“I’ll go first…” I begin to say, just as Verek ducks around the side of the roll and runs toward the front. “Goddammit!” I hiss as I leap out behind him, shouldering my rifle and trying to sweep the entire area for any sign of movement.
The light we saw is spilling through the doorway of a small room just at the front of the outbuilding, the only separate room in the entire structure. There is no one else in here, just an array of cameras, lighting equipment, and all the props we’ve already moved through. Verek makes a beeline for the room as I run to catch up with him, and leaps inside with his shotgun raised. Before I can follow him, the flimsy wooden door slams shut behind him, and I hear a voice yell, “Drop it!”
“Fuck!” I roar as I bring up my boot and kick the thin wooden door right by the handle. The latch splinters the frame and it explodes inward, where Verek is holding his shotgun out wide to the side as a tall, burly man in a collared white shirt and suit pants has an arm over his neck and a pistol pressed to his head.
“Who the fuck are you?” the man growls, pushing the gun harder against Verek’s temple.
“We’re the Savage fucking Kings, and we’re here to burn this place to the ground,” Verek spits before I can answer.
“I told you to drop that fucking gun!” the man screams as he cocks the hammer on his pistol. Verek drops the shotgun and raises his hands, but I can see from the expression on his face he is just waiting for an opportunity to rip this man to pieces. “And you, point that rifle somewhere else, you hear me? What the fuck is a Savage King?”
I keep the rifle shouldered and aimed directly at his face. I’m no sharpshooter, and the big man is moving his head back and forth behind Verek. I could kill him, but there’s almost no chance I could do it without losing my brother.
“We’re a motorcycle club,” I say, just to keep the man talking while I try to figure out what the fuck I’m supposed to do now. “We’ve come to shut this fucking place down. You know what kind of fucked up shit goes on here, you had to expect something like this!”
“Step back from the door,” The man advances with Verek. “Step back, or I’ll end him right now and take my chances with you! What the fuck is it with these east coast motorcycle clubs?” he moans as he forces Verek forward. “A few weeks back, I was working security for Harry Cox, and one of your fucking gangs called the ‘Dirty Aces’ or some shit barged in shooting!”
“Sounds like you’ve had plenty of chances to find a new line of work,” Verek quips as the man drags him out of the office. Then, keeping Verek between the two of us, he starts backing up toward the door leading out to the vehicles in the yard.
“I made it out of there, and I’m going to make it out of this fucking mess too,” the man insists. “Look, I get to my car, I let him go, understand? We can all get out of this.” Jamming the pistol against Verek’s head again, the man removes his arm from his neck and reaches behind him to open the door. As soon as it cracks open, he grabs Verek by the neck of his Kevlar vest and starts to drag him outside. I move forward immediately with my rifle still trained on him.
“Easy, big boy,” the man says as he steps backwards into the yard. “We can all get out of this just fine…” he adds as he stops and casts a glance back over his shoulder, looking for his car. When he turns his head, he lets the pistol pointed at Verek’s skull drift forward slightly, and I see a red dot dance across the man’s face.
Verek grabs the arm holding the pistol on him and jerks it forward, just as the top of the man’s skull disappears, and the crack of a rifle shot reverberates across the yard. With his last spasm, the man drags Verek down to the ground as he collapses, and the pistol in his other hand spits a bout of fire and thunder at me as they fall together in a heap.
The whole thing happens in the blink of an eye, and it takes me a long second to force myself to move toward my fallen brother. The gunshot going off right in front of me has me seeing spots, and my legs feel numb as I stagger forward.
“Holy fuck,” I gasp as I reach down and grab my brother’s hand, pulling him back to his feet and dragging him back inside the outbuilding.
“That was fucking intense,” Verek agrees as he wipes a smear of blood from the back of his neck.
“You okay?” I put a hand on his shoulder to turn him so I can see the back of his head.
“Yeah, man, I’m fine. Blood isn’t mine. I’m going to find out which badass is manning that sniper rifle and buy him every fucking beer in Myrtle Beach.”
I grin at him. “I’ll chip in on that tab.”
“Let me get my shotgun and we’ll see if they’ve secured the house.” Verek says. He walks back into the small room I can now see has a desk and computer set up inside and takes a look at the other equipment as he grabs his gun. “Looks like this is where they do video editing. Don’t see anything that looks like a server though.”
“They probably have a cold room in the farmhouse for something like that,” I reply. “Come on, let’s go make sure everyone else is okay.”
“Whoa, whoa!” Verek says as I turn to walk away, grabbing me and dragging me into the light. “Jesus fucking Christ, Winston, look at your fucking leg.”
I glance down and see the right leg of my jeans has a blooming red stain spreading out just a few inches below my crotch, on the inside of my thigh. “Oh shit,” I mutter, when a wave of vertigo sweeps over me. My legs had felt kind of numb, but as soon as I see and acknowledge the injury, sensation suddenly returns to the limb in a wave of fiery agony. “Oh, fuck me, that hurts!” I grit out through clenched teeth.
“Sit down and let me see it,” Verek orders, kicking out the rolling chair from the desk.
I collapse into it, lay down my rifle, and grab the wound with both hands to feel around my leg. “There’s a hole in the front,” I grunt, “and a hole in the back of my jeans.”
“Good,” Verek nods. “Hopefully, it passed clean through. You can stand on it, right? I mean, you were a moment ago. It probably didn’t hit the bone or anything.”
“Yeah, I can stand.” I get back to my feet as my head begins to clear, then unfasten my belt buckle and pop the button on my jeans.
“Whoa now,” Verek says with a raised hand.
“I gotta see how bad it is and wrap it with something,” I explain.
“Yeah, of course…” Verek says. “Here.” He whips a bandana from his back pocket and starts folding it neatly as I push my jeans down past the blazing line of hellfire in my thigh.
Verek gets down on one knee and looks at the wound from the front and the back, then passes me the bandana. “Looks like a clean graze, thank God. If it had hit an artery or something, you’d be spraying the entire room, I reckon.”
“We’ll find out if you’re right if I die in the next few hours.” I snort, internally praying he’s right and this is no big deal. I wrap the bandana around my leg and begin tying it off, both of us so focused on bandaging my leg we don’t notice another figure appear inside the doorway.
“What’s taking you two so long?” a familiar voice booms as Cannon bursts into the small office. “What in the hell?”