I ask as I pull off down the road. “Which direction?”
“Back toward Carolina Beach,” Nash replies. “Lucy found my sister.”
“Okay. That’s fucking great,” I tell him as I take the exit ramp on the right so fast the SUV’s left tires come off the ground. “But what the hell does your sister have to do with anything right now, man?”
“She’s a nurse.”
“Oh. And you think she’ll help these guys?”
“I don’t know,” he says softly. “Haven’t met her yet.”
“Jesus Christ,” I grumble.
“Now is as good a time as any, I guess. Let me see if Lucy has her number and can at least warn her that we’re coming,” Nash says as he fumbles for his phone and finally gets it up to his ear. He relays the message to his girl of what we need and then ends the call a second later.
“Well?” I ask.
“Lucy’s texting me her address and will call her up to let her know we’re coming,” he responds.
Glancing over at him now that I’m on the straight shot highway going a hundred miles an hour, I whisper, “And what if she turns us away?”
“Fuck! I don’t know,” he exclaims, stabbing his fingers through his brown hair and giving it a tug before my eyes go back to the dark, empty road in front of me. “She’ll just have to help us!”
“Right,” I huff. “Because that’s how you get the best medical care – hold someone at gunpoint and demand it.”
“We’re not going to hold her at gunpoint,” Nash snaps.
“We’re not? Even if she’s our only option for saving Fiasco?”
“Dammit. I don’t know, okay? Let’s just pray she’ll do it without it coming to that.”
“Yeah, let’s hope.”
“Ah, guys,” Malcolm says from behind Nash’s seat, so I quickly glance over my shoulder and find Hunt slumped against his side. “I don’t know where we’re going but make it fast. Hunt’s out cold.”
“Shit, I’m going as fast as this big tank will go, prez,” I say when I press the pedal down to the floorboard. “We needed a car to haul people; and unfortunately, big ones can’t go zero to sixty in three seconds.”
“Take the next exit,” Nash tells me as he stares down at his phone. “We’re only about five minutes away.”
“Where is five minutes away?” Malcolm grumbles, which tells me all I need to know about his health. If he is his normal grouchy self, barking orders, then he is going to be fine.
“My sister’s place,” Nash swivels around in his seat to inform him.
“I didn’t know you had a sister,” Malcolm replies.
“I, ah, haven’t actually met her yet.”
“Well, fuck,” Malcolm huffs, echoing my sentiments.
If we’re wrong about Nash’s long-lost sister, then we could be signing Fiasco’s death warrant and possibly Hunt’s.
“How’s he doing back there, guys?” I call out to Silas and Devlin who have been quiet.
“Fiasco’s taking a little nap,” Silas says. “Sure, he’ll be just fine.”
“His pulse is weak,” Devlin admits. “He’s losing a shit ton of blood.”
“Hold pressure,” Malcolm tells them. “Tighter!”
“We’re almost there. Hopefully,” I call back to them.
“Who the fuck did this?” Malcolm asks Hunt’s guy, Preston.
“They had on masks, so I can’t be certain,” he starts. “But we have heard that the Irish aren’t happy about us coming to town.”
“The Irish?” Nash repeats. “Bikers, gang, or mafia?”
“Mafia.”
“Why the fuck didn’t you tell us that before tonight?” Malcolm yells at him.
“We just heard some gossip around town, nothing concrete! It’s not like they sent us a note telling us they were going to shoot up the place!”
“From now on, I need to know everything, even whispers. You hear me?” Malcolm growls.
“Yes, sir.” After several quiet moments as I take more directions from Nash, putting the SUV on two wheels a few more times, Preston goes on to say, “If we lose Hunt, we won’t have enough for a fucking chapter.”
“You’re not going to lose Hunt,” Malcolm grunts.
“You’ve got a prospect, don’t you?” I ask him.
“How the fuck did you know that?” Preston mutters.
“Why the fuck didn’t I?” Malcolm shouts at him.
“Yeah, we’ve got a prospect, but he’s too green. It hasn’t even been three months yet!”
The rest of the way the SUV is quiet following that comment – too quiet as we all retreat into our own heads.
Finally, after what feels like a lifetime, we pull up outside of a small white, one-story cottage. It’s in the cul-de-sac of a regular, lower-middle class neighborhood in a good part of town.
“We’re here,” I announce to the other guys as if it wasn’t obvious.