Page 38 of Soulless Saint

Likely the Sons told The Warden that if he didn’t take the deal someone else he cared deeply about would be next. A risky move, unless you had the force to back it up.

We didn’t know enough about them yet to know that for certain, but by the rattled exterior of The Warden, I was starting to think we were about to have a big fucking mess on our hands.

“Sorry to hear that,” Damien said, running his tongue over his teeth as he considered our next move.

We needed the guns we came here for, more now than we did just five minutes ago.

Dad held up a hand when The Warden opened his mouth to speak, cutting him off before he could spew even more bullshit. “However, I’m going to need our order, Warden. In full. You understand the precarious situation we’re in, even more so now than before.”

The guy to the Warden’s right jerked his gaze to the Warden and back to us twice in quick succession. I fixated on him as my Dad and The Warden continued to talk in circles. It was clear we weren’t getting our guns. Not as long as this other player was still on the board.

But there was something else keeping me teetering precariously on the edge of anarchy. Shifty Eyes clenched his jaw, a muscle ticking near his cheekbone. He looked away quickly when he noticed me watching him, his right hand twitching at his side.

Then it clicked.

Why come at all if they didn’t have our guns? What good would that do other than piss Damien off and waste our time? If The Warden was now in the Sons’ pocket, this whole fucking thing could be staged.

They were the lure.

The guns the missing bait.

And we were the clowns with hooks in our goddamn mouths.

I smiled.

Shifty Eyes looked up, realization dawning. He knew I figured it out. “Warden!”

The Warden drew his weapon, his eyes widening. “Now, boys!

I was already three steps ahead, my gun was out, and I’d fired three rounds before they managed to get off one. Three bodies crumpled to the gravel, identical wounds in their thick skulls.

I knocked Archer to the ground, out of the path of a bullet, before stepping across my father, knowing he was the one that needed to survive this exchange otherwise we’d all be royally fucked.

Damien pivoted on his feet, and I mirrored his movements as the rest of The Warden’s men scattered, pressing my back against his. I felt the reverberations from the kick of his gun against my own shoulder as he shot his weapon, lighting up the growing dark with a scattering of gun fire.

It rang through the canyons like a song, echoing louder than the screams that followed it.

Archer went down.

“Behind!” I growled, dropping to the ground in a roll, picking Arch up with me on the follow through to deposit him behind the stack of empty oil drums.

A broken war cry sounded behind me, and I drew my blade, clutching it in reverse at the hilt, the blade along my forearm arcing as I twisted my body.

Shifty Eyes gurgled as the slit in his throat—the thinnest seam—split open, pouring his life’s blood down the front of his shirt. He went to his knees. To his face. Crimson spreading around his head like a demon’s halo.

I lifted my face to the ceiling, inhaling deeply. The acrid bite of sulfur and sawdust in the air filled my lungs, settling the devil within.

“Arch,” Damien roared, and I blinked, coming down from the peak of my delirium to find my Dad pressing his bare hands against a wound in Archer’s stomach. He’d been clipped on the right side. Too far right to have hit his stomach. Or his kidney.

He was a tough bastard. He’d live if we could get him back to the Shop.

“I’m good,” Arch was saying through a snarl. “I’m good. Just get me up.”

“Everyone else whole?” Kaleb called, stalking over, his gun still out, blood splashed over his high cheekbones like warpaint.

I nodded. He assessed our Dad and Zade before he tucked his weapon back into his waistband, bending to help Dad lift Arch from the cement floor. “What the fuck was that?” he asked, breathless as they shouldered Archer’s weight, making their way out.

“Perimeter,” Dad snapped at Zade and he nodded, a jump in his step as he rushed out ahead of them to check there wasn’t anyone else waiting outside.

---