Make You Mine by K.T. Quinn

51

Charlotte

The gunshot was painfully loud. It echoed off the few surrounding buildings, and birds took flight from the nearby trees. For a split second afterward, everything was silent. Peaceful. Like the eye of a hurricane.

And then all hell broke loose.

One police officer returned fire, then a cluster of others, and then every single one of them was shooting. The Copperheads jumped to the ground and took cover behind their bikes as the firefight began, shotguns and pistols adding their own noise to the fray. The sound of gunfire was constant, like popcorn in a microwave. Men and women on both sides were hit and fell to the ground.

But I had eyes only for Jayce. At first, I didn’t think the shot had hit him. He stood motionless, then tried to reach behind him to grab his pistol. That simple motion caused him to fall to his knees, and then he collapsed onto his side.

“Jayce!” I shrieked.

Dad grabbed my arm, but I shook him off and sprinted across the open pavement, gunshots flashing all around me and bullets hissing through the air. The danger was easy to ignore because in that moment my mind held a single focus: get to Jayce. My own safety didn’t matter.

Somehow I reached him without getting shot, and I fell to my knees and touched his cheek. He blinked rapidly, eyes locking onto mine. Then he winced.

“Peaches,” he said in a surprised voice. “I think I’ve been shot.”

Blood was spreading along his shoulder, staining his grey shirt and the biker jacket over top. I wasn’t a medical expert, but the wound looked like it was in a non-life-threatening area. It seemed like moving him out of the open—and getting myself out of the open in the process—was the best idea.

I grabbed his arm, and then my dad was there alongside me. “Drag him,” he said.

Jayce cried out as my dad took his other arm and pulled. Together, we dragged him across the pavement and back to the station wagon. Halfway there, a bullet ricocheted off the pavement by Jayce’s leg, sending up a small cloud of dust. I prayed the entire rest of the way to cover.

“What is wrong with you!” Momma demanded when we were behind the car. “Why would you do that!”

“Is he going to be okay?” I demanded of my dad. He pulled Jayce’s shirt down, revealing his shoulder and upper chest. The beautiful lines of muscle were now marred by a red smear just above his armpit.

“I’m fine…” Jayce protested. “It—ahh, fuck.”

Dad was probing around the wound. He rolled Jayce onto his side and looked at his back, where there was another red smear of blood. “Bullet went all the way through. That’s good.”

“Told you I’m fine,” Jayce said, pushing to his feet.

“Stay there!” I barked at him.

“I feel okay. Kind of stings a little bit. You doing okay, Peaches?”

“Oh yeah,” I said acidly as gunshots rang out. “I’m just super.”

I looked around. Mindy was leading the sheriff and judge into her diner. Neither of them needed any encouragement. Several Copperheads lay on the ground, but most of them were fleeing the killing zone on foot. Several ran over into the ditch along the side of the road, while others ran straight for the diner. Mindy got inside just in time to lock the doors to keep them out.

“Shooters in the building on the left!” one of the cops behind us shouted. “Put some fire on that bar!”

I realized they were talking about Flop. I jumped up and waved my arms. “Don’t! They’re on our side!”

Dad grabbed me and yanked me back down, then pulled his walkie-talkie to his mouth. “The bar is friendly, I repeat, the bar is friendly.” He lowered the radio and cursed. “Copperheads moving around the sides. We’re not going to have much cover here soon.”

“Can we get in the station wagon and drive away?” Momma asked.

“Not after Charlotte’s ex smashed into it,” Dad muttered, giving me a look.

“Hey, that’s not my fault!”

Jayce touched his shoulder and winced. “It kind of is.”

“You’re not helping.”

Dad cursed again. “We need to get to safety. While there’s a lull in the shooting.”

The shooting had dimmed a little bit, but it was only because the Copperheads were making for the woods and taking cover behind the nearby buildings. Once they had new positions it would get ugly again. The middle of the road was mostly deserted, except for dead bodies and abandoned motorcycles. Jayce’s bike still stood where he’d left it, smack in the middle of all the chaos.

“Think we should make a run for it?” Jayce asked my dad.

“Uh huh. Split up, so we’re tougher to hit.” Dad glanced at him. “Can you move?”

“I told you I’m fine. Hurts like hell, but it ain’t gonna stop me.” He gave a weak grin. “I can get her out of here in a flash. My bike’s right there. That’s better than running behind the line of cop cars the Copperheads are about to shoot at.”

My dad looked him up and down as if seeing him for the first time. As if Jayce were picking me up for a date and Dad was giving him a once-over on the front porch before deciding whether to let me go out with him. After a long moment, Dad nodded with approval.

“Ready, Peaches?”

“Does it matter?”

“Nope,” he said.

Jayce took my hand and then we sprinted out from behind the station wagon. It was eerily silent except for the few Copperheads shouting at one another, trying to stay coordinated against the police. My feet pounded on the pavement as we ran, which was more of a light jog thanks to Jayce’s wound, no matter how fine he insisted he was. He cradled his wounded arm against his belly as we ran.

We were so vulnerable out in the open. I knew it made temporary sense to get away from everything, but I couldn’t help but feel like we would suddenly be struck with bullets at any moment. Fortunately, most of the Copperheads seemed to be running for cover at that moment, or too focused on the police to notice us.

Jayce threw a leg over his bike, and I hopped on behind him. The bike rumbled to life between my legs, and Jayce glanced over his shoulder to make sure I was ready.

I wrapped my arms around him and said, “Go!”

He whirled the bike around, and then we shot away to the south so fast that I almost fell off the back. Jayce deftly maneuvered the bike around the damaged station wagon, then between the row of police cars. Most of the police were running over to the side to engage with a cluster of Copperheads who were fleeing into the woods behind Flop’s bar. The motorcycle engine roared louder as Jayce sped away, and within seconds all the police, Copperheads, and gunfire was fading behind us.

Jayce rode to the edge of town, then pulled over onto a dirt road hidden in the trees. “Hop off,” he said.

I obeyed, then realized he wasn’t going to do the same. “Wait a minute. Where are you going?”

“To get your mom.”

I started to laugh, but then he was zooming back toward the distant firefight in a flash. I barely had any time to start worrying before he returned with my Momma clutching onto the back.

“Oh my!” she said when he pulled to a stop. “Thank you very much!”

“Any time.”

Momma gave me an excited, wide-eyed look. She’d never been on a motorcycle before.

“Now what?” I asked.

Jayce turned to Momma. “Want me to go rescue your husband?”

She snorted. “I’d love for you to, but he’s too much of a fool to come with you. Still thinks he can wave his gun with the best of them. Don’t bother.”

“Then I guess we stay here…” Jayce began to say, then trailed off.

Another bike came shooting down the road away from the fight. It was a Harley, with the rider leaned all the way back. As he drew closer, the dreadlocks trailing behind his head like tentacles were unmistakable.

Sid.

From behind, I saw Jayce snarl. He pulled out his pistol and took aim just as Sid was passing us. The pistol barked once, twice, and a third time as Jayce’s healthy arm swiveled to follow the fleeing Copperhead. Then the man was gone, turning down the next road and disappearing behind the trees.

Jayce lowered the pistol. His hand shook with rage, or disappointment, or both.

My heart ached for Jayce in that moment. He’d finally had a clear chance at getting his revenge, and he’d missed. He would likely never get another opportunity like that again.

Then the grief on his handsome face twisted into determination. He threw his leg back over the bike.

“No!” I shouted, jumping on the back. “Don’t follow him!”

“I have to, Peaches. Get off.”

“He’ll kill you!” I insisted, squeezing my arms tight around him. He grunted from his wound, and I moved my right arm a little lower. “Don’t you have something worth living for?”

“What are you saying?” he growled.

I pressed my body against his back, burying my face in his hair and breathing in his scent. “You know what I’m saying, Jayce. Us.”

He quivered underneath my embrace. “Last chance to get off the bike.”

“No,” I insisted. “If you’re going to risk your own life so haphazardly just to go after this man, then you’re going to have to risk mine too.”

I thought it was checkmate. He might be cavalier about putting himself in danger, but he wouldn’t do the same with my life. As long as I clung to his body, he couldn’t go after Sid.

I was wrong.

“Hold on, Peaches,” he said before shooting down the road after the leader of the Copperheads.