The Devil’s Dragons president glanced over in the direction that his second-in-command had chosen, and shook his head.
“He’s just worried. He thinks that I should stay behind on this one.”
“Why’s that?” I replied, crossing my arms.
“He caught me awake,” Hunter replied simply. “Everyone else got some shut-eye, even the Dragons on our operation last night. Grizz got restless and he spotted me bent over those maps…”
“He thinks you’re going to be too tired?”
Hunter ran his hand through his hair. “Grizz is careful. He’s methodical.”
My expression soured. “Grizz has a point.”
“I know,” Hunter replied. “But tired or not, I have to ride…”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Look at us,” he indicated to the bikers as they wrapped up their work, suiting up for the coming fight. “Everyone is prepared to follow me into the fight. If I stayed behind, it would send the wrong message. There’s no turning back now… Can you feel it in the air?” He pointed upwards.
I shook my head. “Tension?”
“Anticipation,” Hunter corrected. “These men are hungry for a piece of the action. It’s not just about the money, either. Everybody wants to be the hero sometimes…”
I glanced over the dissipating crowd as it swept outside, snatching up weapons and patting each other on the backs on their way out.
They seemed… oddly jovial.
“You’ve noticed,” Hunter read the expression on my face. “You’ve seen how ready for this they are… how they almost don’t take it seriously.”
“Why is that?” I asked, turning my head to face him. “Why aren’t any of them scared? They could lose their lives. We could be riding into something a lot more dangerous than they think…”
“It isn’t often that the Outlaws are seriously put to the test,” Hunter observed.
I only hoped they were ready for the road ahead…
Hunter pulled my thoughts away before I could voice any concern. “We need to get going, Sarah. The men are assembled, the night awaits, and the time has come.”
17
True to his word, Hunter led the charge… and he looked damn good doing it. The wind whipped at his leathers as the engine roared beneath us, rocking us towards our destiny.
With my arms tightly wrapped around his strong, rugged chest, I glanced over my shoulder and briefly studied our escort squad under the moonlight. Our improvised biker fleet, totaling members from five motorcycle clubs, was right behind us and kicking up an impressive storm of dust.
The dark cacophony of the rolling engines formed a symphony of bitter vengeance. With Hunter as their conductor, each biker in our merry band had their prospective instrument nearby: a pistol, a shotgun, a rifle, a knife…
I was still stunned that he had successfully mobilized such a force. Minus a traitor, about seventy motorcycles flanked us beneath the stars as we rocketed forward, all of us aligned to the same goals:
Find the girls.
Overthrow the cartel.
Instead of heading towards the farmhouse, we were flying the opposite direction. The collective beam of headlights rolled around us, several bikers unable to resist a couple of burn outs or firing a few weapons into the sky.
Hunter had warned them upfront:
Get your fun out of the way now.
Once we reach the fence, we’re all business.
He’d known that they needed to get a little adrenaline out of their systems first, ramping themselves into the mindset of attacking a nearby sex-trafficking cartel.
After all, he was a good leader.
He knew what his men needed.
Hunter signaled back to the closest bikers, and they began to slow down. The decreased momentum trickled backwards through the biker armada. We were soon flying forwards from them, breaking away as a single motorcycle.
His voice shouted over the roar of the engine. “Hold on, Princess. It’s about to get bumpy…”
When he felt my grip tighten, Hunter leant into the handlebar, pushing us off the main road and onto the dirt trails. The bikers followed suit, matching our change in direction and roaring to keep up.
We left the ground a few times over the bumps in the trail, cutting across the empty desert under the full moon. I could hear the hooting and hollering of some of the others as they did the same, sometimes hitting the acceleration to catch more airtime.
After twenty minutes of this, we cut off from the trail and started driving across open desert. Hunter navigated us across a strip of steady flatlands, avoiding the prickly flora as we rode out into what looked like pure nothingness.
Five minutes later, a small dot appeared on the horizon. It grew in size until I realized that it was a house – much smaller than the one that played host to our gunfight the night before.