Page 80 of Lockout

“Shit,” Ricochet muttered. “I’m a desert rat. I don’t belong in the snow.”

“Suck it the fuck up,” Butcher said, looking at him in disgust.

“Want me to get the jet ready?” Warrant asked Lock.

Lockout nodded. “We need to lure Hangman out now, before all his backup shows up. Start taking them out a little at a time so he doesn’t have so many damn men on his side. Taking out his resources is as good a plan as we have for now.”

“What about after that?” Smoke asked.

“We’re goin’ to have to smoke him out like the rat he is,” Hush said, glowering as he spoke.

“That sounded like something you would say,” Butcher told Toxic.

Toxic grinned. “I’m proud of you, Old Man. Look at you, figuring out farm terminology.” He cocked his head. “Though typically you’d want to use dogs to kill the rats. Smoking them all could set fire to your crops.”

Hush gave him a disgusted look. “It was a figure of speech, asshole.”

Toxic shrugged. “Fact remains that we’re the dog in this fight. We just need someone to till up the ground a bit and send all those rat bastards scurrying.”

“Are we seriously having this conversation?” Idaho asked with a laugh.

“Hey, it’s an analogy,” Toxic told him with a glare. “Don’t hear you helping.”

“Lord save me from pedantic bikers,” Static replied.

“Fuck you,” Toxic barked.

“You even know what pedantic means?” Static asked, looking skeptical.

“Means my fucking fist in your face if you keep it up,” Toxic warned.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Lock muttered, rubbing his temples like they were giving him a headache. “Enough. We start with Hangman’s known resources. We’ll cut off his supply line. Get the word going around that helping him will be detrimental to people’s health.”

“Isla could help with that,” Butcher offered. “That buddy of hers could spread the word on the darknet.”

No one knew who Isla’s hacker friend even was. She’d admitted to us women that she barely knew the woman, except that shewasa woman, and that she went by the name Switch.

Lockout nodded. “Get her on that. See if she can have Switch find out anything else about Hangman and the LoS.”

“I’ll have Glitch look into it, too,” Warrant offered. He glanced over at Rip. “If they’re focusing on keeping you out, maybe someone else can worm in past their defenses.”

“Then I guess I’d better keep them busy,” Rip said with a grin.

“We’ll reconvene once we’re done up north,” Lock said.

He didn’t even need to say anything before everyone was nodding and leaving the room. Determination lit each of their faces now that they had a plan.

I went and sat down on the bed beside Lock. “How long will they be gone for?” I asked.

“We’ll leave tonight,” Lock said. “Probably will only be a day or so.”

Looking at him in shock, I shook my head. “You’re not going, Lock.”

He raised an eyebrow at me. Usually that look turned me on. That arrogant, I can do what I want kind of look, but now it just made me angry.

“You were nearly blown to pieces,” I reminded him. “Besides, you can barely walk.”

“That’s what pain meds are for,” he replied.

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