Reckoning by Heather Atkinson

ground, making sure there weren’t any more around her. “Okay Jules, there’s a second bomb about fifteen inches from your left shoulder.”
    Jules swallowed hard, it only hitting home that Mikey had actually saved her life. If he hadn’t stopped her she would have run right across that bomb.
    “What’s that noise?” said Mikey.
    They all strained to hear the beeping that was getting faster and louder.
    “It’s coming from the house,” said Hayden. “Jules, get up now, everything’s going to go up.”
    Jules threw herself in the same direction Mikey had gone, only able to pray she didn’t trigger a device. Mikey caught her and together the three of them ran back the way they’d come, yelling at the others to get down. Fortunately Mark had already realised what the beeping meant and had ushered Jez and Grant back.
    There was a huge bang and Jules, Mikey and Hayden were thrown forward as the house was blown apart, a section of the roof just missing Hayden by inches as it plummeted into a bush beside him.
    “Stay down,” Mikey told Jules, pushing her back down as the main explosion triggered the devices in the ground, lighter, faster beeps preceding a series of quieter bangs followed by a fountain of earth shooting up into the air. After four of these eruptions everything finally went quiet.
    Jules looked up at Mikey, who had been thrown on top of her. “Thanks,” she said.
    “You’re welcome,” he smiled down at her.
    When Hayden got to his feet coughing, Mikey hastily pushed himself upright. “You okay?” he asked him.
    “I’ll live,” he mumbled, shaking his head.
    Jules dragged herself up to a sitting position, a large bruise forming on her cheek from where she had hit the ground. “I am going to kill Nilsen and the Starklaws.”
    “Ditto,” he said, pulling a disorientated Hayden away from the section of roof, which was on fire.
    “Are you all okay?” said Jez, dashing towards them.
    “Yeah, we’re fine,” replied Mikey.
    “Then let’s get out of here. Someone somewhere must have heard that.”
    Together the six of them staggered towards the cars, in various states of shock with ringing ears, cuts and bruises.
     
    Rather than retreat to the compound, not wanting to run the gauntlet of Brogan’s men and builders, Mikey, Jez and the others retreated to Martina’s Bar instead, which wasn’t opening that night so they were free to talk in peace.
    They sat in silence at the bar as Mikey poured out the drinks and passed them round.
    The silence was broken by Jez. “Well that went well.”
    “I can’t believe my clubhouse has been destroyed twice,” said Jules.
    “I can’t believe Nilsen set us up like that,” said Mikey. “It had to be him, the Starklaws are too fucking stupid.”
    “He sacrificed his own brother to set us up,” said Jez. “We were followed to the pub, word had probably got round about Toni McVay being there, she made no secret about it. Then Nilsen sent Lyle and his thick mates to smash the place up, who had no idea we were there.”
    “They were careful to make sure Toni had gone first, so she wouldn’t think it was an attack on her,” said Grant. “They were trying to impress her.”
    “Thank fuck we got there first,” said Mikey. “And right now they’ll be uncertain whether their attempt to blow us up was successful, that could give us the advantage and someone must have discovered Lyle and his clan of morons by now. We’re in a strong position, definitely.”
    “We need to use it to find Nilsen,” said Jez. “He’ll be right here, in the city somewhere, he had to be in order to follow us to the pub.”
    “We weren’t followed,” said Jules, throwing the whisky down her throat. “I would have noticed if we were.”
    “What are you saying?” said Jez.
    “Someone grassed us up.”
    “Are you saying we have a rat?” said Mikey.
    “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
    “You could be wrong, you might have missed the tail,” he pressed,