My men returned fire, the sharp cracks of our hunting rifles and the heavy booms of our shotguns answering the automatic spray. From the roof, Gator was laying down precise, measured shots, forcing the advancing mercenaries to dive for cover in the scrub brush. But we couldn't sustain this. They had endless ammunition and heavy armor; we had a wooden building and a few trucks.
I grabbed Huck by the collar of his cut, pulling him close over the noise of the gunfire.
"The boxes!" I yelled in his ear. "Can you wire them together? Make a daisy chain?"
Huck’s eyes widened with manic understanding. He didn't answer with words. He just unzipped the canvas bag and began frantically pulling out the matte-black boxes. His hands flew over the wires with practiced, desperate speed, twisting the exposed ends of the ignition splices together, creating a massive, unstable cluster of military-grade C4.
"I need a vehicle!" Huck shouted back. "Something to carry it!"
I looked around the chaotic parking lot. Most of our bikes were exposed, trapped in the crossfire. But my motorcycle, the massive black cruiser, was parked just behind the cover of the central pickup truck.
"Use mine," I ordered without hesitation.
Huck scrambled on his belly toward my bike, dragging the heavy cluster of explosives. I popped up over the hood of the truck, firing three rapid shots from my rifle to keep the mercenaries' heads down, providing Huck cover.
"Maya! Lily!" I prayed silently, hoping the reinforced steel cellar was holding up against the barrage. The thought of them terrified in the dark fueled a surge of violent adrenaline in my veins. I wasn't going to let these men take our home.
"It's rigged!" Huck yelled, slapping the gas tank of my motorcycle. He held up a single, frayed red wire. "I wired the trigger to the throttle grip! If you twist it all the way back, it completes the circuit and detonates the whole cluster."
I stared at my machine. Thirty-eight blocks of C4 were strapped to the engine block with magnetic clamps. It was a rolling, two-wheeled weapon of mass destruction.
"Open the barricade!" I shouted to the men positioned near the pickup trucks.
The men looked at me like I was insane, but my authority held. Two bikers scrambled into the cabs of the flanking trucks. Engines roared to life, and the trucks lurched backward in reverse, opening a ten-foot gap in our defensive wall directly facing the highway.
The mercenaries, seeing the gap open, paused their fire for a fraction of a second, confused by the sudden tactical shift.
That was all the time I needed.
I threw my rifle over my shoulder, grabbed the handlebars of my motorcycle, and vaulted into the saddle. I slammed my boot down on the kickstarter, bypassing the ruined ignition wire. The heavy engine roared to life, a deep, guttural scream that cut through the silence on the battlefield.
Sheriff Miller stood behind the open door of his armored SUV, his megaphone lowered, staring in shock as I pulled the massive, bomb-laden motorcycle directly into the center of the gap.
I didn't have a megaphone. I didn't need one.
"Miller!" I roared, my voice carrying across the fifty yards of dusty asphalt separating us. I held up my left hand, pointing deliberately down at the heavy cluster of black boxes strapped to my engine. The red LED lights were blinking furiously in unison.
Miller’s eyes locked onto the explosives. Even from that distance, I saw the blood drain completely from his face. He recognized the hardware he had purchased. He knew exactly how much destructive power was sitting between my legs.
"You wanted to blow up the Iron Kings!" I yelled, wrapping my right hand tightly around the throttle. "You wanted a crater! How about we start right here?"
I revved the engine. The massive exhaust pipes spat a deafening bark. The mercenaries in the brush, realizing what I was sitting on, immediately broke their tactical formation, scrambling backward, terrified of the blast radius.
"Hold your fire! Hold your fire!" Miller screamed into his radio, waving his arms frantically. If they shot me, my hand would jerk the throttle, completing the circuit. If they shot the bike, the explosives might detonate. They were trapped by their own weapons.
"Vance, wait!" Miller yelled, his voice cracking, the smug confidence completely gone. "You're a dead man if you do this!"
"I was a dead man when I woke up this morning, Miller!" I shouted back.
I kicked the bike into first gear and released the clutch.
The heavy cruiser leaped forward. I didn't race it; I rolled it slowly, deliberately, down the center of the driveway, straight toward the line of armored vehicles. The tension in the air was so thick you could choke on it. The heavily armed mercenaries were backing away, their weapons lowered, their eyes fixed on the blinking red lights of the C4 cluster.
I rode the bike right up to the front bumper of Miller's SUV and slammed on the brakes. I was five feet away from the corrupt sheriff. I could see the sweat dripping down his pale cheeks. I kept my hand locked on the throttle, ready to twist it.
"You lose, Sheriff," I said, my voice low and hard, carrying clearly in the sudden silence.
"You're crazy," Miller whispered, his hands hovering near his holstered weapon, paralyzed by fear. "You'll kill us both."