Annabelle’s words came back to me: families lean on each other. I’d been trying not to lean on the club ever since I’d joined. I’d given and given and never taken back: not until she showed up. She’d been the one thing that I’d loved more than the club, the one thing that had gotten me to ask for help: to rescue her on the highway and to confront the Blood Spiders’ president at the sawmill. And it had worked.
Then Volos had shown up and I’d pushed them away again. I’d been convinced I had to protect them, that I had to deal with this on my own. And look where that had gotten me.
I slipped off my cut and looked at it. Then I wiped my hand across the back, clearing away the mud until the Hell’s Princes logo was visible again.
I needed the club. And since I was the only one left, it was up to me to get them back.
I climbed onto my bike and rode for the Sheriff’s Office.
The Haywood Falls Sheriff’s Office isn’t big. Just a few rooms for paperwork, a parking lot out back and the holding cells. I knew the guys would still be there: no way the State Police would get off their asses and organize a prison bus to ship them all out in the middle of the night. But in the morning, they’d be gone.
If I was going to do this, I had to do it now.
If Annabelle had been there, she could have come up with some elaborate break-out plan: cutting steel bars, disabling cameras, all that shit.
Given that it was just me, I figured I’d better just do what I’m good at: brute force and intimidation.
I walked right in the front door and pointed Caorthannach at the guy sitting at the front desk. He gaped at me: at the shotgun, at my dripping, mud-stained body, at the expression on my face. “What the hell is this?” he asked, terrified.#p#分页标题#e#
“It’s a bloody breakout,” I told him. “What the fuck does it look like?”
Sheriff Harris came out of his office and saw what was going on. “O’Harra?!” He put his hands out to pacify me. “What are you doing?” He looked from me towards the holding cells at the end of the hall. “I thought you made a deal! I thought it was you who—”
“I didn’t make a deal,” I snarled. “Get over here. Both of you, walk in front of me.”
“Easy, son,” Harris told the front desk guy. “Do as he says.”
I collected up two more officers who were filing reports in the office and marched all four of them down the hall to the cells. To my relief, Harris made sure no one tried to be a hero: I didn’t want to shoot anyone. As I came into view, a ripple went through the big holding cell where all the Princes were standing. “What the fuck?” muttered Mac.
I directed the Sheriff’s staff into an empty cell and had Sheriff Harris lock them inside. “Now open up that cell and let my club go,” I ordered.
Sheriff Harris shook his head.
I raised Caorthannach.
Harris angrily pushed the shotgun aside. “You’re not going to shoot me,” he muttered.
He was right. I wasn’t. Harris had been a friend of the club for years. He’d played along to protect his employees, but now it was just the two of us he was calling my bluff. I could feel myself losing control of the situation. “Let them out!” I snapped, desperate.
“I can’t do it,” said Harris. His eyes were sad. “I’ll do a lot for the club but there’s a limit. I can’t just let an entire cell full of suspects walk out of here. I’d lose my job.”
Shit. All the bluster drained out of me. I lifted Caorthannach again...then lowered it. That gun had scared plenty of people over the years but it didn’t scare him. Intimidation wasn’t going to work. Not this time. It was over.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” said Harris softly. “But the best thing you can do is turn around and walk out of here. Keep to the back roads, you might make it out of the state.”
He was offering me a way out but that wasn’t what I needed. I needed my club. And it was going to take more than scaring him to get them back.
I dug down deep, feeling for all the things I’d locked away a long time ago, the things Annabelle had reawakened. My voice softened. “He’s got my girl, Sheriff. A real evil bastard. I got to get her back. And I need my club to do it.”
Harris looked into my eyes for a long time...and I saw him slowly soften. He let out a long sigh, then lowered his voice. “You gotta hit me.”
“What?”
“It’s the only way the feds will buy it. It’s gotta look like I fought you. So hit me. Hard. Then take the key. It’s in my pocket.”