“Ham!”
I looked up seeing the door was open a crack and Kev was standing just inside of it, holding out his arms to me. I moved to toss her up to him, another rain of bullets came, and Kev pulled the door shut, yelling curse words behind it. The distinct sound of the shots hitting the wooden banister and shattering the handful of pots that Rose had placed on the other side of the doorway, forced me to almost crush Harlyn in my arms, trying my best to shelter every part of her body.
I could still hear Phee crying, but I was too scared to look. If I could hear her, that meant she was still alive. If she could scream, she could breathe.
Through the panic and chaos, I heard glass smashing somewhere above me, but had no idea where. All I knew was we were both still breathing despite the lack of protection the porch banister was offering.
Someone else was looking down on Harlyn and me.
A loud boom made me jump, but not because I thought it was going to hit us, but because it was coming from our side of the battlefield.
Boom.
A shotgun. One with a lot of fucking power, most likely from upstairs.
“Ham!” Kev’s voice broke through again, and I didn’t even stop to check things were okay, I hooked my hands under Harlyn’s armpits. Prying her away from me and with all the strength I could muster, I lifted her up and over me as Kev stepped out the door. He whipped her away and ducked back inside, rushing off with the little girl, no doubt to hide her with the other kids.
I tried to breathe in relief, but I knew I was still out in the open.
Still a sitting duck.
Even though we’d finally got our shit together and were beginning to fight back, there was still a chance they had reinforcements coming. There was a chance that they had more weaponry than we would have assumed, and I was about to take a rocket launcher right up the asshole.
“Not my fucking family, asshole,” Blizzard growled as he stepped out the door, not even bothering to look down where I was huddled on the wooden porch boards. He was already raising a semi-automatic M 15, the look on his face telling me he was fucking looking for blood.
He didn’t waste a second in retaliating, and now that things were becoming a little clearer, I noticed that not a lot of gunfire was coming from the SUV anymore. Instead, the car seemed to have decided it was time to get the hell out of there, the wheels spinning but failing to grab traction as it fought to make its exit.
Too fucking late.
Blizzard let fucking loose, the rapid fire of the semi-automatic like music to my ears, raining down hell on these fucking assholes who thought they could come in here and hurt our family and get away with that shit.
Hell fucking no.
I finally forced my body to sit up, delighting in the view as the doors of the SUV tore open like an aluminum can shred to pieces, as more of my brothers stepped out from the destruction with a vengeance in their eyes and their guns fully loaded.
Wrong day.
Wrong fucking club.
Op and Eagle both stepped out of the front door with their own weapons not stalling for a single second before opening fire. I don’t know how long I sat there watching this once sparkling car turn into a fucking mess, but it seemed to go on forever, and I had to wait it out even though my head was screaming,go and fucking find Meyah.
Then suddenly, the gunfire stopped. My ears were ringing, and my head was spinning. I couldn’t figure out what the fuck had just happened, or how to get my body up off the porch. There were voices and people rushing around me, but I just felt limp, exhausted.
“Fuck,” Eagle cursed, standing over me, his body wobbling back and forth—or was that me wobbling? “He’s been shot.”
I frowned. “Who?” I mumbled.
“Skins!”
I couldn’t fucking figure out what was going on, everything was hazy. I just wanted everyone to get the hell out of the way and get to Meyah.
Where the hell was Meyah?
“Man, I’ve called a friend, she’s about five minutes away,” Skins said as he crouched down beside me, lifting my left arm and turning my body away from him. I was about to ask him what the hell he was doing when a sharp pain shot through my entire body, and I roared out several curse words, some which I wasn’t even sure made sense. “It looks like it’s in the tissue of his hip, not far from the surface.”
The stabbing pain was like a shock restarting my body sending another jolt of adrenaline through me. “I got fucking shot?” I groaned, suddenly wanting to crawl into a ball and find some kind of position which would take the pain away. I twisted and wiggled unable to figure out if it was making it worse or better. “Where’s Meyah?” I demanded.
“Stop moving, asshole,” Skins scolded. “Blizzard, for fuck’s sake, put pressure on this and make him sit still.”
I gritted my teeth in annoyance. “Where. Is. Meyah?”
Skins rolled his eyes. “She’s gone with Hadley. She’s fine other than a couple of scrapes.”
Blizzard took Skins place beside me, pressing a rolled up towel against the wound on my hip. “Kev, there’s a car cover out the back in the garage, you need to cover that fucking mess down there.”
Kev rushed down the stairs taking two at a time.
I relaxed against the wall, leaning my head back as I tried to focus on the fact that Meyah was fine and knowing I would just have to be okay with that for now because it sounded like Hadley and Leo needed her. “Hadley?” I managed to ask, looking up at my VP.
Blizzard huffed out an angry breath. “Turns out stressful situations bring on labor.”