Payton arrived in record time at the dealership, having been able to avoid the traffic-ridden routes due to his expert knowledge of the roads. He turned off his headlights when he saw a large van parked in front of the dealership. His expression became hard.
"That can't be good." He got out of the car and looked through the glass walls of the dealership. The interior was in pitch darkness but he could see multiple figures moving around on the ground floor. He noticed that the front door had been broken through and shattered glass lay around the ground.
"This could get messy," he said to himself. He went to the trunk of his car and took out a crowbar and a gun. He hid the gun in the inner pocket of his jacket. He was relieved to have come alone; at least he didn't have to worry about the chief getting in harm's way or putting anyone else in danger. Steeling himself, he walked inside.
"Trash everything, we have a few minutes since the cops won't come," Payton heard a male voice say.
"What about the message?" Some other voice asked.
"Get that done quickly." Payton guessed there must be two or three men. No one saw him; he sidled silently in the dark to where the light switch was - fortunately, he knew the place by heart. He flipped it on, startling the men.
"Hey. I'm here to crash your party. Don't you know vandalism is a crime?" He asked sarcastically. He quickly scanned the dealership - half of Soriano's prized possessions were already in crumpled messes. He stared at the men standing around. They all looked brawny, unshaven, and rough-faced and had a strange tattoo on their necks - something that looked like fangs or flames, Payton wasn't sure which. One of the men scowled at him.
"Well, well, if it ain't one o' them Night Blazers. All alone, too." Payton's eyes narrowed at the fact that they knew him, they weren't here by coincidence.
"I'm 'onna have a field day with this 'un," another man sneered menacingly. Payton quickly counted the men standing around the half-smashed cars and swore.
"Shit, there are six of you." The men raised crowbars and started to gang up around him.
"And only one of you. Looks like you won't be leaving her alive," the first man cackled before they all pounced on him at once. Payton fought with spirit and used minimum effort, using his opponents' brute strength against them. They seemed too focused on trying to deal heavy blows to him so he made them lose their aim and punch each other instead of himself by dodging their fists.
"C'mere you," one of the men cussed at Payton, "kid!" He pulled out a chain and roped Payton's legs before yanking, bringing him down to the floor with a groan.
"Not so tough when you're not on your feet!" The first man mocked him ruthlessly. They began to kick Payton unmercifully, a few of them even hammering him with the metal rods they were armed with. Payton tried to get back on his feet but his strength was failing. He received cuts and was bleeding in several places and pain began to wrack his body as the men continued to pound him. He began to feel he might really not leave the dealership alive.
Paige swore angrily as she honked her car. There had been a minor fender bender in front of her and the two cars that had decided to smash each other's fenders took forever to clear a path.
"Dammit, I don't have time for this!" She reversed and turned, driving off onto the wrong side of the road, careful to avoid oncoming cars.
"I swear, if any cops show up..." She muttered. Finally, as the cars began to thin on the right-hand side of the road, she turned back to it and drove smoothly.
"Almost there. Stupid fender benders, I lost Payton because of them," She muttered angrily. Finally, she arrived at the dealership and parked outside. She saw Payton's car - and then her eyes fell on the van beside it.
"What the-?" She turned to the dealership and her eyes widened as she saw Payton in the middle of a bloody fight with six men - and from the looks of it, he was losing.
"Dammit!" She hurriedly got out the spare guns from her car. She had been about to step inside and make herself known when she heard a yelp of pain - one of the men had stepped right on Payton's chest with his boot. Bleeding profusely and unable to speak, Payton turned to face the men from the ground. In doing so, he caught sight of Paige outside. She covered her mouth in horror at his gruesome, bloodied face. He gave a tiny shake of his head and mouthed 'no' to her. Hot tears began to well up in her eyes. He wanted to protect her and was prepared to sacrifice himself. He wasn't going to let her get hurt.
"Give up, you snarky-mouthed kid?" One of the men asked, kicking Payton in the chest. He heard an audible 'crack' as his ribs caved in and a strangled cry left his mouth. Paige loaded her gun rapidly, preparing to shoot.
"No," Payton said, coughing up blood weakly. The men continued to kick him heavily and Paige had enough. She aimed at the glass wall and shot. The sound of the bullet shattering the glass with a resounding 'CRASH!' startled all the men.
"Make one more move and the next bullet goes through your guts," Paige roared as she stepped through the broken door frame holding up her gun, her eyes flashing at the men in rage.
"Another one of Soriano's brats. I'm starting to think it's my birthday," the leader of the men sneered. Paige shot at his thigh without hesitation, laming him. He let out a yell of agony as he fell to the floor.
"Don't just stand there! Get her!" He barked. The men began to round Paige and she pulled out another gun.
"There's enough for all of you," she roared. "Two each." The men faltered a little.
"She can't shoot you all at once, you idiots! One of you, grab her!" The leader shouted from the floor. Suddenly there was another shot and the man closest to Paige fell to the floor. Paige looked behind him and saw Payton had pulled out his gun from where he lay and shot him. Payton's eyes then rolled back and the gun fell from his hand and he collapsed back to the floor.
"PAYTON!" Paige shrieked. She realized he had created the distraction she needed and she quickly shot the other men. Two of them managed to dodge her bullets but two got caught in the line of fire and fell to the floor, bleeding and howling in pain. The other one made a grab for Paige and she dropped her guns to try and fight them off.
"Let - go - of - me - you bastards!" She banged her head backward as hard as she could on the man grappling her from behind and heard the sickening crunch of his nose being broken.
"OW!" He yelled, letting go of her and clutching his bleeding nose. The other man lunged at her but she gave him a knee to the stomach before raising her leg and performing her signature move by kicking his foot with her boot - hard. The man gave an agonized yell - Paige's four-inch pencil heel had gone through his foot!
"You little-" He was cut off as Paige gave him a right hook in the face, knocking him out to the ground. She turned and leg-swept the other man who was too distracted with his bleeding nose. Then she picked up her guns and aimed it at the men.
"Try that again and these go through your brains!" She threatened them vindictively. The sound of a car screeching to a stop could be heard outside and suddenly Soriano appeared on the scene.
"Paige! What are you - my God!" Soriano's jaw dropped in shock as he took in the scene.
"You call the cops and keep an eye on these mongrels," Paige said, flinging her guns at him. She rushed to Payton on her knees and lifted his head to her lap. Blood poured out from the wounds on his face and soaked her hands.
"Payton, Payton can you hear me? Dammit it, Payton, wake up!" She said frantically. He made no movement, his closed eyes frightening Paige even more. Tears came to her eyes.
"PAYTON!" She screamed. Soriano came and patted her shoulder.
"We need to get him to a hospital," he said gravely. Paige nodded, vigorously wiping away the tears that fell from her eyes.
"I won't lose him," she vowed.
"Cheers!" Five beer glasses clinked over a large dish of sliders and cheesy nachos as the crew cheered over Brook's victory at a local restaurant called 'The Silver Peak'.
"It was an epic beginning to an epic race," Jett said.
"Not bad considering it's been a while since you've competed," Leslie said, smiling at him.
"It was teamwork, I had outside help," Brook said modestly. Michelle leaned against his arm, resting her head on his sturdy shoulder.
"My awesome racer," she said softly. He grinned.
"Watching the race gave me some swell ideas for our game," Reece said with a furtive smile.
"Oh yeah! We should totally make one of the levels look like today's race!" Jett said, drumming the table with his fists enthusiastically. "Maybe one of the boss levels."
"You should make it a special event and span it for a week - it'll get a lot more buzz that way," Michelle suggested.
"Brilliant idea, Michelle! We'll make winning a Ford GT the prize!" Jett said.
"A real car?" Michelle asked in surprise. Reece and Jett laughed.
"No, a digital one! Like a game bonus!" Jett said.
"Back to the real world - where are Paige and Payton? They should have been back by now," Brook said.
"So should the chief, he said he'd call when he got to the dealership if anything was wrong," Leslie said with furrowed brows. Soriano had left the crew a few minutes after Paige with a vague feeling of uneasiness - he hadn't wanted his kids to go to the dealership alone. He had seen the look of seriousness on Payton's face earlier and knew something was wrong.
"Let me try calling him," Leslie said and rang Soriano up. After the third ring, he picked up.
"Chief, where are you? We're all at the Silver Peak waiting-" she stopped as Soriano spoke. Her expression grew worried and was grave when she hung up.
"Leslie, what's wrong?" Michelle asked nervously, seeing her face. She swallowed before answering.
"It's Payton. He was taken to the hospital. He's in bad shape..."
It had been mere minutes since the crew first heard that Payton was in the hospital and it didn't take them long to arrive there. They had met a worried, frustrated-looking Soriano outside the operating room who quickly filled them in on what happened. He barely had much details himself and he was still waiting for Paige to tell him exactly what went down but at the moment he didn't dare approach her with questions as she paced outside the operating room with a wild 'don't you dare talk to me' look in her eyes.
Michelle saw her pacing and her heart clenched. She knew exactly what she was going through, she'd been in her place only last year after Brook had been shot. Everyone gave Paige her space until Payton was wheeled out of the operating theater. Paige immediately attacked the doctor with questions.
"How is he? Is he okay? Will he survive?"
"He's doing fine, his injuries were mostly minor apart from a few cracked ribs and a concussion. We've stitched up his wounds and put him in a medically-induced coma so he can recover faster. Which shouldn't be long, he's very resilient," the doctor said kindly. "He'll recover soon enough, don't worry."
"Thank you, doctor," Soriano said. The doctor turned to him.
"Are you the guardian? I'd like to have a word with you..." He led Soriano away. He was met by a police officer at the end of the hallway and went outside to talk with him. The nurses wheeled Payton to a private room to recover while the crew followed them.
"Only one visitor at a time," one nurse said firmly, seeing the whole crew crowding at the entrance.
"Paige should go in," Michelle insisted, nudging Paige gently. She gave Michelle a teary-eyed look of gratitude and went inside to Payton. The others returned to the waiting room, somber-faced. Soriano came back just then and Brook cornered him.
"What happened?" He asked him as Soriano sank into a chair. He sighed heavily, covering his face with his palms.
"There had been a break-in - I thought it was something minor, the new security system had a few glitches - Payton gets the security breach alerts on his phone..." He choked up and trailed off. Leslie laid a soothing hand on his back as he continued, "but it was some sort of planned attack. A gang was trashing up the place and Payton happened to be there at the wrong time."
"He might have died," Brook said coarsely, startling everyone. "Why didn't you call in the rest of us sooner? If more of us had been there, this wouldn't have happened!" Brook's voice grew louder with each syllable as his temper rose. Michelle bit her lip tensely. She knew Brook was furious right now. Soriano looked ashen and guilty.
"I know. This is all my fault. I should've taken precautions... I never should've let check it out alone... It was too late when I got there... I should've gone with him..."
"There's no use beating yourself up now chief," Leslie said softly. "At least Paige was able to get there in time."
"But they could have hurt her too," Reece pointed out, his expression hard. "She was just as reckless going in alone. It was only a fluke she was able to handle all those men."
"Let's not go over what could have gone wrong," Leslie said firmly. "We're grateful Payton and Paige are still alive. There's no use going over the possibilities."
"But we could've been too late!" Brook shouted.
"Bro, calm down," Jett said, looking worried. Brook made an angry sound and stormed out of the hospital. Michelle was on her feet at once, hurrying after him.
"I'll talk to him," she told the others and left. Soriano let out an exhausted sigh.
"I have to go down to the police station, they want a witness and I don't want to drag Paige along to have a barrage of questions fired at her in the state she's in," he said getting up.
"I'll go with you, chief," Jett volunteered. Soriano shook his head.
"You guys should go home. Brook might stay but..."
"We'll handle things here, chief. You go get those scum convicted," Reece said.
"I'll stay with Paige," Leslie said. Soriano nodded and left.
Outside, Brook was storming around the parking lot with clenched fists, kicking loose pebbles and littered cans trying to relieve his anger.
"Brook?" Michelle's soft voice made him turn around. He immediately pulled her into his arms, holding her tight. Michelle sensed he needed an anchor, something to comfort him and let him hold her as long as he needed.
"Soriano was wrong. This isn't his fault. It's mine," he said finally. Michelle raised her head to meet his gaze. His eyes were filled with emotion.
"Brook, this isn't your fault," she said, though she wondered what made him come to that conclusion.
"Yes it is! I didn't take this threat seriously, I wasn't around for Payton when he needed help, and - and I was too busy being pumped up about winning a stupid race while my best friend got beaten half to death!" He vented out. Michelle squeezed him tight, hoping it eased his guilt.
"Brook, you couldn't control this. Sometimes there are things we can't control no matter how badly we want to," Michelle said softly.
"You don't get it, Michelle! I was so wrapped up in my own selfish desires that I neglected the situation at hand! I wanted to start a new life, leave all that shit behind, but I should've realized I can't! I should've taken it more seriously when I knew we were being targeted again." Michelle's eyes filled with tears. She didn't know how to comfort him. All she could do was hold him and try her best.
"Brook, I know how much you care. You are not selfish, that's one thing I want you to understand and I won't stop until you do. The whole reason you entered that race was to help the team - to even aid the Nightshades when you didn't want to. That's not selfishness, you put others first."
"How do I know it was the right thing to do?" He asked, his voice breaking with emotion. "Winning a worthless race shouldn't have been my priority. I thought getting outside help would be the best thing to do. But I know better. We've always relied on ourselves, even when things got really bad. But this time, I wasn't there for Payton."
"And what if you were?" Michelle asked, her temper rising. "Even if you had been with Payton, both of you would've gotten beaten up, you still would have been outnumbered! If anything worse had happened to either of you-" She cut off with a sob, the thought proving too much for her. Brook swallowed, guilty for making her cry.
"Michelle..." He cupped her face. "I didn't mean it like that. I'm sorry. I would never put you through that again."
"Payton was an idiot for going alone," Michelle wept. "Just like you were last year." Brook sighed.
"I know. I'm sorry." He hugged her against his chest.
"Look, we can't change what happened, but we can control some things to make sure this doesn't repeat," Michelle said when her sobs died down. "We have to stick together. We won't let this happen again."
"You're right. We won't," Brook said with determination.
"And you better stop beating yourself up or I'll - I'll - I'll trash your Bugatti!" Michelle said while faltering to think of a bad enough threat. Brook gave a weak grin.
"That'll be a show worth seeing," he muttered. Michelle laughed a little.
"We're all in this together," she said.
"Yeah."
"Which means none of us will go off doing anything alone, right?" She asked. Brook met her eyes with a steady gaze.
"Right."
Paige clutched the limp hand connected to the IV bag that supplied Payton with blood. She kept trying to fight the frustrating tears that kept filling her eyes as she took in Payton's broken, heavily bandaged form. His still face didn't comfort her; she longed to see the light in his fierce black eyes and hear his rough but sexy voice spouting out snarky remarks.
Memories of everything she shared with him flooded her mind - all the times he'd gotten her alone, every time they'd snuck off together to get up to mischief behind closed doors - every time he'd kiss her, the way his lips would lazily taste hers at first but then his male instinct would fight for dominance before he'd yield to satisfying her again - the way their bodies felt against each other in bed - the way his voice would go low and raw when he was giving her what she wanted... It was all the signs that told her he was alive and crazy about her. It made her heart ache painfully and anger coarse through her at the sight of him motionless and silent in bed.
"Dammit Payton, I'm not cut out for this!" She whispered fiercely as the tears finally spilled out. "I'm not like Michelle and I can't go through with this! If this is what Brook put her through last year, this is hell!" She glared at Payton's closed eyes, willing him to wake up.
"Why'd you have to get beat up, you jerk?!" She put her head down near his arm and sobbed, glad that no one was in the room. She had never felt like this before; having these uncontrollable feelings for someone, feeling like her heart was being ripped out of her chest at the sight of the guy she loved... What was this?
"Unfh..." Payton stirred. "Paige..." Paige's head shot up as she heard him.
"Payton! You're awake!" She said hoarsely. "I'll get the doctor-"
"No." Payton caught her with his free hand and held her down, wincing at the effort. "Please." Struck by the feeble plea in his voice, Paige sat down, her eyes never leaving his face.
"Are you okay? You're not hurt anywhere?" He asked.
"Obviously not," Paige said sarcastically. "Thanks to you." Payton gave a smug little smile.
"Good. Then it wasn't all for nothing," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. Paige clenched her teeth.
"Were you planning to get killed in there?" She asked. Payton winced at her tone.
"No, just doing my job."
"Does that job description include scaring me half to death?" Paige asked, surprising him. He frowned.
"Were you worried?" He asked. Paige scoffed.
"Of course I was worried about you, you jerk! What'd you think?" Payton gave a secretive smile.
"So you do care," he said. Paige swallowed, meeting his eyes with her tear-filled ones.
"If you ever do something like that again Payton, I swear-"
"I just got beat up, Paige. Do you mind sparing me from the threats?" Payton asked in a fake feeble tone. Truthfully, he wasn't feeling as bad as he looked.
"Fine, I'll chew you out later," she said huffily.
"Thanks," he said, and without warning, he wrapped his good hand around her neck and pulled her to his lips, as carefully as he could without being overwhelmed with pain. She gasped and tried to back away.
"Payton!" She said reproachfully. He looked with longing at her.
"There was a moment back there when I thought I might not see you again," Payton said softly. Paige pushed back more tears.
"I should be punishing you, not rewarding you, you jerk," she said. Payton smiled.
"But you're gonna reward me anyway, right?"
"Damn right I am," Paige replied, meeting his lips with her own in a searing kiss and no more sounds were heard except for the beeping of the heart monitor hooked to Payton's chest and the gentle lapping of their tongues with each other's. Leslie opened the door a few minutes later but quickly shut it on seeing the two of them passionately engaged.
"I wanna see him," Brook said when she returned to the waiting room.
"I think we better give them some privacy for now," Leslie said quietly. Michelle smiled softly, understanding her words.
"Yeah, they deserve it."
I hope nobody's freaked out or nauseous after this chapter, 😣😥 it was fairly gruesome and heavy. But I had to convey the reality of violence and I hope it wasn't too much to sit with. Action scenes never used to be my thing but I'm getting more familiar with them now.
Payton can play the foolish hero well, huh 🤕? But those baddies better watch out, his girlfriend's deadly 😎! I know these scenes are completely new so I really wanna hear your thoughts on it!