Текст книги "Broken "
Автор книги: L. S. Silverii
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Broken
Savage Souls Series
Book 1
LS Silverii
Dedication
This first book in the series is dedicated to my wife. I still love saying that.
Acknowledgements
This series allowed the opportunity to incorporate my experiences as an undercover agent as well as what I’ve learned through my studies of human fringe behavior. I appreciate all of my brother and sister law enforcement officers who walk the jagged line daily. Those who keep the faith despite the frayed conditions have my eternal gratitude.
The writing community is amazing for surrounding each other with genuine support. These wonderful people generously support and mentor me without hesitation. I thank you for your time, talent and truth. Liliana Hart, Jean Jenkins and Danielle Dauphinet.
Product Warning
ABOUT THIS SERIES:
**Please note this book is dark romance and deals with adult themes. Recommended for mature readers only**
This story unfolds over five volumes that span between 22 – 27,000 words each.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Product Warning
Copyright Page
Epigraph
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
About the Author
Author’s Note
Links to my Other Books
Excerpt from Damaged
Copyright © 2015 by L. Scott Silverii
Kindle Edition
SilverHart, LLC Publishing
Broken: Savage Souls Series
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including emailing, photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance it bears to reality is entirely coincidental.
Produced by LS Silverii at SilverHart, LLC Publishing.
Thanks for being a Savage Souls reader. To show appreciation for joining me on this outlaw adventure, I’m giving away Sterling Silver Biker Pendants. Each episode in the series has a unique piece of biker jewelry that symbolizes that book. Enter by clicking the link below and you might become one of the Savage Nations Most Wanted Prize Winners.
forms.aweber.com/form/32/368041932.htm
Love is the ultimate outlaw. It just won’t adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is sign on as its accomplice.
Tom Robbins
Chapter 1
“If he flinches—shoot him, Sue,” Justice ordered the sniper. “We’ve worked too hard to have some Vegas playboy dick us over. Just deliver the goods and he can be on his way.”
“10-4, and don’t call me Sue.”
Justice’s mouth quirked at the response. He’d taunted his brother, Bobby for years over the nickname given him by their father. Besides being a real asshole, their dad was a Johnny Cash fanatic.
Justice peered into the high-powered binoculars. His team was in position—he’d made sure of it. Tension clawed its way across his face. The main artery in his neck grew thicker with each pulse.
“It’s still quiet,” an impatient voice crackled over the radio.
Surveillance hidden on the northeast ridge had eyes on anything that entered the target area. Howling winds through the shallow Colorado valley swirled around each of the former military specialists, but provided no comfort from the anxiety streaming over this latest operation.
Justice wandered too close to the edge of their observation deck. Stones from beneath the sole of his worn boot ricocheted down the mountain. He wiped moist palms onto his jeans. His fingers twitched. The physical effects of so much time spent setting up this deal had begun to show, not to mention he worried about the cash dropped for reeling in the target.
“Y’all sure it’s cool down there? I don’t want anything spooking him,” he barked. Thick, calloused fingers suffocated the radio. Justice’s gnarled beard scratched against the plastic surface held to his chapped lips.
“10-4, boss. Silent. Except for the coyotes,” replied the former Force Recon Marine. Usually unperturbed by the wilderness wildlife, coyotes were nocturnal hunters—aggressive. That would’ve also described Sue, but this was the coyotes’ territory.
Justice had carefully sketched the plan—it was fool proof and easy. The Vegas wise guy, Ricky Geneti, would deliver the military grade weapons they’d already test fired, in exchange for cash. Everyone would be happy. Simple.
Justice flipped on the night vision goggles, but the stars were brilliantly bright and he was too far away for the NVG to be of any help. They clanked onto the hood of his pickup truck.
“Hey, be careful with those. They ain’t cheap,” Rage cautioned.
The former Army Intelligence operative shot a glare at Justice, but quickly swept his focus back onto the matrix of computer screens. The black and grey monotone monitors were tailored to prevent detection during night ops. Rage’s collection of rugged notebook laptops showed images from a series of covert cameras he’d set up to alert them the instant anyone arrived. Other than the dust kicked up by the valley’s wind gusts, the conditions were optimum for his technology.
“Yeah, ain’t like we got extra cash on hand. This damn deal is setting us back on our reserves.” Justice eased the NVG into the hard-plastic case.
“Eyes up. Jeep approaching lights out.” A voice snapped the radio’s silence.
Justice peered over Rage’s shoulder to watch the screen’s blip. Like a bat out of hell, the Jeep moved toward the rendezvous point. Rage widened the radar’s scope to show no other vehicles in the area—just as instructed.
“Looks like little Ricky can follow directions after all.” Justice tried to make light of the situation, but he never relaxed until the deals were done. Just like in his military special operations days, the safety of his crew came first.
“Sniper one to base,” whispered Sue Boudreaux. “Looks to be alone.”
“He better be, else I’ll drag his greasy ass all the way back to sin city,” Justice growled.
He paced the mountain ledge like a lion, and reached for the NVG out of habit before changing his mind.
“He’s out of the Jeep. Top is down like he was told. I see the trailer behind him.” Sue called out a play-by-play from his crow’s nest. Trained by the United States Marine Corp as a sniper, the Force Recon operative had an eagle’s eye and owl’s intuition about human behavior.
Justice mentally checked off the next action in his ops plan. “Fury, it’s your play. Check his trailer for the weapons. No test firing, but you can rack the bolt actions and selector switches to confirm they’re fully automatic rifles.”
“Roger that.”
“I’ll signal when it’s okay to hand him the keys to the motorcycle. Vengeance will deliver the keys to you. Two hundred and fifty grand are locked inside the saddlebags. Well, minus the twenty thousand I took out for the Harley to transport it out of here.”
There was silence. Not many of them had had a clue how much money was at stake. That detail was reserved for him and Geneti, need to know. He’d assumed the others would’ve shit bricks because that much cash sat inside an old pair of leather saddlebags for a week.
“Roger that, boss,” Fury radioed.
“Keep us informed, Sue. Everyone else maintain radio silence unless you got an emergency.” Justice’s voice grew strained. His pacing intensified.
“Dude, relax. You’re fucking with my system’s reception. You’ve covered every angle—it’s a good plan. Just chill out,” Rage implored. Fingers jabbed at mosquitoes and dust as Rage watched his screens carefully.
Sue broke squelch, “Contact. They’re talking. Patting each other down. Shaking hands.” His descriptions to the rest of the team flowed as Fury and Geneti danced cautiously until the deal was done. “Fury gave the hand signal. All the weapons are delivered as agreed.”
Justice chewed on his top lip. “Damn, that’s a lot of money to let walk.”
“No shit, but your call,” Rage added.
“That’s why we’re here. The Mexicans are willing to pay top dollar for rifles, and the military is stupid enough to let them walk out of armories. It’s our duty to make a profit from it.”
“Is Vengeance clear to move?” Sue radioed.
“Go,” Justice snapped back.
Everyone held their positions as the older model Harley Davidson Dyna-Glide sputtered to life. It left an arid trail as Ricky Geneti hauled ass back to Las Vegas, two hundred and thirty thousand dollars richer.
“All clear,” called Sue from his northwest ridge position.
“Hold tight,” Justice said. “Vengeance and Fury clear the deck in case it’s a rip-off play for the guns.” Criminals could be double-crossing assholes. The binoculars were jerked from their strap as a glower pinched his brow together. He scanned the area.
“Looks clean, boss,” Fury’s tone had lightened considerably since completing the high-stakes transaction.
Eerily, the silence almost echoed from the endless points of light overhead. The view of the stars from high on the mountain was like nowhere else. Justice couldn’t help contrasting the tranquility of the outdoors against the potential violence contained in the weapons’ metal cargo containers.
With an extended inhale of fresh mountain air, he bounced on the balls of his feet and pumped his fist. He reached across the pile of plastic computer carrying cases with an open hand to high-five Rage.
“What the fuck?” Rage’s wooden expression blanked. He bent to within an inch of his computer’s radar surveillance screen. Justice froze.
A faint hum and flutter became more distinct. The blip on the computer screen made no sense—it wasn’t a motorcycle’s signature. The men looked up as the whirr of rotor wash sounded from a small helicopter cresting the northeast ridge.
Justice swung his binoculars toward the sound then toward Sue, who was still on the northeast ridge where he maintained surveillance for approaching traffic. The binos flexed beneath the powerful vice of his palms as Justice saw Sue flip onto his back. It looked like his brother had tried to fix the rifle’s scope onto the helicopter, but had been caught off guard by its sudden stealth appearance.
“What the fuck? Is that the feds?” Justice screamed into the small walkie-talkie.
The two-seater Bell JetRanger swooped toward the Jeep and, in an orchestrated descent, released a hook that snatched the tie-straps over the weapons’ metal container. Within seconds it fought to climb out of the valley—cargo case attached—and disappeared.
His fully automatic AR-15 rifle ripping off .223 caliber high-velocity bullets, Justice roared, “You’re fucking dead, Geneti.”
The truth was, Justice Boudreaux might be the next to die.
Chapter 2
Las Vegas isn’t the glimmer and glitz seen by tourists. There’s just a new strip and an old strip, which tried to become a newer old strip. That strip is still just as much bullshit as it was before the new strip. Vegas, the real Las Vegas is littered with working class poor, homeless, and whores.
Abigail Black had been homeless. She hated it, so she worked three jobs to avoid ever being on the streets again. The run-down stucco apartment where she lived currently was her first real home. She’d spent her junior and high school years bumming places to place. Nomadic, her folks followed the trash bins; the more garbage, the better the pickings, and those glamorous casino resorts threw away the best food.
Abigail spent years at the glamorous casinos. Actually¸ she spent years diving into the dumpsters behind them. The kindest thing she could say about her parents was that they taught her to pick through the condoms and piss-covered bed sheets to find the tossed out filet mignons.
One week after graduating from Rancho High School, Abigail marched away from her shit-bag parents and found a job. Over the next few years, the gangly blue-eyed girl developed into a tall, slender, sun-kissed blonde. Some even considered her stunning. Most of those people were strip club owners and pimps.
She’d seen what selling pussy got since Abigail’s mother worked as a whore. Just because Nevada made prostitution legal, didn’t make it right. And her heroin-shooting father wasn’t even her biological dad. His limp dick would nod out while her mother rode the erect ones for cash. Abigail’s DNA belonged to some other John, not John Black.
Hard working and loyal, she’d established a solid reputation among her employers. Never failed a surprise drug test. Always returned cash if the customer miscalculated the totals. Soon, she was able to apply for an apartment with one month’s rent down as a deposit. But it wasn’t so much the deposit that prevented her from finding a place to crash, as it was the apartment managers who always wanted their sweat-soaked cocks sucked before considering letting a vacancy. She’d rather stay homeless.
Like anything good in a woman’s life, men fucked it up. And then along came Ricky Geneti. Straight from Brooklyn, he’d been stationed out of Nellis Air Force Base. Young, dumb, and full of big ideas to hit it big in the world, his passion energized Abigail. His dreams extended beyond the incorporated city limits of Las Vegas.
He’d travelled across the country after all. She still felt like the lanky teenager compared to his worldliness. Abigail loved that he didn’t make her feel stupid. He promised her the moon—and she already had stars in her sweet, wet baby blues.
Her apartment set atop a pawnshop and a liquor store. The rooms sucked, but it was clean—there’d be no garbage cans serving as her pantry. The place was safe because it was high off the filth-infested streets, and the owners of both stores carried weapons for their personal protection.
Ricky sneaked off the military base as often as possible. His older brother’s borrowed Z-28 Camaro made it from his base to her home in under thirty minutes. His enlistment would end soon, and their life—together forever—would begin.
Soon after Ricky was dishonorably discharged by the Air Force for being habitually AWOL, Abigail got knocked up. When she shared the wonderful news with her burgeoning entrepreneur, Ricky’s Z-28 Camaro somehow couldn’t seem to find the pawnshop apartment anymore.
Forced from the safety of her elevated abode, Abigail moved further outside of the incorporated city limits and into a minority housing area made up of mostly Hispanic families and migrant American Indian workers who shuffled on and off the Paiute Tribe’s reservation to live in the adobe-looking flats lining Highway 578.
Named after Abigail’s favorite actor, her son, Jack, had grown up in that housing area. Mother and son were befriended by many of the families; wives often babysat Jack so Abigail could continue working two of her remaining jobs. It wasn’t until his third birthday party that Ricky arrived in his brother’s borrowed Z-28 Camaro to play daddy.
Chapter 3
Eighteen-wheelers dusted along Highway 578. The created rush of wind jerked at the three helium Happy Birthday balloons tied to a knotted fence railing. Twenty small kids chased each other until one fell down then nineteen scurried for parents to offer alibis. It was a wonderfully mixed community. Still the only Nordic-looking resident, Abigail and her Sicilian-toned boy blended into the polychromatic culture of transient living.
The late afternoon sun relaxed to allow Jack and the community kids to enjoy a fun birthday celebration. Abigail squinted against the brightness, and her broad smile etched a few lines across her otherwise smooth face. She busied herself holding down a borrowed tablecloth that flapped each time a vehicle zipped past the vacant lot adjacent to the highway.
She’d finally found a small slice of dingy heaven she could call home. It was better than what she’d known growing up, and the only dumpster on the property wasn’t for diving into after meals. Abigail chuckled as she watched Jack try to keep up with the older kids. She swatted away flies that dive-bombed the off-the-shelf birthday cake. The ice cream was melting fast, so she tried to rustle the gang over to the rickety picnic bench to begin the celebration.
Swiping long, twisty strands of blonde hair off her face, she watched the slow roll of the old sports car. It crunched across the hard-dried mud and pea-gravel highway shoulder until the faring scraped against the entrance to the beveled-bottom parking lot.
Ricky was alone, but she saw the silhouette of a baby’s safety seat in the rear. Her heart quickened. Shit, she had no way of defending herself or Jack. The nightmare that had kept her awake for years had just become a reality.
He smiled like a jackal as he walked up. “Happy birthday son, your daddy’s back.”
“Please go, Ricky.” Abigail pressed both hands against his chest.
“No way in hell. I love that boy. Which one is he?” His slitted gaze darted from child to child.
“You got no right to be here. You ain’t got a legal order.” She looked him dead in the eye and said the words as if she knew what the hell she was talking about. In actuality all she knew about the law was to not break it, and what she’d learned by watching Judge Judy.
He shoved his hand deep into his back pocket and yanked out a crumpled piece of paper. Purposefully taking a long time to unfold it, he flapped it in her face.
She bit down hard on her bottom lip. Her left arm folded across her chest, while her right picked at the cheap gold cross hanging around her neck.
“Got myself an emergency order from the judge, herself. Said she couldn’t imagine what kind of woman would hide a son away from its father. That judge told me to come and get my boy.”
She didn’t bother looking at the papers. Ricky had anyone who could be bought in his back pocket. It made no difference to her what the form might say.
He waved the papers in her face so the sharp corner sliced a thin line just beneath her cheek. Her head jerked back. Before he could do it again she snatched the papers from his hand and tore them in two.
“I don’t give a shit what it says. You got no right being here.”
His backhand caught her off guard, though she should’ve been expecting it. It wasn’t the first time she’d felt the bite of the gaudy diamond ring he wore on his pinky.
Her head snapped back and she went to her knees, her vision blurry. The coppery tang of blood filled the inside of her mouth. She spit it out at his feet. She shook her head once—twice—trying to clear her mind, and tried to get back to her feet.
She hated that she’d never been strong enough to face him down when the stakes were high. The bliss hadn’t lasted long with Ricky. But long enough for a few broken bones and the baby she would’ve suffered through a multitude of broken bones to protect.
His hand tangled in her hair and jerked her head back. “You were saying, bitch?”
Her eyes rolled side to side. It did no good to fight. He was too strong.
“It’s his birthday, Ricky,” she pleaded. “Don’t be this way. He doesn’t even know who you are.” Her words tumbled one on top of the other as her panic grew. “You—you don’t even have a home for him. No toys or his bed.”
A semi flew by. Dust and grit flew into her face. She blinked rapidly and felt sand between her teeth. The sounds of laughter and conversation were no more. The party had been abandoned. Just like her. Heat radiated down on her skin until she thought it would crack like the fissures in the dirt lot. Fear clawed at her belly.
“I done hit it rich, baby. A cool quarter-million-dollar deal. Had to pay a pilot twenty grand, but it was worth it. So, yeah, I got me and my boy a crib to crash.”
She bit back a whimper as he jerked at her hair again. He’d fucked someone over for that cash. Only Ricky was too ignorant to realize those same people would come looking for him.
Her eyes rolled again toward the partygoers gathered beneath the metal-framed community pavilion that looked as if one strong gust of wind would topple it to the ground. She desperately sought to make eye contact with someone—anyone—to beg for help. But no one glanced in her direction. She could only be grateful they hadn’t left Jack alone to watch her suffer. It was his party after all.
But in a fleeting community of illegals and most wanted, it was always the practice to mind your own damn business. Besides, she’d noticed the 9mm pistol shoved in his waistband—chances were, they had too.
She scratched at his wrist, but he slapped her unpainted fingernails away from the new Rolex.
“Ricky, please not today,” she begged, knowing her options were limited. He’d do whatever the hell he wanted and she was powerless to stop him. “Tomorrow, okay?”
“Bitch, go get my boy,” he demanded as he drew his fist back. She flinched, waiting for the pain and crunch of breaking bones. But he laughed instead.
Her hands came up and she grabbed at the front of his shirt. “Pl…please, Ricky. Let me come and help you take care of him. I’ll stay out of the way, I promise.”
He still had hold of her hair. He pulled it so tight she couldn’t close her eyes all the way. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She cursed her weakness. Any sign she showed would only make Ricky worse. He didn’t know the meaning of the word compassion. Especially not for the woman who’d carried his son. And not likely for the son himself.
“I never recall you being such a crying bitch,” he said with derision. “I find it irritating.”
A scream choked in her throat when the cold metal of his gun knocked against her teeth and the barrel was shoved in her mouth.
“Stop your sniveling or I’ll pull the trigger and let the boy watch your brains scatter in the wind. And that will irritate me even more because who else am I going to find to watch the brat when I’m not training him to take over daddy’s business?”
Abigail froze, too terrified to breathe.
He shoved the barrel a little harder in her mouth and then leaned in close, so his lips whispered against the corner of her mouth.
“Mmm, baby. I always did love that look of terror on your face.” His tongue darted out. He licked a long, wet path from chin to cheekbone. “Gets me hard every time. Want to go a round in the Camaro like old times?”
His laugh slithered up her spine and she sobbed in relief as he removed the gun from her mouth. He jerked hard at her hair, bringing her stumbling to her knees. Then he moved in close so she was eye to eye with his zipper and the bulge behind it.
“I remember now. This is how I like you best. Too bad I don’t have a few more minutes to spare. You’ve got a mouth like a vacuum.”
He slapped her lightly on the same cheek he’d backhanded her on earlier and then backed away, settling the gun at the small of his back.
“Fuck, where’s the white people? You must really be loving that red cock to stay out here so long.”
She didn’t answer. Shock was starting to replace fear, and she was paralyzed. Until he looked toward the children playing under the pavilion. Then rage like nothing she’d ever felt reared up inside of her.
“Lets get this shit over with. I got cash to count and pussy to bang. Which one is he?”
Adrenaline flooded her. She’d have one chance. Ricky didn’t know the first thing about being a dad, and there was no telling what her son would be exposed to in the time Ricky had him. Not to mention trouble followed him like stink on shit. Whoever he’d stolen that money from would want it back. And they wouldn’t care who got in their path. Both things scared the life out of her.
“You’re not taking him.”
He smiled again, slick as oil, and it made her skin crawl. How could she have ever have been so stupid as to give her body to him?
“Baby, why fight it? You know I’m walking away from here with that boy.” He took a step closer. She held her ground. “But let me tell you what. I’m in an accommodating mood. Why don’t you swing by the house tomorrow? Bring a bathing suit and visit the boy for a few. Will that make you feel better?”
He scribbled an address over a torn Happy Birthday napkin and handed it to her. She took it carefully, like he was handing her a live grenade.
“Why not now?” she begged.
“Take what I give you, bitch. Tomorrow. And bring a bathing suit. I’d love to see that body again. Having a kid doesn’t look like it caused too much damage. Your tits are a little bigger, thank goodness. Fuck, I might even take that pussy for a spin. Be sure to shave it. You know I like it shaved.” He gave an exaggerated wink and finger-gun wave.
She couldn’t think about tomorrow. Today was what mattered. And the fact that the next twenty-four hours of her life were going to be the most miserable of her already miserable life.
“Please, Ricky.”
He ignored her. “Come to daddy, boy,” he called out and then whistled into the general arena of children.
It was by process of racial elimination that he chose Jack. Confused, Jack’s willful reluctance broke Abigail’s heart.
Ricky zeroed in on Jack and said, “Come here, boy. If I tell you again you’re going to feel the sting of my belt.”
“Don’t you dare put a finger on him,” Abigail said, positioning herself between Ricky and the boy.
Jack ran up behind her, pudgy arms outstretched, and wrapped them around her knees. Whimpers of distress were interspersed with his cries for mama, and she put a comforting hand on his head.
“It’s all right, baby,” she soothed. “It’s all right.”
“Fuck this shit,” Ricky said, reaching toward the kid. He jerked him away from his mother and lifted him so he dangled by one arm. Jack screamed in pain, his little legs kicking as he reached back for Abigail. The look of terror on his face was her undoing.
Abigail let out a momma bear roar and charged Ricky. Her body hit him square on. Her fists pounded his chest. “You’re hurting him,” she screamed. “I’ll fucking kill you if you put one mark on him.”
She hadn’t had the strength to fight for herself but fighting for her son, she was a demon possessed. A raging machine with no thought other than to protect what was hers.
Ricky flung the boy to the side and swung his elbow to get Abigail off of him. He spun and drove his fist solid against her left eye socket. She blacked out momentarily, rolling along the contour of the Z-28’s frame. He jerked the passenger door open and yanked his son up in a tight grip beneath his right shoulder. Jack screamed for her, each cry for mama piercing her soul. Ricky tossed Jack into the car seat and buckled him in while she crawled on hands and knees toward the car.
Blood clouded her eye and ran down her face. Bile rose in her throat, but she didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop. In Jack’s three years on this planet, she’d not gone one single day without seeing him. It was something she was proud of—and would not end this day if she could help it.
Her nails tore and her fingertips bled as she dug into the hard-packed ground to find a rock—anything—to use as a weapon to stop him. She clutched his leg as he rounded the hood heading for the driver’s side. He took two steps dragging her as Abigail punched his thigh.
“You wanna fight, bitch? Lets fight like the good old days,” he growled.
She let go of his leg, but too late. He wrapped his left hand in her mangled hair and swung her head back and forth until her scraped knees kicked up a dust cloud. Before she found her feet, he unleashed a flurry of vicious right punches to her ribs.
Her breath seized. She clawed her nails down his face. Found satisfaction in his scream of pain. Spots danced in front of her eyes, but she couldn’t faint. She was Jack’s only hope. Ricky tossed her to the side like a used napkin and got behind the wheel of his car.
The engine sputtered to life. Abigail froze in terror as her worst nightmare became real.
The Z-28 lunged forward. She rolled out of the way in the nick of time. She wasn’t sure where the burst of energy came from—maybe from a higher power she’d stopped believing in—but she managed to get to her feet and stumble after the car.
Ricky waited at the highway entrance for traffic to clear. Three big rigs heading east blasted their air horns in a makeshift Happy Birthday to You as they sent the party balloons dancing around their strings.
Abigail latched onto the whale tail of the old sports car and beat her bruised fist onto the trunk. “Give me back my baby!”
She tried to make eye contact with an old farmer who crept on his tractor along the highway. He had traffic backed up, but he either didn’t see her blood-soaked face or didn’t want to.
Abigail saw the reverse lights blink then felt the rear bumper slam into her thighs. The blow took her feet out from under her, but she held onto the trunk. She stumbled and grasped at the passenger side door as the car lurched into traffic.
“Fuck off, whore,” Ricky screamed like a man possessed.
He spun the wheel. The car swerved and Abigail lost her grip. She rolled into a ditch as ten matte-black and chrome motorcycles thundered over the horizon, following the same direction as Ricky. The roar of the engines caused a rattle in her chest. She sucked back tears as cars screeched and swerved to avoid them.
Four leather-clad riders steered by balance only. They looked like the four horsemen of the apocalypse—conquest, war, famine and death. Abigail tried to scream but no words escaped her lips. The riders held glass bottles with burning rags cascading from their narrow openings.
Intuition rocketed her to both feet. She knew instinctively who their target was. Fuck Ricky. She hoped he burned in hell. But Jack was innocent. He was her baby. She ran into traffic, dodging cars along the busy Nevada state highway. She waved her arms furiously for someone—anyone—to help. No one did.
Ricky’s car had only traveled a short distance thanks to the tractor that poked along. She pumped her elbows and knees but wasn’t getting any closer on jelly-like legs. Bottles smashed against the Z-28. Flames crawled at first but quickly exploded into an inferno across the windshield, hood and out the passenger’s side window.
Blood clouded her left eye, but she swiped it away in time to see the old muscle car lurch from right to left into the opposite lane of travel. Her lungs rasped as she sucked in the broiling Nevada air. Her chest burned with the exertion toward Ricky’s car and her baby.
Flames licked against her skin. The car’s faded brown paint and metal frame blistered and bubbled. She had to save Jack! Take me instead, she prayed, covering her face with her forearms. Flames poured from the car’s interior, licking at the sky—ash-black smoke mixed with brilliant oranges and reds. She reached, had to get him. Then right in front of her, the car erupted. The concussion caused her bowels to explode. She shit herself right there in the middle of Highway 578.
