Defy (Brothers of Ink and Steel Book 3)(56)
Hurry up! I groan inwardly. If we don’t make Lemy, I can’t follow Rachel onto the streetcar. I promised her that.
I watch the other families that exit through the door—most have several children or one child playing happily, and none are masked so that they’re unrecognizable. And none look like they could be Lemy.
The next three things happen in rapid succession.
“I’ve got her!” Patti shouts as she exposes the face of a very fearful Lemy.
“Wheya’s Waychul?” she cries. “Mu hans hurt.”
At the sound of Lemy’s voice, I spring into action and begin pushing through the people in front of me.
“Perp is on the run,” Patti updates us.
Then two shots ring out.
Bryan makes a horrible, sickening sound. The crowd drops to the ground and people scream as I leap over them in a run towards the door.
“Fuck!” I throw myself onto the metal steps, get a grip on the handicapped bar and pull myself up.
That’s when the bottom of a black combat boot meets my chest squarely, thrusting me back through the door and off the streetcar.
As I scramble to my feet, the f*cker takes down his mask—it’s Officer Douchebag from the Mansfield Police Department. Guthrie. He laughs as the door closes.
I run up as the streetcar slowly begins to move away.
Patti is talking to Lemy, trying to reassure her.
My fist closes around the streetcar’s back service ladder, and I get halfway up when I hear Bryan’s strangled voice. “They’ve taken Farrington out the other side!”
I turn my head just in time to see the polished black Escalade veer away from the streetcar and screech down St. Peter Street.
RACHEL!
“I’m on it!” Briggs assures me.
I didn’t realize I’d said anything out loud. The streetcar is picking up speed fast. I need to jump!
“Hold your f*cking horses!” Briggs’s voice breaks through my thoughts.
That’s when I see the Camaro he’s driving speeding towards the side of the streetcar.
“Bryan?” Patti’s tone is stressed. He doesn’t answer.
Briggs gets up tight, so close to the streetcar I’m sure they’ll exchange paint.
“Jump, damn it!” he urges.
I balance on the roof of the lurching streetcar, watching the blacktop below me race by with sickening speed. I take three steps back, and then run forward to get maximum velocity.
For a moment I’m airborne.
“You ever pull a stunt like that again I’ll kill you myself!” That’s Chief’s voice in my head. He’d said that the first time I jumped off a moving vehicle—when I was fourteen. I thought I was badass, but Chief just wanted to whip my ass!
My body makes full contact with the top of the Camaro.
“You on, for Christ’s sake?” Briggs barks at me.
“Yeah, I’m f*cking on!”
“Grip something!” Briggs shouts as we fishtail right onto Iberville Street.
There is f*cking nothing to grip! I think, then find that Briggs rolled the windows down. Relieved, I fold my fingers under the topside of the door’s window frame. I tuck my chin beneath my shoulder until the vehicle straightens out. When I lift my face, I see the Escalade right in front of us.
Briggs’s tone is almost desperate. “911, there’s a shooter in the French Quarter at the Toulouse Station! We need an ambulance and police immediately!”
“Briggs?”
“Concentrate, Axman!” he demands of me.
I have a sickening feeling that Bryan is down.
Bullets careen past my head and skim over the steel roof I’m draped against.
Too close.
The next shot shatters the windshield.
“Briggs!”
“I’m good.”
I can’t fire back, I’d risk hitting Farrington.
“Get me closer!”
“Got ya, boss.” Briggs pulls directly behind the Escalade, bumper to bumper.
With my Glock in hand, I run down across the Camaro’s hood and vault myself onto the roof of the Escalade. With a death grip on the ski rack, I swing my torso over to the side and smash in the driver’s window with the handle of the Glock.
“We’ve got a white Escalade tail, and since it’s smacking into my rear end, I’m guessing he’s swinging for Miguel’s team.”
The Escalade I’m holding onto veers onto Tulane Street and into oncoming traffic. Cars swerve off the side of the road while drivers lay on their horns.
“They’re headed to I-10,” Briggs deduces. “Incoming!”
Before I can figure out what incoming means, the Camaro smashes into the Escalade just as hot lead rips through the metal roof about two inches from me.
“Fuck!” we both curse simultaneously.
Briggs isn’t liking getting pushed around, and I definitely don’t like bullets two inches away from my body!
Briggs warns, “If we let them on I-10 your safety quotient is going to drop fast.”
He’s right, a lot of people could get hurt.
I hang from my right arm and leg over the side of the roof and shoot with my left hand. The driver slumps over as the passenger lunges for control of the wheel.
Then a shot rings over my head.