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“What are you saying?” he growled.
I pressed my body against his back, burying my face in his hair and breathing in his scent. “You know what I’m saying, Jayce.Us.”
He quivered underneath my embrace. “Last chance to get off the bike.”
“No,” I insisted. “If you’re going to risk your own life so haphazardly just to go after this man, then you’re going to have to risk mine too.”
I thought it was checkmate. He might be cavalier about putting himself in danger, but he wouldn’t do the same with my life. As long as I clung to his body, he couldn’t go after Sid.
I was wrong.
“Hold on, Peaches,” he said before shooting down the road after the leader of the Copperheads.
52
Jayce
We soared down the road as fast as I dared, away from one danger and toward another. Charlotte clung to my body as if I could provide her safety.
I’m the one putting her in danger, now.
I shouldn’t have been chasing Sid. Charlotte was right: Ididhave something to live for, something which filled me with more hope than I’d ever known. She was on the back of my bike, putting her own life at risk to try to convince me not to save myself.
But I knew we could never be together if Sid lived. That man had killed my sister. The hate I felt for him had grown like an infection, rotting me away from the inside. If I skipped this opportunity to get revenge, I would regret it for the rest of my life. I would resent Charlotte for keeping me from it.
I didn’t want to have that between us. It would doom us from the start.
I twisted the throttle with my right arm, which sent pain shooting up my shoulder. I wasn’t bleeding as much as I had been, but the rush of the bike was making me dizzy. Distantly, I knew that was probably the lack of blood.
Distantly, I don’t give a fuck.
I caught up to Sid while he was on the frontage road next to the interstate, the same one Charlotte and I had cleaned on our first few days of community service. He didn’t notice that we were following him. I reached down with my right arm and pulled the shotgun off its holster next to my leg. Steadying the gun across my handlebars made my bad shoulder feel like it was on fire, but I needed my good arm to maneuver the bike.
Before I could shoot, he glanced back and saw us. I fired, a sound so loud it was like stuffing cotton into my ears, but Sid swerved out of the way right as I pulled the trigger. The recoil was like a mule kick of agony in my shoulder, and I nearly dropped the shotgun. Sid drifted back the other way and I squeezed the trigger again, crying out with pain as the gun bucked in my grasp. But this shot was even less steady than the first, and Sid remained untouched.
“You’re hurting yourself!” Charlotte shouted over the engine roar.
Sid twisted in his saddle, aiming a pistol at us. In my haste to grab the handlebars, I dropped the shotgun. Sid fired blindly while he rode, a hand extended behind him without looking, and although none of the shots came close to hitting me, I slowed down and swerved anyway.
He’s gonna get on the interstate,I thought. He would probably lose us if he did.
I reached back to retrieve the sheriff’s pistol from my belt, which was so painful that my vision went dark around the edges and I nearly passed out. When I recovered, I aimed the gun and fired frantically, hoping to land a blow before Sid escaped, but shooting from a bike was practically impossible. I spent all six rounds without hitting him, then tossed the gun aside and cursed to myself.
The interstate on-ramp appeared, but Sid didn’t take it. He veered right, then turned down the next road heading back in the direction of Eastland.He must think he can still rally the other Copperheads. Hopefully by now they were all captured, or dead.
I hoped my old friend Brick was one of the former, and not the latter.
Sid’s Harley struggled on the winding dirt road, but my Indian Scout was made for this kind of terrain. I kept pace with Sid easily through the turns in the woods. I was afraid he had another gun and was waiting for us to get close before shooting, so I kept a respectable distance. Enough to keep him within sight.
I’m coming, I thought while staring at the skull logo on the back of his jacket.I’m coming for you, motherfucker.
I didn’t realize what road we were on until it abruptly opened up into a gravel clearing. Sid wasn’t expecting the wide stone wall to block his path, and he made a hard left turn to avoid it, but it was too sharp and his tires slid out in the gravel. The bike hit the ground and spun, hitting the stone wall with enough force to send pieces of metal flying.
I slowed my bike to a stop a safe distance away. “Stay here,” I said over my shoulder.
“Do you want me to call the police?” Charlotte asked.
“I don’t want the cops to witness what I’m about to do.”
