Bully

Chapter 40

  “We’re surrounded,” Brawn explained, as I joined him and Gabrielle in the back garden, my body vibrating with the pure relief that Gillian Mac was stone cold dead. Gabrielle was perched behind the fence, not bothering to stop and talk as she fired bullet after bullet at the men hunting us down. Brawn was in the process of reloading, addressing me with an emotionless tone. He knew what I did. Even all the explosions of gunpowder circling the house did not drown out the sound of the single bullet silencing my grandmother.

  He knew but I did not care. One of my demons was dead, and her blood had fuelled my ambitions to rid myself of the other three that still haunted me. “Who are they?” I asked, getting out my semi-automatic gun and balancing it on my three-fingered right hand.

  “Police. But when Rogue walked Gabrielle said they just let him walk straight past,”

  “Police that have a soft spot for Moseby’s men,” I remarked bitterly. “Chief must be around,”

  Brawn shook his head. “I haven’t seen him, and Chief’s not one to shy from a gun fight,”

  My face twisted with confusion. It was clear from my stay in the temporary cell that the other officers didn’t know who Chief really was. So why would they give Rogue a literal get-out-of-jail-free card? He had broken and entered a house. He had assaulted a citizen. He possessed illegal firearms. And yet he had walked past the police scott-free? That didn’t add up.

  “Where’s Vulture?” I asked, knowing he had taken the front yard to shoot from, but surely he should have fallen back by now?

  “Dead,” Brawn said flatly. “Took a bullet to the head,”

  I cursed. I didn’t really care about Vulture being killed. He was a sick man who put me on edge. But it meant I was a man down. How could we possibly get out of this when there were about twenty surrounding officers and only three of us?

  “Are you two going to help any time soon or are you going to leave me to do the dirty work?” Gabrielle barked, shooting us a short-tempered look as she reloaded. With a sigh, I resigned myself to further what must be the most eventful night of my life. Finding a small spot behind a wheelie bin that could offer me some protection, I balanced my gun and let the bullets rip, fighting hard to maintain my aim. It required a lot more skill to shoot a gun with two less fingers.

  My shots all flew wide though, and I found myself cursing violently as I had to duck back into my hiding space to awkwardly reload my gun. I heard a snort that would have only come from Gabrielle.

  “You’re supposed to be shooting them, not the sky, Byker,” she taunted me, still finding the time to try and humiliate me in the middle of a gunfight.

  “You try doing it with three fingers,” I grunted sourly, repositioning myself once more. I squinted down my scope, aiming for a young man who was raining bullets over Brawn, who was too big to hide behind the fence like Gabrielle was doing. However a flash of blue blinded me, and my eyes wondered from the men in uniform to the cars bolting down the road with sirens howling for my blood.