Den of Vipers
: Chapter 51

Following after Little Bird, I try to contain myself. My hands itch to rip her open and put her back together again for daring to get kidnapped, for daring to leave us. Anger is pouring through me, lighting the inferno inside me until I’m a ticking time bomb.

So, when we open the first door and interrupt a man beating another with a bat tied to a chair, I lose it. Pushing past Ryder and Little Bird, I rush in. I hear him warn her to leave me to it, but then everything blurs. Just my demons and me.

Grabbing the bat from his hands, I turn it on him, letting my demons out to play. My arms strain from the force of my swings. The room is quiet except for his screaming and my…laughing.

Huh, that’s me.

When it’s over, I look up. My whole body is covered in blood, my eyes are dark and crazy, but Little Bird pushes free of Ryder’s hold and walks towards me unafraid. Pressing up on her toes, she kisses me softly. “He’s dead, come on, babe.”

She plucks the bat from my hand and leans it against her shoulder as she walks past Ryder, both of us staring after her. “I love her,” I state seriously, and Ryder laughs.

“You fucking better. Nobody else is putting up with your crazy ass.”

We both turn and follow her, checking each door as we go, but all the other bedrooms are empty. The blood starts to dry on my skin and gets itchy, but I ignore it, my eyes locked on my little bird. Even at my darkest, she loves me, isn’t afraid of me.

It might kill her one day…

But fuck, I’m too selfish to care. She’s mine. I’m going to stick a goddamn ring on her finger so the whole world knows. I might even carve my name into her skin. I bet she would like that…especially if I fucked her at the same time—

“D,” Ryder murmurs, and looks over me. “You’re thinking out loud.”

I blink and look from him to Roxy to see her grinning. “Carving, huh? Save it for later.”

She’s walking while she’s talking, and that’s when we hear a distinctive click. Fuck. She turns just as I see it fly towards us through the air. “Grenade!” Ryder screams, reaching for it to protect her, but I watch in awe as she tightens her hold on the bat and, like a total fucking badass, swings, hitting the grenade.

We all watch open-mouthed as it flies back to where it came from, exploding as it hits the stairs, throwing us backwards.

I make sure to grab her when I land above her, shielding her. Her laughter reaches me through the ringing in my ears, and when I glance over my shoulder to make sure no one is firing or coming at us, I gape down into her grinning face. “That was awesome,” she declares.

Grinning, I lean down and kiss her. “And hot as hell. Keep that bat, we’re playing with it later.”

“Kinky.” She nods as I push to my feet and grab one of her hands, with Ryder grasping the other, and we pull her to her feet. He quickly checks her over before nodding and handing her the bat.

“Come on, let’s keep moving,” he mutters, his shoulders covered in dust and soot.

We pick our way up the stairs, avoiding the destroyed railing and corpses there. When we reach the landing, it opens into a large sitting room, and Ryder seems to freeze for a moment. “Ry?” Little Bird asks, laying a hand on his back.

He shivers under her touch and swings his haunted eyes to her. “One day, I will tell you why this room is the place where this all started, but not right now,” he vows, and then seems to push it back, straightening. “I’m betting someone in charge is in there. It’s a big room with an overlooking balcony office.”

Roxy grips her bat tighter. “Let’s do this.”

I nod, and he grips his gun. “Let’s.”

We burst into the room, having mere seconds to read the space. There are at least ten men in here, all packing and waiting for us. I spot an Asian man in a suit on the balcony, and when he sees us, he ducks. “Fire!” he screams.

Oh shit. Throwing myself at Little Bird, I tackle her behind a side table as Ryder throws himself behind a bar. They fire at us in a hail of never-ending bullets, and Roxy flinches, curling down lower as I grin at her.

“Isn’t this fun? I gotta admit, I’m hard, this is totally our foreplay for the day.”

Laughing, she slaps me. “Focus, think with your other head.”

“Oh, I am, he’s thinking about fucking your ass,” I mutter, as I lean around the table and throw my knife, not watching where it lands, but I hear the plunk as it embeds in its target and a gun stops firing. “Or your pussy…or mouth, honestly, I’m not fussy as long as I get to do it with blood still covering me.”

“You’re crazy.” She laughs, but when she says it, she makes it sound like a good thing.

Grabbing another knife, I toss that as well, but I miss, and Ryder glares over at me. “Open the fucking fanny pack!” he screams.

Roxy laughs. “What’s in it?”

Leaning back on my knees, I unzip it and show her the grenades inside. “Do you always keep your grenades there?” she inquires, the firing still going on around us.

“Not always, sometimes I keep knives or tacos in it,” I murmur as I palm one.

“Tacos?” she echoes.

“I get hungry when I fight.” I shrug and pull the pin, tossing one, and then cover her.

It explodes moments later, the blast followed by a scream, so I throw two more, the bangs loud. I don’t wait, I leap to my feet and sprint around the table to see all of the men down, some dead, some just knocked unconscious from the blast. Zipping up my pack, I grab my lighter and quickly ignite one of their coats as I step over them, whistling as I do.

“He’s wearing a fucking fanny pack,” one of them wheezes.

“I think it’s hot.” Roxy shrugs as she spins the bat in her hand and hits him on the twirl, knocking him out.

“Crazy bitch.” Another man reaches for a gun, so with one grenade still left, I shove it in his mouth and pull the pin before diving at both Roxy and Ryder. We make it behind a table as it explodes, raining gore all over.

“That was fun!” I yell, as I leap to my feet, and they slowly get up and check on the rest.

Ryder takes care of the others while Roxy looks around for the stairs to go up. “Over there,” Ryder calls, and leads her over.

Fuck that. “Stairs are for pussies!” I shout, as I leap onto the sofa and then grab the chandelier above. Swinging my legs back and forth, I manage to rock towards the balcony, gripping the edge at the last second and swinging myself over to meet the panicked eyes of the Asian man.

“Hey, man, stairs suck, am I right?” I remark, as I punch him in the face and disarm him, throwing the gun over the balcony as I wait for the others. He goes down hard, but quickly gets to his feet. By then, Roxy and Ryder are up here.

The man with the three tattooed on his neck looks at Roxy and spits. “You stupid whore, aren’t you dead yet?”

“Nah, sorry, I live to disappoint,” she offers, as Ryder lashes out, stabbing him in the stomach. It’s not a killing blow, though, but he does fall backwards, blood flowing from the wound.

Just then, we hear a yell, and we look around to see a man with a mohawk running at us with a chainsaw from the other side of the balcony. Roxy thrusts out her leg, tripping him, and I give him a helping hand over the edge of it. We all look over as he falls with a scream and lands on the table below, impaling himself on a decorative statue there.

Looking back at number three, I grin. “I would give him an eight out of ten for his landing.”

“You think you’re so smart? Better check your people again, I’m betting you’re missing one.” He laughs, and Ryder steps closer.

“Who?”

“That enforcer of yours?” Number three chuckles, gripping his bleeding stomach harder as he falls to his ass. “We made a promise, and he will help us keep it…”

“Where is he?” Roxy yells, pressing her bat to his chin.

“He’ll already be dead anyway.” He chuckles weakly. “You’re all fucking dead,” he sneers. I go to raise my knife, but Roxy beats me to it.

With a savage yell, she brings the bat down on him, again and again, caving in his head as his laughter cuts off into a choking noise. But she doesn’t stop there, she keeps swinging, over and over like a woman possessed until she can no more. The bat drops to the floor with a clank, and she stands there panting with blood on her hands and arms, spatters of it across her face.

Pushing back her hair, she licks her lips and straightens, looking over at me and Ryder, who are just staring at her in shock. “What?” she snarks.

“Nothing, Little Bird…just, fuck, that was hot.” I nod, then look at Ryder. “If she wasn’t ours, I would totally stalk her, hack her cameras, watch her through the windows, the whole nine yards.”

“Well, aren’t I a lucky bastard?” She huffs. “I get to live under the same roof as you, so now you just get to stalk me to the bathroom.”

Flicking open my lighter, I grab a cigarette and talk around it. “Exactly, you really are beautiful when you shower.”

She blinks and looks at Ryder. “I would ask if he was serious, but I don’t need to.”

“Children,” he snaps. “Let’s replace Garrett. He’s probably lying to spook us, but I would rather be safe than sorry.”

The mood sobers instantly. “Garrett. No one takes that big fucker, it would be like trying to carry an elephant.”

As Roxy slips past me, she pats my chest. “I’ll tell him that.”