"Fuck!" I yelled, watching the van driving away, back the way it came, the sounds of Jenna's screams fading into the distance along with the rumble of the engine. "Fuck."
"We got this man," Clyde said calmly, where he was still kneeling on the ground, a small puddle of blood beginning to pool in front of him where it dripped from his nose. "There's one road out of here, and we've got a bunch of pissed of Specters at the end of it, waiting for those mother fuckers."
Clyde wasn't in good shape, I'd never seen him so beat up before, but then, the odds had never been so against us. I began to panic.
"Fuck, come on, man," I told him, dragging him up to his feet, stumbling slightly as I took the majority of his weight, "lets get you home."
I helped him to the car, taking the keys, and gunned the engine, spitting gravel as I did a U- turn, and started the trip back to the Specters' clubhouse.
There weren't many there, mostly just the girls, along with Debbie, which meant everyone was either watching the warehouse, trailing the van they'd taken Jenna in, or whatever else Beast had instructed to do to get our plan in motion. Normally, it would seem eerily quiet, without everyone here, but this time, I felt almost comforted by their absence. It meant the plan hadn't failed.
I parked as close as I could to the front entrance, and helped Clyde from the car.
"I'm fine," he insisted, waving me away. "I haven't felt this good since I met Bonnie."
I ignored him. I didn't even want to know what the hell he was talking about.
"You're barely concious, dickhead," I grunted, shoving the door open with my foot. "You can't even walk in a straight line."
Katy was the first one there, slipping under Clyde's other arm, taking some of his weight, and we took him through to the rooms in the back, sitting him on the bed in one of them.
Debbie was right behind us, grabbing Clyde's bloody chin, examining the damage to his face.
"Katy," she said, "grab the first aid kit, will you?"
"Yes, mum," Katy replied, and scampered off, the sound of her doc martins thumping down the hallway.
"Ace," she said, turning to me, "what the hell happened?"
I explained to her about meeting with Dominic, how they surrounded us and took Jenna, without returning Bonnie.
"Lucas didn't even make an appearance," I told her. "And he's going to sell Bonnie."
"Like fucking hell he is!" Clyde growled through clenched teeth, just as Katy returned.
Debbie began cleaning him up while Katy and I hovered around. She confirmed there was nothing broken, miraculously, all his ribs were intact, and he wasn't concussed, somehow.
"Must have a pretty thick skull," Katy teased, though, she still looked troubled.
She helped the Queen to clean up, ushering me and Clyde from the room to meet with Beast once more. He was no where as sympathetic to Clyde as his wife had been, raising an eyebrow when he saw him.
"What happened to you, Bastard?" He asked, barely sparing me a glance.
"What do you think happened?" He replied, surprising me when he didn't have some smartass comeback.
Beast gave him a dismissive look and turned to me.
"And Bonnie obviously wasn't there?"
"Well, we didn't leave her in the car with a fucking window down, in case it was too hot-"
I punched his arm, cutting him off before Beast finished what Dominic's guys didn't.
"Ow, you fuck-"
"At least one of you has some sense, " Beast said coldly.
"Ignore him," I told Beast, shooting Clyde a warning look. "I think he hit his head."
"Why does everyone always assume that?" Clyde grumbled.
"I wonder..."
The club was nearly empty, the numbers even lower than before. Besides the three of us, there was Marcus, Axe, Ricky, Chuck and Jack. Clyde was in a mood by the time every one was seated, ready to go over the plan. He sat there, beside me, glowering at the table top, ignoring the glances everyone was shooting his way.
"Alright, let's get on with it," Beast raised his voice above everyone else, and all eyes were on him. "Phaze two is in motion, Boomer and his men are trailing the van they took the blonde in, and Diesel says nothing has changed at the warehouse."
"What if that means she isn't there?" Clyde demanded, finally looking up from the table, a scowl pasted across his face.
"They have someone there," Beast insisted. "So, that's as good a place as any to start searching."
"Then why aren't we?" He shot, slapping his hand down on the table. "At least we might be able to save that girl in the process, even if it isn't Bonnie."
"If word gets back to Lucas that we hit them there, it might lure the fucking coward out," Axe added, and Clyde shot him a grateful look.
"We don't want to scare him off, either," I suddenly realized. "They won't take Jenna there, if he knows that's where we are, that wouldn't make sense."
Clyde turned to me, looking incredulous and I felt a stab of guilt at his look of betrayal.
"He's right," Jack agreed, giving Clyde a sympathetic look. "We might get that girl at the warehouse, or we might not, but either way, he's still got the blonde."
"And what if it isn't Bonnie?" I reminded him. "Lucas could disappear again for another fifteen years. We might never see her again."
I almost wish I hadn't said it. Clyde just looked absolutely crushed, completely defeated and helpless, and I realised that the idea of losing Bonnie altogether scared him so much that he had been trying to not even think about it. He dropped his head into his hands and groaned.
"We're being smart about this," Beast concluded, almost sympatheticly, at least for him. "Which means not rushing into anything without thinking it through."
"So, what's the plan, then?" Chuck questioned.
"We wait," Beast said firmly.
"Fuck," Clyde groaned, hitting his head against the table. "I'm losing my fucking mind, here."
"We're going to wait and hear what Boomer says about the van, where it ends up, and who's there," Beast continued, "then we're going hit them."
***
Not surprisingly, the Specters had access to guns.
When I say the Specters had access to guns, I mean they had a whole fucking arsenal hidden in a cavity in the wall, and Clyde finally smiled when Chuck opened it, pulling out the weapons.
"It's slim pickings, so this is what we're left with," he told us, checking to see that the safety was on one of the hand guns he passed to me. "The rest of the boys got the good ones."
He looked kind of dissapointed, but I couldn't wipe the grin off my face, and I could see that Clyde was feeling the same.
"I'm sure you're all big enough to know not to fuck around with these," Beast said, loading his sawn off shotgun. "They're made with the sole purpose of killing people, so, if I see any of you young blokes fucking around, I'll shove them so far up your asses that you'll taste lead for the rest of your lives."
"That was kind of graffic," I muttered to Clyde, who gave me a half smile in response.
Boomer had been in contact with Beast to tell him that the van had stopped outside the warehouse, where Diesel and the Hydras were, watching it for movement. Five guys had climbed out, wrestling a blonde girl out of the van and into the warehouse, followed by a guy wearing a suit. The driver remained in the van, but stayed parked.
"We know for sure that they're holding them in the warehouse, now," Beast confirmed. "They're well armed, and there's a fuck tonne of them, at least twenty posted around the perimeter, even more on the inside."
"We don't know for sure how many we're up against, so we don't want to go to battle with them," he continued. "We're going in, getting the girls, then we're out."
"And," I reminded him, "Lucas gets a bullet in his head."
"If he makes an appearance," Beast said dismissively.
I glanced at Clyde, who was already looking at me mysteriously.
"Bastard," Beast looked a him sternly. "I need you to stay here and look after the girls."
Clyde looked over at him sharply, glancing around the table. Most of the others avoided his gaze, finding a sudden fascination in anything else.
"You mean you want the girls to look after me," he corrected, folding his arms over his chest, raising his chin defiantly.
"You're too reckless," Beast told him. "I can't risk you going in there and shooting the place up."
"You'd be reckless too if your girl was about to be sold into fucking sex slavery," he growled through grit teeth.
"Look at you," Beast told him. "You're a fucking mess. She's been gone a day and you're already acting suicidal."
Clyde squared his shoulders, glaring murderously at Beast, but I stepped in right as he was about to retort
"Wait," I said, glancing at Clyde. "What if they've got them locked up, or something? Clyde knows how to pick locks, he should be with us."
"I want to be there," Clyde said firmly. "Where ever we're killing them, I want to be there."
Beast seemed to be weighing up his options, and I held my breath, willing him to let Clyde come along. Finally, he reluctantly nodded.
"You fuck up once," he said, "you're done."