#RunningWilde Ch. 38 | Angels
For you I will, lay my life on the line
For you I will fight
For you I will die
With every breath, with all my soul
I'll give my world
I'll give it all
-For You I Will
Monica
*
Trish gave it some gas, put the pedal to the metal and shot off in a blaze of pebbles and burning rubber. Aiden wished he could go with them, but just as before, Jamie couldn't be safe with him. He was a walking target, the whole reason these men and their weapons were here. As long as they were out for blood he would be unfit to keep his nephew. He prayed that one day all of that would change and he would really have his out.
He jogged back to the action, ducking and dodging bullets, dipping behind and diving over gravestones. He slipped behind a willow tree for cover, appearing every few seconds to fire off a round of shots guaranteed to make enemy bodies fall.
Stone lurked around the edges with a large serrated knife that he wielded like it was the hood equivalent of Excalibur, preferring the manual method of delivering death up close and personal.
Dani and Baby were teamed up, taking on throngs of Syndicate men with their disarming appearances and stealthy movements. They were almost as good as Ash.
Almost.
Merkz was using his bare hands. He had his gun tucked into his holster but the feel of knuckles pounding flesh was more satisfactory.
Mighty was further afield, his tousled mop of blonde hair whipping around his eyes as he threw out micro-explosives and peculiar tiny, spiked black balls the size of marbles that acted as tazers, electrocuting their mark on impact until they frothed at the mouth and tears of red ran from their rolled back eyes.
Dougie was amidst the chaos, in plain sight with a wide grin fixed on his face, relishing in the madness as only Dougie could, like a kid in Hamley's toy store, spoilt for choice of marks and high on the rush of death by his hand. He looked invincible, almost to the point that Aiden could imagine him as some sort of super anti-hero, as quick as The Flash, with the ability to dodge bullets without his movements appearing to the naked eye. He had a machine gun clutched lovingly in his hands like a mechanic extension of himself. How he'd managed to slip it onto his person unnoticed was something of a magic trick. His slender frame could hide pistols and knives well enough -there was room for that -but the long black steel weapon that unforgivingly echoed BRAK-KA-KAT as he swung it like a lasso...how?
It seemed everyone had come prepared.
Aiden leapt out from behind the willow to join his friend. "Get every last one of these dickheads." He fired a kill shot into the head of a man running foolishly towards them with a switch blade.
"None of them will make it out alive...on your left!"
Aiden's snapped his aim to the left and three shots took down a burly beast who refused to go quietly. "Thanks, bruv."
"Course. By the way, if you see Mullins, he's mine."
"Sounds personal."
"Not really," Dougie sprayed a horizontal stream of hot metal, "I just don't like the guy. He's bitch-made."
"That explains why we can't see him. He's probably watching the whole thing behind tinted windows in his town car like Lockewood used to," Aiden snorted, unimpressed.
Dougie snickered, "You know he is. He ain't a real one like you, fam. He ain't even fit to run The Syndicate."
Aiden cocked his head contemplatively, "No...he isn't, is he?"
BOOM, BOOM, BOOM!
Dougie caught the change in his friend's tone and his grin widened, "The Lockewod girl might come in handy after all."
BRAK-KA-KA-KAT!
"I'm way ahead of you...behind the crypt!"
Dougie veered right and unleashed a tirade of gunfire, catching the five Syndicate soldiers that had sprung from behind the gothic building of stone and iron. "Oh?"
"We need to get a hold of Vince's will."
"How?"
"My lovely wife, of course," he winked roguishly.
"But you're hiding her...plus, she's not really your wife."
"For now." KA-BOOM! "Give it time."
They rotated and glided through the madness, slaying their enemies at an alarming rate and yelling instructions over their shoulders to keep each other safe. With Dougie at his side Aiden felt the invincibility he'd sought after.
"I've gotta say, A, I don't understand where your head is at when it comes to this chick. Sometimes I think you're getting lost I the sauce and then you turn around and say some boss shit that makes me reconsider."
"You don't need to understand it." BOOM! "I'm Aiden Michaels. Trust that I know what I'm doing."
"I hope so." Dougie muttered.
*
Max stalked across the grounds, keeping out of sight of both sides of the battle. He wasn't here to end lives, he was here to save one and he wanted to avoid spilling as much blood as possible...unless it was his -the mad man who'd taken Ava from him in the first place and murdered the man that Max owed his life to.
Aiden Michaels was his exception to the rule.
He ducked behind the next tree over, one away from Ava, then bent low and scooped up a handful of small rocks on the ground. He threw them against the wings of the angelic statue that his angel hid behind.
Ava jumped and yelped at the sound assuming it could only be a bullet. She took a wary peek and glimpsed movement from between the billowing vines of the willow tree a few yards away. There was someone there. She'd been spotted. She thought she'd been so careful, that her absence had gone unnoticed because everyone was so wrapped up in killing each other that she'd be the last thing on their mind. She could almost taste the freedom she craved and now it was threatened. She pressed her back to the statue, its magnificent wings of soot-stained stone looking like they sprouted from her back, when she heard her name.
"Ava...Ava, it's me."
Her brow furrowed, "Max?" She dipped lower and dipped her head under the wing of her stone guardian to see the sharp angular features and spiky raven hair that she had feared she would never see again. Her heart leapt and her eyes stung with happy tears. This was normality staring her in the face through the unforgettable almond gaze of her protector.
She stepped out to run to him but he held up his hand halting her haste. "Wait," he mouthed. He pulled his gun from his holster, pointed it at the grave war before him and quickly crossed his feet one over the other in practiced sidesteps.
Ava reached for him before he got to her. She pulled him in close by the edges of his wrinkled suit and buried her face in his chest. "Max..." she breathed. He smelt musty and the unkempt fuzz of his beard irritated her forehead, but it didn't matter. He was here. Max was here, in the flesh, holding her back. Saving her life.
Freedom was a real possibility.
He took her face in his hands. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fantastic. Max, you have no idea how happy I am to see you_"
"I'm so sorry, Ava." He kissed the top of her head and held her closer, just to make sure that this moment was real, that he'd really found her. "I'm getting you out of here and I swear on everything that I'm never losing you again."
"Okay." She gave him a squeeze and they released each other. She stared up at him, "I thought I'd never see you again. I thought you'd all given up on me."
"I would never do that. Ever. Though I can't say the same for your uncle," he sneered the word and cast his gaze over to the thick of the bushes a few yards from the fight. He took her hand, the slight separation from her making him uneasy as if she would be snatched away again if he wasn't holding onto her tight. "Ava, you can't trust Chris anymore."
"Why?"
"He isn't here for you. He didn't look for you, Ava, and I know it sounds crazy, but I don't think he ever wanted you found."
She furrowed her brow and attempted to pull her hand from Max's because what he was saying had to be a lie. It had to. It didn't make any sense. "What do you mean?"
Max held strong. "Things are different now. Chris has taken over your father's empire and he has no intention of giving any of it up. Not even for you."
"But I don't want it." She thrusted her hand out to the graveyard peppered with bullet shells, sticky with fresh blood, stormed in violence and saturated with death, death, death. "I don't want any part of this."
"I know that, but if you come back he loses too much of it."
"Why? There's no way my father left this to me."
Max shrugged, "Nobody knows for sure. Chris probably got The Syndicate, lord knows Vince didn't want you anywhere near this shit, but it's suspected that the clubs and everything else asset wise is yours."
She pursed her lips. "What does his will say?"
"That's the thing; Chris is delaying the reading of it under the guise that he's waiting to get you back, but he doesn't want you back. You're a threat now."
"But..." she wrung her hand together and for the countless time she wished that history would be undone and that life could go back to how it was before. Before her world had been torn in two. "...He's my godfather. The man helped raise me. He's practically family; why would he turn against me?"
"Money and power makes people do crazy things," he frowned and cupped her diluted fingers, turned pale from the pressure she applied. "Don't worry, I won't let anything happen to you. C'mon, we gotta go before this ends." He pulled her against his side and tucked her under his arm, "Stay close and stay low. On the count of three we're going to make our way to the groundskeeper's cottage," he pointed across the decorated green. "We'll stop at each of the trees for cover, but when I say go, no matter what happens, you've got to run."
Ava nodded, wide eyed and heart racing. Her great escape was about to commence and this time there was no tugging feeling in her chest, no sense of loss, no reason to stay.
Fuck Aiden Michaels.
Max held her tighter still. His voice was low and tense, "One...two...three...RUN!"
They darted from behind Gabriel and into the gunfire, Max quick and deft, and Ava-Marie trying to keep from passing out as her lungs swelled from the harshness of her breaths and her heart pounded like canon fire against her ribs. The ground was soft with mud, the grass slick with morning dew, and she found herself losing her footing or having to jerk her heel out of the ground. Max held her strong and carried her through. They stopped victoriously behind the first willow.
"You good?" he asked.
She nodded, despite good being the last thing she felt. Her body quaked with fear-based adrenaline and pending panic.
"Okay. We're about to go again. Take your shoes off. They're slowing you down."
Ava kicked off her muddy white pumps with a quickness.
Max started counting down again.
Three...
Two...
One...
"RUN!"
Gunfire, swollen lungs, canon fire heart, dry mouth and the soft, slippery ground moist beneath her bare feet.
"STOP!"
Ava plastered her back against the next tree and clutched at her chest to still her beating heart. There were three more trees to go before they reached the groundskeeper's cottage. Three more death defying sprints in plain sight of her captor and his minions, and bullets. Bullets, that should they head in her direction, wouldn't touch her, but pierce the flesh of her bodyguard and dearest friend; the only person who it truly had her back. It was him she worried so hard for.
She squeezed his hand.
"Ready?"
"Ready."
Running, running, running wild and almost free. Swollen lungs, thundering heart, cotton mouth, soft, damp ground, heat...
...And a scream.
A bullet shot past them and a voice bellowed, "HEAVEN!"
"Oh no!"
Max spread himself wider, "Keep running."
Off they went again, Max facing Aiden with his gun trained on him and Ava trying her hardest to scream.
BOOM! "HEAVEN!" BOOM, BOOM, BOOM!
Another bullet jumped ahead of them, splicing through the bark of the next tree. They sprung behind it, Max poised like an assassin and Ava wringing her hands.
"Don't move," he said as he reloaded his clip.
"What are you doing?"
"Getting you out of here." Before she could protest, Max peeked out from behind the tree and fired back. Ava covered her ears and shut hr eyes. Shots returned to him, growing more powerful the closer Ava's captor turned twisted lover came. "We have to move."
"If we move he'll kill us both."
"Not if I get him first."
"HEAVEN!" BOOM, BOOM, BOOM!
"No, Max, you don't understand. I know this man, he is a psychopath. He killed his own mother this morning."
Max paused in disbelief, "He did what?" Bullets beat against the tree in an unusual rhythm. "Shit! He's got company."
"And I bet anything it's Dougie," she sighed, defeated. "We're dead, Max."
"Don't say that."
"We are! We're outnumbered by the worst people to be outnumbered by."
He tightened his gaze thoughtfully. "They won't kill us..." he reloaded his clip then reached inside his jacket. "Do you trust me?"
"Yes," she replied without hesitation.
"Good. I've got a plan to get us out of here. Just do exactly what I say."
Do you think Max will be able to save her? Lemme know below.
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Love you, my sunshine princesses (and princes)
Love Scotty x