by Jas T. Ward
Bounce grabbed her wrists to stop her as he said firmly, knowing she wouldn’t be convinced. “No. I wasn’t. I’m not sure what the fuck happened. There was no kill order. There was only contain, not kill.”
Emma heard the words, but her mind refused to believe there was any truth in them. The carnage and debris around them, as if they were in a war zone, spoke more value than what Bounce said. “You were shooting at him! They didn’t even give me a chance to try to talk him down!”
Bounce let out a frustrated hiss as he pulled away from her, grabbing Evan as the Breaker walked by after just arriving from inside. “I want to know why an order to sever Reno’s spark existed. I never said to take the man forcibly offline.” Evan nodded and looked around, avoiding Emma’s eyes as he walked over to the Relays sealing off the scene.
Grabbing the first Recon Relay he came to, he shoved the man against the wall. “What were your orders?” The man sputtered and he swore to slam the man’s back against the wall once more. “I said, what were your damn orders?”
The Relay pulled out the satellite phone that was a secured link to his crew and showed it to Evan. The Breaker grabbed the phone and stepped back to stare at the message as if it was flashing neon and swore with a hiss. “What the fuck is going on?”
Order: Destroy. Do not take alive. Offline. Permanently.
Epsilon watched all the action at the mall from a black van in a parking lot almost a mile away, and fascinating didn’t begin to cover what all had unfolded before his eyes.
They had hacked the Grid more than once before, and this time it was a simple matter of changing an order from contain to kill, a matter of keystrokes and done. Epsilon knew not who Bounce and his do-gooders were after, and didn’t give a damn at all. It was simply another of his ongoing tactics to draw the public in, to expose the Grid and all its members, and make Bounce a nice mess to deal with.
But what transpired after that had him puzzled and intrigued. It was apparent that Bounce had a rogue Breaker on his hands, or why would all the action movie bullshit be needed. It happened. Rarely, but it did on occasion.
But that was no ordinary Breaker even though he was never able to see the man’s face, hidden by shadow or camera angle and a hooded sweat shirt. He had his tech demon tapped into the mall video system to watch the foiled take down roll in black and white through the live feed.
He had been hoping for human casualties, but watched as the rogue did everything he could not to get anyone hurt, which included shooting a Relay in the leg rather than a kill shot. Where was the fun in that?
Leaning over the console to watch the feed play out again, he tilted his head at the show of power before the man fled the scene. Tapping his finger on the touch-screen to freeze a moment in the playback looked at the tech. “What was that?”
The tech rolled to the side to pull up an energy reading and frowned. “That can’t be right.” The man began his reading again as Epsilon stood to cross his arms over his chest. “What can’t be right?”
The demon gulped and looked over, his emotions spiking up causing his true demonic form to show for a brief moment. Good. Fear was always a valuable leash and Epsilon liked keeping a tight one on his underlings.
The tech looked at the readings one last time and turned to face his leader. “The readings were so dark that it caused a black out in this section of the Grid. Totally took the light offline for a full minute. Like a reboot. I’ve never seen or heard of anything like it.”
Epsilon’s brow arched up in the validity of that statement. “Impossible. Not even the dark lord can impact the Grid that way. Nor I.”
The tech demon cowered and blinked in disbelief. “Whatever that thing was? Can.”
Epsilon’s eyes narrowed as an evil smile lifted his lips. “Find it. I want it. Now.”
Reno crashed through the roof of an abandoned warehouse on the waterfront to land in a crumbled heap on the floor. Barely able to move, he decided he would just lay there awhile. Maybe a nap; a really, really long one lasting months. Bears did it, maybe he could too.
His shoulder throbbed in pain and his right arm had gone from wounded to downright useless thanks to the fall combined with the bullet that had ripped through it.
His head was back to aching and as he poked at it with a mental stick, actually hurting more. Blood was dripping out of his nose and he sensed that strange acid taste of it in the back of his throat.
But then there was the good stuff going on in his senses. Like the taste of kissing Witch that still lingered on his lips. His fingertips still recalled the softness of her hair as he brought his hands up to his face to breathe in the scent of her on them. It was the first pleasure he had felt in weeks, and the first time that hope flared in that maybe she didn’t hate him after all. That perhaps there was chance for this to all be worked out. For him to go home, and he had realized he wanted that more than anything.
“She set us up. Don’t lose sight of that. We were a butt-hair close to be ended. A big weird ass bloody spot from being killed. Don’t forget that, or I will find a way to kick your ass as a reminder.”
“I don’t know.” The pain of Reno voicing that maybe Witch didn’t love him, and was just trying to help Bounce destroy him, hurt too much to believe.
He rolled to his back and winced in pain as he cocked a knee up and stared at the roof above him. He had blurred in the daytime and he frowned when he looked at his hand. The black was even more prominent under the paleness of his skin, but that was totally disregarded as he realized the sun also shown there. Sitting up, he looked up at the roof and the pool of sunlight that flickered across him from a new hole in the roof above he had created from his fall.
Turning his hand over slowly, he waited for the pain of the sun hitting it and only felt warmth. Warmth he hadn’t felt in over a century.
“How is that...?”
Reno slowly got to his feet, stumbling from his injuries to stand in the ray of the light of day and felt only warmth. He should have experienced excruciating pain, and then exploded in its light, but instead there was only the long ago remembered caress of warmth.
He closed his eyes and turned his face into the sunlight to soak it up with a long shuddering breath of pleasure whispering out from between his lips. This sensation was almost as overwhelming as the kiss he shared with Witch. Both of which confused him. Both should have been impossible but both still happened.
-I can help you.-
His head whipped to face forward as he back-stepped fast into dark shadows, his left hand coming forward with his gun in its grasp, his right arm hanging useless. “Who’s there?”
The words seem to be so strong, in a voice that tickled something in his brain, as if a memory hidden deep within the brain pan, too far buried to be dug up.
“Sundown? You hear that?”
“Hear what? You land on our head? Again?”
That just increased Reno’s fear as he pressed his back against the wall, his eyes skittering across the darkened warehouse, expecting a squad of Relays or horde of Eaters to appear like a really bad horror movie.
Or worse. Bounce.
“Who are you?” He didn’t expect an answer and hoped really hard not to get one. Yeah, hope sucked.
-Someone that can help you. Make all this stop. Put an end to them chasing you. The only one you can trust.-
Sliding down the wall, Reno landed on his ass, but kept his grip on his pistol, bringing the back of his hand to press against his forehead. He heard that voice but was it really there? It wasn’t just in his head or Sundown would have heard it too. He was so desperate for an out. For all this to end so he could just go home. To wrap himself around Witch and hold her until he felt right again, whole and complete. The pistol dropped from his hand as he dropped his arm. Reno was exhausted and weak, mentally, physically, and down to his soul done.
“How? Can you help me get home?” His voice was choking with emotion, choking down a sob as he whispered. “I just want to g
o home.” I just want her to still love me.
-Stay moving. Do not trust the Grid. Bounce wants to end you. I want to help you. Trust no one.-
He nodded as if on auto-pilot and then his brain did like a little switch being turned on regardless of how many times it had been wrong. The other times a voice had spoken up in the past to help him when he was still inside of Jess’ head. Like that first night with Witch years ago. “Wait. Did you help me before?”
There was a silence as he dropped his chin in exhaustion thinking his new found friend had already left their conversation and backed out of a deal yet unspoken.
-Yes.-
And that was all Reno needed to know as he nodded his head, saying weakly as he listed over sideways to fall heavily on the floor to lie on his side. “What took you so long?”
Then he let darkness take him for awhile where he didn’t hurt.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Lessons Don’t Always Teach
(33 Years Ago)
“Baby? What’s got you so down?”
Bounce looked up from staring at the floor to smile at Tanya, his wife in just a mere two days. “Nothing. Just trying to find one thing to bitch about. It seems impossible, and that’s really new to me.”
Tanya laughed and came over to sit in his lap, her very pregnant belly keeping a delightful distance between them. Bounce brought his hand to it and caressed it lovingly, loving the strength and power that vibrated from his child inside the haven of the woman he loved like none other. “She’s strong. Really strong.”
Tanya laughed and put her forehead against his cheek. “Like her father. That or we’ve seen Star Wars too many times and she aspires to be an Ewok. Or played too much Pac-Man or is that...” her words were cut off by a blistering kiss from her beautiful god of a man and she was just fine with that.
If you had asked Tanya a year ago that she, a mere mortal human school teacher would meet, and now be marrying, the most gorgeous man on the planet, she would have laughed, or maybe kicked the speaker of the words in the shin.
But here she was, held in his strong arms with his hand moving down her belly to remind her how very sexy he still found her even though she was as big as a boat with their child. If she was asked that now the answer would be most definitely, gladly yes.
Pulling her lips from his as she tried to catch her breath, she reached beyond him to pick up the Rubik’s cube, his gift to her. Well, if gifting means he had gotten pissed and thrown it against the wall when it frustrated him, then yes in her mind it was a gift.
“Why are you obsessed with that thing?”
Tanya laughed once again at the same question Bounce always asked. “I like it. It’s a nice break from stress. It’s a challenge and you would like it too if you would stop just trying to figure it out.” She met his eyes for a moment before she looked down at the cube, twisting its colors with her fingers as her hands sat on her lap.
“Sometimes you just can’t figure everything out, baby. Sometimes you have to just appreciate the puzzle and all its pieces. Not just the end result of figuring it out.”
Bounce snorted as he pressed his lips against her throat, rumbling out as he smiled against her skin. “Jules, you are enough puzzle and mystery for me. And I do not like not knowing how to figure out a puzzle. It sets my mojo on bad flow.”
Tanya laughed softly, sat the puzzle back on his desk, and then cupped his cheeks in her hands to meet his beautiful, ever changing eyes.
“Well there’s going to be puzzles you can’t figure out, baby. And sometimes, there are no lessons. Just have to do what you have to do, and hope the puzzle solves itself for you regardless how hard it seems.”
“Bounce?” His head snapped up and he looked down at the cube held lax in his hand as he sat at his desk at the club. He hadn’t slept in days and didn’t plan on catching any z’s any time soon as long as Reno remained missing.
Stretching to yawn, he nodded his head at Evan as the Breaker, looking just as haggard as he most likely did, stepped into his office and took a seat. “Any news?”
Evan rubbed his knuckles against his eyes as he shook his head in the negative. “None. And we’ve been trying to figure out whatever that was last week as well. Nothing there either.”
The ‘whatever’ was the bizarre anomaly on the Grid when Reno did that grand show of power that the man should not have been able to do. Not to mention that normally they could trace a point B when a Breaker blurred. It was like seeing a point of light appear at one point, disappear and reappear at another location.
But that was not the case this time. Whatever Reno did to vanish, or however it was done, had not been a blur. Add that to another ‘whatever’. Bounce brushed his fingers over the cube as he carefully set it on the stand on his desk.
“Are we still watching Emma’s house?”
Evan nodded but judging by the look of distaste on his handsome features Bounce knew he didn’t like the idea of monitoring Reno’s girlfriend’s house. Evan’s words confirmed it.
“She’s been through enough. And she’s pissed about how things went down. Hell, I’m pissed how things went down. She just refuses to believe we were hacked from a contain command to a kill order. She thinks we want Reno bounced and dead.”
Bounce could understand that completely. When he found out about the hack he went ballistic and they now needed renovations on the second floor of the club as blast holes from his rage currently riddled the walls.
They had been hacked before, and he knew by whom and each time the Grid had to seal up the break in the network to stop it.
Until it happens again.
But this time could have been catastrophic in the loss of life of human innocents. Not to mention it almost caused Reno to get destroyed. Having the poor Breaker’s trust shattered as well as his life crumbled was bad enough.
“Jess wants to help.”
Bounce looked up with a lifted brow at Evan’s words and rubbed at thumb along his jaw. “Why?”
Evan shrugged. “I think he blames all this on himself. Which, I guess he carries some of it.” Evan met his boss’ eyes. “I think we all do. This is a fucking mess.”
Bounce felt a large chunk of that guilt resting bitterly in his brain on all the parts that couldn’t bear the weight of it. At times he wondered how the goddess who knew his past was able to handle the burden of destiny and fate, because he apparently sucked Donkey Kong nuts at doing it. Maybe one day he would find her and ask. He had given up getting her to tell him anything about his past or his own destiny long ago. Not even she seemed to know it, just that she once had.
“We had no idea it would get so twisted, Evan. We were just trying to find and help Reno.”
Evan smirked and looked away with his fingers tapping on the arm of the chair. “I don’t think Reno would consider much of this as help, Boss.”
The Breaker stood up and rolled his head around his neck. “I’ll get back out there with the Relays. But with no point B, I have no idea how we are going to find him. Or,” he glanced at Bounce, “if we’ll survive finding him after how he went big bad boom on us at the mall.”
Bounce stood as well and walked to join him as they exited the office. “Agreed. I just wish we knew what the Bill and Ted’s that big boom was. And tell Jess he can help if Emma gives the okay. Maybe he can feel something we can’t.”
Jess was actually surprised Emma had let him in the door, as much as he was allowed to sit on the couch, with his hat in his hands, and a cup of coffee growing cold on the end table on the side. He was guessing Emma letting him in did not include talking to him since she hadn’t said a word since she opened the door.
But he needed her permission to help in the search for Reno. It was about the only thing he thought that would help keep this guilt from eating his soul and leaving him empty for how he had behaved.
“Emma. I’m sorry.”
She was looking away from him, as if the wall held a show he couldn’t see, her leg crossed o
ver her knee with her foot bobbing as if it was tachometer to her emotions. And he was making it go into the red just by being here.
After what seemed like several long icy minutes, Emma turned her gaze to him and there was even more cold enough to freeze him solid there in her eyes. “Why? For telling the truth? For abandoning me? For ruining my happiness? For destroying love? For turning on your...” Emma’s brow creased and she looked away from him once more. “Reno. I’m not even sure what to call him to you. It’s all so strange.”
Emma bit her bottom lip and refused to cry in front of Jess. She wanted her rage and she needed it to keep from crumbling in an emotional heap of female. She’d do that, after Jess left with a big carton of chocolate chip ice cream and a spoon. “Did you ever care?”
Jess looked back down and nodded. “I loved you. And Sophia. You have to know that.”
Emma’s rage spiked high as she stood fast to stand in front of him, her fingers curling into fists at her sides. “No. About him. About Reno. Did you ever care about him?. At all?” Her voice was edged with bitterness, and accusation coated every word.
Jess looked up at her and opened his mouth only to let it close again as he slowly set his Stetson on the table. “Yes. We used to be all each other had.” He let out a long breath and let his head drop forward to stare at the tips of his boots as he thought how to continue. It had been a secret for so long; he had never talked about it with anyone.
“When I was just a scared idiot kid. One day alone and the next?” He looked back up at her with eyes full of pain and sadness and a sorrowful smile touching his lips. “I had a best friend. One that knew my thoughts, my pain ,and was right there to suffer with me. Hell, suffer for me. So yeah. I cared. I cared more than you could know. Because he was all I had. And I was all he had. So don’t even begin to think I don’t know how it feels to lose that. You do not corner that market, darling. So don’t you even dare to judge me.”
“Judge you? You of all people could have told me! I feel so stupid and played.” Emma ran her fingers through her hair and moved to sit next to him. She wanted to hate him, but right now what she needed more was someone who understood the guilt and pain she felt.