48 page)

A tall, rail-thin girl with straight, long
black hair passed her, propping up Melody Horton. Surprised, Sharon
ducked under her opposite arm. “Are you okay?” she asked, noting
the blood running down the woman’s leg.

Melody shook her head. “Stupid luck, that’s
all. I ducked when the shooting started and managed to fall right
into some glass. Cut up my hand like a bitch, too.”

Sharon caught the eye of the dark-haired
girl. “Do you know where the First Aid kit is?”

With a nod the woman stepped away from
Melody. “Kitchen. I’m on it.” She veered off to the left, and
Sharon kept Melody moving into the darker, cooler back room. It
even sounded more secure, with the sound of a dozen or so people
filing in. Someone found a light switch and with a sharp hum the
keg lights overhead lit, dim at first but quickly brightening.

It was a huge box of a room. It reminded
Sharon of a garage, with an overhead door and everything. She
wasn’t worried about the door, it led to the lot. There were a few
shelving units with cleaning supplies; garbage bags, Fast Orange
hand scrub, rolls of plastic, Lysol jugs ...

She stopped taking inventory, instead taking
stock of the people in the room. As she helped Melody to the
ground, back to the wall, Sharon found Gertie, Rose and Jolene
amongst the people assembled. Satisfied, she dropped, tucked her
Colt into her waistband and straddled Melody’s leg on her knees.
“That’s a lot of blood.”

Melody nodded, her eyes fluttering a little.
“Yeah. I’m seeing that now. I’m starting to feel a little
light-headed.”

“I’m going to rip these pants, just to see
how bad the cut is. Okay?”

There was no answer and she looked up,
startled. The woman passed out.

“No, no. Come on, Melody. You gotta keep
awake for me.” She shook the woman’s chin a bit as the girl from
before returned with a plastic tub.

“Shit,” she muttered. “She pass out?”

“Yeah. I don’t suppose there’s smelling salts
in there?”

“They got ammonia over here.” Quick as a
flash she was gone and back with a bottle. Sharon didn’t dwell on
what all the shit on those shelves was for. She opened a large
gauze bandage, splashed a bit of ammonia on it then waved it under
Melody’s nose.

With a gasp the woman sat up, eyes unfocused,
then after some blinking she seemed to place who she was with.
“Oh,” she muttered while rubbing her forehead with a shaking hand.
“Damn. Always had trouble seeing a lot of my own blood.”

“It’s okay,” Sharon assured her, using the
First Aid kit’s scissors to turn the woman’s jeans into cut offs.
“You don’t have to look.”

At least it was in the right leg. She was
pretty sure the femoral artery was in the left, but that didn’t
mean something really important wasn’t injured. When she saw the
cut she winced. A chunk of skin was nearly sheared off, and it was
still leaking like mad.

“Get me the biggest pack of gauze that thing
has and a tensor bandage,” Sharon instructed, pushing the denim out
of the way.

“Oh, it’s starting to hurt.”

“I’m sorry Melody. We’ll take care of this
fast.” When she had a wad of packing gauze she pressed it in place,
wound more around it to keep it in place, then used the tensor
bandage to fashion a tourniquet.

“I hope the guys are back soon,” the
soft-spoken girl next to her said. Sharon studied her, then had to
ask.

“What’s your name?”

“Neenie.”

“Neenie, does anyone else need any help?”

Before she could answer the sound came again,
echoing down the corridor and filling the room with sound like a
huge stone cave. Sure enough, there it was.

“Fuck,” she muttered, pushing the kit at
Neenie. “Can you see if anyone else needs bandaging up?”

“Where are you going?”

“To see if they need help,” was her muttered
reply. She gave Melody’s shoulder a squeeze and stood, palming her
Colt again.

“Don’t go out there,” Melody begged, reaching
for her leg. “You’re pregnant.”

Sharon ignored the argument and strode out
into the main room. The two Nomads were on the ground but getting
back up, looking to her in shock.

“Yeah,” she said. “Like I said. It was a
trap. I hope your crew didn’t ride right into an ambush or—”

She was cut off by another round and she
turtled on the ground, arms over her head. Then there was banging
on the door.

“Fuck,” one Nomad muttered, pulling her to
her feet. “Get to the back room.”

“There are only three of us who can shoot,”
she pointed out. “And those pricks are at the door.”

“Here,” the bleeding Nomad said, pushing
something at her. She found an AK-47 quite suddenly in her free
hand, and she lost all ability to talk for a moment. She’d held one
before, fired one. But that had been back with Bakersfield PD for
weapons training. Markham County had the budget for shotguns,
nothing this nice.

“You know how this works?” The one that said
it still had hold of her elbow. She pulled free, put the Colt back
in her waistband and held it at the ready on her hip.

“I don’t know. Which end do the bullets come
out of?”

The bleeding one, whose patch told her was
called Meeks, started laughing. “All right, Sheriff,” he drawled.
“You can use the toy.”

“Thanks,” she remarked dryly as the doors
gave way under the assault.

The three of them were all, just in the wink
of an eye, suddenly on and tuned in. The AKs swung to the same
point and opened fire, catching the first round of bikers totally
by surprise. She let herself be herded behind the bar while Meeks
gave cover fire. The bottles overhead that had made it this far
definitely lost the battle now, raining glass and booze down on
them.

The other Nomad, whose patch just read “T,”
jumped up and sprayed the room with a few passes then ducked down.
So she took her turn, but he pulled her down.

“Don’t be stupid,” he scolded. “Fritter would
kill us if anything happened to you.”

“You might not make it as it is,” she pointed
out, wincing as Meeks decided to spray some lead as well.

“Save it for when you have to use it,” T
instructed. “Please.”

It must have only been half a minute. That
was the only way to explain how she was still alive to hear bikes
approach, stop, and more gunfire add to the cacophony of
destruction. Meeks headed out to take out some fuckers, T went the
other way, and she stayed put, hoping that those bikes were
help.

She listened. Over the gunfire she could hear
footsteps, the kicking of glass, and then one by one all the noise
stopped. People were still walking around but her ears were
buzzing, and the voices were muddied and unclear.

When a form appeared at the side of the bar
she jolted, bringing the AK-47 around then immediately dropping it
when Tank put up his hands.

“Thank Christ,” she whispered, overcome with
the urge to start weeping again.

“It’s okay, Sharon,” he said in that deep
voice, impossibly soft-sounding. “Come on, honey.” He held her arm
and helped her to her feet but her knees were weak. He caught her
as she slumped, then scooped her up into his arms. “Enough of the
brave stuff,” he chided, as if there wasn’t a trashed room full of
dead bodies around them. “Let’s get you somewhere comfortable.”

Fritter’s room seemed impossibly quiet. Tank
set her on the bed she’d been about to climb into about a million
years ago.

“I’ll bring him to you, okay?”

Sharon nodded, curling up on his side. “His
mom cut her leg really bad. She needs medical help.”

“We’ll get someone here to stitch everyone
up. Don’t worry. Just rest.”

“Rose is in the backroom,” she told him, eyes
filling up now. “She’s okay, Tank.”

His smile was sweet and he kissed her temple.
“I know she is. You saved all their skins, Meeks told me about
it.”

She wasn’t sure she agreed with that, but she
was too exhausted to argue. She didn’t even hear Tank close the
door and she was out.

-oOo-

She hadn’t woken when Fritter came to her,
but when she did wake up it was to someone knocking on the door. A
familiar warmth and weight was at her back and she knew he was
holding her.

“Go away,” Fritter mumbled.

“Cops,” Jayce said through the door, clear as
day.

“Shit,” Fritter muttered, then shouted back.
“On my way.”

“What do we do?” she asked, rolling to her
back. Her relief at seeing him whole and alive made her actually
sigh, reaching a hand up to cup his cheek.

He smiled, held her hand while pressing a
kiss to her palm. “We let them in. Show them what happened.”

“What about all those guns?”

“Those aren’t ours,” he groaned sitting up
and rolling off the side of the bed to his feet. “We fought for
them, got a hold of a few, and turned them on their owners.”

She clucked her tongue. “That sounds
familiar.”

“Prove it’s not true.”

She shook her head. “I can’t, because they
don’t have serial numbers.”

Fritter grinned and bent for his shirt,
noticeably wincing. When she saw the white patch on his side with
the red soaking through she sat up. “What happened? Are you
okay?”

Fritter waved her off, tugging on a T-shirt.
“It’s nothing. I got sliced and the doctor stitched me up. That’s
all.” He sat on the bed to push his legs into his jeans. “I
promise. I’m fine.”

When he leaned over to kiss her as
reassurance, she watched his face. He had color, his eyes were
focused. Maybe he winced when he leaned away but that was it.

“Did you see your mom?”

He laughed at that. “Yeah. We got stitches
together. It was a real bonding moment.”

“She was pretty hurt.”

“Yeah. She’s tough.” His eyes came to her as
he stood, pulling his jeans closed. “You probably saved her
life.”

Sharon scoffed, flopping onto her back and
wincing at the sudden headache that had started off. But Fritter
wasn’t done.

“And Rose, and Gertie. Jolene. The girls.
Shit, once those guys got in everyone could have been dead.” Then
he frowned. “What’s wrong?”

“Headache. It was very loud.”

“That’s it? You’re sure?”

Sharon shrugged. “It has to be. I just need a
few minutes of quiet.”

He sat next to her, leaning over her with one
hand planted on the bed, other side of her hips. “You going to be
able to talk to your coworkers? Or should we tell them you herded
everyone to the back and didn’t see what was going on?”

Sharon weighed her options. She hated lying,
and because of that she wasn’t very good at it. “I don’t know
because I didn’t see it” sounded easier to pull off than the idea
that they fought outside bikers for guns and turned the tables on
them.

“I didn’t see anything,” she said quietly,
and then she let him kiss her quickly.

“Good. Let’s get this over with, momma.”

Deputy Troy took her statement. It was a
surreal experience to already know which question was coming next,
but it helped her prepare her answers. She had no idea how Troy was
going to play this, since he hated the club so much. But as she
watched the scene she could tell it was going to be same-old,
same-old. The story would be believed, case considered closed, and
somehow, somewhere justice would be done in the shadows where no
one would know.

She was relieved to hear the Nomads that had
given chase simply ran the Rats out of Markham County and turned
back. No ambush, no stupid maneuvers.

The girl that had died was named Tessa, and
she’d only been twenty-six. Another Nomad, with the unfortunate
road name of Scrote, had also been killed instantly. He was
thirty-eight.

Where had the Red Rebels of Markham gone?
Well, a few had felt it was a good day for a ride, and most their
visiting Nomad brothers had also gone along. The Dirty Rats must
have been watching, waiting for them to leave. And why were so many
family members around? Well, they had guests and decided to put on
a breakfast spread for them. Being good hosts and all.

Then Troy broke her out of the fuzzy, surreal
quality of the fucked day. “You’re losing the election, Sharon,” he
said, quietly, like he was sharing a secret.

Sharon leaned in to his as they sat on two
chairs placed out in the lot while Markham’s version of CSI combed
through the clubhouse. “I didn’t even vote yet, Deputy. I know I’m
not going to win it.”

Troy snapped his book shut, shaking his head.
“This is a fucking travesty, by the way.”

Sharon sighed. “Maybe. But ... you know, for
the first time in a long time, I really feel ... free.”

Troy frowned. “What?”

“I feel free. I don’t have to hold my tongue
anymore when Mrs. Taylor calls to complain about the neighbour’s
cat. And the next time someone suggests I do my hair differently or
dress better, I’m going to tell them to fuck off. And then I’m
going to go home and let my old man fuck me until I care even less
about small people and their small, stupid problems.”

Troy was smiling by the time she was done.
“All I can say is, I don’t look forward to working under him.”

“He’ll be leaning on you,” she admitted.
“You’ll be doing everything and he’ll take the credit. Because God
forbid he get his own hands dirty.”

“I’d love to see what he thinks about this
situation,” Troy mumbled dryly, rubbing his forehead. She honestly
did feel sorry for him. She really liked him. “So your story is
consistent with everyone else’s, of course. I’m going to ask for a
heads’ up the next time, even though I know I won’t get it.”

She was staring off though, not hearing him.
His previous thought stuck in her head.
I’d love to see what he
thinks about this situation.

“Where’s my badge?” she asked suddenly,
interrupting him.

Troy blinked. “What?”