Destroying Beauty (Hell Hounds Motorcycle Club): Vegas Titans Series (20 page)

Jo

"Holt! Holt! No, no, no," I sob, as I try to cover
the wound on his torso. The bullet struck him just under his ribcage on his
left side, and blood is flowing out unchecked. My limbs still feel like rubber
from whatever Fish injected me with, but I manage to pull off my shirt and
press it down onto his wound. "Please, please call someone!" I beg
Fish. "You didn't want him. He's your brother!"

"Actually, this is pretty convenient for me," Fish
muses, scratching his leg with the barrel of his gun as his throat clicks once.
"I've been trying to undermine him for a while now so that Bark wouldn't
choose him as his successor, but this is much more straightforward."

"They'll know. They'll all know it was you."

"I doubt it. Without bodies, it'll be easy to convince
them that you two ran off together. I'll dump your car, make it look like you
packed a couple bags in a hurry, and that'll be it."

"His friends know he would never do that. They won't
let it go. Please, just kill me and then help him!"

"Maybe you're right. Many of my brothers have gotten
too soft," he thinks aloud as his Adam's apple clicks twice. "They
don't have the stomach to do what it takes anymore, like I do. But once I'm
president, they'll toughen up, or they'll be out."

"They don't kill in cold blood, so they're
soft
?!
Maybe they're just not monsters like you!" Holt coughs under me and I take
one hand and smooth it over his forehead, trying to comfort him. "It's OK,
it's OK," I murmur to him. "I'm here." I grasp his shoulder,
trying to tell him that I'll stay with him. I realize it's tilted up at on odd
angle.

"It's fascinating to me: doctors can bring someone back
from getting shot in the head nowadays, but a shot to the torso, internal
bleeding? You're pretty much fucked. Modern medicine," he says with a shrug.

I brush my hand under Holt's shoulder and feel the butt of a
large gun. His semi-automatic. He must have fallen back on top of it. I inch my
hand under him until I'm able to grip the handle, all while staring down at
Holt's pale face so that Fish can't tell what I'm doing. I might as well try,
though I'll only be able to get off one shot, and my body still feels sluggish
and unresponsive. The conditions couldn't be more different than when Holt took
me to the shooting range.

"I already contacted the police," I lie, trying to
buy time to work the gun toward me so I can lift it quickly. "They'll be
looking for me."

"No, you didn't," Fish says, his high giggle
echoing against the surrounding trees. "Rich would've heard it on the
scanner and told me." I wrap my finger around the trigger as I look up at
him, remembering what Holt told me about keeping my thumb down with a semi. The
gun is as close to me as I can get it without Fish seeing it. His own gun is
lowered against his leg still. He thinks he's not in danger. It's now or never.

"I can see why Holt liked you," he continues.
"You're…scrappy, I guess is the word. But you had to be in that gas
station. Just dumb luck I—"

I raise the semi and squeeze the trigger. The kickback
surprises me, sending me off balance and onto my back. I struggle up to my
knees, the drug in my system still working against me, and I see Fish gasping
in shock as he sways standing up, leaning on the shovel. I got him in his right
shoulder, causing him to drop his gun.

"You fucking—" he snarls at me as he leans down,
going for his gun again. I brace myself and fire again, and again. I hit him in
the torso now. He drops to his knees. Blood that looks purple in the moonlight
rapidly covers his shirt. His eyes roll back in his head. He drops face first
onto the ground.

I keep the gun pointed at him, my arm beginning to shake. Is
he dead? I hurry around Holt and peer down at Fish. I don't think he's
breathing. I don’t want to fire this gun at someone laying on the ground but
I'm also not going to take any chances. I take his gun from the dirt as I hurry
back to Holt.

As I kneel beside him, I realize I know what I'm going to
do. He just saved my life, and there's only one way to repay him. As I press
one hand back down on my shirt over his bullet wound, I pat his front pockets
with my other to find his cell phone and pull it out. I flip it open and see a
missed call from the person I need. I hit "Call" and bring the phone
to my ear.

"We need to talk," Bark's rough voice greets me.

"This is Jo. Holt's been shot. He needs help.
Now."

Chapter Twenty-Four

Holt

Gunshots. Cold. Jo crying, out of reach. Voices. I'm lifted
and surrounded by brightness. Pain. Movement. Jo. Then darkness. I try to move
my hand, but I can't. I think I hear Jo near me, but I can't speak. Darkness again.

A wall of pain hits me. I groan, and try to open my eyes.
The light overwhelms me, and I close them again.

"Holt?" I hear next to me. It's Wilkes. "You
awake?"

I squint my eyes open. Christ, it's bright in here. I try to
talk, but my mouth feels like it's filled with cotton balls.

"It's OK, it's OK," he says, and I feel his hand
on my arm. "You in pain? Let me get the nurse. I think one of these things
is morphine." I move my eyes toward him and see his back disappearing
through the door.

I move my head to look around me and feel a shot of pain
down my neck that radiates throughout my torso. Fuck. I stop and use just my
eyes to glance around. I'm in a hospital room. The bed next to me, closer to
the window, is empty. Light streams through the window, hurting my eyes. I try
to work a little saliva around my mouth but it's dry as a bone.

The door opens back up and I jerk my head over to see who it
is, forgetting the pain. I let out a sharp cry.

"Try not to move," the nurse says. "I'm going
to increase your morphine."

I close my eyes as a sensation like warm liquid moving
through my veins quiets the pain.

"I'm going to get the doctor—he'll want to examine you.
Here are some ice chips, OK? I'm giving them to your friend here. One at a
time, alright?"

I open my eyes again as she leaves. Wilkes picks up the
plastic cup and moves it to my mouth, carefully tilting it until I feel one ice
chip against my lips. I take it and feel it melt on my tongue. I glance up at
his face. He looks exhausted.

"Jo?"

He pauses and my heart feels like it stops again.

"She…well, I don't think she knows what to do."

"Alive?" I gasp.

"Alive," he grins back at me. "Way more than
you. She called us—"

He breaks off as the doctor walks in. He introduces himself
and pulls open the front of my gown.

"How bad?" I croak.

"Well, we had to remove part of your spleen that was
damaged by the bullet. You lost a lot of blood. We had to restart your heart on
the operating table. You were legally dead for almost a minute."

"Fuck," I murmur as I glance down at the angry
line crisscrossed with stitches over the top of my abdomen.

"Actually looks pretty good. No pus," he says,
then moves down to my toes. As he moves to my arms, making sure I can move all
my extremities, I see a flash of silver on my wrist. Handcuffs, attached to the
bed. The doctor clears his throat awkwardly, then finishes his examination by
shining a light in my eyes. "We'll have to keep you here for a while—you
went through major surgery. Not as though you have a choice. I believe the
police want to speak with you." He walks out, and I glance at Wilkes.

"We cleaned up the scene, but you know they have to
report gunshot wounds. Plus they know you're a Hell Hound, so they're having a
hard time buying the story."

"Which is?"

He tips another ice chip into my mouth as he responds.
"You and Jo were out in the forest because she always wanted to have sex
there, and then some psycho came along and robbed you. You tried to resist, he
shot you and ran off."

"Jo's never going to go along with that."

"Jo's the one who thought of it."

My eyes snap to him. This morphine must be playing tricks on
me. "Jo's protecting me? Us?"

"More you than us. She called Bark after Fish shot you
and she shot Fish."

"
She shot Fish?
" I almost yell, forgetting
to keep my voice down.

"Oh, shit, sorry. Should've said that part. After Fish
shot you, she used your gun to kill Fish, then she called Bark. She said that
you saved her life, and she knew that you wouldn't want the club to get in
trouble. So we got Fish's body out of there and cleaned up before the ambulance
arrived. Wouldn't have made it in time except we were headed to round you two
up anyway. Figured you were both sitting on Jo's place, and we were
right."

"Where is she?"

"Waiting room down the hall."

"All night?"

"Well, all last night, and the day before. You were
shot two nights ago. You've been out for a while."

"Shit."

"She won't come in to see you, but she won't leave
either. Also refusing to talk to any of us except Cara, which is
understandable."

"Since we were maybe going to kill her."

"Yeah, that."

"You ask her to wear your cut yet?"

"Was about to."

"Well, like I said, she didn't leave, but she didn't
come in either," he says with a shrug.

"Can't believe she killed Fish. How is she?"

"According to Cara, not talking a lot, pretty shaken
up. You taught her well, though. Took her three shots, but still, it was dark
out. We got rid of the gun and the gunshot residue on her hands." He jerks
his head to the door as we hear voices outside. "That'll be the cops. Rich
is nowhere to be found. Just tell them, you guys were about to get into it in,
this guy comes up to you, about six foot, gray beard, baseball hat. Couldn't
get a good look because it was dark."

"Got it," I say, as he slips toward the door. I
can't believe Jo would do all this for me, after all that happened.

I spend the next hour talking to the police until the nurse
comes in and asks them to leave.

"That's enough for today. He went through a lot of
trauma yesterday."

The cops reluctantly turn for the door and the nurse heads
after them. I can feel my exhaustion and the morphine starting to pull me
under, but I have to see Jo.

"Miss? Would you mind, there's a girl in the waiting
room…Jo...blonde, pretty…will you see if she'll come in?"

"Oh. When I told your group in the waiting room that
you were awake, she left." She wavers at the door for a moment.
"Sorry."

Chapter Twenty-Five

Jo

Even though I'm exhausted when I get home, I make myself
call Dale before I go to sleep. He picks up on the fourth ring.

"Hey, it's Jo, from Evergreen," I say.

"Oh, hey, 'sup."

"I just wanted to let you know, Holt had an accident,
so he's going to be out of commission for a while."

"How long?"

"Mmm, maybe a month. He asked me to call you and say
that you should keep going with the jobs you have lined up. You're in charge
until he's ready to come back," I lie. I didn't see Holt while he was in
the hospital, but I know he wouldn't want his business to go to shit while he's
recuperating, and I'm not sure if anyone else would think to call.

"Fuck, OK. Well, we got that job tomorrow morning at
9…You'll be there, right?"

"Yeah, I'll be there."

"Well, that's good at least. It'll be tough without
Holt, but we'll make it work, I guess. He gonna be OK?"

"Yeah, in time."

"Well, just tell him I say, you know, feel better, and
all that," he adds awkwardly.

"Will do," I reply and hang up, knowing I can
never tell him the real details of what happened. I pull off my clothes as I
walk into my bedroom. I feel so stiff and tired my bones should be creaking.
With a sigh, I pull the covers up to my chin.