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He hasn’t tried to punch me yet, though. I guess that’s a good sign.
“Shouldn’t we be blasting some hard rock music to set the mood or something? Feels like a missed opportunity,” Tripp asks. He’s dead serious.
“Sure! Is Hells Bells good with you?” Dax sarcastically answers from the pilot’s seat, then shakes his head with derision. “Nodipshit. This ain’t karaoke night and we’re already here.” He points out the windshield.
Warren stifles a laugh and Tripp purses his lips, clearly disappointed.
“And you are?” Heston questions skeptically from next to me.
“Sorry, I guess I didn’t introduce you,” I say. “This is Dax Jordan.” I nod in Dax’s direction. “An old friend.”
“He keeps his jet at my hangar,” Dax casually explains like we all have pilot buddies that own airstrips and store our private planes for us.
“Nice,” Tripp grins and nods his head enthusiastically, no doubt counting the ways he can convince me to let us use my plane for a trip to Vegas in the future.
I feel the chopper slow slightly as if we’re about to descend. Grabbing the handle above my head, I lean over and look down to see the house not far ahead.
“Check out the fence line,” Warren says into the headset microphone, and we all lean toward his side to see. The air in the chopper suddenly turns more tense.
Shit. There’s a fence around the entire property and from a bird’s eye view, it’s not hard to see what their plan was. There are too many men to count who are all facing away from the house, aiming their weapons toward the surrounding woods on all sides. There’s no way we would have been able to get past that on the ground.
The closer we get, several of the men down below look up and point. Some pull radios from their belt, some run for cover, and most of them aim their guns right toward us in the sky.
Tripp and Bash are closest to the group of men down below. From their side of the chopper, they both drop to one knee and fire off a relentless chain of bullets. Several of the men on the ground fall to the ground and the rest scatter.
Dax dips the open-sided aircraft at breakneck speed, just in time to dodge most of the rain of fire coming back up at us while we tighten our grips and crouch at the ready. His voice bellows through the radio communication system. “Drop in three.”
One by one we ditch our headsets and bail off the side, grabbing the landing gear bar as we go. The burn from sliding down the paracord rope doesn’t last long because Dax got us pretty close to the ground.
As our feet meet the dirt, more shots are fired and we sprint behind the building nearest the house. All except for Bash. He creeps along, bent at the knees, gun aimed.
He’s calculated and quick, firing off two pops. A man who was charging toward us crumples to the ground, and another closer who was coming from behind the shed we’re using as a base point falls face forward into the dirt. Bash steps over him, makes his way to us, and leans his back against the tin-sided building.
“Stay behind me next time. And how about some fucking backup? Shoot a motherfucker!” He whisper shouts. “They’re not fucking around. Keep close and let’s get in and out of there fast.”
“Two o’clock,” I say.
Bash lifts and aims, sending a shot straight through the ear of a man in a beanie thinking he could still run into the house from the trees. A second later, another man charges from the brush, and Heston wastes no time sending him to the ground with a shot to the chest.
Heston doesn’t lower his gun, still scanning the tree line. His breaths are as even and steady as ever, but his eyes tell a different story. I feel guilty for putting him in this position. But I’m proud that no matter how fucked up this is, my brothers are willing to do anything to save Blythe and each other. Bash holds his hand out toward the man that Heston shot and looks at the rest of us as if to say“Now that’s a good shot.”
Warren taps on my shoulder and I look to see him pointing at a window above us. I push on it and it swings open.
“Through here,” I grunt as I grip the edge of it and swing a leg up. Someone boosts me up to get through all the way. The rest of the guys follow me over the window sill, and we reach over to pull Tripp in as the last one. A few bullets hit the side of the building in the process, but he makes it through and slams the window shut.
We walk through piles of old parts and tools until we’re on the side of what we now realize is a garage. It’s not technically attached to the house, but there’s barely a few feet separating the two.
I open the dust-covered side door just a crack to make sure that there’s no one on the other side.
Engines start outside, and I crane my neck to look. Several men jump into the bed of two trucks and peel out of the driveway. Guess Bash’s sharp shooting scared them off. Either that or their job here is done. They were meant to lure us in.
“Our welcome party is scattering,” I say.
“I’ll text my men to cut them off at the end of the road,” Bash furiously types on his phone relaying the message to his guys that are hiding down the road for backup. Or in this case, to make sure none of these fuckers make it out unscathed.
I didn’t see Blythe or Reynolds among the guys that rolled out, but they could have been in the cab of one of the trucks.Dammit. We’ll have to search the house to make sure.
I realize we’re in a bad situation just sitting here waiting. They could blow this garage to smithereens any second with us all inside.
