Page 88 of Snake (Road Rebels MC 3)
It was the four of us, against four of them now, but they had already retreated. They had already given up.
Gunner and I brought the two girls to our bikes, and they hadn’t stopped shaking or crying.
“Shut up! We’re trying to save you!” I thundered at the girl whose hand I was still holding. She stopped screeching then and stared at me like she was in disbelief.
“Where are you taking us?” she asked and I saw the raw fear in her eyes, and my voice softened slightly.
“Somewhere safe. We came here to rescue you,” I said, while Glock and Hunter walked back towards us. The Dragon Knights had all vanished, but they had all been injured as well.
“Think they got the message?” Glock grinned, and I saw that he was unharmed. Hunter too wasn’t bleeding.
“Oh my God! He’s been shot!” the girl beside me screamed, and I turned to see Gunner keeled over. The girl he had caught was standing over him, her hands clasped to her mouth in horror. Gunner’s leg was a bloody mess, he had a bullet still lodged in his calf as far as I could tell.
“Fuck!” I growled and crouched down beside him.
“I’m fine. I’m fine. It’s just a graze!” Gunner argued, as he tried to stand up, but he was wobbling on his feet. I reached for his shoulder and kept him straight.
“We need to take you back, you need to get that bullet taken out,” I hissed at him, and Gunner shook his head.
“Not the hospital man,” he resisted against my tug, and I smiled at him and thumped his shoulders.
“Remember when I said the same thing and you took me anyway?” I said, and even though I knew that Gunner was in pain, he tried to smile at me.
“Mother fucker,” he cursed under his breath as I dragged him to my bike. He was losing a lot of blood and fast, and I positioned him on my bike. Hunter and Glock took the girls on their bikes, and I could see the relief on their faces. They trusted us now.
When I sat on my bike, behind me, Gunner tried to keep a hold of me.
“What about my fucking bike?” he growled, through the pain in his leg.
“We’ll deal with that later,” I said as I accelerated.
We’d achieved what he had set out to do. We had rescued the girls who were going to be used for prostitution by the Dragon Knights. Before I met Noelle, I wouldn’t even have hesitated to take on a mission like this one, but I was surprised at myself for hesitating tonight. For not going with my gut and doing the right thing. Was Noelle going to change everything? What was going to happen when we had the baby?
I tried to ride my bike as slowly as I could, while I took Gunner back to the Rusty Pelican. I could sense him trying his hardest to not moan. I knew what a gunshot wound could feel like. I had experienced it myself, but Gunner was putting up a brave front.
I didn’t plan on taking him to the hospital, now that we had Noelle in our midst. As I rode my bike, I extracted my cellphone from the pocket of my jeans and dialed her number.
She was still groggy when she answered the phone, and her voice immediately brought a smile to my face.
“Hey, you, when are you coming home?” were her first words, and I still couldn’t believe that home now wasn’t the apartment I had lived in all these years. It was where Noelle was.
“Not for a while, princess. I need you to make your way to the Rusty Pelican instead. Do you think you can do that?” I asked, and there was silence on the other end.
“Are you okay, Tank?” she asked, and I detected the fear in her voice.
“Yes, Noelle. Just meet me there,” I said and slipped my phone back into my pocket. Even though this conversation was short and to-the-point, I knew exactly what she was thinking. It was a quick reminder of how deeply she disapproved of my lifestyle.
CHAPTER 23
Noelle
When I burst in through the doors of the Rusty Pelican, I wasn’t expecting the scene that I saw. The music was still loud, the place was still smoggy with cigarette smoke, but everyone seemed to be in a panic.
I could see a crowd of Bad Disciples members crowded around the center of the bar, and drinks were being passed around. But as I weaved through the crowd, I also saw that Tank’s friend, Gunner, was sitting on a bar stool with his head thrown back and his eyes pressed in pain. Kylie and Brooklyn were crouched in front of him, screeching and panicked.
“I don’t know what to do! I’ve never done this before!” I heard Kylie yell as I stepped towards them.
“Please, just do something to stop the bleeding!” Brooklyn screamed, and I could see that she was crying. I hadn’t seen Tank yet, even though he was the one who had called me and asked me to get there.
I was worried that something had gone wrong, that he was hurt. I had come rushing to the bar, and now I couldn’t even see him anywhere. I squeezed through people’s shoulders till I was standing directly in front of Gunner.
He had a big deep wound on his calf, from what I could see and he was bleeding. I was reminded immediately of the horror of seeing Tank on the gurney in the hospital. I knew what that wound was from, he’d been shot.
“Noelle!” Brooklyn screeched when she saw me and came rushing to my side.
“Oh good, Noelle, you’re here. I wasn’t sure what to do,” Kylie straightened up from in front of Gunner, and I heard him groan.
“He’s been shot,” I said, still in a daze and Brooklyn burst out crying again.
“We don’t know if the bullet’s still in there. He needs to get stitched up,” she whimpered.
“I’m not trained in this. I’m a physical therapist,” Kylie explained and I stared at the blank terrified faces of the two women. I knew that they needed my help, and time was of the essence if Gunner’s leg was to be saved. I was a trained professional and had dealt with thousands of emergency situations, and yet, right then, I felt like I was frozen.
The only thought going through my mind was concerning Tank. Where he was, if he was safe and that he had promised me that he would keep himself out of danger.
“Where’s Tank?” I asked as I walked towards Gunner. Adrenaline started to kick through my veins.
“Noelle, you need to help Gunner,” Tank’s voice cut through the noise and panic in the bar, and I whipped around to find him weaving through the crowd towards me. I felt a jolt in my body. A sudden relief washed over me when I saw him.
“Tank!” I yelled and lunged at him, just as he threw his arms open for me.
“I’m fine, princess. Gunner is the one who needs your help now,” he said, and I nodded my head.
“Okay, okay,” I cried, and I turned around and crouched down in front of Gunner. My hands trembled as I reached for his leg and he yelped. There was too much blood for me to see what had happened, or how deep the wound was or if the bullet was still in there or if it was just a graze.
“Is he going to be all right? Is he going to be all right?” Brooklyn couldn’t stop screaming. All the noise and the music and the loud voices were destabilizing me. I was unnerved and frozen to the spot. My years of training had vanished, and all I could think about was that I was bringing a child into this world. That the father of my child was going to put his life at risk like this every day.
“Noelle,” Tank placed his hands on my shoulders, and I looked up to find him staring down at me.
“I’m fine. You have to believe that I’m fine,” he said, in a low whispering voice. I stared into his eyes as he held my gaze. He wanted me to see just how strongly he meant every word he was saying. I parted my lips, and a sound like a cry rose up in my throat.
“We needed to save the lives of two women,” he said, and I could feel my shoulders heaving.
