Page 55 of Fire Meets Fire

I shake my head, but that doesn’t rid me of the telltale pricking at my temples nor the cold shiver running down my spine. My vision starts blurring…

No, for everything that’s holy, no. Not now. No…

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAZ

As I face Ogre, I flick my eyes toward Helo, just in time to see her eyes roll back. With no time to consciously think about my actions, I throw myself in her direction, my fist closing around her hand, the one that’s holding the detonator. I’ve faced a myriad of fucked-up situations which could have ended in my death, but I don’t think there’s ever been a time when my heart’s felt so much like it was going to leap out of my chest.

For a second, I just hold my fingers tightly around hers, my chest heaving as if I’ve run a record-breaking mile. When my blood pressure starts to lower to a measure more reasonable, gently I lower her unconscious body to the ground, kneeling beside her, then prise the detonator out of her hand. It’s only then I feel I can breathe normally once again.

Closing my eyes briefly, I send up thanks to any possible but unlikely deity that’s been looking out for me. When I open them again, it’s to see Ogre’s completely blood-drained face staring down.

He swallows once, then twice. “She wasn’t fuckin’ kidding, was she?”

“She never fuckin’ kids,” I respond with a growl.

“What the fuck’s wrong with her?”

“What those fuckin’ bastards put her through left her with PTSD. You know, the shit you were just laughing about? It makes her pass out.” I sneer at him. Gently I stroke my hand over her head, pulling her into my chest, knowing my heart is still beating too fast. It’s not about how close I came to death—she could have died. Something tells me that Queenie “Helo” May still has a mark to make on the world.

He gives me an incredulous stare, then sinks to his haunches, his hands coming far too close to my woman.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I snarl. “Get the fuck back or I set this thing off now.”

Scrambling backward so fast that he falls on his ass, Ogre raises his hands. “I was just trying to get the vest off her.” He narrows his eyes. “What the fuck? You’d blow yourself up and her?”

I shrug. “She’s got the right to a life, but one which is worth living. She’d rather die on her terms than anyone else’s, and where she goes, so do I.”

My explanation doesn’t make colour come into Ogre’s face. In fact, he seems to pale more. “You’re both as fuckin’ mad as each other.”

He’s probably right. But I don’t want to live without Helo, and she, in true hero style, would only go taking the bad guys with her.

As normal, after one of her blackouts, it isn’t long before Helo starts to stir. At first, it’s with a soft groan and a touch to her forehead, then she pulls down that same now-empty hand and stares at it in horror. Anticipating her reaction, I hold the detonator in front of her eyes. I don’t need to use words for her to understand how close we all came to losing our lives. The way her throat works as she swallows fast shows me how much she comprehends.

Ogre gets back onto his feet and holds up his hands as if trying to ward off madmen. “You let an unstable woman come into my clubhouse with a bomb strapped to her chest? What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“It wasn’t me.” I narrow my eyes at Helo, knowing she knows as well as myself that had I been listened to, I’d have forbidden this course of action. As it is, it came too close to mutual destruction for my liking.

Ogre seems torn whether to believe me or not. He’s confused and I don’t blame him. “If not you, then who the fuck was the lunatic who decided this was okay?”

A gruff voice announces loudly, “That would be me.”

All eyes swing around to the man who’s just entered. But it’s not only him who’s arrived. All around, Dominators are reluctantly surrendering their guns. Having been so embroiled in watching the drama in front of them, they hadn’t noticed my brothers invading their clubhouse.

Slugger doesn’t resemble the cowed man who’d dropped me off, but Ogre recognises him anyway. He also realises the now hatless, strong, confident man with his back ramrod straight, with the voice oozing with confidence, bears a strong likeness to someone else. It doesn’t take the prez of the Dominators long to recognise the mistake he’d earlier made in letting him drive away.Thisman is no prospect.

“Travis ‘Slugger’ Winslow,” Ogre spits out.

Slugger shrugs, clearly not devastated by being recognised. He gives Ogre only a cursory glance before turning to me. “You can let go of that now.” He nods to the device I’m holding in my hand.

Instead, I tighten my fist.Has he gone completely mad?

Helo, now fully back to herself, has fire spitting from her eyes. “Is this vest a dummy?”

The Dominators seem to breathe a collective sigh of relief and some start flexing their muscles at the idea of there being no immediate threat. But Slugger disavows them of that hope in just a second.

“The vest is carrying enough C4 to blow everyone here to hell,” he replies to her casually. “That detonator though, that’s not the real one. I have that here.” He frees his hand from his pocket and reveals a device almost identical to the one I hold in my hand.

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