Burn Down the Night (Everything I Left Unsaid #3)- Molly O'Keefe Page 0,4
bought from one of the girls’ husbands and aimed it at his head. “And I’m a very good shot.”
“Joan!” It was Max again and he’d been edging up beside me. Fuck. I spun slightly, aiming the gun back toward him.
“Max. Please, stay out of this—”
“So you can blow us all up? Fuck that, psycho,” he snapped. He grabbed the hand holding the gun and twisted it, nearly dislocating my wrist.
I screamed and lifted my knee to nail him in the crotch but he jerked sideways and all he got was a knee to his thigh. I tried to kick him, a leg sweep to take out his ankles, but he sidestepped that, too. I leaned down to bite his hand, but he didn’t flinch. Didn’t do anything but twist my arm so hard my hand went numb and the gun fell to the ground. And then he reached for my other hand, bent back the fingers that gripped the cellphone until they, too, went limp. He snagged the phone and the gun and shoved them into his back pocket.
“Don’t!” I sobbed, watching out of the corner of my eye as Lagan made it to the door. I lunged after him but Max held on to me, nearly breaking my arm.
“Let me go!”
“So you can get yourself killed?”
“My sister…” I sobbed.
“He wasn’t going to tell you.”
I fought him. I fought him with all my rage. Head butts and kicks, everything I’d been taught of fighting dirty in my shitty life.
None of it any use.
Honest to God, I don’t know why I was surprised.
“Jesus, come on. Joan. Cops are coming and you will be put away.” He tried to pull me up by my armpits, but I was a pitbull, trained to kill.
There was no Plan B. This bullshit plan took me months and every penny I had.
Jennifer was farther away than ever.
Smoke was beginning to roll into the room through the door Lagan had left open as he left.
“I have to stop him,” I cried. “I have to. Max—”
“God save me from crazy bitches,” Max muttered. He put his arm across my back and lifted me. I still fought him. I wanted to burn down the night.
“You ruined everything!” I screamed and smacked at him with my dead heavy hands. I clawed and scratched and his hard face just got harder.
Hit me! I screamed in my head. Hit me!
He dragged me out of the room, down the smoke-filled hallway toward the back entrance. He pushed open the door and we were belched out into a black night filled with smoke and fire and screams.
“Jesus,” he muttered. “You really did it.”
My feet hit the gravel of the parking lot. The bikers were back here and there was a lot of smoke. The car I’d blown up was burning out in the weeds. There was one man in a Skulls cut on the ground, but he was getting to his feet.
I felt a momentary relief that there weren’t more bodies.
“Where’s Lagan?” I screamed, peering through the smoke.
“His black SUV is gone,” Max said. “The driver probably had it ready the second the fire alarm got pulled. You didn’t stand a chance, Joan.”
“Max!” Another voice broke through the noise and Max turned, his arm still around me, keeping me up. Because the fight was draining out of me and my legs could barely support me. My knees buckled and I would have been on the ground if it weren’t for Max’s steely strength.
A man limped out of the smoke.
“Rabbit,” Max said. “Everyone okay? We need to get the guys gone before the cops get here.”
Rabbit was beat up. His face was nearly black with smoke and his arm was at a weird angle. So weird in fact that it took me a second to realize he was holding a gun in his other hand.
He lifted it toward Max.
Max pushed me away and reached into his back pocket for my gun. As he pulled it out, my cellphone fell out, too. He pushed me again and I hooked my phone with my foot, dragging it with me as I stumbled to the side. It seemed smart to gather what weapons I could.
It seemed smart actually to get the hell out of there. Max had fucked everything up for me. I owed him no loyalty.
But somehow I couldn’t move.
Suddenly Rabbit wasn’t alone. There were a few more guys with him. Gray-faced and bleeding from cuts and scrapes.