Blizzard (The Brotherhood Journals #1) (25 page)

I pulled up to the curb outside the Vicious Vultures MC makeshift home.

The plan was to get Edge out of the house. I needed to turn on the charm and try anything possible to get him out so that the others could get in and get Lane out. With him feeling guilty about what happened it was the perfect opportunity, hoping he would be more willing to do what was needed to make me happy.

That failing, Judge, and his boys were standing by with another plan.

Wiping my sweaty palms on my jeans, I inhaled slowly through my nose. I’d been here before but it didn’t get any less scary. These men lived up to their name, they were both vicious and vultures, who took pride in preying on other people who couldn’t protect themselves.

I thought of Edge. He was so unlike them, I wondered why he felt compelled to do the despicable things that they do if his heart wasn’t in it. But then, I remembered what I’d done in exactly the same situation. The pressure to be accepted had become too much.

I forced myself out of the car and instantly heard what I thought was a woman screaming. It was coming from the house.

“Oh God,” I whispered to myself as I took off running for the front door.

Please let me not be too late.

I threw the door open, not thinking about my actions, adrenaline running through me.

“Please, help me!” the young girl was crying out, but when I reached the living room, I couldn’t see her anywhere.

Edge was there, though, his shoulders were tight and he was hunched over, muttering to himself.

“What’s going on?” I heaved. He didn’t turn or jump at my presence. Of course, he knew I was there. “Why is she screaming?”

He didn’t answer me, just continued at what he was doing.

I took careful steps around the table, trying to focus despite Lane’s cries. I could tell she was in pain. I wondered if there was someone doing something to hurt her, and my heart dropped. Edge was leaning forward, sharpening a knife on an old butcher’s sharpener, the blade slipping with ease down each side.

“Edge,” I spoke quietly and carefully.

“She’s been screaming for half an hour. Said she’s bleeding.” His voice was tight but strangely calm. “I checked. She is.”

I held my hand over my mouth, trying to compose myself before I lost it and did something stupid. “Okay, did they do something to her?”

He finally looked up at me, his eyes were brimmed red, almost like he’d been crying. It hit me hard, to see a man that seemed so strong, almost broken. “She’s having a miscarriage.”

“Oh my God,” I whispered. I couldn’t stop myself from shooting around the sofa and heading for the stairs.

His hand reached out and grabbed my arm, jolting me to a stop and almost making me lose my footing. “She has to stay there, Lily. Those are the orders.” His voice was dark.

“She needs a hospital. She needs help!”

He wasn't effected by my words. “The orders are that she stays there.”

“Screw your orders!” I shoved at his chest with my free hand but he didn't even flinch.

“Just leave it,” he snapped.

“She could die! Then what are you going to do? Offer Judge his daughter’s dead body in return for his land?” The words came out before I could filter them, and I knew right away that I was in tremendous trouble.

His grip tightened and he held me as he stood slowly from his seat, his knife still in his opposite hand. “How the fuck did you know that?” he roared, drowning out Lane’s whimpering cries for a brief moment.

I was scared, completely petrified, but I refused to cower and let another innocent girl get hurt. “Let me go, Edge.” I tried to force my voice to sound deep and fierce, but even I could hear the shake in it.

He moved around the sofa until he was standing directly in front of me. “You with them?” he demanded.

“No…” it wasn’t a complete lie, “…are you ready to let her die? Because that’s gonna be on you. You know that, right? The club isn’t going to protect you when the police show up and you’re the only one here.”

“Did you call the police?”

“You have freaking neighbors! I could hear her screaming from outside. You think they
aren’t
going to call the police?” Trying to reason with him was just wasting my time. I needed to do something and I needed to do something now.

Lane screamed and for a second he turned his head toward the stairwell. I thought about the training I’d done with Rico and Angelo. I twisted my body under the arm which held me, causing his grip to slip. As I had my back to him I raised my leg and with all the strength I could muster drove my heel down on top of his foot. Lucky for me, he wasn’t wearing his hard motorcycle boots or it wouldn’t have worked so well.

I dived away from him as he screamed out in agony. In the scuffle, he managed to clip my forearm with his knife and I cried out in pain. He hunched over, growling about his foot. It was actually like watching a cartoon, it was that ridiculous.

The good thing about being in a house owned by criminals, they always kept weapons just lying around. From the position I was lying, I could see a metal baseball bat underneath the sofa. I had to lay down on my stomach to reach for it, but as I did, I felt him grab a hold of my waist and begin to pull me out. The second I was free from the sofa, I turned my body and swung.

I was a sporty kind of kid. Hence, why, I ended up getting into sports therapy and nutrition. I knew my way around a bat and ball and I didn’t hold back. I hit him right in the side of the head, and he went down hard. His body landed next to me and his head bouncing against the wooden floor.

He was out like a light.

I dropped the bat and lay back, attempting to control my breathing.

“Help me!” Lane’s voice shocked me back into action. I knew that if I didn’t get her to a hospital soon, then she could get, very sick, very fast.

“I’m coming!” I yelled, scampering across the floor and pulling myself up on the couch. I was feeling a little lightheaded and when I slipped slightly on the floor, I knew it wasn’t good. The cut on my arm was a deep gash, and it was bleeding profusely.

I held my hand over it as I hauled ass up the stairs.

Don’t pass out, don’t pass out.

“Lane?” I called, looking at the group of doors that came off the landing at the top of the staircase.

“Here! Please.” My phone started buzzing in my pocket and I pulled it out as I searched around outside the room Lane was in for a key.

“What?” I whispered harshly.

“They’re coming back, Rose. You’ve got about five minutes,” Optimus’ voice was hushed. They were waiting not far away, ready to sweep in, when and if, needed.

“I need you guys, now.”

“What’s going on?”

“Edge lost it on me, I hit him with a bat. Lane’s having a miscarriage, I think. She needs to get out, but I can’t find the key,” I said it all in such a hurry I hope he, at least, understood a couple of words.

“Fuck! We’ll be there soon. Find that fucking key.”

“Hello?” Lane’s voice was so quiet. It was trembling.

Trying to act like I was calm I asked her, “Honey, do you know where the key is to the door?”

There was a sniffle. “They all have one.”

“Okay, I’ll be back in two seconds. Don’t worry, help is coming.” I didn’t wait to hear her response, dashing back down the stairs clumsily, I stumbled at the bottom, throwing myself to my knees next to Edge’s still unmoving body.

“Keys, keys, keys,” I muttered to myself as I patted him down. There was a large chain connected to his belt loop. I pulled on it, dragging his wallet and his keys from his back pocket.

Fortunately, they clipped right off.

Thank God for at least one thing going right today.

I forced myself to my feet again, the ability to walk straight now becoming a little harder. I wondered how much blood I’d lost so far.

I started on the door with the first key, jiggling the handle but with no luck.

When it finally popped open on the sixth or seventh try, I almost sunk to the ground in relief. I gripped the doorframe and a beautiful small girl popped her head around the corner. She was bent over and clutching her stomach, but you could tell she was relieved to see anyone but those assholes.

Grabbing her hand, I pulled at her. “We’ve gotta go.”

“I don’t know if I can,” she whimpered fighting against my eagerness. I looked down at her pants and they were stained a dark red all around her crotch.

That’s when I heard the rumble of motorcycles in the distance. Lane’s eyes widened in fear. I tried not to mirror her expression, not knowing if these were our boys or theirs.

“We have to go, Lane,
now.
” I needed to be strong for her, I needed her to feel like someone was in control of the situation.

She nodded apprehensively but came with me as I pulled her down the stairs. “The kitchen, it has a back door,” she said before she let out a loud cry and fell to her knees, pulling me down with her. We both stumbled the last few steps. I landed on my arm and I held back an agonizing cry.

Tears automatically poured from my eyes, but at the sound of heavy footsteps, I managed to drag myself and Lane across the floor and into the small separate kitchen.

Razor blades felt like they were shooting through my arm and it was taking everything I had inside to keep it all together. Lane was on her knees, curled in on herself, the both of us doing whatever possible to keep the pain at bay.

I knew that for this to work that we would have to wait until the men came inside before we could head out. We couldn’t risk meeting them half way.

“We need to hide,” I whispered, nudging her softly with my foot.

Nodding, she pointed at the cupboard next to me. “They don’t have many pots, get in that one. I’ll climb in under the sink.”

I didn’t object. We both dragged our bodies, contorting them into the small cupboards.

Just as I pulled it shut, I heard the front door slam open. “Edge!” I recognized Sith’s deep baritone. It made the hairs on my body stand on end. I hoped that us sliding through the house hadn’t left too much of a blood trail and that they would all head upstairs in search of Lane first, giving us maybe a minute to head out the kitchen door.

It was a risk. I wasn’t sure where it would lead to, whether we could get out the front or whether we would be enclosed in a backyard.

I hadn’t exactly planned for this.

“Fuck!” I heard him yell, obviously closer than before. Probably just spotting Edge’s crumbled body. “The bitch is still here, fucking find her!”

My car, it was still parked out the front. Of course, they would know I was here. I needed to get Lane out now, she was most important. Her and her baby.

There were loud footsteps on the staircase, and I used the noise to pull myself out of the cupboard. I shimmied over to where Lane was hidden away and popped the door just an inch. “I’m going to distract them. You need to get out while I take their attention away.”

“You can’t—”

“Just do it, Lane,” I growled softly.

I pulled myself up using the counter top for support, steadying my legs which had been so weak. The room spun, but I managed to make it across to the doorway which led to the other room.