As the man rounded the car, he gazed down at me with a sneer and I pulled the trigger of my gun with a soul full of rage and his death singing a ditty in my ear. But there was a click as the chamber rang empty and I realised I’d been a foolish fool.
He grinned as he aimed his own pistol at me, enjoying the look of acceptance on my face as I realised I had no time to do anything but die. There was an entire eternity living in my final seconds on this bittersweet earth. I’d lived a life where all my nightmares had been realised, and all my dreams had come true. I wanted to kick and scream and throw a tantrum at Death’s feet because it wasn’t fair. I’d had so very little time to enjoy the good, to savour the cherry on top of the sweet ice cream of a life I’d finally been served.
A huge shadow rose up behind the maker of my ruin and with a bang that rocked me to my core, a bullet slammed through the back of his skull and out through the centre of his eyes, blood showering over me before he slumped dead at my feet.
Mateo was left standing there, staring down at me with a wild fury as he offered me his hand, his body glistening with the blood of his previous kill. I grabbed hold of him, letting him draw me to my feet as I tasted the blood on my lips and laughed in delight, my brush with death leaving me giddy.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were out of bullets?” he hissed, his eyes flashing with the fear of what could have happened because of my little blip.
“I didn’t know,” I admitted as he tugged me around the car to take cover again. He snatched my gun and loaded it for me as a deep frown formed on his brow.
I reached over to smooth out those angry little creases, but they wouldn’t budge. “Mateo-” I started but he cut me off, his eyes snapping up to meet mine as a world of rage stared back at me.
“Eres mi sol. Eres mi luz en la oscuridad. Nunca me dejes,” he snarled and my soul rumbled with the power of his words.
“Does that mean…you’re mad? And you’d like a cookie?” I translated.
“No,” he hissed through his teeth. “It means, you are my sun, my light. And I command that you don’t ever leave me.” He placed the loaded gun back in my grip and lunged forward to take a savage kiss from my lips. It lasted all of two seconds before he drew back and gave me that burn-the-world-down stare again.
“The next one’s mine,” I insisted and he smirked slowly.
“All yours, chica loca,” he promised before kicking the corpse on the ground and forcing it to roll over. “This is Tomas Alonso, which means these men are cartel,” he hissed.
“Like cows?” I breathed.
“No. Like enemies. Jack’s enemies. They must have followed us from the club.”
A whoop drew my attention to Jack and Niall and I peered over the car, spotting them running towards the man Brutus had on the ground. As the dog backed up, the man was left at the mercy of the new monsters on the scene and my heart beat rampantly as I waited for his death to come. There were no more gunshots, no more men crying out as Niall bore down on the man whimpering from Brutus’s bloody attack and slid a knife slow and deep into his throat.
I pouted, folding my arms as the silence stretched right out into the trees and beyond.
“No fair. I didn’t get a kill,” I huffed.
Mateo ran his thumb over my chin, wiping a line of blood away and frowning at me. “There’ll always be a next time.”
“I want a now time,” I growled and Mateo looked to Niall and Jack, concern blossoming in his gaze.
“We need to figure out a plan,” he said heavily. “Stay here.” He strode away from me to join the others and my pout pushed out even further as I stared at their little man club.
I didn’t even get a kill and now I was being cut out of an official Society of Psychos meeting? This sucked hairy butthole.
My heart shrank to a tiny pea, a pea which tumbled down into my belly, whirling around in there and sobbing as it went.
My men started arguing, pointing at each other as curses carried up the sky and Brutus barked at them like he was in on the conversation too. I didn’t care to listen to what they were yapping about. I was the only one who had a right to be a moody Joel, they’d all gotten a kill. But me? No, I was here in the wake of a massacre, and I had no victims among the dead.
I hurled the gun away from me with a snarl, the thing hitting Niall’s new Jeep and leaving a dent in the side of it. Then I twisted on my heel and huffed my way back to the house.
I wanted some Coco Pops, but I didn’t even deserve Pops right now because I hadn’t shed a single drop of blood tonight. I was supposed to be the Pink Pussy, but I was just the Bald Beaver instead. And there was nothing worse than a bald beaver.
I hung my head, stomping to the front door and not even looking where I was going because I just wanted to go sit in the shower and scream.
A large sweaty palm slapped over my mouth, and I jerked to attention before I was yanked back against an enormous body the size of three bodies stitched together horizontally.
I sensed who it was before I even heard his voice, my instincts screaming with the memory of him as the scent of liquorice twisted around me.
Señor Castillo.
“One wrong move and I’ll empty my gun into you, whore,” he said in my ear, dragging me backwards. “You’ll be my shield until I’m out of here.”
I fought against his hold, feeling his snooty Simon of a gun poking into my ribs as he towed me towards Niall’s truck while the sound of my men arguing still carried up to the sky. The lights flashed on the car as Señor Castillo opened it with a key he must have stolen from the house, but still my men didn’t see.
I weighed up my options, not wanting to be made into swiss cheese by Castillo’s gun, but also not wanting to play human shield so he could escape.
He drew me down onto his lap in the driver’s seat, yanking me tight to his body as he pressed the button to start up the truck. The moment the engine growled, my men stopped shouting at each other and I twisted my head, trying to see them out the back window as Castillo drove the truck in a fast circle to turn it around.
Niall started shooting and I screamed as the passenger window exploded and a bitch of a shard of glass cut my arm.
Angry Jack knocked Niall aside as he heard my scream and Castillo accelerated down the drive, leaning around me as he kept one hand on the gun pressing into my body while using the other to drive.
“Rook!” AJ bellowed as my three men came running our way and adrenaline spilled into my blood.
Castillo had to veer around the fancy car he must have arrived in with the other men and we bumped over the grass, the gun slipping for a second so it was no longer jammed into my side.
That was my moment. No matter how small, how much of a fragment of a heartbeat it was. I wasn’t going to be torn away from my heathens. I wasn’t going to end up dead in a ditch somewhere at the hands of this sweaty man. I remembered when Dead Man had tried to kill Niall with a windscreen wiper lever and thanked him for his clever idea. I snapped off the lever behind the wheel then stabbed it backwards with all my might in the direction of Castillo’s face.
He roared as it sunk into something fleshy and the gun went off with a bang that I felt everywhere. I was so full of adrenaline, I couldn’t be sure if I’d been shot or not. But it didn’t matter now.