Page 52 of Bowser (Dragon Riders MC 2)
“I’ve got you. I’ve got you, gorgeous.”
She cried. “Oh, my God. How in the world did you find me? Oh, it’s really you.”
Anger filled my gut as my eyes hooked with Sly. The rolling gunfire faded away in the background as I tried my hardest to telecommunicate to him everything I was thinking in that moment. My teammate nodded before we took back off, running through the woods all the way back to the car.
And when we got there, I sat her on top of the trunk.
“Hey, hey, hey. It’s okay, Hope. Look at me,” I said.
Her fingertips rushed over my face as tears fell from her eyes.
“How did you find me? How—how in the world—”
I cupped her cheek. “You need to tell me exactly how you got here. It’s important. Okay?”
Her lower lip quivered. “I think something’s wrong with Ash, Bowser.”
“Sly?”
He slid back into the car. “Already on it.”
Then, my eyes fell to her hands. “What the fuck happened?”
I held up her beautiful, precious hands that looked like they had been run through a damn meat grinder.
“I, uh… it—well, I was—”
I swallowed down my anger. “Were you bound?”
She nodded. “Yes. With tape. And I tried, you know, using sharp things.”
“To get it off.”
“Yeah.”
I held up her taped wrist. “It looks like you’re still bleeding.”
She sniffled. “I nicked the underside of my artery.”
My eyes snapped back to hers. “We need to get you out of here. Now.”
“But what about—”
I scooped her into my arms. “We’ll deal with this shitshow later. Right now, we have to get you back, figure out where Ash is, and figure out what the fuck happened to Knuckles.”
“Wait, Knuckles?”
I slid her into the backseat. “We sent him back to the bar to check on Ash since we hadn’t heard from him.”
“Oh, no.”
I brushed her tears away. “It’s going to be okay. But we have to go, gorgeous. All right?”
Sly turned around. “Get in the car. The guns have stopped.”
I closed the door and leapt over the front of the car before quickly getting back in. I cranked up the engine as Sly positioned his rifle out his window, ready to shoot whoever decided to approach our car. I threw us into reverse to get us back onto the road before I cranked the steering wheel in order to swivel us around.
And after facing the correct way down the road, I sped off as quickly as I could.
“Are you sure we should be leaving?” Sly asked.
I looked over at him and saw the radio in his hand.
“Because you know if I talk to Link and tell him everything that’s happened—”
I glared at him. “You listen to me. The first promise I ever made in this operation was to protect Hope. Above all else, that was my job on this trip. No matter what happened, she’s always been under my protection. Whatever the fuck’s happening with the Pythons, they can take care of themselves. They’re armed. They’re trained. They’ve got heads on their shoulders. But Hope needs medical attention. She was taken from that fucking motel that was supposed to keep her safe, and we don’t know where two of our guys are. So, when you get Link on that radio, you tell him exactly that. That I’m keeping not only a promise I made to her, but a promise I made to these men when I became vice president. Got it?”
Sly grinned. “Got it, boss.”
Hope sighed. “Bowser?”
I looked at her through the rearview mirror. “No, gorgeous. None of this is your fault. It’s Skeleton’s, and he’s the only one responsible for any of this. Okay?”
Sly pressed the button on the radio. “Link, you copy?”
The radio hissed with his voice. “For the love of fuck, where the hell have you two—”
“I’ve got a story for you, and I need you to listen. Okay? No interrupting until I’m done. That’s going to be the easiest way.”
The radio fell silent before Link spoke.
“All right. Go ahead. But start with where you guys are.”
I took the radio from Sly. “We’re in the car headed away from the campground. And we’ve got Hope with us. She needs a doctor, Link. And we need to figure out what the fuck has happened to Ash and Knuckles.”
The entire drive back to the motel was fraught with unanswered questions and even more danger. But we finally pulled into the parking lot. When I saw the door to our motel room hanging wide open, it made me vibrate with anger. But the moment I stepped foot into the destroyed chaos of the place and realized what Hope had really gone through, my head almost blew through the roof.
“I don’t know if I can stay here tonight,” she whispered.
Link’s voice came from behind. “That’s fine by me. I’ve got you two set up in another room down at the far end of the motel.”
