Twisted Rose: Motorcycle Dark Romance 3 (The Darkness Trilogy) (15 page)

He stood up again and was about to fire at them when he heard more motorcycles coming up the track. What the hell? He hadn’t counted on a second group. Now they were in serious trouble. They had hardly any ammo, no backup, and he didn’t even know how many more riders were approaching.

There was only one thing he could do. He started running for the position of the guys they’d already gunned down. If he could get their weapons he’d at least have the firepower he needed to hold off the new guys. It pained him to do it but he got out from his position and began running for the guns. It was in the opposite direction to Rose’s position, and with the two guys approaching her he was terrified of what might happen, but he had to get those automatics.

The two guys who’d gone for Rose didn’t see him at first and miraculously he made it before the fresh set of bikers arrived. Just as he got there he saw what was coming. Three more bikes. Three more DRMC guys to kill. It was all just a terrible game of arithmetic for Josh at that point. There were two guys closing in on Rose. Three closing in on him. However he played it out, the math just didn’t add up in their favor.

Frantically he snatched up a machine gun that one of the dead riders had been carrying. At the same time, the three fresh bikers saw him there and pulled into the forest for cover. He started firing in their direction but at best, all he could hope to do was keep them at bay. Without a clear line of sight he couldn’t hope that he’d actually hit any of them.

*

R
OSE WAS CROUCHED SO TIGHTLY
that she felt like a coiled up spring, ready to pounce. She could see through the steel framing of the vehicle she was using for cover that the two riders were coming her way. Josh was over at the bikes, firing the machine gun down the track and she realized then that more men were approaching. She didn’t know how it was going to play out.

How could she hope to somehow kill the two men approaching her without them getting her first?

She leaned forward and peered in their direction. Immediately they dove for cover. A moment later they started raining down bullets on her position. It was hopeless. She pointed her gun around the metal frame of the tractor and took a shot but she wasn’t even able to see where it had gone. She was in trouble and she knew it. If Josh didn’t come in the next few seconds she didn’t know what she could do to stop them. The fact that they were wearing black helmets with the visors pulled down only made them more sinister. When they spoke their voices were muffled.

“Just give it up, Rose. We’ve got you now,” one of them called out.

She knew it was true. She looked over in Josh’s direction. He was pinned down behind the bikes. The two men who’d come for her were just on the other side of the vehicle. She could try shooting at them but it would get her killed.

“Tell your friends to stop firing at Josh,” she shouted at the men.

“Just give yourself up,” one of them shouted back.

She thought about what it would be like if she gave herself up. They’d kill Josh for sure, there was no way he was getting out of this alive, but she wasn’t sure what they’d do to her. Would they kill her? Would they take her back to the Cat and make her dance and strip and work as a whore again? They’d probably rape her. She knew enough about them to know that much.

She looked over at Josh’s position again. It seemed hopeless. The men who’d arrived had him pinned down behind those bikes and were firing so many bullets at them that it was only a matter of time before they got through. She knew they’d kill Josh then. And she knew that there was really nothing she could do about it. Even giving herself up wouldn’t help him. If it would make any difference, if there was a way she could surrender to the men and get Josh out of this mess, she would have done it. She would have allowed them to do anything to her, but she knew they weren’t going to let Josh out of here. And she knew Josh would never stop fighting till either they were all dead or he was dead himself.

And then she saw it happen, the one thing she was more afraid of than anything else. A bullet hit Josh.

XXXIV

R
OSE SCREAMED WHEN SHE SAW
Josh go down. He collapsed to the ground the second the bullet hit him. That was it. That was the end of everything she’d hoped for. How had she even dared to dream that there could be a life for her away from the DRMC? They owned her. They owned her body and soul and they would forever. That was what they’d told her and they meant it. There could be no escape for a girl like her from a gang like the DRMC.

Josh fell to the ground but the bullets didn’t stop. Sparks flew everywhere. Bullets hit the bikes, hit the dirt.

Josh was down and Rose couldn’t take her eyes from him. He wasn’t moving but she didn’t dare take her eyes off him. She felt that as long as she looked at him he wouldn’t die. His soul wouldn’t depart his body. He was safe as long as she kept her gaze firmly on him.

She didn’t dare look away from him. The two men who’d been approaching her got up and ran toward her but she didn’t care. Josh needed her. She couldn’t go to him but she could watch him as he lay there on the ground.

“We’ve got you now,” one of the men said as they took hold of her but she hardly even heard him.

They took her gun from her.

“You’re going to pay now, you little bitch,” one of the men said and unzipped the front of her suit, exposing her chest and bra.

She was resigned to whatever they were going to do. She didn’t care anymore. All she cared about was Josh and she refused to take her eyes from him. He was still on the ground, still hadn’t moved, and she couldn’t tell from the distance whether or not he was breathing.

The man who’d pulled down her zip took his helmet off and to Rose’s shock and surprise it was none other than Murdoch, the man she’d been forced to live with for two long years. She couldn’t believe it when she saw his face. It really was all over. It was like everything that had happened since Josh came into her life was over now. That had been a brief moment of hope, a glimpse at what life could be like if she was free, but now she was back in the hell of the DRMC and wouldn’t ever be escaping.

“That’s right,” Murdoch said. “You thought you could escape from us? We’re the Dark Rebel Motorcycle Club. You can’t escape us. No one can.”

Then he took a hold of her mouth in his gloved hand and pulled her toward him. She closed her eyes and held her breath as Murdoch kissed her hungrily on the mouth. He shoved his tongue into her mouth and she felt like it was a worm as it moved around between her lips. It was disgusting, it was degrading, and it brought back all of the pain of her two long years with the DRMC. Just like that she was back where she’d started, the slave and prisoner of these horrible, disgusting men.

She tried to keep her eyes on Josh but it was impossible. With Murdoch forcing his tongue into her mouth she hadn’t been able to maintain the gaze she’d fixed on Josh. Now he would die. She knew it. Without her watching him, without the direct connection of her love, his soul would slip out of his injured body, his blood would flow into the dirt, and he would be gone forever.

She couldn’t bear it. She couldn’t bear the thought of it. Everything she’d hoped for was being robbed from her so quickly. She couldn’t bear the thought of losing Josh. If he was going to die, she wanted to die too. She didn’t want to be stuck in a world without him, and she didn’t want to be stuck in a world where she was forced to be the slave of the DRMC.

A rage welled up inside her. As Murdoch continued to slobber all over her face, as his companion laughed while watching the demeaning display, Rose felt so angry that she just couldn’t restrain herself any more. She mustered up all her strength and courage and she kneed Murdoch right in the nuts.

Murdoch hadn’t been expecting it and immediately doubled over in pain.

“Fuck,” his companion cried out but he didn’t act quickly enough. Rose grabbed Murdoch’s helmet and smashed it into the face of the second man, a man she’d never seen before in her life.

And then she was running. She didn’t care what happened next. She didn’t care if this was the end. She would rather die fighting than live a life of slavery and sexual torture any longer. She ran not for the trees, not for the bikes that had been hidden close to the track, but for Josh. She wanted to be with him at the very end. She wanted to be there when his final breath departed his body. She knew that she might not make it. She knew that Murdoch and the other guy could easily gun her down as she ran for Josh’s body but she didn’t care. Better to die running toward the man you loved than live the life of a slave.

The three men who’d gunned down Josh had approached his body and were looking at him on the ground like he was some sort of wild animal that they’d felled. He’d killed eight of their brothers in the recent past and within the DRMC there was already a notoriety that had built up around him. Now that he’d been shot down they were approaching his body cautiously, curious to see the man who’d caused so much trouble.

Rose didn’t care. She didn’t care that she was running right toward them. She didn’t care that they were watching her with surprise and amusement and that they would surely kill her as soon as they decided to. She didn’t care about any of it. All she cared about was getting to Josh in time to give him one last kiss. She wanted to be the one holding him when his life ended.

“Look at this,” she heard one of the men saying as they watched her running for Josh. “What’s she going to do? Save him?”

They laughed. She didn’t care.

She heard a gunshot from behind her and for a second she thought that was the end of it all, that she’d been hit in the back. But the bullet missed it’s mark and hit the dirt in the ground ahead of her. She glanced back over her shoulder and saw that it had been Murdoch who’d taken the shot.

He was lining up his sights to take another shot at her, like this was some target practice game and he could take as many potshots at her as he wanted, but one of the men standing over Josh raised his hands to tell him to stop. They were having too much fun watching her run. They wanted to have a little more fun with her before someone shot her.

XXXV

W
HEN ROSE REACHED JOSH SHE
collapsed onto the ground next to him. She didn’t care that the three DRMC men were watching her through their helmet visors. This was the end. She could already feel it. It didn’t matter what happened after this. All that mattered was that she had this last chance to hold Josh, to caress his face, to be with him as he died. He’d come into her life like an angel and rescued her from the darkest place imaginable. She wanted to be there for him as he died.

When she got to him she saw that the wound was even worse than she’d imagined. Blood was gushing from the bullet hole and pouring out onto Josh’s clothes. She feared she might already be too late. She put pressure on the wound.

“Josh,” she whispered.

She lifted his head onto her lap and kissed his lips. There were so many tears in her eyes that she could hardly see. She kissed Josh’s face and lips and kept whispering his name, over and over.

His eyes were closed but she could feel that he hadn’t died yet. There was a slight pulse from his heart. His lungs were still doing their work, laboriously sucking air in and out like bellows on some old, weak machine.

She didn’t even notice the three men standing there, staring at her. She didn’t notice Murdoch and his friend coming across the clearing behind her. All she could see was Josh. He was all she was focused on. He had her complete attention.

She unzipped his jacket and saw the place where the blood was spilling out of him. She tore a strip from his shirt and tied it tightly around the wound. She knew it was all futile. It wouldn’t make any difference. Not at this point. It was too late. The bullet had gone right through his shoulder and he was bleeding at the back too. It made her heart break to see all that precious blood spilling out of him and soaking into the dirt.

And then a miracle happened. Not much of a miracle, just something small, but it was enough to fill Rose’s heart with complete joy. Josh opened his eyes.

“Josh,” she cried out.

“Rose, I’m dying, Rose.”

“Shh,” she whispered. “Don’t speak.”

“Know that I love you,” he said, his voice hoarse and weak.

“Shh,” Rose said again, the tears flowing down from her eyes and falling onto Josh’s face. “I know you do,” she said. “I love you too.”

She couldn’t believe that it was happening. She’d always known that the whole adventure with Josh was a desperate attempt to get to a better life. She’d known it was too good to be true. Deep in her heart she’d known they’d never make it. You couldn’t just run away from the past like that. Things were never that easy. If there was one thing life had shown Rose it was that things didn’t work out for the best. She’d been naive to hope otherwise.

“Are we just going to stand here and watch this?” one of the DRMC bikers said at last after they’d all watched her crying over Josh for a few moments.

“Yeah,” Murdoch said from behind her, “That’s Josh Carter. The man that killed Rex Savage, Serge Gauthier and Deuce. He killed our brothers. Are we just going to stand here and let him die a peaceful death in the arms of a woman?”

“Hell no,” one of the other men answered.

“That’s fucking right,” Murdoch said. Serge and Deuce didn’t get to die peacefully. Now neither does this son of a bitch.”

Rose looked around at the five men. They were beasts, one and all. All of them were damaged men, dark men with ruined souls and no morals. Most of them had been brutalized by the DRMC and now there was no sympathy or honor left in any of them. They were monsters.

One of the men stepped forward. He was holding a machine gun but he took a handgun from inside his jacket and pointed it at Josh’s head. Rose couldn’t believe it. They were going to shoot him while he was in her arms. They couldn’t even allow him to die in peace.

Josh’s eyes were open and he was looking at the man who was about to kill him. He looked at the gun and then he looked at Rose. He was ready to die. Rose could see that. He was resigned to it.