Sons of Flame MC - Redemption (13 page)

The rest of this old abandoned building was as rundown and shabby as the small room they had been imprisoned in. It stank of damp and mold and decay, and the entire place was filthy with decades of dust. It hung in the air, kicked up by their footsteps. Every step was agony for Eli, his broken ribs sending daggers through him at the slightest movement. It took all of his willpower not to cry out, to keep putting one foot in front of the other, even despite Tess’ efforts to help him.

As they made their way through the narrow corridor, the sounds of the Sons celebrating grew louder and more distinct. They had set up camp in the large warehouse at the front of the building. Tess and Eli were going to have to walk past an open door to get out, and that was when their risk of discovery would be highest.

Eli strained his ears as they got closer, until he could make out words and sentences. Tex’s rough, gravelly voice filtered out to him.

“...how that stupid son of a bitch ever thought he was going to get away with stealing my product. Well, I bet he’s regretting that decision now, huh?”

Eli’s eyes narrowed and his fists clenched as the Sons of Flame leader laughed smugly.

This isn’t over. You’ll pay for everything you’ve done to me, Tex. And the price is going to be even higher now that you’ve brought Tess into it.

Eli wanted to charge in there and put a bullet between the eyes of that abhorrent piece of human trash, but he wasn’t quite ready to make a martyr of himself just yet. There would be time later on to settle the score. He’d get out of here, recover, regain his strength and then reckoning would come.

The Sons had obviously been drinking, judging by the way that their words were becoming slurred, their raucous shouts ever louder. This played into his and Tess’ hands, but sneaking past that doorway was still going to be a huge risk.

They reached the doorway and Tess came to a stop just before they would have revealed themselves. She turned to Eli, her eyes wide and her body shaking with fear and adrenaline. Eli held up a finger and pressed it to his lips. She nodded in understanding.

Eli motioned to her, indicating that she should stand behind him. She looked doubtful, but she didn’t protest. His nerves jangling, Eli craned his neck and peered around the corner of the doorway ever so slowly, ready to hide again at the slightest possibility of being seen.

The scene gradually came into view, and it wasn’t good news. The bikers were arranged around the room, sitting and standing in a rough circle. There were at least four whose view encompassed the doorway that he and Tess needed to get past.

The only hope they had was to wait for exactly the right moment, and tried to slip by when nobody’s attention was focused on that entrance. Eli could hear Tess’ breathing behind him, coming in rapid and shallow gasps. The last thing that they needed was for her to succumb to panic, so he reached backwards and placed a calming hand on her shoulder.

She seemed to instinctively understand what he was trying to tell her, and he heard her take three deep slow breaths to try to calm herself down.

Suddenly, the moment that he had been waiting for presented itself. Tex stood, clutching a half-empty bottle of bourbon that he raised above his head in a toast. The rest of the Sons followed his example with their own bottles.

“To the Sons of Flame! To the brotherhood!”

Eli knew that there wasn’t going to be a better chance than this. He grabbed ahold of Tess’ wrist and tugged on it gently, letting her know that she needed to be ready to bolt. He felt her body tense, heard her take a breath and hold it. Eli waited until the exact moment that each man raised his own bottle to his lips, and then they ran.

It was just a few feet, but as he took the first step it may as well have been a yawning chasm. He expected at any moment to hear someone call out, a shout of anger - but it never came. A second later, he and Tess were on the other side of the doorway and the Sons were still cheering their toast, seemingly none the wiser.

They had made it. Now all they needed to do was get out, get away. The hard part was done, and they were still alive, still fighting.

Tess took Eli’s arm and wrapped it around her shoulders once more. Moving as quickly as they could, and glancing behind them every few seconds to make sure that they definitely weren’t seen, the two of them made their way towards the exit.

*****

Tess

I
t all seemed so easy. Too easy. They quietly opened the door at the end of the corridor, and found themselves in an overgrown yard, with scrubby weeds growing through the shabby tarmac, and rusted old machinery scattered haphazardly around. It was night, and blessedly cool after the warm,damp stink of the interior they'd escaped from. 

Tess breathed in a deep lungful of the fresh air; she never thought that she'd be so glad to find herself out in the desert.  

She didn't give herself long to enjoy it though, because they weren't out of this yet. After their dash past the doorway, Eli had gotten heavier on her shoulders, relying on her more and more to bear his weight. He needed to get to a hospital, and soon.  

She glanced round at him - he was pale and sickly, his face bathed in a sheen of sweat. He looked terrible, and she was worried about him, but he still managed to flash her a faded smile.  

"We did it," he gasped.  

Tess looked around at their surroundings, and her heart immediately sank. The yard was surrounded by an old chain link fence; it was rusted and had obviously seen better days, but it still looked sturdy enough. Their problem was at the entrance - there was a gate there, closed and locked with a brand new padlock. Tex may have been careless enough to let them escape, but his complacency hadn't extended to leaving the entire building unsecured from the outside.  

Tess allowed Eli's arm to drop from her shoulders, and he immediately slumped to the ground with a soft groan. She went over to the fence and grabbed at the door, shaking it and trying to force it open. However, it was stronger than it looked, and there was no way that she would be able to get it open without something like a pair of bolt cutters.

Tess glanced over her shoulder, back to the doorway into the building. It was possible that there was something in there that she would be able to use, but there was no way she was going back inside. It was too risky.

She hurried back to Eli; he was still sprawled on the ground, pale and barely conscious. Tess’ attention was drawn to the handgun he had taken from the guard. An idea crossed her mind, and she leant down and retrieved it. As she did so, Eli’s eyes focused and he looked up at her.

“What are you doing?”

“I need to get this padlock off the fence, all we aren’t going to get out of here. I thought that I could just shoot it off.”

Eli shook his head slowly.

“That’s a Colt .45. Have you ever heard one of those things go off? Tex and the rest would be out here in seconds, and I’m in no condition to be running away from them right now.”

Tess knew he was right, but she was getting desperate. It was so frustrating to be this close to freedom, yet be unable to take that one last step. She looked over at the fence once more, sizing it up in her mind. The links left enough space between them that she thought she would be able to climb it, and it wasn’t high enough that she couldn’t jump down once she had scaled it.

“Okay then,” she said. “We need to climb it. I’ll help you, just...”

Eli cut her off.

“You know that’s not going to happen, Tess. Look at me; I can barely stand even
with
your help. I’m gonna tell you what to do, and I need you to listen to me and do as I say. Understand?”

Tess thought about protesting, about trying to force him to climb that fence - but she knew he was right. There was no way he was getting over it, and so now everything was on her.

“Okay. I’m listening.”

“You
can
make it over that fence, so I need you to leave me here while you go and get some help. Go to the police station and bring them back with you. I’ll hide here until you come back - I’ll have this gun with me too, so you won’t need to worry about me. I can defend myself.”

Tess could tell that he was trying to appear more confident than he actually felt, but she knew he was right. As hard as it was going to be for her to leave him here, it was their only option for getting out of this mess alive.

“OK,” she finally said. “Where’s the police station?”

“It’s on the main street, maybe half a kilometer away. Just turn left when you get onto the road and you won’t be able to miss it. Now go - the longer we spend talking about this, the more time we give Tex to find out that we’re missing.”

Tess nodded, panic and concern tying a knot in her stomach.

“Before I go, let me help you find a better hiding spot,” she said, leaning down and hooking her hands under his armpits, grunting with exertion as she lifted him from the ground. He was unsteady on his feet and glassy-eyed, but allowed himself to be led to a nearby pile of tires which he slumped behind, gun clutched loosely in his fingers. He looked barely able to lift the damn thing, and it made it that much harder for Tess to leave him.

She took a breath, though, and forced herself to stand again and began to turn away from him.

“One last thing, before you go,” he whispered. She turned back around and saw his outstretched hand. She took it, and he pulled her gently down to him.

“You promised me at least one more kiss,” he smiled, and pulled her in close. As their lips met, Tess was shocked at how cold his skin felt, but tried not to show it.

“This isn’t goodbye,” she said as she stood. “I promise you that. Hold it together until I get back - I know you can do it.”

“Hell yes I can,” he said fiercely, a little more fire entering his eyes and voice.

“Now go.”

She didn’t look back again as she went to the fence and scrabbled over it, cursing silently as she scratched herself on a loose thread of metal, opening a gash on her forearm. She reached the top and swung her legs over, then dropped to the ground as gracefully as she could manage. The impact momentarily took her breath away, but she wasn’t injured.

Tess took a deep breath, steadied herself, and broke into a jog toward the lights of the main road.

*****

T
he streets were silent and empty, eerily so. As Tess ran, she tried not to think about Eli, sitting there alone, tried not to imagine Tex noticing their absence and descending on the injured man. Eli was strong, and resourceful. He’d survive until she came back with help; he had to.

Running was more difficult than she had anticipated. The cool night air burned in her lungs, and her legs felt leaden and heavy. While she’d been spared the physical punishment that Eli had endured, she’d still barely eaten for the past couple of days, and she was running on very little sleep.

However, she never slowed, not even a little. She pushed through the pain, focusing all her efforts on reaching the police station, where their salvation lay.

After a few minutes her breath was coming in ragged gasps. She was struggling to put one foot in front of the other, and blood was oozing from the fresh wound on her arm. Her clothes were filthy and in tatters, and in any other situation she might have found it darkly amusing at the sight she must have presented, shambling down the street.

Finally, her goal came into sight, looming up in the distance, a shining beacon of light on the dark desert road. She stumbled up to the entrance, and threw the door open with a shout.

*****

Tess

“H
elp me! We need help!”

The two sleepy-looking law enforcement officers stared at her with wide-eyed amazement, before noticing her wound and general appearance and jumping out of their seats and rushing over to her.

“Take a seat, ma’am, and calm yourself down, you’re safe now. What’s happened, are you hurt?”

Tess waved away their words and their attempts to lead her to a chair.

“No, no, we don’t have time. You need to listen to me, and you need to call in reinforcements. NOW. We were kidnapped, my friend and I, and he’s injured and I left him behind there. We were being kept in an abandoned warehouse a little way down the road, and we need to get back there before they realize we’re gone.”

The words tumbled from her in a garbled rush, her tongue tripping over itself as she tried to get her message across in an ever-increasing panic. To their credit, the two men immediately jumped into action, barking on the radio and getting their gear together.

One of them brought her a spare shirt, which Tess gratefully pulled over her own, and in less than a minute they were ready to go, with backup on the way.

“Now ma’am, you stay here and we’ll go and deal with this and get your friend out of there. You just tell us wh -”

“No,” Tess interrupted. “I’m coming with you, and don’t try to talk me out of it. Why weren’t you there this afternoon? He
called
you, he told you to be there.”

The older of the two policemen, a grizzled older man with a sun beaten face, frowned.

“We thought it was a crank call. Nothing like that ever happens in this little town.”

Tess felt fury rise within her.

“Well it wasn’t a crank call and now Eli’s in danger, and if anything happens to him, it’s on
your
head.”

The police officer looked suitably cowed.

“OK. You climb in the back of the cruiser, but you need to remain inside it when we get there.”

Tess nodded silently, knowing that she would disobey that command if it came to it, if Eli was in danger and needed her help.

The three of them hurried out to the waiting police cruiser, and Tess scrambled into the back seat as quickly as she could. Her nerves jangled with an overabundance of adrenaline, and she was acutely aware that second wasted was a second that Eli might need.

The cruiser tore off the station parking lot with a squeal of rubber, and as they raced down the main drag Tess noted offhand that, on the horizon, the first glow of daylight was just appearing in a soft haze.