“I saw.”
Staring at him with memories playing across her eyes, Sunshine whispers, as though she didn’t hear me, “He preys on people. He spent his life making money off lonely women. Women who didn’t have families, who didn’t have anyone to help them. He sold them like cattle. For sex. And it didn’t matter who wanted it. The evilest men in the world walked in, and he took their money and told them to do whatever they wanted. Like their lives meant nothing. All they wanted was a home and he twisted their dreams into nightmares.” Tears start to fall down her cheeks as her steady hand begins to shake. “My mother was murdered by one of those animals. And he’s lying there smiling at me!”
I look over. She’s right.
The sick fuck is grinning.
I want to go punch the old bastard myself, now.
Honey Badger walks up and stops two feet behind me, silently wanting the same. But this is her fight.
I try one last time. “You willing to go to jail for life? We’re calling the police. They’ll take him away. You don’t have to do this.”
“Yes, I do,” she whispers, bringing the gun up and closing one eye for aim.
The demon in the bed throws ice into my veins as he rasps something I never saw coming.
“So…you’re gonna kill your own father?”
She doesn’t even blink.
“Matias…I can’t wait. Tell Lucifer you’re home.” Sunshine steadies the machine gun and fires. The old man’s chest explodes. Then his face as she fires again.
I watch her trembling lips part as the gun falls from her hands. Relief laced with finality is all over her. She turns her head and gazes at me with a silent question. I can hear her asking as though she said aloud.
Is it over?
I nod and start to go to her. But a shot rings out. Her eyes lose their sad light and she crumples to the ground. I rush forward, darting a look behind to understand what just happened. The thug, the one we thought was dead, wasn’t.
As Honey Badger runs to take him down, time slows. Everything is fuzzy as I scoop up the woman I held in my arms last night, and watch blood stream from the side of her head.
I am rocking her.
Shouting for an ambulance.
Whispering to her to hang on.
She’s limp and heavy.
The blood won’t stop.
“Stay with me.”
Jett
Scratch runs into the room and looks around. “What the fuck!!”
“GET AN AMBULANCE!” I yell.
He rushes to me, taking her in. “We did. Called the police, too. We’re going to have to do a lot of explaining. And we’re probably going to jail for this.”
I barely hear him. I’m holding her, covered in her blood. “Stay with me, Sunshine. Fight!”
“I’ve got an idea!” Honey Badger cries out. “Scratch, come with me!”
They disappear. Time is frozen, and yet there they are again, carrying a guy in from outside. “Careful not to let his feet drop.” To me, as if I care, Honey Badger says, “He’s already dead.”
They bring him over and lay him beside her, slump him like he was facing the bed. Scratch holds him up and leans way back. Honey Badger runs over to the unconscious guy by the door, the one who shot her.
“Jett, duck!”
I cover her with my body and bend out of the way.
He picks up the guy’s gun, aims and fires at the dead thug. Scratch swears under his breath as the blood spatters on him and us. The now twice-dead body slumps to the side, his head a fuckin’ unrecognizable mess. Scratch takes the gun Sunshine used and wipes her fingerprints off. He puts it in the dead guy’s hand and makes sure the guy’s fingerprints are on it in all the right places. Then he uses his shirt to wipe his own off.
Turning to me, Scratch sees my dazed expression.
I can’t stop whispering to Sunshine.
I can’t stop.
“Jett, focus! This is the deal.”
My eyes slowly move to listen. Honey kneels in front of me. “This guy shot HIM.” He points to Matias in the bed. “She went to save him. The old guy. She went to save him, you hear me?” I nod once. “And when she did, that guy shot this guy to save his boss, and accidentally hit her, too.” He jabs a finger at the guy by the door, the fucker who caused my anguish. “You got it?”
“Stay with me, Sunshine,” I whisper to her, nodding to my chosen brothers that I understand. At some point later I will thank them for clearing her name. That man fathered her. Then sold her mother as a whore. I can only imagine how that went down. Sunshine deserves peace, and respect for her bravery today.
She’s got my respect.
“Hear those?” Scratch mumbles, as sirens get louder. “We ready for this?”