Raw: The Ultimate Mc Collection (57 page)

“We’ll get her, Slade, don’t worry about her, brother,” Doc said, before he put on his helmet and started his bike up with a thunderous roar.

The five miles to the road seemed to take forever, and I pushed away the frustration of not being on my own bike, to not be able to get there as fast as I wanted, to not be in control.  I had no choice but to rely on my brothers now.

When we pulled up in front of the house Grace had given us the address to an hour later, it seemed like an eternity had passed.  Since I wasn’t driving, I didn’t have the luxury of having to concentrate on the road, and instead, every fucking awful thing that could be happening to Diana ran through my head.  It was torture.

By the time I jumped off the back of Riot’s bike, pure adrenaline and fear were pumping through my veins.

“Keep your head, Slade,” Ryder warned, as we all walked up to the door together.

“How do you wanna handle this, boss?” Doc asked Ryder.

“Handle this? Are you fucking kidding? I’m going to rip this fucker’s head off, that’s how we’re going to fucking handle it!” 

“Slade! Look, dude, if you don’t calm down, you’re gonna fuck up, and if you want to see Diana alive again, you’d better keep your shit together, you understand?”  Ryder seethed.  “I’m pissed, too, okay?  I want to fucking kill this guy just as much as you do, but we gotta save Diana first.”

“Yeah, man…yeah,” I said, the thought of Diana in there hurt…or worse…ripped right through my heart.

“Let’s just knock.  We don’t know what the fuck we’re dealing with.  We don’t even know if the girls are in there,” Riot said.

I knocked, my hand shaking.  I listened at the door, hearing nothing at all. 

“Fuck,” I said.

“Wait,” Ryder warned.

I knocked again, louder this time. Still nothing. I tried the door, but it was locked.

“I’m going around back,” I said.

“Thorn, go with him,” Ryder whispered.

We walked around the back of the house, and opened the gate into the back yard.  There was a big wooden deck that led to the back door of the house.  I tried the door, and to my surprise, it opened.  I pulled out my gun, nodded to Thorn who did the same thing, and we went in.

The back door opened to the empty kitchen.  We walked through the house slowly, but didn’t see anyone at all.  I motioned for Thorn to go open the front door, and the rest of the Gods filed in with their guns drawn.  We searched the entire first floor, and came up empty.

When we got to the stairs that led to the second floor, I went up first.  I listened at the top of the stairs, but it was quiet.  I motioned for the Gods and they followed me up.  The stairs opened up to a small hallway that led to three doors, two of which were closed.

The first one was open, and I peered inside.  A bathroom.  Empty.

I stopped outside the second door, and took a deep breath.  I needed to find Diana and soon.  I shook off the fear of what I might find, and slung open the door.  Again, nothing.  An empty bedroom, that looked like it had never been slept in.

I walked down to the third door, and listened again.  I heard something, but I wasn’t sure what it was.  A low, steady hum.  Slowly, I turned the door knob and opened the door.

We all jumped back at once, stumbling backwards down the hall.  The floor was filled with dozens of rattlesnakes, tangled up together, hissing and rattling, and racing to get out of the room.

“Fuck!” I exclaimed, as I tripped over Riot, and landed on the floor.  I quickly jumped to my feet, and followed the Gods down the stairs, the snakes following down the hallway behind us.

When we reached the bottom, I turned towards the kitchen and stopped in my tracks.

Wyatt stood there, pointing a gun at Diana’s head.

“Diana!” I yelled, frozen in place.  I looked at Diana, tears were streaming down her face.  She was holding something, and it took me a moment before I realized it was a snake in her hands.  She was shaking, holding the snake as far away from her naked body as possible.

“Slade,” she whispered, “I’m so sorry.”

My heart shattered as I saw the fear in her eyes.

“Let her go,” I said to Wyatt, as my eyes darted around for a way out of here.

“I don’t think so.  Put your guns down.  All of them, or else,” he said, digging the gun into Diana’s temple.  Slowly, we put our guns on the ground.

“Kick ‘em over,” Wyatt said.  I was seething with anger, and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on his throat.  We kicked our guns his way and waited.

There were more of us than him, but he had Diana and I knew better than to try to rush him.

“Listen, brother, if you just let her go, we’ll all be on our way out of here and nobody will get hurt,” Ryder said, trying to reason with this madman.

“Let her go? Are you kidding? She’s the whole reason we’re here.  Don’t you see? I’ve chosen her.  She was pure and unblemished…before she met you, that is,” he said, pointing to me.

The snake danced in Diana’s hands, its forked tongue darting in and out of its mouth.

“But she’s clean now.  Now, all she has to do is believe, and then she’ll be saved.  And she’ll be mine.  I’m never letting her go,”  he said, his voice echoing in the loud room.

I knew then just how crazy this guy was.  I knew we’d never be able to reason with him.  We were being even more crazy  thinking that would work.  There were only two things that were going to get any results in this situation.

One was violence.  Which was probably unavoidable.  The other, the really crazy one, was something I had to at least try.  From the corner of my eye, I saw that the snakes from the bedroom upstairs had started slithering down the stairs, which were now directly to my right.

“I believe,” I said quietly.

“What?” Wyatt said, looking at me in disbelief.  I felt the other Gods eyes on me, but I ignored them.

“I do.  Mark 16, right?  If you believe, you’ll see the signs, isn’t that right?”  I had once seen a show on snakehandling, and the crazy bullshit they had slung had stuck with me.  “Watch!” I said, putting my hand out to keep Wyatt at bay.  I reached over and grabbed one of the snakes on the stairs that was now within reach, its smooth scaly skin slithering under my fingers.  It began rattling violently, and I lifted it up towards the ceiling.

“See?” I said to Wyatt, as he stared at me in shock.  And then slowly, I started moving around the room and speaking in gibberish, making it all up as I went along.  I was taking a huge chance, knowing he could shoot us, or Diana at any moment, but it was the only thing I could do.  If we rushed him, he’d shoot her for sure.

“Bagoola ooooh jah jah boogetyboo do, praise the Lord!” I yelled.

I danced in circles, getting more into it, getting louder and louder, hoping the fucking snake wouldn’t bite me.  I tried to keep it as far away as I could, but I knew I had to go for it if I was going to get Wyatt to believe me.

His eyes lit up and I saw a glimmer of a smile as I continued dancing around the room, the sounds coming from my mouth sounding like complete bullshit, but the crazy fuck seemed to be buying it.

“Yes, yes…” he muttered, his eyes locked on the snake in my hands, the gun still pointed at Diana.  I began dancing wildly around the room, praising the Lord, and singing hallelujah in between all the gibberish because that’s all I could remember from the show I had seen.

These people thought if you were bitten by the snake, that God and prayer could keep you alive.  So, I went with it.

I took a deep breath, and then put the snake right next to my face, staring it in the eye, its forked black tongue darting towards me as I continued making the ridiculous sounds.

I turned my back on Wyatt and Diana, locked eyes with Riot and winked.  And then I lunged the snake towards my face, screamed loudly as I threw myself on the ground, hollering and writhing in pain as I held my face.

Wyatt ran over to me, just as I had hoped, and when he got right next to me, I pushed the snake in his face and it bit him right on the forehead.

The rest happened so quickly.  Diana dropped the snake she was holding on the ground. Wyatt had dropped his gun when he knelt down, and I quickly grabbed it, and jumped up.  The Gods had already retrieved their guns and we all towered over a screaming Wyatt as he writhed on the ground in pain like a little boy.  Six guns pointed straight at his head, as he looked up at us and began pleading for help.

“Call an ambulance, p-p-please…” he sputtered.  “Help me!”

“Help?”  Riot asked.  “Why don’t you pray? Isn’t that what idiots like you are supposed to do now?”

“Please, please…” Wyatt begged.

“Looks like God isn’t going to save you after all,” I said.

The color drained out of his face, and his forehead began swelling and turned bright red.  He began spasming on the ground and I smiled.  I kicked the two snakes away, and they slithered into the kitchen.

“The snakes always bite back, motherfucker,” I said, as I unloaded my gun into his face.

EPILOGUE

Nine Months Later

“This fucking cage is so fucking slow!” Slade roared, as he drove Diana’s car to the hospital.

“Get the fuck out of my way!” he yelled to the passing cars, honking at every single one that got in front of him.

Diana panted beside him, sweat pouring from her brow as the contractions tore through her.

“C-calm down, baby, I’m okay, I’m ooooooooo!” She writhed in pain, her words ripped from her as she began concentrating on her breathing, the only thing she could control at the moment.

By the time they pulled up in front of the emergency entrance of Good Samaritan Hospital, she was sure she wasn’t going to make it.

“S-Slade!  It’s happening!” she screamed to his back.  He was racing into the hospital, and within seconds he had dragged out the first person he saw wearing scrubs.

“Now!  She’s having it fucking now, goddammit!” he yelled.

Moments later, Diana was on the table, her legs spread, her screams echoing down the hallway as a tiny little miracle came into the world.

“It’s a boy!” the doctor exclaimed, as a loud, wailing cry filled the room.

Slade’s eyes filled with tears as the doctor handed him a pair of scissors.  He looked at his little, slimy, bloody baby boy and then looked down at Diana, the love of his life.  His heart soared with joy and he shook his head.

With shaking hands, he looked at the doctor for reassurance.

“Here?” he asked, hovering the scissors over the pulsing cord that connected his two miracles.

“Yes, that’s it,” the doctor replied.  He winced as he sliced through it, and handed the scissors to one of the nurses, letting them take over from here.  They took the baby away for a moment, and then laid the beautiful, blanketed, crying bundle of joy in his mother’s arms.

Diana’s eyes were filled with love, tears streaming down her cheeks, as she held her baby for the first time.

“Hi, there little Slade,” she said to him.  “I’m your Mommy.”

“Not Slade. Jeremiah,” Slade said quietly.  It had become a running joke. They had debated the baby’s name a million times in the last few months, finally deciding on Jeremiah, after Slade wouldn’t budge.  Diana insisting she could never call a little boy something so formal, and that she would call him Slade, after his  daddy.

Slade looked down at his boy, his son, and felt his heart burst wide open.  He had never expected he would ever have a child.  How could he bring a baby into the life of a God?  Hell, he was sure that Ryder and Grace, or Riot and Lacey, would be the ones to do that.

Never in a million years would he have thought he would be looking down at a soul he had helped create.

But never in a million years would he have thought he would have fallen in love, either.

The last few months with Diana had been amazing.  After rescuing her, and the other girls, from Wyatt, he knew he’d never be able to let her go.  She was a part of him.  She had found her way into his heart.

His long dead heart had been brought back to life with her gentle touch, her soft laughter, and her breathtaking beauty.

And now he had a boy to raise.