Page 1 of Crusher

1

CRUSHER

Who the hell did I piss off today?

I’m racking my brain, wondering who’s trying to run me off the fucking road. Keeping a steady speed, I glance in my side mirror as a blacked-out van edges closer to my ass. Fuck, I’m drawing a blank. It’s hard to pinpoint one person when the list is endless.

I mean, there was that guy at the fast-food restaurant who I had to set straight earlier for harassing a young female cashier. But I don’t remember him looking as though he could afford a shirt, let alone pay for a late-model commercial van. On the other hand, the Satan’s Disciples are known for racking up enemies, so watching my back ain’t nothing new. In Carnage, everyone knows who we are and depending on the day, that could be either a good thing or a bad one.

Right now, I’m leaning toward bad.

Giving my bike gas, I rev it up, increasing the distance between me and whoever the fuck is chasing me down. It’s not as much distance as I would like, but it should be enough for me to catch the next exit off the damn highway. That is until I hear a gunshot coming from behind me. I jerk to the side, glancing in my mirror again to find a figure leaning out of the passenger window of the van and pointing a gun straight at me, his face covered by a mask.

Fucking coward. It’s way too early for this bullshit.

He fires again, but I’m able to swerve out of the way, barely keeping my bike upright. The next shot, though? Yeah, that’s when my luck seems to run out. The bullet pierces my back tire. I spiral out of control and crash onto the pavement toward the side of the road before my body slams hard against the ground. The world is spinning; the dark green of the trees and the golden rays of the rising sun mix into one swirl of color. Then I skid to a stop, shaking the fog from my head, and immediately regret that decision when sharp pain flashes in my skull.

I’m lying on the fucking asphalt, not a car in sight this early in the morning, on a back highway. Of course, that’d be my luck since I left the clubhouse at sunrise. Most other people have the good sense to keep their asses in bed until at least seven.

My muscles scream at me to be still, but I reach for the gun I have secured in the holster at my waist as the black vehicle stops a short distance from me. The glaring headlights obscure my vision, but I can make out two masculine figures approaching on foot. I’m not afraid to die, and I’ll go out shooting, but this ain’t the day for me to leave this earth—I got too much other shit to do. But you mark my words: when my time comes, I’m taking every motherfucker with me when they put me in that dirt.

My hand closes around the grip of my weapon as they cautiously stalk toward me. Then, a loud crunch of metal on metal makes me jolt and freeze in place. A large pickup truck bumps the back of the van. Not hard enough to injure the passengers, but definitely causing some minor damage and grabbing everyone’s attention.

The two men pivot toward the sound as the driver rolls down their window and shouts, “The police are on the way, you fuckheads. I’d get the hell outta here if I were you. You can stay and get caught, or I’m running your asses down with my truck. Now, what’s it gonna be?” The driver slams into the van again, making it skid a few feet across the pavement.

“Let’s get the fuck outta here! This was not part of the plan!” someone calls out from the black vehicle. I should shoot the two idiots in front of me while they’re distracted, but there’d be a witness, one I don’t need. One with a familiar voice.

That voice…

The two men let out a string of curses before sprinting back to their van. Pussies. Squeals of rubber burning onto the road pierce the quiet morning air as the wanna-be thugs scurry off. If the pain weren’t so excruciating, I’d laugh at their candy asses.

Instead, I exhale a sigh of relief and fall back onto the ground, my gun still in my hand. Then, a door slams, reminding me I’m not alone, and I raise my head when I hear another set of footsteps.

“Who the hell did you fuck over this time?”

I’d know that sass anywhere. I stare at the face that belongs to the sweetest voice that’s ever graced my ears. The same face I haven’t stopped dreaming about for months. I don’t give two shits that the pain is fucking unbearable now, and I let out a roar of laughter.

“If this is how I’m leaving this world, then thank God yours is the last face I see.” I grin at Sadie Michaels as she fixes her glare on me.

The last time I saw this woman was at a party at the clubhouse, where she scowled at me for the entire evening—between her spells of eye-fucking me that is. But that’s to be expected when a few weeks before that, I was buried balls-deep inside her, making her scream my name. I’ll never forget that night, even though I’m sure she’s tried to.

“You know, you should be dead after a bike crash like that. And, if not from the crash, then from whoever the hell those idiots were.”

“I don’t think they were trying to kill me. I think they were trying to take me.”

She quirks an eyebrow before bending down and holding up a few digits in front of my face. “Well, they could’ve killed us all, so I guess we lucked out this morning. Now, how many fingers do ya see?”

“Three,” I reply correctly, still smiling at her beautiful face. “What are you doing out here, Sadie?”

Was she following us this whole time?

“Can you feel this?” She ignores my question and squeezes my arm. There’s a sharp stab that travels down to my fingertips.

I wince but don’t pull away from her touch. “Yeah, that fucking hurt. But you didn’t answer my question.”

“Was I supposed to?” She shoots me a look of feigned innocence.

“Generally, that’s how it works. Someone asks a question, and someone else answers it.”

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