Page 67 of Desecrated Saints
She’s tossed across the street by an unknown figure, dressed in the same black uniform the dickheads at the nightclub wore. Swarms of people are invading the street. They all carry guns and radios, scanning the crowd with urgency. When two of the black-clad individuals begin to fight each other, I realise something is amiss.
We’re not alone.
They aren’t on the same side.
Gunshots and wet, meaty punches writhe through the air in a chorus of violence. My ears ring in the wake of the helicopter that has landed amidst the chaos. Yelling something at the pilot, an enormous mountain of a man leaps onto the street.
I swear the helicopter shakes with the force of his huge, muscled weight exiting it. His hardened gaze sweeps over the messy scene, searching for something. When he spots us cowering and trapped by the fighting, he taps the comms in his ear and speaks.
“What’s happening?!” Hudson yells.
Kade finds his feet, bleeding from a gash in his forehead. “I don’t know!”
The fighting rages on as the melee of bodies collide and become one. It’s impossible to tell who works for who. Someone else is here, and the newbies are gleefully wailing on Bancroft’s hired skins. Searching the war zone, I catch sight of Charlie on the other side of the road.
My stomach plummets.
She’s trapped by a gun to her back.
“Charlie!” I roar.
Her bleeding face manages to turn in the gravel and two tear-stained eyes meet mine. I shove past Hudson, desperate to get to Charlie before it’s too late. Travis and his boys are still lost in the madness, being beaten bloody while others run for their lives.
“Nix!” Brooklyn shouts after me. “Stop!”
Her voice is cut off by a shriek. Kade convulses on the road with a taser jabbed into his side. Hudson’s rearranging some fucker’s face, as Seven tears apart anyone that dares come close to him. Brooklyn is attempting to drag a semi-unconscious Eli out from underneath a pair of fists.
“Phoenix!”
Charlie’s pained begging nearly rips me in half. Caught between my sister and my brawling family, I have to make an impossible decision. My feet move of their own accord as I race towards Charlie. The barrel of a gun nudges the back of her head as she sobs.
Everything stops.
Time ceases to exist.
With the distance between us shortening, I’m so close to tackling the asshole threatening her life. Mere inches away, close enough to taste her terror. Leaping the final few steps, I’m flying through the air when the shot rings out.
That short, controlled blast changes everything in a second.
The light in my sister’s eyes winks out of existence.
Blood explodes like a bomb dropped in the ocean, covering me in warmth. I hit the ground and take down the gunman with me, his weapon skidding out of reach. Before he can come up for air, I’m breaking every single bone in his face. An anguished, animalistic cry pours out of me.
Thwack.
Thwack.
Thwack.
Agony races across my knuckles, punctuated by the cracking of shattered bone. The gunman stops moving as I cave his head in, feeling like my entire body is about to explode with rage. Collapsing in a puddle of blood, I finally look at my sister’s dead body.
She’s gone.
Gone.
Fucking gone!
Someone’s calling my name. Over and over again. It doesn’t register. Nothing exists but the empty, lifeless orbs staring back at me. I didn’t even get to speak to her, let alone say goodbye. I’m her big brother.