Wild Child: A Skull Kings MC Novella by Sage L. Morgan Page B

pushed me out onto the back patio. I landed on a rough, granite surface and heard a soft cry. But it wasn’t my own.
    I spotted Anna a few feet away, arranged on her knees with a rectangle of duct tape over her mouth. Her hands were bound in front of her chest. The phrase, Say your prayers, floated thinly through my mind.
    Jameson dropped me next to her. I glanced at her face and saw nothing but sheet-white skin and wild, terrified eyes. My heart pounded. I began to shake.
    “Any last words?” the Boss said in his razor-cold voice.
    My skin felt hot and cold at the same time. I scanned the desert quickly, looking for light glancing off of leather and chains. I listened for a boot on gravel, the cock of a gun, but I heard nothing. I heard silence, the sound of abandonment.
    “So be it,” the Boss snarled. “Hands on your head.”
    Anna gave a helpless squeal, muffled by the duct tape. But I merely complied. It took all the strength I had left in my body to raise my arms. I was still shaking, but there was a cooling calm inside of my body. It was almost like relief.
    I didn’t have to run anymore.
    Part of me wanted to look behind me, at least see who was holding the gun. I didn’t dare to. That was the fear of mortality in me, and I had to let it go.
    I closed my eyes.

Chapter 16
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    C hop-chop-chop-chop!
    My eyes snapped open.
    The chopping sounds grew louder and louder until it drowned out everything happening around me, even the sound of Jameson’s cursing. There was a sudden sweep of air that blew back my entire head of hair, which was shortly followed by another, then another, then another.
    My realization hit me in the face with the next wave. A helicopter.
    A spotlight beamed down on us from somewhere in the sky.
    “This is Agent Fields with the FBI! Drop the weapon and put your hands up!” a strange voice boomed through a loudspeaker.
    I thrust my hands into the air. Anna, unable to follow suit with her wrists bound together, just shivered stiffly beside me.
    “Go, go, go!” I heard voices screaming on the ground.
    Men in black uniforms charged toward us from out of the darkness. Toward me and Anna.
    “No!” I yelped.
    I collapsed backward and tried to crawl in the other direction. A man hoisted me over his shoulder and carried me away. A second man had Anna in his arms. I strained over my carrier’s shoulder just in time to see Jameson and the Boss putting their hands behind their heads and lowering themselves to the ground, following the loudspeaker’s directions.
    Then, it finally hit me. We weren’t being captured.
    We were being rescued.
    * * *
    “T his was all I could get at this time of night. Hope it’s okay,” Carmen said.
    I stared at the paper cup she’d put into my hands from the coffee vending machine in the lobby. The swill inside was a strange, cloudy brown. But when I took a sip, I instantly felt better. I’d probably needed something warm inside of me.
    “Thanks,” I said, smiling gratefully.
    We were in a motel somewhere in the middle of the desert, even older than the Paradise. Aspen was sitting cross-legged on the second bed, watching an old rerun of I Love Lucy! on a cube television set I was surprised to see working. Shadows passed over the thin curtains on the windows, evidence of the Canyon City Skull Kings doing their patrols outside. Liam was out there somewhere.
    I had no idea where Gabriel was.
    “Do you want to talk about it?” Carmen asked gently. She sat down on the bed beside me.
    Aspen turned down the volume on the television set.
    “Not really,” I said. “I just want to know if Anna’s okay.”
    “Anna’s being debriefed right now,” Carmen said automatically. “She’s the number one witness, so they needed to talk to her right away.”
    “And, they’re talking to Gabriel, too,” Aspen added.
    “Gabriel? Why him?” I asked a little too eagerly.
    “The Laughlin Kings,” Carmen answered, as if that explained