Page 2 of Life Or Death

Her friend falls onto the padded mats unceremoniously, and blinged-out Barbie, tries to help her up, but the friend takes her down, and they bust out into a fit of giggles. It takes every ounce of self-control not to roll my eyes at them. Instead, I just stare as they roll around on the mats. When it’s clear neither one of them can stand on their own, I make my way toward them and try to help them to their feet.

I crouch down beside the bull and hold out my hand for blinged-out Barbie when the sound of glass shattering stops me dead in my tracks. I turn my head in the direction of the sound, and my eyes go wide when I realize it’s the front window that’s shattered.

For a moment, I think someone’s thrown a rock. Then I see the flaming bottle arcing through the air, trailing fire like a comet. It lands in the middle of the dance floor, and rolls across the wood, trailing fire in its wake.

The fire erupts instantly, spreading across the wooden floor with terrifying speed. The flames lick at the walls, climbing toward the ceiling like hungry demons. I stand frozen, counting the seconds as the blaze consumes everything in its path. One. Two. Three. The heat hits me in waves, making my skin prickle with fear.

“Fire!” someone screams, but the word barely registers through the fog of panic clouding my mind.

The drunk girls beside me scramble to their feet, their earlier giggles replaced by terrified shrieks. They grab onto the base of the mechanical bull, using it to pull themselves up. Their weight shifts the heavy machine.

“No—don’t—” I try to warn them, but it’s too late.

The bull tilts, then topples with a metallic groan. I try to leap away, but my foot catches on the edge of the padded mat. The full weight of the mechanical beast crashes down on my legs, pinning me to the floor. Pain explodes through my body, sharp and immediate.

“Help,” I scream, but my voice is lost in the chaos of panicked patrons stampeding toward the exits.

The fire crawls closer, hungry tongues of orange and red consuming the wooden floor. Smoke billows overhead, thick and black. I can feel the heat intensifying as the flames reach the edge of the mat. The synthetic material begins to melt, releasing toxic fumes that burn my lungs with each desperate breath.

The mechanical bull grows hot beneath my hands, the metal burning my palms as I try in vain to push it off.

The flames reach my jeans. I feel the heat first, then the fabric begins to blacken and curl. The pain is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced—a searing agony that makes me scream until my voice breaks.

Bottles of alcohol explode in the heat, sending new jets of flame shooting across the room. The smoke grows thicker, filling my lungs. I try to count again, but the numbers blur together in my oxygen-starved brain. One. . . two . . thr— I don’t get to finish because in an instant, everything fades to black.

CHAPTER ONE

LUCIFER

I was born hell bound. Murder and mayhem were my birthright, and I became a master of both. But, man, after years of riding the Devil’s coattails, I’m fucking tired.

The fluorescent lights of the hospital waiting room buzz overhead as Shadow paces the length of the vinyl floor for the hundredth time, his boots squeaking against the polished surface. This fucking hospital is becoming a second home to my club, and I don’t know how to stop it.

My gaze slides around the waiting room, landing first on my men who sit in a tense semicircle, all of them looking just as weary and restless as I feel. It’s like we’re destined for carnage, and that destiny isn’t privy to just my men anymore. Whatever we touch, and whomever we let get close to us, becomes an unwilling victim of it too.

I glance across the room to where my new business partner, Maddox, sits with some of his ranch hands, and I can’t help but wonder what he’s thinking. He was desperate when he signed on the dotted line— a man hungry to save his family’s ranch and the legacy he’s been fighting his whole life to preserve.

Now, we’re a perfect mix of worn flannels and distressed leather, all of us doomed, and while he might not be wise to it yet, the other families in the waiting room are.

They look at the patch on the back of our cuts, and they edge away in fear, knowing there’s a black cloud following the Fallen Demons, and it’s wreaking havoc on the small town of Saddle Ridge, leaving death and destruction in its wake.

It started with the explosion at Rodeo Roundup, taking the lives of innocent locals and destroying beauty in its purest form. This latest blow is a bit more personal, though. The enemy narrowed the target, abducting Shadow’s woman from Maddox’s ranch. But Landry Oil came for the wrong motherfuckers. They played a game they had no business playing, and they paid the price.

Revenge doesn’t make any of this easier, though. We still sit helplessly as the people we care about suffer for our sins. If we keep going how we are, the body counts are gonna keep rising, and I can’t guarantee the graves we dig for our enemies won’t fill with the bodies of our own kind.

The doors to the waiting room swing open, and the doctor finally emerges.

“Meadows family?”

Maddox springs to his feet, joining Shadow in front of the doctor. “That’s us.”

The doctor reveals that Della has made it out of surgery and is stable. Shadow’s shoulders immediately slump with relief as Maddox claps him on the back. The doctor shares more details about Della’s condition, but I stop listening.

Without a word, I slip away. My boots echo against the linoleum as I make my way to the bank of elevators, jamming the button for the fourth floor. While most of the units in any hospital are depressing as fuck, there is something about the burn unit that hits just a touch harder. You don’t smell the charred flesh, but you hear the cries of the patients who are conscious. They wail in pain while the staff cleans their wounds and changes their dressings. It’s the soundtrack to hell, and it plays on a continuous loop.

The nurses at the station look up as I approach. Most of them fear me, and that has more to do with my behavior than it does my cut. I couldn’t get here until hours after the explosion had hit. I was covered in soot and hungry for information on the girl I couldn’t save.

The girl who wouldn’t have been working at that bar if I wasn’t such a selfish fuck.